Goblin Quest (26 page)

That made Barius pause, but only for a heartbeat. “We can’t pursue the rod with this monster at our heels. Nor do we know in which direction the rod may lie. We could be here for days, so it behooves us to learn as much as we can about this land.”

Jig pointed at Ryslind. “And him?” he started to ask. The words died when he saw the wizard’s face. Though the gag hid his mouth, the corners of his eyes had wrinkled with amusement as he watched Barius’s preparations.

“You know what it is, don’t you?” Jig asked softly.

Ryslind heard. The wrinkles deepened. Red eyes beckoned Jig closer.

He crossed the clearing, one hand on his sword. With his other hand, he reached for the gag. He hesitated, hand outstretched. Was this another trick?

Of course it was a trick. Ryslind was a surface-dweller, and a wizard to boot. Smudge remained cool on his shoulder, which should mean it was safe to remove the gag. Still he hesitated.

“I’ll kill you if you try any magic,” he warned.

Ryslind dipped his head in amused acknowledgment.

“As will I,” Darnak said from behind Jig. “I was coming to get him,” he explained. “Heard you talking. So go ahead, remove the gag. He knows we’ll brain him if it comes to that.”

Feeling more confident with the dwarf beside him, Jig tugged the rope down around Ryslind’s chin and pulled a balled rag out of his mouth. The wizard opened his mouth and inhaled deeply.

“Water,” he said hoarsely. Darnak held a waterskin to his lips, and Ryslind took several deep swallows. When he spoke again, his voice was smoother. “You will die for what you did, goblin.” He sounded cheerful about the prospect.

“Enough of that,” Darnak said. “You were telling us about the thing that did this. Or was that all a ploy to get free of the gag?”

“No ploy.” Ryslind smiled. “And there is no need to hunt for him. He will find you soon enough.”

“He?” Jig asked.

Ryslind nodded. “He is one of Straum’s . . . servants.”

“How would you know this, brother?” Barius had returned. Arms crossed, he glared down at the wizard. “What reason do we have for trusting your word?”

Ryslind chuckled. “Believe me or not, it makes no difference.”

The pit in Jig’s stomach grew deeper. For despite everything Ryslind had done, Jig believed him.

 

They untied Ryslind’s legs so he could walk with the party. At first, Barius had argued, preferring to build a travois to drag the wizard along.

“And how am I to fight if I’m lugging your brother behind me?” Darnak snapped. “I’m doubting the enemy will want to wait while I unstrap a blasted travois.”

For once Jig agreed with the prince. Tie Ryslind up and leave him that way. They all knew the wizard was mad. What was to stop him from killing them all? He had promised to use no magic, but who could trust the mind behind those eyes? As soon as their guard dropped, he would attack. Starting, Jig guessed, with the goblin who had insulted him back in the Necromancer’s throne room.

But as they reached the woods, it looked like Ryslind would keep his promise. He had not spoken a word, and his hands remained bound behind his back. Darnak walked at the end of their line, so he would see if Ryslind tried anything. So far, Ryslind had been content to follow along.

He still made Jig nervous. Especially the way he smiled at them. Like this was all a game, and only Ryslind knew the rules.

“The trail goes deeper into the woods,” Barius said. He squatted by a patch of bare dirt. “See here, the creature has left a partial print.”

Jig stared at the brown, scuffed dirt. He saw nothing, and wondered if Barius was hallucinating. To make his frustration worse, he had already become disoriented. He thought he could find his way back to the clearing if he had to, but he wasn’t certain. Being lost made him feel uncomfortably dependent on the others.

“Clawed, as we guessed,” Barius muttered. He stretched a hand out over the dirt. “Toes spread for balance. The print is deep, so I would guess we face a beast nearly as massive as the ogres. A lion, perhaps. But longer of toe.”

He eventually tired of studying dirt and said, “Come, let us continue.”

Jig waited for the others to pass by. He took an extra step back to let Ryslind go by, but the wizard only smiled at him. Falling into step beside Darnak, Jig whispered, “Are both of them mad? They prod one another like children. And the only reason we’re chasing this beast is because Barius refuses to back down in front of his brother. What’s wrong with them?”

Darnak sighed. “Earthmaker only knows what has happened to Ryslind. As for Barius, I’m afraid he sees the competition as being more important than the rest, even more important than his own life.”

He shook his head. He had resumed his duty as mapmaker, and he sketched small, bushy trees as they walked. A jagged line marked their progress into the woods. At the center of the map, Jig saw three bodies labeled BIG, DEAD OGRES.

“Barius has competed all his life, and he’s always lost. He’s the seventh son of King Wendel. That means he’s got no more chance to sit on that throne than you or I do, and he knows it. Even with three of his brothers dead on their manhood quests, he’s no more than an extra mouth to feed around the palace. A noble mouth, mind you, but still a burden. Sooner or later they’ll marry him off, give him a nice little plot of land somewhere out of the way, and forget he ever existed.”

“He grew up with his parents?” Jig asked dubiously.

Darnak stopped to blot a smudge of ink on his map. “Aye. What of it?”

He had known that the surface races often built separate homes for every mated pair and their offspring, but it still seemed like a waste of space. Then again, if these woods were any indication of the size of the surface, maybe they could afford the waste. And only seven brothers? Jig had grown up with dozens of cousins, all raised by the entire lair. Jig didn’t even know who his parents were. Nor did he care. That sort of thing simply didn’t matter.

“Isn’t that inefficient?” Jig asked. “To rely so much on the parents, I mean.”

“For a dwarven family, ’twould make no difference. For us, family is everything. Parents, cousins, grandparents, brothers and sisters, all of ’em squeeze together in one home and look after one another. But for Prince Barius, his parents were always busy ruling Adenkar. He grew up surrounded by servants and tutors, none of whom saw him as anything but one more spoiled Wendelson to care for.

“He’s quite a lonely boy, really. Most of the sons are. They began very early to compete for their parents’ attention. Who would be the best fencer, the swiftest rider, the most accurate shot with a bow? Barius fought in tournaments from the time he was thirteen. Never won, mind you, and once he wrecked his knee so badly it took me a week to straighten everything back out.

“He learned the lute, studied every book he could get a hold of, and once stayed out three nights in a row to catch a wolf that had been stalking the stables. It was never enough.”

Sighing, Darnak glanced up to make sure the brothers were too far away to hear. “There was always something more pressing, some treaty to negotiate or some ambassador to dine with. Even when Barius accomplished some grand feat, his older brothers were there to overshadow him. He hunted that wolf right after his oldest brother returned from slaying a rogue griffon to the south. I was proud of them both, but especially Barius. He stayed out in the rain and the cold, and killed that wolf with no more than a child’s training bow, whereas his brother had gone out with a full regiment of guards and slept in a sturdy tent. But how could Barius compete with his brother’s griffon?

“The quake that finally collapsed his tunnel was Ryslind. Ryslind set out one day and didn’t come back for two months. All of Adenkar searched for the lost prince, but he had vanished like shadows at midday. Rumors spread and multiplied faster than fleas on a beggar. ‘Ryslind had been abducted by elves, he had drowned in the Serpent River, he had run off to be with his spirit lover.’ Everyone had a different tale.

“Barius didn’t know what to believe, but he saw his chance for glory. He had always been a skilled hunter and tracker, and he declared that he would bring his brother back. Interrupted court to make his pronouncement, and made sure everyone heard. He spent a week in preparation, gathering horses and supplies and men and maps, everything he thought he would need.

“And then Ryslind returned. Walked into the throne room just as calm and confident as ever. He had completed his quest, he told us. To demonstrate, he sent tiny bolts of blue lightning racing across the ceiling. Levitated his eldest brother into the air and left him there, shrieking like a banshee. Before, he struggled even to learn simple tricks and sleight of hand. But somehow, in those two months, he had become a master of his art.

“Barius was devastated. His brother, two years his junior, had outshone him. His heroic preparations made him look even more the fool.”

Darnak took a drink of ale to soothe his throat. “A year ago, that was. Then some idiot gave him the idea to go after the Rod of Creation. Wish I could get my hands on the fellow who suggested it. Everyone thought it suicide, but for Barius, it was the only thing that could surpass his brothers.”

By this point Jig was listening with only one ear. Darnak’s story simply confirmed his belief that the prince was mad. Given a place to live, food to eat, even people to wait on him and make sure his every wish was taken care of, Barius wanted more. He had to “prove himself.”

What was the point? Admittedly, Jig wasn’t sure he completely understood human motivation, even after Darnak’s explanation. But this whole quest sounded like nothing more than a search for the most spectacular death. What good was attention and recognition if you had to be ripped apart by an ogre-killing monster to get it? All this for a magical rod that, as far as Jig knew, Barius didn’t even want. He only wanted to be the one who found it. Or at least the one who died trying.

There was a reason “glory” rhymed with “gory,” Jig thought. He grinned at his cleverness. Maybe he could make up a song about the prince. He worked out the first stanza as he walked.

He glanced up to make sure nobody had heard his mumbling. He would have to finish his song later. Assuming they lived long enough.

His attention turned to the forest. Riana had complained that the trees weren’t real, but Jig didn’t care. He had never seen anything like them. Brown trunks, thick as his waist, rose a hundred feet into the air. The roots snaked through the dirt, tripping Jig time and again as his eyes wandered skyward.

This must be why surface-dwellers invented boots,
he decided as he picked himself up for the fourth time. Even through the oversize boots, his toes throbbed from their encounters with the roots. Were he barefoot, he would no doubt be unable to walk by now.

Gradually Jig learned that this mock forest was less idyllic than he had assumed. For one thing, he had to walk differently. The ground sank beneath his feet, and he found himself stepping ridiculously high to try to avoid those blasted tree roots. Worse, the ground itself was soft and uneven! Soon the backs of Jig’s legs burned from climbing small hills where the dirt constantly shifted.

He needed to rest. Sweat stung his eyes, and every step became a quest in itself. He could feel the blisters, each one the size of a small mountain. On his ankles, heels, toes . . . by now, his feet had a landscape to rival the woods around them. He also found that the boots that protected his toes had grown heavy as stones, and only the knowledge that he would be worse off barefoot kept him from flinging them into the woods.

Despite it all, he kept his mouth shut. If he complained, Barius would only hear it as a sign of weakness. He’d probably even increase their pace. Besides, nobody else was having any trouble. Even Riana, skinny as a snake, matched Barius’s march without trouble.

Finally, as the sunlight faded to orange, then red, Barius called a halt. He pointed to a large pair of trees.

“We make camp here. Riana, you and the goblin will gather wood for a fire while Darnak and I discuss a plan for dispatching the dragon Straum.”

He made Straum sound like nothing more than a nuisance. A carrion-worm to be chased out of the kitchens, rather than a creature of legend that could kill with a single breath.

Jig kept an ear cocked back as they searched for firewood. He couldn’t hear well enough to make out what was being said, but he wanted to make sure he didn’t get turned about and lose his way. As long as he could hear their voices, he could get back to the others. How did people get around without walls to guide them? Why, he could go in any direction he chose, turn left or right at random. The trees looked alike, the ground was the same everywhere, and were it not for the low voices behind him, Jig would have been lost already.

This must be why Darnak spends so much time on his map.
If the others were as disoriented underground as Jig was here, no wonder they needed to note the way out.

He glanced into the sky and received another shock.
The sun had moved!
Before, it had been directly overhead, but in the past few hours it had traveled to the very edge of the sky. How could they find their way when even the sky shifted position?

Riana had stopped to watch a bird circle overhead. When she didn’t move, Jig looked up as well. Following the wide flight made him dizzy, and he wondered if real birds ever felt nauseous. Did Jig and the others seem as small from up there as the bird did to him? Did the bird feel free, able to go anywhere it chose?

“I wonder what it’s like.”