Jean Rabe - Goblin Nation

Would Skakee be all right? he wondered.

He passed homes in various stages of construction. There were as many different styles of buildings as there were clans. The closest one to the edge of the bluff was nearly complete and resembled the tavernkeeper’s in Steel Town because the logs that formed the walls stood on end. It lacked windows, though a charcoal-drawn square on the logs on the west side indicated where one might be cut. The door was merely an opening with a deer hide hanging across it. The roof was crooked, made of branches woven together with vines and pitched like the tavernkeeper’s had been, high and sharp. The roof rattled in the wind, and he knew that the snores seeping out from behind the deerskin had to be loud because he heard them clearly.

A tent had been pitched close by, patched with animal hides, and tilted to one side. A corner of it was loose and flapped like a one-winged bird trying to take off. Several Skinweavers were sleeping inside, a small black pot sitting just beyond the entrance. Direfang wondered if they had boiled elf heads inside the pot.

A little farther on, Direfang saw a group of homes that were essentially lean-tos. Impatient members of the Flamegrass clan had built them quickly and haphazardly, unwilling to spend more time on something more substantial. Despite the time they’d spent chopping trees and clearing sections of ground, only a few dozen homes were essentially finished. It would take months, the hobgoblin knew, before there were homes for everyone.

“Months and months,” he muttered to himself, pausing to stare down the bluff. “Maybe years.” On a wide stretch of bank, some of the Fishgatherers had started to build one large building that would likely house twenty or more of their clan. It boasted a foundation made of stones they’d pulled from the shallows of the river. Logs lay near it, but not even one wall was started. The clan slept between the foundation and a stand of cattails that bent almost flat in the wind.

He felt a drop of rain and looked up. More drops hit his face. He closed his eyes and relished the feel of wetness, until the rain started to come down harder. It rat-a-tat-tatted against his hide and the lean-tos, and it woke up goblins sleeping outside unfinished dwellings. It pattered against the ground that had for long days been hard and dusty. In fact, it hadn’t rained for days, and so many of the ferns and wildflowers were wilted and brittle.

Direfang held his arms out, welcoming the deluge and a chance to wash the stink from his clothes and hide. He had a brief pang of worry over some of their supplies, but most were in chests-all of his books and maps were safe, all of it was tucked beneath the mushroom canopies of the big willows.

Many of the goblins did not share his gladness for the rain. Many howled and cursed as they scattered, looking for shelter. The Fishgatherers found it beneath an overhang of the bluff-Direfang watched them scurry there; then, though, a few of them raised their hands to the dark sky and danced.

The slap of goblin feet competed with the pattering of rain as the goblins scrambled for cover. He slowly turned to survey the bedlam, seeing a bunch of goblin fingers poking out from under the tent in an effort to hold it down. The loose corner flew free, and more of the tent flapped wildly. Nearby, goblins crowded into the home with the tilted, high-pitched roof.

Lightning flashed and in that instant, Direfang saw goblins who had been sleeping in a big oak scramble down the trunk. Another flash of lightning was followed by an unusually loud clap of thunder. He felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. Some of the younglings cried in fear, and their parents told them it was nothing to worry over. It was not like when the earth bucked in Neraka, and the volcanoes erupted. It was merely a storm.

A scream followed another flash, and Direfang watched the home that had been built to resemble the tavernkeeper’s totter. Goblins spilled out from behind the deerskin door just as the walls fell apart and the roof started to slowly cave in.

The rain pelted sideways, and the Flamegrass lean-tos took flight, goblins frantically trying to grab at the hides and sections of thatch that were careening across the open ground. He stood and watched helplessly. The rain was a solid sheet of gray that had turned patches of dirt into wide puddles and bent the smallest trees. He saw shapes in the gray, goblins scrambling from one place to the next, and in between gaps in the thunder, he heard their curses and the whoops of some of the younglings who seemed not to mind all the water.

The rare torrent went on for what seemed like a long, long time. At one point the wind blew so hard, it took Direfang to his knees. Then it suddenly lessened to a gentle patter, the bluster gone out of the storm. The sky was still dark, dawn held at bay by the still-thick clouds. Direfang’s eyes were keen, and he didn’t need the light to see.

Most of his city was in ruins. All it had taken was a great storm.

Walls had collapsed, roofs had blown away, and there were no traces of some of the lean-tos. Direfang padded toward Qel’s and discovered the bloodrager pelts torn loose from the posts. But Orvago had stopped the wind from stealing them; he and Qel held them around Rockhide in an attempt to keep the old goblin dry.

A few of the homes-or rather the frames of homes-had withstood the onslaught, but as Direfang had noted earlier they were better constructed than the majority. They were the property of the Boarhunters, the goblins who had seemed practiced at cutting down trees.

Another home not far from the edge of the bluff appeared to be unharmed. He headed toward that place. It was small and squat, the logs that made up its sides were short and rose little more than two feet off the ground. The roof was a tightly woven mass of grasses and thin branches.

“Mudwort?”

Direfang knelt at the entrance. He’d seen her building it, with the help of Sully, who she’d somehow coerced and directed into doing her bidding. The building was unlike any of the others, and he peered inside what passed for the door.

“Mudwort?” It was so dark inside that he almost didn’t see her. But then the shadows moved, and her eyes glowed red for an instant. She was alone. Where most of the goblins craved companionship and wanted to share their dwellings, Mudwort preferred solitude. They were alike that way, at least, Mudwort and Direfang.

“Was sleeping, Direfang.”

“Not in the storm. The storm woke everyone.” His eyes began to distinguish between the shadows, and he realized the floor of her home was not level like all the others. It was a bowl-shaped depression that was dug a few feet deep. That was why the walls outside were so short, her home was dug halfway into the earth. Inside, Mudwort could stand and raise her hands up and still not touch her ceiling.

Inside it was dry.

Direfang crawled in.

Mudwort puffed out her chest. “Direfang brings in the rain,” she sneered.

He smelled the muskiness of her and the richness of the earth too. He also smelled an assortment of herbs she’d gathered and was drying along one wall. Folded next to them was a tunic on a leather satchel, and a small pouch Direfang knew was filled with sapphires taken from the same dwarven village where Graytoes had found her baby. There was a polished wood cup and a few other small items that were inconsequential yet comprised Mudwort’s treasure.

He sat opposite her, discovering the bowl was deep enough that he did not have to hunch his shoulders.

“The city, Mudwort, is-”

“In pieces. Saw it fall. Saw the wind take the roofs and knock down the walls.” She shook her head and put on a sad face, though Direfang suspected her expression was ingenuous. “But saw Graytoes and Umay find shelter. Saw Grallik and Sully and-”