In truth, he didn’t want to die. But more than that, he didn’t want to suffer the way Saro-Saro and the other stricken goblins had languished, didn’t want his already-ugly body to become covered with the large, black, oozing knobs. He didn’t want to cough up great gobs of blood. A quick death was better. And it was better that the plague end with him than spread to his comrades.
The saltwater stung the slashes on his arms and legs, and it made his tattered clothes heavy and worked to pull him down again. Direfang was at the same time terrified of dying and furious at Saro-Saro for bringing about such a sorry end to his miserable life. He raged at the circumstances that had caused all of it, yet it had been his decision to swarm into Reorx’s Cradle and take away the foul sickness. He’d survived so much-the years of tortuous labor at the mining camp, the beatings, the night they poured salt in his wounds and cut off his left ear, the earthquakes, the lava, the fight with the tylor-all to be murdered by some foul disease.
He slipped under gradually. He felt a buzzing in his ears, then a quick thrumming, which he guessed was his heart beating. He briefly kicked with his legs, feeling himself rise again then drew his legs together, deciding to resist the instinct to survive.
The plague ends here, he thought.
Direfang opened his eyes, astonished that he could see under water. The world down there was a green-gray with a few slender, shadowy shapes passing through it: fish. It was colder than he had expected, but he welcomed that-the air in the ship’s hold had been cloying and hot. He swallowed the water, thinking it really had no taste to it. He felt heavy, full of water, and very cold.
Then the world turned black just as he felt himself pulled upward again.
“Got him!” K’lars shouted, his booming voice carrying across the chop. “Heavy, this big rat is!” The half-ogre treaded water several dozen feet behind the Clare.
A longboat was being lowered with four sailors in it. The Clare had dropped its sails when Direfang started heaving sick goblins overboard. K’lars had followed Direfang into the sea a heartbeat after the hobgoblin leader had jumped to what he believed was a certain death. But the ship did not stop immediately and was drifting ahead, so the longboat was needed to go back and retrieve the pair.
“Hurry it, will you?” K’lars called. “I said he’s heavy!” The sailor had grabbed Direfang under one armpit and was lifting his head above the water as best he could. The two were of similar build and size, both nearly seven feet tall. But the hobgoblin was dead weight, and twice the half-ogre lost his grip and fumbled with his burden, briefly sinking, before the longboat arrived.
“You pull ’im up. He’s an anchor, that’s for sure.” K’lars waited until they had Direfang in the center of the boat; then he dragged himself in. The hobgoblin leader’s eyes were shut, and he lay still as stone. “The cook better make something special for me for dinner after I risked my own sorry hide to save this big rat.”
Once on the ship, they turned Direfang on his side, and K’lars struck him in the center of his back. The hobgoblin coughed once, his eyes opening, the water rushing out of his mouth. He coughed again, blinked, and struggled to rise. K’lars helped him up.
“Raise the sails!” Captain Gerrold set his fists against his hips and watched as Horace inspected the wet, dazed hobgoblin. “Get back you, all of you.”
But the goblins who’d been gathered amidships didn’t understand the commands in Common and clustered around Direfang.
“Get them below,” Gerrold said, looking daggers at Direfang. “All of them. I don’t want a single one getting tangled in my lines or tripping my sailors. Don’t want another one jumping over the side either … or being tossed over like garbage.”
Direfang looked around slowly, still half in a daze. The eyes of the goblins shifted away as most of them drifted off, following the captain’s orders. The hobgoblin leader met the angry stare of Gerrold.
“The illness is in here.” He stabbed his thumb at his chest. “And it spreads like a fire over a mound of dead. The illness will move to here and here and here”-he pointed to the men who were wet and apparently had helped him into the longboat-“and there; sooner or later the illness will spread to them.” He gestured to K’lars, giving him a nod. “Don’t doom this ship. And look to the other ships. If there is more plague with the goblins-”
Gerrold stormed forward and grabbed Direfang’s tunic at the breastbone. “Doom? The plague was brought on the Clare, and you throwing yourself overboard won’t get rid of it. The damnable thing is in deep in the hold and probably seeping into the very wood of the ship.” Spittle flew from the captain’s lips, his face twisting with anger. “I didn’t order your rescue for any noble reason, hob. I need you to control these goblins. They seem to follow you. We’ll be arriving at your damnable forest soon enough. But first we’re going to the lady’s island, Schallsea Island, like I’d planned. Not just for new line and sails now. I mean to rid my ship and my men of this insidious disease. Everything and everyone must be made whole or die.”
He released his grip on the hobgoblin, pivoted on his leather heels, and returned to the wheel.
“Takes something to get the captain mad,” K’lars said in a low voice. “Did you hear him call the Clare his ship? I think he just bought it from you, Direfang. Paid you in full when he had us haul your sorry hide out of the sea and changed his course for the lady’s island. Bought it with the lady’s healing hands, the captain did.”
Direfang gaped dully at the sailor, shivering, whether from the illness or his ordeal, he couldn’t say.
K’lars beckoned to Horace. “I think maybe you better get this big rat into the hold with all of the other rats, eh? Best right now if the captain doesn’t see much of them. Captain Gerrold’s got a mad streak on that’ll take this ship to the Blood Sea and back.”
Horace gestured to Direfang, and the hobgoblin slowly followed him toward the stairs.
“Schallsea Island?” Horace asked.
“Aye, the lady’s place,” K’lars returned.
Direfang followed Horace below.
“Predominantly human,” Horace was explaining to Direfang, some minutes later. The hobgoblin sat on the stairs that led into the lower bay. Horace stood facing him. “Schallsea Island is near Abanasinia, separated by the straits. A big island, two hundred or more miles long, but less than half that at its widest point.”
The hobgoblin coughed and shivered. He and Horace were as alone as possible, even the most curious of the goblins not wanting to get too close to him-maybe because they were afraid they might catch the illness, maybe because he had disgraced them with his behavior. Word had already spread that Direfang had tossed Saro-Saro and some of his clansmen over the side to their deaths.
Horace’s eyes misted. “I visited there in my youth, Schallsea, with my uncle and my oldest brother. A beautiful place with many streams that sparkle like diamonds in the warmest months. Most of the island is inaccessible because of its dangerous cliffs. But there are a handful of harbors, and I’m certain he’s taking this ship to the largest. That would be the Port of Schallsea, where my uncle once took his ship. A good thing it’s summertime, Foreman. In winter the harbors have been known to freeze solid.”
Horace seemed lost in the memory, and his head bobbed in time with the gentle rising and falling of the Clare.
“The lady’s island, K’lars called it.” Direfang coughed again and cursed to feel blood welling at the edge of his lip.
“Aye, the island is said to have been born during the Cataclysm. When the New Sea rose and lands all around this part of the world dropped, one stretch didn’t, and they called it Schallsea. After the Chaos War, a famous Hero of the Lance came to it: Goldmoon.”