Chapter 28 - Muthus with a side of Mitri

There’s good eating on a javeline, it turns out. Once I got over my qualms about munching on the flesh of a sentient species (which my goblin side was frighteningly willing to do), I realized that being half pig made them the closest thing to a taste of home that I’d had since coming to Rava, and it was worth staying up a little past my goblin bed time to roast. They went especially well when seasoned with the block of salt Rufus gave me in acknowledgement that I’d won our wager ().

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<2 Hobgoblin Scrappers have been added to your tribe>

<1 Hobgoblin Wrangler has been added to your tribe>

I awoke to the patter of rain on clay tiles, which left me blessedly dry. Buzz was already up and checking the waterproofing on them, evidently satisfied with his work. I pulled myself off the pile and whistled up at him.

“Welcome home, boss,” he said. “Figured you’d want a good roof once Chuck fetched you back. I’d have come with, but I’m not much use in a scrap.”

“That’s ok,” I said. “Neither am I, as it turns out.”

Buzz dropped down and grinned at me. “Kings ain’t s’posed to fight. That’s why you got us an’ the hobbies, yeah?”

I sat in the shelter and watched the rain fall for a bit. The tribe had had a rough day, prior. We’d lost a lot of goblins between daily attrition and the fight with the javeline rutters. The night haunts hadn’t gotten into any of the new improved structures, as far as I could tell. But that meant the lizard war had continued with the tribe to the southeast. They were now my top priority.

Rufus woke up a short time later and extricated himself from the mound of goblins that had decided the half-badger made a better bed than the straw and moss flooring. The disheveled trader pulled on his boots and fished through his bag for a drink. “Any o’ that pork left?” he asked.

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I pursed my lips. “Don’t you see any moral qualms about eating a javeline? They’re intelligent beings.”

Rufus raised a bushy eyebrow. “You’ve met them, yes?”

“Unfortunately.”

He moved to the fire and started sifting around the stone grill for morsels. “And you still think they’re intelligent?”

“They’re self-aware, free-thinking beings,” I said. I sighed. “In my world, eating another intelligent being is one of our ultimate taboos.” I paused for a moment. “Did you know they were cutting off Goblin ears and tongues?”

Rufus hesitated. That told me everything I needed to know.

“My friend…” he said carefully. “Until you got me down from that tree, I admit I thought of goblins as little more than a nuisance—best ignored if not avoided outright. I don’t brook with the trading of such snake oils. But I admit, I never gave the practice much consideration...”

“Until now,” I finished. The rain petered off, so I walked closer to the firepit and sat near the beast-kin.

“Until now,” Rufus agreed. He licked the grease from his fingers and came and sat down beside me. “The last 10 days have given me many reasons to see things in new light. I fear you will not be looked on kindly by those seeking to exploit Lanclova. Your ears and tongue will be the least of your worries.”

Rufus pulled his pack over and fished out his journal. He thumbed through it, reaching the pages that I assume pertained to the scholarly details he’d gathered about myself and Tribe Apollo. He tore them out and laid them on the smoldering coals. They caught quickly, crisping in the heat. I watched them curl and char, until the ashes rose on the breeze.

“I could have just held onto those for you,” I said.

“Ah, yes, but then what of my grand gesture?”

I huffed a laugh, and then sighed. “I’m not a fighter,” I said. I cradled my head in my hands. “I’m a scientist and an engineer. I never even joined the military—never raised a hand in violence against anyone until I came here. All I ever wanted to do was go to space and explore.”

The badger-kin trader straightened from the fire and cast a look over his shoulder. “If it is as you say, then I am with you. In the quest for knowledge, you share more with me than those who seek to exploit the land beneath Raphina’s watchful eye. Perhaps it’s folly to cast my lot with a goblin king. Yet here we are. I will go south. I will speak to the artificers. Try not to die before I return.”

Most of the goblins were up and milling around now. Not all of them were early risers like Buzz. The hobbies would sleep past midday, of course. But there was still work to be done.

I looked up at Raphina, the tidally locked moon that hovered over this land. With the sun in the sky, her eye was closed—a void in the morning starlight made of the daily new moon. She was waiting for me. And It didn’t matter what it took. I’d walk on her surface. But first, there was work to do.

I called over some of buzz’ builders. “Bring me the javeline heads.”