Chapter 17

Well, not yet. But we’re almost ready. Wraine tosses his longsword on the ground before walking over to a fallen tree. He squats down and tears off a piece of bark before snapping it. He told me before that it's best to use dry, dead wood for fires and while I was picking up the tree branches, I made sure the ones I tossed into my pile didn’t bend when I tried snapping them. Wraine seems to think the fallen tree is good enough for our plan and he hacks into it with the axe. The loud noise startles me and I immediately turn around to watch the cave entrance. We should be far enough away if they didn’t react to that. Or maybe they just don’t care enough to investigate loud noises. Fuck, I should’ve asked Ylvise how smart goblins were. Once the fallen tree is chopped into portable parts, Wraine walks over to a standing tree with leaves and starts chopping this tree as well. Apparently this time he wants to use a mix of dry and green wood. The dry wood will help get the fire started and help in maintaining it while the green wood will create more smoke which we’ve always tried not to do before. But since this time we’re actively trying to make more smoke, the majority of the wood we’re going to use will be green and wet. The entire time he’s doing this, my eyes are fixed on that cave entrance. Wraine finishes chopping the second tree into parts as well and he tells me we’re ready. Here goes nothing.

I fasten my shield’s enarmes to my left arm and carry a section of the chopped wood under my left armpit while my left hand carries a bundle of tree branches. I’m carrying another piece of chopped wood under my right armpit while my right hand only holds my sword. This is a pretty arduous task since we need to do all this while keeping quiet as we make our way up the dirt path to the cave opening but it only takes about seven or eight trips before the whole cave entrance is blocked off. Worried about having enough firewood to keep the fire going once it’s started, Wraine keeps making trips up and down the hill stockpiling the wood in a small mound a few yards away from the cave opening. Feeling confident his stockpile will be enough, he grabs a handful of tinder and stuffs it under our wooden blockade and starts the fire. Gently blowing a few breaths at the growing embers, the embers quickly ignite and spread all over our blockade and a massive inferno bursts to life before us.

When we first left Misanth and started traveling south, Wraine started practicing his firemaking skills at every opportunity he got. We even found a cave to spend the night in once and without thinking, he started a fire in the middle of the cave, sending us screaming and crying into the night as smoke filled our noses and lungs. We learned that night to never start a fire in enclosed spaces again. That’s what made me think we could smoke out this cave of goblins. The hunter Wraine talked about weeks ago used smoke to hunt rabbits and I thought we could do the same thing to hunt goblins instead. As I let my thoughts wander, the huge fire in front of me is starting to heat its surroundings and I have to step back. Even standing three yards away from the fire isn’t enough to protect us from the heat nor the smoke. Only when we’re about five or six yards away can we breathe comfortably again. But even from this distance we can feel the heat from the flames on our faces. The plan should be working because most of the smoke looks like it’s going into the cave with only some of it coming out and the occasional fanning from my shield should be helping as well. Once it looks like the fire might start to dwindle, we hold our breaths and carry more wood toward the fire until we’re one yard away from it and then we gently toss it into the fire. We do this for about five minutes when I ask Wraine, “Goblins breathe right?”

He looks back at me like I’m an idiot before he blinks rapidly a few times in thought and responds, “They have to. Everything breathes right? I refuse to believe goblins don’t breathe. Just watch, once they realize what’s happening, they’ll come charging here.”

But we don’t see anything even after 30 minutes. All we can hear are random guttural screams from inside the cave. We nervously look around us expecting a horde of goblins to jump out of the nearby brush to tear us to pieces. The whole time we keep fueling the fire because we don’t know what else to do. After another 30 minutes, our stockpile runs out and we aren’t sure whether we even want the fire to keep going or not. We eventually decide to let the fire burn itself out and go inside once the smoke clears out.

It turns out the smoke won’t be clearing anytime soon. We waited next to the cave entrance for the rest of the day, occasionally sticking our heads inside to check if the smoke cleared out yet only to be rewarded with stinging eyes and uncontrollable coughing. Even after sunset, the cave was still filled with smoke. Alright, admittedly I didn’t think this plan through all that well. Although, in my defense, I don’t know how fires work well enough to predict this outcome. Wraine and I agree to check the cave out tomorrow and hope that the smoke clears out well enough that we can go inside. We find a small clearing we think is safe and far enough away from the cave to spend the night.

Ever since we were almost robbed by Gregory, Wraine and I decided to have night guard shifts. This wasn’t necessary in Mountain’s Toil but while we were traveling to Lahrein, we started doing these shifts to get used to them. I’m the type of person that hates being woken up in the middle of sleeping which is why I take the first shift and stay up for about four hours before I wake up Wraine and then sleep til dawn. We’re obviously more exhausted during the days when we need to travel but we both agreed that having Gregory nearly rob us in our sleep was fucking terrifying. If Gregory wasn’t such a crazy person and was more vicious, we’d probably both be dead by now. I guess Gregory wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

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Wraine wakes me up and I can see the sun just starting to rise. We take a few moments to take care of what we need before we head back towards the cave. Everything seems normal and nothing seems out of place. Heading back up the dirt path to the cave entrance, our handiwork from yesterday is now etched clearly all around the cave entrance as the gray rock opening is now completely blackened from the fire. I drag my finger across the cave wall and it comes back covered in soot. Seeing the cave’s dark interior, we’re stumped for a bit. We need to make a torch but we’re also unwilling to rip up our linens for the torch. Walking back down the hill, we start a fire and start to think. A normal dry and dead branch won’t work because it’ll burn too quickly and singe our hands if we’re not careful with it. After trying different things for a few minutes, we make a pretty good torch by taking a green branch and splitting the top of it down the center a few times with the axe. Once it looks stable enough, we stuff the inside of the split branch with dry bark and dry leaves. Putting the top of the branch into the fire, the torch sparks to life and we have a decent torch to work with. We put out the campfire we made before heading back into the cave.

The cave tunnel isn’t large enough for the both of us to walk forward at the same time and I go first with my sword and shield raised. Wraine’s right behind me holding the torch in his left hand high enough that the light shines above my head and the way forward is illuminated. As we slowly creep forward, I can still smell the smoke from yesterday. It isn’t the smoke itself but rather its stench has infused into these cave walls. The cave seems to have very level footing and there’s no upward or downward slope as we walk forward which definitely helped us in filling it with smoke. If it was any steeper, the smoke might not have entered the cave like I wanted it to. After walking for a few steps, we’re greeted with our first green body lying facedown right in the middle of the cave path. I don’t decide to do anything just yet and I just stare at the body for a few moments before I quickly walk forward, stabbing my sword into the goblin’s back. I don’t get any response and I kick the body over to look at its face. The goblins’ eyes are closed and it looks pretty dead. There’s nothing really noticeable about it that I can see, aside from its cock. I wonder how goblins can keep themselves warm without any clothing. It has to be their skin, right?

After cutting off the goblin’s left ear, I shove it into my pocket and we keep moving along the pathway. We find four more goblin bodies as we move forward and I fill my pockets with their ears. Wraine complains every time I do this but we can turn these ears in for coins. At least I’m not cutting out their eyeballs and shoving those into my pockets. Even I’d feel creeped out with a pocketful of squishy eyeballs brushing against my thigh. The cave’s path isn’t straight but the turns aren’t very tight either and we’re soon led to a wide empty space at the end of the path. The cavern’s ceiling isn’t too high above us and there’s a steep slope right in front of us which leads down to the cavern’s floor. If I stood on Wraine’s shoulders while he was standing on the cavern floor, I might be able to touch the ceiling. Scattered across the floor are numerous naked green bodies, more than I can count. The bodies are lying in all sorts of positions, some face up, some face down, and some are slumped on their sides. Next to a few of the bodies are wooden clubs and I can even spot an iron sword on the ground. Now that’s a great find. In the middle of the cavern is a small fire pit that’s already gone out. These goblins are smarter than I thought they would be if they’re using a fireplace. Actually, I wonder how they’re able to make a fire here without the smoke forcing them out of the cave. The cavern itself isn’t too big and I can reach the other end in a few dozen steps. I didn’t notice it immediately before because I was staring at the goblins’ bodies, watching for any movement, but on the other side of the cavern is a pile of white bones.

The bones are surprisingly kept neatly in one large pile at the back of the cavern. I don’t know how long these goblins have used this cavern as their nest but judging by the pile of bones large enough for me to sleep on, they’ve been here for a good amount of time. That bastard Tandy did a fucking horrible job putting up a request for a den when this is clearly a fully grown nest. Wait, what if he did this on purpose to lower the amount of money he needed to offer as a reward? For fuck’s sake, and we have to ignore all of that if we want the money too. Gnashing my teeth to vent my frustration, I look at the pile of bones and I can’t tell if the bones are from animals or humans but it’s probably a mix of both considering next to the pile of bones are the corpses of a squirrel and a young boy. Just like some of the goblins, the boy is lying on his back, facing the ceiling of the cavern. He can’t be much younger than Wraine and I based on his height, probably around 12 or 13 winters. Wraine and I carefully walk down the slope to the cavern floor heading towards the boy’s body. As we’re walking, I kick every goblin corpse that I come across checking if it’s dead. I never expected this smoke plan to be this effective. Wait a second. My eyes widen and my breath quickens as I run toward the boy’s body, ignoring everything else around me. Dear gods, what have we done?