The Goblin War (20 page)

Tobin took his time sneaking up on the spring—if he encountered a party of shamans or warriors out here, there’d be no question who would be sacrificed next. The only reason for a chanduri to be this far from camp was that he was trying to run. But Tobin encountered nothing except a startled fox that sprang lightly away through the moonlit scrub.

The scent of water was intense in this dusty land, but only a trickle flowed down the small creek bed. Unable to sense the spirit’s presence, Tobin had no idea where it might be, so he followed the tiny stream back to its source, running out from under two huge rocks.

He almost walked into the trap before he saw it, a web of fine wire glinting in the fragile light. It wasn’t any kind of snare Tobin recognized, for the wires were tied from bush to stone to one another in no pattern he could detect. The runes, once he spotted them, had been drawn on the rocks and poured onto the dry earth, using some dark substance that smelled like blood.

Tobin smiled grimly. The Duri had finally done him a favor. He’d had no idea how he could prove his good faith to the spirit, but now . . .

Foxes were playful creatures.

He pulled loose almost half the wires and scuffed out most of the runes in the dirt. He only had to make a few fox prints in a patch of sand, and a handful more in the mud near the stream, to make it look plausible. By the time he’d finished, anyone would have concluded that a pair of foxes had blundered into the trap and destroyed it.

Tobin looked around one last time, listening as much as watching. He heard nothing but the rustlings of the Southland night. He saw nothing at all.

He sat down on a rock and took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you’re listening. I don’t really know if you’re here at all. But I’m fighting the Duri myself, and I thought we might be able to help each other.”

He told the spirit about his need to escape from the Duri and take the information he’d gathered back to the Realm. He paused, waiting.

Nothing but silence.

Tobin went on to warn the spirit about the shamans who were hunting it and what its fate would be if it were captured. He advised it to abandon the spring and flee if it possibly could. Because the shamans were confident that if it stayed, sooner or later they’d succeed.

No spirit rose out of the water to thank him. Tobin was beginning to wonder if it hadn’t already moved on. But in case it hadn’t . . .

He told it about the war between the Duri and the Realm, making sure that it understood that the Realm had no desire to meddle with spirits or the Spiritworld, despite the recent incursion of Makenna and her goblins.

Was she still there, in that shifting miasma of magic? Or had she somehow gotten herself and her goblins out, as she’d gotten him out? He asked the spirit about that, but it didn’t reply.

His voice was growing hoarse, and judging by the lowering moon, destroying the shamans’ snare had taken too much time.

Tobin rose to his feet. “I don’t know if you’re here or not,” he told the empty night. “If you are, I urge you to run—for all our sakes! But mostly for yours. It’s a terrible death.”

For a moment he thought he felt something, like a breath sighing past him. But although he waited, nothing spoke or appeared. He knew that the spirits could do both those things, so he was probably imagining it.

He had taken too long. The sun rose before he was halfway back to camp, and he had to crouch in the bushes and wait, barely breathing, while two Duri patrols rode past him. If he’d been wearing an amulet, he’d have been caught. Even without it, he now understood why Vruud wanted to be closer to the Realm’s lines before they tried to escape—Tobin had had no idea the area was watched so closely.

He was in sight of the camp, and had emerged from hiding to simply walk back in, when he came around a rock and almost ran into a Duri warrior who was tying up his belt. The reek of fresh urine told Tobin what the man was doing away from camp—though why he’d come all this way, instead of using the covered pit, Tobin didn’t know. It didn’t matter, either. What excuse . . .

The Duri’s eyes narrowed. He reached out and closed his fist in the front of Tobin’s shirt. “What
abras clahft fa
doing
ress
?”

He wasn’t wearing his amulet! Tobin wished, desperately, that he’d had more time to learn the camp’s language. He’d been paying more attention to his lessons lately, but he still knew only a few words.

“I’m sorry, master, but I’m not wearing my amulet now.” At least the Duri would understand him. “I’m the storyteller’s servant. From Bear Clan. I haven’t had time to learn your language yet.”

Even the Duri weren’t so unreasonable as to expect him to learn a language overnight—but not knowing it, Tobin was supposed to wear his amulet at all times.

The man’s next question was completely incomprehensible, but his scowl wasn’t. What excuse could Tobin make for being out here, without the amulet that would have permitted the Duri to track him down? If he’d had the sense to pick up an armload of firewood on his way in, he probably wouldn’t have been stopped, but now it was too late.

The man babbled out another sentence, and Tobin shook his head to show he didn’t understand.

The Duri knew that many chanduri would run if they had the chance. Any chanduri caught outside the camp had better have a good reason. And Tobin didn’t.

The growing fear must have shown on his face. A sudden cuff made his ears ring, and the iron grip shifted to his collar as the Duri began dragging him back.

Could Vruud come up with a lie fast enough to save him? If Tobin was beaten—his blood ran cold at the thought—would he be sufficiently recovered when their chance to escape arose? If the Duri decided that Tobin had shed his amulet because he planned to run, the beating he’d get might cripple him for life.
He was going to start gathering firewood, any minute! He’d thought he saw a family of quail he could tell the hunters about. He’d—

Tobin tripped on a root and fell to his knees. The Duri kicked him to his feet and hauled him on.

No matter what story he told, no one would believe him unless he could think of a reason for taking off his amulet. But there was no reason he would have taken off the amulet except to try to escape.

They were nearing the camp, and many of the chanduri stopped working to stare. Their faces were impassive, but Tobin had been one of them long enough to see fear and pity beneath their closed expressions. None of them would dare . . .

An old woman stalked away from the pot she’d been stirring, spoon in hand. She was one of those Vruud thought might be up for sacrifice instead of him. Tobin didn’t know her name.

Her wrinkled face, far from impassive, was full of furious impatience. She burst into a babble of speech and smacked him on the head with her spoon.

“Ow!” She hadn’t pulled the blow.

The Duri let go of Tobin’s collar, still frowning, and Tobin fell to his hands and knees. The spoon struck his back this time, accompanied by more incomprehensible abuse.

He didn’t dare say a word. The old woman drove him back to her cook fire and shoved him down beside a basket full of soft-shelled nuts.

She went on scolding him as Tobin cracked nut after nut, prying out the meats with shaking fingers. Finally the watching Duri shrugged and departed.

The woman kept on scolding, though her voice grew softer. Only when all the nuts were shelled did she allow him to rise, knees still wobbling, to his feet.

“Thank you,” Tobin murmured, though he knew she couldn’t understand him either.

A flickering wink was his only answer, and he turned and made his way back to Vruud’s tent.

He didn’t even know her name. He hadn’t learned the names of most of the chanduri, because he’d written them off. They were enemies, to be destroyed along with their Duri masters—whether they’d done anything to deserve it or not.

But the chanduri had no choice about being part of the Duris’ attack on the Realm. The Duri treated them even worse than they did Realm soldiers.

And the chanduri fought back, whenever they had the chance. Why hadn’t he seen it before? The chan weren’t his enemies.

Tobin’s heart beat faster, his pulse throbbing in his temples. His head was aching again, from the repeated blows, but his heart ached worse.

He had refused to recognize the plight of the chanduri, even to learn their names, because if he did, he’d have to try to help them. He couldn’t leave them at the mercy of their masters, leave them to be sacrificed, any more than he could have betrayed the goblins to Master Lazur’s executioners.

Because he couldn’t save them, he’d tried to ignore them. But that old woman had risked a beating to save him. She’d almost certainly moved herself to the top of the sacrificial list—and Tobin could no longer ignore her plight, or that of her people.

He had to save all of them. Not just Vruud and Hesida. Not just the old woman and the chanduri in this camp. He had to save every last chanduri from their Duri masters. Duri, who seemed to have no weaknesses at all!

The immensity of it made him dizzy, but Tobin too knew something about wrestling. Strength could be made into a weakness, if your opponent could get the right leverage. And Tobin was beginning to see how he could use the Duris’ arrogance and bloodlust to bring them down.

Chapter 9
Jeriah

J
ERIAH SAT IN HIS BED
and looked at the sorceress. She was still wearing boys’ clothes, and sometime in the last week she’d trimmed up her ragged hair, but she looked too tense, too edgy for it to civilize her.

The shallow cut across his throat still stung, so he phrased his answer carefully. “First, tell me
why
you want to talk to the Hierarch.”

The girl eyed him warily. Jeriah waited. He wasn’t going to promise anything without that knowledge, no matter what she threatened.

“All right. I want him to deed the goblins some land behind the great wall. Somewhere they can build and live openly, where humans aren’t even allowed to go without their permission.”

“But they’re no longer under death sentence,” Jeriah protested. “They can go back to their homes now.”

“Those whose homes haven’t been destroyed,” said Makenna. “To live in hiding, on human sufferance. Oh, aye, some humans will welcome them back—but there are some who won’t. The goblins need a place of their own, a place that’s
theirs
. By law.”

The intensity of her vision drove her to her feet, her shadow moving back and forth as she paced. “Since the relocation’s dead, the wood behind the great wall will be empty—no reason not to grant it to them, legal like.”

Jeriah flinched. “The relocation isn’t dead! The barbarian army’s still there, and they’re not going away. We have to . . .”

It was the grim pity in her expression that stopped him.

“No one’s going to agree to move north,” she said. “Not country folk or city. Not till the barbarians are burning their towns and fields around them. You know that.”

Jeriah did know it, but he still had to try. “Maybe when all the Southlands have been taken, and the Realm is full of refugees, maybe they’ll see the danger and start relocating then.”

Makenna snorted. “If I know aught of humans, they’ll say that now the barbarians have so much land, they’ll stop where they are. And they’ll go right on saying it till the barbarians roll over them. And who knows? Maybe once they’ve enough land to settle on and prosper, the barbarians will stop. Your priest said they came here because a drought destroyed their own land. Maybe all they want is a new one, and the Southlands will satisfy them.”

That was what his father would say, Jeriah knew, and the Hierarch and the council as well. And he had no proof they were wrong, except . . . “Master Lazur didn’t believe that. And you have to admit he’s been right about the barbarians so far.”

“As far as I can see, he was right about everything, Bright Gods curse his bones.”

Jeriah’s brows rose. Master Lazur was behind the Decree of Bright Magic, which had killed her mother and countless goblins as well. And Makenna admitted he was right?

“Oh, not in what he did,” the girl said. “But he was right that the relocation would be unpopular enough to turn people away from the church. If they’d had another source of magical healing, even a weaker one, another way to help failing crops and find the right place to dig a well, they’d have been much more likely to resist the move he wanted ’em to make. He was right about that. But that doesn’t mean he was right.”

The pain was in her voice now, though her face was calm.

“Don’t you hate him?” Jeriah asked. “I’d have thought . . .”

“I do, when I happen to think about it,” she said. “If he was still alive, I’d hate him like the Dark One himself. But he’s dead, so there’s not much point in it. I’ve come to the conclusion, just lately, that hating folks is a waste of time.”

Jeriah stared. This was the girl who’d once hated all humans so much, she was willing to slaughter the lot of them! But even if she’d changed her mind, that didn’t mean the humans would.