In the morning, each camp made breakfast for themselves. I stood around with the few humans that were still with us, but Domon grabbed my hand and pulled me to the goblin side to eat with them. When I tried to make him let go of me and stay on the human side, he just ignored me. To be fair, he was so much stronger than me he may not have realized I was trying to pull away from him. I gave up after too long and just went with him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be on the goblin side, I just knew my time with Meig was limited and wanted to spend it with her. Trying to communicate that to Domon was a bit beyond our vocabulary, so I just accepted things.

  He taught me a few more words. We ate meat and some stale bread. It wasn’t too bad and there was plenty to be had. He tried to make me eat more than my fill, but I let him know I was very full and didn’t need so much food. This seemed to calm him and please him in some way. Perhaps he felt it wouldn’t be very difficult to keep me fed since it seemed I would be in his charge from now on. He watched with interest when I fed Aelfie who had been happy to jog along with us.

  She didn’t let the goblins get too close to her, but she felt comfortable enough dodging around them. The goblins watched her with interest and they were careful around her, so I felt we would all get along well together. She would probably warm up to them eventually. The goblins smelled a little funny and as they were large, probably looked a lot more threatening from where she stood down around their ankles.

  Soon we cleaned up camp and set out again. True to her word, Meig spent some time communicating with the goblin king and his interpreter about me, presumably to set up some sort of mail system between us.

  When she finally fell back in riding next to me, she explained the system. Every two weeks or so, there would be an exchanged between the goblins and humans. At that time, any letters I wrote would be picked up and delivered along with the goblin goods.

  “I'm going to spend some time with the lizard people. They’ve invited me and I’m eager to find out what I can about them. Maybe I’ll get one of those necklaces for myself and figure out how they work! Write to Kaarlo, okay? You’ll do it, right?” Meig asked me. I wanted to say no and argue, but I knew I would do it both for Kaarlo and her sakes.

  “Yes, fine. I’ll do it. How long will you be with them?” I wondered.

  “I don’t know. Not a year. I’m not crazy. Plus, I think I’ll meet up with Boylin and the others in Holdstone. We’ll keep busy. There’s…,” she said.

  “Always another adventure,” I finished for her and she smiled. “Will you write to me? I’m sure Kaarlo will forward anything you send…” I felt foolish asking and watched the ground under our mount’s feet as we moved along. I looked up in surprise when I felt a hand on my arm.

  “Of course, I will!” Meig reassured me.

  “Thanks. It will be nice to hear news of the others and all. Be sure you exaggerate our adventures here!” I teased.

  “Oh, I will! Everyone will know how we saved Wellswood and, in fact, the world, with our great skills!” Something caught our funny bones in that moment and we started laughing hysterically until tears rolled down our faces. Poor Domon rode alongside and was clearly concerned for our well being. To be fair, I nearly fell off my horse and could have cared less about it. Somehow, him holding me onto my saddle and grunting in goblin just made us laugh even harder.

  When he began to call for the goblin king, it sobered us up a little and Meig managed to make the sign for ‘fine’ and ‘agreement’, so Domon finally calmed down.

  “I'm going to miss you, Meig. I never had a friend like you who really understood me before. I had Gavendor. I think he understood me, but he was more my mentor,” I shrugged, suddenly self-conscious.

  “What about Kaarlo? Isn’t he a friend?” Meig asked me and I’m pretty sure she was teasing me.

  “Kaarlo was never a friend. He was my fiancee, who I ran away from, remember? Then, he became… well, I don’t know, but not a friend. We don’t really even know each other. We would have made each other miserable if I’d stayed and married him,” I explained, hoping I wasn’t rambling too badly.

  “Well, miserable in some ways, I’m sure,” said Meig with a smirk and I’m pretty sure she was referring to our previous nighttime activities. Had it only been two days ago? So much had happened since then. But I could still feel his hands and lips on me and the way my body had responded to him.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, finally came back to the present. “There's more to life than that! I’m a nightmare at managing people and sewing and babies… Can you imagine me with a baby? I wouldn’t know which end was up. No, Lady Pardama is where she needs to be as am I. No doubt about it!” I was aware that I was rambling even more and probably just trying to convince myself at this point.

  “I'll write to you, my dear. I’ll let you know what I’m up to and where I’ll be, especially as your Blood Year ends so you can catch me up and we can have some more adventures together. If I’m not retired by then,” she added with a wink.

  “Well, I’m sure I’ll be raking in the gold with all my Blood Year responsibilities, so we can buy manors next to each other,” I teased.

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll settle down and write a book on the lizard people and their culture while you work on your goblin treatise. Yes, that plan has merit,” she said, gazing out at the road ahead of us like she could picture it.

  “By the sea, somewhere. I hear it’s good for one’s joints. As one gets older,” I added.

  “Indeed,” she responded in an understanding tone.

  We chatted about this and that for the rest of the morning. When we stopped for our noon meal, I was herded over to the goblin side again where the goblin king looked me over careful as if he expected I should fall apart at any moment. But as he watched me eat and try to communicate with Domon, he seemed satisfied and went back to his entourage.

  Domon tried to get Aelfie to let him pet her. He crouched down to be able to reach her and she kept just out of his reach. I felt sorry for him, so I handed him a sliver of meat and indicated he should offer it to her.

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  After a while, and with great patience, she did go over to him. It took a few more strip of meat, but he managed to give her a gentle pat. Once he got her behind her one ear the way she liked, the little turncoat just gave herself over to the goblin and I only hoped she would still listen to me.

  Domon seemed very pleased with himself and kept signing ‘Thank you’ to me, so I suppose he understood that I had helped endear him to my little creature. It’s hard to tell with goblins as they don’t seem to show emotion on their faces as we do, so I had to go by his signs and behavior.

  We were not long on our horses when we arrived to where Meig would be picked up by the lizard people. It was a stone and wood bridge over a slow, lazy river. Indeed, the lizard people were already waiting for her.

  We organized Meig’s trunk and belongings to be unloaded from the carriage and put into a boat and all too soon, we were saying good bye at the water’s edge.

  “Take care of yourself, Meig,” I told her, feeling my emotions bubbling up and we hugged hard.

  “You too. If you figure out how to tell a goblin ‘no means no’ you let me know,” she whispered into my ear and I really wanted to smack her for that.

  We let go and she was helped into one of the boats that was going to head further into lizard territory. She told me she had been invited to what was likely the capital city of the lizard people. We didn’t know if any human had ever been there before, so it was quite an honor and I looked forward to tales of her adventures.

  As the lizard people poled the boats out into the current. I stood and watched. We waved and then did the sign for ‘Fare thee well’ which was an arm across the chest and then moving it in sort of waves away from you. It was a sight to see all the lizard people do the same sign back to me at the same time. Even some of the goblins made the sign in return.

  Most of the goblins remounted and started back down the road. The carriages were urged onward, the clip clop of hooves faded, but I stood on the shore and watched the canoes get smaller and smaller until they turned a bend in the river beyond which I could not see.

  Domon had stood silently next to me. I realized we were the last still standing here. The caravan had moved on out of sight down the road. I hadn’t been worried. There was only one road going east and I would be able to catch them up within the next hour or two.

  When I looked up at Domon, he patted my shoulder in what I suppose was meant to be a reassuring way. And it was.

  “Let's go,” I told him.

  “Kangor,” he said, which I took to mean much the same thing.

  I put a lead on Meig’s horse to pull it behind my own. She had made some sort of arrangement with the goblins for its eventual return or exchange. I suppose they had thought taking it before she’d left for certain would be rude or something. I didn’t mind. It was a gelding of steady stock, not nearly as fine as from Kaarlo’s stables, but very serviceable and, in the rocky areas we were heading possibly more surefooted than many horses.

  Domon mounted and urged his mount forward. He didn’t wait for me, which I took as a sign of the growing trust between us. I mounted and kicked Lidley to fall in next to Domon and we rode mostly in silence until we met up with the rest of the caravan.

  The humans still with the group seemed surprised at our arrival. I reckoned they couldn’t tell one goblin from another very well and hadn’t realized Domon had been left behind. I was starting to be able to tell them apart and learn their names fairly easily, but the groups didn’t interact much.

  That night it looked like it might rain, so I started to wonder about my sleeping arrangement. I carry a tiny pup tent with me for when I travel, but it is only big enough for me and Aelfie and my pack and I didn’t think Domon would like the arrangement. Sure enough, after I’d tied up Lidley with the other horses, he pulled me in towards the goblin tent area and shoved me into a large tent. I tried to remind myself that his rough treatment of me was due to his strength and no ill will between us.

  He went to one corner and indicated I should put out my bed roll. I was hesitant, but then I saw the goblin king was there with his guards in another part of the tent. Domon stood around and over me, shoving other goblins who got too close to his liking further away from me. I had a small corner and he put his roll next to mine so that it was between me an all other goblins in the tent. Once he was satisfied with our positioning, he pulled me into the eating tent where we sat together and had some dinner.

  It was a hot meal today as some had apparently gone hunting. The stew could have used some spices and salt, but it wasn’t too bad and I was too tired out from the day to mind too much about it. When the meal was over, Domon led me back to our sleeping tent. The king and his guard were already snoozing, so I tried to relax and sleep despite the guttural grunts and sounds from the goblins all around me.

  The next day, we would get to Kongmor. It was a recent settlement of goblins along the human road. The humans with us were going to assist in building houses and stables and such for this settlement. Humans had been encouraged to stay if they wished. I knew from speaking with the people with us that they were eager to see what goods the goblins had that could be traded.

  There had long been rumors that the goblins were rich in precious stones and metals that they mined out of their mountains. Many were eager to confirm the stories and figure out what the goblins would want in trade for these valuable goods.

  From looking at some of the carriages, some humans had already gambled that they would want bolts of fabric, household items, or seeds for farming. Weapon trading had been a sore spot in the negotiations for many days, according to Meig, and no wonder. The goblins seemed well equipped as we had found to our dismay when the attacks had begun. Trust had not built up enough to compare and contrast our armaments, but rope for animals, snares and fishhooks were all things that seemed we could agree to trade on.

  When we arrived at Kongmor, it was not much more than a mud pit with some minor organization to it. There was clearly a lot of work needed to make it into a viable trading post. I was glad that Domon seemed to take this same view of things and was eager to move on from the place.

  We made arrangements to go on past the budding town toward their hives, so I bid the humans fare well there. I had not really made any friendships, so it was a quick process. One of the men, however, handed me a letter from Kaarlo and told me he’d help me escape. I just smiled and patted his shoulder.

  “I'm not going to run from this. Tell Kaarlo that I’m fine and I’ll write, so he needn’t worry,” I told him.

  “Then, if that be your answer, he told me to give you this,” the man handed me an ornate box. I glanced inside to to find sheafs of paper and ink quills and bottles.

  “Okay, this I will take. When you see him, thank him from me,” I said. The man had made sure to talk with me when Domon had been separated from me. The humans with us all seemed to look at me sadly and I wondered if they assumed I was heading toward certain death.

  I can’t say I felt the same. If Domon or any of them wanted me dead, why wait until I was in their hives? And I understood being worried about my virtue, but, honestly, I had felt more concerned for that around human males than I ever had with the goblins.

  We didn’t know how goblins reproduced in the first place and it was likely I could not produce any goblin progeny, so that sort of issue seemed remote to me. Besides, Domon, despite sleeping right next to me for some nights had not laid a hand or claw (in his case) on me.

  I put the nice box into my trunk on the carriage and made sure Lidley was saddled and ready to go, so I was standing next to the caravan when Domon returned. He looked a little surprised to see me. The goblin king chattered at him extensively, pointing to me, so I knew I was a topic of conversation, but didn’t know their language well enough to know what he was saying.

  We all mounted up and headed out. We were no longer on the road, but crossed rocky country down a trail toward the high mountains where, presumably, the goblin hives were found. Aelfie was happy to run about the wilder country, chasing small critters around as we picked our way through the country side.

  I could see the further mountains had snow on them and, perhaps it was my imagination or fancy but a sudden breeze seemed to have a cold edge to it. When I asked Domon how long it would take to get there, he indicated about four hours. So, in four short hours I would find out what my future year would hold.