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16
Something Wicked This Way Comes
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DOS HAD NEVER SEEN ROT the way the trees have rotted further down the ravine. What should have looked like thick, red, trunks were now black and rancid of life, sapped of nutrients, of color, and where used to be leaves and fruit was now a festering feast for maggots and yeast. Worms grew like seeds from the soil and the proud ravine walls had become a sad, ashen landscape of wilt and wither, a black oozing corpse of its former self.
And what had become of its name, which had now become so vile and viscous that not even Dos could pronounce it without vomiting?
So that was what Viktor meant when he said “you’ll know we’re near when we see it,” only they came the wrong way, from the wrong direction.
Just thinking about it made him shiver. Just looking at the chimera made him want to kill it. He refused to believe that such a creature could ever be born out of nature. One that eats and eats bringing only death with it, bringing only corruption and rot, the bleak black jaws that feeds on life itself.
He heard Viktor calling it a world-ender once, making him wonder why did they even bother to try and hunt one.
Yet something inside him was telling him that it was right. As if all the veins in his body agrees that this was what he was supposed to do, that this was what he was born to do; that he must, and he should hunt down this monster at the cost of his life. The other goblins felt it too.
That this is the enemy.
He and his men had been exploring the colony of the giant ants, mapping where each hole led to where and which room has the size that was useful. The chimera had grown stuck into the main gorge where the path had become too thin and too narrow even for its body.
Right now it was using its tree-limbs, its clawing roots that reach and extend, grabbing one giant ant after the next and shoving it into her mouth—the fools thought it best to eliminate the monster from their home—only it was they who got eliminated.
One of Dos men tried to play a hero and stabbed the monster’s back with a spear, sliced it, opening a wound so large Dos thought they could kill it as is. Only the wound suddenly grew teeth, and then a mouth, and then a throat, swallowing the brave goblin in it before reverting into its original shape.
Nobody dared to attack it again after that. Even Dos’ primal desire to bring the monster to death had been snuffed into smoke in that one moment, that his knees failed to be knees and for a few seconds it was hard just to stand.
Dos was visibly worried. There was no retreating from this. Not to that bleak rot that was the other side of the ravine, not to the gorge, and not to the human army marching towards their position.
He couldn't decide which was worse.
The Sunspine Mercenaries, whom he had met and served. The only difference between a human and a chimera, is that once a human was done with his hunt, he then proceeds to maim the corpse. Not even just the simple butchering of the meat for survival, no. He had seen them wash and dry and process crocodile skin to make a bag out of it, eyeballs reduced to accessories, organs prostrated into potions.
At least the chimera had the respect to continue its victims’ lives inside its body.
“No, Dos, that’s not respect,” Mimic disagreed. “It’s slavery,” she emphasized. It was a new word she learned from Viktor a few days ago, and Dos had heard her use it every chance she got. “It uses your body to its will. Your body, a goblin’s, like gears of a machine whose sole purpose is to destroy. There is nothing respectful about that, Little Man.”
“Wait, is that you Mimic?” Dos squeezed the goblin’s cheeks. “Did you just make a sound argument? In a proper sentence, without screaming?” he teased. “Holy Semos, what has Viktor done to you?”
In the Tree Fort now, built among the crossroads of the curved hanging trees and the horizontal trunks. Mimic had decided that the final Fort was to be built above ground, this way the goblins could retreat and respond to the other forts the fastest way possible. Beyond that, humans weren’t exactly built for good climbing, not like how goblins were anyhow.
“Piss off you rag-sniffer!” Mimic slapped his hand off. “It must’ve been the tea.”
Dos took a warm sip of his drink. He picked them up a little while ago from the ant colony, the gigantic bugs had been keeping them in stacks in a discrete and suspiciously separate room, munching on them secretly from time to time as if it was illegal. Dos knew what to do with it based on the leaves’ names alone.
He remembered that Mimic’s been stressed lately, and so had he. The last three days had been taxing for all of them; the anxiety of the upcoming battle alone was enough to nail them to the bed. But of course they can’t do that, of course, the only thing he could do was work, boil a pot of water on their pots of stone, and share what little spoils he has to his companions.
“It must’ve been the tea, that is golden!” He laughed at Mimic’s accent. “Man, I should get you more of this.”
The Tree Fort was built in three parts; three floors of unequal, rising and falling layers without any walls nor safety pillars. The entire thing lacked material and architectural support, it was loosely built due to the time constraint and Mimic’s experience in building one. The most practice she had was the overpass back in their old camp, and she built that as a gag. The entire fort was as dangerous to them as it was dangerous for anyone who conquers it.
Mimic took another sip from her tea and put the stone cup on the table, her face was red from its warmth. Beside them, the open window let the cold wind embrace their skin; Dos red scarf swayed according to its blow.
“I like you,” he told Mimic, and it felt to him as if a great weight was lifted from his chest. The night was fresh from sundown and fireflies danced between their eyes.
In response, Mimic smiled, then leaned closer towards him, inches on his face. Her flower-like ears rising like an opening palm, the dark-green stripes on her skin seemed to tremble from some unknown music. “Ha!” she exclaimed, laughing. “What a loser.”
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THERE WAS SOMETHING NOT RIGHT about everything that was happening around here. Scaramouche could smell it. He had spent half of his first life in a monarch’s court, and he knew what a scheme smelled like, he knew how it looked like, and he knew the exact moment in which one is unwarily turned from a person into a puppet. And inside his eyes, everyone had strings hanging above their heads.
He didn’t know where it first appeared or when did he start to take notice, only that when he woke up it was already there.
He was pissed that it was Viktor’s face he saw when he woke up. “You alright?” the goblin asked.
“Yeah,” he answered. The concept of their boss waiting all day in bed for him to wake up was funny in his head. “Something smells like fish.”
It couldn’t be Viktor, he was sure. The man may be clever and ambitious, but he was no liar nor schemer. It was one of the few things Scaramouche respected about him, for without that he would’ve shanked him a long time ago no matter how capable Viktor was.
Scaramouche had seen capable kings. All of them only bothered to wonder whether or not they could, and never bothered to ask whether or not they should. He once saw a king declaring war against the sea and had his men stab the water.
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It was so funny Scaramouche was glad his tongue was cut.
“How many days?” he asked Viktor.
“Four.”
“Just four?”
“Fog-eyes helped.”
“The army?”
“Haven’t arrived yet.”
“And the chimera?”
“Swallowed about two from Dos men’ now.”
“Ah,” he laughed, reaching for his zany hat and putting it over his spiky hair. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Alright,” the other goblin stood up. “Don’t stray ahead too far again.”
“Got it.”
Scaramouche walked around the camp and triple-checked the three forts. He reviewed the strategies that Viktor had listed, looked over every nook and cranny for anything that seemed off, anything that looked fallible, and he found none.
Something wasn’t right. Someone was pulling something.
He dragged Dos with him to check on the chimera, creeping into one of the tunnels that fits their size. He was to find out that it was fine and healthy, but nevertheless not suspicious. The only thing that worried him was that it wasn’t screaming very threatening sentences.
He decided to tease it a little bit. “How are you my darling monster?” He shouted to the mass of insect flesh.
Nothing happened.
The only response he got was from Dos who immediately wrestled him to the ground. “Are you that excited about getting yourself killed?” the goblin punched him in the throat, making sure he wouldn’t be able to speak for a while. “You just got out of the infirmary you bloody pig-dog, why don’t you just go out and drink some piss like a normal gob?" Dos looked out from the tunnel one more time, checking the chimera. “That’s weird.”
“Huh,” Scaramouche wanted to say, but couldn’t. All his mouth could produce was something resembling a cough.
“It should be reaching for us right now with its tree roots, guess we’re lucky,” Dos said, and the next moment he was dragging Scaramouche back to their base.
Lucky, Scaramouche thought. That wasn’t right.
Back to their camp, the three log-ballistas had been installed into the walls. How they built it, Scaramouche didn’t have the faintest idea. He was half-sure it would fall apart the moment they tried to fire it.
But that wasn’t the problem. Maybe he was just paranoid. Maybe he was overthinking it too much. He couldn’t help it. He had always prided himself of knowing when an entire scenario was amiss, and the whole thing about the chimera just spelled wrong. A wrongness that even the Names of Things could not name.
Dos had him tied up back to his bed on a post, which was an oversight on the scout’s part. The soonest Scaramouche was left alone, he simply bent his joints and broke free from his restraints.
He went back to the gorge, through the tunnels. He stole one of Dos’ maps from Gorglblop and made his way back into the monster.
He decided to watch it, avoiding the other goblins who had the same task. If anything went wrong, he was the best equipped to escape with his life intact.
Only nothing particularly went wrong.
The chimera stayed still as if it was dead. The giant ants’ corpses remained in its mouth and it didn’t even bother to chew, a head and a leg protruding outside its flat, baby teeth. One of Dos goblins thought it was a good sign, so it tried to attack, and it was only then that the chimera moved—crushing the goblin into paste using one of its log-legs.
What a waste of life.
Viktor’s plan was to defeat the human army first, and deal with the monster next. He trusted his boss’ words that they could defeat the army—that much he was sure of. Because if Viktor said something could be done, then it would be done.
All he needed to do was do as he was told.
Viktor assigned him and his soldiers to the Swamp Fort, as some form of bootleg cavalry because of how Scaramouche’s army speed and their ability to maneuver on the terrain, paired along with Canyon’s armored soldiers and Dos’ bowmen to rain arrows from over the wall. None of that concerns him. What concerns him is that monst—
From the opposite tunnel where Scaramouche hid, he saw a great movement. He leaned further inside the tunnel, making sure he wasn’t spotted, and from there he saw an orc.
It wasn’t one of Fog-eyes men, but the Biomancer himself, dragging over what seemed to be a mound of flesh.
Scaramouche checked the other sides of the tunnel, to find out that the goblins who were tasked with watching the chimera have been long gone. This is it, he thought.
And from there, Fog-eyes threw the mound of flesh from the height of the tunnel, straight into the chimera’s head, which the monster immediately took notice of, and ate.
And from the distance where Scaramouche watched, he could only stare in dread and disgust as he recognized what exactly the Biomancer had fed it: the bear that used to bore Viktor's cloak. The bear that had six limbs and flesh skin. The bear who breathes without its guts.
The Sanguine Cursed.
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ON THE FIFTH DAY, THE RAVINE BLED IN BLACK OOZE seeping out from all the holes in the wall. From the direction of the gorge, in the slightest depressions in the stone wall, in the soil that had turned ashen gray: this dark, dense liquid poured out like tears from the landscapes’ eyelids.
“That’s not good,” Canyon muttered.
Quickly, he ran over to Viktor to send his report.
Quickly, a voice so clear and perfect rang inside his ears.
I AM SERT, OF THE SWORDWORK OF THE CURSED GOD.
OF THE FORTY STARS ON THE LAST NIGHT OF THE AMPYRS.
OF THE GREAT SLICE, THE WOUND OF THE LAST DRAGON.
Canyon cursed inside his head. They expected at least this much, they weren't under any illusion that the chimera would never be able to break free from where it was trapped. They knew it would be coming one way or another, and they did their best to delay it.
Like how they crashed most of the tunnels and collapsed some of the walls back from the gorge's entrance to block its path. Dos even reported yesterday that the chimera wasn't even moving nor eating, even Fog-eyes thought this could buy them a few more days.
It seems Viktor's luck had finally ran out.
COME, GOBLINS.
I SHALL BE YOUR END.
Canyon could the terrible aura sending goosebumps up his nape. Something wicked this way comes. Something unnamable and indomitable. A shuffling horror bursting out from the mouth of the gorge.
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ON THE FIFTH DAY, PIKE THE PYROMANCER and his band of humans arrived at what seemed like a fort, built in front of a swamp, adjacent to another fort built around the walls of the ravine.
“Which one first?” Berns asked him.
“The one on the swamp,” he answered. “If we take out the fort around the wall, we’ll risk our backs to this one.”
“And if the other fort sends reinforcements?”
Pike produced a ball of fire on his hand, a size as large as a house, as hot as the October sun before the first hints of winter. “Then we just need to end this quickly.”
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Dungeon
[Entry from Erin the Endless’ 139th Journal, Year 139 After Viktor’s Death]
Either it was Semos or it was the Roaming God, there were few dungeons scattered all across the globe. The question of why they were built and who built them were secondary, for what concerns men were what is inside.
The first Dungeon opened was that in the coast of Amanila, before the Revo the Rotting King founded Sunspine. It opened into an amass of lobster-based sea creatures, humanoid, proud of their ever-evolving shells and notoriously as intelligent as humans. These creatures ruled the seas after Revos’ gift of freedom; along with monstrosities such as spider-sharks, whale-turtles, sea serpents, and never was the waters as safe as before.
It was of course, not without its gifts, for the shells of these lobster-men makes one of the finest pieces of armour. When powdered and mixed with sulfur, the smallest amount could produce the finest explosive whose range is never seen before. Spider-sharks bones, oil, and chemicals that made alchemists blush in their seats.
The second Dungeon that opened brought to back to life an old enemy: the last of the Ampyrs, Nelluc, the White plague, He who controls shadows, a marvel for Mancers and Witches alike.
It was still unknown where Nelluc had disappeared to, but wherever it was, it was going to be a problem.
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