The Goblin Wood Part 14

In the end, she let the current take her all the way to the place where the river broadened and the ravine walls fell away. Swimming on the surface, she could avoid the rocks. Once she was accustomed to the chill, it was comfortable to let the water carry her, though she took care to stay out of the deep, fast current.

She staggered, dripping, out of the shallows and found the small glade where she'd told the Flichters to meet her. A warming spell took care of the worst of the cold, but her wet clothes promptly chilled her again. She took the risk of sitting in the afternoon sunlight to dry off while she waited. And thought.

There was no way the men on top of that cliff could have been part of the group that originally pursued her. They'd been waiting for her, perhaps even before the chase began.

A chill that had nothing to do with wet clothes made her shiver, and she wrapped her arms around her knees.

They had known, in advance, that she would be there and had planned to pin her in the ravine. A good plan, tooa"now that she had time to be frightened, she was terrified at how nearly it had worked. If the men on the cliff top had been a little more cautious, she'd have been trapped in the cave. If the men who were chasing her had been just a little faster they'd have seen her dive in, and they could have caught her easily in the river. But they'd probably seen no reason to hurry, since she was running right into their trap. No wonder it had been so easy to outrun thema"they were driving her, not chasing her. She shivered again.

Had someone from the settlement found the ropes and guessed about that part of her plan? It seemed the only possible answer, though she'd concealed the ropes as well as she could. And there was no reason for the settlers to go near the ravine. They got water from the stream, and their stock was pastured on the other side of the camp. Perhaps some children out exploring? Once the ropes had been reported, she thought Master Lazur was capable of figuring out how they might be used. But still . . .

The chill of dread was growing. Even before the time the Flichters were to have met her came and pa.s.sed, before she saw the bruises on Cogswhallop's face when he finally emerged from the bushes, Makenna knew in her bones that something had gone wrong.

CHAPTER 14.

The Knight TOBIN DEVELOPED A NAGGING COUGH, and his fever came and went.

"Aye, they'll do that," Natter informed him.

"But when will it go away completely?"

"When it does. You'll be lucky if it doesn't get worse before it gets better."

Tobin sighed. At least she was speaking to him.

"Don't pull that long face on me, human. You're lucky to be alive. I'm nursing you only because the mistress wants it."

He started to laugh, which made him cough, and she slammed the door behind her.

His ankle was all right as long as he kept it propped up on pillows with a cold compress, but if he lowered it, it started to throb. Putting any weight on it was excruciating.

"I'd rather have the chain back," he grumbled to Erebus when the goblin came to visit him.

"Well, likely the mistress will heal it for you when . . . ah . . ."

"When she gets back? When will that be?" Erebus was shaking his head. "She already told me she planned to attack the settlement. She even told me howa"that she's going to draw off the soldiers and let the goblins in to wreak havoc."

"We all fight with the weapons at hand, Sir Tobin. Even you."

"I know, but that lunatic girl is going to get all kinds of people killed if she's not stopped. Goblins, too!"

"Ah, but the goblins being killed was the reason she starteda"or, at least, one of them."

"So when will she be back?"

"Since you know so much already . . . I'm guessing two days there, a day to finalize plans, the day of the attack, a day after to heal up and rest, and two days back. Throw in a day for things to go wrong, and you've got just over a week. Mind, I'm just guessing."

"A week? I'm going to be stuck in bed for a week? Couldn't someone else heal me?"

Erebus snorted. "You were a much better prisoner than a patient!"

Now he was both. Tobin fought down the irritation that seemed to come over him so easily these days. "I'm sorry."

Erebus reached out and pressed a small palm against his face. "Aye, that's all right. Being sick makes us all cross. But you'll have to wait for the mistress to get healed, for no one else can do it."

"If I promised not to escapea""

"I didn't say won't, lad. I said can't. The mistress is the only human here. Therefore she's the only one who can heal."

"But I thought healing was one of the simplest spells. Can't all goblins work magic?"

"Ah, you don't understand. And no reason why you should, since it hasn't been explained. But as I understand it, human magic is an unformed talent to manipulate almost any aspect of nature. Some have none of this talent, some have much, and some in between. And it must be trained in order to be useful. Have I got that right?"

Tobin thought of Jeriah's theory that the choosers selected children to be trained as priests for the degree of their magical talent instead of their holiness. "Possibly. Yes."

"I'm going to want some information in trade for this, mind, but goblin magic is different. We're all born with a gift, but it's to manipulate only one aspect of nature, and it's as much instinctive as trained."

"You work magic by instinct?" asked Tobin skeptically, remembering Master Lazur's rows of spell books.

"Aye, exactly. Why not? Though it's not entirely clear whether all gifts are magical. Take the Stoners. They can work stone in any way stone can be worked and they always. .h.i.t their target with a thrown rock, unless it's far out of range. But is that magic, or just the result of generations of practice? Or even faith? For they believe stone is a G.o.d."

"Then there are folk like the Charmers, whose gift is to confuse their prey and even make them see or feel things that aren't there. Their gift is clearly magical."

"Prey?" asked Tobin nervously.

"Then there are those like the Trackers. You see them following a set of tracks and you think, why, anyone with eyes could do thata"but then the trail crosses a stretch of solid rock, leaving no trace at all, and the tracker keeps right on as if the tracks were plain as print! No way to know where the skill leaves off and the magic begins." He shrugged.

"Prey?"

"Aye, all the goblin gifts, at least the older ones from before we became civilized, were used in the wild to hunt animals, or find or grow plants. That's why the Finders' ability works best on green thingsa"finding edible plants was its original purpose. Some of our abilities are still very close to the need that created them, like the Spoilers, whose gift is to rot anything organic and who can only digest rotten food."

"I think I see," said Tobin slowly. "But none of you has a gift for healing?"

"Useful, I grant, but not useful for hunting or harvesting. Odd gifts do appear, like Cogswhallop's gift to work with iron or steel as the Stoners do with stone. He's the son of a Flamer and a Maker, but whether that has anything to do with it, we don't know. Often the new gifts aren't pa.s.sed on, but Daroo has his father's gift, so perhaps this ability will stay with us."

"Is that how new gifts develop?"

"Aye, though it's rare. Why, my own gift, that of long memory and the ability to learn reading, writing, and languages easily, must have developed long after the others, for it's only useful for trade with civilized people."

"Doesn't your history record when different gifts came into being?"

"Well, it does now, but before Bookeries there was no history! At least none remembered or recorded. And speaking of history"a"the paper and pen appeareda""do you know . . ."

Erebus' visits were cheering, but Tobin spent his empty hours worrying about what that crazy girl was doing at the settlement. It would be just like Jeriah to decide to do something heroic and get himself killed while his brother was laid up by his own clumsiness.

That night Natter p.r.o.nounced his fever worse and gave him an herbal brew to drink. He recognized the bitterness of willow bark, but there was something else in it that made it taste even more awful.

"If you don't like the dose, then don't fret," she told him sharply. "It's all this fussing that's wearing you down."

"If you want me to stop fussing, then let me out!" he snapped back. "Being stuck in this hovel is like being buried alive!"

"Humph!" She flounced off, and Tobin cursed her before rolling over to try to lose his worries in sleep.

The bitter medicine did some good, for he slept well and felt more cheerful the next day. He was delighted when the door opened and Onny's bright face peeked around it.

"Come in! I was afraid you'd gotten into trouble."

They all pushed in, grinning. Nuffet came to sit in his lap. Only Regg stopped in the doorway, smiling shyly.

"Well, we did," Onny confided. "A little bit. But Fa said it mostly worked out in the end. And just last night Natter said we could take you out and show you the village, if we could think of a way you could move, and Regg did." She gestured at the door like a showman, and Regg blushed and dragged a pair of crude crutches into the room. Tobin almost wept with joy.

"You're not supposed to get tired," Onny told him firmly. "Or we will be in trouble."

"I won't," he promised, standing in the doorway and gazing happily out at the sunlit clearing. "How far is this village you're going to show me?"

They looked at one another and burst into giggles. Even Regg.

"What?"

"It's here." Onny laughed. "All around you."

Tobin frowned, suspecting a joke, and Daroo took pity on him. "Come out, and look back at where you were."

Tobin hobbled forward on the crutches and turned. The night he'd escaped during the storm he hadn't looked back at his prison, but now he saw that the hut's exterior was covered with gra.s.s and brush. It looked like a small hill with a door in it.

"The mistress lived here the first year," Daroo told him. "Until we built her a proper house. That's why it's so big. Now we use it mostly for storage."

"I see." He turned and examined the meadow. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw dozens of small hills, some taller, some long and flat. They'd deliberately shaped them to match the contours of the land. Sometimes only a shadowed doorway or the glint of light on a windowpane showed the presence of a dwelling.

"Come on," said Daroo. "I'll show you my house."

"Then mine!" said Onny.

"Me, too," Nuffet piped.

Tobin saw few goblins as he hobbled through the village. Some were walking along the paths, some working in the cleared patches by their homes. Most of those he saw simply nodded a greeting, but some smiled, and a few wished him good morning.

"It's kind of empty right now," Onny told him, a shadow crossing her face. "When everyone's here there's more than a thousand of us. But almost half went with the mistress." Then she brightened. "Here's Bocami's house."

Tobin wondered which of their parents were among those who'd gone, but they offered no information, and he decided not to ask.

They introduced him to Bocami, the metalsmith who'd made his shacklea"he held no grudges against Tobin over his escape. Then he met Varbo, the weaver, and Regg's mother, who was a leather worker, and Wintle, the herber.

"It's mostly Makers and Bookeries who live in the open meadow," Daroo explained. "The Trackers and others who hunt live more in the woods, and the Greeners are on the edge of the meadow, by their fields. And outside this village there are others, but they don't help the mistress like we do."

"Other villages?" asked Tobin. "As big as this one?"

"Oh, no," Onny bragged. "We're the biggest."

"How many goblins are there, living in the wood?"

"Not very many," said Daroo. "Fa says only about five thousand or so. But more come all the time. Why do you want to know?"

"Oh, just curiosity." Tobin hoped he didn't look as guilty as he felt. It wasn't a long walk, but he was sweating when he reached Daroo's house.

"There it is," the boy told him proudly. "It's the only one like it. Fa likes to live on the ground and Mam likes the trees, so they compromised."

Starting on the earth, the low gra.s.sy mound grew into the lower branches of the tree like a live thing. Tobin could barely make out the woven walls behind the screen of leaves.

"It's beautiful," he said sincerely.

"I'd ask you in," said Natter's voice unexpectedly from behind him, "but . . ." She gestured at the roof, which was no higher than his waist. Tobin laughed and started coughing, doubled over on his crutches.

"He's tired! I told you not to wear him out!"

Tobin joined in the children's chorus of protest, but he was secretly relieved to end up sitting in the shade. Natter went in through a side door and brought him a cup of something cool with herbs in it. She watched him drink, wearing her familiar scowl. "As soon as you've rested, you're going right back."

Tobin bowed to her judgment and let her cope with the children's arguments, which she settled by sending them off.

"It's a beautiful place," Tobin told her, after Onny tossed her head and stalked away. "I think there are more flowers here than anywhere else in the meadow."

"Aye." Natter spread her hands, displaying her green-tipped fingers. "This is my garden, at least a part of it. And my home."

Master Lazur had said goblins were incapable of love or loyalty, but it was love that showed in her small, sharp face as she looked over the green meadow. And they seemed to be as loyal to their peasant mistress as any human could have beena"maybe more.

"You know," said Tobin, "in spite of the gra.s.s and the size, it's very like a human village. I mean, it's just ... I guess we're not as different as I thought."

"Insults will get you nowhere, boy. But I know what you mean. When you think about it, my kind and yours have dwelled together since the beginning of the world. I guess we've both shaped each other."

She sat in silence after that, gazing at the peaceful meadow, and Tobin found no answer to her words.

He dreamed that night.

The moon was shining through his windows, shining down on the goblin village, but it was brighter than any moonlight he'd ever seen. Still, he knew it was the moon, for it was silver, and it illuminated the village in shades of black, silver, and gray.

He thought what a lovely night it was and wandered out to find the childrena"they wouldn't want to waste a night like this in sleeping.

He was wandering among the gra.s.sy mounds of the houses, trying to figure out a way to reach the children without waking their parents, when horses appeared on the edges of the grovea"horses with saddles and battle harness on their bodies, but no riders. One of the horses stamped, nervously, and flames the color of moonlight flared around its hoof.

Tobin looked up at the moon. It was a strange orangish brown, but it gave off silver light. He didn't understand it, but he guessed what was about to happen, and horror twisted through him.

He tried to cry warning to the sleeping village, but no sound came from his throat. He began to run, to try to find the children and warn them, but the horses charged.