The Goblin War (5 page)

The hair on the back of Tobin’s neck prickled as he turned his back and pressed his hands against the bars, but she only cut through the rope around his wrists, handed him the bowl and waterskin, and departed.

The stew was goat, vegetables, and some grain Tobin didn’t recognize. Once he got over a vague reluctance to eat with his fingers, the food was good, though the seasoning tasted a bit odd. They wouldn’t skimp if they were fattening him for the slaughter. But Tobin’s half-formed plan to appear more ill than he was by picking at his food gave way to hunger. Besides, he needed all his strength in order to escape.

Watching the common business of the camp kept Tobin occupied till dark. The scouting parties, easily identified by their white-painted skin, had been coming and going all day, but by evening most of them had returned.

They washed off the white clay in the stream, Tobin saw, yelping at the chill and splashing one another. But even without their paint, he was fairly certain it was a group of the warriors who finally approached his cage after darkness fell. Their faces, alive with mockery, held none of the woman’s half-kindly indifference.

They said nothing to him, though one of them murmured something Tobin couldn’t hear and several of them laughed.

There was enough firelight for him to see the glint of blood amulets on several chests, but Tobin knew that pleading with bullies only encouraged them, and taunting them would only give them an excuse.

Not that they needed it.

At least it was just the spear’s butt that shot through the cage bars, striking his ribs with bruising force but not penetrating for a lethal blow.

Tobin scrambled to the other side of the cage, but they surrounded it and started poking at him from that side. He crouched in the center and waited for several long minutes, doing his best to dodge their thrusts. Then he made his snatch, closing both hands around a spear butt as it surged toward his shoulder.

The young warrior on the other end of the spear almost lost his grip in sheer surprise, but his hands tightened reflexively when Tobin pulled. Then his face hardened.

Tobin shifted his grip and tried to thrust the sharp point into the warrior’s stomach, but the sturdy wooden bars got in the way and the warrior dodged.

Another spear butt slammed down on his wrist, numbing it, and the warrior yanked his spear out of Tobin’s hands.

He tried to get hold of another, but now they were watching for it—and if the wariness of the men in front of Tobin hindered their blows, it freed those behind him to strike at will.

A hard rap on his skull set him swaying, dizzy. A thread of hot blood crept down the back of his neck.

The smartest thing Tobin could do now was lie down and fake unconsciousness, but he was too angry, too frightened.

He grabbed for another spear and missed. A shrewd blow struck his elbow, and pain shot down his arm. He was gasping for breath, and the cage seemed to revolve slowly around him. Soon his unconsciousness wouldn’t be feigned.

“This is not the conduct of warriors,” a man’s voice said coldly.

The blows stopped.

The one-eyed man gazed contemptuously at the warriors who surrounded Tobin’s cage. They looked down or aside and shuffled their feet, like boys caught in mischief.

“A true warrior doesn’t attack those who are crippled or bound,” the older man went on. “Like the slaughter of animals, such tasks are the province of women, and no warrior would stoop to them.”

A couple of the younger men flushed at this.

“You know why we’re—” one of them protested.

“I know exactly what you’re supposed to do and say,” One-Eye interrupted. “And for this night, that’s enough.”

“Well, you don’t have to insult us,” another grumbled.

But they departed, and Tobin dropped gratefully to the cage floor. Now that he had time to feel it, every muscle in his body throbbed and ached.

“Thank . . .”

One-Eye turned and walked away.

Later, when the camp slept, Tobin tested the cage. For people who lived in tents, their carpentry was good. The bars that made up the walls and roof were set into a frame of thick, squared timbers and then, as far as Tobin could tell by touch, nailed into place.

When the goblins had held him prisoner, only a few months ago, Tobin had freed himself by working the metal bolt that secured his chains back and forth till it ground away the wood around it. The sharpest tool he had here was his belt buckle, and filing through one of the hardwood bars with that would take days, at least.

Tobin didn’t think he had days. Though hadn’t someone said something about having to capture a spirit?

However small the chance, it was the best idea he had. He took off his belt and began scraping at the base of one of the bars, where it shouldn’t be too obvious in the daylight.

His eyelids were drooping as the shock of the beating added itself to the residual weariness of his long illness. But sleeping through the day would have the added benefit of making him look sicker than he really was. And if he began tiring, Tobin told himself firmly, all he had to do was think about what the barbarians planned for him, and he’d wake right—

“I see it takes more than a few bruises to stop you. That’s good. For my sake as well as yours.”

It was the one-eyed man. Tobin’s hand closed instinctively over the buckle—though if One-Eye had approached so quietly that Tobin hadn’t heard him, he might have been watching for some time.

“Put your belt back on,” One-Eye said, confirming his guess. “If you’re going to vanish, all your clothing should disappear with you. It’s more dramatic that way, and as a storyteller . . . Well, drama can make the difference between success and disbelief.”

Tobin’s mind spun, but he grasped the important point. “I’m going to vanish?”

“Into the air, like water poured on rocks under the desert sun. Of course, they expect you to escape eventually.”

Tobin blinked. Either he’d been hit on the head harder than he thought or this conversation was taking some odd turns. “They do?”

“They do. Like this.” One-Eye grabbed one of the cage bars and pulled. It snapped like a rotten twig.

Tobin was so startled he didn’t even move. “How did you . . . ? Why . . . ?”

“This bar is always rigged to break. In a few days, one of them, in the process of taunting you, would crack it with his spear. You’d be stiff and weaker by then.” The old man worked the bottom of the bar free of the frame. “That night they would watch from the shadows, waiting for the moment you picked up a weapon. Can you get out now, if I give you a hand?”

Tobin hesitated. This whole conversation made no sense—but he couldn’t be worse off out of the cage than he was inside it. He thrust his head and shoulders through the bars and squirmed.

“Go back to the part where they
expect
me to escape. Why?”

The old man grabbed his shoulders and pulled, then kept his hold so that when Tobin’s feet were free, they swung to the ground, which kept him from falling headfirst.

“That part’s a bit complicated,” One-Eye said. “Let me take you somewhere we can talk.”

If it hadn’t been for his throbbing bruises, walking through the center of the sleeping camp would have felt like a dream. The old man stopped beside the glowing embers of a cook fire and lit a candle stub he pulled from his pocket. To Tobin, the light seemed to present more danger than it was worth, but the stranger had kept him safe so far. The surreal feeling increased when One-Eye led Tobin into one of the largest tents and carefully closed the flaps. Tobin stared around him at racks of swords, chests full of spears, and more racks of the short, curved bows that could send an arrow twice as far as the longbows of the Realm’s foot soldiers.

“Now I know I’m dreaming,” Tobin said. “You’re going to give me a weapon?”

“Not at all,” said One-Eye. “I’m going to explain why you must never take any of these weapons, or any other, and also what makes this the perfect place for you to hide—at least till the first search is over.”

The need to flee into the night pulsed through Tobin’s blood. And curiosity was his brother’s fatal flaw, not his. Tobin was the practical one. But there was something about the old man’s steady gaze . . .

Tobin sat down on one of the spear crates. “I’m listening.”

“You heard Rocza this afternoon, saying that there were ways of getting the blood trust away from you?”

“Yes, and I know you can’t kill me as long as I wear it. Though I don’t understand . . . Wait a minute. How can you understand me now, when you didn’t earlier?”

One-Eye opened his shirt, displaying the now-familiar copper round. “They keep these here as well, what few spares we have. Only warriors, the Duri, are entitled to wear them, but I stole this one long ago. I knew that one day I would need it—it took the fools longer than I expected to bring in a Softer knight—but we don’t have time for that tale now. The only way to take someone’s blood trust from them, without violating sacred law, is to convince them to challenge you. If two people are determined to fight, the blood-trust laws don’t strictly forbid it.”

Tobin remembered another shred of conversation from the morning. “So if I came at one of your warriors with a weapon in hand, that would be a challenge and they could fight me, even though I’m wearing the amulet?”

“Yes, and if they succeed in disarming you, or kill you, then your amulet is forfeit. Which is why so few warriors are willing to challenge each other—the penalty for losing is too serious to risk lightly.”

It made a twisted sort of sense.

“Is that why they set things up so I can escape? They figure I’ll find or steal a weapon and fight them. Then, when they win, they can take the amulet and kill me at will?”

“Exactly.” One-Eye nodded encouragement. “And I’m glad to see that blow didn’t damage your wits. You’ll need them in the next few days.”

“Then why bring me here,” Tobin asked, “if you’re not giving me a weapon?”

“Because this is the first place those who escape are expected to go.” The gleam in the old man’s remaining eye reminded Tobin of Jeriah at his worst, and his misgivings increased. “By the time they’re shown the flawed bar, they’ve watched people going into this tent empty-handed and leaving with weapons often enough to know what’s stored here. So this is the first place searchers will look for you, and when they don’t find you—”

“Why won’t they find me?”

“Because . . . Here, I’ll show you.”

One-Eye opened a crate of spears and began pulling them out. “They’ll expect you to spring out at them with a weapon, especially in here, so they’re not likely to look very hard. And even if they did . . .” He lifted up the bottom of the long crate. But it wasn’t the bottom, Tobin saw as he peered inside. It was a false bottom that covered a space that might well hold a man—if he hadn’t eaten much for the last few months, and maybe held his breath.

“You’ve been planning this a long time,” said Tobin, staring at the well-made secret compartment. “Why?”

For the first time, One-Eye hesitated.

“Our blood trust—you call them amulets, as if that was all they are—do you know how they’re made?’

“I’ve heard it involves human sacrifice,” said Tobin. “And I’ve seen nothing to change my mind.”

“Human sacrifice,” the storyteller repeated, as though the concept was strange to him. Did that phrase come to his mind with multiple connotations, as so many of his words did to Tobin? “That’s part of it, but really the least part. The human death is only a carrier for the magic of the spirit.”

“Explain,” said Tobin. “Quickly.”

“Still not made up your mind? Then listen carefully, for there are things you need to know if you plan to flee. To make these amulets, our shamans must first capture a spirit. Which isn’t as easy as it used to be, for they know the fate they’ll meet at our hands. At this moment no one has even located a spirit, which gives us a bit of time.”

“More quickly,” Tobin said. He didn’t know how many hours remained till dawn, but if he was going to run—which seemed a lot smarter than hiding in a chest in the middle of the barbarians’ camp!—he wanted to do it long before sunrise.

“It takes the time it takes,” the storyteller said reprovingly. “All of this is important. And the more you interrupt me, the—”

“All right, go on.”

The storyteller seated himself on a chest with unnecessary deliberation. “To sum the matter up, the shamans must capture a spirit, and also a human they’re willing to kill. As the molten copper is poured to make the medallion, they open the human’s veins. His death—his knowledge of his impending death is part of what makes this possible—opens up a void in his body so the shamans can force the spirit into it.”

The hair on the back of Tobin’s neck had risen. “They force a spirit to occupy a human body? While the human’s still in it?”

“It appears to be painful for both of them,” the storyteller confirmed. “But the fact that the human is dying somehow makes it possible. And when a spirit is bound in a body of flesh and blood, it dies too. The blood must quench the medallions while the human-spirit is still alive, for only while it lives will the spirit’s magic transform simple copper to a thing of power. So the bleeding out is made to last as long as possible, that more trusts can be awakened.”

Tobin’s stomach was rolling. This was worse than cannibalism. “Then you don’t eat people after all?”

“Oh, yes. As soon as the body dies, our warriors eat the flesh. It’s consuming that flesh, which still holds part of the spirit’s magic, that awakens/ignites/restores their inborn power.”

Tobin rose abruptly to his feet. “Thanks for warning me about the weapons. I’ll make sure not to pick one up if I’m captured.”

“You will be captured,” the storyteller said calmly. “One of the powers that are kindled in our Duri is the ability to sense . . . the shamans call it ‘disruptions in the magical field.’ They can sense the presence of a blood-trust medallion several hundred yards away. Some can sense them even farther off. So as soon as one of the searchers passes anywhere near you, they’ll know you’re there, and in approximately which direction. It would be much harder for me to free you a second time.”