The Goblin Wood (6 page)

Tobin’s eyes snapped open, a chill racing through him. The “scorn of his peers” would be expressed with the lash. It was the most humiliating punishment that could be given a knight, short of death. He should have expected it, for treason. He was lucky they’d agreed to let him live.

Tobin bowed acceptance. He knew he had behaved with honor. No one else’s opinion mattered. At least it shouldn’t matter.

“Sir Tarsin, you said you wished to address the court before we call the next case.”

“Yes.” Tobin’s father rose and met his eyes. Cold, all the way to the bottom. The trial had been real after all, but his father had been the judge, and the judgment had fallen against him. His heart beat faster.
Father, please!

“I will not suffer a traitor to take my lands—to sit in my house.” His father’s eyes never left Tobin now, filled with anger, determination, and grief. “I deny this man. He is not my heir. He is no longer my son. And if he ever comes onto my land, I will have the servants beat him off like a thief. Let the Speaker take my words and make them law.”

Exclamations of surprise rippled through the room, but Tobin barely heard them. His eyes filled and he lowered them, grateful that he could no longer meet his father’s gaze. He could feel it, though, proud and anguished. It never left him until the guards led him out of sight.

Tobin let the tears fall as he walked down the corridors in the guards’ grasp. Jeri and his mother should have told his father the truth. They should have
told
him. But if they had, would his father have abandoned Jeriah to face the Hierarch’s wrath alone? This went beyond anger, touching the unyielding core of his father’s honor. But now—

The guards opened a door, shoved him through, and closed it behind him. Tobin tripped over the fringe of a finely woven rug and looked up, startled.

This wasn’t a cell. Expensive rugs covered the floor, their colors bright in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a tall, lean priest rose from behind a desk and gestured for him to take a chair.

“Sit down, Sir Tobin. Should I be saying ‘Sir’ Tobin? No, I see I shouldn’t, but sit down anyway.”

Tobin sank numbly into the chair and the priest reseated himself and gazed at him over steepled fingers. He had the lined, ascetic face of a scholar, but he moved easily, like a man much younger than he appeared to be.

“Let’s get the trivial things out of the way,” he said. “My name is Master Lazur, and I don’t care if you’re guilty or not. The conspiracy is crushed, the leaders dead, so it no longer matters. I have no desire to prosecute your brother, either.” He smiled and waved off Tobin’s attempted protest. “If that’s the man you’re protecting. If it’s not, fine. As I said, I don’t care. There are more serious matters at stake.”

As Tobin wondered dazedly what could be more serious than treason, the priest leaned forward and said, “Tobin, you just lost your home, your family, your rank, and your honor. Would you be interested in a chance to win them back?”

“W
ho do I have to kill?” asked Tobin, astonished.

Master Lazur’s eyes widened.

“That was a jest,” Tobin told him swiftly. “I didn’t mean…”

Master Lazur had composed his expression—but still something gave his thoughts away.

“You do want me to kill someone!” Tobin rose to his feet. “I’m not an assassin. Not for anybody—not for any reason. Find some other traitor to do your dirty work.”

The priest neither moved nor spoke as Tobin went to the door and yanked it open. The two guards outside glanced at Master Lazur and shifted to block Tobin’s path.

They were both armed, and he wasn’t. He couldn’t get out. Several seconds passed. One of the guards reached out and closed the door. Tobin stared at it, his back to the priest. He felt almost as foolish as he was furious.

“Come back and sit down,” said Master Lazur quietly, “and listen. When I’ve finished, if you still want to leave, I’ll let you. Surely it will do no harm for you to hear me out?”

Tobin returned to his chair and sat down, glaring at the priest.

“It isn’t as bad as you think.” Master Lazur was smiling, a charming smile of genuine amusement. Tobin didn’t respond, and the smile faded.

“I’d best start at the beginning.” The priest rose and paced across the room. The sunlight from the window picked out the seven-rayed sun inside five circles on his plain robe. A priest of the fifth circle was powerful—only two levels below the council itself. But Tobin was no one’s killer.

“You’ve been fighting the barbarians on the border for three winters now. Have you noticed a pattern?”

Tobin remained silent.

“Perhaps you haven’t,” the priest went on. “Not in just three years. Let me give you a wider view. The barbarians have been attacking our southern border every winter for fifteen years now—every year there are more of them, fighting with greater ferocity. Since the first attack, we’ve had to move our defended border back toward the midlands four times.”

The grinding, bloody chaos of the great retreat two years ago echoed in Tobin’s memory as the priest went on.

“In the early years, we assumed the attackers were only bandits. We thought they’d give up if we proved too tough for them.”

Tobin frowned. His commander had told him that, just three years ago, but no one believed it now.

“When the attacks increased in size and became better organized, the southland lords were forced to call on the Hierarch for help. We sent spies in among the barbarians and discovered the reason for the attacks.”

“But they’re cannibals!” Tobin exclaimed. “How could your spies—”

Master Lazur’s gaze was cool. “A spy does whatever he must, to survive and complete his mission. You should remember that. Our spies discovered that the barbarians are attacking our land because theirs is dying. A long drought is beginning on the other side of the desert. Each year the rainfall is less, and their soil is poor and easily overfarmed. Each year, more are forced from their homes, to flood our borders. In four or five years, we estimate they will hold most of the southlands. Then they’ll be able to fight us all year round. Their magic is different from ours. At first we thought it must come from the Dark One, but the spies say the barbarians worship no gods at all. Wherever it comes from, their magic is very strong. You’ve probably seen yourself how even strong winds fail to affect their arrows’ flight. Or how muddy ground firms under their feet, how strong they are, and how fast their wounds heal. Our battle priests are barely holding their own. And there are too many of them for us to defeat.”

“But there must be a way to stop them! Could—could we just give them the southlands? Since you say they’re going to take them anyway?”

“It’s impossible to negotiate with the barbarians.”

“Why? If we sent an ambassador, surely they’d listen—”

“We did. And they may have listened, for all we know. But then they ate the ambassador. And the next one we sent. After that, we stopped asking for volunteers.”

Tobin’s stomach twisted. “So you sent spies. But surely—”

Master Lazur shook his head. “They regard anyone except themselves as animals. They won’t negotiate with animals.”

“Then…” Tobin’s mouth was dry, remembering things he’d seen in border villages the barbarians had overrun. “Then we have to defend the border. We can recruit more troops, if the need is this great.”

“We can. And we’ll have to. But you’ve been fighting on the border for the past three years. Do you think, even with more troops, we could defend our present border all year round?”

Tobin shook his head thoughtfully. “We might during the winter. We can take men off the farms then. But in spring the farmers have to plant, or we’ll all starve.”

“Exactly.”

“But part of the problem is that the southern border is so wide, so open. If we fought in a more defensible place, we might be able to hold them!”

Master Lazur smiled and pulled a scroll off a shelf. “It took the Hierarch’s council more than ten years to reach that conclusion. Or at least, to accept the consequences.” He unrolled the scroll and a map of the known world lay before Tobin. “You’re a knight. Find me a border we could defend against a barbarian force eight times the size of the one you’re fighting now.”

“Eight times!”

“That’s how many there are. When the drought has driven them out, they’ll all come here, so find us a defensible border.”

Tobin turned shocked eyes to the map. Sea to the east and west. In the far south lay the desert, with the unexplored lands of the barbarians beyond. In the far north, past the vast expanse of the goblin woods, the map trailed off into a great white plain of ice and snow. Between the desert and the goblin woods lay the Realm of the Bright Gods.

First the southlands—rolling, rocky hills, dry and warm and dusty. Poor soil for crops, but the best wine in the realm.

Above them, the midland plains—grassy, flat, and fertile with the great rivers twisting through them and the low-lying wetlands off to the east. The heart of the realm, wider and even less defensible than the south. Tobin’s eyes sought the curve in the Abo River that bounded his home, and sickness twisted through his stomach.

North of the midlands were the light woodlands—poorer crops, but they produced timber and furs. The land narrowed here. Fewer miles to hold, but the barbarians could slip an army through those woods, man by man, and nothing could stop them. And that was where the realm ended, at the narrowest point where the great goblin wall…

The great wall, stretching right across the narrowest part of the continent, ten feet high and six feet thick—the army could hold that wall against all the barbarians in the world, but…

“But that’s the northern border of the realm! There’s nothing beyond it but the deep woods, and then the ice! We couldn’t possibly—”

“Move the whole realm behind that wall over the next ten to fifteen years? It’s already begun. What do you think happened to the southern villagers when the border passed over their lands? The ones we were able to evacuate have moved north and resettled. Since we understood the situation, we’ve been trying to talk them into traveling all the way to the north woods and settling beyond the wall. Most refuse to believe the barbarians will make it that far, and they settle in the midlands. Only a few of them have been wise enough to see the truth and gone all the way, to build anew on the other side of the wall. And these are people who’ve already been driven out of their homes!” Master Lazur sighed. “Even with the enforcement of the Decree, which consolidated our power, we haven’t been able to persuade anyone else to start moving. And we can’t really begin to try, until—”

“The Decree of Bright Magic.” A chill passed down Tobin’s spine. “You didn’t pass it because the Bright Ones stopped favoring the army.”

“Of course not. How could the Hierarch’s army lose the Bright Gods’ favor? But peasants who will turn to a hedgewitch for healing, even though their magic is far inferior, just because it’s cheaper…” The priest shook his head. “You can imagine how they’ll react to being asked to pack up and leave land they’ve farmed for generations. The church’s power must be absolute—proven to be absolute—long before that question arises.” For a moment, naked steel sounded in his voice. “But there’s an even more urgent problem before us.”

“I can imagine,” said Tobin. “Having to uproot a forest to plant a field must appall the southerners.”

“It does,” Master Lazur admitted. “But the ones who go that far are determined, farsighted people. Trees wouldn’t stop them. The problem, ironically, is goblins. Three centuries ago the church sought to drive the goblins into the north, and failed. But the Decree of Bright Magic has accomplished what those old priests couldn’t. A large number of goblins have been driven out and settled behind the wall, precisely where we ourselves must now go.”

“But surely goblins couldn’t stop us. They’ve been dwelling in this land for…well, forever.”

“Yes, but they’re extraordinarily hard to exterminate, as we’ve learned since the Decree passed. Goblins have neither loyalty nor courage, so they’re easily discouraged. Even if we couldn’t kill them, we could defend our settlers against normal goblins. However, these goblins are different, because a human is leading them.

“There is a powerful sorceress in the northern woods. Somehow she’s managed to enslave a vast horde of goblins who drive out anyone who passes the wall. Even our armed exploratory troops have been killed or forced to retreat.”

“A sorceress? I didn’t think they still existed.”

“They’re rare, thanks to the Bright Ones’ grace. But occasionally someone obtains power from the Dark One. Then we must destroy the sorcerer, which isn’t always easy, for they can be very powerful. Make no mistake about that, Tobin; never underestimate her—it’s likely she has the power, if not the training, of a high-ranking priest.”

“Then she, this sorceress, is the one you want me to kill? I thought it took a priest to kill a sorcerer. I thought you needed magic to fight magic.”

“Not necessarily. Put a blade through the heart, and anyone will die. The problem with sorcerers is getting close enough to do it. You’re right, though, ordinarily we’d send seven high-ranking priests to take a sorcerer, because one cannot stand against seven. The problem”—irritation flashed over the lean face—“is that horde of goblins she’s compelled into her service. They killed two of the seven priests we sent and drove the rest off before they could even find the sorceress. That was four years ago, when we first heard rumors of her existence. Since then we’ve sent armed troops, with another group of priests, and several bounty hunters have tried for the reward, but all have failed.”

“Then what makes you think I could succeed? Even if I agreed to become an assassin, which I haven’t.”

“Don’t you think it would be worth sacrificing your scruples to save this whole land?” Master Lazur leaned forward. “That’s what’s at stake, Tobin. If we’re to get our people behind that wall in time, the early settlement, and the exploration of the outlying woodlands, must begin now. A flood of panicked refugees crashing over that wall would simply starve. It must be an organized resettlement if we are to survive it, and that means it must begin soon. Within the next year, three years at the very latest. So this sorceress who prevents us must be stopped. And she’s already earned death, for the deaths she has wrought in the Dark One’s name.” The passion in his voice sounded sincere.

Tobin, having spent years learning to resist his mother and Jeriah, distrusted passion in charming and persuasive people. And Master Lazur struck him as both. Still, if the sorceress truly deserved to die—“What makes you think I could do it, when so many others have failed?”

“Frankly, I’ve no reason to think you could. Your presence is part of my larger plan. I’ll send you in, and at the same time I’ll arrive with a band of priests and a troop of guards, mixed in with, and disguised as, a large group of settlers. Our presence should distract her from you, and your presence should distract her from us. Your real job is to find where she lairs and plant this nearby.” He held out a small, flat, brownish orange rock.

“What’s this?” Tobin took it reluctantly. “Is it magic?”

“No, which is why I hope it will work. If it was magic, she’d be able to sense it and would take care to keep it under her hiding spells.”

“Hiding spells?”

“You’ve never had a hiding charm? You must have been a very honest child—most apple-thieving boys have bought one from the local hedgewitch by the time they’re ten. At least they used to. It’s a simple charm, but even if it’s made by someone with very little power, it will shield its wearer from detection by magic. The hiding spell is like a hiding charm, only it covers an area. You put this rock outside that area, and I’ll be able to scry for it—to see it in my crystal, or in water if I wish. And, though this is more delicate and might take several days depending on the distance, I can locate it. Planting the stone may take some work. If she captures you, she’ll put a hiding spell on you. I’m hoping you can drop it outside her spells, but close enough to her lair to enable me to find it.”

“What’s so special about this rock that you can find it?”

Master Lazur smiled. “It comes from the Otherworld.”

He laughed at Tobin’s expression.

“I thought the Otherworld was a myth!”

“Oh, no, it exists. Priests have always been able to open small gates to it. Remember the story of St. Agna’s escape?” He ran a finger down the spine of one of the leatherbound books beside the desk, and Tobin realized they must be his personal spell books.

“Have you seen it?” asked Tobin, fascinated.

“Yes. It’s a beautiful place, in a strange sort of way. We once considered trying to send the barbarians there—which should tell you how desperate our situation is.” The smile flashed again, conspiratorial, inviting. “Only a handful of priests can make a gate big enough for a man to pass through. Those who simply step through and return are unharmed. So we tried some experiments with convicted criminals, but…Never mind. What’s important is that this rock is the only one of its kind in this world. I’ll be able to find it.”