Jean Rabe: Goblin Nation

Direfang raised his gaze to the scattering of nut trees at the far side of the tanning hides, staring off. “Mudwort shouldn’t have left Graytoes alone,” he said irritably. “Mudwort should know better.” He clenched his hands, the nails digging into his palms. Mainly he felt angry at himself. He fished in his pocket for the silver spoon and thrust it at Graytoes.

“For Umay!” she squealed with delight. “Where did Direfang find such a pretty, shiny thing? Where did-?”

He cut her off with a glance. “Move,” he said.

Direfang took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the pleasant smell of the tamped-down grass, the foul smell of the tanning hides, and the scents of Umay and Graytoes. Then he picked up the spire and started south. Thousands of goblins left a trail that was easy to follow. They moved slowly without him too. They wouldn’t be far ahead.

Graytoes tucked the spoon inside Umay’s blanket and hurried to catch up.

Well more than a week later, as the sun just started to set, Direfang was digging a hole on a bluff under the shade of a honey locust. When he was done, he placed into the hole the three egg-shaped stones that he’d been carrying in his pocket.

He couldn’t recall if they’d been touching when he unearthed them near the ruined foundation back near the camp they’d vacated, though for some reason he thought they should. So he rested the narrow ends against each other, fingers lingering on the pretty blue one, and turning them so the carved letters faced up.

He was aware that the gnoll Orvago was watching him closely. Grallik, too, was interested, though the wizard stayed farther away-thinking, perhaps, that Direfang had not noticed him.

Direfang had determinedly lugged the spire all that way, despite urgings from Thya and Knobnose that he drop the heavy load. They saw nothing particularly special about the rock spire and thought it silly to carry such a burden so far. Hundreds of goblins had come over to look at it or touch it during the past few days, but only a handful showed anything more than a passing curiosity in the big rock. Most wondered whether Direfang had lost his wits, dragging around such a worthless item.

“Just a rock,” the hobgoblin Sully pronounced, those around him agreeing. However, Sully had carried it occasionally for Direfang when the hobgoblin had looked a little fatigued. “Carved, pretty, but just a rock. A big one.”

Direfang had not argued with Sully or the others; they could well be right. But he was determined to keep it nonetheless.

“Magic in it maybe, Direfang,” Mudwort said thoughtfully. She hovered next to him and watched as he placed the base of the spire on top of the three stones and filled dirt around it as an anchor. “Magic probably.” She’d also told him that a week past when he’d asked her to examine it. But even then she couldn’t tell him the function of the spire’s possible magic. “Might be useful. Might not. Might have only marked the grave of a dead elf.”

Direfang had thought Mudwort would be wholly fascinated by the stone, but she seemed preoccupied with something else, humoring him by paying some attention to him at odd times like then.

“Might be a bad thing, Direfang. Maybe it should have stayed where it was found.”

He couldn’t tell her why he felt compelled to bring it along-other than that he’d decided he wanted it. Direfang rarely wanted anything tangible. The mug he had unearthed he’d already given to Sully.

“It marks here the spot of the first city of the new nation, this spire.” He brushed his palms against his trouser legs as he spoke. He stood back to admire it. “A monument to goblins.”

“There is no city here, Direfang. And that’s not a monument to anything.” Mudwort traced the symbols in the spire with a thumb. “Just dirt and trees and many, many goblins here. Goblins cutting down some of the trees.”

In the silence that settled between them, he heard the chopping sounds of goblins toiling. He hoped they could get a few hours of work in before they settled in for the night. Goblins had keen senses and could see well even when the light left the sky, but he knew he could not push them too hard.

Some five thousand goblins were massed in the area, all working, all under his command. He couldn’t see them all, as the ground was not flat, rising into ridges like thick wrinkles on a boar’s neck. The gullylike depressions hid a good many from his view. But he could hear the horde, thrashing through bushes and chattering, some snoring, and the younglings playing.

“You are wrong. There will be a city here, Mudwort,” the hobgoblin returned as he rolled his shoulders to work out a sore spot. “And after it is finished, then it will be named.”

She made a snorting sound and picked something out of her teeth. “Perhaps it will be called Rock Town,” Mudwort mused. “Named after Direfang’s maybe useful spire. Maybe Direfang’s Bad Rock.”

Irritated, he padded away from her and stood at the edge of the bluff, staring down a slope covered with trillium and moss roses to a meandering river that looked earth-brown in the growing shadows. Widely spaced maples grew along his side of the bank, tall ones with thick trunks whose roots reached out into the water like blackened, thirsty snakes. The trees on the opposite side were much smaller, mostly firs as far as he could tell, as if the river marked a line between two different lands. Perhaps a fire had ravaged the other side some decades before, he reflected, the river stopping the flames from touching the other part of the forest and keeping the old hardwoods safe.

There were also willow trees on the side where the goblins worked, though not many of them. Two were massive, their canopies like giant mushroom caps that sheltered secrets beneath them. Mostly there were oaks. Farther west along the river were cattails, and a handful of young goblins not yet assigned work were busy searching through them looking for tasty insects and crayfish. Near them, a broad-faced youngling with yellow skin had become tangled in hyacinth vines and was calling for help. The crayfish hunters watched and cackled until he pulled himself free.

Groups of scouts had found several likely places for the city. Direfang had picked that particular spot from among the candidates because the river was sluggish there and not terribly wide. That made it safer as far as he was concerned; most of the goblins could not swim. The river would provide adequate water, perhaps an abundance of fish, and there were plenty of large trees for shade. Too many trees, really, and that made it even more ideal, according to the gnoll druid. Direfang heard a persistent thuck sound-members of the Boarhunters clan chopping down trees the gnoll had marked. Some of the land would have to be cleared for goblin homes.

Mostly, Direfang picked that place because so many of the goblins were impatient to choose and begin to build. He feared too much delay might cause the horde to splinter with some of the smaller, younger clans drifting away. He wanted to keep them all together, for safety and strength.

“This will be a good home,” he said to himself.

Direfang could recall so very little of where he lived in his youth. The strongest memories came from Steel Town, perhaps because they were such awful ones. He idly raised a hand and traced a scar on his breastbone, remembering exactly when and where he’d gotten it-three years past, deep in one of the Dark Knight tunnels. He’d been overseeing a crew of new slaves, one of them a goblin with sharply filed teeth and veins so thick on his arms they looked like night crawlers oozing up from the earth. The goblin’s mind was sour, and at one point he turned suddenly and took a pickaxe to Direfang rather than to a nearby wall laced with ore. The goblin swung the axe over and over, striking Direfang’s chest and side before his fellows subdued him. Light had exploded behind Direfang’s eyes that day, with white and red shards that danced in dizzying patterns in front of his fingers as they dripped scarlet with his own blood.