Contents
34. A Shiver of Her Wings
Overview
The party executes an ambush using Norrigal’s wind, but a goblin wizard reverses it, collapses rock, and the corvid Dalgatha is crushed. Kinch likely kills the wizard, yet the group is overwhelmed, poisoned, and captured.
In the hold, they learn more of goblin–Molrovan ties, and Norrigal reveals their true mission: to put a witch on Oustrim’s throne.
Summary
Kinch recounts their plan: Norrigal would raise a headwind to foil goblin missiles while Galva led a rush before the landing party could gain ground. The wind scatters the first volleys, swimmers panic at the sight of Galva’s corvid Dalgatha, and Kinch drops a swimmer and wounds a ship-goblin.
A goblin wizard emerges, whirling a stone and twisting the wind to his command. Galva, slipping into Ispanthian, screams to shoot the wizard. As the wind turns, the goblins regain their aim. Fighting intensifies; Malk and the harpooner Gormalin join Galva, who shields them while taking wounds, and Dalgatha is repeatedly struck.
Kinch sprints along a concealed path to the waterline for a shot at the distant wizard, missing once before loosing again. The wizard shatters cliff rock; a boulder crushes Dalgatha as Galva and Malk cut down foes. Kinch’s arrow buries in the wizard’s gut, likely killing him, and he shoots another goblin at the beach.
Galva, speared and shot, risks her back to the enemy to pluck a feather from the dying corvid and break it, igniting Dalgatha’s body in black smoke. Norrigal is felled by a drugged quarrel to the belly; Kinch and Malk are grazed and poisoned. The goblins beat them down with spear-shafts, taking Galva, Malk, Kinch, Norrigal, and the senseless harpooner alive.
In the ship’s roasting hold, the captives are crammed into cages while an old goblin tends a coal-pot. The crew prods them for butchery, separating and diapering the harpooner. Malk explains Molrovan–goblin entanglements, hidden colonies, and trade-offs that stave off renewed war. Kinch taunts an old goblin about the fallen wizard and reflects on corvids turning the war.
Pressed by Kinch to disclose their purpose, Norrigal finally states the truth: they were bound for Oustrim to put a witch on a throne.
Who Appears
- Kinch Na ShannackNarrator; fights from shore and water, likely kills the goblin wizard, then is captured.
- Spanth GalvaLeads the charge, shields allies, grievously wounded; secures and breaks Dalgatha’s feather to burn the corvid.
- NorrigalRaises the initial wind, masks Kinch, is drugged by a quarrel; reveals the Oustrim mission.
- MalkFights beside Galva; later explains goblin–Molrovan politics in the hold; wounded but alive.
- Gormalin (the harpooner)Charges with an old sword, badly injured; later separated, washed, and prepped for butchery.
- Goblin wizardControls wind with a whirled stone, collapses cliff; likely dies from Kinch’s arrow.
- Old goblin stokerTends the coal-pot in the hold, overseeing prisoners and crew belowdecks.
- Dalgatha (corvid)Galva’s great war-bird; crushed by falling rock; body ritually ignited with a feather.