Goblin Nation

NOT MUCH OF A LOOK

Rustymane had turned back late in the morning of the third day. He told Qel he was sorry, but he didn’t think it was right to leave Direfang, what with all the misfortune that had befallen the city. Direfang needed him. He said he should have never agreed to escort her to the ocean.

“S’dard,” Rustymane said, thumping his thumb against his chest. “S’dard to go from the city. S’dard more to be here in the woods. Time to go home.”

What city? Qel thought. What home? Nearly everything is destroyed.

He’d patted her on the shoulder, wished her good fortune, and left her in the hobgoblin Gralin’s care.

That was two days earlier, maybe three, and Qel hadn’t protested. As she walked, she wondered if she should have tried to talk him out of it. The forest was a little more intimidating with only one hobgoblin for an escort-and he a chatty one who seemed perfectly happy to talk to himself when she wasn’t in the mood answer his myriad questions. She had no idea where exactly they were in the massive woods, as she lacked her friend Orvago’s nature skills.

Perhaps they were lost; she certainly felt lost, utterly, hopelessly wandering from one berry bush to the next, eating and walking and getting sore feet while drawing no closer to the shore.

Could Gralin truly lead her to the coast? Or was he as clueless as he appeared?

“S’dard, me, for coming here, Gralin. And more the s’dard for wandering with you for days and days. We’re lost.”

“Qel said that yesterday.”

“And the day before, I believe.”

He gave a clipped laugh. “A pretty voice, Qel has. But Qel does not use it often enough. Even if it is to complain, Qel does not talk very much. I prefer her talking to silence.”

“When I do talk, it is more often than not to call myself a fool.”

The laugh was louder at that. “Qel worries too much and talks too little. It will not be so hard to find the shore. Just takes time. Don’t need Rustymane for finding big water.” The hobgoblin paused and tugged at a hair growing crookedly on his chin. “Rustymane’s a better tracker, though. Rustymane hunts better, knows how to spot wolf prints and boar signs. Finds better food. Wouldn’t mind that. Right now only need to find the ocean, and that won’t be hard. Promise. Said that yesterday too.”

Did the hobgoblin sense her nervousness? Was he trying to reassure her?

“Qel can talk some more now, even if it is to complain.”

She lapsed back into her usual grouchy silence.

Gralin was on the short side for his species. He stood only five and a half feet tall. His skin was the color of dead oak leaves, and its smoothness suggested to her he was quite young in years. He was the least marred of the hobgoblins she’d known, having only one scar of any significant size: a jagged line that looked like a lightning bolt stretching down his forearm to his wrist. He’d told her he got that a year before, wrestling a ferocious wild pig in the Plains of Dust.

“Fault is here,” he’d said, smacking the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Lazy, careless. S’dard to not pay attention and watch out for pig tusks.” He’d laughed too, long and loud and gave her a goofy grin. She didn’t want to admit it, but over the days she’d found herself enjoying his company.

Gralin had not been a slave in the Dark Knights’ mines, so he’d never been whipped or beaten, and thus he possessed the optimism of one who’d never been under another’s thumb. He was with one of the groups of hobgoblins and goblins who had answered Mudwort’s call through the earth and had traveled west across the Plains of Dust and over the dwarf mountains.

“I can’t hear the ocean, Gralin. I thought we’d be able to hear it by now,” Qel finally piped up.

“Good, Qel talks again. Otherwise just birds to listen to,” he said. “Hear lots of birds. Sounds good, though, all the birds. Like to listen to them. Maybe Qel should have decided to go home earlier-before Direfang led the goblins to the bluff to build the city. Decided earlier, then ocean wouldn’t have been so far away. You should listen to birds too, Qel. Very peaceful.”

“The ocean will sound much better to me than birdsong.”

“Ocean not far away. Then Qel can find a ship and go home to the island.”

“Schallsea Island,” she said wistfully. “It will be good to go home.”

He let out a deep breath and shook out his hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Home is good, yes. Soon all the goblins will have a good home here. It will be bigger than the nation in Northern Ergoth. The Qualinesti Forest will be known as the homeland of goblinkind.” He paused and pawed at a web he’d walked through. “Direfang’s city will be a very good home, Qel. Never been to Schallsea, but maybe see it someday. Graytoes and some of the others talked about the island. Said the buildings were pretty and the grass was too short to get tangled in. Said everything smelled like the sea and like flowers.”

She smiled. “I’d never much paid attention to the way it smelled. I guess you have to leave home to realize you don’t want to or need to.”

He raised a hairy eyebrow.

“Sometimes I don’t explain myself very well.”

He cocked his head.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe you have to travel somewhere else to realize just how good your own home is.” She reached a hand up and plucked at some webbing he’d missed across his forehead. “I was raised on Schallsea Island, Gralin, never knew anyplace else. And I’d never thought of giving the world a look until Direfang’s ships came into port. Oh, ships were always coming into port, but this was different. So many goblins, and so full of purpose and hope. My curiosity won out, so I came here with them … to give the world a look.”

“Qel didn’t get a long look.”

She shook her head ruefully. “No, I guess I didn’t.”

“Probably no dragons or bloodragers on Schallsea. One good thing about Qel’s island, no beasts there. Life is easier, probably. But easy isn’t always the best way.” He sighed, apparently waiting for her to say something. After a few moments of silence, he continued. “Some think Qel was sent to spy on the city and to report back. Was sent to watch everyone. Some of the others talk about that. Not me. But I heard talk.”

“No. We’ve discussed this before. Yesterday.”

“And the day before that and before that,” he added.

“I wasn’t a spy.” But Qel would have plenty to tell the healers on the island, namely that the goblins and hobgoblins were not stupid. And they were not evil, though she couldn’t necessarily call them all good souls. They spoke a little primitively, but that was just their language. She figured Gralin was as smart as any young human; the hobgoblin simply looked at the world through different eyes.

Kind eyes, she thought after a moment. They’d not seen some of the horrors Direfang and Mudwort and Graytoes had witnessed. Qel mentally went over some of the events and incidents she would report to the healers. She intended to tell them about the dwarf baby too, not that anyone on Schallsea Island could do anything about it. Umay festered at the back of her mind.

“Umay,” she said.

“It means hope.” Gralin stood on his toes and tugged at a bulbous, yellow-skinned fruit. It had knobs on it, looking like a puffer fish. He took a bite and found it acceptable then stretched a hand up and tugged one free for Qel. “Hope, hopeful, a promise for the future. That is what the name stands for. Graytoes wants the baby to have a good, hopeful, important life.”

She stopped herself from arguing about the child. She’d exhausted herself on several of the other goblins and hobgoblins-and Orvago-trying to tell them they ought to find a family in the mountains, a dwarf family, to take the baby. Returning the child to her real mother was probably impossible, she knew. Arguing the subject with Gralin would be equally pointless. Maybe she should have taken Umay with her, so the healers on Schallsea could find the baby a proper mother of its own race.

“Well?” He’d asked her something and she’d missed it.

“Sorry. What?”

“Qel? What does Qel mean?”

“I don’t know. It probably doesn’t mean anything.” He stopped in his tracks and faced her. “No. Names mean something. It must mean something.”

“The healers on the island named me Qel.”

“For a reason.”

“I never asked.” She paused. “But I will. When I get home, I will ask.”

“Gralin means little and lively,” he said, resuming the trek and his chatter. “Like Qel, never knew parents, just the clan. Neacha’s father picked the name Gralin. Sounds good, eh? Means something-little, lively.” He added a bounce to his step to prove his point and tried to catch a dragonfly buzzing past.

They waded through a thin creek and skirted a pond dotted with lily pads. Gralin paused a moment to watch a fist-sized bullfrog’s throat balloon and sound a deep croak. When the frog plopped into the water, the hobgoblin continued west.

“This forest is a good, big place, Qel. The city will be a good home. Why do you want to go back to Schallsea Island? Why go back when there is still so much … world … to see?”

“Homesick.” She spoke the word in the common tongue. There was no goblin word that meant the same thing as far as she could tell. “I miss Schallsea Island more than I thought I ever could. I miss it so much, there’s an ache inside my heart.”

“But does Schallsea miss Qel?”

“I-”

“Does Schallsea need Qel? Plenty of healers there, eh? This nation needs Qel. A good healer, Qel is.”

“I-”

“Better find out what the name Qel means.” He swiped at another dragonfly and skipped over a fallen log. She noticed he wasn’t really trying to catch the insect.

“I’m homesick, Gralin,” she repeated.

He shrugged and pressed ahead of her, using his big hands to part the bushes and tall fronds, hopping here and there to act out the meaning of his name. She had to hurry to catch up. He chattered about the birds and the flowers and the stink of something that had died nearby. He asked her more questions, but she didn’t answer, staying focused on walking quickly and not tripping over roots and rotting branches.

“Too quiet,” Gralin said after an hour or so had passed.

Qel shivered and looked around. There were plenty of birds in the branches, and she spotted a gray squirrel scampering up the trunk of a half-dead maple. The bird sounds were soft, but she’d not noticed a change to alert her to a predator.

“Without Rustymane, it’s too quiet on this walk,” he continued. “Qel stopped talking. Without Qel talking, it is too quiet round here. Rustymane does not talk much. But Rustymane snorts a lot. Sounds likes snores, eh? Maybe Qel should talk more about Schallsea so it is not so quiet. Maybe Qel should talk about how much Schallsea needs one more healer-needs a healer more than Direfang’s entire city does.”

He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, he wiped the back of his hand on his mouth and walked even faster.

“Maybe we should go back,” she said suddenly. “The ocean is not much farther.” He stopped and sniffed the air. “Smelling it now. Salt. Not far now at all.”

“I’ve been thinking, Gralin.”

“Took a long time to think, eh? Took days to think.”

“I’ve been thinking about something you said.”

“About being needed?”

“Yes, about Schallsea Island not needing one more healer.” She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should give it another try, staying here. Do you think you could find the way back to the … city? I’m wholly lost. Completely. Utterly. Hopelessly. We’ve been gone, what … four days? Five?”

He turned and counted on his fingers. “Rustymane left three days ago. Been gone five. No, six-that’s why the ocean is so close.” He set his knuckles against his hips and regarded her for a moment. “Direfang’s city will not be hard to find. Turn around, go back the way we came. We can do that.”

“You’d have to go back anyway, to Direfang’s city,” she said. “After leaving me at the beach, you’d have to turn around and-”

“Walk six more days. Don’t mind walking.”

“So we should start back now.”

“Before Qel changes her mind again.”

He bobbed his way forward, angling toward the southeast. “It is a good place, this forest. And it is good that it is not too quiet anymore. It is even better that Direfang’s city has not lost a good healer.”

Qel sucked in her lower lip and followed him. I am homesick, she mouthed. “I miss Schallsea.”

“It will still be there,” he told her. “When Qel is older and is not needed so much here.” Then he took two more steps and pitched forward, arrows protruding from his neck and back.

Qel screamed and dropped to her knees, crawling forward and casting her head this way and that, trying to see who was responsible.

Elves? They’d heard from the Skinweavers that some elves had been returning to the Qualinesti Forest.

Who? Where? But she was too low to see very well, the ground cover so thick, it looked like walls of green closing her in.

“Gralin?” she whispered.

There was no answer.

She heard the soft rustle of leaves, a little too loud for it to be the breeze, followed by clear words: “Did you kill it?”

She crawled to Gralin, her tunic snagging on a low branch and holding her. She tugged at the fabric and was instantly free. A healing enchantment rushed through her mind as she closed the distance and touched her fingers to the hobgoblin’s back. Her other hand grasped one of the arrow hafts and pulled.

Be alive, she thought.

Her spell mended the hole left from the extracted arrow as she reached for another shaft, her fingers slick with his blood.

Please be alive.

“Aye, I think I killed it, but there may be more. Best keep a wary eye out.”

Qel worked quickly, but she couldn’t pull the arrow out. It was in too deep, lodged against something hard. She might do more harm than good. She sent waves of cold into Gralin’s form, hoping to stop any internal bleeding. Then her fingers fluttered toward the arrows protruding from his neck.

Please, please, Gralin, be …

“It’s a girl. Put your bows down.”

Dead.

Gralin was beyond her help.

Qel broke the arrow off on Gralin’s back, and yanked the two out of his neck. She turned the hobgoblin over just as six Dark Knights tromped through the brush and surrounded her. She kept from crying over a hobgoblin she hadn’t known very well but had come to like in the past several days. She would show no weakness to the men.

Why did you have to kill him? She wanted to know that, above all.

“Girl, are you all right?” Concern was thick in the knight’s voice.

Qel stood, noticing she had a considerable blood smear on her tunic. “It’s not mine, this blood.”

“Your captor. Telvir and Walen dropped him.”

She wanted to scream at them for killing the young hobgoblin, whose only weapon was a knife that was still stuck in its sheath. But she kept silent and regarded them blankly.

They were all sweating, though the day was not overly warm. It was probably from traveling through the overgrown terrain for hours and hours, maybe traveling for days, she thought. She noted that each man had stubble on his face and grass and dirt smudges along the bottoms of their tabards.

“Do you know where he was taking you, girl?”

Qel knew she looked younger than she really was, and so she didn’t intend to set them right on that point either. She shook her head and looked at her bloody hands. She’d gotten splinters from the arrows.

“Good thing we spotted you and the hob.” That came from the knight who leaned over the hobgoblin and prodded Gralin’s body with his boot tip. He straightened and gave her a curt nod. “We’re in these woods hunting these things.”

“Hobgoblins?” She knew Direfang’s people were worried about the knights.

“Hobs and gobs,” he cut back. “Were you held captive in a goblin camp?”

She shook her head. I was in their city, she thought.

“The hob was probably taking you there, then. They’ve got a camp somewhere around here. Isaam says so.” The knight spun one way then the next. “Where was he taking you?”

She pointed north. Would the gods be angry at all my lies?

“Are you from a village here in the forest? Somewhere near?”

Again, she shook her head. Her mind churned with what she ought to tell them. The truth, she settled on. “Schallsea Island. I was on a ship.”

“That was wrecked,” another knight finished. He was looking one way then the next, obviously in a hurry. He started tapping his foot. “Were there others with you? More prisoners?”

“Only one, from the island. I don’t know where he is now.” That was the truth. She was lost and had no idea where Orvago was.

“The coast isn’t far. You should get there well before sunset. Just keep walking west.” That was said by the knight still looming over the body. He gestured toward what Qel suspected was the west. “Keep walking in that direction, and you’ll reach the shore soon. Certainly before dark. Some ship coming by will see you. Another time and we would help you more. But-”

“We can’t afford to haul you through the woods with us is why. You’d never keep up, and we can’t slow down.” Another knight had spoken, one she hadn’t noticed before. There were seven of them.

“I’ll be all right,” she said. “I can find my way.”

The knight nudged the hobgoblin’s body with his boot again, gesturing north. “This way you say? We’ll try this direction for a while,” he said. “Telvir, you take point. We’ll see if we can find something.” He gave her another nod then directed the men back into the foliage.

She listened to their tromping for a while, and when she couldn’t hear them any longer, she knelt at Gralin’s side and pulled the knife from its sheath. She cut off two of his fingers and hurled them away.

“Leave nothing intact,” she remembered more than one goblin saying. It wasn’t her belief, but it had been Gralin’s. She finally allowed herself to shed tears over the fallen hobgoblin.

If she’d the time, she would have been more thorough and found a way to burn his body. And if she’d possessed any tracking skills, she would have retraced her steps and found her way back to Direfang’s city.

If she hadn’t left in the first place, Gralin would still be alive.

“Never should have left.” Qel squared her shoulders and headed-she hoped-to the west. She had no way to find the goblin city on her own, she decided; she had no choice but to try to find her way back to Schallsea Island.

“Gralin was right,” she said to herself, choking back tears. “I didn’t get much of a look.”