45. Pursuits

“I arrived at Great Chief Tuku’s domain to find that the huge goblin was not in audience. The throne room lay mostly abandoned, covered in dust and debris left over from the tunnel Magar had collapsed and Zalak had reopened.

I am told that Tuku is busy making peace with the remaining Chiefs, or else hunting down those who are refusing to join us and planning some later rebellion.

For my part, there is little left to do. I was left alone to wander, and found my way back to my old chamber, where an uncomfortable earthen hump served as my bed.

Though I thought I would struggle to sleep, I found that the Moon had been and gone since I closed my eyes. There was little left to do but to restart my recordings, writing that which had happened and that which was hopefully well remembered.

But as I recall all that has happened, I begin to think that Magar’s work remains a threat to us all. And I wonder if I should go back to the modest clan and kill him. I brought the young shaman into the world, so surely the burden falls on me to remove him.”

Great Chief Harak sat cross-legged on the dried, bristling grass that covered his hut. His wrinkled shaman, Dargo, sat opposite, mirroring his position. Disparate in size as they were, they might have seemed like father and child, while they each stared down at the dwarven wrought box of steel placed between them, which shuddered intermittently.

“Why…?” Harak grated. His keen gaze stared towards a crack in the ceiling, from which trickling rainfall had gathered, forming into droplets which landed with a splash.

Dargo’s large eyes remained fix to the box. He had explained much to Harak in the moments passed, but then the pair had sat in silence for a long while, so he was not sure what it was that Harak was asking. He knew the Great Chief well enough to guess that he need only remain silent to be given further explanation.

“First, find the box,” Harak growled. “Then, protect the box. Now, hide the box. Are we younglings? Is this some game to you, shaman…?”

“Things are not as they should be. The dark one brings many otherworld wizards with him. And the womanling goes to places she should not. And…”

Harak scowled. “And…?”

“I know what is in the box now. We were supposed to protect it, yes,” Dargo assured in a ponderous voice. “So that we could hand it over to…”

Harak bared his teeth in a snarl.

“…to the womanling.”

The Great Chief rested his elbows on his knees, looming over the small shaman. He opened his mouth, then gritted his sharp teeth instead, and clenched his great fists.

“Should I continue, Harak?” asked Dargo, smirking up at him. “Or…?”

Harak grunted disagreeably in answer.

“The girl can find the box if we hide it. But if we keep it here, then the wizards will take it instead. And that would not be good. For any of us.”

“What is in the box?”

“A hand.”

“It moves,” reminded Harak.

“The hand is severed, but sustains itself. There are many such boxes… all still buried.”

The Great Chief rested his heavy chin in one weathered palm. “Why do we care? Why should it matter to us? Is it a goblin in the box? Is it The Small King? Is it Kragor One-Eye or Orog the Guardian? Why have you involved us in this, shaman? Risked the clan for a hand. A useless hand even if it moves.” He shook his head. “You are a fool! Worse, I am a bigger fool for ever listening to you,” he added regretfully. “Maybe Ugu was right to kill his shaman. It would have served me—”

“It is not a goblin.”

“See!” Harak seized, baring his teeth. “I should beat you—”

“But you have shaken this hand before.”

Harak’s angry frown gave way to a look of doubtful confusion. “Why would I—” He paused, and blinked. Then Harak slowly shook his head. “No,” he quietly insisted.

“Yes.”

“He is dead.”

“The manlings could not kill him,” assured Dargo. “Not truly.”

The Great Chief’s shoulders sunk, and he looked so unsure of himself that Dargo, despite his slight stature, now appeared the older of the pair. “You are sure…?”

“I am sure.”

“Then we should—”

“It is not our place. The womanling will free him.”

Harak glared down at the wrinkled shaman and looked primed for violence, but then his gaze turned to the steel box instead and he rested a hand, almost fearfully, against the cold metal. “Gahr’rul,” he intoned with all respect. “Chief of Chiefs.”

***

“We’re being observed.”

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High Wizard Lara frowned, unsure of what the speaker meant, but then felt the lingering presence of a distant entity.

The one who had spoken, Frederick, was a useless know-it-all. The others liked him because he was tall, handsome, and had well kept brown hair, but Lara despised him. He was a Level 3 Prophetic, which meant that without the enchantments provided by all them by the Wizard of Avenpark, he would just be a powerless fool with good instincts.

“So…?” she demanded.

The other four of them, three men and another woman, gave her a mix of quizzical or worried looks. They were all middling wizards as well. And they had started this venture with high hopes of catching The Void Walker. She was grateful that the bodies had started to pile up, courtesy of their quarry and of that merciless rogue troll, because until now the mood of her charges had been buoyant and almost childish.

“It could be The Void Walker,” said Frederick.

“It isn’t,” assured the High Wizard. “And even if it were, what do you imagine he might glean from watching us?” She waved out her arms, heavy robe sagging, as if to encompass the dreary bogland in which they squatted. Most of them had been sitting, silent and sullen, on a pair of mossy logs, while the tallest man insisted on standing.

For her part, Lara had seated herself on a less than comfortable boulder, waiting for orders from senior wizards, and idly dipping in and out of the Ether to see if there were any sign of The Void Walker’s comings and goings. But with The Protectorate presence unusually high, she didn’t want to delve too deep and run afoul of the dead eyed lizards.

She was relatively sure, at least, that The Void Walker had returned to this plane. Which was unusual for him, as he rarely ventured the same place twice. But a great power had departed this world, and an equally great power had returned.

“He could be preempting an attack,” insisted Frederick, as if he knew better than her.

“It is The Watcher. A benign entity that observes events from an inaccessible dimension. Such facts are well known to those who actually… well, know things.”

“Found him,” said Kyra suddenly in her meek voice. “They arrived on the other side of the caverns in which they disappeared, and have been heading northwards. They seem to be traveling to a goblin village that looks largely abandoned.”

The young woman was talented at scouting through the Ether. Not as talented as Lara, but then the High Wizard didn’t care if Kyra died.

Lara narrowed her eyes, and the robed girl shuffled on the log, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “You are sure it is him…?”

“Yes,” she answered with a swift nod. “Well… no. It was a little strange. There was The Void Walker’s mark, but also…”

“Also?”

“Give her a moment to think,” cut in Frederick. “You—”

“Frederick,” Lara snarled. “Dozens of wizards are already dead. Do you truly imagine that anyone will ask if another like you goes missing?”

The tall man frowned, shrinking back, but then balled his fists instead.

“But also a foreign magic,” said Kyra as if meaning to distract them both. “Highly orderly and precise. And an Altonian taint as well. From The Goddess of Death.”

“Orderly and precise,” mocked Lara. “And how can you tell that…?”

“In the Ether,” she said as if it were obvious. “The Void Walker’s magic is potent but messy, while the death magic is overbearing and dense. But this other magic was all gold, and silver, with straight lines and fanciful patterns as if he were an artist or jeweler.”

The High Wizard frowned. By this description, perhaps Kyra was far more attuned to the Ether than was Lara. Worse still, there had been talk of an independent wizard of great power who travelled around in a fanciful cart full of fine wares.

The Wizard of Avenpark had charged all in their order with the sole purpose of hunting down The Void Walker. Until recently, when he had tasked others with finding this new wizard as well. Hunting The Void Walker was likely a straight path to suicide. But if she could bring in this new meddler, then perhaps she might be raised to a position where she need not risk herself in the field against such dangerous practitioners.

Though it was some sort of mockery from The Seven Wizards that a bog dwelling shaman had accrued so much power in so short a time. Perhaps that was why he visited here to begin with, because it reminded the primitive of his insect infested homeland.

Lara sighed, and realized all the others were looking to her for answers. Or else annoyed by her introspective silence. “We will ambush them at the village. Let the other High Wizards know. And tell them all to be ready for a fight.”

***

Chief Ugu raked his hand through the earth, clawing up warm mud and damp ash from a sodden campfire. He scowled around him, seeing a makeshift camp that had been scattered. Huge footprints were spread around him, as if the troll had returned, and seemingly regained his size, crushing one or two goblins underfoot as he stomped about. Though it was unusual that a troll would leave corpses behind without eating them.

The scrawny ugly faces of Ugu’s clan looked to him in hunger and anticipation. He grunted, and waved an idle hand. They rushed force to consume their broken kin.

Saka, the treacherous snake, had promised to meet Ugu here. Perhaps he had been here, but there was now no sign of him. Though that as well could be easily explained if the troll had plucked the useless Chief up and devoured him whole.

Ugu watched the other goblins fight for scraps, biting and scratching one another so that they could scamper away with a severed limb. But he had no appetite of his own. He had only been following the womanling for a few Moons, but he already regretted the pursuit. All along the Midderlands Pass were the corpses of scores of his kin. Some the work of the troll. Others the work of strange manlings with impossible powers.

He had wanted to rule over them all. He had wanted to kill Harak and be the Great Chief of the Midderlands Pass. But now he feared that there would be nothing left to rule over. Worse, he had begun to feel alone. The shaman had deserved to die, but at least he was not as foolish and inane as all the others. He had something to say, words worth hearing, even if those those words always went against Chief Ugu.

By the heart in the earth, the camp had not been broken too long ago. If Ugu wanted, he could pursue the troll and the womanling. Or he could follow them into some trap set by the magical manlings, and be burned or blasted like all the others before him.

The Chief’s scarred lips drew up over his dirty fangs, trembling in anger. This all began with the womanling, he realized. It would only end when she was dead. Her presence here had brought death and chaos to the goblins of the boggy valley. He would hunt her down and kill her, and then all this would be over. He could go back to his cave, and sleep, and eat. Or he could go hunt down some other manlings instead. It would be hard now, he realized, to go back to how things were. Kill or be killed, it was better than falsely living.

“Come,” he snarled to his clan. “We hunt the womanling!”

Distantly, Chief Saka hissed laughter as he watched the departure of Ugu’s clan. He had considered killing Ugu, who was a big as he was foolish, but decided this would be better instead. He had sent scouts ahead to Harak’s clan and found that the village was abandoned beyond the Great Chief himself and the shaman, Orgo.

The womanling and her pet troll had been spotted heading towards Harak, and now Ugu was following after them. They would all arrive at the village, and one or both of the goblin Chiefs would likely die. This is sort of thing that Ugu might like, but Saka did not care. He knew about the box that Chief Harak unearthed and he knew what was in it as well. Saka’s shaman had said that it was most important that the box be opened. And Saka would usually listen. But he had heard another voice that told him a different tale. How the Chief of Chiefs must stay buried. And how the world would soon be changing.

If Chief Saka stole the box, and kept it hidden, then events would unfold in a different way. And he could do much better than being the Chief, or even Great Chief, of a boggy valley. He could help earn the favor of a god, and live a life of riches like a manling king.