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Part Three - Journeys

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25. Other Sides

“The variety of tribes in Southwestern Tymir makes me question whether the name goblin is a mark of shared ancestry or simply a declaration of unity. In the Midderlands, each clan chooses a dozen of their kin with the shape or traits desired, and those donors gorge themselves until they are ready to regurgitate a birthing sack into an earthen pool. If the clans of Southwestern Tymir reproduce in the same way, I can see little reason for the drastic differences between them.

Though there was a belief in the Midderlands that a Chief would be reborn once returned to his pool. If the unborn goblins truly can make use of flesh destroyed by the water’s acidity, perhaps it might work for animals as well.”

Within the walls of Horvorr, events were beginning and ending. Gudmund wandered in a blind rage in his search for the Sage. Grettir stole the town’s only pair of horses. Hjorvarth, Engli and the Salt Sage had climbed to the high walls and descended, in a somewhat painful struggle, by exceedingly long ropes. They had then, at the urging of their guide, covered themselves in the black wax known as troll blood, so as to cover their scent. Sam, now far further afield than that, rode his rickety cart with only two oxen for company, all the while watched by the hungry gazes of those goblins that lied in wait.

North of Horvorr though, in the dense pine forests near the northern ranges, a small humanoid creature sat perched on a low branch, watching three shadowed figures cross the barren plain of the distant settlement. Loffi and all his clan of goblins were about the trees, so he could not see them, nor could he be well seen, beyond a moonlit sliver of his bat-like face.

“Shouldn’t be here,” warned the shrill-spoken whisper of a fearful goblin, Moonkin.

“Shouldn’t be here,” echoed another named Moonkin.

“Nonsense,” said Loffi, taller than the complainants, even with a slight hunch to his spine. His clan were lean, wretched, but he was slightly more wiry.

“Dalpho said,” the first Moonkin reminded loudly.

“I didn’t hear him. Call me a liar?”

“No,” Moonkin whispered. “Not that.”

Distant footfalls of a heavy tread set rustling amongst the leaves.

“Shouldn’t be here,” a third Moonkin warned.

“Moonkin,” Loffi said, slowly.

“Yes?” came a dozen whispers, all of Loffi’s clan being named that.

“Be quiet.”

“Yes,” came a sullen voice alone.

Through creaking branches and canopied leaves, Loffi’s clan caught sight of a gargantuan goblin with a hunched and twisted frame, with wild eyes that sat uneven in a misshapen skull, fanged teeth which protruded past uneven lips.

“Balluk,” one whispered.

“Balluk,” the others echoed.

Loffi snorted derision and snot. He wiped it off, glad enough that Balluk was going the other way. He looked over to the three shadowed figures, but decided that they wouldn’t cross paths with the Great Chief of the West.

“Shouldn’t be here,” Moonkin reminded.

“Shouldn’t be here,” Moonkin agreed.

“Fine,” Loffi said, climbing up from his perch. He made a reckless effort of sprinting down the long branch, then jumped onto another tree. He got down that with aid of his claws. “Stay high,” he told those above. “Keep slow. Go back to cave.”

“Follow Loffi,” a voice countered.

“Follow Loffi,” a voice agreed.

“Go back to cave,” Loffi said, more sternly.

“That.”

“Do that,” the Moonkins answered.

Loffi carried on across the forest floor, having a little trouble telling hard ground from sinking mud and small holes from the craters of torn up trees. He walked straight into one of those, but snapped both clawed hands into the dry-leaved mud above. He looked down to see a staked pit full of skewered goblins, and sighed through fanged teeth.

“Loffi?” a voice asked from above.

Loffi snorted, spattering snot into the trap below. He clambered out from the hole.

A rustle and laughter sounded from above. “Fell,” a squeaking voice explained. “Should not do that.”

“Unhearing?” Loffi asked them in a vicious snarl. “Go back to cave.”

“Follow Loffi?” asked Moonkin.

“Follow Loffi,” Moonkin agreed. “Not know way.”

“Follow Loffi to cave?” a nervous voice ventured.

“I’m not going to cave,” Loffi said.

“To cave,” a voice agreed, with a rustle of leaves. “Do that.”

“Be quiet.” Loffi narrowed his orbish amber eyes. “Follow Loffi.”

A dozen small and wretched goblins nodded their heads, most smiling, in the trees above.

Loffi’s large ragged ears twitched at the sounds of boots scuffing mud and snapping twigs. He shifted his ears to listen for more distant sounds: water running, kin squealing and chattering; a savage growl, likely from Balluk, in the distance.

He moved carefully, slowly, getting closer to the sound of those three figures who now crossed into the forest. He climbed a nearby tree, and followed them from branch to branch, listening to their words.

“You say you want us to kill goblins,” said Hjorvarth, who to Loffi appeared a huge, black-skinned and monstrous thing, with a tail hanging from its head. “Yet we see that monster and you’re happy to let it pass.”

Loffi looked to the other two: one wearing a manling robe, covered in black as well; and the smallest of the creatures, still a deal taller than Loffi and a lot wider, had no tail at all, but had hard black skin like the largest one.

Loffi sniffed; the air was full of the stink of trolls.

They walked towards a river, through a winding path between huge trees. They made a ruckus for all their crunching of leaves and their groaning. Loffi thought it an odd group, and so he wanted to speak to them. “Agreement,” he told his clan, as he moved quickly and easily from one branch to another. “Clever. Bluff.”

“Loffi clever,” Moonkin agreed.

“Clever Loffi,” Moonkin corrected.

“Let it pass?” the Sage asked. “Even if we could have killed it, the noise would bring in every goblin for miles, and that means an end for all of us.”

Hjorvarth slowed to a stop as they reached a stone-scattered stream, which cut through a grassy mound. They were surrounded on all sides by endless shadows, broken by the thick outlines of tree trunks, most of those ringed with mushroom stairways, or stained with some other fungus or moss. Long tufts of grass sprouted up around them as well, offering cover to goblins other than Loffi and his clan who had managed to encircle the men. “Is that right?” He squinted up through the shadowed canopy of leaves. “You say you’re here to save us from the goblins, and when we see a goblin you want us to run. It was one thing when I thought you were lying Sage, but goblins are here. Within a mile of Horvorr, and your plan is to sneak through their camp at night so that we can flee.”

“Would you please lower your voice?” the Sage asked, his own whisper barely heard over trickling water. “This is no retreat. We are not fleeing. Horvorr will not come under attack for at least three weeks, I am sure of that. Their army is split in two, and one half is still east of Fenkirk.”

“Then what are we doing?” Engli whispered, glancing at each shadowed trunk. “What is your plan?”

“My plan is to be quiet, and to sneak through the forest. The rest can wait.”

Hjorvarth turned to the smaller man. “If he wants to wander off into the darkness, let him. I would rather die facing my enemies, with my back to Horvorr, than fall foul of some goblin trap in the night.”

“There’s no turning back now,” the Sage assured.

“No turning back,” Loffi agreed, causing the man trolls to frown at one another.

“No turn back,” echoed shrill voices as they joined together in haunting chorus.

The Salt Sage sighed. “You see what you’ve done, Hjorvarth?”

Giggles and chortles carried through the trees. Water splashed with a rustle of long grass and the scrape and clatter of pebbles and stones.

Loffi, hunched and half-starved, emerged from the darkness to stand atop a grassy hill on the other side of the stream. He looked studiously down at the three men with his orbish amber eyes. “What are you?” he asked. “Look like manlings. Smell like trolls.”

Hjorvarth scowled. “What are you?”

“Loffi, a goblin. Smelling like a goblin, as well, I should think.”

“Not much!” Moonkin called. “Not much of a goblin!” he joked, though no response came from clan members that shared a name but no sense of humour.

Engli offered a shallow bow. “I am Engli.”

Loffi’s face, dark grey in the blackness, creased in confusion. “Is that a thing? Or a name? Is that who you are or what you are?” He shook his head and snarled, baring fangs. “Forget it! Why are you here? Man troll.”

Hjorvarth gripped his axe. “Why are you here?”

“Me?” Loffi asked. “Loffi is here because he has been told to be here. So those with me, and so those with them, and so all goblins in this forest, and as has every goblin ever stood in one place or the other. Unless… unless he happened to be a Chief. And I am not a Chief. Not much of a Chief, at least.”

“No, you aren’t!” agreed a bellow, slow and low like thunder.

“There’s one now!” Loffi grinned before scampering onto all fours. He left with a rustle of a bush as nervous laughter pitched through the darkness.

“What are the goings on?” asked that same cumbersome voice. “And what is that smell?”

“Should we run?” Engli whispered. “Sage. Are you listening?”

The Salt Sage held up his hand as steps shook the ground around them, with an incessant hiss of leaves and the snap and crunch of roots and branches.

Dalpho shouldered through a pair of ancient tree trunks, knocking one loose from its roots. He lumbered out onto the other side of the stream, and stopped with a tired grunt. He dwarfed the humans several times over, though his monstrous fatness made him seem squat at distance.

“What is your name?” the Sage asked.

“Dalpho,” he answered with a wet snort. “You smell curious.” He peered at the intruders with beady black eyes, deeply set at either side of his hairy trunk of a nose. “I don’t suppose you’re manlings covered in troll filth?”

Hjorvarth and Engli frowned down at their black lacquered skin.

The Salt Sage smiled. “That’s about right.”

Dalpho sighed, and splashed his foot into the deep stream. “At least I won’t need to go far to wash you off.”

“I’m afraid we’ve a long way to go yet,” the Sage said, “and I’m in no mood for a bath. All things considered, Dalpho, you should leave me well enough alone.”

“And, who would ‘me’ be?”

“I believe,” the Sage said, in old goblin tongue, “some of your people call me the Old Enemy.”

Dalpho began a thoughtful nod, only to lurch for a slender tree and tear it out from the ground. “Kill them!”

He hurled the trunk, which spun through the air, roots shedding dirt and mud, and thumped into the ground where the men were standing.

Smaller goblins scrambled out from the darkness, tossing stones at the uprooted tree, accidentally or otherwise at one another.

Dalpho watched the tree bounce off of hard earth and come to a groaning stop, raking up a cloud of debris. “Is he dead? Are they dead?”

The goblins charged forward screaming and cheering, soon coughing up dust. They scrabbled over the tree’s branches, scratching and bludgeoning one another before they realised they were kin, most choosing to continue fighting even after that.

“Stay,” Loffi urged, stood on a large branch with his diminutive clan in a line at either side of him. “Stay.”

Those with him found some humour, a quiet violent urging, seeing throats being ripped with teeth and heads smashed with stones. They watched with delighted murmurs, while Loffi looked away from them, marking leaves and branches that seemed to move of their own accord.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Stay,” Loffi said for a third time. “Run if have to. Don’t follow.”

The dozen goblins named Moonkin looked to him in concern, but then another goblin’s skull broke loudly open and they turned back to the melee.

Loffi snorted snot down himself, and climbed slowly down the tree, making sure that no goblins were waiting and watching to snatch him up as a meal. He got to the forest floor, weaved between two large roots of the tree, and scrambled behind a berry bush.

He plucked a few and chewed them, then followed after distant noises that seemed to be made by those manlings. He heard a scuff of a boot, a noise of surprise, and then watched as a large thorn bush folded in on itself.

He blinked, now seeing the robed manling and the small manling trying to pull the huge one up from the bush.

Loffi wanted to let them go, would have liked to have watched them a while at least, but then remembered he needed to get his own clan back to their cave. There would only be death for them with all these other goblins about, hungry and fighting. “Here!” he screamed. “Over here! Manlings over here! Come—”

A bony hand snatched him up by the back of the throat. Loffi got his claws on the grabber’s wrist, slicing through skin and down to the bone. He was dropped as his grabber roared in agony. Loffi landed in a roll, diving left-ways before a heavy foot smashed down. He scampered forward on all fours, sheltering under a hollow tree.

“Coward,” Balluk snarled.

“Not me!” Loffi called from his hiding hole. “You, or else you’d chase them.”

Goblins drew close, most at a timid approach, though those who had followed Loffi’s path from the stream were now scrambling away from monstrous footfalls.

Dalpho crunched roots underfoot and tore them out with his great weight. “Where are the manlings?”

He smashed branches from trees to get them clear of his eyes until he reached a sunken and circular clearing walled in by earthen mounds.

“Dalpho?” Balluk snarled. He scowled at the enormous goblin from the high ground, making their eyes level. “What are you doing on my land?”

Goblins gathered and watched, whispering and laughing amongst the trees.

“Problem, Balluk?” Dalpho asked, his voice deliberate. “I am chasing enemies. I was, at least, before you interrupted me.”

“I heard them.” Balluk lifted a huge club of mangled iron from his back. “Though I don’t see how you did, with your border being so far away.”

“My shaman told me they would come.” Dalpho noticed the monstrous goblin grow tense. “I’ll be leaving, unless you mean to jump and strike at my head. And if that is your aim, then I wager I’ll hit you before you land. I wager, as well, that one blow will make you dead, and if not then I doubt Lazarus will take joy in my death.”

Balluk bared his grimy teeth. “Perhaps it is time that all the other western Chiefs were dead? Without Ragadin, is there any—”

Dalpho lurched, grabbing him with both massive hands.

“Listen to me, you worm,” Dalpho growled. “I am slow, compared to some, compared to Lazarus. But you are a worm, a slow worm, compared to me.” His grip tightened, almost breaking bones. “Ragadin’s Chiefs were weak. Your mastering them is no achievement.”

Dalpho pushed his huge head closer. “If you ever again ready your weapon against me, I will pull you apart like a spider. I will gobble you up no matter how bad you taste. If you ever again speak Ragadin’s name in my hearing, I will crush you to death. And I will leave your broken body for the runts. Do you understand?”

Balluk struggled to nod.

“Good.” Dalpho let him crumple to the floor. “Consider your land my land from now on.” He lumbered off into the distance, swatting away more thick branches, stumbling past more ancient trees. “I travel where I please.” Most goblins followed after Dalpho, more fearful than entertained. Those that remained watched Balluk with a conflicted disposition of hatred and obedience, none willing to murder him as he recovered.

Loffi did not share that problem. He made his way out from under the hollow tree, up to the rise of mud, and grinned down at a monstrous goblin thrice as broad and tall as he was. He might have hesitated had he not had an old and painful grudge to settle with the Great Chief. “Hello.”

Balluk scowled up with ferine eyes, but claws were already around his neck.

“It’s better that you’re dead,” Loffi whispered in his ear.

“Wait,” Balluk pleaded. “I—”

Loffi tore through his throat.

***

Loffi, after having hidden his own clan in a nearby cave, crept into the modern cavern of Lazarus.

Lazarus stood watching a small bronze brazier that had uneven legs. Three bent and one broken. He cast a large shadow against the cavern’s back wall, which reflected his litheness and boniness but not his small height.The firelight lent an orange sheen to his green skin, added shadows to his ghoulish face and reflected in his slanted eyes. He flexed his sleek claws as he watched the flames, making a methodical tinkling against the brazier.

Loffi searched the small cave with his orbish amber gaze. “Alone?”

Lazarus nodded to the bat-faced goblin. His shadow stretched now he walked to a small table where stood a large brass hourglass. “Three times I’ve turned this.” He stared at the filthy bulbous base, sand sifting down to obscurity. “Sand running while horns blare and screams carry on the wind, while I wait for you, Balluk, or Lazarus, or any other to come and tell me of the goings on. I have to tend my own brazier, toss wood on burning piles and watch the spit and crackle.”

Loffi was confused. “You always do this.”

Lazarus met the words with a scowl. “With others there to do it for me, that is a choice. Alone, that is compulsion. Choice removed.”

“Oh.” Loffi flattened his ragged ears. “I know nothing of the goings on. Was busy, captured, distracted.”

“I am not Dalpho. Not Balluk.” Lazarus bared his fanged teeth. “Tell me what you know, sly little worm. Or I will tell Dalpho that you play at simple minded, so as to better undermine him. That you steal goblins too weak to live for your—”

“Inside!” came a choked scream from beyond the cave.

A communal grumbling grew close. Loffi stepped back to the right wall as goblins much larger and crueler than him, most of them looking like ugly green boars, stomped in and fell together at the left side of the cave.

Balluk entered after them, right forearm a bloody ruin, his misshapen head and bony neck blackened and burnt.

“Gods below,” Lazarus whispered. “What happened to you?”

Balluk’s sneer creased his ruined face. He had crouched because of the roof, but lowered himself further to face one of his boar-faced clan. “Give answer.”

The chubby goblin began to shake, his round eyes darting between diminutive Lazarus and his wrathful Chief. “I don’t… know?”

“Yes,” Balluk agreed. “My throat cut open. Have to burn my face and neck closed on a burning tree because none of you knew. You least of all.” He shook his ugly head. “On my own in my own clan land.”

“Sorry?” the goblin ventured.

Balluk caught him by the head and slammed him into the floor. He pummelled the corpse, crunching bone and splitting flesh, showering his clan in gore while they watched in terror and huddled against the cavern wall.

“Are you done?” Lazarus asked.

Balluk glared at his clan, then grunted at the broken flesh. “Eat.”

The porcine goblins hesitated despite their rounded stomachs. One then led and the others stepped forward.

“Am I done?” Balluk strode forwards, rising higher with the cavern roof. “Am I done? Look at me! Look what you’ve gotten me.” He turned his misshapen head to better show the ruined flesh, and caught sight of the small, bat-faced goblin in the corner. “Who is this?”

“Loffi?” Lazarus asked. “He is lent to me by Dalpho. He turns my sand glass.”

“Turn sand.” Loffi held a blank stare. “Do that.”

Balluk crouched over to the corner, so close that all Loffi could see was a square, ugly head; so all he could smell was rancid breath and burnt flesh. Loffi’s ears rang with the persistent hiss of sand, that then trickled to a stop. He side-stepped towards the hourglass, turned the base, and set it carefully down.

“Speaking of Dalpho,” Lazarus said, more loudly than was his custom. “Where is he?”

“Dead when I find him.” Balluk spat into the flames. “He did this to me.”

Lazarus tossed a cut log into the brazier. “Why didn’t he just crush you?”

“He did.” Balluk snarled, turning away from the flames. He stopped where the roof curved highest, rising as tall as his hunched back would allow. “Left me so some little cretin could open my throat.”

Lazarus looked more to Loffi and the hourglass than Balluk. “Why?”

Balluk’s ferine eyes widened. “Why?”

“Why,” Lazarus repeated more coldly. “Why did he attack you? What did you do?”

“What did I do? Look at me!”

“No less uglier than you were.” Lazarus stepped forwards. “Did you threaten him? Did you threaten me?”

Balluk’s burnt face twitched. “I would do more than threaten if you spoke to me outside this cave! Outside of this low-roofed shelter for worms.”

“Balluk challenge Lazarus!” Loffi declared. “Chief to Chief!”

Balluk glared over at the bat-faced goblin. He looked to the Chiefs of his clan, but they avoided his gaze and a few had already begun to leave.

“Is that what this is, Balluk?” Lazarus asked, despite standing at less than half his height. “A challenge? If it is, then I’m happy to fight outside.”

Balluk waited for a long moment, charred flesh of his neck oozing with each rasping breath. He thought about snatching out, as Dalpho had done to him, but a tremor shook the cavern’s floor, then another, and calls went out to announce Dalpho’s coming.

“No.” Balluk bared blackened fangs in a hollow smile. “I would never challenge you.”

“If you’re worried about Dalpho, you needn’t be,” Lazarus said. “He wouldn’t taint honourable combat.”

“I misspoke,” Balluk assured. He bowed his misshapen head, and crouched back against the cavern wall. “As you often say, I am not clever with my words.”

Loffi’s bat-like face lapsed to disappointment. He watched the sand run down from the grimy bulb of the hourglass.

***

Loffi turned to face the cave, now jostling and crowded as the ground-shaking approach of Dalpho came slowly to an end. Dalpho’s Chiefs bore likeness to bats, lean-faced and slender, most with large ears like Loffi’s that shifted and twitched.

Dalpho himself was enormous and blubbery, with an odd long trunk of a nose. He bore little resemblance to any goblin there. He had sat down at the mouth of the large cave, nearly blocking it off. Bark shards protruded from his pale brown skin. Burnt patches mottled his flesh. Small holes pocked bulging chins. A branch, still leaved, stuck out from one of his enormous legs. He grunted as he tugged it loose.

Balluk laughed loudly; and both Great Chiefs of the West glared at one another. The lesser Chiefs at either side of the cave, bat-faced and boar-faced, grew tense and growled at one another as well.

Lazarus tossed more wood into his brazier. “Tell me what happened.”

“An attack,” Dalpho answered. “That set discord into our camps and caused over a hundred deaths. I was delayed in my return because I had to bring order to Balluk’s clans while he hid here.”

Balluk scoffed. “You say that as if you had some right to be on my land to begin with.” He grinned, knowing Dalpho couldn’t reach the corner where he crouched. “He deserves to be punished for breaking the borders.”

Lazarus rasped his claws together. “Is that true, Dalpho?”

“I would not deny it. I came because my shaman told me there would be an attack, and I crossed the border when I caught scent of the manlings.”

“Men of Horvorr?”

“Two.” Dalpho nodded, bulging his chin, creasing his burnt belly. “Another in a robe, claiming both to be the Old Enemy and the Small King.”

Balluk snarled laughter and his clan joined him, snorting, while Dalpho’s clan fell to a wary, flat-eared silence.

Lazarus remained stolid behind the brazier flames. “Something to laugh at, Balluk?”

“This great and useless whale of a goblin has been stomping through the forest, chasing fairy tails on the order of some rag-wearing worm.”

Lazarus nodded. “You can leave us now, Balluk. Go back and make sure your clan is in order. Dalpho will not cross your border again, and I will have him bring you a worthy gift in compensation.”

Balluk was uncertain whether this was a favourable or insulting outcome. “You have no need of me here?”

“I would have you ready in the forest, should we come under attack from real manlings and not fairy tales.”

“Fine.” Balluk swept his elongated arm towards the cavern mouth. “Have the whale move clear.”

Dalpho sniffed, then obliged and clambered back. Balluk and his Chiefs began to trudge out from the cave.

Lazarus walked closer to the hourglass. “Did you see these enemies?” he whispered.

Loffi frowned. “I would never cross into Balluk’s lands.”

“Tell the truth, or I will tell Balluk that it was you that carved his throat.” He grabbed Loffi’s clawed hands. “Fresh blood and fresh flesh.”

Loffi shrugged. “As any goblin’s are, as any goblin’s ever have been. I killed a deer… an owl. I misspoke, I meant a goblin. A weak goblin.”

“I believe you.” Lazarus’s smile was unsettling. “I don’t think Balluk will.”

“I did meet a goblin, who had been to Balluk’s lands,” Loffi quietly said. “He told me that he saw three manlings come from Horvorr and into the forest, where they walked until they reached Dalpho, who threw a tree at them. I asked him what happened after that. He told me he had better things to do than follow Dalpho about.”

“Better things to do? Like rip apart Balluk’s throat? Or fail to, at that.”

“Lazarus,” Dalpho put in with his lumbering tone. “I had not known the goblin I gave you for a talker.”

“He garbles.” Lazarus strode back to his brazier. “I like to listen to his nonsense. What did this robed man do when you threw a tree at him?”

“Disappeared,” Dalpho answered after a moment. “But then a goblin found them and I followed his call.”

“Then?”

“I was slowed by trees, but my clan tracked them well enough. I was about to capture all of them when Balluk called out to me, threatened me, told me he imagined himself worthy to be the Chief of Chiefs of the West and that there was little use for you and I. He tried to slay me. So I squeezed the violence from him.”

Lazarus’s eyes narrowed. “A goblin clawed his throat open after that.”

Dalpho shrugged his shoulders against the cavern. “The fault is his.”

“Yes,” Lazarus admitted. “But we need him now Ragadin is gone. There are thirteen Great Chiefs of the West. And we are three.”

Dalpho grumbled his assent. “It was my mistake.”

“What wounded you?”

“A tree of apples.” Dalpho tugged a shard of bark from his belly. “I gave chase to a glade, where the robed manling waited. I tried to catch him, but he spoke of the tree and disappeared. I studied the trunk.” He peered down at his great, burnt legs. “It exploded.”

“Exploded? As in—”

“Fire. Force. Noise.”

Lazarus nodded. “You came here after that?”

“We gave chase for miles. North and to the stone cliffs. He shed his clothes and killed dozens of goblins on his own, not suffering any wound that I could see.”

A lanky bat-faced goblin tapped the Great Chief’s knee. “Can we eat?”

Dalpho studied his Chiefs, nervous and hungry. “Yes. Go.” They left quietly, clambering over enormous legs or squeezing between the crook of an elbow.

Lazarus snickered. “Did you not catch him?”

“We surrounded him against the stone cliffs.”

“Then you killed him?”

“Then a hundred yetis appeared atop the cliffs.” Dalpho rumbled a sigh. “Swore death on us if we did not leave their land, and their guest, alone.”

“Yetis?”

Dalpho nodded. “I know how it sounds, but they were well readied, with their own weapons. Some wore clothes.”

“I believe you.” Lazarus paced around his brazier. “But I walked those cliffs for most my years, and made no sighting of a single yeti. They would have to live days away to have escaped our notice, so—” He noticed Loffi studying him. “You can leave now.”

Loffi muttered assent and hurried out of the cave.

“He seemed to have magic,” Dalpho mentioned. “Perhaps he knew the Old Enemy.”

Lazarus gazed down into brazier flames. “Or perhaps I’ve misunderstood this situation entirely.”

“I would not know.”

Lazarus stared up at him. “But you will act as I wish?”

“Of course.” Dalpho dipped his hugely fat head to meet eyes. “What would you have me do?”

“Gather tribute and tell Balluk to bring it to Jorund’s Hill. Have Loffi and your shaman go with a Chief you trust to the Chief of Chiefs of the East. Have them offer to remake our alliance, with more favorable terms for them.”

Dalpho hesitated. “I do not—”

“It is decided.” Lazarus looked over to his hourglass, sand falling from obscurity. “We have waited too long and now the manlings have discovered us. Gudmund the Wolf will be vigilant and prepared, and we will not have the clans needed to win this war on our own. So we do not have a choice. We must make friends of our enemies. And when Horvorr is conquered, when we are settled behind the walls, we can look to claw back whatever lands we sacrifice in making our peace.”