The Goblin War Page 2

  “Are you certain the spirit will show up here?” she asked Cogswhallop.

  “No,” he said promptly. “But digging a trench across that ridge is the simplest way to stop the stream that feeds this lake, the Stoners have their foundations built, and the woodworkers are starting on the frames. According to the others, that’s the stage they’d reached when the first stream vanished. It’s the closest thing to bait we’ve got.”

  But although they watched till nearly sunrise, no spirit appeared, and the stream continued to flow.

  Makenna had been a commander too long to let herself become impatient. They waited out the next two nights as well, crouched in the bushes above the small valley. On the fourth night, Makenna was almost asleep when Cogswhallop’s elbow dug into her ribs.

  A column of water rose out of the stream, spinning, slowly coalescing into a human-shaped form. A woman’s form, Makenna saw with astonishment. Surely only creatures who bred required two genders. But she knew nothing about the spirits. Maybe they did breed. Maybe they had hordes of little spirits, and complained about having to cook for such a mob, while their husbands grumbled about how hard they’d worked trying to drive off the goblins all day.

  If Erebus was right about these amulets repelling the spirits, she might have a chance to find out.

  She leaned forward, heedless of the stones digging into her knees, and watched the water spirit flow up the stream to the place where the spirit would need to shape a trench across the ridge if she wanted to send the stream down a different course.

  The spirit bent, laying shimmering hands against the ground, and before Makenna’s astonished gaze, the solid earth began to melt like butter on a hot griddle.

  She’d guessed that the spirits could do this, but seeing solid rock crumble at the thing’s whim sent a chill down Makenna’s spine. She shrugged. She’d been frightened before; she never let it interfere with strategy.

  Makenna waited till the spirit was fully involved in her earth shaping. Then she stood, silently raising an arm.

  Even knowing where they were hiding, Makenna could hardly see the goblins as they crept forward. She gave them a few seconds to get into position; then her arm flashed down, and half a dozen amulets splashed into the stream—both above and below the spirit’s position.

  They hadn’t known what to expect. Erebus could only speculate that the spirits, whom Master Lazur had also reported to be “repulsed” by the barbarians’ amulets, might be unable to pass them.

  Makenna hadn’t expected the blood-curdling shriek the creature emitted. And she certainly hadn’t expected the ice that spread over the surface in curling splinters, stretching out from every amulet the goblins had cast into the stream, growing till they touched the spirit woman’s feet.

  At that point Makenna half expected her to freeze to ice and die—and a lot of good that would do them! But although the ice ran partway up the woman’s skirts, the spirit remained flowing and alive, watching Makenna and her allies hurrying down the slope with an expression of hostility that looked downright human.

  Makenna slowed her approach, strolling the last few yards.

  Human shaped the spirit might be, but she didn’t appear to have bones, or blood, or any internal structure Makenna could see—and she was as transparent as the water she was made of. Water bound into that shape with magic, Makenna supposed, just like all else in this accursed place.

  The creature hadn’t been schooled in the finer points of negotiating—she spoke first.

  “Get those disgusting things out of my stream, human. Or you’ll never see water in this world again.”

  Something that looked like that should have a crystalline voice, but instead the words bubbled like a boiling pot.

  “I’d think the wood and meadow spirits might object to that,” Makenna told her. “Let me propose a different bargain. You stabilize this world so it stops sucking down every rune I set, and we’ll all leave. And take our amulets with us. How about that?”

  The spirit’s eyes narrowed. “I refuse to deal with anyone who wears one of those.” She gestured to the medallion on Makenna’s breast. “None of us will. So you might as well give up now.”

  “But you just offered me a deal,” Makenna pointed out. “Water for your freedom.”

  The spirit blinked. Powerful, but not too bright, Makenna realized. She’d seen that combination in enough priests and village elders to be wary of it. Sometimes a powerful stupid enemy was more dangerous than a smart one.

  So don’t antagonize her if you don’t have to.

  “Why do you object to these amulets, anyway?” Makenna asked. “I’m told they’re made with human sacrifice, but given how you feel about humans, I wouldn’t think that would trouble you.”

  “They’re made of death.” The spirit shivered, droplets falling from the ends of her hair. They froze when they hit the ice.

  Was it the spirit’s own horror of those amulets that had frozen the stream? If so, Makenna probably shouldn’t point that out.

  “It’d take a fair amount of effort to remove them,” she said instead. “We’d have to chip through the ice.”

  She cast a glance at Cogswhallop, who nodded and murmured to another goblin, who hurried off. Hammers and chisels would arrive shortly.

  “I’m thinking we should get something in exchange for our effort,” Makenna went on. “Water’s a start, but you wouldn’t have to give us water if you’d make it possible for us to leave.”

  “We’d rather see you dead.” The bubbling voice was full of malice.

  Makenna folded her arms. “I’m not feeling all that bad about seeing you freeze there, either. We’ve no intention of dying anytime soon, but if we did, would one of your fellows be willing to chip those amulets out for you? Or be able to touch them long enough to do it, even if he wanted to?”

  The spirit’s lips clamped shut.

  Makenna waited for the truth to sink in before she continued. “Then maybe you’d best hope we can keep ourselves alive a bit longer.”

  “What do you want?” the spirit asked sullenly.

  “I’ve told you. We want to get out of this world,” said Makenna. “And given how much you’d like to see us gone, that shouldn’t be too bitter a dose to swallow.”

  The spirit shook her head. “I don’t have enough power to create a world bubble large enough to release you all. I’ve already offered you water—”

  “Not precisely,” said Erebus, who’d been taking notes. “You threatened to withdraw all the water if we didn’t free you.”

  “And you’ve been doing that since we arrived,” Makenna added, “so it’s not much of a threat. Now if you’d offered to leave the stream be, so we could use it . . .”

  The spirit looked around, like a child hoping someone would come along and rescue her from having to confess to breaking a dish. It worked no better for her than it did for five-year-olds.

  “Very well,” she conceded. “I’ll leave the stream to flow for you.”

  “And what about the rest of it?” Makenna asked. “Crumbling stones, rotting flax, plants that shrivel no matter how well the Greeners care for them?”

  “I have no power over the others,” the spirit told her. “Only this stream is mine.”

  Makenna shook her head. “Water alone won’t do us much good. All your stream can do is make our deaths slower.”

  In truth, more time to scheme and struggle was always good, but she saw no reason to tell the spirit that.

  “I can’t control what the others do!” the bubbling voice wailed. “I really can’t!”

  “Then,” said Makenna, “let’s talk about my request. You say you don’t have the power to let us go—I’ll accept that for now. Could you stop this world from draining the magic out of my runes long enough for me to cast a gate?”

  The spirit looked around again, but the situation hadn’t changed.

  Makenna waited.

  The translucent shoulders slumped. “Oh, very well. I’ll do what
I can. And if I do, you’ll get the death touch out of me and never never try that trick again! Agreed?”

  Makenna shrugged. “I’ll promise not to do it to you again. We may need to bargain with others in the future.”

  Given the spirit’s conviction that her own folks wouldn’t come to her aid, Makenna wasn’t surprised when she nodded. “Agreed. Do you have an empty flask?”

  Makenna’s waterskin wasn’t empty, but she solved that by pouring its contents on the ground. “I do now.”

  “Bring it here.”

  Makenna walked over the ice and held it out. The spirit extended a delicate hand, and water flowed from the tip of her finger into the flask. If she was thinner by the time it was full, Makenna couldn’t see it.

  “There,” said the spirit. “Anything saturated with this water will resist the magic thirst. Mind, once the water has dried, it won’t work anymore. That’s the best I can do for you.”

  Makenna eyed the plump skin bag. “There’s not a lot there.”

  “Then I suggest you use it wisely,” the spirit said. “All in this world are watching to see if you keep your word, human.”

  Whether the whole world was watching or not, a bargain was a bargain. Besides, if Makenna didn’t keep her end of the agreement, it would make any future negotiations much harder. If it took more than one attempt to make a gate large enough to return them all, she and the goblins might be here for some time.

  “Send for some hammers and chisels,” she told Cogswhallop. “And when they come, get those amulets back. We’re likely going to need them.”

  Cogswhallop frowned. “I already . . . Aye, I’ll get right to it.”

  The spirit looked suspicious but said nothing, so Makenna walked away and Cogswhallop followed.

  “The chisels will be here any moment, Gen’ral. You know that.”

  “Aye, but I want you to stop them before they get here, and don’t bring them till enough time has passed for someone to walk to and from our camp. A slow walk.”

  “You don’t trust her?” Cogswhallop asked.

  “Let’s just say I’d like to use this water before she has a chance to change her mind. This world is made of magic—I don’t think it’d be hard for them to stop us if we give them time to plan.”

  They passed out of sight of the stream then, and Makenna set off at a run, clutching the precious skin against her ribs so it wouldn’t bounce.

  She’d already assembled and trained her fellow casters for the failed attempts, so the others knew what to do. Drawing runes in water was something a priest could do, but no mere hedgewitch could manage it. After a bit of thought, Makenna tacked thick cloths to the two trees she’d chosen to anchor the gate and chalked the runes onto the rough surface. She took a moment to make certain her helpers could dampen the cloth without disturbing the marks, praying there would be enough of the precious water to soak them all. Then she sent several dozen of the watching goblins—and the whole village had gathered to watch—to bring Tobin from his tent. While they were waiting for him, she and the goblins who’d agreed to feed her power settled into a circle in front of the two trees.

  They were a pair of saplings whose white bark resembled birch, though their leaves were shaped more like a maple’s. But they were much the same size, about three feet apart, and their young branches arced together overhead, forming something enough like a gate that Makenna thought she could anchor the spell there. She nodded to the water bearers, who carefully wet their cloths—time to begin. “From this world to ours,” she said.

  The circle of goblins echoed it back. “From this world to ours.”

  The priest’s books had given her a proper spell chant in the old tongue, but Makenna’s mother had said that a chant was simply a way to focus mind and will, and it didn’t really matter what you said.

  If the chant did matter, then they were doomed from the start—Makenna didn’t know how to pronounce half those words.

  She reached out and took the small hand of the goblin to her left. She’d lived with them so long, so closely, that the disparity in size felt more normal to her than the clasp of a human hand. The goblin to her right laid a hand on her ankle, leaving her right hand free. And the power that flowed through those small hands felt as strong and real as rain after a long drought.

  Makenna traced a finger over the chalk lines of the rune of “here,” for the gate began here, and the damp cloth beneath the chalk began to glow.

  “This world to ours,” the goblins chanted.

  Makenna forced down a surge of triumph. They still had a long way to go.

  Runes of travel, runes that described the earth, air, and reality of the world from which they’d come.

  She had to stand now, and the goblins beside her transferred their grip to her ankles. Makenna was only vaguely aware of other goblins laying Tobin on the grass—still unconscious, even though the fever was gone. Too thin, too pale, he looked terrible. Concentrate!

  Runes of safety, runes for preserving health, a rune of stability, which she had a hard time forcing to life and whose glow wavered more than she liked even as she moved on. She was sweating now, and the power that flowed from her goblin allies was weaker.

  Makenna took a deep breath and turned to the rune of opening, pouring her magic into it with profligate haste. It sprang to life all at once, blinding bright.

  The gate opened.

  It didn’t fill the gap between the trees, as she’d hoped. In fact, it was barely big enough for a goblin to walk through, and the edges blurred and wavered—but through it Makenna could see the edge of a dusty road and a crowberry bush. The real world.

  “Do it!” Dozens of goblins carried Tobin forward, stumbling over the spell caster’s joined hands, and the rune of stability began to flicker.

  Makenna had speculated about what might happen to someone if a gate failed when they were halfway through. She had no desire to learn the truth the hard way. She traced the dimming rune once more, pouring power into it, first from her goblin helpers, and when that ran out, her own. She could feel the drag, the drain of more and more energy as the goblins thrust Tobin’s head into the wavering disk of light.

  She’d expected him to fly through, like a smith feeding a log into a furnace. It was actually more like someone pushing a pillow into a jar, and Makenna fought back a hysterical giggle as they finally shoved Tobin’s feet through the gap.

  His eyes opened. She had time to see that much, at least. He looked up at the sky, then turned his head and looked at her, just as the rune under her fingers flickered out.

  The gate collapsed, and power lashed back through her on a pulse of pain.

  When the stars that clouded her vision faded, Makenna looked around. Most of the casters were sitting there, clutching their heads, but a few were already standing up. No one dead.

  She’d cast the most complex spell of her life, under bad conditions—and while it hadn’t been perfect, it hadn’t killed anyone.

  Soon someone would come along that dusty road and pick Tobin up and nurse him back to health. Health he could never have regained here.

  She’d gotten it right. He would be safe and well, no matter how much she’d miss him.

  So now all she had to do was figure out a way to get the rest of them back to the Realm, and then bargain out a place in it for goblins before the Hierarch stopped feeling properly grateful or some other piece of murderous scum took over the church.

  Makenna sighed. If she could pry some escape out of the spirits, the rest of it ought to be easy.

  Chapter 2

  Tobins

  A HARD KNOB PRODDED TOBIN’S side, waking him. He tried, sleepily, to move away, but it shoved him again, digging into his ribs.

  He rolled over and looked up at a circle of white-painted faces. Their hair, also saturated with the clay they coated their bodies with before a battle, stood out around their heads in rough spikes. They wore the leather armor and loincloths of barbarian warriors.

  Fear su
rged through him—if Tobin hadn’t known that it had to be a nightmare, he’d have screamed. But he wasn’t on the border, fighting the barbarian clans who’d swarmed out of the desert half a dozen years ago. He was . . . Where was he?

  The dragging undertow of weariness that had been leaching his strength from the time he first stepped into the Otherworld was gone. But if he wasn’t there, then . . .

  Tobin tried to sit up, and the spear that had prodded him reversed, the point poking his breastbone, forcing him down.

  The hard-baked clay of the road beneath his hands, the sunlight beating on his face, and, above all, the sharp spear point . . . This wasn’t a dream!

  The burst of terror he felt then was so fierce that his constricted throat emitted only a stifled squawk, like an outraged chicken. And he would soon be doomed to the same fate.

  How in the Dark One’s name had he gotten here? He’d been in the Other—

  “You were right, Machi. He is alive,” one of the barbarians said. “I guess your clan gets to keep its storyteller a bit longer.”

  Tobin blinked. The words in his mind didn’t match the harsh syllables of the language the barbarian had spoken. And “storyteller” wasn’t quite right, for the barbarians’ term also carried a connotation of “keeper of history and tradition,” though the storyteller was clearly an entertainer as well.

  “It’s always worth checking,” another of them said. “But he looks pretty sickly. We’d better wait a bit, to make sure his flesh won’t poison us.”

  Tobin’s heart sank. Deep down, he’d always believed that the rumors whispered around the army campfires had to be false, that surely no human being could eat another. But it sounded like they were true.

  “You say it so casually,” he murmured. “Like I wasn’t—”

  He’d spoken in his own tongue, the only language he knew—but the barbarians jumped and stared down at him.

  “Scorch it!” one of them swore. Somehow Tobin knew it was a fairly strong curse. “Get his shirt open.”

  The spear point pinned Tobin against the ground, holding him helpless as half a dozen hands yanked at the fabric of a shirt he’d have sworn he remembered his goblin nurse helping him into in the Otherworld. How had he gotten from there to . . . the Southlands? The dust-scented air, the fields of grapevines with new leaves sprouting from their gnarled stems looked like the Southlands. But how—