41. Trespassers
“The ownership of Southwestern Tymir has long been in question. In part, because none wanted the land badly enough to answer. Not unlike the Northerly Wastes, the land is cold and inhospitable. Though Southwestern Tymir can, at least, sustain settlements large enough to warrant taxation.
It was always thought that The Landing took place in Southwestern Tymir, not far off from Wymount. Or some say they emerged by means of magical portal. That Tymir and his remnant clan landed in Horvorr’s Great Lake itself. Eventually moving on to Timilir, where the last Dwarves still lived, and soon going farther afield to the richly soiled lands of the Midderlands, the Eastland Plains, and Southeastern Tymir, better known now as the contentious High Lands and Low Lands.
Thus, the question was forgotten. None wanted to go back, and it became almost a safe haven for the goblins who had been driven out of the Midderlands, and other lands where now stand manling settlements. Gudmund, of course, has chosen an answer. Invoking the law that states that any unclaimed land can be claimed by any Jarl of good standing.
The goblins, however, do not seem to pay this particular rule much heed. Given that they are fast running out of lands to survive in, I almost feel sympathetic. Still, I’ve chosen my side in this war.”
Engli sat beside the fire as the flames burned low. He had killed a goblin that came back with wood, and thrown the tinder on the fire.
He watched Hjorvarth sleeping, wasn’t even sure whether his huge chest was rising. Before his breaths had been loud, snoring even, but now he seemed so still, pale despite his bruised cheeks being painted red and orange by the firelight.
Engli studied the bloodied club in his lap. He wondered, not for the first time, whether a man could bludgeon himself to death, because maybe that was the best way to end things. He gripped the handle, lined it with his skull, and tested the motion.
He tapped his forehead with the rough and grimy stone.
He didn’t want to outlive Hjorvarth. He had this thought in his head that if he survived, he wouldn’t have earned it. If by some trick of Joyto he ended up back at Horvorr, no one would even believe him, or if they did believe him then they would think less of him. He would have gone into the wild, saved by Hjorvarth all the while, only to sneak off into the darkness and leave him to rot.
Hjorvarth who had saved Horvorr’s Guard on the Snake Basin Path. Hjorvarth who had killed the son of Jarl Thrand in a single punch. Hjorvarth who had saved Engli and Agnar and Geirmund, only for both brothers to die because Hjorvarth was wasting his time saving Engli once more.
Engli laughed at himself, bitter with the thought of how much easier this all would have been if Hjorvarth had been accompanied by Geirmund. Gudmund’s son had been a hero in the making, unbreakable like the huge warrior across from the fire. Even Agnar was twice the fighter that Engli was.
Engli couldn’t understand why the gods would take so many good men only to leave him in their place. He sighed, and stared at the pallid man across from him.
He knew that Hjorvarth was dead. He should have left hours ago, but he was scared.
Engli couldn’t wander off into the darkness, because anything could grab him, could find him, and there would be no Hjorvarth—not even the Salt Sage—to slay whatever attacked him so that he could scramble away.
He didn’t have the courage to accept that he was alone. He couldn’t stomach the thought that there was no one to help him. More than that, he didn’t want to live a life where he was free and living in the world above, knowing all the while that he had left his only friend in a lightless cavern full of monsters and death.
Engli’s thoughts came back to the club in his lap. He grew obsessed with the notion of hitting himself dead. That way no man would survive the other, or be left beneath ground to rot alone. The stone shaft tingled in his grip, that feeling needling through his blood and flesh, through to his coward’s heart.
He gripped the weapon, stared down at the dark blood still staining the stone.
He took a deep breath and seized the club with all the strength he had left. He forced it towards his head—twisting clear with a desperate veering of the swing. He lost grip on the shaft and the club sailed over his shoulder, clattering off into the darkness.
“Have you lost your mind?” asked a deep voice that shook with anger.
Engli frowned at his furious companion. “Hjorvarth…?”
Hjorvarth met his surprise without sympathy. He had appearance of an angry and unwashed brute, colour showing in his cheeks by his anger, amongst the rest of his battered frame by cuts and bruising. “I’ve never been confused for any other man.”
Engli looked down at the waning flames. “I thought that you were dead.”
“Then you should have left, or tried a little harder to wake me.” Hjorvarth sighed after a time, and pushed up to his feet. “Go and fetch your club.”
Engli grabbed a burning stick from the fire, bringing it along as he searched. He found the club not long after. It had landed in a corner of thick webs and burst into a giant spider’s egg. The club smelled sour and dripped green when he pulled it free.
Hjorvarth trudged up from behind. “You did good work on those goblins, but I found these lying about the tents.”
Engli squinted at the mushrooms piled in his large palms. “I didn’t want to risk eating ones that were poison.”
“I left those behind.” Hjorvarth handed him half a dozen round-topped mushrooms and a few thin ones. He kept four shrivelled mushrooms to himself.
Engli smiled. “You prefer those?”
“I don’t like mushrooms.” Hjorvarth shoved them all into his mouth and started to chew. “These—” He chewed some more, frustrated for a while before he swallowed. “They cause waking dreams. I thought it would help with the pain.” He waved his hand in urging. “Eat.”
Engli popped the mushrooms into his mouth. He struggled to grind them up, tasting mould and mud as bits of grit grated against his teeth. Despite the bitter taste, he smiled in relief at his huge and haggard companion, and prayed to Brikorhaan the Shield Brother that Hjorvarth would ever stand at his side.
***
Hjorvarth and Engli had, had to walk in darkness through a low tunnel before they found another goblin camp. They’d marked it by the fire, but hadn’t noticed the small ledge that overlooked the crude tents. The disparate pair crept forward as quietly as they could, sweeping out into the firelight when they grew close, hacking and clubbing the three goblins who slept by the warmth of flames.
Engli crept in and killed those in the largest tent while Hjorvarth tore into and cleared out the others.
A goblin sentry above them had woke though, and witnessed the murderous savages killing his sleeping kin. He scrambled for a small bone horn, then blew as forcibly as he could. The shrill note tooted across the cavern and resounded through narrow tunnels.
Other horns began to blare, washing over Hjorvarth and Engli in a dizzying cacophony now they fled forward through the darkness.
They ran until they came across a woken clan, who had formed up in a disorganised line to stop them. Hjorvarth and Engli charged forward all the same, and carved through the few goblins that held ground, then ran away from the rest while stones were thrown after them and goblins screeched in pursuit.
Hjorvarth and Engli soon rounded a corner, and came into a crossroads where one tunnel appeared lit by the faint light of an open day.
“This way.” Hjorvarth led the way forwards. “Do you hear singing?”
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“No, do—” Engli ducked under an overhanging rock, then both men turned towards the light. “What singing? I can hear horns. Do you mean the horns?”
“Singing,” Hjorvarth muttered, his lids heavy as they crossed into a domed cavern.
A night-black creature waited ahead of them, standing so tall its head touched the curved ceiling, with a long and twisted spine that bore likeness to a snake. The thing had draped itself in a patchwork of goblin skins. “You trespass,” Sebelum sibilated, “in the realm of The Small King.”
The black creature shook its large gnarled staff, wrapped with bones that rattled together in a dread hiss.
Hjorvarth was unsure whether this was some consequence of him eating mushrooms. “Do you see a big… a big—”
“I see it!”
Hjorvarth hoisted his silver axe and hurled at Sebelum’s small, large-eyed head. With a crunch of bone and a short-lived hiss, Sebelum crumpled and snaked onto the ground, tearing patches out of the goblin skin cloak. “Did I—”
Engli ran forward with his club, leaping on top of the dark-skinned creature. He smashed at the small skull until dark blood spattered his blond hair.
Neither man had noticed Sebelum’s clan, those lean black goblins that watched in horror from plateaus in the domed cavern’s four shadowed corners. Hjorvarth staggered under a thrown net, but managed to throw it clear. Engli had less luck, getting pinned against the stone, but Hjorvarth soon freed him. They both then turned to run, only to find themselves surrounded by the spear-wielding goblins.
Hjorvarth hacked clean through one’s torso with his silver axe, and smashed his head into another goblin’s mouth. He grabbed that one by shoulder and head, snapping the spine. A spear pierced his shoulder, shaft snapping now he turned. He then hewed through the wielder’s neck. Hjorvarth saw his freedom ahead, could breathe the clean air sweeping in from the sunlit tundra. He glanced back to see the blond man trapped under another net, separated by a dozen black goblins.
“Run, Hjorvarth!” Engli struggled to lift his head from the cavern floor. “Leave me! I—” A spear butt ended his protest.
The black goblins gathered closer together, readying their weapons.
They watched Hjorvarth, tense and wary of his approach.
A roar then rumbled through the air like thunder, and a titanic goblin squeezed his way out of a large tunnel and into the domed cavern.
Orog had soft eyes that were almost human, but a head too large and rounded to be a man’s. He seemed sculpted from muscle, tall and broad, so that the huge man opposite appeared as a toy-maker’s poor imitation of the goblin. “Move aside!”
Sebelum’s clan hissed, and clambered back onto the stone plateaus, hiding behind rock columns or fleeing altogether.
Hjorvarth paused for a deep breath before charging forward. “For Brikorhaan!”
“Stop!” Orog boomed. “I am not yet your enemy!”
Hjorvarth hurled his silver axe. Orog caught the weapon, shook his head, and threw it back. Hjorvarth lost a sliver of hair when he ducked. He stayed low, outstretching his arms, and tried to bull the goblin over.
Orog held his footing though, barely rocking on his heels. He drove a fist into the fool’s head.
***
Hjorvarth woke with a tired groan. He rubbed both hands all across his aching skin and greasy beard. “Sam?” He looked down at the table and the six three-pronged bronze candle-stands set along it. He was of a mind that the tavern looked a little odd. “Where did you get these torches?”
He looked up at the arrayed tapestries ahead of him: black banners, bordered in red, and woven with the new moon of the now-fallen Grorgin empire.
Hjorvarth could smell something wrong with the air and there was an oddness to his seat. He felt a little odd himself, tired or drunk, or still sleeping. He looked to his left to see twelve empty seats, six at either side of the table, facing great silver platters, each empty and threaded with web.
“Sam?” Hjorvarth raked a hand through his beard. “I think you need to clean the tables. And I don’t think Gudmund will be happy about you hanging banners.” He turned to a murmur at his right, saw Engli sleeping with his face pressed against a silver plate.
Hjorvarth licked at his dry lips. “Engli?” He looked about the expansive black-walled cavern once more, enormous crystal chandelier tinkling above him.
A once-opulent banquet hall with no food or drink set at the table, coated with dust and woven with webs, no sound save Hjorvarth’s own heavy breaths.
“Engli.” Hjorvarth grabbed his shoulder. “You need to wake up.”
Orog, standing behind them, leaned forward to squeeze Hjorvarth’s back. “You both need to sit, and eat. If you try to rise, I will crush your friend.”
Hjorvarth clenched his teeth, probing his belt with his hand.
“You have no weapon,” Orog explained. “I would have offered you cutlery, but I feared you fool enough to try and use it to fight with.”
Orog let go of Hjorvarth’s shoulder, and stepped back to the wall, towering over the seated men. “If you are truly eager to bring death to yourself and your companion, go ahead and rise,” he suggested. “But I have beaten bigger men than you, outnumbered, when they were armed and armoured.” He let out a rumbling sigh. “But if you wish to live—to have a chance at going home—then keep your hands above the table.”
Hjorvarth rested bruised hands on a silver platter. “What do you want?”
“A peaceable dinner service would suffice.” Orog poked Engli in the back. “You can stop pretending to sleep, golden hair. I’ll snap your spine if pressed.”
Engli’s grimace was reflected in his silver plate. He cleared his throat, straightening.
“Engli,” Hjorvarth greeted.
“Hjorvarth,” he replied. “You should have left me.”
Hjorvarth shrugged his huge shoulders. “I don’t like running in fear.”
Engli turned in his seat to look up at the titanic goblin. “What’s to eat?”
“I think one of our clan caught a goat,” Orog answered. “Other than that, diced spider or beetle marrow. I think another cut slabs from giant mushrooms.”
Engli met the words with a confused smile. “You’re an oddity.”
Orog grunted. “By what measure?”
“You talk better than I do,” Engli answered. “You’re not screaming or trying to kill us. You’ve got this fancy table, and you’re running a… what did you call it? A dinner service.”
“Comfort breeds civility.” Orog glowered down at the blond man. “You made the goblins savages when you drove them from their homes.”
“Wrong,” Hjorvarth replied. “Goblins are born monsters, creatures of the Lady.”
Orog laughed a sad laugh. “So says the youngling murderer.”
Iron grated and wood clunked now the distant doors to the banquet cavern swept open. Nervous squeaks preceded dozens of goblins that came in bearing stone bowls and plates, stacked with mushrooms or bristly spider legs; or the stubby limbs and ornate horns of giant beetles. Each severed limb billowed steam and hissed with heat.
Those were followed by a fat goblin carrying a big simmering goat, fur coat crisped away or sloughed off. The goblin struggled to carry it, wincing at the pain of the heat, having to readjust his grip as it slipped down with the bouncing of slack hooves.
A few more goblins followed those until the paths at both sides of the tables were bustling with nervous conversation. Those goblins carried ornate bronze mugs, and a large sturdy barrel that had been tapped and now leaked stale ale onto the cavern floor.
Hjorvarth reached out for a three-pronged candle-stand, while Engli gripped his plate.
“I so swear,” Orog warned, “if any harm comes to my servers, I will annihilate you both.”
Both men sat back in their chairs, still wary of the approach of disorganised goblins. Orog stepped forwards, taking bowls and plates and reaching over the men to set the table. The goblins saw him do that, and decided to set what they carried wherever they pleased. Goblins screamed and garbled at one another while they bustled around the table, eventually getting all of the bowls and plates down around empty seats.
The fat goblin struggled past with his goat and handed it to Orog. “Goat. I did fire it. Did do that.”
Orog took the goat, and bowed. “Thank you, Timbi.” He climbed over the table to help a smaller goblin who struggled with the weight of the barrel. Orog set it on the table. “Thank you. You can all go.” He grabbed the mugs and filled them with the leaking ale.
“Hjorvarth,” Engli began in a worried voice. “Do you think that we’re dead? And that this is what happens in the Lady’s Shadow? That giant goblins play tricks on you, and serve you odd food, and then after that they torture you and pull you apart limb by limb, and then the next day it happens all over again.”
Orog clopped two mugs ahead of them. He dropped the sizzling goat onto the table. “Drink this and eat that. As to your idea, golden hair, does it really matter?” he mocked. “Better to get tortured on a full stomach, I would think. I’ll return in an hour’s quarter.”
Both men watched the titanic goblin stride away, ushering meandering kin ahead of him. The door swept to an echoing close.
“Should we run?” Engli asked.
“No.” Hjorvarth pulled the goat close to him, and started to cut at the meat with his plate. “I’m just going to eat this, and whatever else I can.”
“I’ve got my knife,” Engli offered. “I’m surprised he didn’t take it.”
Hjorvarth took the blade and nodded his thanks. “It likely doesn’t care.”
“True.” Engli sat there for a while in silence. He took a small sip from his bitter flagon of ale.“Do you think we’ll ever get back to Horvorr?”
“Honest truth?” Hjorvarth’s visage turned stern despite the scabs and swelling. “You should come to terms with your death. I am sure we will not survive this night.”