The Rover

by Mel Odom

  “Yes.”

  “This town belonged to someone else.”

  “Maybe, but in all the time I’ve heard of it, this town has always been called Hanged Elf’s Point.”

  That can’t be the original name, Wick thought. In his fatigue, he leaned against the outside wall of the curving stairway. The stone had been worn smooth over the years. Has it always looked this way? Or did the coastline get reshaped when Lord Kharrion cast the spell that created the Shattered Coast?

  By nature, few elves were seafarers. Their homes remained in the wooded glens and along mighty rivers. But there had been a few that had lived next to the sea. The little librarian knew them all, and he felt certain he would know this place if he could but remember where he’d read about it.

  Thankfully, the air was much cleaner now that they had left the slaver ship behind. Wick breathed deeply, grateful of at least that respite. His legs burned from the continued effort of climbing the steps, and his back ached from being hunched over. “Why is this place called Hanged Elf’s Point?” he asked Harran. Somehow, his curiosity still insisted on outweighing his fear at what was going to happen to him next.

  “Because of the hanged elf,” Harran replied.

  “What hanged elf?”

  “That one.” Harran pointed.

  Following the line indicated by Harran’s finger, Wick gazed forward as they topped the sixth and final garrison stairway. From his new vantage point, the little librarian could easily see the final ledge on which the main city sat. Amid the shadows of the buildings rising from the steep hills was what appeared to be a gossamer spider web stretched out over the top market ledge. The web stood forty feet tall and was nearly that wide, and the strands glinted blood-kissed silver from the rising sun to the east. At its center was a lean figure, and even from the distance Wick could see the hangman’s noose around the dead man’s neck.

  12

  Hanged Elf’s Point

  How did the hanged elf get, well, hanged?” Wick asked, his eyes never leaving the strange sight. He almost fell when a goblin roughly shoved him from behind.

  “Keep movin’,” the goblin warned. “Ain’t too late too throw ye over the ledges and let ye make yer way back up again, halfer.”

  Wick trudged forward, taking short, quick steps that made his ankle chain rattle across the stone ground. The goblin passed him by, walking forward with his twisting torch to harangue others.

  “I don’t know,” Harran admitted. “I heard Orpho Kadar brought it with him when he arrived forty years ago. Before that, this city was just ruins with only a few goblins living in it.”

  “The elf was already hanged then?” Wick asked.

  “Yes.”

  The goblins guided them up more steps. The slave party moved much more slowly now. Wick went to the aid of an old man ahead of him.

  “Thank you, kind sir,” the old man whispered, his breath wheezing against the back of his throat. “If those goblinkin knew I couldn’t climb these steps, they’d like as not just throw me into the harbor for the sharks to feed on.”

  The idea left Wick appalled.

  The old man gazed into Wick’s face and looked puzzled. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No, sir. I’m from Orsin’s Saucer.”

  The old man nodded and leaned more heavily on Wick. “I heard of it. They make fine bottles there.” He wheezed again, and the little librarian nearly stumbled while guiding them both up to the next step. “I make razalistynberry wine myself.”

  Razalistynberry wine! Oh, to have a glassful now, and a nice cheese and cucumber sandwich seasoned with tartberry spread! Wick’s tongue felt swollen in his mouth from dehydration. The snack would be made even better if Nayghal, who was a janitor at the Vault and his closest friend, was there to share a good book with. The little librarian quickly retreated from such thoughts because they were more painful and heartbreaking than he’d expected. “I love razalistynberry wine.”

  “Of course you do,” the old man said. “No one could resist such a fine wine, and I have been told that my wines are the finest of all. I’m Wine Master Minniger.” He glanced at Wick. “Goblinkin, of course, have no appreciation for fine things. They are pigs that will drink any swill set before them.”

  Wick nodded in agreement, but worried that the goblin passing them on the stairway at the time might overhear the old man’s comment and decide to punish him. The old man didn’t look like he could handle much physical abuse.

  “You must not have gotten out of Orsin’s Saucer much if you haven’t realized how cruel goblinkin can be,” the old man went on.

  “I’d always been told stories,” Wick admitted, “but I’d never seen a goblin before until ten days ago.” At least, not a living goblin.

  “And you’ve not heard the story of the hanged elf either?” Minniger asked.

  “No,” Wick replied.

  “Back home in Currelburg where I’m from,” the old man said, “I’ve got a tavern that my wife and three granddaughters manage.” He glanced at Wick. “You’ve heard of Currelburg?”

  Wick nodded. “It’s north of Lottar’s Crossing.” It was also one of the original seven mining towns that had gone dry.

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “A pity,” the old man said. “It’s really a pretty town, full of history when so many towns you see these days have nothing in them that hasn’t been ripped out and replaced.”

  Wick glanced around at the first of the market areas on the three ledges just below Hanged Elf’s Point proper. Tents strewn across the flat stone competed for space with more permanent structures made of stone and timber. Goblinkin and dwellers were already hard at work laying out goods. The aroma of fresh vegetables made the little librarian’s mouth water. Bleating sheep, cackling chickens, quacking ducks, and grunting pigs filled pens and cages at different stalls.

  The Ill Wind crew kept their charges from the small crowds that had already settled into the familiar banter of haggling and trading for goods. The morning sky was lighter now and the red sun painted scarlet hues across the stone ground. A crew of dwellers wearing slave collars labored at one of the six windlasses mounted atop the second marketing ledge. They cranked the huge wheel and lowered a platform cage containing four big hogs that pushed at the side nets.

  “I was in the tavern one night when an old human entered,” Minniger went on. “You could tell he’d been long on the trail, and not getting much sleep either. He was on the run, you know, and not certain how far away those who pursued him were.”

  At the bottom of the windlass trip, more dwellers wearing slave collars opened the nets and used switches to urge the hogs out. The huge brutes were in ill humor and stridently protested being chased from the cage. One of them turned suddenly and bit one of the dwellers attempting to herd it. The dweller went down, crying out in pain as blood streamed from his wounded arm. Several of the nearby goblinkin only jeered and laughed uproariously while the other dwellers barely managed to turn the hogs from their intended victim.

  Life, Wick thought in saddened horror, is so cheap here. Then a turn leading up the next stone staircase took the savage scene from him.

  “So, being curious as I am,” Minniger said, “I started a conversation with the old man, aiding it with an occasional glass of wine on the house. I didn’t really expect him to talk much, but he had a way about him, a loneliness that overcame his fear. And, as I’ve said, I make the best razalistynberry wine. Perhaps that loosened his tongue as well.”

  Wick helped the old man up the next flight of steps. The effort left him dizzy and weak.

  “As we talked, he told me of the hanged elf,” Minniger went on breathlessly. He kept his attention focused on the step in front of him, moving on to the next step only after the last one had been conquered.

  “Did the man have a name?” Wick couldn’t help trying to get all the details. His work at the Vault of All Known Knowledge hinged on a researcher�
�s ability to collect every available fact.

  “This man never gave it to me,” Minniger answered. “And I’m intelligent enough to know when not to ask, if you know what I’m talking about. Lottar’s Crossing still has several that pass through it with trouble on their tails. This man was no different than them, except that I think he was a mage.

  “What makes you think that?” Harran asked, staying close to them as they rounded the staircase. He came up on the other side of the old man and lent his strength to Wick’s.

  “Have you ever talked to a mage?”

  Wick remained silent, not wanting to mention his own experiences because they definitely weren’t those of a glassblower from Orsin’s Saucer.

  “No,” Harran answered.

  “They’ve got ways about them that let you know. A certain way of thinking. And most of them never quite look at you. I mean, not as if you really mattered anyway.”

  “You’re sure this man was a mage?” Wick asked.

  “Without him actually casting a spell on me, yes, I was.” Minniger struggled up the next step and took a long gasp. Thankfully, the caravan of slaves had reached another checkpoint. “And then there was the matter of the men who came a few days afterward.”

  “You knew them?” Wick asked. He glanced ahead, watching as Arghant talked with a group of garrison guards.

  The goblin captain at this garrison caught the little librarian’s eye. Where most of his companions were brutish and slovenly, this goblin appeared sleek and smooth. He wore a jeweled sword belted at his waist. Runes tattooed both his upper arms. As Arghant talked with him, the garrison captain moved along the line of dwellers, inspecting them.

  “I didn’t know the men who followed the other human,” Minniger said. “But I knew what they were. They were Purple Cloaks, agents who do vicious and foul deeds for Fomhyn Mhout.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” Wick admitted.

  With the sun edged up over the mountain and hanging on the eastern horizon, the livestock in the market areas below started to come more fully awake and protested their treatment with loud mooing, bleating, cackling, and grunting. Over all of that was the growing level of voices locked in verbal confrontations.

  “Fomhyn Mhout,” Harran said, “is the most powerful wizard of the Shattered Coast. He’s been here more than sixty years.” Suspicion showed on his face as he regarded Wick.

  “Oh,” the little librarian said. “I thought perhaps you were referring to some other Fomhyn Mhout. One I didn’t know.” Please don’t ask any more! I—and you—have more problems now than we need to be worried about why I don’t know all of these things!

  “The Purple Cloaks are Fomhyn Mhout’s emissaries,” Harran continued.

  “Exactly,” Minniger said. “Most folk around the Shattered Coast are in disagreement of what Fomhyn Mhout’s real reason for being among us is.”

  Wick dropped his eyes before the garrison captain reached him, praying that he didn’t attract any attention from the goblin. Whatever the garrison commander was looking for, the little librarian was certain that he didn’t want to be involved with it.

  “Some say the old wizard lives on the Shattered Coast and searches for magic weapons lost here during the Cataclysm,” Minniger said. “Provided, of course, that the Cataclysm ever happened.”

  Wick stilled his quick tongue before he could say anything. Lord Kharrion and the Cataclysm weren’t stories to be told to frighten children. A cold wind gusted in from the ocean and prickled his skin. He glanced back at the harbor and saw more than a dozen sails coming over the distant southern horizon. Evidently a number of traders came to Hanged Elf’s Point.

  “But I do know that Fomhyn Mhout was interested in the old man that visited my tavern that day,” Minniger went on. “They asked me about him, and described him very well.”

  “What did you do?” Wick asked.

  The old man pressed a hand to his chest. “Me? What could I do? I told them that he had been in my shop only three days before, and I told them in what direction he’d traveled when he left.”

  “And what did they do?” Harran asked.

  Minniger touched a small pink scar at his neck. “One of them put a blade to my throat and told me that if I’d lied to them in any way that they would return to kill me and my family. I believed him. They left following the trail I’d put them on. I don’t know if they ever found the old mage.”

  The garrison captain finished his inspection of the assembled dwellers in slave collars.

  “He’s looking for any signs of disease,” Harran said. “Diseased slaves aren’t allowed into the city, I’ve been told. It cuts down on profits and the labor forces in the mines when diseases run rampant. Orpho Kadar, so I’m told, puts to death any slaver captains found guilty of selling spoiled goods.”

  Spoiled goods? Wick couldn’t believe he’d just heard that. He gazed around at the men and women in the group from Ill Wind, then at all the slaves busy working the market areas. The whole idea was insane. Yet he couldn’t deny that he existed because he was trapped in the middle of it.

  A moment later, the goblinkin from the slaver ship got the group moving again. Below, Wick could already see another ship off-loading more dwellers in chains. He turned his attention away from the new arrivals, hoping he wouldn’t remember the emaciated and cowering bodies, but knowing he would all the same. The tales of adventure he’d read from Hralbomm’s Wing had never spoken of the true weight of the manacles that a slave carried. He clenched his fists in frustration. Even had we died fighting Arghant and the crew of Ill Wind, he thought angrily, at least not all of the goblinkin would have survived to keep enslaving others. I would have given my life for that. And the certainty with which he thought that surprised him.

  Oh, how you’ve changed, Third Level Librarian Edgewick Lamplighter, the little dweller thought. But how could you not change after every misfortune you’ve been through?

  “I was told of a ship that came into Hanged Elf’s Point a few years ago,” Harran said as they filed through the narrow corridor leading into the city proper. “Orpho Kadar’s people found sickness in the dweller slaves. Before they’d put foot inside the city, the garrison guards lowered their shields and drove them over the ledges to fall into the waters below.”

  Wick closed his eyes, images filling his mind of the senseless slaughter. Those poor people hadn’t asked to be brought to the goblinkin city, and he was certain the sickness they’d carried hadn’t been their fault either. Even those that lived to be slaves didn’t have easy or safe lives.

  “All the goblins aboard the ship were executed as well,” Harran continued. “Orpho Kadar also ordered their ship burned, and it was. All of that served as an example for the other slavers. Another sick cargo of slaves has never reached the harbor.”

  Wick pushed his breath out, trying to concentrate. He glanced up at the body of the hanged elf in the gossamer web hanging over the harbor. Now that he was closer, he saw that the elf’s body was wrapped in cloths, looking very much like a sinister tatterdemalion. The hanged elf held its arms out wide in supplication, but the face was masked.

  “Was this one of Orpho Kadar’s examples then, too?” the little librarian asked bitterly.

  “No,” Minniger answered. “According to the old mage I talked with, the hanged elf there is magical in nature.”

  “How so?” Wick asked.

  “With it hanging there over the city,” the old winemaker said, “I’m told that mages can’t enter Hanged Elf’s Point.”

  Wick studied the figure hanging in the gossamer web, wondering who he or she had been in life and if he or she had a family that still thought of him or her. That line of thinking all too quickly steered him into thinking about his own family. They still didn’t know what had become of him after he’d disappeared from Greydawn Moors. The little librarian wondered if Grandmagister Frollo had kept his position open for long before he’d filled it. And Wick had no illusions about whether the grandmagister
would fill a Third Level Librarian position. It was too important to be left vacant for long, and all too easily filled.

  “Is that only a legend?” Wick asked. “Or do you suppose there’s some truth in it?”

  “All I know,” Minniger said, “is that Fomhyn Mhout and his dread Purple Cloaks have never set foot in Hanged Elf’s Point.”

  “Silence!” a goblin roared, coming back down the line of weak and staggering dwellers. “Be ye respectful during city hours or I’ll have the tongues cut from yer heads! No halfer noise is allowed!” He whipped the slaves viciously.

  Wick got his hands up just in time to keep his face from being lashed, but the whip raised red welts on his arms.

  Without a word, the dwellers moved through the heart of Hanged Elf’s Point.

  In wonderment and disbelief, Wick stared out over the city as they passed through. In decades, perhaps even centuries past, the city had been ornate and elegant. Tall buildings had stood five and six stories tall when the city had first been built. Most of them lay in sprawled ruins now.

  Many of the streets had been cleared of rubble, but many of them still lay choked in broken rock and mortar and timbers. With the way the land rolled over the steep hills the city had been built on, some of the rubble piles spilled for a hundred yards and more.

  Goblinkin had moved in and made the buildings and large houses their own. Other houses had dweller crews hard at work clearing debris and rebuilding broken walls and caved-in roofs.

  The sheer number of goblins living within the city surprised Wick. Not since Lord Kharrion had the goblinkin lived together in such great numbers.

  Their course took them by a row of blacksmith’s forges. Inside the shops, sweat- and soot-covered goblinkin labored over anvils, hammering out swords and knives, spear points and arrowheads.

  They make weapons? Wick saw a thick-bodied goblin blacksmith in a leather frock lift a red-hot sword blade in a pair of tongs, then thrust it into a vat of water. White steam rolled back off the sword blade. According to Marclan’s Treatise on Goblinkin and Their Lost Arts of War, the goblins had largely lost the skills necessary to make weapons of steel. Until Lord Kharrion, though, the goblinkin had never known the secrets of forging hard metals.