"I don't know," I admitted. "The gurvani I met on the road to Farise
were warriors, but they kept to their own territories up in the mountains and
rarely bothered the human tribes, not until the Doge's troops started trying
to conquer their mountain passes. I can't imagine what would drive them to
this. Something pretty powerful, I expect. Or it could be as little as a single
shaman with a witchstone trying to prove his worthiness to impress a girl
goblin." I fondled the stone in its pouch. "I guess he failed."
That got me thinking, a bad habit of mine when I'm eating. Tyndal
knew enough to leave me alone. After a while I turned to back to him with a
question. "How did this valley come to be settled here, anyway? What's the
history?"
"Well, I don't know much – mostly what Ma and her friends told me –
but almost two hundred years ago Sire Koucey's great-great-great-grandsire
was given this land for his assistance in the last of the Goblin Wars. The last
battle was fought here, near Boval Castle, actually. Sire Koucey's ancestors
did something brave in battle and the Duke of Alshar, himself, granted his
family the lands of the Vale as a reward, and also gifted him with a harp of
gold, twenty cows, among the finest of his herds, and two strong bulls,
named—"
"Hold," I said, putting up my hand. "Did you say 'the last of the Goblin
Wars'?"
"I believe I did, Master."
"Then I think I may have discovered the reason we were attacked, then.
I knew the gurvani tribes fought against the Alshari when they – we, I mean
– pushed beyond the frontier established by the Magocracy to settle. I didn't
know the last battle was here."
He shrugged. "Does it make a difference, Master?"
"It might. I know the Imperials in the East still hold a grudge over the
old Imperial Palace, the site of their last battle. That's why the Eastern
Dukes built new ones when they took over, and gave the old Imperial
palace at Reymes to the priests of Goma. Where did your ancestors come
from, Tyndal? Before Boval?"
"Well, on my Mother's side we came with Lord Koucey's company. He
gave us the Heights in return." The Heights was the name of the farm that
Tyndal's drunken mother owned. She barely held it, now, and she and
Tyndal rarely spoke. He often mentioned how nasty should could be, one
reason he sought employment elsewhere when he was old enough to leave
the farm. Of his father, he spoke even less. Apparently he and his mother
had been of very brief acquaintance.
"Ever see any of the gurvani artifacts around? You don't just put those
up because you like to decorate."
"Well, there are the forest stones – these carved rocks you can find in
the woods – but Ma says the Tree Folk put them there, not the goblins.
There are plenty of caves, though. We used to play in them, the small ones
near the pastures during the summer. I even saw a few goblins once,
hunting. They even waved. There might be a few things of theirs left in
them. Ma would never let me go to the ones higher up."
"Very wise of her," I said. I couldn't help teasing him a little. "While the
gurvani don't eat human flesh as a rule, it has been known to happen, and
children are, I imagine, pretty tasty."
"Good to know," Tyndal replied, wide-eyed.
After that, the conversation turned to the usual daily bull session on
magic, where Tyndal asked me questions and I tried to answer them without
getting frustrated. I was starting to realize that teaching was a lot harder
than I'd expected.
When we had sopped up the very last shred of stew and drained our
mugs, l paid the shot and had the horses brought around, we got back on the
road. I wanted to make as much time as possible before sundown – the
gurvani are nocturnal.
We made good time. The weather was pleasant, just a slight chill that
presaged the coming winter, and the bright autumn sunshine warmed our
faces as we rode.
I continued the lesson on warwands from the saddle, as well as I was
able, and I was impressed at how quickly Tyndal was picking up the theory.
Recent events had spurred his interest in the subject, of course, and he
wanted to know everything at once.
We were about two hours north of Hymas on the North Road when we
heard screaming in the distance, followed by a particular snarl that I'd heard
all too recently.
I glanced at the sun sourly. They are supposed to be nocturnal!
Someone was in trouble, and I was the closest thing to a hero within
shouting distance. Tyndal was startled, too, his eyes wide. He was also
immobilized by the scream.
"Shit! Tyndal, arm your wand and follow me! Don't worry about
attacking, just keep them off my back!" I said as I stood in the stirrups and
summoned my defenses. Traveler lurched forward eagerly. I didn't bother
looking back to see if my apprentice was following, partly because of the
potential embarrassment I would have felt if he hadn't, and partly because I
was trying to foresee the situation ahead of us.
Trying to sling spells from the saddle is a very refined art, a specialty of
some equestrian warmagi who can get it right most of the time. I'm as good
a horseman as a baker's son has any right to be, and had ridden extensively
during my professional career, but I still had difficulty concentrating
enough to complete the simple reconnaissance spell properly.
The fuzzy result gave me only vague awareness of the situation ahead.
It was, of course, more goblins. I could foresee a knot of them clustered
around one or two humans. That was adequate enough intelligence to
determine my plan of action. I put spur to flank and drew Slasher with one
hand, a warwand with the other. In moments I entered the scene of
destruction, no doubt cutting a dashing and heroic figure.
There was a whole band of them, almost a score. Or at least there had
been. Two lay still and bleeding, and two more clutched their heads and
screamed piteously in the overbright sunshine. But the others were
surrounding the humans and poking at them playfully with spears and clubs
and laughing at their torment.
I was coming upon their band from the rear. They had just started to
turn to the sound of Traveler's hoof beats when I was upon them.
Slasher swept the heads off of two as I barreled around the bend.
Traveler's hooves trampled a third. He's not a warhorse, but he's quite
intelligent, and he knew what to do when I commanded him like this. The
momentum of our charge was enough to bowl-over a handful of them in a
tangled heap. My wand played across the pile of gurvani as I leapt – or fell,
depending on how you looked at it – from the saddle. I was gratified that it
chewed holes in their bodies, enough to get their attention.
The goblins had been taken by surprise, but that didn't stop those of
them who hadn't fell in my attack from regrouping. Suddenly I was faced
with a small and angry mob of hostile little furry buggers.
While I was not thrilled with the prospect, they had turned their
attention from their victims to face me, and I hoped that helped. Before my
boots had skidded to a halt Slasher was parrying their nasty little clubs and
spears while I lined up more targets for my wand in my mind.
I didn't have much in the way of combat spells prepared and hung after
the busy night I'd had, so I just fought like hell. A couple of times I even
used my wand as a club.
The goblins pressed me aggressively, threatening me from almost every
side, but their smaller stature and the potential for hitting allies in the battle
made them cautious. I had no such handicap. I poked my sword wherever I
felt it would do the most good, slicing arms and legs and eyes
indiscriminately.
One by one they fell back, some of them permanently. Traveler, too,
was having a grand old time rearing and stomping – he hadn't seen action in
almost a year – and I saw at least one crumble from a shot from Tyndal's
new wand.
Their number had suddenly dwindled to five increasingly panicky little
warriors who were visibly considering fleeing from my attack . . . when
they were hit from the rear by one of their intended victims.
A young farm woman was wielding a stout cowherd's staff with anger
and precision about their furry ears. The gurvani squealed in frustration as
she brained the first, no doubt disheartened by being attacked from the rear
twice in one day. A sweep of the staff and she knocked another off of his
feet, where Tyndal ended him with a dagger blow to the chest. Her added
distraction made cleaning up the others a lot easier, and within moments all
of the raiders had been dispatched or fled.
I heaved for breath while my nerves tried to recover from the
excitement – it was easier to do this kind of thing when I was augmented,
and I made a mental note to rehang the spell tonight.
I was covered from head to toe in hot blood and black hair. I regarded
the woman over the heap of bodies. Indeed, I recognized her.
She was young, perhaps twenty, and her hair was plaited in two long
braids over each ear. Her dress was the stout brown plaid wool that was
favored in Boval, and it, too, was stained with blood – but so was the end of
her staff. Her labored breathing made her breasts swell appreciatively, and I
was suddenly reminded of one of my natural reactions to combat. She was
an attractive woman, I saw, handsome rather than pretty, and she held that
staff like she meant it. I was intrigued.
As I said, I recognized her, but in my six months in the Vale I had met a
lot of people. Even a lot of pretty young women. That didn't produce her
name in my mind, unfortunately.
"Can you help me with him?" she said, glancing at her companion, who
lay in the dirt next to the road, clutching his shoulder and moaning.
"Uh, yes, of course," I said, confused by her casual reaction to violence.
Most women would be squealing and screaming at the carnage and how
close they came to death. Hell, I guess I expected her to swoon and shower
me with kisses, but she was acting as calmly as if she was selling cheese in
the market.
I stabbed Slasher into the ground while I knelt by the fallen. Tyndal
came up beside me, eyes wide and darting as he looked for more foes, bow
in hand.
"That was all of them," I said, not as sure as I sounded about the fact.
He nodded, and turned his attention to the live humans, once the dead
goblins no longer disturbed him.
"This man needs help. Bring my bag from the horse." He nodded and
turned, but that wand never left his white-knuckled fist. He threw a casual
wave to the woman, whom he apparently knew, and trotted off.