“There’s a place coming up where I’ve camped many times before,” Max said.
“We will camp there,” Ivan said, speaking as if Max’s idea were his own.
Max rolled his eyes and sat next to Anders on the side of the trail. Whispering, he asked, “Did you get the feeling he wasn’t telling us the whole story?”
Anders nodded and replied, “He’s hiding something all right.”
Once they’d set up camp, Anders and the four others set out in search of firewood while Ivan went hunting for their dinner. By the time they returned with armloads of sticks and sizeable broken branches, Ivan was already preparing a small deer he’d killed. Anders noticed that the deer didn’t have any arrow wound like he’d seen in the deer he’d hunted. The deer was definitely dead; Ivan had already begun slicing off pieces of meat for their meal.
Anders and the others sorted the wood they’d gathered into piles according to size and diameter.
“The key to preparing a good fire is first to have four different-sized wood piles ready when you go to light it,” Red said as if he were showing them how to build a fire for the first time. “First you need two large handfuls of straw-sized twigs, then a bundle of finger-sized wood. Next, a bundle slightly larger in diameter goes on the fire. And finally, once that’s burned and you have your bed of coals, put on your larger logs.” He demonstrated by lighting some dry grass and placing the bundles on one at a time as he spoke.
Anders leaned over to Max and whispered, “I’m not a child. I know how to build a fire.” They both rolled their eyes and tried to ignore Red’s arrogant demonstration.
“Or,” Ivan said. “You can do this.” He pointed to a log that was not on the fire and whispered to himself. The log burst into flames and he chuckled.
“Not all of us are magicians,” Red said angrily.
“Thank the gods for that,” Ivan said in response. “That is the last thing this world needs, more sorcerers to mess up what the natural world already provides. And only non-magical people call us magicians; the proper term is sorcerer.”
Anders thought it was strange that he had that kind of outlook on magic, seeing as he was someone who could wield it.
“I see the magician has regained his strength,” Red said mockingly.
Ivan shot him a deadly glare that made Red turn away from him and continue to put wood on the fire. Ivan went back to preparing the meat for the six of them. Soon all of them had bellies full of fresh venison. They washed it down with the crisp cold water gathered from a nearby creek. Exhausted from the day’s travel, they were all sound asleep before long.
The next day they walked across the base of the Sharpstone Mountain Range. Anders hiked at a distance from the others using the time alone to ponder during their trek. He was angry with Red for not seeing that the storm they sailed into was a trap and Ivan for not stopping it, but mostly he missed his cousins. They were like brother and sister to him. Anders controlled his anger by keeping his thoughts to himself and staying away from the others while he fumed in solitude.
He also used this time to think about Theodor and Ivan’s shared history. He wanted to know if Ivan was born with the ability to use magic or if he became magical through some kind of transformative process. Anders could tell there was more to what Ivan told him about his relationship with Theodor and considered asking him about it. Before he did, Anders remembered that Ivan told him there was a time and a place where he would tell Anders everything, besides Anders was still irritated with Ivan, so he decided to wait.
Anders found it difficult to trust Ivan because he didn’t know much about him, but it did seem as though Ivan was doing everything in his power to help as he had agreed on the ship. Anders found himself realizing that he only really trusted Max, who had never given him any reason not to.
Ivan had them set up camp that night in the center of a long narrow valley. He wanted Anders to accompany him while he hunted for their supper, so Anders agreed and brought along his bow and three arrows. They hadn’t been gone long before a thick fog surrounded them. It wafted through the air and blanketed the two so they couldn’t see much farther than their immediate surroundings. Ivan told Anders not to worry about getting lost as long as he stayed close to him, because he could sense where camp and the others were.
The setting sun could only be seen as a bright orange circle through the fog. It dropped steadily lower, nearing the horizon. Ivan had killed three rabbits with his mind, snapping their necks as they tried to escape. It was getting dark when he suggested they head back to camp.
Anders bent down to pick up the last dead rabbit. As he scooped it into his hand, he thought he saw a person standing in front of him through the fog. When he looked closer, it was gone. Anders got Ivan’s attention by making a ‘psst’ noise.
“I think I saw someone in the fog just now,” he said.
“That’s strange,” concern flooded Ivan’s voice. “I don’t sense anyone.”
The two of them peered intently toward where Anders had seen something or someone. Then Anders saw the dark shape again, this time moving. It slunk low to the ground and darted from behind a boulder to a nearby tree.
“There!” Anders said, pointing to the shadowy figure as it moved across the misty foreground.
Ivan shot a burst of energy from his hand toward it. Anders saw chunks of bark blow off the tree and knew he’d missed. Anders drew his bow and aimed toward the tree where he’d last seen the figure. He moved closer toward it, arrow nocked and ready to fire. The shadowy figure bolted as soon as Anders drew near. He let his arrow fly; shooting in the direction he saw it fleeing. There was a screech and he knew he’d hit it.
The two of them approached the figure with caution. Anders had struck it right in the side, mid-ribcage. Getting a good look at it, he didn’t know what kind of creature it was. He’d never seen anything like it. It had two arms and legs in the same way humans do, but its skin was dark green in color and the creature had wiry gray hairs covering most of its body.
“What is that?” Anders asked curling his upper lip in distaste.
Ivan knelt down beside it and began searching its pockets for anything of value. “It’s a goblin,” Ivan said. “My guess is it’s a scout, probably one of a group of scouts. There will be more, lots more. Goblins travel in hordes and move quickly. We need to go.”
He paused at the sound of light footsteps trotting up behind them. Ivan turned and to see another goblin and swiftly shot his hand out, snapping its neck with an accurately placed flow of energy.
“We need to get back to the others,” Ivan said. “The only reason we’re not already dead is because of this fog.”
Together they ran back down to camp. Seeing them come sprinting from out of the fog, the others rose to attention.
“Put that fire out and get your things, we need to leave now!” Ivan commanded, kicking dirt over the flames of their newly made campfire.
“What’s going on?” Red asked, confused but helping stomp out the fire because of Ivan’s serious tone.
“Goblin scouts,” Ivan said quickly. “We killed two of them in the fog. There will be a horde behind them.”
“The rumors were true,” Max said as he scrambled to find his few belongings.
Within a minute they’d erased any sign of having made a camp. Ivan used his magic to disguise the smoldering coals as a pile of rocks. Together they moved down a shallow gully and ran as fast as they could in the direction of Brookside.
Soon it was pitch black and Ivan figured they had run far enough to stay hidden and out of the way of the goblins behind them. They found a small cave to sleep in for the night. The group went without dinner or the warmth of a fire.
While lying on the cold rocky cave floor, Anders whispered to Ivan, “Why couldn’t you sense the goblins when they were so close to us?”
Ivan responded, “They are magical creatures, Anders. Though their magical abilities are primitive, the powers they do possess are very strong. If a goblin is trained, he or she can be a very skilled wielder of magical energy. All goblins can instinctively prevent their minds from ever being discovered by other magical beings. They’re truly nasty creatures and are always causing mischief wherever they go. They only possess one weakness; goblins will do almost anything for gold. Did you notice I searched the one you killed? He was carrying gold, but I never feel bad taking gold off a goblin, because you know they did something terrible to get it in the first place. The way I see it, taking it off their dead bodies puts it back into the hands of hard-working people; I’ll use it to buy and trade at markets. Do you know what those goblins would’ve done if they had captured us?”
Anders shook his head.
