3

 

Take us lower, I told Sion.

She tilted to the right and began descending. She didn’t get low enough for the goblins to pose much of a threat, but it was low enough that I was able to see more details of the camp. The smoke plume was coming from a fire in the center, where the carcass of a large animal was cooking. It was on a spit, and a group of goblins was turning it over the flames.

The tents were scattered chaotically across the valley, with no semblance of organization to the camp at all. Many of the tents looked like they were about to collapse or fall over. I looked back at Maren and saw that Demris had slowed his pace. She was sitting completely still in the saddle, and I assumed she was in the middle of casting a spell.

A horn blared from the camp below.

I looked down and saw the goblins scrambling. At first, I wasn’t sure what they were doing, but then I realized we’d been spotted. Arrows began hurtling toward us, but with a few flaps of her wings, Sion lifted us beyond their range. She circled back and flew beside Demris.

“We should probably get out of here!” I shouted at Maren. “We don’t have the element of surprise now!”

She turned toward me, and I noticed the whites of her eyes were showing. She’d linked her vision to Demris’s. I tried to ignore my revulsion.

“This isn’t a random gathering!” Maren shouted back.

“Follow me!”

I guided Sion back the way we’d came, keeping a wide berth of the camp, and we landed atop a hill that was flat and large enough for both dragons. Demris dropped beside Sion, stabbing his large claws into the ground to stop his momentum. I dismounted and waited for Maren to join me. I couldn’t believe there was an army of goblins out here.

“What did you see?” I asked as Maren slid off Demris’s back.

“Nothing good,” she replied. “Goblins live in tribes, but not in groups that large. I think they are gathering for a reason, and it can’t be for anything good.”

“Should we go back and evacuate the towns?” I asked. “There’s nothing else out here, so I’m sure those creatures must be congregating to launch an attack on them.”

“Goblins aren’t smart enough to plan anything like that,” Maren said. “And rival tribes are always at war with one another.” She paused. “If someone has unified them, it can’t be good.”

“Is that a ‘yes’ for evacuating, then?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. I think we need to figure out what they’re doing.”

“How do you propose we do that?” I asked, then waited for the insanity of her plan.

“We’ll need to get inside the camp.”

That was about what I had expected her to say, so I wasn’t too surprised. “You do realize we probably won’t be able to go undetected, right? They’ll spot us. And then what? We fight our way out? Call Sion and Demris to come and flame them all? If that’s the case, then we may as well have them just do that now.”

“Yes, they would probably see us, but that’s why we’ll go in disguise.”

“What do you mean?”

Maren smiled at me. It was the one she used whenever she was going to say something that I knew would get us into trouble. And it was the same one that I always fell for.

“I’ll cast an illusion spell that will make us look like goblins. Then, we’ll be able to walk around the camp freely without worrying about being seen.”

I blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. It was a clever idea to be sure, but it was still risky. “What if you lose focus on the spell?”

“I won’t.”

“How do you know you won’t?”

Maren huffed. “I just won’t. Look, we could just send Demris and Sion over there to burn them all to a crisp, but it would be a good idea to know why they are here to begin with. What if there are more of them somewhere else? What if we kill these ones and go back to the Citadel, and then another group of them attack the towns in retribution?”

She made a valid point. I still didn’t like the risk involved with her illusion idea, but I didn’t have an idea of my own to offer. I looked at Sion, expecting her to side with me.

It sounds like an adventure, Sion said. You should go.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

“I’m not talking you out of this, am I?”

“Not a chance,” Maren replied, smiling again.

“How will this work? You’ll cast a spell and we’ll look like goblins?”

“Exactly.”

“We don’t speak goblin. Will the spell give us that ability?”

Maren hesitated. “No, it won’t. We’ll have to refrain from speaking.”

I stared at her, hoping she was kidding. She wasn’t.

“It’s not like we plan to live among them,” Maren said. “We just need to figure out what they’re doing.”

“Well, if we don’t speak goblin, how will we do that? I don’t think you’ve got this all figured out.”

“Demris knows goblin. He’ll listen through the bond and tell me what they’re saying.”

I thought I’d found a reason for us not to go through with her plan, but it crumbled like sand and blew away.

“Fine, but if things start to go wrong, we’re out of there and these two,” I pointed to Sion and Demris, “burn the entire camp down.”

“That’s fair,” Maren replied.

“And I’m keeping my sword.”

“No problem. I can hide it under the illusion.”

It seemed Maren had an answer for everything.

An hour later, Sion and Demris dropped us off within walking distance of the goblin camp. It had taken Maren a while to craft our illusions, but she guaranteed that the amount of detail she put into them would keep us from drawing attention to ourselves.

I lifted my hands and admired Maren’s work. My skin was the same mottled color as the goblin from Keth. It was too bad I couldn’t fully see myself in a mirror. I was certain I looked terrifying.

We started the trek toward the camp. As we walked, I kept an eye out for scouts. As long as our illusions held up, I doubted we’d have any issues, but I wanted to ensure we had a clear way of escape if something happened. We followed the natural trail that twisted between the hills and, eventually, reached the outskirts of the camp.

Three goblins armed with spears were standing guard as we came around a bend. I tensed, but they barely acknowledged us. I kept my hand on the hilt of my sword, and we walked past them and continued into the camp. Groups of the creatures were gathered near different tents, conversing in their guttural language. Maren had said there were different tribes of goblins, but aside from different shades of skin color, I couldn’t tell a difference between them.

“Where are we going?” I whispered.

“To that big tent,” Maren replied, nodding toward it. “I saw it earlier. That’s probably the leader’s and the best place to hear what’s being planned.”

I stayed beside Maren, glancing around at all the goblins as we walked. It seemed surreal that we were marching around in the middle of an army of goblins. I reached out through the bond and touched Sion’s mind. Her presence was comforting and eased my nerves.

I’m close, she said. If there’s trouble, I’ll be there quickly.

That’s the main reason I agreed to do this, I replied. Maren is a capable sorcerer, but our bond is different in a way I can’t explain. I trust her, and I trust you, but with you … it’s just different. Does that make any sense?

No, but humans are odd, Sion said. I’ll grow to understand you fully one day. I hope. She made a sound that resembled a snicker. I smiled and tried not to laugh. We were drawing closer to the huge tent that towered over the rest. Unlike the others, this one wasn’t made of animal skin. It was made of cloth. I glanced at Maren questioningly.

“Maybe they stole it,” she whispered.

A hulking goblin was standing near the entrance, much larger than the others I’d seen. He was as tall as I was, with thick flabs of skin showing through his assorted pieces of rusty armor, and he leaned on the end of the shaft of an ax. The bladed end was pressed into the ground under his weight. We walked around to the back of the tent. Thankfully, there were no guards here.

Maren pressed her ear against the tent and listened. I stood near her, keeping an eye out for any unwelcome company. After a few minutes, Maren snapped her fingers to get my attention. I turned to face her.

“There are a few different voices in there, but whoever the leader is asked why dragons flew over the camp. He’s afraid his plans have been discovered.”

“What are his plans?”

Maren shook her head. “He hasn’t said, but whatever they are, he’s decided to speed them up. He—” She paused, listening again. “He’s telling the others to prepare for something, but Demris doesn’t know what the word means.”

We stared at one another quietly for a moment. I had an idea, but I didn’t know how we’d implement it.

“They can’t execute their plans without a leader.”

Maren grinned at me. “Let’s wait until he’s alone. Come on.”

We hurried around to the front of the tent, but we steered clear of the guard. The tent flaps opened, and five goblins stepped out. They looked different than the others, but they weren’t as large as the guard. They wore necklaces of teeth, ears, and other body parts.

“Those are chieftains,” Maren said.

“What about the big one? The guard?”

“That’s a hobgoblin.”

The chieftains dispersed to different parts of the camp, leaving the leader by himself. We were about to sneak back around the tent when he stepped out. Maren sucked in a breath, and I felt my heart drop into my stomach.

It was the sorcerer from Tiradale.