Chapter 19

We reached the pond near the cave after walking for a few minutes. If not for the gruesome task we’re about to do here, this pond would be a great place to take a rest. The pond itself isn’t very big and we could reach the opposite side after walking for about ten minutes. The pond is in a small clearing surrounded by trees and when we arrived, I felt extremely peaceful here even with a dead body on my back. I didn’t notice before since we spent such a long time in the cave but I really missed hearing the ambient noise from the living creatures around us. The cave was dead silent except for the noise Wraine and I made from moving around and talking. Here, I can hear frogs croaking, birds chirping, bees buzzing, and the pond water moving around from fish going about their day. This is a nice place to lay this body to rest. I’d like to find somewhere further away from here to sink the body but we can’t risk being seen by anyone. We’re already in serious danger by bringing the body outside of the cave but we don’t have a choice other than doing it this way. After looking around to make sure there’s nobody nearby to witness what we were doing, Wraine tossed our weapons onto the ground close by and helped me carefully put the body on the ground. We know it’s just a body now and it doesn’t matter even if we’re a bit rough with it but it’s our fault this kid died and the least we could do is keep his body as intact as possible. Although, we are tossing his body into this pond which will ruin the body anyways. Hold on, will this thing float? “Hey, do dead bodies float?”

Wraine takes some time to ponder before he responds, “I think they do. I remember seeing a dead body floating in the river where we washed our clothes back in Misanth. It was a leather hand in the village who had gone missing a few days prior. Turns out his wife was sleeping with the village’s blacksmith and during their confrontation, the blacksmith hit the leather hand on his head with a hammer, sending him to the ground where he bumped his head again on a rock and died. It was the only thing we talked about in the village for the next six months. We’ll need to weigh down the body with something to make sure it sinks and stays sunk.”

Hearing what Wraine had to say, we got to work and filled the boy’s shoes with stones before tightening the top of his linen shoes with some leather string we found in the goblins’ birthing linens. The boy’s linen pants don’t have pockets sewn into them but we do the next best thing we can think of and take his shirt off, fill it with stones as well, and tie the shirt around his waist. What else? We sit down next to the body and think for a few minutes for any other way we can weigh him down but we can’t think of anything else. This should be good enough and the more time we spend here messing with the body, the more likely we’ll get seen by someone. We carefully carry the body to the pond and gently let the body slide into the water, feet first. We can’t see into the water very well but the water should be deep enough to at least cover up the body’s head. Wraine lets go of the body’s arms and the rest of the body sinks into the water. I stand up to heave a sigh of relief when I hear bushes rustling behind me. There’s no way our timing can be this horrendous right?

Swiveling my head around, I stare at the trembling bushes while I run over to where Wraine threw our weapons down. Picking up my sword and shield, I raise both of them in anticipation for what’s about to happen. If someone saw us sinking the body, we'd need to put them down immediately. Dear gods, don’t let this murder turn into another murder. After a moment that seemed to take an eternity, we see three piglets walking out of the brush, heading toward the pond. And when I say walking, I mean walking. I can’t believe what I’m seeing with my own eyes but right now I see three pink piglets standing upright like humans, each of them walking on their hindlegs as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. They’re even smaller than the piglets I’m familiar with and even when standing up straight, the top of their heads barely reach my knees. When they reach the edge of the pond, all three of them kneel down on their piglet knees and lower their piglet heads to drink the pond water with their piglet mouths. Blinking my eyes a few times to make sure they’re working correctly, I turn to look at Wraine and I can see that his mouth has dropped. Just like what I did when I heard the bushes rustling, Wraine ran over to pick up his longsword and lifted it in the most intimidating manner he could think of: high above his head with both of his shaking hands desperately grasping onto the handle. “Alright, have you ever heard of walking pigs back in Misanth?” Seeing him shake his head, I sigh and lower my weapons, signaling for him to do the same.

Hearing us speak, the piglets abruptly raised their heads and stared at us with their tiny, black piglet eyes, seeing if we’re dangerous. Even with the weapons in our hands, we apparently don’t seem dangerous to them and they continue with their watering. Maybe they’re familiar with humans? Regardless, it’s time for us to go. I grab my sword and shield along with the linen sack holding all the goblin ears and eyes. It’s a bit heavier with all the goblin parts in it but if we can sell them at an adventurers’ guild and earn a tiny bit of money, it’ll all be worth it. Wraine’s carrying his longsword and the other sword we found in the cave because the woodcutter’s axe is too heavy to carry for long trips and his sole focus as we’re traveling to Midriver is to gather as many edible plants as he can carry. We once again discuss the option of turning in the quest paper for the reward since we don’t have much else to talk about. It might be smarter and better for us in the long run to take the reward but we’re too afraid of accidentally letting something slip when we’re confirming the success of the quest. It’s better if we have as little contact with Lahrein as possible and we can at least deny clearing out the cave if they do find the body. We can just say we saw the cave, saw more goblins around the cave than we expected, and we left when we saw the quest was no longer possible. If nothing else, it’ll at least buy us a few days worth of time before they send someone to find us and we’ll already be on the way to Midriver.

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Following the path we used to get to the cave back to Lahrein, we arrive sometime in the afternoon but don’t enter the village and instead plan to circle around the outskirts and keep heading east, where Midriver lies. We’re not completely sure which direction is east and we’re forced to find the dirt road we used to get to Lahrein and use that as our landmark. While we were skirting the village’s outskirts trying not to draw attention, we saw Tandy walking around the outside of the village with his cane, apparently visiting the other villagers. Despite his old age, he instantly locks his eyes on us even though we’re at least 100 yards away and are partially covered by a tree and some bushes. That old man has incredible eyesight. Tandy waves at us and shouts something inaudible from where he’s standing, but the shock from him noticing us sends me running as fast as I can toward the east. It’s difficult because I need to step around overgrown tree roots, the occasional bush, and the uneven dirt ground.

I run for a good twenty minutes before I start running out of breath and slow down. I know Wraine’s right behind me because I can hear his rough breathing as well. He takes a deep breath to steady himself before shouting, “Why are we still running?” He’s right. I slow to a stop and I put my hands on my knees, trying my best to get my breath back. Wraine stops beside me, putting his hands on his hips and raises his head all the way up, letting it hang back. “We shouldn’t have run. We should’ve talked with him. Made up a story or something. Tell him it’s a nest, not a den. Could have stalled him for a while. Now he thinks something’s strange. Likelier the body’ll be found.” Wraine strains himself to say through staggered breaths.

“Fuck. I didn’t think. The old man seeing us that far away, scared the piss outta me. I just ran.” I struggle to get out with each breath. “Fuck.”

After taking a few minutes to catch our breaths, we keep going forward but we notice the dirt road we’ve been following all this time has disappeared. I suppose people frequently travel from Mountain’s Toil to Lahrein but not many people travel from Lahrein to the east. We’re going to need to pay more attention to our surroundings as we keep moving forward otherwise we’ll get lost along the way. It’d be best if we could run into another village or town soon where we can ask for directions and perhaps offload these goblin parts. They haven’t started to smell yet but it’s only a matter of time at this point. Perhaps we could also make use of the coins we found in the goblin nest. I’d love to spend all of our coins on a warm bed to sleep on at night and a nice meal but we have some necessities we’ll need going into Midriver.

When the sun sets, Wraine and I set up camp for the night next to a running stream. When I say we set up camp, it’s literally only a simple campfire to keep us warm at night. We each force a handful of the plants Wraine collected during the day down our throats and wash it down with water from the nearby stream. I’ve gotten used to this type of diet during our travels but it doesn’t mean I like it. I wonder what those piglets at the pond earlier would have tasted like? The mere thought of having pork fills my mouth with saliva that I reluctantly swallow down. Wraine goes ahead and sleeps first while I take the first guard shift. I sit beside the fire, with my knees hugged to my chest. My sword is balanced on top of my knees while my shield is on the ground next to my left hand and I can easily grab it at a moment’s notice. I stare into the fire, lost in my thoughts. I used to like the first guard shift not only because it let me sleep till dawn undisturbed, but also because it gave me some time to be alone with my thoughts. Not anymore though. I don’t want to be left alone with my thoughts anymore, they scare me.