A second passed, then another, as we simply stared each other down. I could feel myself twitching, reflexes screaming at me to dart away. Katturk simply stretched to his full height, rolling his shoulders.
“So.” I flinched at the word, one foot sliding across the floorboards to get the purchase for a sudden lurch off the edge. If Katturk got a had on me I was a dead goblin, so I had to avoid it at all costs. First I’d go for the brakes, th—
“You know the punishment for returning?” My eyes flicked back to Katturk as he finished his sentence. Had he seen them glance away, did he know what I was planning?
“You know I do.” Katturk stepped to the side, slowly pacing. I matched him so we’d circle each other without coming closer. Katturk showed no issue with this as he reached the other side of the open hole, closer to it than me.
“Why return to face death?” Katturk shook his head. “Of course the guilty never think they’ll get caught. But to think you’ve come all this way for nothing…”
“Nothing?” My heart lurched in my chest. Was Stel already dead? I needed somebody to kill! I’d already based my preparations around the assassination, without the plan going through what would I change into?
“Yes. You’ve been beaten to it, no more slaves to free.”
I had the decency to feel just a little bit guilty that I wasn’t here to do that, but it was more than countered by relief. Not only was Stel still available as a target, Katturk clearly didn’t know me as well as he thought I did. I’d had no plans to come back for the dozens of work-slaves kept by the tribe. It had been more than dangerous enough to spirit a handful of humans out of here.
Katturk’s eyes narrowed. “So. How does it feel to die for nothing?”
I whipped my arm across my body, just enough space for the heavy knife that left my fingers to flip once before slamming home into the ropes and gears. Katturk surged forward in an inhuman leap as the room shuddered with the release of a thousand kilo weight from the damaged braking systems. I took a single step back, feet landing on the rough stone of the sinking counterweight. The rope dangling into the empty hole snapped taut like the string of an over-tensioned lute as the secondary brakes engaged, bringing the counter weight to a halt barely a foot lower than when it started.
Katturk grabbed the new source of leverage with one of his feet-hands and half pulled himself forwards, half kicked off of it as I bent down and slipped through the gap. It was a simple task to swing my legs out and climb down the side, made even simpler by the gaps and voids that riddled the crudely constructed counterweight. The counterweight swayed as Katturk’s mass hit it and his blue furred face appeared in the gap not half a second later. He rammed himself through with all of his might, only to end up stoppered in the gap like a cork.
I glanced behind me, marking out the distance to the rope from the other hole. There were nearly a dozen from matching winch houses, but the rope my counterweight hung from looped through the gears and out just fifteen feet away. That end stretched a thousand feet down to touch the upper warren.
“Zhen. You know you can’t escape from me.” I moved to keep Katturk in the corner of my eye. I was sure I could make the jump, but it wouldn’t take long for Katturk to catch up. He was already squeezing his fingers around either edge of the gap, slowly prying it wider.
I knew I should jump. But I didn’t. I leveled the second dagger in my hand, a fancier piece with a swept hilt and guard, at Katturk’s neck. It wasn’t quite within striking distance, but it wasn’t far either. Katturk paused, gap wide enough to pull back, but not come through further. His eyes narrowed to burning slits, but his grin only widened.
“You always had a bit more spine than the rest of them. Care to learn how to get out of this alive?”
I hesitated. What? That didn’t make any sense.
Katturk chuckled. “There are rules and there are rules you know. They only matter when someone cares to enforce them.”
I stared up at him flatly. Really. “If you think I’m going to believe that, you’ve actually gone senile.”
I made the jump. I could hear Katturk snarling at my heels, but I had to push in and focus on the rope growing in my vision. I snatched it with one hand, yanking myself back as the rest of my body overshot it. I fumbled my dagger into my mouth, failing to cut myself only thanks to its unsharpened blade.
The second hand stabilized me on the rope, centering me on it as I fell parallel to it. I left one hand on it to manage my speed and drew a third knife. Bless Garrett and his many knives. As much as I appreciated his fetish, this was one I’d set aside. A good stabber was all well and good, but sometimes you just needed a good hacker, and I’d been heading into just that kind of circumstance.
Katturk’s voice disappeared as he pulled back and leapt across the inside of the winch-house to grab the rope and follow me down from there. I looked up to find the solid mass of his body following me down.
I loosened my grip until I could feel the burn in my fingers, letting them hurt. It was a damn sight better than what Katturk would do to me. He wasn’t the most sadistic of the Hobs, but he was among the most efficient. I don’t know what he did to the goblins who crossed him, only that they never did it twice.
He wasn’t gaining on me, but I wasn’t losing him either, that was kind of how falling worked. I glanced up and swallowed. I should have… should have what? I wasn’t letting Stel go, I was still going to make it through this, no matter what risk I had to take.
I let go of the rope entirely.
Arms tight against my sides, I shot ahead of Katturk. The wind whipped my cloak around me, in the half second it took for it to unfurl behind me and clear my view I’d crossed most of the distance to the upper warren. I snatched at the rope flashing past me, frantic to get a grip in time. The whiplash rocked my body, but it was nothing new. No, the horrifying vertigo as I was nearly tossed free, now that was scary. I only seized the rope again at the lost possible inch, clutching it so tightly I could feel my hand wraps disintegrating as friction tore them apart thread by thread.
“[Rag Armor]!” I howled the Skill into the wind, barely noticing the scant relief boosting it provided. It could only do so much to reduce the building heat, but at least it would prevent the abrasive rope from carving deep enough to reach flesh rather than cloth.
It wasn’t enough, when I hit the rope’s end I did so with enough force to drive my knees into my chest. I collapsed backwards, stinging fingers finally slipping free now that I’d found solid ground, but the solid ground was nowhere to be found as I fell. The rope had been anchored not to a platform, but to a mere beam of wood. I had a moment of panicked recrimination as I fell through open air, only to hit wooden planks not a second later.
I rolled to my feet. Of course the rope had been tied to a platform, it had simply been tied to the top. Supporting beams curved up like the bars of a cage, enclosing the platform and connecting to the rope.
The rope which Katturk was still sliding down. He wasn’t far, close enough to see the furious grimace on his face as he burned his hands braking.
I might still be recovering, but I couldn’t help but leap into action when I saw that face. Words could not describe my desire to not be here when it landed.
Or better yet, not have it land at all. My jump fell short of the ceiling by a few feet, but then my goal was to hit it, not smash my face against it. My heavy choppin’ knife landed cleanly in the junction of the roof, wedging itself in the knot-work.
Katturk loosened his grip, allowing gravity to hurl him at dangerous speeds again.
My own fall was arrested long enough for my weight to jerk the stuck knife free. The surviving fibers groaned at their increased load and a single chop was all it took. The last clinging strands snapped with a sharp whip-crack.
A similar feel too. I felt at my face with one hand as I landed, testing out the bloody gash under my right eye. It wasn’t as serious as it could have been, or even really at all. I was that little bit less pretty than before, but with the kind of effort I put into not being seen I couldn’t bring myself to cry any tears over it.
A little pain could be worth it to inflict something worse. As the counterweight hauled the rope higher at ever faster speeds friction braking would only get more painful. Katturk was already clutching at the rope with both hands and the monkey like feet-hands he’d gained from his mutations, adding enough drag to keep hold. That was fine by me, by the time he’d circled back from the top I’d be done and gone.
Well, not gone. My plan to hide in the warrens and exploit the anonymity of an all new body might not be perfect, but transforming out in the wilds wasn’t a great proposition either.
Then Katturk let go. I blinked, gut lurching sympathetically as he hung in empty space. He’d managed to kill most of his momentum, but he was still near fifty feet up!
Katturk hit the warrens like a stone hurled from a catapult, smashing through the upper crust of the warrens with three hundred pounds of Hob muscle. The unbound rope had thrown him maybe a hundred feet out, dust and splinters slowly drifting down atop the shattered hole left in his landing, undisturbed by any sign of movement.
I turned and ran.
Curious heads poked out along the path, just far enough to scope out what was going on without exposing themselves. More than one put their head right back in as they saw me charging past. Now that I’d announced my presence I’d lost whatever time I’d had for any fancy plans.
A brief thought put a hitch in my step: wouldn’t it be smarter to bail entirely? But it lacked the weight to stop me. After what they’d done?
There was a price to be paid, and a thousand roaring emotions to demand it. Before that, what was the logical play to do but melt away?
----------------------------------------
Five Years Ago
“It’s time ta see da boss, so hurry up you gits.” The knock that followed shook our little shack from one wall straight to the other.
I glared at the hemp curtain hung across the doorway. “If you can’t be bothered to spare a minute’s warning you’d best be prepared to wait!”
Mom touched my shoulder, pulling me back. “We’ll be just a second.”
She finished quickly, snatching up her scattered tools and sliding them into her satchel. Many of its faded colors had once been garish, and they still clashed with each other even in their faded state. It was stitched together from frayed thread and hand sewn with neatly hemmed pockets for each of Mom’s equally handcrafted tools. Those that wouldn’t fit in her pockets at least. The stained grey jumpsuit she wore was blessed with many pockets, pockets that let her secret the more valuable tools about her person rather than in an easily snatchable bag.
I counted as she finished her preparations, such as they were. She’d wielded better tools once, or so she’d told me, but it was difficult to practice a craft here in the warrens. Even getting a day off of hard labor was far from guaranteed, let alone having the energy left over to work on anything else. It was dangerous mixture of one part shady deals to one part outright theft that had allowed us to establish ourselves, but at least the sailing had been smoother from there on. Mom’s trade wasn’t the most profitable, but it was second only to the moonshiners in its ability to buy goodwill.
Until now. I stepped out into the light of the wider cavern, only for a fist to plow into the side of my head. I let my tension melt under the force, loosening my joints and rolling with the blow. I hit the walkway like a sack of grain, loose and limp.
I grunted as my face landed in the gap separating shack and walkway, cutting open my cheekbone on the edge. Well, hells. The loose boards of the shack walls shook, even my light body enough to seriously test the integrity of what could generously be called a building. I pushed myself up with exaggerated slowness, glancing back at the Hob so he could get a good look at the blood on my face and the fear in my eyes.
He grunted in satisfaction. “Ready when I say you’re ready.”
Mom stepped out, glancing between us with pursed lips. Unlike me, she had the discipline to keep her mouth shut, simply striding past both of us.
It didn’t take the Hob more than a couple long strides to catch up and I wasn’t far behind. Better to be at the back, where I didn’t have to bother with the acting. Like a single punch was enough to force me off anything that really mattered. Better to pretend. Giving the Hob lip had just caused him to split mine. I reached up to stymie the trickling blood with the cuff of my sleeve, only to have it batted away.
“You know better.” Mom was already offering a sterile cloth.
I dabbed up the blood with the offered cloth. Mom’s concern for hygiene bordered on the obscene, but I knew better than to argue. We wouldn’t be having much need of it where we were going at least.
The Peak was less and more than I expected. You heard so many rumors whispered about it among goblins and slaves alike that you could almost forget you could just walk up and check. Of course, that was assuming you didn’t stumble across some Hob with a job to do, which was the real reason most avoided it. It was a hotbed for Hobs, so anybody available to be bossed around likely would be.
It was the height of decadence, of power, the luxuries of each raid floating to the top before Chief Urkan doled them out to his most favored servants. It was here that the Chief called his council, from here that warbands set forth and returned. Here that their spoils of war accumulated.
Yet it was carved from the same wood as everything else. The same bark and spliters clung to its structure, the same damn beetles were being rooted out here that we’d had such trouble with this season. It was the same warrens, just higher up and with more shiny shit.
My eyes darted into a covered room as the flap was peeled back by someone leaving, drinking in the silver necklaces and golden rings scattered across a low table inside. Why, there was so much junk that you’d struggle to even notice should a little go missing…
Some other day, that is. I had other concerns today. Our path didn’t end until the very top.
We stepped into the throne room of Chief Urkan himself. The Hob’s throne sat empty in a barren hall with more life in its shadows than its light. My skin prickled. This might just be worse than I thought.
The Hob escorting us picked up the pace, grabbing Mom’s shoulder and hauling her after him. I clung to their heels, keeping just enough distance to avoid trodding on them when I flipped around to walk backwards.
The great hall was filled with the normal amount of toadies and lickspittles, quite a few in other words, but there was a different look in their eyes. They clumped in groups, each bearing the subtle signs of one faction or another and only intermittently did anyone bridge the gap to bring hushed communications from one huddle to another. Otherwise the floor stretched empty from one scheming island to another, suspicious eyes only drawn from their neighbors for long enough to size us up before they returned to watching the competition with one hand on a blade. Urkan kept an iron grip on his vassals, one that inspired great loyalty… as long as he was watching.
How short had his grip shrunk for them to be teetering on the edge of open conflict in his very hall?
I recognized a handful of the more notable Hobs, all bore responsibilities to match their influence. They would not have gathered their support for a show of force for nothing.
Fucking hells. My view was cut off when we circled the throne, but my mind had already gone from the politickers to brainstorming potential escape methods. That’s were I hit a brick wall. A pair of Hobs in chain and leather waved us through into a back room I hadn’t even known existed. I could find back ways across half the mountain, but not here. Why bother to learn the layout of somewhere I’d never see?
The doors closed behind us like the jaws of some great beast, cutting off any escape.
I was beginning to have the sneaking suspicion that I was completely and utterly unprepared.
I choked down my anxiety to a tight ball in my chest and wiped any vestige of it from my face as we followed the Hob down a winding path. No weakness.
I knew that my mom held a position not many were comfortable with, namely that of a human with anything at all to separate them from the barely living mass of malnourished slaves. Any difference, any elevation could serve as a focal point for resistance.
More importantly, it was just plain uncomfortable. Humans didn’t get dragged here to live as productive members of society. No, they got hauled off to be worked to death doing whatever tasks were bad enough for even goblins to squirm out of, serving as unwilling effigies punished in place of their entire people.
They were not supposed to thrive. Seeing one live out the day was annoyance enough, to see them building a life for themselves was an actual affront to the sensibilities of more conservative goblins. As soon as I’d heard rumors that one of Urkan’s raid leaders had been asking questions about Mom I’d ‘known’ what was going on. Mom had finally grown tall enough to be worth cutting down, and I’d need to call in every favor I had if I wanted to keep us alive.
But tall enough to merit the attention of the Chieftain himself? He’d never bothered himself with any human before, no matter how uppity. Why would he, when he had a tribe’s worth of subordinates to worry about?
When stepped through the final sanctum the real reason for a presence became apparent. And it truly was a sanctum, reinforced walls twisting and turning, narrow gaps in the boards glittering with watchful eyes. The end opened up into a broad chamber where a single intruder could be faced down with dozens of defenders.
Dozens of defenders weren’t what greeted us. A bare handful of people stood clustered around a single ailing Hob. He sat on a chair of solid oak reinforced to hold far greater weight than the withered frame upon it. All around him goblins and Hobs alike hunched half over as if afraid to stand taller than their master.
Mom strode forwards with head held high, my hunched form scurrying at her heels. Precious few friendly faces greeted her. My count stopped at zero.
A goblin bearing not only the staff and pouches of a shaman, but the dangling talismans marking him as First Flesh Fraak, turned away from his patient. “For what purpose does this human befoul our presence?”
Mom looked to the Hob who’d led us here. I looked to the Hob who’d led us here.
Every shaman, Hob and goblin looked to the Hob who’d led us here.
“Uhhh-uh…” The Hob wilted beneath their gaze. His Hobhood might have exalted him in any other room, but not this one. Hells, half the goblins in this room had the jewelry and weaponry to mark themselves his betters and he just didn’t have the fortitude to cope with that many glares.
“She’s here to do what you cannot.”
The shaman whipped around to level a life-ending glare at the speaker. “Excuse me?”
The speaker, a night-blue Hob laden with fur and muscle in equal quantity, didn’t flinch. “Your spirits cannot cure him.”
Fraak’s face twitched, then froze, every muscle going slack, even his eyes. The seemingly lifeless orbs remained centered on his challenger, even as his voice issued forth from an unmoving mouth that by all rights ought be silent. “You’re not more than a whelp Katturk. By what magics do you propose the human betters me?”
I shivered. That voice reverberated from deep within, as if something else were speaking through him. Goblins didn’t often walk in the same halls as Hobs and most of those who did had given up something for that power.
“Now, now.” A second shaman stepped forward, wringing his calcified hands around his stonewood staff. “There’s no need to come to violence. Urkan’s already caught a cursed arrow from the Skycaps, we can’t afford to be catching blows from each other too!”
“By no magic at all. It isn’t her who outdoes you, it is the enemy. How many times have you tried to crush their magic with your own these last days? If your spirits cannot smother the corruption with mana, then let her cut it out with a blade.”
Fraak threw his hands wide and his voice boomed outward from everywhere and nowhere. “What madness is this? Some slave taking a knife to our Chieftain is not a solution. What madness saw fit to allow you in this chamber I don’t know, but I assure you, whatever fluke it was will be corrected.”
“No.” The voice was soft, but it begat silence. Urkan shifted, sunken eyes glittering from within his blanket shroud. “Take it out.”
“But sir.”
“Enough! I tire of sickness. This human will take it out or I will. Better to rip it free and die quickly than to continue withering away.”
Mom’s fingers hit a hitch where they were drumming out a nervous rhythm on top of the insignia ‘EMS’ embroidered on a ragged old set of coveralls older than I was. She seemed to consider something, as if there were any choice but to obey, then nodded brusquely. Deliberations complete she shrugged off her kit and rolled up her sleeves. “Zhen, line up my scalpels in order of sharpness. You,” She pointed at one of the less important looking hangers-on. “Fetch me two large feather quills and a jug of your strongest liquor.”
The goblin glanced between Mom and Chief Urkan, briefly baffled at being bossed about by a human, but he caught on quick enough and darted off to fetch the supplies. I knew we had some strong rotgut for sterilization already, but if you were going to be treating the richest man around, might as well make him foot the bill.
I let myself relax. With the shift from away from politics and towards medicine the outcome was no longer in doubt.
Mom could fix anything.
----------------------------------------
The throne room was much as I remembered it. Vast open space beneath its arches, an obscene extravagance in a city beneath the earth. The ultimate display of the chieftain’s wealth and power.
But it was far above it that Drakul had left his mark. The ceiling was torn away, support arches left to grasp at empty air. The distant framework on the ceiling stretched down to meet it, falling short just like Drakul’s stillborn dream. Only cables spanned the distance, mating up with the pillars that had once supported the ceiling. Now they served a different purpose, laden with the same cranks and gears as their matches up top.
The room was emptier than I’d ever seen it, although I’d only seen it twice before. Maybe the throne room was just like a graveyard and people only visited when someone important was dying.
Somehow I doubted it.
Stel was nowhere to be seen, the only sign of life the plodding footsteps behind me. I turned slowly to see Katturk standing in the entrance doubled over and breathing heavily. One hand clutched at his side and the other was braced against the doorway to support his weight. If he was faking he was damn good at it.
Katturk was damn good at faking whether he happened to be honest now or not, but the odd angle of his right thigh couldn’t be faked. He’d come up here straight after impact without stopping to so much as set his broken leg. “Gobbo.”
The word was faint, barely audible with my ears pointed backward, but it earned a glare anyway. “I have a name and that ain’t it.”
Katturk chuckled, shaking his head and wincing at the pain of his own movement. “So you do Zhen, so you do.”
One ear flipped around from where it’d been guarding my back. Had I heard that correctly?
Katturk pushed off the threshold to step forward, but he just spread his arms as I raised my blades. “I’d rather not fight. Stars knows we’ve lost enough Hobs already.”
I snorted. “Don’t act so selfless. Your life is more important to you than it would ever be to the tribe.”
“Actually, I was talking about you.”
I froze. I wasn’t a Hob, not yet. How did he know? Even I had to meditate to feel the slowly building energy deep within my soul.
“I’ve been around the block a few times. After a while you start to recognize the scent. You’re on the very cusp of something great.”
Yeah, yeah, it was only a couple extra feet and a hundred pounds of muscle. But that was just contrarian of me, dissing my own Hob potential just because Katturk could get a little grandiose.
“That’s right, you, a Hob! I can smell it on you. There is no need to run or hide when you could rule.” Even with me standing at twenty feet away Katturk reached out with one grasping hand. “Your crimes pale in comparison to your potential. You think Stel cares about a few stolen slaves? She has no use for a harem and she only banished you to appease those idiots too ugly or stupid to get real sex. With their disloyalty revealed and them gone, you’d be welcomed back with open arms.”
I loosened my stance, letting my blade fall to my side. “Really? I could come home?” My feet carried me towards him as if drifting through a dream.
Katturk smiled, not a hint of deceit on his face. “Of course. You’d be one of us, no mere goblin to be pushed about an—”
I whipped my knife up, heavy recurved blade carrying the momentum to punch through fur and bone alike. Katturk dodged almost faster than the shocked expression could spread across his face. He really hadn’t seen this betrayal coming, huh? Fool or no, he was crazy fast.
More the fool to dodge straight backwards. I let the knife slip through my fingers, but not before giving the hilt a good flick in the opposite direction. Just enough to give the blade a full rotation before landing and hitting edge first.
I pivoted to bring my left hand driving forward, leading with the straight spike of a knife it held. A line of red drew itself across Katturk’s face, but that was all I made out before he snatched my wrist in his hand.
Shitshitshit.
I twirled the knife around to a pickax grip and leveraged it behind Katturk’s wrist, breaking his grip. I leapt back out of grappling distance, with a swift kick to the balls to get some extra momentum.
For a single glorious instant I saw Katturk folding inward, only to see it halted. Katturk dragged his unwilling body back to standing, trembling in every muscle. A thin line of blood ran across the back of his right hand, but I’d been concerned for escape, not damage, and the wound was shallow. My first attack cut deeper, but had not flown true. Whether a last-second dodge or my own poor aim were to blame I could not say, but my throw had done little more than loosen his attachment to one ear.
From his face, it wasn’t clear how much he was trembling from pain and how much from pure unbridled hate. “I offer you the world, and you dare?”
I shrugged. Out of cutting range the breath wasn’t too precious to waste explaining myself. “The opportunity to grovel for forgiveness at the feet of my mother’s killer isn’t much of one.”
Katturk’s face crumpled in confusion. “Your mo— the whore?”
A growl drove itself from my chest with a depth my body alone surely could not produce and I jerked towards him with all the force of a rope hooked into my heart. This worm thought he could insult my mother!? I raised my blade, ready to bring it smashing down as the confusion melted from Katturk’s face.
Replaced by an eager satisfaction.
I drove a foot in front of me and arrested my rage-born momentum, stopping short of where Katturk’s hooked blade carved through the air. Katturk was too wily to miss the effect his words would have on me and he wasn’t about to stop pressing his advantage just cause I’d recognized his baiting for what it was in time to pull back. He followed up on his first attack, hook flicking out again and again.
None of his successive strikes had the power of his first, but they didn’t have too. They kept me backpedaling, for each and every one had to be taken deadly seriously. The lightest brush of his weapon could still catch on my layered rags. It was even exacerbated by my own Skill. [Rag Armor] would ensure no snapping threads would save me as he reeled me in to die.
Yet die I did not, staying inches ahead of his hook as my own weapons spun in my hands. Even as I batted away his hook with one the other came around to strike at his hand. The angle wasn’t great and he snatched his hand back before I could draw more than a trickle of blood.
A little injury couldn’t stop Katturk from trying to claw back the advantage. His hook twisted around my blade even as he withdrew it, but I simply let the blade pivot it my hand, hook sliding off the smooth steel with a rasp. I didn’t push things as we sprung apart again, more than happy to buy time to settle my racing mind.
To not only survive clashing with a Hob, but to claim the edge by however small a margin… It felt unreal. Katturk might be more dangerous outside of direct conflict, but he was no slouch in one either. Truth be told, my past achievements were hardly lesser, but somehow felt like a dubious rumor, the far off adventures of a tall tale rather than my personal experience. To be doing the same with familiar warren-wood beneath my claws brought everything crashing home. I was not the same goblin who left.
The energy surged to my attention, readying itself to reward me for besting a Hob in combat. I soothed it down. Beating Katturk would be a satisfying way to catalyze my transformation, but the form it would give me would be crude and straightforward.
Katturk flexed his hand, watching the ebbing blood flow as he rolled his fingers. “Quick, but shallow.”
I grinned so hard I ached, my face peeling open to reveal each and every toothy point. “If it bleeds it may die, and I don’t need a Hob transformation to make you bleed.”
Katturk shook his head sadly. Sadly?
“What the fuck have you dragged in here Katturk?”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The voice rasped across my ears like a bloody file, sending shivers down my spin. It still bore the same smoky grit as the last time I’d heard it, like gargling rust-red drain water.
----------------------------------------
Three Years Ago
“I can’t fix this.” The words were soft, barely audible, but for goblin ears that was enough.
“It’s alright, Jen.” Ivovre comforted Mom before I could think to. In my defense, I’d never heard her say anything like that before. Regret came after a crisis, not before and certainly not during.
Mom relaxed into Ivovre’s hands as they massaged her shoulders and the other woman leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You’ve got what it takes. No matter what crisis pops up, you will do more than anyone else and more will live for your having been there. That’s the most anyone can hope for.”
Mom took and held a breath, letting it out as her eyes opened. “Alright, lets do this.”
I took the chance to butt in. “Kak and Baal have finished setting up the triage.”
She nodded, rising to her feet. She laid one hand on the forehead of the goblin laid out on the table in front of her. Sighing softly, she turned away. I stepped aside to let her pass, eyes lingering on the goblin.
His trembling had quieted with the effect of Mom’s care, whatever medicine she’d applied lessening his pain, or at least the evidence of it. Willow bark maybe, I had too much time tied up in the other side of the business to memorize the cures she had.
And what cures indeed. What had once been a cramped little room now had the space to house dozens of jars on its shelves and the head space to hang just as many kinds of drying herbs. We might not have the miraculous power of a shaman, but we were the next best thing. Our little chunk of the Warrens had grown along with Mom’s influence. Her unwavering dedication to health had won a singular respect from all corners, which in turn won suspicion from the real powers in society.
Luckily for us, we didn’t all share her single-minded principles. Riding the waves of the warren’s shifting power balance wasn’t always easy, especially when Urkan fell from power, but Mom’s skill had earned enough political capital for me to keep us afloat.
Goblins split around us as we passed through the warrens. There might not be a Hob among us, but there was a certain solidarity here at the bottom, a solidarity only enhanced by the fact that Mom was on her way to treat the hundreds of their brothers and sisters who had fallen victim to the human battle magic.
Rumors were flying like arrows, flung every which way. Drakul had dueled a god in the flesh, a dozen archmages had conspired to turn cold mounts to volcanoes, a dragon had burst from the earth. All stupider than the last. Personally I was dubious that all the burn victims were even from the same blast. Who had ever heard of a fireball that big?
Either way it was a devastating blow against Drakul’s crusade, one that would have tested my faith had it come earlier. Instead it was the last gasp of a defeated humanity. We’d been stopped at the pass, but the vale of Iabia was already ours. With Drakul being the strongest hob for a thousand years, it mattered little how heavy the casualties at the pass were. We were goblins.
There were always more of us.
More than enough to mop up what resistance was left in Iabia and secure a fertile future for every tribe united beneath Drakul’s banner.
Mother moved between the beds with the ease of long practice, but even still it would take her hours to treat them all. Hours they could take; most had survived these wounds for days already just to reach here from the frontlines. The real risk was infection, as attested to by the massive pus filled sores and twisted black flesh.
I frowned, already moving forwards. That wasn’t char, it looked almost like-
“A tumor?” Mom said, as baffled as I was. It was sprawling out of the burn like a half-dead animal dragged from its hole. “I’ll treat you later, if it hasn’t killed you already it won’t for weeks yet.”
“No!” A gnarled hand stopped her cold as she turned away. Mom yanked her hand out towards the thumb, just as I’d taught her, but the Hob pulled back harder. “It’s grown three inches in as many days! You have to cut it out now!”
Mom braced her hand on his chest just to avoid getting pulled all the way into his lap. I was halfway there with hefty wooden rod in hand. Mom used them for splinting, but they saw nearly as much use for subduing unruly patients. Even against a Hob, it’d be more than enough once I smashed it into his tumor.
Mom took a step back, spinning her arm around in a broad circle. Unable to move with it from his hospital bed, the Hob had no ability to fight back as my mom finally built up the leverage to overcome their vast strength difference.
“I’ll treat you when I say, and not a moment sooner. Stop using healing magic and you’ll last more than long enough for me to reach you.”
The Hob reached after her, helpless to stop her after she left. It was good to know that Mom could defend herself at least a little. I couldn’t watch her all the time, but she was technically stronger than me.
Now if only she learned how to pull off a proper eye-gouge I could truly relax.
Unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, so I found myself shadowing her closer and closer as the day went on. Something wasn’t sitting right with me. Of course that wasn’t abnormal, something was always concerning me.
But I was usually right.
Today was proven to be no exception when I heard the rhythmic footsteps of soldiers marching in unison. Didn’t they know that could destabilize an entire section of the warren? It didn’t take me long to realize that wasn’t the answer. I could see the first signs of them, a spreading wave of goblins shoved aside by their passage. Whether they knew the risks would only matter if they cared.
I grabbed Mom’s sleeve and yanked her away from her current patient, ignoring Ivovre’s suspicious glare. “We need to get out of here.”
Mom frowned, tugging herself free to wipe a clear fluid off her hands with a rag. “Are you sure? To abandon this many patients…”
I glanced behind. The compressed wave of displaced goblins hid much of whatever was approaching, but not all. I could still see the larger figures looming above them. Hobs, at least a dozen.
“Yes Mom, this is serious.”
Ivovre wasn’t glaring at me anymore. “Jen. Kid’s right.”
Mom didn’t question us after that. I pushed aside the jealousy. Mom didn’t trust Ivovre more, she just knew the other human woman was the one strong enough to pick her up and carry her. Yeah.
We rushed towards the nearest exit, patients and gawkers alike distracted by the cluster of Hobs bullying their way through with fist and club. There were a dozen side exits to any room in the warrens, and this exit was empty save for a single goblin slouched against the wall.
I blinked. That was no goblin.
I grabbed Mom’s sleeve and hauled with all my might, only managing to redirect her from her own forbearance. I rushed ahead as Ivovre lagged behind. “This way, this way.”
I glanced over my shoulder. The ‘goblin’ was gone, his bulk disappeared like he was never there. “Shit, he knows we’re on to him.”
Ivovre jogged to catch up, hand sliding back to where I knew she kept her shivs. “Who knows what?”
Thump. A dense Hob slammed in front of us mere feet from the next exit. He rose to his full height, just tall enough to look Mom in the chin. “Me. Good eye kid, but you need to learn to look up.”
Fuck. The ceiling had plenty of handholds, but to clamber across it with his bulk hadn’t occurred to me. Short or not, he was as broad as a horse. I could only blame myself for not recognizing Katturk, the Hob’s grasping toes on his feet-hands provided more than enough grip to support even his substantial bulk.
This was going sideways rapidly. I was frozen as a molerat in a snowbank, with no viable escape routes presenting themselves. Katturk was faster and stronger than me, but even then I might give him the slip. Mom certainly couldn’t.
I swallowed my fear and slapped the least sincere smile of my life across my face. “So, what’s up Katturk? Other than you, obviously.”
I don’t know why I bothered disassembling, stalling would only give them more time to close in, but I suppose bullshitting was too heavily ingrained by this point. There were only two reasons they would be here. Either the time had finally come to shut down the arrogant human who had dared to infringe on the shamans’ territory by offering medicine, or-
“Stel’s orders.”
I couldn’t help but want to laugh. I wiped the grin off my face before it finished forming of course, but Katturk wasn’t the meathead of your average Hob. I kept talking before he could assume I’d been laughing at him, or worse, Stel.
“Sure. Stel wants a human. Why waste time joking?”
Strangely, pointing out his tasteless sense of humor didn’t make him any happier. “She does.”
I stepped in, bumping past my mom. “Stel, the walking mountain? Whatever is capable of hurting her, surely we’re not capable of curing?”
Pleasepleaseplease take the bait. No mundane human is worthy, we’re not that important, just ignore us.
“Well, that would depend on the kind of wound.”
I flinched. Mom!
“Goblin medicine is more efficient at treating some than others, especially when compared to… alternative methods. I’d need to examine both the patient and any previous treatments to tell with any certainty.”
I turned and gestured furiously. No we did not want to sell our services to anyone with power. Tending to the dregs of the warren was bad enough, but it was stable. The dregs could be cruel, but that just confirmed no shaman would bother with the place. With no other hope of treatment it was child’s play to rile up the disease ridden masses against the handful of real threats to us.
Mom frowned. “Are you alright honey?”
I glared as emphatically as I could. No I was not alright! It was one thing to convince a few fools with genital warts to knife the occasional goblin in our defense, but defy the highest Hobs on this side of the mountain? It wasn’t happening.
A vice clamped around my neck and suddenly my survival sense made an abrupt shift from minutes to seconds. “Here’s a hint for you boy.”
Katturk lifted me off the ground with ease, overlong fingers circling my neck easily. “Once you’ve failed to weasel out of something, stop trying. Any more and you’re bound to start pissing someone off.”
The brute gave me one good squeeze before he dropped me from a good few feet, letting me go sprawling. Mom was there in a second, neatly positioning herself in between me and the Hob. “No need for that, it would be an honor to work at Stel’s command. Simply show us the way and we’ll be more than happy to follow.”
Katturk gestured at his fellows, who’d well and truly surrounded us, cutting off Ivovre. “Then get walking.”
It didn’t take a genius to recognize the route. The twists were different, but the destination was the same. Of course Stel would be at her master’s side, but the thought of performing surgeries with such an audience wasn’t doing any favors for my stomach. It had been bad enough the first time.
Hopefully it was just a cursed arrowhead again.
Hope wasn’t much to go on, but things had been good recently. Maybe we’d get lucky.
The doors opened wide to the Drake’s Roost, Drakul’s more extravagant interpretation of what a great hall ought to be. Still, given all his success, it was easy to take his presentation of grandeur at face value. It wasn’t until the door closed that my alarm bells began ringing.
The inner guards didn’t throw the doors wide to impress, instead forcing us through a cracked gate single file and they closed them as quickly as they’d opened them. The room was far from empty, but even so it contained far less than Urkan’s smaller quarters and the urgent whispers I remembered were replaced with dead silence.
At the far end Drakul’s throne had been replaced with a bed, flush with stolen silks and feathered pillows. Stel’s crouched form nonetheless loomed over the bed like a mother hen, hands cradling an emaciated arm with a delicacy that looked outright comical on the massive Hob.
What little optimism I’d dredged up was rapidly vanishing.
A closer look proved my worst fears correct. As we drew up to the bed the bodyguards fell back to honor their liege’s privacy, with only me, my mother and Katturk joining Stel around the bed. What lay within it scarcely resembled a person of any kind, let alone the majesty I knew he used to have.
For only one creature could have Stel so thoroughly at their beck and call.
Drakul was impossibly skinny, as if the very meat had been flensed from his bones. The powerful muscles that had once lain beneath his scaled skin were as gone as the skin itself, natural armor that had bested entire teams of adventurers gone as if it had never been.
It was a sight to destroy the world, or at least one’s view of it. Drakul was supposed to be different, the eternal Hob, the invincible chieftain. The man who’d brought every clan under one banner and led them forth to kill and claim until there was no more to conquer…
He wasn’t supposed to lie rasping in a sickbed like a common wretch.
Mom yanked me by the shoulder and I stumbled forwards, only then remembering to close my mouth.
“Symptoms?” Mom spoke with barely a hitch in her voice, nothing to detract from the ironclad confidence of a master at work.
Stel jerked her head over as she realized she was no longer alone. “Who the hell are you?”
The voice came like the gravel of an avalanche and it was all I could do to control my bladder, let alone summon a response.
Luckily I didn’t have to. Katturk slid in, eclipsing Mom with his bulk. “I promised you a healer didn’t I?”
Stel rose, and kept rising. By the time she stopped she towered like the mountain itself and I briefly failed in my battle against my bladder. “This is your healer? I can’t smell even a whiff of mana on her.”
Katturk gestured off to the side. “And how have your magics worked so far.”
I followed his arm and found a full basket of biohazard. My Mom’s cleanliness rose up in me and I had to crush it down before I told the tribes strongest Hobs that they needed to find a place for their tumor pile that didn’t leak blood onto the floor.
Mom leaned over Drakul and Stel grabbed her by the shoulder. Mom didn’t let that stop her from examining the patient. “Extreme burning, full thickness and spreading over the whole body.”
Mom looked over her shoulder at the Hob who was very clearly considering whether to squeeze and reduce her shoulder blade to shattered bone. “How is the condition on the other side? If I said his front represented one hundred percent burning, what number would you give the other side.”
Stel might still be glaring, but there was a consideration to them that hadn’t been present before. “Why not roll him over and check for yourself?”
Mom shook her head. “First, do no harm. I couldn’t call myself a doctor if I inflicted unnecessary pain in my treatment.”
Stel snorted and I winced. Mom’s answer was absurd, the correct answer was that she had no right to touch any Hob without their permission and we all knew it. Even Mom knew it when she stopped to think.
Wrong answer or not Mom’s obvious sincerity placated Stel a little and she withdrew her hand. “Eighty? The burns cover everything, but grow shallower as they go around the back.”
“So he was attacked from the front.” Mom bit one knuckle as she looked at the once mighty Hob’s face. It resembled a skull more than anything else, even the eyes burnt to cinders. “What treatment has he undergone so far.”
Stel gestured at the basket of tumors. “Magic. Even the strongest scrolls stolen from human treasuries only grow black and twisted flesh.”
Mom frowned. Most healing magic, at least as far as Mom could tell, worked by accelerating the natural processes of the body. The best ones worked on healing selectively, without the premature aging cruder methods created. Crude was as good as the average goblin was likely to ever get, but Hobs could get better if they were lucky. Drakul had better than anyone, but apparently that wasn’t enough.
“If rapid healing isn’t working than we have no choice but to go the slow road. Has everything he’s touching been disinfected?”
Katturk butted in before Stel had the chance to ask what the hell that meant. “I’ve had all his bedclothes boiled in clean water.”
Say what you wanted about the Hob, but he didn’t forget.
“Good,” Mom said, “Without anything immediate to do we can start talking about his long term odds.”
“There are no long term odds. He will live. If you cannot make it so then I will end you and find someone who will.”
Mom put her hands on her hips and stared Stel in the eyes. “Threats won’t change his prognosis. Neither will an inferior doctor more willing to lie.”
Stel clenched one fist, relaxed it and clenched it again. “And what would you propose to attempt?”
“That depends entirely on the details of his condition. What was the exact nature of the injury, how long do the regeneration spells work before failing, is any good tissue generated or is it purely cancerous growth?”
Stel’s hand loosened and stayed that way. “He was wounded in a duel with a human. Once their defeat was made clear they detonated some manner of magical device, unleashing a blinding light that consumed everything for miles around in flame. The entire pass was scorched down to the bedrock.”
“Was this the same attack that the goblins below are suffering from?”
Stel scoffed. “Them? Most of them were miles away. Drakul was within a few hundred feet.”
Mom folded her arms tighter, one leg jiggling up and down. It sent the scrap of cloth that still bore her old EMS insignia bouncing furiously. “What did the device look like?”
Stel shot a glance at Katturk and he dutifully fired back a response. “Ol’ Urgak Skyeye said it looked like mundane metal, of a kind he was unfamiliar with and bearing neither runes nor mana. Sunspear brought it in when he replaced all the other humans, and it bore a great weight, even for him. When Drakul gained the upper hand Sunspear struck it with a spear, detonating it.”
Mom had started nibbling on her knuckle halfway through his explanation. “And when the light cleared, was there a rapidly rising swirl of superheated gases, leaving behind a smaller trail such that it looked like the stem of a mushroom?”
Katturk blinked. “Yes… there was.”
Mom shook her head rapidly. “That doesn’t mean anything, any sufficiently large explosion will create that.”
I felt a faint chill on my skin. Judging by her words, it sounded an awful lot like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else.
“Anyway!” Mom clapped her hands and shook off her funk. “What matters is that you said no magic was seen?”
Stel snorted. “Obviously Urgak is making excuses. He should have seen this coming, and is scrabbling for any excuse to avoid the consequences.”
Katturk shook his head ever so slightly. “Urgak swore on his life that what he saw was true.” He carefully avoided explicitly disagreeing with Stel.
Mom nodded along. “Alright. I’m assuming that no further magic was detected by anyone else.”
“Nothing that could possibly explain an explosion of that size.”
“Hmmmm. Someone would have had to enter the blast zone to retrieve Drakul. Can I meet them?”
Katturk and Stel shared a glance. “They died three days ago.”
Mom opened her mouth but Katturk cut her off. “And no, no one was able to detect the curse that killed him, nor was anyone able to perceive what afflicted everyone else who ventured too close to that accursed pass.”
Mom closed her mouth again and tightened it into a thin white line. “I see.”
“I would recommend declaring that pass off limits to anyone else. Add in at least a dozen miles of territory around it to be sure.”
“No.”
Mom glared at Stel. “Anyone who goes there is as good as dead. It won’t be safe for years yet, and even slight exposure can kill you years later.”
“That pass is the only thing standing between us and an army of vengeful humans. I applaud the attempt, but I won’t leave it unguarded even if your words were true so you can stop trying.”
Mom’s eyes twitched and I wondered how I could possibly restrain her from making a very stupid decision before she spat out the words. “Fine. But don’t blame me when thousands die.”
Stel smiled. “If only thousands die it will have been a small price to pay.”
Those eyes… they scared me. I’d seen a thousand petty tyrants, each more high on their own petty glory than the last, but this was something different. Their was neither hate nor sadism in those flinty eyes, not even as she spoke of spending lives like water. If anything they were warm, as if everyone she was throwing away deserved a nice pat on the back for their sacrifice.
And nothing more.
Whatever emotions Mom felt from those heartless eyes were wiped from her face by the time I had mind enough to notice. She swallowed them up and offered her blandest smile. “If it is radiation poisoning I’m not sure how to treat it. I could hover by his bedside and excise tumors as they appeared, but even that would only work so long as they didn’t reach any critical organs.”
Stel frowned. “So you’re saying all you can do is sit here and stop him from dying while waiting to see if he recovers on his own or not?”
“No, I’m telling you all I can do is sit here and put out fires until he doesn’t recover on his own.”
The floor shook beneath me and I belatedly compared Stels growl to that of a bear. The bear came up wanting.
I stepped up to Mom and stomped on her foot, ducking the retaliatory ‘karate’ chop. “You don’t know that!”
Stel’s anger paused as she looked at me, presumably thrown off by the pure novelty of being interrupted by both a human and a goblin in one conversation. Whatever, I’d take it.
“You always say that nothing is impossible! That the world is full of unknowns and crazy shit happens all the time!”
Mom sighed. “Nothing’s impossible, but some things are close enough. You have to do triage,”
My eyes widened and I shook my head franticly, even waving my arms wildly to convey the same message.
“You save the people who are in the most danger first, then the people who are at a little risk, then and only then do you offer what comfort you can to the doomed. I won’t waste my time on a dead man when there are so many living yet to be saved.”
Stel took a step forwards. “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!”
I threw myself in front of my mother. “She didn’t mean it!”
Stel reached right over my head to seize Mom by the neck. “Drakul is the savior of the goblin people! He’s not going to die in some sickbed like an invalid! DEATH IS BENEATH HIM!”
Mom glared up into Stel’s raging eyes even as I futilely whaled on her legs. The Hob was as hard as stone and gave me nothing more than scrapes and bruises for my trouble. “What do you want me to do?! I barely have sanitized equipment, let alone an operating room! If you’d spent the last decade investing in medicine instead of warfare maybe I’d have something, but without that!? If I had skin grafts and blood transfusions he’d still have million to one odds, but without that? It’s hopeless.”
Mom stopped, panting, every emotion vented. Still, it was far too late, we were both going to die.
But Stel didn’t move a muscle to close her fist. “Skin grafts? Blood transfusions? What are these terms?”
Mom swallowed, coming back to herself enough to realize the trouble she was in. “Exactly what they sound like. Grafting skin over his burns could replace his missing tissue and save him from the inevitable infection of this many open wounds while injecting another goblin’s blood could make up for the loss in production when his bone marrow dies. If we were exceedingly lucky. If the grafts took. If we could even find a blood type compatible for whatever his evolution turned him into. If none of his other organs are hit as bad as it looks like. If nothing goes wrong.”
Mom raised her hands in the air. “If, if, if! Do you see why I say it’s hopeless? Even all those miracles would only buy him a million to one odds!”
Stel threw back her head and laughed. “Only a million to one? You don’t know him have as well as I do if you doubt his success with those!”
“That's not how statistics work! Besides, that includes half a dozen impossibilities already!”
Stel patted Mom on the head and gently smoothed her tussled hair, settling her hands ever so gently just to the side of where bruises were already starting to form on her neck. “Now, now, I will make the impossible happen! Every goblin in this mountain and beyond will be at your command. Now, how much skin will you need for your grafts?”
Mom froze. “How… how much skin?”
“You can’t graft without it surely?”
“The only way to get that would be to—”
“Skin some goblins. Luckily they’re easy to come by.”
“I’d… I’d need… eighteen, no twenty thousand square centimeters… but no, Drakul’s skin was far too different from anyone else’s. This is madness.”
Stel walked around Mom, letting one arm hang over her shoulder like they were good friends. “Surely it isn’t. Not when it could earn you everything you’ve ever wanted. Besides, Hob transformations cycle through all manner of bizarre forms before they settle on one. Even far more rare forms than they end up getting.”
Even Katturk’s eyes were wide with horror. “You could butcher thousands and never find one close to Drakul’s majesty.”
Stel waved off his concerns with one hand. “Not if you destabilized the transformation with a foreign blood injection. The spiraling mutations would go through dozens of additional forms, and using Drakul’s blood would make each one more like him.”
“Harvesting materials from the transformed? That’s a Vankra clan technique!”
Stel glared over her shoulder, grip tightening until you could hear Mom’s bones creak. “And?”
Katturk raised his hands pleadingly. “You know what Drakul thought of those techniques. He was the one who wiped them out!”
My heart was pounding against the walls of my chest, bouncing off the ribcage like a rabid rat locked in a cage. How could we escape an impending Hob fight when Mom was already in their clutches? There wasn’t a soul in this mountain that could out muscle Stel, save the one rasping from his sickbed..
“No.”
Both Katturk and Stel froze. “What did you say?”
There was that growl again, but this time it never reached the floorboards. It hit a fleshy sound dampener, shaking Mom like a kite in the wind.
Mom turned, trembling from more than the growl, to stare Stel in the eyes. “No.”
“It could buy your freedom. Any flaw could be worked out until you left this mountain with your own mountain of gold.”
Mom swallowed and stuttered, but spoke nonetheless. “Damn the mountain and damn the gold. I swore an oath.”
First, do no harm.
It was a wonderful, beautifully naive thing. Even after all her years in the mountain Mom had never broken it. It was why she needed me to protect her, to do all the dark and painful necessities that she couldn’t. It was why I’d never left the mountain for long, never sought my glory and Hobhood amongst Drakul’s great war.
Stel twisted Mom around like a puppet, the strength of an adult human so small as to be unnoticeable, until they met each other’s eyes again. Stel’s flint-grey orbs stared down into soft brown eyes trembling with unshed tears, searching deep within them. I couldn’t see Mom’s face from here, but I could see Stel, and whatever she found there impressed her, something which seemed to surprise her.
I tensed my legs, preparing the leap upwards. I’d start by throwing my pouch of obsidian dust in Stel’s eyes to distract her, then spill my oil bottle over her hand. Once we’d slipped her grasp we could run for it. It wasn’t much of a chance, but it was something. I’d move as soon as Stel made here decision, I couldn’t afford to jump the gun and attack too early.
“I believe you.” Stel whispered, almost beyond my hearing.
But only almost. I unleashed every ounce of tension in my body, flyi—
Stel’s fist disappeared and Mom’s head vanished in a bloom of red. I wasn’t even a quarter up and I had already lost all thought of continuing my attack. My head pivoted to track Mom, knowing that I hadn’t seen it correctly. Stel couldn’t move that fast, Mom couldn’t die that fast, my li—
The blood fell like rain, revealing Mom still mid-flight, face gone from the nose up.
In the space between an eyeblink the most important person in my life had been stolen from me, replaced by a limp doll of dead meat.
I launched myself at Stel screaming. Her leg had no give to my claws or shiv and I scrambled up her back in search of something that did. Her muscles were like iron and her bones like stone, but I knew everything had a weakness. I went over her back and came over her shoulder, swinging around with my entire body as a counterweight to the obsidian tipped scalpel in my right hand.
My eyes locked on hers as I aimed for the only part of her that I knew I could hurt. Her flint-grey eyes met mine with the empty gaze of someone who had lost everything.
No.
Not flint-grey.
Steel grey.
I hit her as hard as I’d hit anything in my entire life, scalpel splintering apart like driftwood as my grasping fist cracked against her stone cold face.
A furry missile hit me and dragged me off the Hob. I screamed and clawed Katturk with bleeding hands, desperate to reach my target before she realized and fought back. Stel looked over at us, not having moved an inch. She brushed loose bloody splinters of wood and obsidian from her unharmed eye.
Not her blood. Mine.
“I’ll just get rid of this goblin for you, he won’t be any more trouble!” Katturk gave an awkward little half bow and I took advantage of it to punch him directly in the balls. Unfortunately he took advantage of that to knee me directly in the face. Did the bastard even feel it!?
Katturk tucked me under one arm while I was disoriented and I couldn’t get at him with my arms anymore. I twisted around to bite him, but it got caught on this clothes and fur. I could only barely see Stel turned away.
“Do what you want with him. I don’t care.”
----------------------------------------
I stepped to the side, bringing both foes into view. Stel stood backlit from where Drakul had torn out the twists and turns Urkan relied upon and replaced them with a simple door. What need for such petty defenses did you have when you were invincible?
Stel could stand where he had once stood, back-lit and silhouetted by the braziers he’d installed for his own posturing, but even her shadow was a poor substitute for his.
Katturk coughed into one fist. “Ah-hem. This is a disobedient little goblin, nothing more. This matter is beneath one such as you.”
What was Katturk playing at? Even if Stel hadn’t bothered remembering me, this was still his chance to crush me with a powerful ally to back him up! I’d never taken Katturk for the sort of pride-stricken fool many Hobs let themselves become, but even if his wounded pride demanded that he finish me himself, he could simply say it. Had he figured out my trap?
Stel stepped forward and as she carried her seven foot frame into sight. I was reminded of a simple fact. Poor substitute or not, Stel was still a damn sight above my league. By the muscle that clung to her bones alone she was as mighty as any two lesser Hobs, but muscle was not defined her. Her famous skin was pale where the Warren-born were dark, grey where we were green… and where ours was smooth hers bore the grit of sandstone, each tiny grain glinting with the reflected light of polished steel.
“If he’s so insignificant,” the walking hunk of ore said, “Why is he carrying good steel?”
Katturk’s wince was so slight even my paranoid brain wanted to dismiss it. “That is the problem, isn’t it? Theft is serious to be sure, but not so serious as to merit your personal attention.”
Smooth Katturk, but why were you wasting breath on lies. I really didn’t see any benefit here, if he wanted a duel that bad he could just ask for one, if he was so worried about my trap he could just warn her.
No.
Maybe he was actually trying to protect me?
Things had to have gotten really bad if it was worth all this effort to recruit a single Hob. Doubly so if that Hob was me. But Katturk’s lies were in vain, cause I needed Stel to take a few more steps forward. I stepped back to the side so we formed a shallow triangle instead of a line with me in the middle. I didn’t want to be caught between them.
“He’s full of shit.” Katturk might have some reason to want Stel gone, but I didn’t. “Stealing from a corpse isn’t even a real crime.”
Stel snorted. “Like I was going to take Katturk at his word. Bastard lies like he breathes.”
She eyed me suspiciously, hooking one thumb through her wyvern leather belt next to the three-foot meat cleaver she called a sword. I mirrored the action, except my thumb was dipping into my alchemist’s pouch even as I tucked the dagger in it through the belt and left it there.
I plucked my claw across the corks, counting them out before stabbing into one.
“I’d worry less about Katturk and more about me. After all, I’m the one here to kill you.”
Stel burst out laughing. Not any soft snickering here, no these were hearty, ground shaking guffaws. Literally ground shaking. She bent over laughing before recovering, wiping tears from her eyes and spitting to the side. “Stars, really? Oh mighty goblin, have mercy on this poor Hob!”
I scowled, pulling my thumb from the pouch with potion bottle still impaled on it. It was child’s play to palm it from there. This wasn’t the dramatic confrontation I had wanted, but life did love its disappointments. If I had to I’d settle like I always did, specifically for Stel’s corpse in the ground. I’d just have to drag out whatever emotional validation I could while putting it there.
After all, I still had however long it took to bait her out over the central floor to banter. “I’m no mere goblin.”
It hurt my ego more than a little to puff myself up like that when what I wanted was to grind her face into the ground until she understood what she’d done, what she’d cost me, the pain and the loss and the sheer wrongness—. I took a short breath. Focus. “More than transformation can empower people. I’ve learned how to alter my very soul. Do you truly think mere muscle can stand up to that?”
Katturk’s head snapped around. “What!?”
“What?” I responded reflexively. Surprise I had expected, but that tone was more than normal surprise.
“Don’t tell me you’ve dabbled in the human soul system? That shit’ll kill you!” It wasn’t me it’d kill.
I opened my mouth to respond, but whatever I might want to say was drowned out by Stel’s booming laughter.
“Never thought I’d see some git brag about poisoning themselves!” Stel’s gaze settled on me again. “’Course, I never thought I’d see a mere goblin get their hands on that elixir either, but here we are.”
I swallowed. “You’re lying. The power I’ve taken is mine.”
Stel shrugged. “Your death is your own, sure. Still dead though.”
“You’re being fucking stupid! Every Hob knows better than to trust some human concoction, they barely work on humans, let alone us.”
Stel stepped forward, finally. “Arright you two dumbfucks, this is over. As curious as I am to see your body tear itself apart, I’d rather just do it myself.”
Now that Stel was stepping out into the collapse zone—
Floorboards shattered as Stel disappeared in a grey blur. I leapt backwards, evading her blade by inches. Shit, she was fast. I grabbed at the ropes on the closest pillar with one hand, pivoting around it just ahead of Stel’s blade. The hefty weapon slammed through rope to bite deep into the wood beneath, sending splinters flying as Stel ripped it free.
Damn. That monster cleaver of hers should have been stuck there for a good ten seconds. It would have been for me, why did all my big dumb enemies get to be strong enough to bull through their mistakes? I had to take the hard way and I ran along the row of pillars, slicing at the ropes as I ran past.
“Get back here and die you little git!” Stel’s pounding footsteps weren’t far behind me. “You won’t make it far from the Dragon’s Right Hand!”
Whether it was rash or calculated even I couldn’t say, but I was compelled by some mix of desperate anxiety to fan the flames. “What kinda loser has nothing to brag about than being buds with a dead man!”
Stel’s roar cut through the beating drum of my racing heart to alert me to her surge forward. I dodged right, ducking down under her strike even as I brought a pillar between her and me.
Only a fool rests after forging his first defense. That old goblin proverb proved its worth yet again as my first defense splintered like so many toothpicks.
Stel’s sword smashed through the pillar in an explosion of jagged shards. The oversized splinters tumbled in the air, but even the handful impacting point first failed to hurt me. The follow through of Stel’s massive blow dragged her off course as I darted away, buying me precious feet. A lead that rapidly disappeared as Katturk came in from the side, forcing me to curve off the most efficient course. I circled around his lunge and sprinted flat out for the next pillar. Almost there.
I felt rather than heard Stel’s leap, floor trembling with the aftershocks as something started to crack. If I could beat her to the pillar, no, she was too fast. The wind of her jump fluttered the tips of my ears and I dived sideways just in time.
Stel howled in rage as her leap carried her past me, sword swinging out to carve a furrow inches short of my heels. Unbalanced in the air, she flipped over and slammed into the pillar back first.
I kept running, not thinking her down for a second. Well, she might be down for a second, but I didn’t think she’d stay down, not eve—
Stel flipped back to her feet and kicked off the pillar behind her, cracking it further. Yep, that was what I’d expected. I leapt myself, hitting the pillar and running up. My claws clung to it, Stel impacting before my purchase started to slip. Her blade crashed through the pillar, jerking it to the side before the whole structure pulled itself free with a sickening wrench. My stomach lurched down into my knees before rebounding back upwards, but I managed to keep my lunch down, if barely.
The pillar swung out vertical from the rope secured to its middle, making it simple enough to grab the rope in my free hand and stand astride the rising beam. Stel was left looking up in complete confusion as I soared skyward. The pillars might have been designed to anchor Drakul’s system of elevators, but that hardly mattered when Stel was smashing them left and right.
Why didn’t I help her out with that?
I hurled the flask from my hand, not even stopping to watch it explode. I leaned one way, then the other, doing my best to force this damn thing moving with nothing but my own inertia. I stretched out as I started to pick up momentum, lashing out with a blade as I swung near the neighboring rope. It bit deep, fibers springing lose of their windings in a spray of hemp. The arc of my swing hauled me off in the other direction before I could finish the job. Damn. I was going to have to do this the hard way, wasn’t I?
By the next time I swung near I’d been carried far above my last slash. So I jumped. I caught the rope with one hand to slid me to a stop just above the wound I’d left, lashing out to sever it.
My stomach lurched as my new rope shot off after the first. I tasted vomit at the back of my throat, but I was already jumping again by the time my stomach lurched back up. I flicked the potion down before I landed on the next rope. Something deep within my soul was seething with power, releasing more and more as I pushed my limits.
The potion vial detonated into a noxious smoke. Stel couldn’t have steel lungs surely. One more rope fell to my blade and I heard the first crash of impact. The counterweight I’d released from the first cut rope had landed right next to the pillar that had once anchored it.
The exact same pillar that stretched all the way down to anchor the entire structure to the bedrock. As the second counterweight hit its own pillar the entire Drake’s Roost listed to the side. I turned my back on the destruction I’d wrought and focused on the ceiling racing towards me. I was being pulled upwards by the same deadly weight that was plummeting at my enemies, so I’d meet the same fate if I wasn’t careful. I had to time this just right.
As it happened, just right was right now. I’d let myself get closer than I’d thought. Showed me to enjoy my handiwork before I was done.
I jumped for the next rope scarcely more than a fifty feet away from the top. I flipped around midair, letting up become down and down become up. Snatching the rope, I did exactly what I’d done mere minutes before, albeit in reverse. My own momentum stood in for gravity, but with no one chasing me I was safe to slow to a stop before impact.
Flipping around midair like that did me another bad turn on my stomach, and I didn’t bother holding it in. Someone’s day might well get ruined, but the catastrophe I’d brought had already ruined them far worse.
I looked down again. Even the pillar’s I hadn’t broken where straining now, bent beneath all the weight they weren’t supposed to support. I wondered how long it wo—
Snap.
I lurched upward with a yelp, passing up into the winch house above and throwing myself to the side moments before the rope dragged me up into the gears to be ground into a paste. I bounced off the ceiling and rolled onto a rough, scrabbling landing feet away from falling back through another hole.
I pried myself back to my feet and took a swing at the counterweight’s rope as long as I was there. It fell out of my view after three swipes and I leaned over the edge to take in my handiwork.
The entire upper warren sloughed to the side as the most recent impacts shook it. Five ton counterweights hit it like a crusader’s trebuchet bringing down the wrath of the heavens. Wood broke like water as the gravity powered projectiles sank to the depths and distant pops and cracks echoed all the way up to the ceiling from the smaller supports shattering under weight they were never supposed to bear. The once solid mass of the warren lost coherency as it slid down, folding in on itself like so many dead leaves as individual sections gave in and collapsed.
Through it all the fire spread, pockets of dust and shattered beams exploding into flame.
It was everything I’d dreamed of.
I burst out cackling as the energy in my soul grew and grew. Even Stel couldn’t survive an avalanche, buried beneath countless tons of rubble, some of it already on fire. Warrens collapsed all the time, but never the Hob sections. They had more than enough labor and manpower to keep everything sturdy and strong.
Now they all paid. Every Hob who’d watched my mother die, every goblin who’d refused to avenge the one woman willing to tend to any ill, they all—
Something cracked.
My cackle cut off as I fell to my knees, wracked by a pain I’d never quite felt before. I caught the edge with one shaking hand and forced myself to fall backwards rather than over the edge completely. All the air flew from my lungs when my back hit the ground and I choked trying to get it back in. Huffing and spitting managed to get me a little air, but I knew it couldn’t last for long if this pain continued. Something was deeply wrong and if I didn’t fix it I was going to gasp my way into the grave like a stranded fish.
So I did the only thing I could and closed my eyes to the world, entering meditation to reach the source of that terrible cracking.
Within.