Free The Goblin Wood by Hilari Bell Page A

paced across the room. The sunlight from the window picked out the seven-rayed sun inside five circles on his plain robe. A priest of the fifth circle was powerful—only two levels below the council itself. But Tobin was no one’s killer.
    “You’ve been fighting the barbarians on the border for three winters now. Have you noticed a pattern?”
    Tobin remained silent.
    “Perhaps you haven’t,” the priest went on. “Not in just three years. Let me give you a wider view. The barbarians have been attacking our southern border every winter for fifteen years now—every year there are more of them, fighting with greater ferocity. Since the first attack, we’ve had to move our defended border back toward the midlands four times.”
    The grinding, bloody chaos of the great retreat two years ago echoed in Tobin’s memory as the priest went on.
    “In the early years, we assumed the attackers were only bandits. We thought they’d give up if we proved too tough for them.”
    Tobin frowned. His commander had told him that, just three years ago, but no one believed it now.
    “When the attacks increased in size and became better organized, the southland lords were forced to call on the Hierarch for help. We sent spies in among the barbarians and discovered the reason for the attacks.”
    “But they’re cannibals!” Tobin exclaimed. “How could your spies—”
    Master Lazur’s gaze was cool. “A spy does whatever he must, to survive and complete his mission. You should remember that. Our spies discovered that the barbarians are attacking our land because theirs is dying. A long drought is beginning on the other side of the desert. Each year the rainfall is less, and their soil is poor and easily overfarmed. Each year, more are forced from their homes, to flood our borders. In four or five years, we estimate they will hold most of the southlands. Then they’ll be able to fight us all year round. Their magic is different from ours. At first we thought it must come from the Dark One, but the spies say the barbarians worship no gods at all. Wherever it comes from, their magic is very strong. You’ve probably seen yourself how even strong winds fail to affect their arrows’ flight. Or how muddy ground firms under their feet, how strong they are, and how fast their wounds heal. Our battle priests are barely holding their own. And there are too many of them for us to defeat.”
    “But there must be a way to stop them! Could—could we just give them the southlands? Since you say they’re going to take them anyway?”
    “It’s impossible to negotiate with the barbarians.”
    “Why? If we sent an ambassador, surely they’d listen—”
    “We did. And they may have listened, for all we know. But then they ate the ambassador. And the next one we sent. After that, we stopped asking for volunteers.”
    Tobin’s stomach twisted. “So you sent spies. But surely—”
    Master Lazur shook his head. “They regard anyone except themselves as animals. They won’t negotiate with animals.”
    “Then…” Tobin’s mouth was dry, remembering things he’d seen in border villages the barbarians had overrun. “Then we have to defend the border. We can recruit more troops, if the need is this great.”
    “We can. And we’ll have to. But you’ve been fighting on the border for the past three years. Do you think, even with more troops, we could defend our present border all year round?”
    Tobin shook his head thoughtfully. “We might during the winter. We can take men off the farms then. But in spring the farmers have to plant, or we’ll all starve.”
    “Exactly.”
    “But part of the problem is that the southern border is so wide, so open. If we fought in a more defensible place, we might be able to hold them!”
    Master Lazur smiled and pulled a scroll off a shelf. “It took the Hierarch’s council more than ten years to reach that conclusion. Or at least, to accept the consequences.” He unrolled the scroll and a map