The horse finally slowed as Runner guided it more deliberately over stony ground that had no discernable trail. The moonlight made navigating difficult. They continued to climb higher up the hill. But their animal now had a limp.
“Is it hurt?” Spicy asked.
Runner kept leaning and looking down at the horse. “Bruised one of its feet.”
“What does that mean?”
“It can’t run and might not be able to walk for long.”
Sage Somni began to stir. Spicy steadied the old goblin as he struggled to sit upright. The old man’s eyes fluttered and appeared to have a hard time focusing. Then he began to convulse.
“Stop the horse,” Spicy said. He slid off the animal and helped the sage down. Somni’s legs buckled. He pitched forward and puked.
“Behold, the wise man,” Runner said.
Spicy crouched next to Somni with a hand on his back. The sage continued to retch but had nothing left to throw up but strands of spit. Spicy gave him the canteen to sip.
Somni rinsed his mouth. Then he stared at Spicy for a long moment. “How is it you’re here?”
A flood of emotions washed over Spicy. His mother, Boarhead, all the dead.
“The humans came,” he managed. His throat was too tight to continue.
“Take your time, Spicy. Then tell me what happened.”
Spicy nodded. “They took Thistle and some of the children. But everyone else…I don’t know how many survived.”
Somni drank some more water before handing the canteen back. “In my worst fears, I never thought they’d come so far. So soon.”
“You knew they were coming? But you left us.”
“I have my work. You shouldn’t have come here.”
“They have Thistle. They’re using her to find you.” He pulled the journal out from his pants and showed it to him. “We took this from them, hoping it would stop them. But they must have followed me.”
Somni examined the journal. His fingers flipped through page after page, a startled expression growing on the old goblin’s face. “This has large portions of the Book of Sages in it. How did the humans get it? So much here they should never have.”
“I don’t know. Thistle got the journal from their leader and gave it to me.”
“It’s all true…it’s all true,” Somni began muttering. “Poor Sage Boron. They must have learned all this from him. Or was it Sage Thurten? He was never careful enough.” He was silent for a moment.
“Thistle knows the old script, doesn’t she? The human leader was using her to translate.”
“She learned so fast, faster than any other student. But she’s still in their hands? Still alive?”
Spicy nodded. He couldn’t read the sage’s expression. “Yes. I thought if I kept the journal, they won’t hurt her. Because once they find whatever treasure you’ve hidden, they’ll no doubt kill her.”
Somni began to chuckle. “If we could only be so lucky.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind me. You did well in retrieving this. Of all the books they could know, this one could do the most damage if they learn how to read it. Now I must think.”
Runner was examining the horse’s hoof. “Can you do it while we start moving? Because they’re going to catch up with us soon.”
“Just a second,” Spicy said. “How can a book hurt anyone?”
“It’s all in the lessons I was teaching your sister. Knowledge is to be kept and shared, but not all knowledge. The humans once knew more, in ages past. And the world is a better place now that they’ve forgotten.”
“I don’t understand.”
“None of us fully do. But I realize that our mistake was trying to preserve that which none of us should know. Come, we must continue.”
Sage Somni straightened and began walking.
“Wait!” Spicy said. “What could possibly be so horrible that it should be forgotten?” He chased after Somni but the old goblin hobbled along and wouldn’t answer.
Runner was trying to guide the horse using the reins but it could barely keep up. Finally it threw its head back and nickered in irritation.
“Come on, will you?” Runner pleaded. “Your foot will get better.”
Somni paused. “Son, cut your animal loose. Perhaps it will draw them off and buy us more time.”
Runner unstrapped the bridle and removed it. He took a moment to stroke the animal’s nose before pushing it away. The horse limped over to a tree and stood beneath it.
Spicy had never had a pet. His mother considered them frivolous. Once he had started to feed a mouse that would show up from under his bed, giving it tiny scraps of acorn bread. His mom had killed it.
“I’m sure the horse will be okay,” Spicy said.
“It’ll probably starve out here alone. Or if the humans find it and see it can’t walk, they’ll turn it into meat.”
Spicy didn’t have an answer.
It was Somni who now led them, confidently taking them along a steep path. The almost invisible trail zigzagged between boulders as they climbed. While Spicy didn’t miss the horse, he realized it had been faster. Now his own feet and calves reminded him of how tired he was.
From behind them they heard the humans. An occasional shout. A horse’s whinny. The bark of the dog. But surely in the dark the three goblins would lose their trackers.
Soon one side of the trail became closed in by the rock face of a cliff that rose high above them. A few symbols marked the surface, thick lines that Spicy couldn’t read. He tried to find something familiar among the marks, but in the darkness it proved too difficult.
Sage Somni wasn’t waiting.
Runner nudged Spicy and spoke in a hushed tone. “We aren’t allowed up here. It’s a place for them. The sages. The dreamers.”
“What’s up here? Surely you must have come up this way when no one was looking.”
“Yes. Once. It’s the Spirit Rock. But I’ve never seen a spirit. Our sage goes up every time another sage visits. There’s more of these drawings on the ground. But that’s about it.”
Sage Somni waited on top of the trail on a wide, flat stony surface. Around them rose giant boulders, and one side of the rock face sloped and dropped away into darkness.
Spicy peered down and saw a sea of shattered stone.
“Stand away from the edge,” Somni said.
“I won’t fall.”
“The humans will see you.”
Spicy backed away.
In the center of the rocky surface was a circle of glyphs that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Splotches of lichen obscured some of the fainter marks. Spicy ran his fingers along the lines of one glyph and then another. Each drawing held meaning, he knew, but what purpose could such a place hold? Spicy tried to study each, as most of them held no distinguishable shape. Were they letters? Did more than one form a sentence? And if read aloud, what might happen?
Runner peered over the edge. “We’re trapped up here.”
Somni ignored him. He took the journal out. Then he tore off a page. This he crumpled, and then he repeated the process.
“What are you doing?” Spicy asked. As more pages were torn, he cried, “Stop it!”
“It must be done. They can’t have this, or what’s here.” From a pouch he produced a wad of straw. He removed a flat piece of steel and a fire stone from around his neck. He rubbed the two together, keeping at it until he produced a series of sparks. As he blew, the wad and the paper smoldered and began to burn. He continued to tear at the remaining pages and finally tented the journal cover over the tiny flame.
“What is this place for?” Spicy asked. “Why did we bother coming here?”
Somni handed him a knife. “Start scraping at the glyphs. Each must be illegible.”
In the faint glow of the fire, Spicy saw hundreds of markings on the rock.
A savage barking echoed around them.
“I see them!” Runner called.
He rose and shot
an arrow and strung another. As he drew back to fire, an arrow caught him. He gurgled, pitched forward, and dropped out of sight.
“Runner!”
Spicy ran to where the boy had been standing but ducked once he saw the trail below. A line of men with lanterns were coming. Bow in hand, Alma was standing on an outcropping of rock, her white hair shining. She adjusted her aim and fired.
The arrow came slicing through the air and missed Spicy by a finger’s breadth.
Spicy ducked and pulled his own bow free. Rising on one knee, he launched an arrow towards the men below. Shooting downhill had never been his strong suit.
The arrow went high and vanished into the darkness.
He got down and readied another. He fired, and it was a wild shot. But the men below were shouting now. He had their attention. For his third arrow he moved along the edge of the boulder before rising to shoot. A few of the men held their small shields over their heads. Spicy targeted the rearmost man but the arrow struck the trail at his feet.
Someone pointed up at him. An arrow whizzed past.
After firing three more arrows in quick succession, Spicy took cover and discovered his quiver was empty.
He didn’t believe he had struck anyone.
Spicy kept low and scoured the surface of the boulder around him. He gathered a few rocks and began to throw them over the side. None were big enough to crush any of the humans, but at least it felt like he was doing something. Maybe buying time.
But to do what?
Somni busily scratched at a glyph with his knife. But there were so many of the drawn shapes. What could any of them mean to the humans?
“Hubris,” Somni muttered. “This was all hubris. Thinking we could be the ones who remembered. But for what purpose?”
Spicy watched the old man work, defacing one glyph after the next.
Each shape was a mystery, but some appeared to be elementary drawings: snow or rain from a cloud; two jagged rocks; a profile of a reptile.
Even as he watched Somni destroy the glyphs, Spicy fought back panic. “They’re going to be here any minute. You’ll never get to them all.”
Somni kept working. What looked like a pair of wheels or owl’s eyes was getting wiped off the face of the rock. He kept mumbling to himself. “We never should have listened to him. Any of them.”
“Who?” Spicy asked. “Who are you talking about?”
The sage ignored him. “Our fathers could have let all this fall to the wayside. Let it be swept away. But he insisted. Damn him and his kind. Because the humans returned. They always do. Like rats. Just a few of them become an infestation. An army, when you turn your back!”
“Sage Somni…”
“What?” He glared at Spicy, his face suddenly angry.
“They’re going to find this—whatever it is. What does it all mean?”
Somni shook his head and his lips quivered. “They might not know. You’re right, they might not know.”
“I didn’t say that. But they will find it. Tell me what to do!”
The sage rose and took Spicy along to the edge of the rock, where the fall was the highest. They were out of sight from where Alma or any of the other humans might be able to shoot at them. Spicy tried to pull away from the old goblin’s grip.
“If they catch you, it will not go well with you,” Somni said.
“No! We don’t do this. There’s always a way. If we fight them, we have a chance.”
“It’s too late. We failed. I failed.”
Somni stepped over the edge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Spicy watched him fall.
Sage Somni was gone, dead on the rocks in the shadows below.
The breath left Spicy. He lacked the strength to even stand.
Flickering lights came from behind him. The first human to the top of the boulder was a man hiding behind a shield. He advanced with two flanking archers directly behind him with their arrows ready. Alma followed.
“There’s just one of them left,” the shielded man said. They spread out.
Spicy waited for the arrows to hit him. What was stopping them from shooting?
Runner’s bow had fallen with him, but an arrow lay in a small cranny of rock. Spicy ran for it and snatched it up.
The man with the shield laughed. “What are you going to do with that, gob?”
Alma fired and the arrow pierced his arm.
Spicy dropped his makeshift knife as pain shot through his body. The missile was lodged between his right wrist and elbow. As he stumbled back, he tripped and fell, was sliding, about to go over.
Black Tooth caught his wrist. Spicy wanted to curse at the man, to meet his fate like a warrior out of one of the children’s stories told by the huntmaster. But he clung to Black Tooth and let himself be pulled up, his injured arm useless and dangling with the arrow still in it.
His arm was on fire. He groaned as Black Tooth hauled him away from the edge and threw him down to the stone ground.
Alma grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him to the center of the glyphs where Somni had been working. The knife still lay on the stone. Her hands unceremoniously dug through his pockets. She found the pliers and took them.
“It’s just the boy?” Alma asked. “Where’s the lorekeeper?”
Black Tooth grunted. “Dead. His body’s down on the rocks below. Bastard threw himself off, I’m guessing. Kind of like the old gob in the last village. Didn’t want to be taken.”
“Lord won’t be happy.”
“Is he even coming up here? Isn’t this the place he was talking about?”
She squinted at the circle. “It could be. We’ll need more light.”
Blood trickled freely down Spicy’s wrist and hand. His whole body was trembling. He wanted to throw up. He kept his eyes down.
“Waste of time, if you ask me,” Black Tooth said as he scratched at a glyph.
“No one did,” Alma said.
“I wouldn’t touch those,” one of the archers said. “Or stand on them.” He had been one of the men who had come to Spicy with Oren. His bow bore the glyph Spicy had drawn.
“Or what?” Black Tooth asked. “Me standing on a bunch of drawings going to mark me for evil? Turn my guts out? Lightning from the sky? Please. Look at what your good luck charm did for us. We’ve gone how many days out of our way, and for what? That last village had less in it than the one down at the sea did. We shouldn’t have ever deserted.”
“Hey,” Alma snapped. “Don’t talk like that. We didn’t desert. We left North Fort with Lord before it was overrun. Who’s to stop us from a little side mission to make some extra coin?”
“What coin? We’ve found a handful of baubles among the gobs, and now Lord’s burned the troll which might have made us some coin to cover lost wages. And paint it however you like—we deserted and disobeyed direct orders. Our chances of finding work if we make it back has been kicked in the belly.”
“That’s enough.”
“No! We’re now chasing goblin medicine men up a mountain. The one we found back in the village had nothing. There’s no treasure hoard to be had here. This is a waste of time.”
She struck him. It wasn’t a hard hit, but enough to silence him.
“When we agreed to follow Lord on this mission, we said we’d see it through,” she said softly. “Trust him. I do. And if you truly believe this isn’t worth your time, then leave. No one will stop you. I’ll make sure your contract is paid through the last day of your service once we make it back to Orchard City.”
Black Tooth eyed her warily but said no more.
More of the raiders appeared, each with a lantern or torch, the dog handler among them. He was being tugged along by his animal, which strained against its leash.
Lord came last. The tall human walked the circle around the glyphs and crouched at several for a closer look. Then he examined the ones Somni had been defacing.
“The lorekeeper?” Lord asked.
“He jumped to his dea
th,” Alma said. “Or fell. Or was pushed. But it seems they’d rather die than be captured.”
Lord’s jaw tightened. “This one again? Is he the only one who survived? And my journal?”
“Journal got burned, by the look of it,” Alma said.
Black Tooth swatted Spicy across the back of his head. “Finally caught up with you. So much trouble from one gob.”
The blood continued to flow freely down Spicy’s arm. He felt faint and thirsty. He braced himself for another blow as Lord stood over him.
But the leader of the raiders didn’t appear interested. “Bring up the apprentice. And my writing tools.” He gestured for a lantern, which he placed on the stone. Removing a glove, he traced his fingertips along the lines of one of the scratched-out glyphs.
The dog kept trying to lunge at Spicy, making him flinch. The animal had a dark wound on its neck where it had been stabbed by the arrow.
“Is this the one that did it to you, boy?” the handler said. “You’ll be getting a good supper tonight. Just wait.”
Blades led Thistle up to the rock. She still wore the collar and chain and was burdened by one of the saddlebags. Her face had fresh bruises. When she set her eyes on Spicy she looked surprised, but Blades jerked the chain leash and brought her next to Lord.
“Take out the notebook and the pencils,” Lord said.
She obediently went into the bag and produced a writing pad and a metal box containing pieces of sharpened charcoal.
“What about him?” Alma asked. “Looks like your wounded gob is going to bleed out.”
“He’s not important,” Lord said. “Whatever was obscured here is. Losing my notebook is a setback, but this is the prize.” To Thistle he ordered, “Recover what you can from these shapes.”
“They’re too far gone,” Thistle said.
Lord pointed at Spicy. “Blades, take out that goblin’s eyes.”
Spicy dove forward and grabbed Somni’s dropped knife.
But Blades was fast. He clamped a hand on Spicy.
“Drop it,” the man hissed.
Spicy raised the knife as if to show he surrendered. “Wait. I can redraw it. I was here with our lorekeeper when he tried to scratch out the glyph.”
Thistle shook her head and mouthed, “No.”
The Goblin Reign Boxed Set Page 13
