Chapter 18: Goldeneyes

The Mistress of the Emberflint Clan, the goblin known as Goldeneyes, sat staring pensively out at the torched ruins of Eastmarket. Once a thriving commercial center, it was now a blighted shell holding the pitiful remnants of a population that was barely surviving.

On this day, she was dressed in her one conceit, an elaborate silken robe dyed in deep purples and blacks that seemed to shift and ripple in the light. Hundreds of small trinkets and ribbons adorned the garment—each one telling a story of her clan’s triumphs under her leadership. The sleeves, intentionally oversized, concealed an arsenal of daggers, poison darts, and other tools of goblin negotiation.

Her clan had been incredibly lucky to escape the old dragon’s wrath a season ago. It bothered her that luck had played so large a part in their deliverance. She was a firm believer that good luck was always followed by bad. The bad had come right quick. Silverbirch and his son, the main source of her clan’s income, were dead. Much of the clan’s carefully purchased investment properties in Eastmarket lay in ruin, slagged over by dragon-fire.

They were alarmingly close to being broke.

In desperate hope of some way out of their current mess, she had summoned a seer named Siah, or Far Looker in Ghukliak, the language of goblin-kind. The old female now sat across from her, sipping tea, waiting politely for permission to speak. Goldeneyes was no fan of seers. She really didn’t want to hear their foretellings. They almost always complicated decision-making and would probably add to the feeling of doom that now flavored her days. Even in ordinary times, living in Oldtown was to balance on the razor knife’s edge. Recent times had been anything but ordinary.

Suddenly, the seer’s eyes rolled back in her head as she fell out of the chair onto the floor and into a trance.

“Doom and Choice are upon us,” the seer croaked out and lapsed into unconsciousness.

Goldeneyes shuddered with superstitious awe.

There was a noise outside her office, a rapid knock on her door, and her youngest clan-brother came in, shaken and pale-faced.

“Mistress, you have visitors.”

“Just what I need,” she snapped. “Help this old fool up. Get her out of here.”

Her clan-brother, still unaccountably pale and shaken, picked up the old woman like a sack of flour and hurried out.

Next, the seer’s foretelling came alarmingly clear—

The Shadow Walker walked through the door.

A frisson of pure terror clenched in her belly at the sight of the being she had prayed to never see again in this world. She desperately tried to suppress her species’ involuntary response to danger: body freeze, rapid panting in preparation for a quick escape. Her mind quickly sought out the four emergency bolt holes she had built into her office. Just as quickly, she gave up. If the Shadow Walker wanted her dead, she was dead. Her chief bodyguard, a tall troll female named Ukur, stood useless, staring at him open-mouthed.