37. Contender

“The plight of myself and Magar appeared to take a turn for the worse when we were found by a rowdy clan of scrawny goblins led by a cruel sharp-fanged goblin who was far more scarred and far more muscular than the rest.

Though he had attempted to take us all prisoner—perhaps to eat as food—Tuku uttered his first word since his twin brother had died.a

‘Challenge.’

The scarred chief readily accepted, with such enthusiasm that I worried for our huge goblin protector. I feared that speed and agility would win out against lumbering force.

But I need not have worried. Within the space of a few breaths, a thunderous punch drove the scarred into the stony ground. And then Tuku proceeded to pummel the Chief until he was a bloody pile of broken bones.

Lacking the fanfare of other duels I’d seen, the scrawny clan of goblins watched in horrified silence. Then Tuku, his great fists slick with blood and impaled by shards of bone, turned to Magar with a flat and lifeless look that made me feel real fear for the first time in as long as I could remember.

I found myself stepping ahead of the young shaman. Tuku’s small dark eyes narrowed, and he took a thumping step towards me. Then the hulking goblin slowly exhaled, and his lips curled up into a regretful smile. ‘Shaman Izzig. Come. Together, we lead.’”

Hjorvarth took a deep breath that stretched his bruised chest and lifted aching shoulders.

He wasn’t sure whether pain was lessening or whether he had started to lose his senses. But he was certain enough of the way forward, even without the narrow tunnel walls at either side and the spears prodding from behind.

He had not planned to become trapped under the earth, to be burnt and scarred, to be buried in a world that he did not understand, but that was the reality he woke to and so that was the purpose he would now pursue without hesitation.

Sam would be safe, or so Hjorvarth prayed. He had a chance at the least.

Dan was either dead already, courtesy of Hjorvarth’s help, or he was still waiting and trapped for his rescuer to return.

Hjorvarth would’ve liked to manage that, the return, but he had no doubts at all that he was due to lose this coming duel. He would stand against that same goblin he had fought before. Orog, who had caught his axe mid-flight and felled him in a single blow.

Hjorvarth had a spear now though, so perhaps that might help.

He sighed a slow sigh that seemed to shrink his tired frame.

He could barely see the path ahead of him, lit by the candle of the kobold behind and eclipsed by his own great shadow. “That is the way of things,” he thought, “I bring cold and darkness in place of warmth and illumination.”

His musings drifted to thoughts of those from Horvorr.

He wondered how Gudmund’s trip to the stone city had fared, whether Engli and Sybille were safe and happy, whether Alrik had fled or kept a grip on the treacherous reins of the Black Hands. He thought about the woman who had lost her husband to Ivar’s reckless actions, about Ivar’s own death, caused by Hjorvarth, and of his frail mother that lived in Timilir. “I should have remembered that sooner,” he chided in his own mind. “The Black Hands will have brought her no word nor coin. I will survive, then,” he decided. “I will claw my way through the earth if needed. Let no woman or child be left to suffer for my own rash actions. Once I have made all my amends, I can go readily to death. Isleif is gone, Horvorr with him. There is nought left for me to do once Dan is freed.”

He then pictured the proud, stoic features of Bjorn, asking Hjorvarth what he might do with his life before he died bravely outside the walls of Horvorr. And he was surprised to feel great guilt at having survived while the mountaineer died. By Astrid’s word, the Sage had returned to Jorund’s Hill and broke apart the strange family of goblin worshipers.

“Astrid…” Hjorvarth thought, suffering an odd sort of longing. He pictured her room, where lay scores upon scores of drawings of Hjorvarth. She claimed that they were visions of the future. He wondered if there was a drawing there of him fighting Orog. But she had drawn him as an old man. Scarred. Bald. Hjorvarth still had some hair upon his head. So if Astrid was to believed, then he would survive so long as he never shaved. “But she is not to be believed,” he reminded himself. “For all prophets are liars. ‘All seers prey on the blind,’ as Brolli would say.”

“He had always wanted me to fight in an arena,” Hjorvarth mused. “Were I not certain to lose, I would wish you were here to see it. What was it I said… ‘You did not raise me to fail.’ Yet all I have done is fail. Failed you. Failed Isleif. Failed Engli. I have failed Gudmund in ways beyond counting. I could not spare his sons the Lady’s Shadow. I am not with him to safeguard his daughter. I did not stand alongside him and the other men of Horvorr’s Guard when the walls were broken. But you did not raise me to fail, that much is true.”

“‘Gudmund is not finished yet,’ had said Grettir in that strange dream.”

“Nor am I,” Hjorvarth decided aloud. “I will not fail no matter what I face.”

***

The Small King had made a cavern suited to the purpose of safe spectating.

He stood between Loffi and Orog, one taller by a half, the other by four full lengths. He had the fleeting thought that the diminutive pair must have appeared as Orog’s children.

“You smell like gold,” Loffi mentioned.

Two dozen goblins named Moonkin perched on a high bench behind the prominent trio. They were all situated on a stone balcony that overlooked a wide arena, and had view of an identical balcony on the opposite side of the rounded cavern.

One of the Moonkin’s appeared wide-eyed and restless, his tattered ears twitching.

“Yes,” Agrak agreed. “It is not a concern unless you can smell the robed man.”

Loffi swept his orbish gaze across the darkness, pocked by a dozen luminous spheres where torches burned on the sides of rugged walls or standing rocks. “Not him, no.”

“I would ask once more to fight,” Orog said. “You disrespect them by choosing a creature that cannot be bested.”

Agrak bared his fangs. “Would I not then be causing more disrespect by sending you instead?”

“I will have a Chief chosen.”

“No.” Agrak shook his head. “I do not wish to risk being honour bound to leave this place in peace.”

“Orog not fight,” Loffi agreed.

The trio were distracted now kobolds began to arrive on the opposite balcony, filing forward in white gowns, black cloaks, colored robes or gleaming armour. Thoughts of unease and disgust flitted through the gathered minds as each side regarded the savage faces of their enemies. Insults, whispered and murmured, followed in kind.

Orog crossed his great arms. “They are a strange people to look upon.”

“As are we,” Agrak replied.

“As we are,” Loffi echoed.

“Perhaps… but we do not look like rodents grown overly large.”

Agrak glanced back at the arrayed goblins named Moonkin. “More the green children of mankind and bats.”

“And what would you call that?” Orog asked.

The Small King turned his gaze towards the far tunnel on the low ground. A broad figure stepped out, clad in tattered rags, scraped and scarred and bruised, holding a spear in grip and a squat candle on an open palm.

“Fire Giant,” Loffi answered. “He smells unwell.”

“You must be mistaken,” Agrak replied. “We have met the Fire Giant.”

Orog’s sigh was troubled. “It is him. I can tell by his bearing and stride.”

“Hubbard the Hallowed,” a shrieking voice announced, “most hallowed, offers up the son of Isleif as his champion to fight against the Small King!” The words echoed through gloom. “He wishes to witness your own champion!”

“‘What are the chances.’” The Small King’s mien shifted from sudden rage to a serene smile. He glanced curiously up at the titanic goblin. “Do you still wish to fight?”

***

Hjorvarth came to stand at the middle of the vast, cavernous fighting ground.

The candle guttered out in his hand and he tossed the molten coin aside.

Torches flickered at a distance, as if signals from friends or foes that waited beyond the half-light of red and orange.

“I stand as well for King Rubinold the Fifteenth!” Hjorvarth declared. He waited for an answer to rebuke that, beyond his own echoing voice, but heard nothing.

He had sight of a trio of goblins, all of whom he recognized. They each stood together in an elevated cavern lit by metal wrought torches. Loffi’s orbish eyes were wide in amusement. Orog stood rigid as a statue. The Small King scowled with rage or doubt.

Behind those three, a score of scrawny goblins watched from a two-tier bench, their faces scrunched as if suffering confusing or a shortness of sight.

Orog’s lips moved as if he were whispering.

The Small King seemed to pay him little mind, answering with a swift nod.

“The Small King presents,” Loffi declared, sweeping out his arms in a bow while the goblins behind tried to mimic a chorus of horns in announcement. “A… thing!”

Hjorvarth felt no comfort at the vague words, and a deal of unease when the ground shook underfoot. Mounds of earths and tall rocks towered around him, casting long shadows that made him feel unable escape his coming fate. He gripped his spear for a throw, resigned to fight, knowing that he should already be dead times over.

“Have we met before?” the Small King shouted, shrill voice drowned by monstrous footfalls. “Did you kill my troll?”

Hjorvarth watched the approach of his opponent. He had seen its like before in the tunnels where Russ destroyed himself with flames. It had the legs and arms and body of a man, sheathed in a glossy red shell instead of soft flesh, only it was four times as tall and wide and walked on all limbs instead of upright.

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The monstrous creature had a beetle’s horned head, tiny black eyes, and great powerful hands. Standing rocks toppled and earthen mounds were flattened now it drew closer, making the expansive arena seem far smaller. The creature stopped not far from the huge man, reared up to strike, then unleashed a guttural roar.

Hjorvarth staggered back from the noise and force. He glimpsed the wet flesh of a toothless maw then turned back to the balcony where Hubbard and the others watched. “Is this duel begun?” he shouted.

“It is begun!” Loffi’s voice declared. “Fire Giant fights Beetle Chief!”

“Brikorhaan guide me,” Hjorvarth whispered. “Joyto hold my luck. Broknar give—”

Beetle Chief charged, rumbling the earth with the rhythmic strike of weighty limbs.

Hjorvarth ran towards it, hurling his spear at the head. The weight of the socketed blade lowered the shaft’s flight and it buried a harmless depth into the creature’s chitinous chest instead. He smiled in regret, leaping clear of a sweeping hand only to be knocked aside by a hind leg, sent stumbling into an unyielding column of stone.

Beetle Chief reared up, turning with surprising grace, and was once more giving chase before Hjorvarth had the time to do anything more than decide to run. He glanced back at the behemoth, which had begun to lower its horned head, then halted, turned, and leapt.

Hjorvarth slammed into its hard head, managing to grapple onto one horn while the force of each footfall sent him swinging on aching limbs. He kicked out, searching for a hold, and drove his boot into one of the creature’s eyes.

Beetle Chief growled, thundering across the cavern, horns aimed for the rugged wall it now charged towards.

Hjorvarth realised he was about to be crushed, but had no strength to pull himself up.

He let his grip slip, throwing his weight towards the creature’s face. Grabbed hold of wet flesh, half-clambered into the mouth before the creature collided with the wall.

The crunching impact stole his senses and hurled him further into a sticky gullet of sour-smelling flesh.

Carnage ensued in the cavern, but all the sounds of crumbling earth and panicked goblins were muffled and hollowed by the prison of thick flesh.

Chunks of debris tumbled down the gullet, scraping the huge man’s face, thumping into head and shoulders. Blinded by dust and darkness, he heard the wet splash of what fell past. Hjorvarth then suddenly feared drowning, and smiled wryly in remembrance that he had once wanted to risk that very same fate at the Great Lake.

Hjorvarth clawed at spongy flesh, desperate to remain in place, but he slid further and further towards the bubbling water. The creature started to move and his descent quickened. He tried to scrape his way out, but his nails were stubbed and useless.

“‘Let me go I will rip out your throat with my teeth,’” Brolli’s old threat echoed in his mind.

Hjorvarth started to chew. He bit down into wet meat that didn’t want to yield, grinding his teeth together to tear it free. The numb burning of fingers flared up in his mouth with abrupt agony. He bit through his own lip and warm blood washed over the pain. He began to bite into the warmer, softer flesh of the creature’s throat.

He forced fingers into the bloody hole, desperate to stop from falling, and bit and tore and struggled his way deeper.

Hjorvarth had no more strength or effort left when he reached hard chitin. He had made enough of a hole to keep from falling while the creature that had swallowed him lumbered around in a mad panic, smashing into this and that, deafening the huge man with the terrible sounds of pained roars while earth collapsed all around them.

“I am sorry,” Hjorvarth muttered. “I should have accepted my death.”

He started to pull back his hands only to have his flesh split on sharp metal.

Hjorvarth felt for the object despite the pain and remembered his spear. He then made a reckless effort of digging the blade free and managed to wriggle the socketed point and a broken shaft into his ravaged hands. Gripping the splintered end, he started sawing into the flesh above his head while he kept perched with his other arm.

Hjorvarth made two handholds for himself, widened his original effort, and then used that for his feet.

He took a grip with ruined fingers and bloodied teeth before shifting his weight to kick at the exposed chitin. He was so consumed with the effort, his pain, and his diminishing strength that he didn’t notice the creature had stopped all movement.

The barrier finally yielded under repeated blows, cracking open, to leave a break wide enough for his foot and many times too small for an escape.

“Oh,” Hjorvarth grimly realized. “This was poorly thought out.”

***

“It was a draw!” Hubbard the Hallowed insisted.

The white-garbed leader stood over the crumpled and crushed corpse of Beetle Chief.

The creature had almost caused the collapse of the entire cavern, but then a great hunk of earth had landed onto Beetle Chief’s head, crushing the skull and snapping the neck. The creature now lay in a huge heap of chitinous flesh.

“I did not lose.” Hubbard threw out his arms. “Both champions are dead!”

The Small King did not answer.

“Your champion was the first to die,” Orog answered, his tone severe. He had walked down to witness the broken body with his monarch, while Loffi had moved to secure his scrawny clan of Moonkins. “That is all that matters,” he added. “Lest all duels would be decided as draws because of the inevitable threat of old age.”

Hubbard the Hallowed had descended with a larger force. A score of armoured kobolds. A dozen others in black cloaks or rich robes, and a handful draped in white. They all watched at a distance from their revered leader.

“I will not cede my caverns,” Hubbard warned for the third or fourth time. “I will—”

“Be silent,” Agrak finished. “As Orog said your champion died outright. This death was pointless, painful, and protracted. If you wish, we can both select new champions.”

“Fire Giant is not dead.” Those gathered turned to see Loffi atop the broken body. “He is trapped inside of Beetle Chief. Living and kicking and… smelling of sad things.”

Orog looked to the Small King. Agrak nodded his assent.

Hubbard the Hallowed seemed wary of a trick. “If he lives then he is the victor.”

The Small King remained perfectly still while the titanic goblin began his search.

Soon enough, Orog grunted surprise and offered rumbling instruction for the man to be patient. The titanic goblin went to work breaking through chitin with a massive, ornate axe that appeared from nowhere and disappeared when Orog was finished.

Hjorvarth was then dragged out, carried like a child, and dropped at the clawed feet of the Small King. He shivered and suffered on his knees. The inflamed crimson of corroded flesh sprawled across chest, shoulders and arms to envelop mottled bruising and overlapped lacerations. He used both hands—one a swollen mass of red, another little more than ruined skin and exposed bone—to steady himself. “By—” He stared in defiance despite his shuddering tone. “By your own sworn word… Small King. You must now… you must now leave this peace… in place.”

“Place in peace,” Orog corrected. “Your will, my king?”

“My champion has been bested,” Agrak declared without inclination, his orbish eyes unfocused and disillusioned. “Yet there remains two issues to address. Firstly, you fought as the champion of King Rubinold which leaves Hubbard with no safeguard at all.” The Small King leapt so deftly that he seemed not to move at all. “Secondly—”

Hubbard choked and clutched at his own throat. Blood trickled through furred fingers and stained his white robe.

“A moment,” Agrak said, turning to the kobolds that now edged back or readied weapons. “By my honour, I will vacate these caverns because I have lost a duel to King Rubinold the Fifteenth,” he declared. “I will never again come here while Rubinold, or his descendants, reign. I will never seek to inflict injury upon those that serve under his rule. So I would decide, quickly, whether you are his servants—travelled far afield—or whether you are the last loyalists of a corpse.”

The robed kobolds conferred and then they all bowed and swiftly departed.

The Small King watched as the figures dwindled into the cavernous distance. “Secondly,” he continued, turning to the shivering man, “and this pertains to you, Hjorvarth. When you were in my caverns, you murdered a troll by name of Fragor. That troll, that harmless troll, was my oldest friend. Fragor was my oldest friend since I was a young child. I had known him for over hundreds of years… do you understand? Many times the span of the longest life you could ever hope to achieve. He was older even than that, for when I met him he had been trapped under the earth for ages untold. Do you understand that? Do you understand any of that?”

Hjorvarth’s glazed gaze spoke to no understanding at all. “You are wrong.”

Agrak bared his fangs in disgust. “You would presume to tell me of my own friendships?”

“No.” Hjorvarth swayed as he shook his head. Orog knelt to steady the wounded man. “I tried to kill him. But he lives. Fenkirk. I met him there… gorging on corpses. He walks in step with Astrid. Up the Midderlands Pass. He held no ill will. Perhaps he was not a monster.” He frowned, and confusedly blinked. “Perhaps that title belongs to me.”

“What a wondrous revelation,” Agrak replied. “But I saw his broken seed. He is quite dead.”

“I know not what that means. In truth, I do not even care. If the absence of your… Fragor pains you then search the Midderlands.” Hjorvarth’s breaths were labored. “Rubinold holds my friend as a prisoner. Dan.”

“Are you sure that this troll was Fragor?” Orog asked.

“Dark green,” Hjorvarth murmured. “Fine distinction.” He inhaled. “I am… I am.”

The Small King flexed his claws. “You are lying.”

“I can think—” Hjorvarth squinted. “Why…? Why would I… lie?” He shrugged and grimaced. “I do not care.” He searched for the goblin he had met in the forests near Horvorr. “Dan holds my friend as a Rubinold. Will you save him, Loffi?”

Loffi’s regard was suspicious. “Where is Mugg?”

“Obliterated. He died in my defense.”

“The troll lives?” Orog asked. “You did not attack him a second time?”

“He walks in step with Astrid,” Hjorvarth wearily repeated.

“A man?”

“A woman. Daughter of Jorund.”

The Small King swept clawed hands through the air in silence then his smooth face twisted in supreme irritation. “The wards of Jorund’s Hill have been shattered. He is dead. Three of his blood remain.” He sighed in earnest relief. “Fragor lives, then. He has simply been misplaced and misused by Chance. I suppose I should have been suspicious of him apologizing for anything.” He looked to Orog, Loffi, then Hjorvarth. “I am going to kill you now, human, but you should know that I see that as a favour. You’ve got the hooks of a puppeteer buried deeply into your back.”

“No.” Loffi leapt ahead of the kneeling man. He readied his hind claws and hand claws. “Do not do that!”

“Loffi,” Orog warned, rising to his full height. “You must not challenge your king.”

Loffi’s gaze grew no less violent. He bared his fangs. “I will die as Mugg did.”

“I am dead,” Hjorvarth assured. “You need not defend me.”

Orog stood unmoving, tense and conflicted. The Small King grew perturbed and lowered his claws. “This man will die of his own accord, Loffi. I do not wish to kill you. I do not wish to see you waste your life for a barbarian.”

“He will not die,” Loffi insisted. “The red and gold will heal him.”

“Perhaps,” Agrak replied. “But then why would you even want to save a man who has butchered your kin?” he asked. “A man that would slaughter you and your clan without remorse or hesitation.”

Loffi snarled. “You have not given him a second think!”

“Did the robed man ask you to defend him?” Orog asked.

“No,” Loffi snapped. “Know. I know! Loffi knows! Loffi knows best. The robed man will never think second. He always thinks same. He will always, always, always do that!” Loffi shook his head in anger. “Why don’t you know that? Why can’t you smell these things? Easy for one such as me, Loffi. I am Loffi! I am Loffi! I am Loffi!”

Hjorvarth was so touched by the defiance that he started to weep. He reached out to push the goblin aside and collapsed instead. Charged silence gripped the three goblins while the huge and wounded man groaned against the earth.

Orog bent to one knee. “Loffi—”

“No!” Loffi flexed his claws. “I know!”

Neither goblin noticed as Hubbard the Hallowed rose as if by strings. The red-and-white kobold leapt for Loffi but was ripped off course by the flashing claws of the Small King. Agrak dragged the weight of the living corpse back then dismembered it in a quick succession of slashes.

A severed head and torso thudded to the ground. The pink face scowled up at him. “I meant—”

“If your next step,” Agrak piped, “is to possess the larger creature then I would advise against it. You were not invited or welcome to my affairs. Do not confuse melancholy for impotence. Do not confuse patience for forgiving wisdom. I am not wise or weak. I am a vengeful child. And I will not brook being watched by a dozen eyes, or poked and prodded by shadow forces that lack the courage to take action in their own physical forms.”

The false light fled the dead gaze of Hubbard the Hallowed.

“Those were dangerous words,” Orog said. “I thought you feared Muradoon.”

“That was not him,” Agrak answered. “Chance has goaded us from sheltered caverns and into an open conflict because he feels surrounded and smothered.” He paused. “He was right to feel concerned… but wrong to mislead us.”

Orog’s nod was slight. “Does this change the fate of the Fire Giant?”

“It does not, but then I misunderstood what it was to begin with.” Agrak turned to wary Loffi. “Have the Fire Giant brought to Izzig and then begin preparations for a journey to the Midderlands.” The Small King disagreeably sighed. “As to you Loffi, you will not be my herald for much longer. You will instead aid Izzig in his research, and spend more time with us so that I can teach you to better express yourself.”

“I am Loffi,” Loffi replied in quiet defiance. He assented with a smile. “I will do that.”