Sea Spell (Waterfire Saga #4)(36)

“Standing around won’t get any wagons built,” Becca fumed.

A goblin named Styg, seeing what Becca was doing, cautioned her in his language. Sera didn’t catch all of what he said, but she did hear the words Don’t! and Wait!

Becca flapped a hand at him. She raised the shovel, ready to plunge it into the seabed. The goblin’s eyes widened in alarm. He lunged at her, knocking the shovel out of her hands.

“Are you kidding me?” Becca exclaimed. “Why did you do that?” She started toward the shovel, but Styg held up a hand. He shook his head.

Becca, angry now, was ready to launch into an argument with him, but Sera stopped her. “Wait,” she said. “He’s trying to explain. Hear him out.” Her eyes were not on Becca anymore, but on the pit.

Styg stepped forward. Switching to mer, he said, “We found a lava seam just below the surface.” As he spoke, he bent down and used another shovel to carefully scrape away about half a foot of the seabed, allowing Sera and Becca to clearly see the orangey glow under the silt.

“We have to proceed very carefully,” he explained. “If she”—he nodded at Becca—“had hit the seam with her shovel, it would’ve gushed, and none of us would have survived to tell the tale.”

Becca winced. “I—I didn’t know. I didn’t see…” Her words trailed away. She looked down at her tail fins.

“The bad news is that we can’t work here,” Styg said. “The good news is—”

“You found a lava seam!” Sera exclaimed. “Well done, all of you!”

“I have a bubbler,” said Styg. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

“What’s a bubbler?” Sera asked.

“It’s a tool for releasing a tiny bit of lava. There are different grades of molten rock. Glimrende is the finest, but it’s only good for lighting. Sterkur is heating grade—the strong stuff. It’s what we need.”

Styg pulled a sharkskin case out of his pocket. Inside was coiled a thin flexible tube with holes in it. One end had a hollow steel point; the other had a valve attached to it. Working slowly, Styg nudged the pointed end down into the lava. Then he shooed everyone back and opened the valve. A few seconds later, lava shot up into the hose and oozed out of the holes.

Styg bent down to examine it, then smiled. “Sterkur,” he said happily, looking up at Sera. “Grade A-1.”

“Yes!” Sera said, high-fiving him. “Do you know what this means?”

“That we can forge all the weapons and ammo we need,” Styg said.

“And make tools,” said R?k.

“We can light the entire camp,” chimed in Mulmig.

“And stew our enemies,” added Garstig.

Mulmig held her hands out to the bubbling lava and smiled with pleasure. “It’s been sooo long since I felt the heat of a lava pool,” she said. “Holy Kupfernickel, I missed it.”

“I miss glasses of nice, thick r?k?,” R?k said wistfully.

Sera knew r?k? was a drink made from fermented snail slime. Goblins were partial to it.

“And snask,” Mulmig added. “What I wouldn’t give for some right now.”

“Snask?” Sera asked. She hadn’t heard that term before.

“Pickled squid eyes,” Mulmig explained. “Soooo good!”

Garstig, grinning, pulled a little cloth bag out of his breast pocket. “My wife sent these by manta ray,” he said, opening the bag and passing it to Mulmig. “Have some.”

Mulmig’s eyes widened as she looked in the bag. “Snask!” she said excitedly. “Garstig, thank you!” She popped one in her mouth and chewed it, rolling her eyes with pleasure.

“Why don’t we sit down by the lava for a minute?” Styg suggested. “We need to figure out how best to channel the seam, and we might as well be warm while we’re doing it.”

“Hang on a minute….” Becca said, as the goblins moved toward the lava.

Oh, no, Sera thought. She’s going to scold them, or tell them to get back to work.

Her heart sank. As a leader, Sera knew that these small moments cemented the bonds between soldiers. They might cost a few minutes, but they repaid that investment tenfold by bolstering morale. Becca undoubtedly thought they were a waste of time.

But Becca surprised her.

“Before you sit down, I need to apologize,” she said.

Eyebrows shot up. The goblins looked amazed. Sera did, too.

“I didn’t trust you to do your jobs, and I should have. You found the lava seam we desperately needed. And,” she said sheepishly, “you stopped me from killing us all. I’m sorry. And thank you.”

The goblins nodded in acceptance and appreciation. Sera smiled at Becca. Becca smiled back, then turned and started to swim away. Sera swam after her.

“Hey,” Sera said, as she caught up to her friend. “I’m going to sit with the goblins for a minute. Why don’t you join us?”

“Sorry, I can’t,” Becca said. “I have so many things to do.”

“Sure, okay,” Sera said, disappointed. She’d been so certain that she’d be able to get Becca to confide in her. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, later,” Becca said.