“Aye, gladly. What for?”
“For a divers—Oh. But what do you want?” Makenna gestured helplessly. “I left all my gear back by the trail. I could owe you—”
“No, girl, I’ll have no owing.” Oddi looked shocked by the mere thought. “All I want’s a token, to keep us in balance, like. A button would do. Or a small stone or a bit of cloth. Anything, really.”
This was how friends traded. Makenna’s heart warmed, despite the urgency and fear. “But what use would you have for one of my buttons?”
Oddi shook his head pityingly. “You’re a bit dim still. It’s the trade, not the profit, that counts.”
“But—”
“They’re moving,” hissed the littlest goblin, Pimo.
Makenna spun. The crowd had seized the farmer and dragged him back, ignoring his shouted protests. The priest stepped forward, torch in hand, and the older farm boy leapt away from the crowd and tackled him. They rolled over and over, struggling, and the torch went out. Makenna drew her knife and sliced a button off her vest.
“Oddi, burn the church,” she commanded. “The rest of you, tell me quick, what can you do?”
As she listened to the goblins’ replies, she watched the mob. Beekin and Narri were Makers, supremely clever with their fingers, but slow. Pimo was a Sleeper, but he warned her that his gift worked best on people who were relaxed or tired, and still better on animals. Makenna smiled briefly, remembering all her sudden naps. Cogswhallop, son of a Maker and a Flamer, could work with iron and steel, but he had no other gift.
The mob dragged the farmer’s son off the priest and clubbed him into unconsciousness. His mother screamed and ran to kneel beside him, pulling his head into her lap. The farmer struggled harder, but he couldn’t break free.
The villagers helped the priest to his feet, brushing off his clothes, restoring his dignity as much as it could be restored until his nose stopped bleeding. Someone brought another torch. The priest started to make a speech.
Makenna sliced four more buttons off her vest. She had her plan. “See that sheep pen, the one that opens into the yard?” she asked quickly, passing out buttons. “It’s closed with an iron catch, so that’s Cogswhallop’s job. Beekin and Narri, can you saddle a horse? The quietest one you can find. Then get out to the pen and get those sheep ready to spook. It shouldn’t be hard to excite them; there’ll be fire nearby and they’re silly creatures.”
Beekin and Narri took their buttons and vanished. They were supposed to be slow?
“Pimo, can you keep an animal relaxed and drowsy without putting it to sleep?”
His tiny face screwed up doubtfully. “It depends. I’ll try.”
“Then go with Beekin and Narri and bring the horse as soon as it’s soothed. And remember—”
A roar from the crowd interrupted her. The priest had lit the pyre. Pimo snatched a button and vanished.
“That horse has to stay calm,” Makenna hissed after him. “Because”—she turned to Cogswhallop—“I’m not much of a rider. Why are you still here?”
“It’s a simple latch. I can undo it in seconds. And since it’s in plain view I’d best wait till your diversion has taken hold.” He was watching the flames rise around the base of the tree. His face, contorted with anguish and hope, made a terrible contrast to his carefully calm voice. Makenna felt a surge of respect for the little goblin. This was courage.
She hadn’t been able to save her mother. Maybe she could save someone else who deserved it.
Hoofbeats clopped on the barn’s wooden floor. The horse sounded calm, but it hadn’t seen the fire yet. The sheep were beginning to bleat and bounce. “Here’s your button, Cogswhallop.”
Cogswhallop looked at her oddly. “Keep the button. It’s me that’s owing you again. More than I’ll ever be able to pay, if you bring this off. Do you think we have a chance?”
The horse arrived, a big gray. Pimo rode high on its neck, clinging to its mane, whispering in its ear. Makenna climbed awkwardly into the saddle and settled Pimo on the pommel in front of her. “There’s always a chance,” she said. The sheep were going crazy. “Now get out there and get ready. Open the pen when I come out of the barn and not before, understand?”
A taut smile flickered across Cogswhallop’s face and vanished. “Aye, gen’ral.” And he was gone.
General?
The fire was reaching into the lower branches now. Makenna scraped a handful of dried bird droppings from a post beneath a swallow’s nest and, rubbing it on the horse’s flank, drew the look-away rune. The horse twitched its hide and looked back at her curiously. Pimo’s whispering became more intense, his face streaked with the sweat of fear.
Makenna felt the terror, too, rushing like a pulse through her body, but it was mixed with anger and a wild exhilaration that came close to joy. “Steady,” she said, to the horse, to Pimo, to herself. “Wait for it….”
Finally it came. A gust of smoke from another direction. Murmurs of confusion. Cries of dismay and outrage. The priest yelled, “My spell books!” and raced for the burning church. Makenna smiled grimly. It seemed that endangering their spell books would distract anyone who made magic, not just hedgewitches. Three-quarters of the mob followed the priest to fight the fire. Makenna kicked the horse into a drowsy amble, out of the barn.
An avalanche of bounding, bleating, wild-eyed sheep rolled over the farmyard, leaving more chaos in its wake.
Makenna guided the placid gray carefully through the shouting crowd that struggled to control the terrified animals. One man, fingers wrapped tight in a kicking ewe’s coat, bounced off her horse’s rump without even looking around at her. The spell was working.
As the horse stepped over the chain, Pimo turned faintly green and his voice choked into silence. On the high saddle he was almost five feet from the charmed iron, but it still might not have been enough if the horse hadn’t carried him past. The horse snorted and started to flinch back from the raging fire, but the goblin coughed once and started to mutter again and the horse calmed.
Makenna caught an echo of the spell—for a moment the fire seemed distant, like something seen in a dream. No need to run, no need to fear; it couldn’t hurt anything. She fought the spell like a diver fighting for the surface, and when she won free of it, the fire crackled before her, above her, greedy and dangerous. Heat beat against her face, her arms, her hair. She guided the horse around the tree to the windward side where the flames burned less fiercely.
“Come here,” she cried, lifting her arms to the branches. “I’ll get you out. Come—”
A furious rustling erupted above her and a tiny goblin boy, no more than a foot tall, dangled above her hands. She stood in the stirrups and grabbed him, propping him on the saddle between her and Pimo. He squirmed in her grasp, staring up into the tree.
A goblin man and a young goblin woman crouched there, shouting over the roar of the approaching flames.
“You get, girl.”
“What about Mam?” The flames cast distorting shadows on the girl’s long-nosed face. “She hasn’t got Bini out yet. We’ve got to—”
“I’ll go get ’em as soon as you’re gone! Now—”
The young woman turned to climb back into the tree, and the man, snarling, pulled her forcibly from the branches and dropped her, screaming and struggling, into Makenna’s arms. She fought with insane, panicked strength, and it took all Makenna’s attention to subdue her.
The gray, distracted by the struggle on its back, began to snort and sidle, and Makenna took a firm grip on the reins.
When she looked up, the tree was a writhing vortex of fire, but she stayed, struggling with the horse as it grew more fearful despite Pimo’s efforts.
Then a voice from the crowd cried, “Look! The tree…girl on a horse…saving the goblins!”
Half a dozen people started toward her. Makenna dropped the reins, and Pimo dropped the spell. The terrified horse bolted, carrying them with it, scattering villagers as it raced toward the cool safety of the woods.
The roar of the fire and the pounding hooves could not drown out the goblin girl’s despairing scream.
“There was nothing more you could do, gen’ral.” Cogswhallop gazed tenderly down at the hair of the young goblin woman, Natter, who had finally cried herself to sleep in his arms. “That you accomplished this much is a wonder.”
“It wasn’t enough,” said Makenna stiffly. If she was a general, she was a bad one. The demon-cursed priest had won, and she had lost.
The little orphaned goblin boy stirred in her lap, and she cradled him gently, murmuring till he lay still again. His small fingers were curled around her thumb. The tips of Natter’s fingers were tinged with green, but the boy’s were the same as the rest of his skin—skin the same color as Makenna’s. Cogswhallop said that meant he had a different gift. Only Greeners had green fingers. Makenna hoped the boy was warm enough, wrapped in her jacket. It was cold after the sun set, but they hadn’t dared light a fire.
“How could they do this, those people, those
humans
?” she demanded. “Natter and Miggy said their family served that farm for five generations.”
“And their folk did their best to fight for them. You have to grant that,” said Cogswhallop.
“It wasn’t enough.”
Cogswhallop sighed. “Seems like nothing is enough these days. The priests are determined to get rid of us.”
Makenna frowned. “I knew they’d forbidden folk to put out the bowls, that they were trying to drive you out, but…this is happening in other places?” She remembered Todder Yon’s gossip.
“Aye. Why do you think there’s so many of us living wild? Maybe you don’t know, but most of the goblin races do better in villages. We’re a civilized folk, for the most part.”
“Which is more than can be said for humans!”
“You’re human, gen’ral. No way around it.”
“Maybe not. But this is one human who’s going to fight for goblinkind. Cogswhallop, you owe me, right?”
“Aye.” He smiled down at the sleeping girl. “More than I can pay in a lifetime’s service.”
“Then I want you to help me fight the priests. To save as many of our people as we can—and maybe get some of theirs! Will you do that? I’d have to have help. Much as I want to, I couldn’t do it alone.”
General. With the goblins’ help, she could make it real.
“Are you asking me to be your second-in-command?” His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Sounds a dangerous job to me. They’ll be looking for you now. And someday you’ll want to return to your own kind. Don’t build too many obstacles in your path.”
“I’m never going back to humankind.” She said it with no particular emphasis; it wasn’t a decision she had to defend, it was simply a fact. As much a part of her as her bones.
“Aye, you think that now, with the smoke stench in your hair. But this will fade. Someday a likely lad will come along, and you’ll discover that you’re human enough.”
“You’re wrong,” said Makenna. “I’m going to fight the humans. I swear it on my mother’s soul. And no one will make me change my mind. No one.”
F
ive years later…
Tobin woke up in the middle of the night with an urgent need to go to the privy. He muttered a curse, softly, so as not to wake his brother, and groped for his slippers, but he couldn’t find them. The need grew more urgent.
Tobin yawned and crawled out of bed, wincing as his feet hit the cold stone floor. The privy was at the far end of a long corridor. By the time he returned his feet were thoroughly chilled and he was much more awake. As the light from the corridor lamp spilled into the room, he saw his slippers placed neatly at the foot of his bed and whispered another curse, glancing over at Jeriah, for his brother was a light sleeper. The blankets didn’t even stir. Jeri was usually a very light sleeper. Tobin frowned and tiptoed over for a closer look.
He swore loudly this time, yanking the covers back. The bed held nothing but artfully stacked pillows.
Tobin took two angry steps toward the door and then hesitated. Did he really need to leave his warm bed in the middle of the night to chase after his brother? Jeri was fifteen, only three years younger than Tobin—by St. Rydan the Teacher, it was time he started looking after himself! Perhaps having his big brother hovering all the time actually provoked him to mischief.
It was a sobering thought, and Tobin’s anger lessened. But he’d been careful not to mother Jeri all winter. And this had happened before. This winter had been Jeriah’s first campaign, his first taste of the horror, exhilaration, and boredom of fighting the southern barbarians. There had been nights, in the army camp, when Jeriah’s bed was empty till nearly dawn. Too many nights? Most boys went a little wild on their first campaign. Tobin had kept a firm grip on the bulk of their funds and told himself that even Jeri couldn’t get into too much trouble in the restricted world of the camp. But this wasn’t the camp, this was the City of Steps—what could his brother be up to here?
Tobin looked longingly at his own bed. His feet were freezing. He might go back to bed, but he’d never be able to sleep. Promising himself that he’d skin his brother with a dull knife when he laid hands on him, Tobin began to fumble for his clothes.
His soft-soled boots hardly made a sound as he ghosted down the corridors. No one seemed to be stirring except a few men on their way to the privy. Tobin whisked into other men’s rooms twice to avoid being seen, and it was only by the Seven Bright Ones’ grace that he didn’t wake anyone. It would be ironic if he got in trouble and Jeriah made it safely back to bed. But if his brother wasn’t in the dormitory, where was he?
The compound that housed knights who had no other lodging was in the second tier of the city, surrounded by a high wall that separated it from the third tier on one side and the even higher wall of the Hierarch’s palace on the first tier. All the gates were guarded, so Jeri must be somewhere on this level. And there was nothing on this level except the offices of the civil clerks and the buildings dedicated to the maintenance of the military, the stables, the tilt yard…and the armory.
Tobin grimaced. The armory held possibilities for mischief, and so did the tack in the stables.
He let himself out of the dormitory. The late spring night was like silk against his skin; no need for the cloak he’d forgotten. The rising moon gave him plenty of light.
On the southern border now, even the nights were hot, and during the day the desert would be a scalding shield on which nothing could survive. Tobin was always relieved when the onset of summer forced the barbarian tribes to retreat to their distant, stony mountains in the far south.
This winter had been his third campaign. Tobin had been knighted at the beginning of the year. Once it had been his dream, to be a knight. But by the time the Hierarch’s staff touched his shoulder, Tobin had realized that it was not honor it carried, but a lifelong burden. Tobin was tired of fighting. He wanted to go home, to spend his days helping his father see to their horses and learning the management of the farms and villages in their care.
He knew this war was necessary. The Hierarch’s army was all that stood between the southern farmlands and the barbarians. And when those barbarians had broken through the hard-held lines, and sacked a farm or a town, Tobin had seen what they did. But he hated killing them anyway. And it seemed to him, perversely, that the more barbarians the army killed the more there were, more every year, and no end in sight.
It had been six years since the Decree of Bright Magic, which was supposed to induce the Bright Ones to favor the Hierarch’s army, but Tobin had seen no sign of the gods’ favor so far. Well, it was over for this year. He was free to go home as soon as he saw Jeriah placed as a squire in the Hierarch’s service—provided his brother was still acceptable to the Hierarch if tonight’s prank came to light.
Tobin approached one of the gates. The guard’s only business was with those who wanted to pass through, but he still had no wish to be seen. He heard the guard arguing with someone and crept closer to the shadow of the wall.
“Come now, sir, you’re in the wrong place. The guest quarters are at the north side of the city on the third level down. May I get someone to guide you, sir?”
“Demon’s claws, why’d you think I need a guide?
I
know perfectly well where I’m at. Perfec’ly. What you think I am, drunk?” Torchlight gleamed on the rich embroidery of the man’s jacket. A lord, probably. At the least, a man of wealth and influence. Tobin sympathized with the guard.
“No, sir, of course you’re not drunk. Anyone can get lost in this maze of a place, sir. I’ll just fetch you a guide.”
“What makes you think I need you t’ guide me?” the lord demanded. “Fool like you couldn’t guide no one. You don’ even realize that I’m drunk!” The man toppled into the guard’s reluctant embrace. “I’m going to be sick now,” he confided.
Tobin slipped easily past the cursing guard. As long as he didn’t laugh, there was small chance of his being noticed.
There was no one in the armory—or if there was, they were quieter than Tobin could imagine Jeri and the wild group of squires he’d befriended ever being. He moved on to the stables. Tobin had thought Jeriah was dropping that lot. Lately he’d seen his brother more often in the company of a group of knights, most of whom were older than Tobin.
Tobin frowned, remembering several heated, low-voiced conversations that had been broken off at his approach. But what in this world could Jeri be up to that included Sir Sharam and Sir Brilan? Master Carderi was a priest! Surely they weren’t involved in the kind of mischief that would draw a young squire from his bed. And yet there had been something odd about Jeriah lately. He’d been quieter, almost…secretive? Tobin had put it down to growing up, perhaps even a desire to put some distance between himself and his motherly older brother. He’d been a little hurt that Jeri hadn’t realized he’d understand—that he was prepared to give a young man freer rein than he’d given a boy. But now…
Tobin stared into the quiet stable. The big horses dozed peacefully, a sharp contrast to his uneasiness.
Jeriah wasn’t in the stables. He wasn’t in the grooms’ quarters, or the deserted tilt yard, so unless he was in the pasture, the clerk’s offices, or swimming in the lake, he wasn’t on the second level at all—and that was impossible because he couldn’t have gotten past the gates! The Hierarch’s guards might be distracted by a drunken wanderer, but they knew their business. The only way to pass through those gates unchallenged would be to kill them. So where in this world or the Other was Jeriah?
Could he have gone for a moonlight swim? With a warm public bath available? Besides, the lake shore was a blanket of mud….
…just like the mud on the boots he’d seen thrust under Jeri’s bed only a week ago. At the time Tobin had smiled and resolved to let Jeriah discover for himself that boots under the bed didn’t get cleaned. Now he gritted his teeth, furious at his own stupidity. Friends had told Tobin that there was a place you could sneak under the wall between the second and third levels, if the lake was low enough, but Tobin had never used the escape route himself, and he’d almost forgotten about it.
He stamped through the deserted pasture to the place where the lake met the twelve-foot-high wall, and squished along beside it through the muddy lake bed. The ground on the other side was level with the ground here, the water flowing under the barrier through grated pipes, but…Yes, here was the pass-through, a muddy dip where the ground beneath the wall had washed away. Even in the moonlight, he could see boot tracks—and they were Jeriah’s size.
There was no reason to stand in the mud. Tobin trudged back out of the lake bed and found a large stone half sheltered in a clump of bushes and settled in to wait for his wayward brother. And kill him. And then shake the truth out of him.
He was dozing when he heard the scrape of boots over rock and the harsh panting that heralded an approach. Tobin smiled grimly, peering through the brush until the man scrambled under the wall. His hood was drawn forward over his face, despite the mildness of the night, but Tobin recognized the cloak.
He held quite still as Jeriah hurried past his hideout, then he stepped out and grabbed his brother’s wrist firmly. “Got you!”
Jeriah jumped and spun around, moonlight flashing on the knife in his free hand. Only the reflexes developed through three years of combat enabled Tobin to leap aside as the knife plunged toward him.
He grabbed Jeriah’s other wrist and forced the knife up.
Jeriah pulling a knife
? The impossibility of it swirled through his mind. Was this his brother, or had he ambushed someone else? The man’s hood had fallen completely over his face—it must be blinding him.
The man twisted his wrist, almost freeing the knife, and Tobin braced himself and kicked the inside of his opponent’s knee, hard.
The muffled cry sounded like Jeriah, but Tobin didn’t have time to think about it. He surged forward, pushing his opponent’s wrists up and back, and the man’s damaged knee gave, tipping him backward, with Tobin on top of him. He slammed the hand that held the knife against the ground, harder and harder, until his opponent cried out and the knife fell.
Tobin let go of the man’s wrist long enough to cast the knife into the bushes. The man’s freed hand struck for his face and missed by inches. With a muffled curse the man swiped the hood off his face, and Tobin grabbed his wrist and bore it toward the ground. But the man wasn’t resisting. Tobin looked down and met his brother’s startled eyes.
“Tobin! What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here? And why did you pull a knife on me?”
“I didn’t know it was you. Thank the Seven I missed! Tobin, let me up, I’ve got to get out of here!” Jeriah’s wrists twitched in his grasp.
“Not a chance. Not till you tell me what’s going on.”
“But you don’t understand! They’re after me! I think I lost them, but they had dogs and trackers and they might have picked up the trail again. I’ve got to be in bed before they start looking for missing men. Tobin, let me up!”
“Who’s after you?” demanded Tobin, not budging.
Jeriah stopped struggling. “The Hierarch’s guard.”
“The Hie—By the Bright Gods, Jeri, what did you do?”
“Are you going to let me go?” his brother asked quietly.
Tobin released him, and Jeriah sat up, grimacing and rubbing his wrists, then, gingerly, his knee.
“Jeri, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t,” said Jeriah. “It’s not your business and I don’t want to involve you. Help me up.”
“Involve me? I’m your brother. I’m supposed to be placing you in the Hierarch’s service. How can I not be involved when you do something stupid and make that impossible?”
“Well, if I don’t get back to bed, that will certainly be impossible.” Jeriah’s eyes gleamed with a determination that disturbed Tobin more than anything he’d said. He’d never before seen his impetuous brother so cool and self-controlled.
He grabbed his brother’s arm and pulled him up, but when Jeriah put his weight on his injured knee, he gasped with pain and his leg buckled.
“Demon’s teeth, I’ve torn something,” he muttered through gritted teeth.
“You mean I tore something,” said Tobin remorsefully. “Lean on me. Can you make it, or shall I fetch someone to carry you?”
“You mustn’t fetch anyone,” hissed Jeriah. He hobbled a few steps, wincing.
“But you have to see a healer priest, Jeri. Whatever’s wrong, it isn’t worth crippling yourself.” Memory washed over him coldly. “Or is it? Jeriah, why did you pull a knife on me?”
“Because if it had been anyone but you, and they’d stopped or recognized me, I’d have had to kill them. Do you still want to fetch me a healer priest?”
“No.” Through his stunned shock, Tobin’s mind finally began to function and his irritated alarm deepened into real fear. “Jeri, you have to tell me what’s going on.”
“No, I don’t.” Jeriah gritted his teeth and tried to move faster. The sickly pallor of his face gleamed in the moonlight. “You know too much already.”
“Not by half, I don’t! You said the guard was after you! If they’d caught you, what would the charge have been?”
“They’ll catch me yet, if you don’t get going!”
Tobin slowed his pace even more. “The charge, Jeri.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Tobin stopped and spun his brother to face him. “Of all the—” Then he heard it, and his blood ran cold—the distinctive, high-pitched baying of the Hierarch’s tracking dogs, on the other side of the wall and not far away.
Jeriah drew a short sharp breath, but when he turned to Tobin his voice was calm. “Run. You can cross the pasture before they get here. Then they’ll be busy with me.”
“But—”
“I’ll never make it with this knee.” The baying sounded closer. “Go on, Tobin. This isn’t some prank played with gisap glue and feathers—you can’t mother me out of it. Just…I love you, brother. Now go!”
Tobin’s fear transformed itself into a well of still, icy terror. “Whatever it is, it’s not worth dying for.”