Chapter 32 - Haunted

“Keep behind me, boss,” whispered Chuck.

Above, I could see the twin yellow eyes circling high above, nestled in the dark, winged shadow silhouetted against Raphina’s open eye. In my hands, I clutched a slinger with one of Neil’s poppers nestled in the sled and hoping for all the beans that it didn’t explode the instant I pulled the catch. Every goblin in the tribe had gone to sleep with dirt and moss stuffed in their ears so that the poppers and night haunt shrieks wouldn’t wake them and cause another panic. Goblins woken early didn’t produce more goblins, and right now warm bodies and a lack of variants was our biggest bottleneck as a tribe.

The last time I’d interrupted a night haunt during its night haunting, it had dealt me lethal damage three times, on top of killing several other goblins outright. When I thought about it, even though I couldn’t gain levels, the tribe itself was still something like my health bar from some sort of video game, and it got bigger as the tribe expanded. That was a very sociopathic view of the situation, but a potentially exploitable one. As much as I didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of loyal goblin followers, the fact was I lost multiple goblins a day just due to them being goblins. Attrition and replacement was an in-baked element of their species strange reproductive practices.

The rambunctious, non-verbal basic goblins spent most of the day throwing themselves off cliffs, charging through the forest while screaming their heads off, experimenting with explosives, running with sharp objects in both hands, and picking fights with things much larger and more ferocious than they were. From my initial survey of the other two bluffs, it seemed like tribes without kings had a poor survival rate—though my sample size was admittedly too small to be scientific.

What I’m saying was that even getting them pulling in the same direction had resulted in greater longevity and population for the goblins under my demesne. And in order to do so, I’d ironically had to send several to their deaths. Was it really any different if they died from me taking the hit? I’d tried to avoid it, but sacrificing a goblin here and there might mean 3 more birthed later, which would go on to birth 9 of their own. Exponential growth makes calculating the benefits over any length of time a little nutty. But we’d have to make hard decisions to survive any given length of time.

You might think it difficult to justify. Well, let me put it in perspective. There are two kinds of astronauts: those that become astronauts doing everything by the book, following every rule to perfection, and exemplifying the ideal mentor to aspire to. And then there are those that do whatever it takes to get what they want, and let no obstacle or shortcoming stand in their way. I was going into space without legs, so I’ll let you do the calculus on which set I fall into.

“Easy lads, ‘ere he comes,”

I squeezed my slinger tight, watching as the dark silhouette slowly spiraled down to the village. It was nearly silent on those wide wings. Its shape against the moon triggered fears rooted deep in the goblin parts of my brain. Being outside when these things were in the sky was not a survival trait for this species. Not yet, anyway.

The thing came in for a glide, finally stretching out its talons and lighting upon one of the shelters with barely a whisper, despite its size. And it was a big one. Level 14, as the System labeled it. It looked around, swinging its beaked muzzle to make sure it hadn’t been noticed landing on the clay roof tiles—but we were well-concealed. Then it put its eye to the roof, looking for cracks and weaknesses as it shimmied around on narrow claws. Finding none, it went to the edge of the roof and found the new shelter we’d laid out.

Ten goblins slept in a dome woven from flexible branches, blessedly unaware of the predator among the village. The night haunt jumped down from the roof of the shelter and padded toward the dome. It could see the goblins sleeping inside through the loose weave, but the lattice of the shelter was too tight to get its claw through. The tips of its talons came just shy of the nearest goblin’s shirt. Frustrated, it began to climb the shelter, towards one of several circular openings in the lattice wall that looked just large enough to allow a night haunt’s arm and shoulder.

What the night haunt didn’t realize was that the inside of the hollow was a trap of flint chips on a concave funnel. When it tried to pull its claw back out, it ran afoul of the one-way opening. It tried to pull back, then screeched in pain, and seemed to realize what had happened.

“Now!” shouted Chuck. He and the other wranglers jumped out from where they hid behind the materials stockpiles. Three goblins erupted from the bone pile with slingers of their own. Two of the ‘sleeping’ goblins inside the dome stood up and grabbed spears concealed in the bedding.

The night haunt howled, enraged. It was smart enough to know it had been tricked, and smart enough to realize what a precarious position it found itself in. It stopped trying to free its hand as the goblins inside the dome started to thrust their spears through the lattice. But that was just a diversion.

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Chuck and his wranglers moved forward with the pole snatchers, loops extended. The night haunt still had back talons that were more than sufficient to disembowel a goblin, and a muscled tail that would crack bones every bit as well as their jaws. It lashed back and forth, lifting one of the wranglers off his feet and tossing him careening through the bone pile.

I kept my slinger trained but held off on the release lest the explosive go through the lattice and into the sleeping mound. I also kept my eye on the sky in case the terrified shrieks of the night haunt called any of its buddies down for the assist. It was tough to tell, but one of them might have descended some.

One of the wranglers darted forward and managed to get his loop around the back claw of the night haunt, digging in his heels and pulling against the beast. That put pressure on its trapped arm, and it shrieked and kicked, trying to pull away. It only had one avenue of escape, and it was one I hadn’t considered.

With beak and claws, the night haunt tore open the trap wide enough to get his entire body through, although not without taking a dozen small wounds on the branches and flint. Its heavy body thumped to the floor, twisting the creature as the snatcher pole hit a fulcrum. The thing about night haunts is that they weigh substantially more than even a hobgoblin. So the one that refused to let go of the pole soon found himself airborne, flying over the enclosure as the pole snapped.

He never hit the ground. A second night haunt snatched the unfortunate wrangler out of the air with its back talons and disappeared over the edge of the bluff.

Damn! The cavalry had arrived. Spears and snatchers turned skyward as swooping shadows swung low over the village. Chuck managed to jump and get his snatcher around the neck of a haunt, bearing it to the ground with the help of another goblin. His remaining wranglers moved in with their own snatchers. But two of the regular goblins were picked up and carried off by winged shadows.

Not only that, but the night haunt inside the lattice dome had become enraged, and the once-safe spearmen inside were now the entire subject of its attention. It pounced, rebuffed only by the ceramic tips, and climbed up the inside of the dome for another attack.

“Gunners to the dome!” I shouted. I hefted the slinger and ran to the lattice, angling my lathes to make sure the projectile went through a gap and didn’t explode in my face. I pulled the catch and the lathes snapped back into place, launching the sticky-icky jar directly above the night haunt. It burst against the roof of the dome with a pop right where the creature had been holding on. It lost its grip and fell directly on the sleeping pile, scattering the mound of diminutive creatures.

Other slingers thrummed, and the pop pop of icky-sicky bombs which left behind an after-odor somewhere between an outhouse and the Fourth of July. Rudely awakened goblins were tossed against the inner walls of the dome by the concussions and woke enough to see what was in the dome with them. And then they went from zero to panic without hitting a setting inbetween.

As one, ten goblins ran for weapons stashed inside the dome. The night haunt, maybe triggered by retreating prey, maybe more than a little concussed itself, pounced unsteadily, stumbling and crushing two goblins against the wall of the dome—not enough to kill them, but I could see their squishy goblin faces deforming through the weave as though their skulls were rubber. More yet picked up spears and cleavers.

I reached into my bag for another icky-sicky jar and stuffed it into my sled, working the lever to reset the catch. Goblins inside the dome had a small thicket of spears pointed at the night-haunt now, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Shoving the end of the slinger up to the lattice, I called out again.

“Volley two!”

Pop, pop, pop!

Unfortunately, one of the slinger goblins had made the mistake I’d taken pains to avoid. His jar smashed straight into the lattice and blew up in his face, sending the goblin flying and setting the lattice on fire as the thick, burning putty coated it. It splashed over one of the unfortunate spearmen in the dome, as well, who dropped his spear and panicked as his fur started to smolder.

Behind me, the night haunt the wranglers were tangling with yowled. I risked a glance to see that two of its limbs were caught and Chuck was atop it, driving a spear down into its back. A lot of its blood was on the ground, but the wranglers on the snatchers were pulling as hard as they could to make sure it couldn’t find any purchase to fight back.

More of the cage started to burn, and I whistled for attention from all the goblins not already fighting the howler with the wranglers.

“To me!” I shouted. I still had ten panicking goblins in a structure that was now at risk of burning down. I put my back against the dome, gripped the lattice, and lifted as hard as I could. Prosthetic legs aren’t really built for lifting heavy loads, though, and they started to slip out from under me. Luckily, the rest of the goblins rushed to my side and combined what meager muscles they had into hoisting up one edge of the shelter high enough for the goblins inside to scramble out.

Within a few moments, all that was left inside were two goblins with spears and the night haunt, who saw the small opening we’d made. It darted toward the lifted wall and I made the decision.

“Drop it!” I shouted.

The edge of the shelter thumped back into the dirt just as the night haunt’s front claws raked at the base, scrabbling to get under and get out. Several goblins thrust spears through, dissuading the beast, who finally turned, coughing and sputtering from smoke, and dashed toward a different side. The goblins raced around to continue keeping it away from the wall, and the wranglers joined in as well with longer spears.

Finally, the night haunt abandoned its goal, and turned its attention at the two goblins still trapped with it. I turned away as it pounced, intent on getting its last meal before the execution. Even while choking and dying from the smoke and small, myriad wounds inflicted by the spearpoints the goblins were thrusting back through the lattice, it persisted. They are nothing if not spiteful creatures, it seems.