38. Clothed in Glory

“I have not written an account in a long while. I had the strangest sensation the other day, sat in the main cavern of Chief Tuku. I had been tasked with teaching the younglings in the clan, and brought them forth to pledge loyalty to their huge, taciturn leader.

And what I felt, seeing the happy young goblins, and seeing as well the reserved approval of Chief Tuku, was pride. Happiness.

I keep Agrak in the fenced enclosure where I teach the younglings. There is a scrawny goblin, Brak, who helps me to feed and tend to him. Brak talks nonsense all day to The Small King with no way to conceive who Agrak once was or how powerful he had been.

And I feel a great burden of guilt that I cannot help The Small King, or that I had not tried to free him sooner, before the weight of such an enclosure dealt such damage.

Yet still, I am happy. Joyful, even.

In this clan I am free and respected. Tuku made me his advisor and he actually listens to the things that I say as if I am wise and useful.

There is but one lingering problem.

Magar.

Tuku has allowed the young shaman to live with us and even agreed to help him try and birth new hatchlings from the seven sided pool. The huge goblin wishes to make a spawning pool so that the corpse of his twin can be returned to the acrid waters.

But I fear—no, I know that Magar does not mean to rear ordinary goblins. He wants to bring something forth that will change this peaceful, isolated clan. That will alter the fate of every clan and every people. For the good of all, he claims. For the goblins, at least.

Part of me thinks that I should kill him, though strangely that feels like a betrayal. And I know as well, if I am honest with myself, that this will not last. It never does. Tuku will grow old. He will be killed before age ends him. And so the rest. All the hatchlings I’m teaching will know death before I do. While I persist, made victim by my own hubris.”

Hjorvarth woke from fretful dreams of green light, green faces, and green smoke.

He coughed up the acrid taste of the memory while his head still swam with tiredness. He did not know where he was. He did not remember how he came to be there. He did not even remember what he had been trying to do.

A tall silver torch leaned on the nearby tunnel wall, and a steady flame burned atop the ornately worked shaft.

He felt his grief first, for Isleif, for Brolli, for Arnor, for Linden, and then a great muddled cascade for the scores more who had fallen in Horvorr.

Hjorvarth remembered the hooded face of a giant rat and that made him feel all the worse. Thoughts seemed to spark in his mind and then catch fire. He could hear someone screaming and that served to unsettle his sense of calm and safety.

He reached for a weapon, touched bare flesh, and realised he was naked. He realised, as well, with a dousing of horror, that all his body was webbed with scars, scars that seemed months old. A stretch of depressed and livid flesh ran the length of his shield arm. He thought on fire once more, on searing heat, and on the mangled metal of a heavy shield. He remembered Sam and Dan. He remembered kobolds. He remembered folk shouting and hurling things as he made his way down stone streets.

Hjorvarth grunted in partial understanding and started to rise.

He must have gotten lost in the tunnels. He would take the torch, which he also remembered in a vague way along with the wax figure of a troll, and start searching the cavern where the men he sought resided.

Hjorvarth strode in silence, his breaths steady and painless, despite a constant fear that some agony was ever on the brink of being reawakened. “Loffi,” he murmured, remembering dancing goblins screeching and laughing as sour smoke shrouded them. “I am Loffi… no, I am Hjorvarth. Son of Isleif. Foster son of Brolli the Black.”

He would close his eyes and each time see the spark, hear the roar, of flames, and he would hear a sickly child speaking words of divine conflagration.

“‘Pink is ever at odds with green.’”

Hjorvarth tried to rake his beard and instead scraped fingers down stubbly flesh. He reached behind his neck, closing his grip on nothing. He pawed at a head covered in uneven patches of bristling hair. He almost thought that this skull wasn’t his own until he found the depression where an old bard had struck him with a glass bottle.

“That would have been a simple end to things,” he thought, reminding himself not to discount the risk of any man, woman, or child. He saw Jorund’s family sat across from him once more at the stone table, remembered Astrid’s concerned gaze when she saw him bruised and wounded. He thought on the dozens of drawings he had seen of himself, some were he was badly scarred and had shaved hair.

Hjorvarth had a sudden urge to check his eyebrows, and frowned when he realised they were mostly missing. He could feel scars under his ears, along the middle of his lip, and at the corners of his eyes, as if flames or worse had managed to engulf him yet decided to spare what was easily reached.

The green face of an old goblin flashed through his mind, bringing the touch of wet and withered fingers.

Hjorvarth scratched at his own cheeks to be rid of the sensation. He worried that he had been in the care and keeping of goblins and then wondered why that should worry him, given that they must have made best effort to heal him.

He realised he had stopped walking, and started once more. He could hear distant screeching that made him wonder if he was about to enter a cellar full of rats. He kept walking until mellow light bled into the tunnel ahead of him, until he recognized a flustered shout that he had heard before.

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“Am I not king here?” Rubinold asked, answered by the distant affirmation from dozens of kobolds.

Hjorvarth crossed into the large cavern, walking onto an earthen path flanked by two stone rises with only the sight of a throne’s earthen backing. He walked until he had sight of the tiered benches of dirt where sat the rest of the well-dressed kobolds.

Hjorvarth thought that the place looked very much the same. He had to clamber up beside the throne to get into the main space. King Rubinold startled and hundreds of glistening eyes turned to regard the newcomer. “Who are you?” the red-robed monarch demanded. “What were you doing in my nesting cavern?”

“I am the son of Isleif,” Hjorvarth’s words were slowed by confusion. “We have met before.”

Rubinold levied his golden scepter in accusation. “You are a lying goblin!”

“A jest?” Hjorvarth grew less amiable now armoured guards rattled forward. Fearful murmurs rippled through the seated spectators. “You sent me on a quest with Russ and four other kobolds to steal a group of pink goblins back from the usurper Zelerath. Russ died on that journey and sacrificed himself to slay Zelerath. Since then, Hubbard the Hallowed has been killed by the Small King and the Small King has swore peace to you and your borders. I have come now to collect my friend, Dan, who you promised to care for until I returned to bring word of success.”

King Rubinold glanced away as if in consideration. “Am I not king here?”

“You are,” Hjorvarth rumbled as warning, “and that is why the Small King has chosen not to slaughter your people and take your caverns. Now I have done as you asked, King Rubinold, and I will see you make good on your word.”

Rubinold’s eyes widened in alarm. “Do you threaten the king? Here? Of all places?”

Hjorvarth glared. “I tell you plainly that I have slain your enemies, dissuaded a threat you could never best, and I have now come to retrieve my friend so that I can take him back to the stone city. If he is dead, if you deny me, then I will do more than threaten.”

King Rubinold looked to his readied guards, to the kobolds watching him. “The stone city?”

“It lies above your head and beneath the blue ceiling.”

“I know that!” Rubinold snapped. “Am I not king here?”

Hjorvarth sighed through communal affirmation. “I wish to return to the stone city.”

“Oh… ah, oh,” said the red-robed monarch. “Of course! Of course you do… for Isleif was the most respected of all the pink goblins and you, as his son, must be… king there?”

“Yes,” Hjorvarth spoke his lie without enthusiasm. “I am the ruler of the stone city. Why do you ask?” The kobolds sighed and stared as if relieved and impressed. “Do you wish me to arrange a peace? As my father once did?”

“Yes!” King Rubinold swept his scepter through the air. “Yes, goblin. That would be most welcome. We must return to the times when you allowed us to give back our goblin prisoners in exchange for much needed clothes and pastries.” He shook his head in regret. “Our people are beginning to starve!”

“I would not want your people to suffer, Rubinold.” Hjorvarth nodded in all severity. “Though it may be simpler to trade without taking captives. Your armoury is vast and I would guess you’ve able miners. The stone city… my stone city, would trade pastries for certain rocks and metals or able blades. Of that I have no doubt at all.”

“A very novel idea, goblin.” King Rubinold bared sharp teeth in an ugly smile. “What is your name?”

“Hjorvarth.”

“Hjorvarth the…?”

Hjorvarth upturned his hands. “Red.”

“You don’t seem very red. Would you like my robe?” Rubinold cackled. “That was a joke. This is the king’s robe.”

***

Dan rubbed at his greasy beard. He was tired, and alone, and fairly certain that he was slowly dying from a lack of air, water, and food. He was grateful, extremely grateful, that the kobolds remembered to feed and water him like a loyal animal. But he wasn’t sure whether that would last or whether he would ever be set free.

He lay in the uncomfortable stone bed in the small stone room. He stared up, studying the neat brickwork.

Dan hoped, wanted to believe, that Hjorvarth was still out there looking for his father, that both those men weren’t laying dead beneath the earth, but he could never convince really himself of that. And staying optimistic grew harder and harder each night.

He was trapped like a rat in a place full of rats.

Dan decided, for the third or fourth time, that he was going to try to escape. He wondered if it might be better to try and talk to King Rubinold but decided that the kobold would likely offer no real answers and instead shout that same question over and over. “Am I not king here?” he asked aloud.

“No.”

Dan’s head struck stone now he startled.

“Are you alright?” Hjorvarth asked, his deep laugh close to concerned. “I had no mind to cause injury.”

“I’m fine.” Dan turned, scowling deeply in earnest confusion.

He was sure he knew that deep voice but the man looked unfamiliar.

Dan almost thought it was someone else altogether until he realised it was the same hard face stripped of old traits and scarred by new markings. Faint patches of webbed flesh marred his face as if he had been burnt only in those places, while a missing beard and hair made a large head seem shorter and wider.

He seemed to have lost more than half of his eyebrows and the lashes as well.

Hjorvarth offered a slight smile. “Do I look different?”

“Not by much,” lied Dan. “Though that’s a cruel scar on your arm. I’m more confused because it looks like you’ve been burnt in patches, and across your hair, but then the rest seems… normal.” He pushed onto his side, further scrutinizing, then his eyes widened. “Wait… are you really here?”

Hjorvarth nodded.

“I’m not dreaming?” Dan rubbed at his own face, and then slapped Hjorvarth. “Sorry. I meant to do that the other way around.” He slapped himself. “See. Hah.” He smiled broadly. “Does this mean we get to leave?”

“Soon enough,” Hjorvarth rumbled. “Though first they’ll host a feast in my honour and then we’ll have to establish peace between Jarl Thrand and King Rubinold.” He furrowed his odd brows. “I may have simplified that task in my mind. In any case, I suppose the answer is yes. We have the meal and then a final task to attend.”

“But we’re both still outlawed from Timilir,” reminded Dan.

“We can flee the city after we arrange the peace,” Hjorvarth suggested. “If my luck holds, they might not even recognize me.”

“Right.” Dan was swept up with a sudden dread. “And did you find him? Did you find Sam?”

“I have good reason to believe he escaped the tunnels where he was imprisoned. I also trust in his ability to keep himself and those with him safe.” Hjorvarth glanced down at his bare, muddy feet. “But I am also reasonably certain he believes that I am dead.”

Dan’s smile was disconcerted. “And why would he think that?”

“Because when he found me I was.”