42. The Small King
“Of the myths most common among the goblins, The Small King is omnipresent. It strikes me as odd that most goblins I have met have understood the name, yet seem to have no knowledge of his appearance.
I received the most detailed story of the myth from Lucius, who seemed to think that The Small King was an immortal goblin youth with a temperament both mad and morbid. By my own understanding he is a living deity, whereas the other goblin gods, Mubarrak, Lovrig, and Kragor, are the eternal spirits of their most revered ancestors.”
Orog glanced down at his King, and then continued to pace around the gloomy cavern. A wet slap sounded with each of his footsteps, echoing from high ceilings amongst the skitter of creatures in the dark, clack of a marauding crab, squeal of a rogue bat, and the perpetual dripping of water gathered on lancing stalactites.
Those sounds were joined by an intermittent scrape whenever Agrak rasped his long claws against the stone throne: a roughly hewn seat only as tall as Orog’s knee.
The goblin sat upon it appeared weak and half-starved, with large round eyes set in an ungainly skull; and a misshapen nose that seemed better fit for an old crone than a young and smooth-skinned goblin.
Orog slowed to a stop, crushing a fat-backed spider underfoot. “Well?”
Agrak flexed his clawed hands. “Tell me again.”
“I aimed to leave after speaking with you, then I heard fighting near the main entrance. That abomination Sebelum was there, already lying dead, and his clan had netted one barbarian and aimed to capture and kill the other. I intervened, tried to bring the man to reason, but he was set on violence, then I—”
“I mean,” Agrak interjected, his voice soft and piping, “why do you want to keep them alive? What are they to me? What are they even to you?”
“Where did they come from?”
Agrak’s thin lips drew up over large fangs. “Is that not a question for you, my friend?”
“I mean to say,” Orog began, thunderous voice slow and serious, “they did not come through the main entrance. So they must have come from deeper under the ground, or by some working of Chance fell from one of the mountains above onto the lip of a cavern.”
Agrak offered a slow nod. “So you want them to tell you that they have been sent by my old friend?” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Go ahead. I don’t know why you even bothered asking permission.”
“I’ve already put it in motion. But I would like you to question them.”
Agrak’s answering laugh was breathy and childish. “You mean you want some excuse to bring some torches in and get this place fit for audience?”
“If Chance is back—”
Agrak raised a long-clawed hand. “He is, Orog. I just don’t care. I’m done, and the sooner you understand that the better.” He half-smiled. “If you want to save our people, you go and save our people. But I don’t consider them kin. How can we be when we range from you, bold and magnificent, to a creature like Sebelum? And I am, by my own account, no less an abomination than him.”
Orog knelt close to the throne, looking his King in the eye. “You are the best of us.”
“Leave me be, Orog,” Agrak replied. “Bring some goblins in to clean this place up and bring me coal and braziers. Oh, and hunt down Sebelum’s clan if you haven’t already given the order. They seem like the type to go savage and mad.”
Orog straightened, and sucked air into his huge chest. “Already done, my King. I will have the prisoners readied.”
***
Orog ushered Hjorvarth and Engli forward through a stone tunnel. Torches were arrayed along the walls in rusting sconces, making the air hazy with bronze light.
“Where are you taking us?” Engli asked, his hands bound at the wrist.
“My King wishes to speak with you,” Orog answered.
They soon reached a massive cavern, lit by four iron braziers that stood at each corner. It was a dank place of uneven walls that glistened in the firelight, with shelves of stones that once served as three-tiered benches, and a higher plateau for pronouncements.
Beetles skittered across each tier of the benches, and centipedes wormed their way up the walls. Webs traced the smoky stalactites above like ethereal lace, while fat-backed spiders recoiled further into recesses, fissures or rock alcoves.
Agrak had not moved from his stone throne, which served as the smallest and most central furnishing. He took no notice now Orog set Hjorvarth and Engli ahead of him, forcing them to their knees.
Orog bowed to his diminutive monarch. “My King. These are the intruders.”
“We had no mind to intrude,” Hjorvarth assured.
Engli nodded. “There’s no man alive comes knowingly to a dark, abandoned place like this.”
Hjorvarth frowned at the small goblin on the small stone seat. “Where is your King?”
“You are looking at him,” Orog snapped, indignation in his thunderous voice. “Before you is Agrak, The Small King. Chief of Grorgin, Emperor of the Grorginites. Before you is a goblin more ancient and heroic than any man in your histories. Or before them.”
“Sorry?” Agrak blinked. “I thought one of the library seals had been broken. Are these the humans?”
“This has to be a joke.” Engli craned his neck to look up at Orog. “Shouldn’t you be the King?”
Orog’s great frame tightened with rage. “This is no joke.”
“Leave us, Orog.” Agrak dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “I need you to go and check on Fragor.”
Orog stared down in defiance. “But—”
“If I am your King, Orog, then I am by the second. Not by the day, or whenever it please you.” Agrak leaned forward. “If I tell you to do something, you do it.”
Orog bowed. “Of course, my King. I’ll be back soon.” He strode out of the cavern, slapping steps fading as he left.
Hjorvarth and Engli exchanged thoughtful glances.
“Don’t,” Agrak said, with a threatening edge that made his piping voice seem eerie. “I’ll rip your throats open.”
Hjorvarth settled onto his knees. “The big goblin said you had questions for us?”
“I didn’t.” Agrak bobbed his head. “But now I’ve just learned that someone has broken into my domain and stolen something from me. So I would like you to tell me exactly how you came to be here, and who, if anyone, accompanied you.”
“Why would we do that just to get our throats cut at the end of it?” Engli asked.
Agrak smirk made his fangs more prominent. “There are worse deaths than a cut throat. And I’ve yet to decide whether you’re going to die at all. So I would think, with that in mind, that you would do as I ask to avoid gruesome torture and a terrible death. If you answer me, I’ll swear you a quick death and a burning afterwards.” He upturned clawed hands. “How does that sound?”
“Reasonable,” Hjorvarth admitted. “But I would have you answer a question first.”
“A question of me?” Agrak asked. “Now I feel like we’re becoming friends. Go on and ask you red-haired… giant.” He snickered. “Did you kill Ragadin?”
“No more than any other man,” Hjorvarth answered. “Are you leading the goblins? Those outside of Horvorr?”
“I am not.” Agrak raked his throne with his long claws. “Were you hoping that I would call them all down? To leave you and your people to live in the shelter of walls that I erected?” He bared his fangs, lips trembling with rage. “Tell me why you came here.”
***
Agrak paced ahead of his throne, flexing his claws. “If you don’t know him,” he piped, “why accompany him?”
“Judgement of the gods,” Engli said. “We were on trial for murder.”
Agrak’s eyes narrowed. “And who gave this judgement that you would go off into the mountains with some robed stranger?”
“He did,” Hjorvarth answered. “He interrupted our trial with some big show about a quest for the gods, for Tomlok. Get as angry as you want, goblin. I didn’t know the Sage before he turned up at Sam’s tavern—”
“And who is Sam?” Agrak asked.
Engli upturned his palms. “A man that owns a tavern?”
“Oh.” Agrak returned to his throne, perching on the seat’s edge. “And you were both on trial for the murder of the same men?”
“For four men,” Engli said. “Brolli—”
“The brother of Gudmund?” Agrak asked with surprise. “Are those two still alive?” He shook his head. “I should keep better track of time. So the Sage arrives, ruins your lives, and you decide to be faithful companions? Explain that.”
“Faithful?” Engli scowled. “We had no choice. It was that or be outlawed. By the time we had cause to distrust him, there were already hundreds of goblins between us and Horvorr. He told us he had a plan to save us… which I guess was to murder you?”
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“I have nothing to do with either of those clans,” Agrak dismissed. “They are savages and barbarians. Enacting bastardized tribal practices and howling at the moon. Eating each other. Eating men.” His lips curled in disgust. “Abusing dark magic and on a whole defiling everything that they are and everything that they should be. Ragadin was the only one I was willing to support as an ally, and your friend here cut his head off.“
“I did not—” Hjorvarth began.
“Your Sage doesn’t have plans to kill me,” Agrak cut in. He’s brought you here to distract me so that he could steal something important. So on one hand, I believe you,” he happily added, “but on the other hand, that means that you’re worthless to him. Worthless to me,” Agrak concluded, his voice turning shrill and cold. “So now you’ll have your clean deaths, and I’ll toss you in these braziers so that you can float away to your afterlife… or whatever it is your people do.”
“Ouro’s belly,” a melodic voice suggested.
“Ah.” Agrak’s face trembled with his smile, now he suffered an anger that drove him close to insanity. “If ever there was a man with impeccable timing.”
The Salt Sage strode out from a shadowed corner, his robe red near the brazier. “I have to admit, I’ve actually been hiding there for a good while. I wanted to see how my dear companions saw the latest events… though now I wish I hadn’t stopped to listen. In any case, old friend, I’ll be needing my new friends.”
Agrak stepped behind the haggard prisoners, resting his claws around both men’s throats. “Why?”
“Why, what?” the Sage quipped. “Why do those around me have a habit of asking vague yet complicated questions?”
“Why shouldn’t I just open their throats?”
The Salt Sage came to stand between the stone throne and The Small King. “That’s more a question that you should ask yourself, old friend.”
“We,” Agrak stressed the words, “are not friends.”
The Salt Sage heartily laughed. “I guessed at that when you left me for an eternity under the earth.”
“So says the man that buried me in ice!” Agrak screeched. “Why are you here!?”
“Hjorvarth is the son of the man that freed me,” the Sage answered. “Or, if you meant Southwestern Tymir, I’m here to save Horvorr.”
“You came to steal something from me!”
“I took back a gift, which is really quite different. I came here for The Lodge, as well.”
“Oh.” Agrak’s ferine eyes narrowed. “So these two are just sacks of blood?”
The Salt Sage shrugged. “Aren’t most men?”
“I’m afraid I’ve no mind to help you reactivate whatever wards are dormant in that place.” Agrak scowled down at the haggard prisoners. “And, as much I don’t want to cut short the lives of these two barbarians, I think in the end it’s much better that they die here rather than live a cursed life in your service.”
“Indeed.” The Salt Sage laughed a soft laugh. “But aren’t you the least bit curious why they’re so quiet?”
Agrak tried to rip out their throats and his claws instead rent smoky air.
“I suppose you were waiting for more of a forceful approach?” the Sage asked. “They ran off when I first spoke… so much for loyalty. For all they know I could have had my own throat ripped out while they fled like cowards.”
Agrak snarled. “Snap your fingers and be gone, you insufferable braggart.”
The Salt Sage sat down on the arms of the stone throne. “I know that you think I am infallible,” he began in an unusually earnest tone, “and all I do, misstep or no, is simply an endless sequence of intended events to lead towards my desired destination… but this I did not mean to do.”
Agrak’s predatory posture shifted to a more thoughtful repose. “What did you do?”
The Salt Sage snapped his fingers, leaving no one seated on the stone throne.
“Agrak!” Orog’s voice thundered through the silence. “Fragor is dead.”
Agrak smiled confusedly at the approaching goblin. “What was that?”
“Black wax is everywhere,” Orog explained in horror. “I searched the caverns, and I found his seed in a boot print.”
“You are wrong.” Agrak shook his head in refusal. “Go back, and look again.”
Orog knelt and held out a small black bauble in his huge palm. The cracked gem glistened with firelight. “This is my fault.”
“No,” Agrak whispered. He bit down, fangs burying into flesh. Dark blood trickled down his chin. “You were right, Orog. Chance visited after you left. He must have set those barbarians to task. They are on the way to The Lodge right now.”
Orog rose. “Then we must get the clans out of here,” he urged. “If he activates the wardings this place will be unlivable. The sickness and confusion will be the death of us.”
“Yes.” Agrak stared at nothing. “Please… do that. And I would also have you remember the names of those two men.”
“Hjorvarth and Engli?”
“Yes. Hjorvarth and Engli,” Agrak repeated bitterly. “Once we find a new home, I would dearly like to see them suffer.”
***
Hjorvarth and Engli kept at a steady pace now they followed a gloomy tunnel. They had spoken few words for fear that goblins would hear them. The distant whistling of wind heralded cold air. Light bled into the darkness, until they turned a curve to see an escape to the open world, mired grey by the snowfall of a blizzard.
They slowed to stop at a crossroads of tunnels, all four wide enough to run through with ease.
“That weather will kill us,” Engli worriedly said.
Hjorvarth grunted. “I would rather die in the open air, but the choice is yours.”
“Why do I have to choose?” Engli asked.
“That’s simple, Engli!” a third speaker announced.
Engli startled at the declaration. Hjorvarth had turned with readied fists.
“Easy, now.” The Salt Sage held up his gloved palms. “I was only going to say that it was your choice to abandon me, Hjorvarth, and so you’re trying to make things even. Speaking of, I do feel quite upset. I came to save you, and then you left me to die.”
“Save us?” Hjorvarth asked. “The last I saw you, we were in the realm of the dead, speaking to a spirit that laid claim to being Muradoon. And if you wish to talk of making things even, then you should remember well enough that I freed you from that cage.”
“Muradoon?” the Sage asked as if in absolute confusion. “The realms of the dead?” he added laughter to his voice. “The last I saw you two was not long after we left Jorund’s Hill. You were both complaining of hunger, so I searched for food, and you ate the moss and mushrooms we found, despite my warning of poison.” He shrugged. “After that, the two of you started to go quite mad. I had to tie us all together so that you wouldn’t run off into the darkness. And then you both broke the rope despite further warnings. Hjorvarth tried to cut me in half with an axe, screaming about waking dreams or the waking life, or about the suffering of those he knew. All considered,” he added lightly, “if anyone here has a grievance then it must be me.”
Hjorvarth stepped forward, his bruised face flushed red. “Do you think me so easily fooled?”
The Salt Sage raised his palms once more. “I did not mean to question your honesty, Hjorvarth.” He sighed as if in frustration. “We are very near the hall. You both look in poor health, but there is a fire there that is rumored to cure small ailments. Why don’t we make the quick trek through the snow and then we can talk this over once we’re there?”
“The Hall of Hrothgar?” Hjorvarth asked in a careful tone. “How quick a trek?”
“The place has a few names.” The Salt Sage waved towards the blizzard. “It’s right that way. Do you want me to lead—”
Hjorvarth spun on his heel, marching forward without further word.
“Keep a straight path, and you’ll reach it!”
Engli stood confused. “Isleif couldn’t reach the place with hundreds of men, and the three of us manage to find it after little more than a week?”
The Salt Sage turned to the shorter man. “Oh… do you think he was asking whether we were at the Hall of Hrothgar?”
“What else would he mean?”
“I just thought he meant a hall… as in a building… as in a hall.”
Engli glared. “Then where are we?”
“Exactly where we needed to be,” the Sage assured. “I’m certain everything will become clear when we reach the… well, let’s call it The Lodge.”
He ran towards the blizzard.
Engli stood reluctant, and eventually sprinted after the Sage.
He tried to ask him to wait, but a squall slapped his face and stole the words away.
A bitter cold soon enveloped him. His chest tightened and he felt every tear and loose seam in what was once warm clothing. Sharp pain grew keener in his ears, numbness took a hold on his fingers, and the burden of effort that had seemed unshakable on their last march through a snowstorm returned heavier than ever.
Engli’s heart shrank with fear as the Salt Sage strode further and further away, until he was little more than a smudge on the blurry horizon of whites and greys.
Engli tried to run, stumbled and almost fell into the thick snow. He told himself he needed to step more carefully, slower, but just to keep forward.
The Salt Sage drew out of view altogether and Engli prayed to Bruma Stormcaller that she would see him through this weather, prayed that he was still following straight, and that he wouldn’t end up against some mountain wall. He was so consumed by his fears that he didn’t notice when the blizzard gave way to rugged stone.
Engli’s head struck the rock and he staggered back onto his knees. Warm blood trickled down his forehead. He struggled up to his feet. Engli searched the hazy grey around him in a dazed panic. Nothing at all gave him a clue of which way to go.
“Help!” he shouted, barely hearing his own voice over the shrill wind.
He kept turning on the spot, his heart racing with panic. The ache of his bleeding head worsened with the rest of his frozen flesh. The rock face stretched in both directions, fading into the haze of the blizzard. He decided that right was right, heading that way, but then turned a moment later and struggled on in the opposite direction.
Engli marched forward, lamenting what a fool he was, how he had he wanted to die in that cave, only to now realise that he wanted nothing more than to survive.
He wanted to be sitting in his home, that was so small that the fire made it stifling. He wanted to sleep in his own bed, and be the insignificant fool that he was. He wished he could turn back the seasons and be a boy again. He wanted to listen when Linden offered to make him an apprentice, instead of begging Grettir to train him in a vain attempt to be a fighter like his blood father was; as if a man that he had never met had some claim to importance for simply taking part in Engli’s making.
Engli felt so desperate that he wanted to cry, but he had to put all his mind towards trudging forward. He had never known that he could ever be so cold, and in the back of his mind he wished for the immense heat of Linden’s forge.
His foot slipped and the snow embraced him, robbed him of his breath and his sight. He forced his arms down to drag, fingernails scraping against stone, and managed to stumbled his way up and out of the white.
Ice water trickled under his clothes, so cold that it only numbed his burning skin.
Engli sucked in trembling breaths, expecting to collapse with each step forward.
He almost wanted to stop, having no sight of any hope or respite, feeling so alone and so cold. He grew so fearful he considered driving a knife into his own head instead of letting the weather take him, only to remember that he had lost his weapon, his friends, and now he was soon to lose all else.
He would never again see his mother or father. He would never see Sybille.
Hjorvarth, if he made it back, would no doubt carry the burden of the loss, would no doubt give a good account of the man that had been his companion. And no one, no one at all, would believe a word of the praise.
Engli leaned on the rock face for balance, barely edging forward, when the dark outline of a large building loomed ahead. He mouthed relief into the screeching blizzard. He staggered forward until he reached a wall, desperate not to fall as he worked his way around, guided by touch until he reached the corner.
He then stumbled over to an imposing archway, searching for a handle or some way to open the door. He scraped his fingernails against the wood, but could only feel the grooves of decorative carvings.
He groaned, and smashed his fist into the door, which seemed to make no sound at all.
Engli collapsed to his knees, struggling for breath, too exhausted to shout. He let his bloody forehead hit the door, regretting ever arguing with the Sage, not running fast enough, that he hadn’t just fled Horvorr, and that he had never told Sybille how he felt.
He could only content himself with the thought that at least he wasn’t going to outlive another man who more deserved his life.
Engli glimpsed firelight. He fell forward, thumping into the floorboards.
“See,” the Salt Sage said. “I told you I heard knocking.”