Thereupon a bed of grass, ‘neath boughs most great and grand, Fia of the Garish Blade made her final stand.

  A pox upon the world was she, a pox upon our souls! A river of young blood she drank, a river gold she stole.

  And wonder did the merry kings, to whom she made her threats;

  a birthless month did she gift, a mother’s babe she rent!

  “I am Lord of Violence, Queen of Sin and Sand! From the Desert did I come, from there will I stand!”

  Such were her lies, such were her thoughts!

  Such were the ways of a woman unwrought!

  Unwrought by what, a man might well ask?

  Unwrought by death, and the killing of her task:

  for friends did she have, four friends was their number. Younglings were they, quite fond of their slumber;

  green of skin, of fang and claw; goblins danced, unbound by law.

  “My friends are these most uncommon folk; touch not their hides, lest I bring fire and rope!”

  Thus the Desert did howl, the Desert did thunder! In the quiet of night, green tides made first lumber;

  and more indeed: like cloth and jewel, textiles and burns, and languages too.

  Beyond the outskirts of the village Rhime, maidens and mothers fled east, buoyed by desperate vim; and with them came children and husbands and fathers no less fearful. Four women waited, apart. Left to fend for their lonesome, they were seated around a crackling cookfire in the center square; sporting neither armour nor terrified miens, their air was one of lackadaisical expectation.

  Together, the wizened crones listened as this decade’s victor in the Thousand Year War approached - theirs was the latest village to fall, and a clear sign the Kings of Man had declined. Not for the first time, the march of goblinkind proved more implacable than humanity.

  Tallest amongst those gathered, Blind Reina rasped, “I hear them coming through the main gate. Be they hideous?”

  Fearless despite the coming storm, Bald Darla cackled, “Does it matter? We’ll not be wedding them, will we?” She smiled at her friend. Strong Lonny spat a wad of displeased phlegm, speckling the face of Poor Poppy (her uglier, kinder, more unfortunate twin).

  “Oh, be quiet, you feckless prunes! We’re to be honoured guests,” grumbled the less mangled of the warborne sisters. “No steel or silk for us.”

  “Like a goblin would bed your hairy arse, Lonny.” Bright teeth and a snicker answered Darla’s provocation.

  “Yer husband did!”

  Darla scoffed, then hacked as the act proved perilous; bony fingers rubbed circles against her coated back. To the tune of lockstep steel, she spared her friend another smile before meeting Lonny’s gaze. Both women grinned.

  “He was a poor fuck, old Hubert. Though he gave good sons. Mostly.”

  “Aye, he did,” agreed Lonny, whose hand was then gripped. “Poppy?” she wondered, but the scarred sister’s focus was not for her.

  “How will the families fare, Darla?” Worry marked the woman’s tone.

  “In Godsfall?” The village’s sole seer (whose sight was rather constrained, as was their way) gave a stilted shrug, though not without care. “Tis not for I to say; the capital is rich in grain and water. Richer still in strength.”

  “But burdened,” chimed Lonny. “The Green Tide’ll be upon them soon enough, too. They’re here, aren’t they? Rhime is but a moon’s ride from the City of Graves.”

  “Aye, they will.” Darla rubbed her chin, stiffness eased by the crackling firelight. “I pray they’ll find succor. If I’m lucky, Robert will settle down and beget a whelp or three, the daft boy.” She doubted he would, but a woman could dream.

  “I prayed for children,” whispered Poppy, who they knew to have been born barren. “They’re worth less as the years tumble by.” She frowned, a hawkish gaze set towards the sky, resolute in looking away from the goblins; her sister had attention enough for the both of them - and indeed, she did. In the dark of Lonny’s gaze, a microcosm of the Green Tide was reflected. Stretched along the village’s main road in ranks some twenty astride, they reached the forest horizon like so much steeled grass.

  “Never thought to see this day,” said Reina, a preemptive scowl injecting itself into her next words: “Do be quiet, Darla. You too, Lonny. I’ll not be teased for this accursed blindness of mine.”

  “Bitter, bitter,” tutted the latter (Lonny), despite.

  Grousing notes a lie, Darla’s interjection died unformed; a goblin hailed their quartet.

  There was no known figure in history so reviled as Cursed Fia, for having betrayed Man in favour of spurring goblinkind towards societal parity. The lessons spoke for true: she’d birthed a nation bent on eradication. If not for the fixative veneration with which they treated elderly women, never would there be a survivor of their incursions.

  Millions had died for her folly.

  Ears grated by his waspish Kingspeech, Darla spared not a whit of thought for such truism. Rather, she confronted her new reality and liked it not. In scuffed armour, bearing a golden standard upon which a homely woman was depicted with arms askew, as if to embrace another, five goblins marched ahead of their collective. Upon their backs and belts sat stowed weaponry.

  “Greetings, Honoured Crones,” said the leading figure, who was especially short amidst his fellows, standing no taller than Poppy’s stooped collar. The quartet could not help but focus on the fangs his words revealed, sharp as they were. They’d heard stories, from neighbours and travelers and nightmares in the dark - everyone had: “They like to feast on manflesh. We’re tender, you see.”

  “Feh! You’re to be our gaoler, then?” Lonny sniffed, unimpressed. In her hands, a dagger glinted.

  The goblin craned his head, threatened not by the brandished steel. Arms untouched, hands clasped, he said, “I am Roka of Crystal Hill, and I have been elected to your protection.”

  “Ha!” Bone smacked flesh as Reina unknowingly echoed his gesture, drawing what Poppy thought constituted a look of concern from the small creature.

  Green of skin, Roka - and how Poppy hated the named creature - lacked the same thickness of hide as possessed by the silent sentinels at his back. Four to their four, they looked part golem. So too were his claws less prominent and his eyes less expressive; a weakling, he seemed. ‘Why him?’ she wondered. The Filial Entreatment was a well-recorded tradition of the Green Tide, during which ‘those similar to Saintess Fia’ were given honours and comforts and a singular choice: “To where do you desire?”

  Poppy thought it best she stayed with her friends; she thought it best they venture into the occupied territories, too. There was little reason to ask for eastwards guidance when the army might capture and then kill their families; the survival of her nieces and nephews was a source of light in these dark times she’d no intention of snuffing out.

  Reina and Darla were of a similar mind.

  Not so, Lonny. Not entirely: “What if we wish to reach Godsfall?”

  Poppy made to thwack her sister’s arm, fire and storm her blood; she could have murdered the blithering bint. Lonny laughed at the impact, contrasting Reina’s aggrieved sigh. Throughout, Roka stared.

  The goblin’s puggish nose creased alongside his brow. Slowly, he rasped, “We will take you. But… you understand what it is you ask; our orders do not allow for base mercy. Your stratagem of distraction is well known.”

  Lonny sighed, “A poor jest on my part,” and stowed her dagger in a leather sheathe.

  “To where do you desire, then?”

  Reina cleared her throat. “Might we venture west? As far as you can take us.” The route seemed obvious in hindsight: and for good reason, as seen in Roka’s expectant response.

  “Another known stratagem, but one whose fulfillment we will see to completion.” The small goblin clapped a fist against his armoured breast and loosed a fiery howl, startling the quartet of crones. Steel clattered, and wood rolled - a carriage parted the goblin ranks.

  “Come,” he said. “Let us away,” and so they went.

  Nerves dogged the quartet as their carriage trundled west, privacy a quaint fiction. They’d put on brave faces for one another, but their efforts faltered in the face of captive uncertainty. None of them were fools - indeed, Darla strove for sanity. Lonny and Poppy had all but raised themselves. Reina had instructed Rhime’s more affluent children on maths and courtesies.

  ‘No more,’ thought the last. Her days of instructional merriment were gone, and whether the Filial Entreatment was a monolith in truth could not be claimed. Death might be dawning.

  In such a vein, “There’s a good chance the goblins aren’t as unified as we’ve been led to believe,” whispered Darla. Seated beside Reina, she cast a knowing look about their stay. “We ourselves have not always been in agreement, let alone friends. There’s many and more of the Green Tide than us. Who’s to say they’re of a mind on our treatment or united in how they’re conducting the Great War.”

  “Aye,” concurred Lonny. “But these ones, or this Roka at least, will see themselves away from Godsfall. Our kin and kith have time in abundance. May they find more than simple safety.”

  “You’re sure he’ll be listened to?”

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  That we’re not to be killed posthaste?

  Lonny shrugged, “Roka is a slight figure, but there was a readiness in how the goblins reacted to his orders. I suspect this command of his is not new.”

  “What does any of it matter?” griped Poppy, her interjection earning a shove; she scowled at her twin. “You know I speak truly, sister. Our yoke is one of impotence.”

  “Impotence need not equate to misery,” rasped Reina.

  “Or ignorance,” chimed Darla.

  Poppy harrumphed, and no more was said - and so the ensuing hours of silence grew taut with unmet violence. None of them were fools, after all.

  Poppy had spoken in truth.

  ‘And how the truth burns.’ Lonny stewed as they were given comforts and greater privacy for ablutions, and erected sleeping quarters, and so on and so forth, and-

  -days passed, during which fields gave way to forestry.

  “I am growing sick of the carriage.”

  Lonny blinked at her sister, who bore a thoughtful mien; a look mirrored by Reina.

  “Indeed,” said the dubiously retired teacher. “We’ve perfectly working legs, do we not?”

  ‘Ah, I see,’ thought Lonny. Why engender speed when sloth might be forced instead?

  And so it was: together they walked and talked, and forced the goblin’s march to a crawl. For they were aged and oft fond of tottering towards flowers; and able or not, long and frequent rests were needed. The threat of displeasure cloaked them, yes - the thought of steel finding their spines was a constant companion. But amusement dogged them, too. Reina especially.

  “Roka, I find myself in need of relief. A bath, if you would.” Despite her eccentricities, this microcosm of the Green Tide - her forceful kidnappers, no matter the pretty words they dressed in - made to follow her wishes without complaint; pleasant to the last, their leader merely inclined his head. He’d come to learn they disliked his speech, or so the blind woman presumed. The footsteps at her side deepened as if weighed anew.

  “Must you test them so?”

  Reina resisted a snort. “I’m blind and frail, Poppy. Not thick in the head or emptied of thought. Have we not already established the limits of our resistance?”

  “Aye, risk not turning goblin against goblin. But they are thinking creatures, and not slow of wit. Excuse the verbiage, but neither are they blind.”

  “You fear they’ll grow impatient.” Reina frowned as Poppy gripped her hand. “No?” The pressure redoubled, heralding a whisper.

  “I fear they already have.”

  Reina forced her legs to continue striding, lest she lose the will. “What do you see, old friend?” She took comfort in the woman’s warmth; with it, she felt capable of combating an understandable chill.

  “The rank and file have begun to slog, while the looks sent east grow frequent.” Shuffling closer still, Poppy’s description lowed: “Roka has not changed at all. Seems carved from stone, half the time. His guards, though… I’ve seen them glancing in our direction. Yours especially.”

  “Perhaps they’ve never met a blind woman before?”

  “Mayhaps,” Poppy allowed, and yet…

  “I will ask Roka for their reasons. I am not unused to being labeled a burden, Poppy,” though the thought burned little different than the knowledge her teaching days were over! How Reina longed for her small slice of existence, where each bench and cushion was known to her like Darla’s grounding touch.

  “You are no burden, Reina.”

  She smiled at the lie and squeezed tight the unfortunate woman’s hands. No words need be said in gratitude. Between friends as they, such messages were ever darker, emptier, and simpler than truth.

  That night, Reina called upon Roka - and to him, seated away from her friends, limbs relaxed, beneath a blanket of stars, she asked, “Why do your guards gaze so?”

  Now, some might label her plainly done (and partially formed) interrogation crude. Another might use the word provocative - ‘foolish’ and ‘imbecilic’ were apt enough descriptors, too. Though, by whose metrics, none would have been capable of saying, for their focus – elsewhere turned.

  Helmet on his belt, stood erect at her fore, Roka - unseen by Reina - gaped in response. Long seconds passed in silence. Amongst keen edges and whirling flotsam, his thoughts went unheard: ‘She fears we’ll end her, as if her blindness slows us any more than their artifice.’ As if it could. The hulking figures at his back stiffened, jolted by the silent accusation, the bustle of it all echoing his shock.

  “They wish to cleave more closely,” he hushed, sounding aggrieved to Reina’s ears. “You… this is our first Entreatment – and a great honour at that. To have you languish without our most potent aid…”

  “You sound pained,” observed Reina.

  “Might I speak freely, Honoured Crone?”

  Despite her mislike for both goblin and title, the taller between them inclined her head. Roka inhaled benighted summer, slow and considerate.

  “We-the Green Tide,” he corrected, shortcut claws fisted against his palms, “are not human. Goblins are not human. Your kind are prone to petty infighting; a consequence of utter individuality. We do not suffer the same malaise. I know of Saka’s mood, and Taka’s burgeoning hunger. So too do they know of my dedication to your safety, and Toka’s restlessness.”

  “You are saying… goblins share a mind?” Reina could scarce comprehend such a thing.

  “Why do you think Saintess Fia’s impact was so spread? She did not seek to change a species. Not at first. Rather…” Roka smiled, a fondness unseen by Reina. “Our Mother thought to aid four abandoned babes, so filled with love was she.”

  Lessons given and received stilled the repudiation on Reina’s tongue. ‘Saintess Fia - pah!’ The accursed, the wretched, the most unclean! Yes, certainly! And yet…

  ‘Truth rings uncontested.’ Reina inhaled, tasting the same summer as Roka, skin shivered by the same wind. He could well be misled or practiced in the art of lying, and yet… and yet…

  “How is this not better known?” she breathed.

  “Oh, your scholars and warmakers count this knowledge as theirs, of this I am sure. The truth of our war is more despicable for it.” Roka seated himself at her fore, armour clanking. “But it matters little. We were monsters; a nightmarish animal weaned on violence, who your ancestors rightly feared and hated.”

  “And now?”

  “Frightened. Worried. Horrified that history presses such dire circumstances upon our peoples.”

  “You could sue for peace. The Kings of Man-”

  “We tried. We tried.” Roka’s pain curdled the air, so aged and worn was the desperation of generations. “Your sovereigns cared little for our envoys. Others, like you, have been reported as attempting to do so in our place. They died as well, though not well despite their deed.”

  “They would do such a thing; strike their grandmothers and wives dead for having the gall to suggest another way.” Reina laughed, bitter and tired and so very weary of impotence… and yet: “Would you try again?”

  “Aye,” Roka hummed in reply to her whisper, fangs glimmering ‘neath the moon. “I would.”

  “We’ve a new goal. A new tack.” Reina’s pronouncement roiled alongside scuffed dirt. Near and far, listeners paid due attention to her tone. Darla especially, so rare was the woman’s steeled conviction.

  “Is this prompted by your meeting?” she wondered, grasping a piece of buttered bread - the morning’s broken fasts continued in a vein most rich and full. ‘Likely from larders pilfered and homesteads burned.’ Darla was wise to the ways of war, if not richly so as men; such were the gifts of True Sight. In answer to her question, Reina nodded.

  “With Roka, aye.”

  Poppy loosed a displeased hum; she’d not approved of the blind woman’s idea, and had made no bones about her thinking; their night had been a quarrelsome thing, fraught with tiring dialogue.

  “Oh, do listen, sister,” said Lonny, who had been of a similar mind and yet prepared to visit violence upon their guards. Sheathed in patience and leather, her dagger waited for the bite of flesh still.

  “Very well,” grumbled Poppy, stew untouched for the burn it had visited upon her mouth.

  Reina took those words as writ – hoping they considered hers the same, she continued: “As I said, a new tack: peace. True, lasting peace,” and her intentions were too soon overwrought by discourse. Lonny and Poppy could no more countenance such than thunder might silence. The death of their kin – potent was too small a word for the old grief sat within their breasts.

  Darla, however… “You think it possible?”

  “Possible - pah!” Lonny all but spat, rather demanding, “Be it probable, Reina?!”

  “Of course not,” muttered Poppy, nursing her temples as the hubbub of a waking camp filled their clearing.

  Reina stood tall, a furious note cutting clear through their discontent: “You will listen, all of you!”

  Once, twice, thrice - the quartet breathed into the resultant quiet. Summered leaves fluttered, whispering promises of greater greens and reds in the days to come. Flowers echoed distant trees, who groaned in hailing the clouds high above. Reina slumped, bereft.

  “We are old,” she whispered. “What few summers remain to us are few in number; what promise they hold is smaller still. But only if we venture west as planned. Roka spoke to me, revealing much,” and so she did the same; and in reply, yet deeper silence yawned towards disbelief. Reina refused as much, however - she was wise to airs, lacking sight.

  “We are doomed to die, merest moons or years from now. Your children are not. My students are not. We may succeed where others failed and drive sense into the Kings of Man. Gods willing, a tentative cessation of conflict could grip our species!”

  “And how might we accomplish such a thing?” Lonny returned, her gruff manner quieted by thought. “As you said, many have tried and failed. All of them.” Reina clasped her hands together.

  “I do not know,” she admitted. “But mustn’t we try?”

  “Perhaps,” chimed Darla, locking gazes with Lonny. “And I think we shall. But first, Roka and his command. They can’t be accompanying us back east. This… shared mindfulness. I see how it would drive them to kill if presented with targets. So many at war…” She sighed, a rueful note dyeing her voice. “Did he make mention of their part in this plan?”

  “Aye. They’ll be waiting here. It took quite the effort, convincing Roka we’d suffer more for the presence of guards.”

  Resignation thick against her tongue, Poppy groaned, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let us hope we find success. Let us pray they are not wiped out to the last. A familiar face on cleared grounds; I doubt we’ll find a more able participant with which to speak.”

  “Then we’re agreed?” Reina grappled with frayed fabrics, tense in her waiting; again: once, twice, thrice - the quartet breathed into the resultant quiet. Then, finally:

  “Aye,” said Darla.

  “Aye,” echoed the twins.

  Song defined their future.

  “In times of loss, I seek not ash. Fires left to die at last. O’ the flight of steel is cast. I now leave this past as past.”

  “Writ into the bones of gold, riches not yet found I’m told: awaiting there in futures seen by our mighty, godly queen.”

  “Fear her justice, know her sin: love for us and all our kin. Crowned by light and garbed in fate, she awaits with goodly grace.”

  “And o’er her clouds, in a kingdom undone; and under the moon, she fastens the sun.”

  “We wait for her thought, destiny laid, generations are thu-usly saved: I the Sword of Man, I the Sword of Law.”

  “Godsfall we come~ To Godsfall we go~ By rivers and seas, and farmer plateaus~”

  “In the cut of her blade, in the strength of her soul: I the sword of All extoll.”

  “Gods, oh gods~ Gods, oh gods~”

  “Of sin and soldiers, slaves and chains, broken homes, bloody remains.”

  “Kings of Man turned to rust, Kings of Man led to Love.”