“Thanks. Are you alone here?”
“No. The master of the house is upstairs.”
Spicy became alert. He strained his ears, but he didn’t hear any other movement inside the home.
She closed the closet door. “Relax, will you? He’s deaf. I mean really, really deaf. Blind, too. So I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”
He finally got a good look at her. Her skin was a darker purple than even Sage Somni’s. Her dark hair was tied back in a simple ponytail. She wore white makeup around her eyes that kept catching his attention every time she blinked.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” As if to punctuate his apology, his stomach gurgled.
“Hungry? Let me get you something. Follow me.”
He clung the oversized robe around him and tried not to trip. The girl walked to the main hall and entered a kitchen. Spicy paused and looked down at the library. The lamp still burned by the window. He wandered in and stared up at all the books. He ran his fingers over several of the spines.
“Hey!” she hissed. The girl came charging in and pulled closed tall drapes. “If there’s people out there looking for you, you can’t go parading in front of the windows.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many books.”
“Are your hands clean?”
He examined them. They were free of dirt except under the fingernails.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can look at them. Don’t bend any pages or break the spines.”
Spicy took a book off the shelf at random. “I’d never do that.”
The red woven binding had black lettering stamped into the front cover.
Of Coastal Flowers.
Each smooth page held an illustration of a plant along with a description and medicinal use.
“Witch’s Teeth,” he read. “Recog…nized by its dual-colored pink and yellow flower. Grows in low wet soil. Blooms in spring. Su…su-scept-a-ble to frost. Can be brewed in tea along with car…or. Carob. As a treat-ment for dia…diar…”
“This is painful.” She snatched the book from his hand. “Diarrhea.”
“I would have gotten that.”
She replaced the book and removed another. This one had a boat on the cover.
“Danger Island,” he read. Illustrations covered each page. A human boy appeared to have washed up on a beach.
“Pedro was the only survivor,” Spicy read smoothly. “The boat which carried his family was lost to the sea.” He looked up at her. “What happened to his family?”
“You’ll have to keep reading. I’m going to warm some soup. You can tell me when I come back.”
So Spicy sat with his book and continued with the story. There were no other people on the island, but Pedro met a talking bird, a talking turtle, and a talking crab. No danger, though. Each friend helped him build part of a boat. But when it was time to leave the island, none of his new friends would join him. On the final page, Pedro was sailing off and waving as the bird, the turtle, and the crab stood together on the island watching him leave.
“The End.”
“Your lips move when you read,” the girl said. He hadn’t noticed her return. She set a tray with a bowl of soup on a desk. “Eat it before it gets cold. And don’t get any on the books.”
“Is there a part two?”
“No, that’s it. That’s the end. You pick up another book and read a new story.”
“So Pedro isn’t real. This is just made up, like a children’s book.”
She let out a laugh. “Adults can read fiction, too. Pedro’s no more real than a talking crab and whatever else happens in that story. But they’re all real and alive while you’re reading, at least in your head.”
Spicy nodded and decided he liked listening to her talk.
“The real trick is to find the made-up things in books that aren’t fiction,” she said.
“Is that what you do here? You get to read all these books? Are you an apprentice to the human sage?”
She smirked. “Barberos is no sage. But he does have the best library in Bliss. Once I’ve done my chores, I get to spend as much time here as I want. Plus, he sleeps a lot.”
“Wow. This must be a dream job. We weren’t introduced. I’m Spicy. What’s your name?”
“Daphne. What kind of name is Spicy?”
“The first thing my mother wanted after I was born was flatbreads with extra peppers. What does Daphne mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. My mom didn’t name me after her favorite flavor.”
Daphne watched as Spicy ate. It was a chicken and potato soup and it tasted very salty. But it might have been the best thing he had ever eaten. When he was done, she took the tray.
“Want more?”
He nodded. She returned in moments with the bowl refilled. He was struck by the appearance of her hands. In addition to the ink stains on her fingertips, her knuckles were swollen and a few of her finger joints misshapen.
“Your hands…”
“Whenever I would spill, break a dish, or make a mistake that required the rewriting of a page, Barberos would smash my hand with a paperweight. When I first came here, he would have me place my hand in a door and he would slam it.”
Spicy stared in shock.
She gave a wan smile. “It’s okay. He hasn’t had the strength in the past few years to do much of anything. I care for most of his business. He sleeps a lot. I get to spend time reading. And writing.”
“You write? Like letters and words?”
“I get to write whatever I want. Poems, mostly.” She looked at one hand. “And I remember that it would be worse for me if I were one of the slaves working for any other family in Bliss.”
“Why don’t you leave? Why don’t the other goblins run? I saw them in the field. There was no one guarding them.”
“Some do run. Some must make it because they don’t come back. But the dogs find most of them and then they get punished.”
Spicy leaned back from the soup. “What happens to them?”
“It’s bad. And it keeps most of the other slaves from ever trying anything. But that’s Bliss. So why on earth would you sneak in here?”
“I’m looking for a few goblin children who were taken from my village. They must have come here recently to be sold.”
Daphne dropped her eyes.
“What is it?” Spicy asked.
“Five young children, four girls, one boy. And an older teenage boy about your age.”
“How did you know?”
“I know because I processed their sale. They were purchased and put on a boat yesterday.”
Chapter Ten
Blades hobbled to the stream and appeared ready to collapse by the time the three soldiers were readying their horses. Military prudence would have dictated they fortify their camp because of the late hour, but Alma waited and paced. Each mile down the mountain bought them time. And with the three setting such a sloppy camp, there was no way to know whether they had been spotted.
“Let me ride one of the horses,” Blades said.
Billy finished strapping a pack with bedrolls on one of the animals. “They’re already half-lame. There’s no saddle. And we need them for our supplies.”
“I don’t care. Drop the junk. I’m taking that one.”
Billy had started to step aside when Alma intervened. “No, Blades, that’s not going to happen.”
Blades scowled. “You’re not in charge here. I’m taking the horse.”
His hand went to the handle of his knife. Alma only carried the bow and had no hand weapon, but she stood her ground. Billy and the other two were watching.
“If you don’t move away from that horse, you’ll be walking alone. If you don’t take your hand from your knife, you’ll be bleeding out for the tribesmen to find you. They’ve been following us for an hour. Did you miss the bird trill? They’re watching.”
Blades looked over his shoulder, doubt in h
is eyes. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“That’s because you walk too loud.”
She waited. Blades swallowed hard. His hand left the knife and he raised it to show it was empty.
“It looks like the stream makes a straight shot down,” Alma said, pointing. “Get a head start and we’ll catch up. One good hour of hiking, Blades, that’s all I’m asking. Then you get to eat and rest.”
It looked like he was about to say something but then he hobbled past, leaning hard on the spear.
Once he was out of earshot, Billy leaned in. “I didn’t hear a trill of any bird. Granted, my hearing’s never been keen.”
“I didn’t either,” Alma said. “But I told him what he needed to hear.”
Billy let out a snorting laugh. “All right you men, you heard the lieutenant. Vine, get your boots on. Elias, lead the horses.”
With the fire out and their gear collected, they moved downstream. Even a casual eye would see the signs of the camp. Perhaps nightfall would obscure their departure. But Alma went last, scanning the trees and the open rock for any movement.
Because she had heard a trill. It had been the call of a mountain jay, but louder than any real bird. It meant they had company, and Alma wanted to choose the time and place when she met them.
It was getting dark when the stream vanished under rock near the top of a small ravine. In good light the climb down the bramble side would be tricky. But as the sunlight faded to nothing, it would be impossible.
Alma caught up with Billy. “Any arrows in your gear?”
He shook his head. “A few javelins, one spear, my sword.” He didn’t bother to mention their knives.
A space between the trees opened to a broad patch of dirt. It would have been an ideal site to lay camp if they had the men to place sentries in among the towering pines.
“Horses there,” Alma said, pointing to the open patch of ground. Blades was already sitting. “Which of your two men walk the softest?”
Billy shrugged. “Me, I guess.”
“Take the javelins. Follow me.”
He did as instructed. If they were hunting, she’d want him at a good distance to catch their prey in a crossfire. But there wasn’t time to lay a proper ambush for anyone following. The darkest places in the trees would have to suffice. As she selected their spot, the sounds of the horses carried. Even well-trained animals snorted, shifted, and made a host of other sounds.
Unless the tribals were deaf, they would find them.
Billy leaned on a tree and kept watch.
Alma crouched nearby and readied an arrow. Two shots. All she would have were two shots.
With her thumb, she traced the glyph on the bow. Soldiers were such children, she decided. Victories attributed to gods. Failures blamed on leaders. And every manner of success and inconvenience pinned to wind, chance, and stars. Meanwhile, she had proven that preparation and training would take the day time and again.
Whoever was slinking their direction was good.
She heard no footfall and spotted no shine of moonlight on skin. But a glint off a spear tip caught her eye. The shape moved slowly. Human, not goblin. She waited for it to get closer. Her breathing remained calm. She kept the arrow pressed to the string but resisted the urge to pull back on the bow. It would make noise. She had to wait until she was prepared to fire and hitting the target would be certain. But that meant allowing the stalker to get close. And how many more were there?
He came closer. Fifty feet. Then thirty. For a moment she thought he had vanished, but he had only paused. When the low form moved again it was perfectly lined up between two trees.
In one motion she pulled the bow back as she raised it. The weapon creaked. The arrow was too short and dropped off the shelf. She almost snapped the string and it took a second to secure the projectile and reposition it. She again prepared to fire, but the shadow had vanished.
“See something?” Billy whispered.
She ignored him. But then she heard a snap just beyond his position. Another figure was moving. She pivoted and fired, this time remembering to not draw back as far.
The arrow flew. It sailed inches away from Billy’s face and plunged dead center into whatever shadow was rushing their way. A man screamed, a guttural cry, as the tribal fell and thrashed. But then the first shape appeared again and charged at her.
She pulled the second arrow from her sack. Instinct and training took over as she fired without hesitating. The hard thwack of an arrow striking flesh told her she had found her mark. This man grunted and stumbled but didn’t go down.
Alma drew her knife and rushed forward.
But then a third man jumped at her from the shadows. A hard blow knocked the knife from her hand. Pain radiated up her arm from her wrist. She backed away in time to avoid a second swing from the club. Her heel caught a root and she stumbled.
The tribal made no sound as he charged after her. The moonlight caught the chalky markings of his body paints. Then he grunted in pain as Billy drove a javelin into his side. The soldier pulled the weapon free and thrust down again and again. Alma didn’t wait but cut the throats of the other two tribals and pulled her precious arrows free.
No more shadows were moving.
She let out a savage howl. Her voice cracked as she laughed.
When she noticed Billy just staring, she said, “Let them know we’re here and waiting for more of them to come.”
Billy howled, too.
No more tribals came at them for the rest of the night.
Chapter Eleven
Spicy paced the library as Daphne dug through a rolltop desk and pulled out a ledger. He tightened the belt to the robe. The sale of the goblin children had been made to an August Dufresne. Daphne was searching for any more information on the buyer.
“He’s a merchant who makes regular runs down to Orchard City.”
“Is that as big as Bliss?”
Daphne let out a dry laugh. “Bliss is no city. It’s just barely a town. You really haven’t gotten to see much of the world, have you?”
“And you have?” he asked irritably. “Sitting here with all your books. And helping the humans sell goblins?”
“Don’t judge me. All I did was file paperwork. Now if you don’t mind, I need to go through this.”
“Let me help.”
“No offense, but I heard you read. If you help, it will take me longer.”
Spicy began pulling books from the shelves, only to forget where they belonged immediately after looking at them. He put them back the best he could but knew he wasn’t getting it right.
Daphne ignored him.
A few of the volumes closest to the windows had mold on them. Many of the books he flipped through were just as difficult to understand as the book on plants. He skimmed pages on metals, on printing, on medicine, and on dealing with aging. Many of the “cures” had little to offer but hot and cold compresses and prayers to the Divine Mother. There were several shelves of religious texts. Most of these had long poems to be read aloud, along with block-printed pictures of a woman with a halo making vague gestures with her hands.
He began to suspect Sage Somni’s library, while smaller, held more actual knowledge.
High in one bookcase were a few bound books of maps. These were either sparsely detailed or focused on areas either fictional or unknown. Why did the humans know so little of their own world?
The shelves with the storybooks continued to intrigue him the most. He leafed through a few. The pictures and words told tales of adventure and discovered treasures. Colored illustrations featured high castles and mountain ranges and deserts and rivers of places he had never dreamed of. One book that caught his attention had a group of young men who hunted a dragon to retrieve a stolen princess. The dragon in that book had wings. What a dragon would want with a human female remained a mystery.
“I think I have it,” Daphne said. “August Dufresne is registered here as a merchant in Orchard City, like I suspected. But all
his goods come through Eel Port.”
“Where’s that?”
“Across the sea. About two days in a boat. But there’s no way you’re going to get there. And even if you catch up, your friends will be gone by now. And If they catch you, they’ll kill you or sell you off, too.”
The thought of climbing into a boat again made him queasy. “It’s where I have to go.”
“No, you don’t. It’s crazy. How could you even make it there? You plan on swimming? Do you have a boat with rowers and men who know how to sail?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
She slid off her chair and began to tidy up everything he had taken down. She pulled one of the works of fiction off the shelf and handed it to him. “This one is about a family that tries to sail the night seas to the moon.”
He studied the star printed in the cover. “Sounds stupid.”
“Then put it back and pick another one. I can help you read better. You know more than any other goblin in Bliss, I can tell you that. Stay here. Keep me company. My master will never know. Or I’ll convince him I need help with the chores.”
He gave the book back. “I can’t. I have to go after them. They don’t belong here in man’s world. They don’t belong to anyone. They have a home in Athra.”
“Athra? Where’s that?”
“To the northwest of the sea up in the hills. I heard the humans call it Monster Land.”
She chuckled. “Monster Land. Like you’re some monster.”
“That’s where we live. If I get the kids free, that’s where we’ll be going. It’s where you could go too, and every other goblin that lives here. It would be just like the stories you have here. You could leave this place and never come back.”
“Oh, but if that were only possible.”
She packed food into a small backpack along with the book with the star on the cover. Into his hand she pressed a purse with money, both coins and paper. He hadn’t seen paper money before.
The Goblin Reign Boxed Set Page 24
