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14
Come, Goblin.
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THE WIND WHISTLED A SLOW ELEGY as an ode to the walking dead, as Scaramouche’s bells ring on his hat, and he played a calm, tune in the holes on his flute: the hiss final of a blade passing by a neck.
The army of goblins marched as the rain pours into the ravine of rot.
A mountain, half the height of a sky. A mountain, sliced in half by a god from long ago, the sword mark leaving a narrow path between it.
Where the red trees grew on the steep walls horizontally, jagging and curving into curls and spirals of trunks and branches; where grumans dwelled and ants the size of wolves crawled in lines and lines, as the raindrop slides from the split-mountain top, into the bending wood, the white leaves, the giant animals, and finally falling into the marching company.
Scaramouche sang the sound of the last cough of a dying man, patterned with hiccups of lullabies long lost to time, long lost even in the Amanilan songs.
“You’re not helping,” Dos grabbed his flute from his mouth, and the silence was filled with the chorus of crickets, the toiling of ants and the buzzing of bees. “You’re bringing everyone’s mood down.”
Scaramouche grinned. “I’m just practicing the melody for your funeral.”
“I’m not going to die.”
“You sound more like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“Don’t say that,” Dos frowned, shrugged, then looked like he was about to hug himself but decided against it. “This place just gives me the creeps.”
It was the fourth day of their march and they finally reached the place where Fog-eyes said the chimera was last seen. Viktor and the orc were in the front of the march, Mimic’s causing chaos by the center, Canyon’s guarding the rear, while Dos and Scaramouche went back and forth attending to what the army needed, scouting the vicinity, slicing any grumans who came near, responding to Canyon, then rotating to Viktor.
This time, some black ants were trying to poke in the back, and Scaramouche tried to fend them off without killing them.
“If we make any corpse, it will be attracting more,” Canyon told him, blocking an ant’s thrust with his shield. “It would be a good idea to start a fire, the heat drives them off.”
“It will be a good idea if we never came here in the first place,” Scaramouche responded. He tore a wood from one of the caravans and began lighting it with a flintlock, procuring a torch.
“Then why are you here, lad?” Canyon asked, shoving his shield into an ant’s mandibles.
“Same as you flatbag,” he said. “Making sure that we win.”
The entire place was dark beneath the shadow of the hundred thousand trees above them, little sunlight peeked between the maze of wood and leaves. While the torch drove off the ants, grumans had began squirming into their direction.
Their fire like a little sun in a land of infinite dark.
At least they were goblins. At least they could see. They could smell. The damp swampy ground where their feet sink, the scent of rust and rot sharp inside their lungs. Boar carcasses littered the floor, one by one being dragged by the giant ants or nibbled by whichever decomposer came first. Up above, the trees bled as if they were made of flesh, they pushed and curved like snakes tangled upon each other.
In the center of their march, Scaramouche could hear the tired breathing of Mimic’s army, who dragged their carts and caravans of lumber. Piles after piles of log and rope, pre-cut into shapes and sizes that could easily be assembled at a moment’s notice.
It was Mimic’s secret on her fast building of forts. The jester wasn’t sure how it worked or why it was needed on a hunt, but he kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t a strategist nor was he part of it. He was the wildcard; the joker, the hidden knife under the sleeve.
“Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche Scaramouche”
“What?” He hissed at Mimic.
“Is it just me or the trees are moving?”
“That’s a good way to ruin your sleep, dimwit.”
Being carried by Canyon’s army were the two Ballistas they had built beforehand. Viktor and Mimic went over it for two days and built it within eight hours. After that, they disassembled the entire camp, including the useless bridge, and carried it with them—including the useless bridge. Scaramouche would ask Mimic why, but the gob’s been very sensitive about it.
To the front of the march were Fog-eyes’ orcs, slaves he bought or allies who came with him. There were at least forty of them, hacking at everything they see from vines to brushes, to the tall grass.
“Your orcs see in the dark?” Viktor asked them once, and Fog-eyes responded by showing his hands, where a lump of flesh was spinning.
It didn’t matter. Most of them were simple beasts of burden anyhow, at least two-thirds of them were pulling more carts of wood.
None of this was new to Scaramouche. He had been part of the Gaian Expedition, and this form of marching was almost identical to what he knew. Only the Amanilans were far more brutal and efficient; have you ever seen an army that cooks while walking? That hunts and gathers firewood while marching?
He had been watching everyone for four days and he’d been holding his cussing pretty well. He only managed to berate the goblins at least twice an hour. He would’ve done thrice that if he didn’t find it funny.
“Your entire army’s a litter of fools,” Scaramouche laughed, showing his entire set of teeth at Viktor. “They are gonna die here, I’m sure of it.”
Viktor paused to stare at him. “That includes your soldiers, jester. Your boys are as brittle as a banana, they couldn’t pull a single cart. That fault lies not with the army, nor their commander. We needed more time and we didn’t have it, but I will argue that we have achieved better than most.”
“I trained my men to dance, Vicky,” Scaramouche smiled, ignoring Viktor’s answer. He didn’t really care about it; even he didn’t believe his own provocation. He pulled out his flute and showed it to Viktor. “And such is a goblin’s life; nothing but a long dance to our tombstones,” he said, laughed, and then walked ahead.
In front of the entire march, in front of Dos who was using his eyes to search for a chimera, in front of the coiling trees and the pack of grumans and ants, Scaramouche played his flute. He blew and blew the sound of silence.
The silent song of the shoes suspended above the ground, its body hung by the gullet.
The slow-growing voice of mushrooms eating through an old corpse.
The sharp gnawing of maggots that bit without sound.
The whispers of the heart as the wind wash through its open hole.
And the cry of a goblin, who dares not let a tear escape from his eye, who dares not let a sob flee from his mouth; who grieves and grieves only with the ripping ache inside his chest.
“Ah,” Scaramouche paused, clicking his tongue. “A gruman,” he muttered, staring at the face of the chimera springing out of the ground.
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WHAT FROM AFAR LOOKED LIKE A MANGLED MESS of trees twisted into each other suddenly shook, and what was once their bark peeled off as if they were skin, revealing the soft, gelatinous black body of a maggot.
Like a wrung cloth, the maggot then rotated itself, unfolded itself, then pulled; and from what should’ve been its roots rose the disgusting face of a gruman: the young head of a human baby, wet and gray and newborn, crying loudly in front of the goblin holding a flute.
Scaramouche’s first instinct was to hit it with his instrument, yet instead of a smash, it felt like he was hitting cotton.
I would rather drink my piss, the jester thought. His entire body trembled as if his bones would rather leave his flesh, as if his knees would rather melt than stand.
He could run, but it would lead the monster into their army and he couldn’t afford that, so climbed into the chimera’s face and slipped into its back. He grabbed on to its muddy, greasy back and on his hands he felt the itchy texture of insects.
It had butterfly wings, thousands of them as small as his thumb. He tried to calm his breath, and the spiraling forest shook the moment the chimera shifted into shape.
The other trees around it merged into its form, folding into arms after arms after arms, attaching to the maggot body one by one like centipede limbs; the trees’ roots as its bony fingers, the leaves fell and were shaved like hair as the branches sharpened into thorns.
And its baby mouth vomited flies and bees, lice and fleece, worms and snails, and insects after insects after insects.
It wriggled once again and lied on its back, Scaramouche almost fell if it wasn’t for a bolt that pierced through the chimera’s body; he grabbed hold of it, climbed, and fell onto the maggot belly. And from its underneath Scaramouche saw a million of giant ant legs, moving and toiling on a land that wasn’t there.
“Dos, run!” Scaramouche shouted as Dos fired another bolt for him to land on. He scanned at his surroundings, from where he found a large crack in the wall leading into a narrower, smaller path. “I’ll trap lead it into a trap, report to Viktor!”
“Scaramouche!” Dos shouted back, and the jester looked behind him, watching the goblin wave. “Be safe!”
The chimera twisted again and tried to fly with its thousands of wings.
And it couldn’t.
So it cried.
A cry that drummed against the body of everything that lives between the mountain split. Scaramouche bent and hung on its back, aiming to jump towards the narrow path he saw earlier, as the chimera slithered between the trees like a shuffling horror in the mouth of the ravine. All Scaramouche could think of was how could a goblin possibly kill something like this. But what terrified him the most, was when it spoke:
COME, GOBLIN.
It said, in a voice as clear as water flowing between stones, as smooth and as perfect as a song.
I WILL DRINK THE JOY FROM YOUR HEART.
I WILL PULL THE SCREAMS FROM YOUR TONGUE.
Scaramouche could feel his blood draining from him, as he jumped from branch to branch, limb to limb. From the chimera's body, he saw the head of grey goblins long dead, popping out like pimples. Their heads turned to him, then, very slowly, liquifying into a mass of tissues, joining again into the black maggot body. Then humans, then orcs, then a corpse that even he could recognize from three hundred years ago.
He jumped towards the crack and swung from the thick trunk of a horizontal tree, then landed into another one. He leaped and landed and leaped and landed, leading the chimera into the path that went thinner and thinner and thinner.
As the monster behind slithered from tree after tree and ate trunk after trunk with its baby jaw, its baby teeth, growing limb after limb extending its enormous body.
I WILL GRIND YOUR FLESH INTO BLOOD AND USE IT TO WATER THE TREES.
I WILL SHAPE MY TEETH FROM WHAT REMAINS OF YOUR BONES.
Wood snapped one after the other, the rock walls thinned
Scaramouche passed through a line of giant ants carrying the carcass of a deer, crossing through, and as he leaped they were crushed beneath the chimera's wooden leg; an ant stuck to the monster's hand-root.
He finally passed through the narrow gorge, and on its other end was a kingdom of giant ants. Holes twice as big as doors filled the walls, and millions of bugs walked in line after line using trees as bridges. The sunlight was at least able to shine on the place.
Scaramouche vomited from fatigue, pulled out his flute, and started running again, swinging at everything in his path and crushing any head that entered his vision. Behind him, the chimera struggled to get through the entrance. Its tree-sized limbs ripping apart the earth.
I AM YOUR END, GOBLIN.
NOT EVEN YOUR FEET COULD OUTRUN YOUR FATE.
He pointed at it and laughed.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Scaramouche pounded ant after ant as he ran past them, his feet dragging his body one huge step after the next, his own weight pulling him down, his arms burning.
He heard the entrance collapse, and when he looked back, he found that it collapsed outwards, and the chimera's human baby head giggling at him.
Look at it. Its adorable face, so soft and squishy and cheeky, its little mouth laughing from ear to ear, the crow feet visible on its eyes.
Scaramouche envied it. Even if its source was his own suffering, he envied it. A joy so pure and wild he wanted to ruin it.
He couldn't laugh like that.
He had laughed his entire life and he had never laughed like that.
"You think this is fun?" He shouted, his hand gripping his flute, his nail burying into his palm, bleeding it. The monster charging towards him now, the giant ants scrambling as they fled to the holes in their stone wall. "An oversized gruman is laughing at me? ME? SCARAMOUCHE?"
He smiled.
Scaramouche knew a lot of things. He knew that the gorge wasn't thin enough to stop that filthy maggot from advancing. He knew he had long arms and that that wasn't enough. He knew that he was flexible and that that wasn't enough. He knew that no matter his speed, the monster would eventually catch him. He knew that at the end of the day, it wasn't something he could outrun.
But he also knew, that once the chimera entered the gorge, it wouldn't be able to go back. He knew its long size and thick legs would fit, of course it would fit, but it would be impossible to turn.
There was no exit available for the chimera save for whatever lies in beyond the gorge.
And all it could do, was charge forward.
And all that Scaramouche could do, was wait for it.
I WILL SNAP THE VERY THREAD OF YOUR SOUL SO THAT NOT EVEN A TREE WILL GROW FROM YOUR CORPSE.
AS I HAVE DONE TO ALL OF YOUR FOREFATHERS. AS I HAVE DONE TO ALL OF YOUR BETTERS.
Scaramouche bent his back before the chimera's root-hands could grab his waist; now beneath it, he then hung into its elbow-trunk using his legs, rotated to the top, then started running towards the monster's face. The baby puked a swarm of flies as Scaramouche slammed all of its teeth with his iron flute, flipped towards its back, and slid along its lengthy, slippery body heading outside the gorge.
The small butterfly wings itched on his back as the maggot rattled and turned, then rotated to its belly. Its ant legs tore through his clothes, grabbed him, and dragged him away from the gorge's entrance, towards the chimera's head.
Scaramouche twisted his limbs and busted all of his joints by forcing his knees and elbows to bend backward—then pushed his chest into his ribs and broke it too, he slithered away from the ant legs, and with his last strength fell inside the small hole on the wall—which his body was broken enough to fit into—and led him directly outside the ant's colony.
He slid through the mud and stones and the sharp rocks carving wounds on his back, and finally, he was spitted out into the ravine, landing into a horizontal tree as he vomited blood, falling again, vomiting, landing, more of his bones snapped, he fell into a series of branches, landing into wood, vomiting, spraying a worrying amount of blood, then falling into the soft grass far from the gorge.
I'm alive, Scaramouche thought as he smiled.
He himself didn't know it, and it was a shame that nobody saw; but it was the truest smile that had ever graced the jester's face.
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Chimera
[Entry from The Gaian Expeditions, courtesy of the Empire of Amanila]
If one is to ever see a creature whose entire body is made of other creatures: run. Don't even try to take anything with you and never look back.
A Chimera is a monster that doesn't eat, but rather absorbs. The moment your body reaches its belly, you will become but another organ that it possesses. Your veins will be its veins, your heart will be its heart, and what it cannot use, it repurposes.
The more a chimera absorbs, the more monstrous it becomes. Its age is measured only by its size and appetite. As such, behemous size implies a longer existence, which in turn implies a wiser chimera.
Chimeras are known to know fragments of memory of the creature they ate, and with enough humans consumed they become able to speak the language. Therefore, a Chimera who talks in Amanilan implies that an entire expedition of Marchers or Janitors had fallen prey to it. It is advised that one takes their own life rather than give it to the monster.
It was theorized that Chimeras are a byproduct of "Trows," or the shapeshifter cousins of the goblin species. For it is known that Trows could only transform body according to the creatures it ate, scholars have reason to believe that a chimera is a product of a "Fallen Trow," or Trows who ate too much they transform into everything they ate. However, this only remains a theory.
Chimeras are one of the few known possible world-enders, the other ones being The Sanguine Rot, and the now-extinct Ampyrs and Dragons.
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