Goblin Quest (29 page)

Maybe they wouldn’t fight at all. He hoped not, because he needed them both alive if he were to have any chance of escaping. If they did start to fight, maybe Jig would tell them it was Riana, not Ryslind, who took Barius’s finger. He didn’t want to betray Riana, but at least that scenario left a chance for Jig to get out alive. Riana would turn on Jig, Barius would turn on Riana, and all Jig would have to do was hope the prince was faster.

He thought Riana would understand. She would still try to kill him, but she would understand.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Of everyone in the party, Riana was the only one Jig could even remotely relate to. The prince was too greedy, the dwarf too interested in his maps and his gods, and as for the wizard, Jig could only pray he never understood Ryslind’s mind.

“This is where you met the traitor?” Ever since they left camp, Barius had refused to call his brother by name.

Jig looked around. There was his firewood, scattered and forgotten. To the right, a pale round wound on a tree marked where Ryslind had torn his staff free. “Yes.”

Barius dropped to one knee and examined the ground. “His sandals are smooth soled, harder to track, but I see that he stood here while talking to you. Darnak, bring the light closer.”

Darnak drew a quick
X
and labeled it RYSLIND, then hurried over to Barius’s side.

“There.” Barius pointed. “That shallow dimple in the earth. That must be the indentation from his staff. Between his footprints and that staff, we can track him even in this black night.” He laughed. “My poor brother. Strong in art, but weak in flesh. He could never outmarch me in the field, even with a staff to support his weight.”

They continued through the woods until Jig lost track of time. His stomach grumbled angrily, and his vision narrowed to the patch of trail just ahead. His thoughts faded until he was aware of nothing more than the need to put one foot forward, then the other. His blisters were worse, and a painful dryness burned his eyes. All he wanted was to lie down. How long did the sun take to return? Surely they had been walking for days. Several days without food or water, and the only time they rested was when Darnak insisted on relieving himself, which he did frequently.

He probably drank too much dwarven ale,
Jig thought. He had seen Darnak take several drinks as they hiked along.
It’s probably the only thing that keeps him sane, living with humans all the time.

“Strange,” Barius mused as they walked. “The traitor fled in a different direction than the creature I had been tracking. Yet another indication that he knows something he refused to share.”

Perhaps he knew that chasing a creature that could kill three ogres was a stupid idea
. As usual, Jig kept his thoughts to himself.

“He divined the Necromancer’s hiding place,” Barius continued. “Could he be strong enough to discover the rod’s location as well? The tales say it hides itself from magic, but why else would he go this way, if not to reach the rod before me?”

Wait,
who
found the Necromancer?
No doubt Barius had already rewritten that incident in his memory, erasing Jig’s role so he wouldn’t have to admit to being upstaged by a goblin.

Near morning the forest began to thin. Jig only noticed because he wasn’t stumbling as often. The light had come so gradually he couldn’t say when he first began to see the faint gray outlines of the trees. Overhead the stars had faded until only a few faint spots of light still showed.

Barius brought them to a halt at the edge of the woods. “Look.”

Jig stumbled forward to see what Barius had pointed to. He tried to rub the sleepiness from his eyes. One part of him knew he wasn’t imagining things, but another part knew equally well that he
couldn’t
be seeing what he his eyes told him was there.

“Odd lair for a dragon,” Darnak said. “And I’ve seen one or two in my time.”

Jig hadn’t. Maybe this was something other dragons did. Jig had never heard of such a thing, but his experience in the world was terribly limited. Tugging on Darnak’s sleeve, he asked, “Do all dragons own flower gardens?”

“First I’ve run across.”

It was an impressive garden, Jig admitted. He sat down and tried to take it all in.

The cavern ended about a quarter-mile away. The bowl-shaped wall rose about thirty feet to end at a tree-covered cliff. Large birds circled the cliff top, and even though Jig knew the sky, and therefore the birds, were all an illusion, he could still hear their harsh cries. Impressive as that magic was, it paled next to Straum’s gardens.

Thin snakes of water flowed down the cavern wall. Midway down, they hit a magical barrier and flowed into the air, where they curved around one another and looped back to form an arched overhang. It was like fine lace, but formed entirely of water. Streams split apart and split again. The patterns changed gradually, a row of intricate diamonds fading into a series of interlinked ovals, all formed by those shifting rays of water.

Accenting the magical overhang were numerous vines that blanketed the wall. Their purple flowers hid the rock so well, Jig wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the cliff itself was nothing more than flower petals. The wind created waves of motion across the flowers, reminding Jig of the lake.

The true work of art was at ground level, where a huge flower mural stretched out for at least a hundred yards from the cliff. Jig couldn’t see well enough to discern the finer details, but he could tell the pictures were laid out to tell a story. On the left, a large green dragon flew with wings outstretched. Orange and red flowers created flaming breath. Another area seemed to depict the outside of the mountain. Jig wondered where Straum had found gray and brown flowers for that part of the mural.

A narrow white trail wound through the center of the garden to the cavern wall. There, about ten feet up, a wide hole beckoned. Jig hadn’t seen it at first, because some of the vines hung over the entrance like a curtain. That had to be the entrance to Straum’s lair.

He took a deep breath, letting the sweet perfume of the flowers fill his nose. Immediately his eyes watered, and he sneezed three times.

“Sorry,” he said meekly when Barius glared at him.

“The opening is off the ground, and wide enough for the dragon to fly through unimpeded.” Barius thrust out his chest and chin as he faced the rest of them. “We should prepare ourselves.”

The only preparation Jig wanted was a good, long nap. And maybe something to eat. Water would be nice, too. He wondered if it was safe to drink from one of those water streams.

“Come. Before the sun finishes rising.” Drawing his sword, the prince hurried toward the garden.

Jig waited. He wanted to make sure nothing was waiting to leap out and kill whoever went first. Or if something did kill the prince, Jig wanted to be sure he was nowhere near when it happened. But Barius made it to the edge of the mural without incident, and then Darnak’s club prodded Jig in the back, and he followed.

At the garden, Jig saw something he had missed before. A tiny wall of blue fire bordered the entire mural. In the red light of sunrise, the points of flame were almost invisible. The fire also segmented different portions of the mural. Over here, wizards dueled at the gates of a black tower. Another image showed a blue-scaled dragon flying through the clouds. He remembered Ryslind explaining the legend of Ellnorein, and wondered if the mural was supposed to depict a battle from those times.

Jig grinned when he spotted something tucked into one corner. In a tiny triangular panel, a squad of goblins fought a catlike creature. Naturally, the goblins were losing, but Jig didn’t care. He felt a surge of pride at seeing his people in Straum’s garden. It made him feel like he was a part of history.

Looking closer, Jig saw that there were even tiny dark blue flowers, each one with a ball-like tip, to represent all the goblin blood. He overbalanced and fell into the flowers. One hand crushed a troll’s belly while the other flattened the end of a serpent’s tail. More pollen floated up to trigger a second sneezing fit.

Darnak grabbed Jig’s elbow and pulled him upright. “Come on. Once we reach Straum’s hoard, you’ll see something worth gawking at.”

The path through the garden was actually a sort of white grass, so low and soft it felt like feathers beneath Jig’s feet. As they neared the cave, Jig began to wonder why they hadn’t been attacked yet. Surely if Straum’s magic could create water sculpture and flower art like this, he would have no trouble adding a few spells to discourage intruders. Barius was so obsessed with his brother that he hadn’t bothered to look for traps along the path. At least Barius was in the lead, so if anything did happen, Jig would have the satisfaction of seeing it happen to him first.

Despite his worries, they reached the wall of the cavern. There, Darnak took a rope from his pack and handed it to Riana, the lightest in the group. She raised both eyebrows and handed the rope right back.

“Stick my head up there and let Straum burn it off? I think not.”

“My brother is up there, girl.” Barius pointed to an indentation in the grass, one that could have been made by the end of a staff. “I’ve defeated every foe and every trap we have encountered, and I’ll not be stopped by your stubbornness.”

Jig cocked his head.
Barius
had defeated everything? From the sound of his voice, he believed that, too. And he’d likely kill Riana if she pushed him much further.

“I’ll do it,” Jig said. He grabbed the rope from Darnak. “Boost me up.”

As he scrambled onto the dwarf’s shoulders, Jig wondered what had possessed him. Goblins were cowards—that was what helped them survive. So what was he doing poking his head into a dragon’s cave?

It’s simple—I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I don’t feel like waiting while they argue for the next hour.
Perhaps courage was nothing more than impatience. Besides, the sooner he got away from the flowers, the quicker his eyes would stop watering.

His fingers caught the edge, and with some pushing from Darnak and Barius, he managed to swing one leg up. That, he decided, was a mistake. Pain tore through a very sensitive part of his anatomy. He pulled the other leg up quickly and rolled into the cave.

He tumbled over several of the flower vines, and spent the next minute untangling himself from a vine that had torn free and wrapped around his legs. Silence followed. The others waited below to see if he would die a hideous death. Looking around, Jig wondered the same thing.

Two trolls lay dead on the tunnel floor. Wisps of smoke rose from the holes in their chests. Barius was right. His brother
had
been here.

CHAPTER 14

Straum Heads off a Possible Rebellion

If anything, trolls were even bigger than the ogres had been. Uglier, too. They looked like a cross between giant humans and spoiled apples. Their bald skin was wrinkled and rubbery, and they smelled like old eggs. They also smelled of charred flesh, but that was a result of Ryslind’s magic.

Jig kicked them both to be sure they were dead. Not that most things could get back up with a hole in the chest big enough to crawl through, but Jig wanted to be safe. The trolls didn’t respond, though a few flies buzzed up from the eyes of the closest one.

Smudge leaped off Jig’s shoulder. His legs snapped out in midair, and when he landed on the troll’s forehead, he held a buzzing fly between his forelegs.

Jig watched jealously as Smudge cooked his breakfast. Even flies were starting to sound good. His eyes went to the trolls. Traditionally, the first bite went to the victor, but Ryslind wasn’t around to enjoy the rewards of his kill. His mouth began to water. He had no way to cook the bodies, and raw troll meat probably wasn’t the healthiest thing in the world. Though the wounded area was nicely blackened, and the smell no worse than overcooked carrion-worm. . . .

“What’s taking you so long up there?”

Jig perked his ears at the dwarf’s whisper. Swallowing hastily, he called back, “I was looking for something to tie the rope to. I’m not big enough to pull you up by myself.”

He wiped his mouth and scanned the entrance. No stalagmites, no rocks, nothing that would hold the rope. His gaze returned to the trolls. They
were
pretty big.

He wound the rope around both trolls’ waists, thinking that dead trolls had turned out to be pretty useful things. He wondered if Golaka had ever cooked troll meat. He’d have to see about bringing some back for her cauldron. If he survived long enough.

Jig poked his head through the vine curtain. “Ready,” he said. Pulling back, he braced himself against the trolls, adding his meager weight to theirs.

Barius came up first, then Riana, and finally Darnak. The dwarf in his armor was heavy enough that the trolls started to slide across the ground. If the others hadn’t heard Jig squawk and grabbed the rope, Darnak would have pulled Jig over the edge and buried him beneath a pair of dead trolls.