Hilari Bell - The Goblin War

THE GOBLIN WOOD
THE GOBLIN GATE

and

The Knight & Rogue Novels

The Last Knight

Rogues Home

Players Ruse

and

The Prophecy

The Wizard Test

A Matter of Profit

HILARI BELL used to work as a reference librarian, but she now writes science fiction and fantasy for kids and teens from her home base in Denver, Colorado. Hilaris favorite activity is camping, when she spends all her time reading and hiking. She says, Camping is the only time I can get in enough reading. Well, I take that backwhen it comes to reading, theres no such thing as enough. You can visit her online at www.sfwa.org/members/bell.

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Chapter 1
Makenna

S HE WAS BEATEN. S HED NEVER accepted that before; not when the villagers shed grown up with had drowned her mother. Not even when shed taken her goblins to war against the whole human race. But now she knew that, sooner or later, the spirits were going to win.

Probably sooner.

Makenna gazed out between the flaps of the big tent. Goblins were only two feet tall, so several dozen goblin families had sacrificed the tents theyd carried through the gate with them to create a shelter for Tobin. And others had donated the thread to sew it together, after the nettle flax that had seemed so sturdy and promising had turned fragile as cobwebs almost as soon as it left the spindle.

There was something wrong with the very fabric of the Otherworld, but it wasnt until Makenna had tried to investigate what was happening to their building materials that shed realized what it was. She had thought her magic was weaker because shed drained herself casting the gate, but the goblins magic had vanished toobecause the Otherworld itself was draining all of them.

Makenna scowled at the array of goblin tents scattered along the shorea shore that had receded almost a hundred yards in the scant week theyd been camped here. At least the spirits hadnt been able to make the whole lake dis-appear overnight, but the stream that had fed it had dried to a trickle in the first day, and the lake itself was vanishing at an unnatural rate. It would be gone in another week. The nearest lake her scouts had found was smaller than this one, and far enough off that they needed to set out for it now, before food grew scarcer. Before the evaporating water grew more foul.

They had to have water, therefore they had to leave. Makenna had ordered the goblins to take down their tents and prepare to depart... but she knew why they hadnt obeyed her.

Tobins ordinary face was thin now, and flushed with fever, his brown hair wet with sweat. Makenna wasnt a healerthat had been her mothers gift. But even before Charba told her, shed known that Tobin was too weak to survive another move. The last one had been hard enough, even though the goblins had carried him on the stretcher theyd rigged, using new-cut pines for the poles. When those poles had rotted and broken within a day, theyd simply cut more. Tobin had been conscious then, some of the time, and hed hated being a burden. But he could no more stop the drain of strength from his body than the rest of them could halt the slow seeping away of their magic. And none of the goblins was willing to leave their soldier behind.

He saved us all from that priests army, Miggy had told her. So were indebted. Even if this place isnt exactly working out.

Isnt working out. What a kind way to avoid saying that Makenna had led them to their deaths.

Tobin would only be the first. The Greeners already had to go too far afield to find enough edible wild plants to feed them, and they couldnt simply move from lake to lake forever. And even if they managed to adapt to that roving life, scavenging enough to survive, the spirits would find some other way to destroy them.

It was Reggs little brother, Root, whod told Makenna that the strange inhabitants of this place called themselves spirits. Theyd let no one but the youngest of the goblin children close enough to learn even that much. But Makenna was enough of a tactician to read their purpose from their actions. They were trying to drive the invaders out of their world, just as shed driven so many settlers out of the Goblin Wood. And like her, they really didnt care if they killed a few in the doing.

Makenna rubbed her face with her hands, brushing away tears, but the facts didnt change. She should leave Tobin behind. With inadequate food and spoiling water, theyd soon be too weak to pack up and escape themselves. Since Tobin couldnt survive being moved, they had to leave him... and she couldnt, no more than the goblins could.

Hed risked his life for her, and for her people. How could she abandon him to die alone?

As the goblins commander, could she do anything else?

She was wasting precious water, allowing the tears to roll down her face, when a small hand fell on her shoulder.

Genral?

Cogswhallop was the only goblin who called her that, but shed missed him so much, so often mistaken anothers voice for his, that she didnt lift her head.

The hand on her shoulder tightened and shook her. I thought youd more iron in you than to sit there spouting like a lass at the first sign of trouble. Were not beat yet.

No other goblin spoke to her with that gruff tenderness. Makennas eyes snapped open.

Cogswhallop?

If this world started throwing hallucinations at them, they were done forbut the familiar long-nosed face didnt vanish.

Cogswhallop snorted. You didnt think you could leave me behind for long, did you? A good thing too, from what Im seeing here. Bend down.

Still half disbelieving his presence, Makenna bent her head.

Cogswhallop slipped a chain over it, the green and brown of unpolished copper, and a crude medallion thumped against her chest. It was round, with runes inscribed around a hole in the middlethough they were nothing like the runes in her mothers books.

Whats... ?

The moment her fingers closed around the medallion, the aching drain on Makennas magic stopped, as abruptly as turning off a tap. Makenna stared at her small lieutenant for a momentthen she pulled off the chain and spun to slap the charm against the exposed flesh of Tobins throat.

If shed hoped for a miracle, it didnt happen. Perhaps his eyelids fluttered, but theyd done that before in his feverish dreams.

It should stop the life drain, Cogswhallop told her. But I dont know much more than that. And weve enough to go round.

Another chain fell over her head, and she slipped a hand under Tobins sweat-soaked hair and pulled the chain of the first amulet around his neck, settling the medallion against his damp skin.

Will it save him? She had a thousand questions, but that was the one that mattered.

I dont know, Cogswhallop admitted. But the answer may be here. He pulled out a bundle of notes, in a neat cramped hand that Makenna recognized. Her breath caught.