Chương 52: Chapter 39: Dravak/Grub - Plans, and Revealing The Truth

Dravak Two weeks after the assault on the direwolf den, the cold changed overnight. By morning, every breath inside the cavern carried a faint mist, and thin drafts crept along the stone floor, finding the gaps beneath hides and the tender places around half-healed wounds. Dravak felt them stirring old aches beneath his scars. Winter hadn't fully arrived yet, but it had drawn close enough to touch them. The two weeks since the battle had been filled with smoke and boiled water, resin and grinding work.

Quiet groans had turned into muttered complaints, then into curses about stiffness and boredom. Slowly and stubbornly, his tribe had begun relearning that wounds didn't always have to end in death, provided they were cleaned, sealed, and watched. Under Grub's watchful eye and through the hands of his four helpers, only three of Dravak's wounded warband had died. Just as he had predicted.

Dravak remembered the quiet certainty in his voice when he had warned that two would not survive, and that a third likely wouldn't either. He'd been right, but Dravak had seen no satisfaction in it. When the first Warrior died, Grub had stared at the body with the strained, hollow look of someone who believed foreseeing failure should have been enough to prevent it. Dravak had told him only that without his work, many more would have followed. Then he had walked away and left the truth to settle.

Without the clean bindings, boiled washes, and strange methods Grub had brought into the cavern, Dravak would likely have lost half the wounded. Perhaps more. Had that happened, the Ironfang wouldn't have possessed enough Warriors to survive the coming winter. Even now, the margin remained painfully thin, and Dravak felt every missing spear whenever he looked across the cavern.

He'd humored another of Grub's strange requests the week before and sent him into the forest with a small guard of Warriors to gather berries. No explanation had been offered beyond a quiet insistence that they would be useful, so Dravak had allowed it. Grub's strange ideas had already saved more goblins than Dravak could afford to ignore. That was reason enough to let him continue. The Warriors had returned irritated, scratched, and heavily laden.

The thick thorny bushes grew along the lower slopes and through the thinner parts of the forest, more common than any of them had bothered noticing before. What they'd once ignored as useless forage that snagged hides and fur now filled two hide sacks nearly to bursting. The berries themselves were small, dark, and unpleasantly bitter when eaten raw. Grub had looked delighted. He'd immediately set his four helpers to work.

Stone bowls, crushing rocks, cloth, and every other tool Grub intended to use were scrubbed first, then doused with boiling water in yet another ritual the tribe had learned not to question. Only once everything had cooled did the berries come out. They were crushed slowly, skins and all, until hands and stone ran purple-black with juice. Grub refused to strain the pulp away as they worked, insisting that it needed to remain for the first part of whatever he was doing.

When it became obvious that their bowls wouldn't hold anywhere near enough, he asked for something larger. A tree trunk. Dravak had stared at him. Grub had stared back. The trunk arrived before sunset. For two full days, axes and scraping stone echoed through the cavern. The log was hollowed slowly with blades and then carefully scorched on the inside with controlled fire, and the interior scraped clean afterward until Grub finally stopped complaining about soot and loose charcoal.

Resin sealed cracks along the outside, while soaked rawhide strips were stretched around the barrel to reinforce the wood as it dried. A heavy lid was carved to fit the opening, though Grub refused to let them make it airtight. Apparently his berries needed to breathe without being allowed to let everything else in. Dravak still wasn't entirely sure what that meant. The work was slow and hard.

Most of it happened before the morning hunts or after darkness drove everyone home, stealing hours from sleep rather than labor the tribe needed elsewhere. Dravak allowed it. He wanted to see what Grub believed all that effort would become. While the barrel was being finished, Grub disappeared into the forest again. He returned with swollen welts along his arms, neck, and one side of his face, carrying a hide sack heavy with broken comb. Wild honey.

The Warriors accompanying him looked considerably less pleased with the expedition. Grub hardly seemed to notice the stings. He spent much of the evening separating wax and debris from the thick golden honey, then guarded what remained with enough care that one Warrior accused him of valuing it more than meat. Grub hadn't denied it. By the third night, the hollowed barrel stood near the cooler rear wall of the cavern. The crushed berries went in first, skins and pulp still mixed through the dark juice.

Then came pot after pot of stream water that Grub had boiled and allowed to cool before adding it. Dravak watched the level rise.

"You're making it weaker."

"Yes." Grub poured in another pot. Dravak frowned.

"That seems stupid."

"It tasted better this way." That was apparently the entire explanation. Then Grub brought out the honey. He poured it slowly into the diluted berry mixture while one of his helpers stirred with a long wooden paddle. Dravak watched the golden threads disappear into the dark liquid.

"And that?"

"Should make it stronger again." Dravak looked at him. Grub shrugged.

"Probably." Dravak decided he'd heard enough. The lid went on afterward, seated firmly enough to keep dirt and insects out but deliberately left with a narrow opening Grub had insisted upon. Within days, the barrel had begun making quiet sounds from within. Bubbles. Soft, intermittent little burps from the gap in the lid, accompanied by the same sour, strange smell Dravak remembered from Grub's first bowls. Every so often Grub crouched beside it, listened, checked the opening, and walked away looking satisfied.

Dravak had stopped asking why. He shook his head and rose from his stone seat. The cold found the healing wounds beneath his armor again. He rolled his shoulders, testing them. The old aches answered first, followed by a lingering pull along his ribs and shoulder where the alpha's claws had torn through hide and flesh. His armor had long since been scrubbed and patched, though the new leather remained lighter than the rest.

The bite around his forearm had closed beneath resin-dark cloth and blackened paste, leaving the skin tight whenever he flexed his hand. He was whole again, or at least as whole as a Chief ever expected to be. Around him, the wolf pups whined and pressed closer to the children. Warriors pulled their furs tighter even before they stood. The fires burned, but the cold winds that slipped through the open cave mouth now gnawed at the warmth of the cavern.

Near the central hearth, the former slaves moved among the last of the wounded with rough bowls and folded cloth. Most of the warband had returned to their feet, but not all of them had regained their full strength. A few still limped. A few still woke in the night with fever-sweat and a fear they refused to name. The four worked with a steady assurance that had not been there before. Hands that had once scrubbed filth now poured cooled, bark-brown water over cuts and gashes.

They checked bindings, lifted heads so Warriors could drink, and pressed resin-smeared cloth and charcoal paste against angry red wounds until the coverings held. Dravak watched one of them lift a Warrior's head while another brought the bowl before a word was spoken. A third had already moved to the next fur, loosening a stained binding and reaching for clean cloth. They no longer looked like Warriors repeating tasks Grub had shown them. He narrowed his eyes and used Identify on the nearest.

[Goblin Warrior – Level 3] Health: 40/40 | Stamina: 30/30 | Mana: 10/10 Dravak dismissed the window and let the question pass. Whatever had changed in the four, it was keeping his wounded alive. With so many of his best fighters gone, he couldn't afford to let torn flesh rot. He made a slow circuit of the cavern, ensuring the tribe's winter preparations moved as they should.

Kesh and the Hunters were sent into the forest to take whatever game still lingered, so the meat could be dried and stored before the deep cold emptied the woods. Any goblin without another task was given an axe or rope and ordered outside to cut and haul in firewood until their arms ached. Hunger would kill them slowly. The cold would kill them just as surely. Only when every goblin had been set to work did Dravak return to his stone seat. From there, he watched the morning unfold.

Wind slipped through the cave mouth again and again, stripping warmth from the fires faster than they could replace it. The pups crowded against the children or burrowed beneath their furs, while Warriors hunched closer to the flames whenever they thought no one was watching. Dravak felt his patience thinning. Winter was always cruel, but this one had found the Ironfang wounded, diminished, and short of nearly everything they would need to survive it. Grub noticed the cold as well.

He stood near the central fire for a long time, his gaze moving between the open cave mouth, the children wrapped tightly in their furs, and the thin rim of ice forming along the inside of a water bucket. Sable remained pressed close to his leg. The little wolf followed whenever he moved and settled at his heel whenever he stopped, as though she had already decided that nowhere in the cavern was safer. At last, Grub stepped into the open.

"Chief," he said, loud enough to carry.

"How does the tribe survive when the cold grows worse than this?" A few nearby Warriors laughed beneath their breath. Dravak said nothing. He wanted to hear what answers his tribe would give.

"We endure it," one Warrior said.

"Same as every winter." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Another spat beside the coals.

"We are Ironfang. Not tree-crawlers hiding in holes." Grub listened without arguing. Then he nodded once.

"I see." He turned and walked away. Later, as the day dragged on and the wind continued clawing warmth from the cavern, Dravak found Grub crouched near the back wall with a stick in hand and stopped to watch. Lines covered the dirt before him. A broad curve resembled the cave mouth closely enough for Dravak to recognize it. Shorter lines crossed the opening or pressed against the stone around it, while pebbles divided the drawing into uneven lengths.

Beside them ran rows of tight scratches and crooked symbols unlike any marks Dravak knew. Some had been crossed out and replaced so many times that the dirt beneath Grub's knees had become a pale smear. A second drawing sat apart from the first. Grub had scratched a small symbol beneath a long line that Dravak took for stone. A short mark rose from the symbol and stopped against it. Beyond that point, several angled strokes lay scattered across the dirt, none connected to the others. Some had been rubbed away.

Others were surrounded by more of the cramped symbols Dravak couldn't read.

"Seven. Thirteen. Then the rest in sevens," Grub murmured. His stick moved through another row of the strange markings.

"Fifty-five. Just enough." Enough for what, he didn't say. Grub looked toward the main hearth. Smoke rolled upward from the flames and spread beneath the cavern ceiling, gathering in a dark layer before drifting toward the entrance. His gaze followed it, then settled on the stone above. When Grub returned to the drawing, he rubbed away one of the angled strokes, then studied the result in silence. Sable sat beside him, following the scrape of the stick with solemn attention, as though any of it made sense to her.

Dravak watched a while longer. Grub's earlier question hadn't been a complaint. He'd been searching for the edge of the problem, the place where it might be made to yield. Whatever the markings meant, it was clear to Dravak that he'd already considered several answers and found each one wanting. A draft swept through the cavern and scattered dust across the drawings. Grub shielded them with one hand and kept working. Dravak continued toward his seat.

He knew that soon enough, Grub would come before him with another strange idea. Dravak found himself curious to hear it. Grub Grub returned to the main fire that evening. The cold had deepened with the setting sun. Wind whispered through the cave mouth and crawled across the floor, stirring loose ash and finding every strip of exposed skin. The fires had been fed until they burned high, but the warmth disappeared almost as quickly as the wood could produce it.

Smoke gathered heavily beneath the ceiling, thick enough to make several of the children cough and rub at watering eyes. Grub stepped into the glow and stopped before Dravak's stone seat.

"I think I can keep the wind out." Murmurs stirred around the hearth. Dravak leaned forward, his attention settling fully upon him.

"Speak."

"We build a wall across the cave mouth," Grub said.

"A frame of wood covered with hides, then sealed with mud and grass. It won't stop all the cold, but it will break the wind and keep more of the fire's warmth inside." A Warrior near the hearth snorted.

"A wall of sticks."

"Humans hide behind walls," another said.

"Ironfang endure." A few goblins laughed, though the sound carried little strength. The next draft sent two of them hunching closer to the fire. Grub kept his eyes upon Dravak.

"A wall would keep out the wind," the Chief said.

"It would also keep the smoke inside."

"I know." Dravak studied him.

"I saw you scribbling in the dirt earlier. You wouldn't come before me with only half a plan." His gaze lifted toward the smoke hanging beneath the cavern roof.

"How do you intend to let it out?" Grub looked toward the darkened ceiling above the central hearth.

"I can cut a vent through the rock. The smoke will rise through it while the wall keeps most of the wind from coming in." This time the laughter came louder.

"Cut through stone?"

"With what?" a Warrior called.

"Your teeth?"

"Maybe he intends to ask the rock politely." More laughter. Grub said nothing. Dravak raised a hand, and the cavern quieted.

"You knew stone wouldn't yield easily," he said.

"You knew I would ask how you intended to cut through it." His eyes narrowed.

"And still, you spoke as though you already had the answer." Grub felt Sable press against his ankle. She'd followed him to the fire and now sat beside him, leaning slightly against his leg as she watched the surrounding goblins with her ears drawn back. Dravak studied him for another moment.

"This is one of those secrets you weren't ready to surrender." It wasn't a question. Grub glanced toward the smoke. He hadn't expected to reveal another part of himself so soon, but a wall without a vent would only replace the cold with smoke, and there was no explaining the plan without revealing the magic behind it.

"Yes," Grub said.

"Why reveal it now?"

"Because the wall won't work without it." Dravak's fingers tapped once against the arm of his seat.

"And why hide it before?" Grub could have softened the answer. He didn't.

"Because you would've killed me." Several goblins shifted at the accusation. Dravak's expression remained still.

"For what?" Grub bent and picked up a pebble from beside the hearth. He held the stone upon his palm where everyone could see it.

"The two slaves who attacked me in the cage," he said.

"This is how I killed them." A nearby Warrior barked a laugh.

"You killed them with a pebble?" Grub turned toward the far wall.

"No. With this." He cast Pebble Toss. A brief gust brushed across his fingers, faint enough to vanish into the cold air already moving through the cavern. Grub barely noticed the Miscast effect before the stone tore from his hand. It crossed the cavern too quickly for the eye to follow and struck the wall with a hard crack. The pebble shattered, scattering fragments across the floor and leaving a pale mark where it had hit. Several Warriors recoiled. One rose halfway from his furs before stopping.

Another closed both hands around his spear.

"Magic," someone whispered.

"System-blessed," another voice breathed. Dravak's remained fixed upon the mark on the wall. Throk had gone rigid beside him, while Kesh stared at Grub's empty hand. Then a third voice came from nearer the fire, quieter than the others.

"Shaman." The word swept through the cavern, and every murmur died beneath it. Sable gave a low, uneasy whine and pressed harder against Grub's leg. Dravak rose to his feet. His hand closed around the haft of his axe and dragged it from beside the stone seat with a scrape of metal against rock. The cavern went still. Grub's body locked up before he could stop it. Every instinct screamed at him to step back, but the circle of watching goblins left nowhere to retreat without looking as though he meant to run.

Dravak descended slowly toward Grub from the raised stone.

"This," he said, his voice low and rough, "is what you believed would get you killed." Grub forced himself to hold the Chief's gaze.

"Yes."

"Then you judged correctly." Dravak's iron teeth showed as his mouth pulled back. His axe remained lowered, but only barely, the blade angled toward the floor between them. Grub's fingers curled against his palm. Sable growled. It was a tiny sound, thin enough that it should have meant nothing, but Dravak's eyes dropped to her. The pup had moved, and now stood before Grub's feet, fur lifted along her narrow back as she faced a creature who could have crushed them both without effort.

Something in Dravak's expression shifted. His grip remained white around the axe haft, but the weapon lowered another inch.

"A Chief hardens his body," he said. Anger still pressed through every word.

"A Warrior forces tired limbs to keep moving. That is power goblins understand." His gaze cut toward the pale mark upon the wall.

"Yours leaves your body and strikes the world around you." Dravak looked back at Grub.

"That is the kind of magic goblins fear."

"Because of the Shaman," Grub said. The axe head struck the stone floor with a sudden crack. Several children flinched. Grub did too.

"Because of what followed him," Dravak snarled. For a moment, the fury in his voice made Grub certain the answer had been a mistake. Then Dravak drew a slow breath through his nose. His shoulders remained rigid, but when he spoke again, his voice had lowered.

"The stories are older than any goblin alive. They disagree about what he could do. Some say beasts obeyed his voice, fire fell where he pointed, and the sky itself answered his anger." Dravak scoffed, though there was little amusement in it.

"Most of that is nonsense meant to frighten children." Several older goblins answered with quiet grunts, but no one laughed.

"But every telling agrees on what came after," Dravak continued.

"The Shaman gathered the tribes of the forest into a great horde and marched south against the settled lands. When that horde broke, the southern armies followed the survivors back into the forest." His gaze moved across the cavern, settling briefly upon the children and the wounded.

"They came to finish what the Shaman had begun. They burned everything in their path. Whole stretches of forest turned black. Dens vanished beneath fire and steel, and goblins died by the tens of thousands." The flames shifted between them as Dravak looked back at Grub. When he spoke next, his voice was quieter, and the anger had bled out of it.

"Since then, anything that resembles his power has been killed before it could grow." His voice fell quieter still.

"The stories may lie about how powerful he was. They don't lie about what his rise cost us." Grub swallowed. His mouth had gone dry, but he held Dravak's gaze.

"Are you going to kill me?" The question came out more steadily than he felt. Dravak stared at him across the fire. The axe remained in his hand. Around them, no one moved. Grub could hear Sable's low growl and the hard beating of his own heart. Then Dravak's eyes shifted toward the wounded Grub had helped save. Toward the children beside the fire, holding their wolf pups. Finally, they returned to the mark Pebble Toss had left upon the wall. His grip loosened one finger at a time.

"No." The word left him reluctantly, as though dragged through clenched teeth. Grub released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Dravak lifted the axe and returned it to the side of his seat, though he didn't sit.

"You've earned the right to be judged by more than frightened stories," he said as he turned back to Grub.

"That is the only reason you're still standing." His gaze hardened.

"But don't mistake restraint for trust. You've hidden power from me since the day you entered this cavern, and now you ask permission to cut into the stone above my tribe." He gestured toward the damaged wall.

"You can strike from an empty hand. You claim you can cut through solid rock. Before I allow you near the roof, I will understand exactly what stands beneath it." Dravak returned to his seat, leaving the axe within easy reach. Throk and Kesh joined him a moment later.

"Show me every Spell you possess." Grub gave a small nod.

"Of course." Grub looked around the cavern. The goblins watched Grub in wary silence. Hands remained close to weapons, and the children held their pups tighter against their chests, staring at him with wide eyes. Even the four goblins who already knew his secret had gone still. Sable now pressed against his ankle, fur standing on end. Grub crouched long enough to scratch between her ears, then stood once she calmed down a little.

"What I have is nothing like the Shaman from the stories," he said.

"I can't call down fire or command beasts. I only have four Spells, and none of them are powerful." He paused beneath the weight of the tribe's attention.

"I've only tested them enough to learn what they do. I was too afraid of being discovered to use them often, so I don't know all their limits yet." Some of the tension around the hearth eased, though not by much. Grub pointed toward the pale mark on the far wall.

"That was Pebble Toss. It launches a small rock toward a target at high speed." He lifted another pebble and turned it between his fingers.

"It hits much harder than I could throw it, but I still need a stone, a clear target, and enough time to aim. If I miss, it keeps going in the same direction. It doesn't turn or seek another target." Kesh's gaze flicked toward the cave mouth, already considering what that might mean beyond the cavern. Grub set the pebble down and crossed toward a section of exposed stone beside the hearth.

"This one is Stone Tap." Grub focused on a random patch of stone and activated Stone Tap. Tok. Tok. Tok. The sound came back clean and solid. Then he shifted his attention several feet away and cast the Spell again. Tok. Tok. Tok. This time, the tapping answered with a duller, less even note. Grub pointed toward the second spot.

"Something beneath there is different. Weaker, perhaps. Or partly hollow." The Warrior who'd mocked him earlier frowned.

"You can see through rock?"

"No, but I can hear where the tapping changes." Grub looked toward the smoke-darkened ceiling.

"It can warn me where the stone is cracked, hollow, or less solid than the rock around it." He tilted his head back, studying the darkness overhead.

"I can use that to search for a place where the roof might be thinner, instead of cutting blindly." Kesh rose and crossed to the two places Grub had tested. She crouched over the first and struck the stone with the butt of her knife. A solid knock answered. Then she shifted to the second spot and tapped it the same way. This time, the sound came back duller. One of her ears twitched.

"He's right." Her quiet confirmation drew several Warriors forward. Grub moved to the wall and waited until Kesh returned to Dravak's side before he chose a narrow natural seam.

"My third Spell is called Grain Shift. It has two uses, as far as I can tell. First, it can move a small amount of loose earth." He scraped together a shallow pile of dirt and focused upon it. The dirt trembled. A small portion lifted several inches, drifted sideways, and scattered across the stone. A few goblins snorted. Grub ignored them.

"It can also shift the grain within stone. Not enough to move a wall or carve a tunnel, but enough to weaken a small area." He directed the Spell into the seam. A thin wisp of smoke slipped from between his fingers and vanished against the wall. Grub noticed the Miscast effect more clearly this time, though no one else reacted. He still didn't cast often enough to know how common the strange effects would become. He could only hope they remained occasional.

Fine grit loosened along the fracture and pattered onto the floor. When Grub pressed one blackened nail against it, more came free beneath his touch.

"I can't make the stone vanish," he said.

"I can only make a weak place easier to break."

"And can you do that to solid stone?" Throk asked from beside Dravak.

"No crack?" Grub hesitated.

"I don't know." Throk's brow lowered.

"I haven't tested it enough," Grub continued." Grain Shift can weaken stone, but I don't know how much harder it is without an existing crack, or whether some kinds of rock resist it better than others." He glanced toward the loosened seam.

"A crack gives me somewhere to begin. Beyond that, I'd just be guessing." Grub placed his fingertips against the loosened seam.

"The last Spell is Stone Chip." A small flake splintered from the wall and dropped into his palm. He looked down at it, then up at the goblins watching him. He shrugged.

"That's all it does. It removes one small piece from a stone surface I'm touching." The Warrior from before rose and approached the wall. Grub stepped aside while he pressed a thumb into the shallow hollow.

"Small," the Warrior said.

"And slow."

"Yes." The goblin glanced toward the place where Stone Tap had sounded, then up at the ceiling. He seemed to be thinking.

"But you wouldn't use it alone," he said slowly.

"You'd find the weakest path first, loosen the stone along it, then chip the pieces away."

"One at a time," Grub said. The Warrior studied the ceiling.

"If the rock isn't too thick, you could carve through eventually."

"That's the plan."

"And if it's too thick?" Dravak asked.

"Then I search for another path." Grub turned toward him.

"If there isn't one, I stop before I bring the ceiling down on us." Uneasy murmurs moved through the cavern. Kesh looked at him curiously.

"How will you know the stone around the opening hasn't become unstable?"

"I'll keep using Stone Tap while I work. I'll follow one narrow path and leave the surrounding rock alone. If new cracks begin spreading beyond it, I stop."

"You've done this before?" Dravak asked.

"No." The single word quieted the murmurs.

"I've used the Spells separately," Grub continued.

"Enough to know that Stone Tap finds weak places, Grain Shift can loosen them, and Stone Chip can remove what I touch. I've never tried using them together to cut through anything before." He held up the flake of stone.

"I don't know exactly how long it will take, how far Grain Shift can weaken the rock, or how often I'll need to stop and recover my Mana. Like I said, I was too afraid to test any of that where someone might see." Dravak's gaze remained fixed upon him.

"Then you're asking me to trust a plan you haven't proven."

"Yes," Grub said.

"But I can work slowly, test every section, and stop if the stone reacts differently than I expect. I won't pretend to know more than I do." Dravak rose and approached the wall. He scraped his thumb across the weakened seam, dislodging a little more grit, then examined the shallow hollow left by Stone Chip. A draft swept through the cave mouth, bending the flames and setting the nearest children to shivering. Dravak looked from the smoke overhead to the cold wind entering the cavern behind him.

"It will take time."

"Yes."

"And patience."

"Yes."

"More than most goblins possess." Grub met his gaze.

"I'm not most goblins." Dravak stared at him for a long moment. Then a rough chuckle escaped him.

"No," he said.

"That much has been clear for some time." His gaze returned briefly toward the weakened seam before flicking back to Grub.

"You think unlike any goblin I have known." Previously, the words sounded like an accusation, but now Grub heard wary curiosity beneath them.

"Your magic will be used for the tribe," Dravak continued.

"Not for idle experiments, and not simply because you become curious about what else you might force the stone to do." Grub nodded.

"You will also tell me before attempting anything that might weaken the cavern."

"Yes, Chief."

"And if I decide the work endangers my tribe, it ends."

"Understood." Dravak rested one hand upon the haft of his axe.

"Magic that reaches beyond the body frightens goblins for good reason. Don't give them another." Grub glanced around the hearth. The unease remained, but hands had begun to drift away from weapons. More eyes rested upon the chipped wall than upon him. Dravak noticed it too. He pointed toward the Warrior who had worked out how the Spells fit together.

"You understood his plan before anyone else." The goblin straightened.

"You will help him." He struck a fist against his chest.

"Yes, Chief." Dravak chose three more from among those gathered near the fire. They were strong enough to cut and haul, but none belonged among the tribe's best Hunters or the Warriors still struggling to recover.

"Four helpers," he said.

"No more. They will cut wood, prepare hides, and bring whatever mud and grass you need." His gaze returned to Grub.

"I won't weaken the hunting groups or delay the winter stores for a wall that may fail."

"That will be enough."

"It had better be." Grub bowed his head.

"At first light, before any work begins, you will speak with me, Throk, and Kesh. Alone." Grub's eyes moved briefly toward the two Lieutenants. Neither appeared surprised.

"Yes, Chief."

"You may measure and plan tonight," Dravak continued.

"Nothing will be cut, built, or weakened until we have spoken."

"Understood." Dravak returned to his seat. Conversation slowly resumed around the hearth, quieter than before. Some goblins still watched Grub, while others murmured over the mark Pebble Toss had left on the wall or the tapping that had come from beneath the stone. The wind swept through the cave mouth once more. Grub turned toward the opening and began counting the paces.