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Part Four - War
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44. Fenkirk's Foe
“I had an odd dream where a man stood over my bed, speaking of The Mayor’s courtesies. He had his hands around my neck, which I didn’t quite like, so I tried to wake. Instead another man arrived, quite young, with tailed black hair. He stabbed the courteous man in the head, and then he asked me of his father’s health, to which I replied in bafflement at his oddity and his questions of a man that I had never met.
Hjorvarth must have had bad dreams, as well. I have never seen the boy look so troubled as he was this morning.”
A giant beetle clicked and popped and hummed as it crawled along the forest floor, ramming through thorny bushes with no mind to the goblin riders upon its back.
Izzig held the ineffectual reins. He had garbed himself in a gold-threaded spider-silk robe, which appeared tattered, pocked by many holes. Loffi rode behind him, wearing his own green skin, his conical ears twitching this way and that to hear sounds more distant than those made by the giant beetle.
Bragg stomped after them on foot. He spoke not at all, because he had grown tired of complaining that he had not gotten to ride the beetle. And had started to accept, as well, that he might be too big for the saddle atop the glossy red shell.
As it was, both the wiry goblins had appearance of children riding an animal far too big for them, while Bragg seemed of a size with the beetle because its length, not counting powerful mandibles, matched his height.
Rain began to hiss down onto leaves, trickling down mossy trunks, and splashed against frozen mud or wilting grass. The coldness of it seeped into the air, and the noise muffled the industrious popping and clicking of the giant beetle.
“Rain,” Bragg grumbled. He squinted through the darkness at the silk-draped goblin. “You make it stop, shaman?”
Izzig met the sentiment with a benevolent smile. “I don’t think I can.”
“Oh.” Bragg creased his big green face together. “Can try?”
“I’ll do that.” Izzig let go of the reins, curling and sweeping his slender hands through the air, adding a low hum as the great beetle made a reverberative echo. He then looked about through the darkness, as if checking for rain, and grimaced in disappointment. “It did not work.”
“Oh.” Bragg nodded, absolutely glum. “Maybe magic waits to work. We wait to work.”
Izzig reassured him with a smile, and they rode in silence along rooted and treacherous earth, through a grassy clearing that shone with faint moonlight, and then almost got lost in a thicket of berry bushes. They emerged, and had to ford a deep river that made all three goblins wetter, and caused the great beetle to pop and click erratically. It was no happier when it ascended the sloping banks, and stopped dead at the shadowed figure of a large, soaked bear.
“No rain,” Bragg declared with wonder, clambering up behind the saddled beetle. “Magic works!” His deep laughter faded when he noticed the shining eyes of the hairy beast. Bragg mastered his fear, and turned to Izzig. “Your bear, shaman? I ride it?”
“No…”
The giant beetle flexed huge mandibles, and offered a loud pop. The bear answered with a growl, pawed at the ground, and started to rise up onto hind legs.
“Be gone, bear!” Loffi shouted. “Do that! Back to cave!”
The bear bared sharp teeth, spraying spittle and shaking the air with a fearsome roar. It lunged forward but the beetle snapped out with huge mandibles. The bear thumped back onto all fours, then moved to circle around the beetle, swiping out, growling, forcing it back towards the sloping ledge of dirt.
Izzig tried to turn the beetle into flight with the reins, but it only hummed loudly, popping and clicking at the soaked bear.
“Get big stick,” Loffi told Bragg. “Do that.”
“Do that.” Bragg nodded, then shook his head. “I Chief. You do that.” He then leapt back from the lunging bear, and tumbled down to the stony riverbed below.
The giant beetle crawled backward, teetered, but managed to steady itself on the slope, angling its mandibles towards the animal.
A prodigious shadow reared up behind the bear, looming in the darkness, making the large foe seem small. The bear grew cautious, snuffing loudly, fur bristling up amongst patches of wet. The prodigious figure lifted a huge tree-trunk staff, then brought it down onto the bear’s back, crunching bone with a muffled thump.
The giant beetle hummed violently, throwing both riders when it opened its wings. It took flight and flew backward across the water, leaving both goblins lying in the grass while Bragg made his way back up the slope with a small stick in grip.
“One of you has magic,” rumbled the prodigious shadow. He strode silently forward, skewering the bear with the tree trunk staff, hoisting it over hulking shoulders. He then leaned close, and snorted derision. “Izzig the Worm.”
Izzig squinted up at the figure, and shrank back. “Braguk…?”
“Yes,” Braguk Moonbear grumbled, pulling a chain of iron plates out from a cloak sewn together from the hides of bears. He rubbed at the claw-clasped emerald globe that hung from the chain, and it suffused the dense forest around them with a vibrant green. The eldritch light illuminated the wear, tear, and stitching of the hooded fur cloak, which shrouded the prodigious goblin, showing only a long hooked nose, large green eyes, and a set of sharp teeth bared into a grimy smile.
Loffi stared up with orbish eyes that appeared green and gold in the light. “Are you Chief of Chiefs of the East?”
Braguk Moonbear held Izzig’s feeble gaze for a moment longer, then chuckled down at Loffi. “And what are you supposed to be? Another worm who suckles at dirt?”
“I make peace,” Loffi said. “I bring peace. From the West and to the East. And so I must speak, with the Chief of Chiefs of the East.”
“Stop rhyming,” Braguk grumbled. “There are three who hold that title. I am none of them. They are brothers all. Brugg, Trugg, and Grugg.” He glanced back to Izzig, who appeared all the weaker in his tattered silk robe. “You bring peace? On your own? The two of you, come all these miles on the back of a beetle?”
“I with them,” Bragg ventured, still holding his water-worn branch. “We bring peace. Do that.”
“Do… that.” Braguk chuckled. He bent down to one knee, his thigh bigger than Izzig. “I came here for a bear, and now I’ve caught some worms. I wonder what the Moon would say to that.” He looked up at the clouded skies and grumbled. “Come along then, Izzig. Come on then…?”
“Loffi.”
“Come along then…?”
Bragg stared. He dropped his stick.
“Big Chief Bragg,” Loffi explained. “And Izzig the Shaman.”
“Izzig the Worm,” Braguk corrected in his slow tone. “As to the bigness of your Chief. Perhaps you should ask the Moon, when it shines, whether you have been sent to make peace. Or whether you have simply been sent… to die, to be eaten. Still, no Moon to ask, and no answers of my own. Come along, worms. Come along, Chief.”
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Braguk Moonbear shoved his chain of iron into his bear fur cloak, then turned towards the shadowed forest. He made no sound while he walked despite his size and weight, and could be heard only by his labored breaths and the hiss of his long cloak.
The broken bear sagged atop his huge, shouldered staff with each silent stride.
Loffi walked beneath, sticking out his tongue to catch the drops of blood.
Izzig kept step like a goblin who had lost all hope.
Bragg followed further back than that, made afraid by the shadows and silence. He missed the noisy beetle and the hissing rain.
***
Brugg, Trugg, and Grugg sat with their fat backs to three ancient trees.
They faced one another, each with the same beady eyes, though Brugg had sealed one of his with fire. They were unearthly fat, possessing hunched postures that spoke to languor; yet they moved, when they chose to, with a weight of precision that spoke to buried muscularity and enormous strength.
Brugg sat untended, unembellished save for the blackened mess that was once an eye.
Grugg was the heavier brother, and added to his weight with chains of gold that had been smashed together from smaller lengths of jewelry. He had dark green skin that appeared odd and rotten against his gleaming adornment.
Trugg stroked a frail old woman in his lap. He knew only that she was a seamstress. She had sewn together the patchwork of fabric that the goblin wore for clothes. The dissimilar cuts that covered him were discordant and garish, no more sensible a choice than the red-and-gold woven rug he had pinned at two ends to fit his head.
Goblins of all shapes and sizes were gathered around the trees, chattering and squeaking at the limits of the firelight. Dozens splashed around the reedy pond that all three brothers had view of, that lay opposite Trugg.
Close enough to the fire to be seen, Ragrak the Strong stood proud and immutable.
He had no love for the three brothers and despised Grugg most of all, for dressing like a manling and keeping one as a pet, which of itself was a manling habit. He stood beside his brother, Ragalak Snakesinger.
Both shared the same muscular frame, evenly proportioned despite great height.
Krakann Bonesipper was taller and leaner than Ragrak or Ragalak, and had a hunched back like the three fat triplets. He sat cross-legged by the fire near a pile of bones, smashing them with a stone to get at the marrow.
They all waited in a lull of three brothers grumbling, of the crack of stone against rock, and of the squeak and chatter of the lesser goblins of the gathered clans. Every now and then a cold wind would sweep down, set the fire to dancing, and make wrinkles amongst the pond’s reedy water.
Lazoor the Black was thought absent, which gladdened all those gathered. He did watch though, from atop the tree above Trugg, smiling down with his wide, sharp-toothed maw. The old seamstress saw his dark shining eyes and glistening fangs, but no goblin cared enough to pay notice to her terror.
“All gathered, I see,” Braguk Moonbear observed in his rumbling voice. He swept soundlessly towards the firelight before making a noisy effort of pulling the broken bear off of his bloodied staff.
“I claim that!” Grugg bellowed.
“I claim that!” Trugg shouted.
Brugg sat silent, prodding his burnt eye with a fat finger.
Ragrak shook his misshapen head, then leaned close to his brother’s pointed ear. “We dishonour ourselves by following these fat fools.”
“A snake strikes last,” Ragalak whispered. “As does Lazoor up in the trees.” Ragrak followed his brother’s gaze. Lazoor grinned back at them both.
Grugg and Trugg had grown tired of shouting, so looked to Braguk Moonbear to decide whose bear it was. “Well?” Grugg asked.
“It is mine,” Braguk replied. “And I didn’t call a gathering so that you could lay claim to my food.” He swept a bony arm out from his enormous fur cloak. “Come then, my worms. Come then, Chief.”
“I eat bears!” Grugg argued. “Not worms!”
Loffi and Izzig stepped into the firelit clearing, appearing as boys to giants with all the Great Chiefs staring down at them. Even Krakann Bonesipper towered over them both, sat on the floor, watching them intently as he sucked on a bone.
Lazoor the Black leapt down from the trees, startling all the other huge goblins. He bared a toothy grin at the skinny, silk-robed shaman. “Izzig the Worm… did we not find your body half-eaten by a bear?”
“So you thought,” Izzig whispered.
Lazoor scraped a claw down the shaman’s wrinkled forehead. “Mulu the Undying will be glad to hear of your return.”
Izzig met the predatory eyes of Lazoor. “Mulu the Dead.”
“Why were you in my tree?” Trugg bellowed, startling them both. “Who is this worm?”
Lazoor bowed and scraped apologetically, then slunk away until his sleek black frame faded into the shadows.
“It is Izzig the Worm,” Braguk explained. “Once a leech suckling on the blood of Gahr’rul. Once weakest of those chosen for the shaman clan of Mubrogg the Spirit Weaver. Izzig fled when the One Swing, the Young Wolf, and the Black Heart swore to cowardice and murdered both those great goblins while they slept.”
Grugg grunted in outrage. “And now you come to suckle on my blood?”
“I have been sent here,” Loffi raised his shrill voice to overcome the deep echo of Grugg. “I have been sent here by Laz—”
Braguk slammed his huge staff into the ground, bringing them all to attention.
He knew Loffi would be ripped apart should he even mention the name of that long-clawed weakling. “Dalpho sent him,” Moonbear explained. “He brings an offer of peace. I have heard him out as he walked.”
“Then we have no need for them?” Lazoor sibilated from the darkness.
Izzig reached for his own small staff. “Loffi is under my protection!”
“And mine,” Braguk Moonbear said simply. “He entertains me. The Worm, too, may prove of some use.”
“You can have them both,” Grugg bellowed tentatively. “If I can have the bear.”
“My—” Trugg began.
Braguk struck the earth with his staff. “Deal done.”
“What about him?” Lazoor sidled out from the shadows. The black, larger and leaner, goblin made Bragg seem more squat than big and fat. “Does anyone claim him?”
Bragg clenched his empty fist, wishing he still had his branch. “I will fight you!”
“He is mine!” Brugg shouted. “He—”
Lazoor snapped forward, clamping his toothy maw around the big goblin’s neck. Bragg shuddered and struggled, even after his head had been ripped away. Loffi stared with horrified amber eyes. He flexed his claws and stepped towards Lazoor.
Braguk Moonbear swept forward to block his way. “Grugg, Trugg, and Brugg. Are you ready to hear the terms?”
Grugg and Trugg both watched Lazoor with petulant gazes now he dragged his meal away into the darkness.
“Yes!” Brugg bellowed, staring with his one good eye at the prodigious fur-cloaked shaman. “Speak, Moonbear!”
Braguk Moonbear slammed his staff into the earth; and all the trees surrounding the vaunted gathering became wreathed in shadows and silence. “The Western Clans will offer all the lands,” he explained, “save for Horvorr and the land around and north of it. They will give you the true west, and the mountains that offer good caves and good fishing.” Grugg and Trugg rushed into shouting about who would get those mountains once the deal was made.
The Great Chiefs of the Eastern Clans argued until night gave way to dawn. Trugg made a rattle with his golden jewelry throughout, waving his arms and making demands in his great loud voice; Grugg bellowed back at him, wanting what he had, wanting more than he would have, stroking his seamstress all the while.
Brugg remained silent, keeping his good eye towards the dying fire while Braguk made best effort to reconcile the two louder brothers.
Ragrak the Strong and Ragalak Snakesinger muttered to each other and whispered in disgust at the greed and fatness of the triplets. Krakann Bonesipper ran short of bones and marrow not long before the final agreement was reached.
Izzig held to silence, absolute silence, unseeing and unhearing, as if his thoughts were forced towards himself, trapped beneath his skinny frame and silk robe. Loffi watched the darkness as Brugg, Grugg, and Trugg decided that they would go with Braguk to meet with the Western Clans, that Ragrak and Ragalak would make sure no manlings fled Fenkirk, but not rush in like those other fools Mabaruk and Muburak.
Krakann had his own idea to make peace with the manling hunters camped to the north, hidden behind tricks and traps, which the triplets agreed to, after Grugg had been told it would mean more jewelry, after Trugg had been told it would mean more clothes.
They all decided that Lazoor could go where he pleased, if he were still even here, but Loffi had his own ideas about that. He had it in mind the whole time that it would be much, much better if Lazoor was dead.