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And my home."
Master Lazur had said goblins were incapable of love or loyalty, but it was love that showed in her small, sharp
face as she looked over the green meadow. And they seemed to be as loyal to their peasant mistress as any human
could have been maybe more.
"You know," said Tobin, "in spite of the grass and the size, it's very like a human village. I mean, it's just ... I
guess we're not as different as I thought."
"Insults will get you nowhere, boy. But I know what you mean. When you think about it, my kind and yours
have dwelled together since the beginning of the world. I guess we've both shaped each other."
She sat in silence after that, gazing at the peaceful meadow, and Tobin found no answer to her words.
He dreamed that night.
The moon was shining through his windows, shining down on the goblin village, but it was brighter than any
moonlight he'd ever seen. Still, he knew it was the moon, for it was silver, and it illuminated the village in shades of
black, silver, and gray.
He thought what a lovely night it was and wandered out to find the children they wouldn't want to waste a
night like this in sleeping.
He was wandering among the grassy mounds of the houses, trying to figure out a way to reach the children
without waking their parents, when horses appeared on the edges of the grove horses with saddles and battle harness
on their bodies, but no riders. One of the horses stamped, nervously, and flames the color of moonlight flared around
its hoof.
Tobin looked up at the moon. It was a strange orangish brown, but it gave off silver light. He didn't understand
it, but he guessed what was about to happen, and horror twisted through him.
He tried to cry warning to the sleeping village, but no sound came from his throat. He began to run, to try to
find the children and warn them, but the horses charged.
They rode down on the goblin homes. Their moon-flaming hooves broke through the roofs, and goblins ran
from the doors like rabbits from a flooding burrow. When the horses trampled them, the silver flames licked up around
their hooves and the goblins screamed.
He tried to find Onny's house, but he didn't know where it was. When he found Regg's house, the roof was
broken in like a smashed shell, and he decided, shuddering, not to examine the nearby bodies.
He wanted to find Natter's house, but realized by the time he did, it would be too late. He had to stop the
horses!
He ran among them, trying to find a rider, someone in charge, someone he could order to put a stop to this,
but he found no riders. He grabbed one horse's bridle and tried to talk to it, but it tossed its head, throwing him aside.
He sat, listening to the pounding hooves and the screaming, staring at the orange-brown moon . . . and suddenly he
recognized it.
Tobin woke, gasping, his throat tight with the effort to scream. He stared frantically at the windows, but there
was no moonlight, only a lighter patch of darkness and the drip of recent rain.
No moonlight! He wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face in them, rocking, trying to calm
himself. A nightmare, only a nightmare.
The Otherworld stone! How long had Master Lazur had to locate it? Three days? Four? Tobin reached for his
crutches, but Natter had taken them. He cursed and pressed his foot tentatively against the floor. Pain answered, and
the harder he pressed, the worse it grew. He couldn't walk.
But he couldn't leave the stone unshielded, either. Could he wait till morning and send Natter or one of the
children? He looked at the windows, remembering the eerie dream light gleaming on the floor. No. Master Lazur could
be searching for the stone right now. He wouldn't leave it there another hour.
He pulled off his blankets and crawled to the door. This time he left it open. If someone woke and noticed it,
so much the better. They could reach the stone faster than he could.
It had rained earlier, and tiny drops were still misting down. He could see only vague humps in the darkness
around him, but the familiar scent of rain, the wet earth, and the cold grass under his hands gave the goblin village a
solid, reassuring reality, and the nightmare began to fade.
Tobin kept crawling.
He recognized the irony of working so hard to retrieve the stone when he'd gone to so much trouble to plant it.
He wondered if he was now actually committing the treason for which he'd been convicted before. If he was, at least
he'd already gotten the punishment out of the way.
Right or wrong, treason or not, he couldn't aid in the destruction of these people. There had to be another way.
And he'd find it, but first he had to get the stone back.
There were stickery weeds in the wet grass, and he stopped, cursing, to pick thorns out of his palms. It seemed
much farther crawling than it had walking, but he didn't want to stop and rest. He was panting by the time he reached
the bottom of the rise, and gasping by the time he crested the top and brushed damp hair out of his eyes.
There was the log, at the far side of the clearing. He crawled to it eagerly, ignoring the pain when he jarred his
sore ankle. Fumbling in the dark with stinging hands, he found several other stones and was beginning to panic before
his fingers closed over one of the right size and shape.
He pulled it out. He could barely make out the color in the dim light, but his fingers, remembering the smooth
flat curves, confirmed it. Tears of relief filled his eyes. It was safe, back under the shield of the hiding charm chained to
his neck. By Master Lazur's own admission, no priest would be able to find it now.
He'd never let it off his person again, he vowed, slipping it into his pocket and closing his fist on it. Not until
he had a chance to grind it into dust. Perhaps Bocami could help with that, though it would be very awkward to explain
this to the goblins. Natter had just begun to trust him, and many of the others still didn't.
He was too tired to decide now. His head throbbed, and the cool grass felt good against his heated body as he
lowered himself down. He'd rest here, and then go back to the hut. He could decide whether or not to tell them about
it in the morning, when his head was clearer.
He never remembered the goblins finding him there, for by then he was lost in a nightmare world where
villages were about to be attacked and he could prevent it, if he only knew how.
Sometimes the moonlight horses trampled the village, but sometimes it was the desert barbarians who attacked
his own people his home on fire, his sisters fleeing.
In one dream the goblins were mounted on the moon-flame horses, destroying a village of mice.
Occasionally he would wake, recognize the familiar walls of the earth hut, and check to be sure the stone was in
his pocket.
Natter was always there when he wakened, with cold cloths for his forehead and bitter herbal drinks. When he
was lucid he tried to explain, but it came out muddled and Natter hushed him in a gentle voice that worried him more
than all her scolding.
He had no chance to explain until he wakened, aching in every muscle, with afternoon sunlight streaming
through the windows, illuminating the circles and runes that marked the floor around him, and realized that she, the
sorceress, the general, was back.
CHAPTER 15
The Hedgewitch
"THEY KNEW," SAID COGSWHALLOP FLATLY. "They knew exactly what we planned, in advance."
Makenna, perched on the log, stared out over the village. It was serene in the afternoon sunlight, but today the
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