This must’ve started as soon as I walked away from them; by this point they weren’t even arguing, just screaming insults. I got the gist as we strode back to the top of the stairs, moderating my customary pace so as not to overwhelm Sneppit’s short legs. Just because Gizmit the spy (“maid,” my ass) could keep up with me at a jog didn’t mean the expensively-dressed businesswoman could, or would appreciate being made to.

Ydleth was on a tear about how evil and generally insufferable highborn were, but she was nearly incoherent with rage, which wasn’t helping her case. Being extremely right does nothing for you if you can’t express yourself clearly. Flaethwyn had evidently sussed out her secret, which surprised me; Ydleth was tall but very fine-boned and her mannerisms were more feminine than a lot of the Cat Alley girls. When she wasn’t braying like a donkey, anyway. Surprising me further, Flaethwyn wasn’t dwelling on that, aside from cruelly bringing it up every three or four sentences; she seemed to just be having a fit at the fact that a lowborn dared talk to her in such a manner. I couldn’t decide whether this was to her credit or not.

I was inclined to lean toward “not.”

“Wow, that’s not even a debate,” Sneppit commented as we drew close enough to see down the steps at the unfolding spectacle. “Just a couple of idiots screaming past each other.”

“Sorry about this,” I sighed. “I’ll fix it.”

“We can spare each other a few minutes to organize. An alliance like this is gonna require some groundwork; we need to set up a meeting first off to get everybody on the same page and plan our next move, and just getting my people to sit down at a table with the Hero will take some…persuasion. You’ll probably have this straightened out before I do.”

“Best of luck.”

“Same.”

She stepped to the side and was immediately met by Gizmit and the armored goblin who I’d taken to be either Sneppit’s personal bodyguard or the head of her security division. I began making my way down to the platform, taking in the scene as I descended.

Ydleth and Flaethwyn were less than a meter apart, and I got the distinct impression the only reason they weren’t nose-to-nose was the presence of Adelly and Pashilyn holding each of them back. It was actually sort of funny; I caught those two sharing a look of commiseration as the star performers shrieked themselves hoarse. Aster, to my annoyance, stood off to one side with her arms folded, watching and doing nothing. Zui was next to her in almost exactly the same pose.

Madyn was already making friends with a squad of the goblin guards; from her gestures I gathered she was telling one of her notorious tall tales, to their clear interest. I couldn’t really blame them for deciding to ignore the incipient catfight. Yoshi and Amell both dithered about on the platform behind Flaethwyn, clearly wanting to intervene but too awkward to know how. Well, Yoshi was. Amell was probably just afraid of drawing the attention of an angry highborn.

“These are the two I specifically told you to punch,” I growled at Aster as I arrived next to her.

“If they needed it, you said,” she replied softly, her low voice no doubt inaudible a meter away thanks to all the nearby noise. “This is actually going very well.”

Zui tilted her head to give Aster a long, speculative look. I just stared in disbelief. The two shrieking harpies were barely even coherent at this point.

“—not be criticized by a common whore—”

“—too inbred to even notice, the lot of you—”

“—never become anything better than a pack animal—”

“—the real face of evil in this fucking country—”

“—no one would even notice if your entire—”

“—should be lined up and axed like the—”

“Or was,” Aster added. “I think this has run its course. Naz, if you would?”

Nazralind nodded graciously at her, then raised her head and deafened us all.

“Heeee yiyiyi! Hepep hatarak!”

Man, those traditional Fflyr gwynnek calls were something else. I’d always been impressed by how precisely they could direct their trained birds, but now I was in awe of just how fucking loud that was up close and indoors.

Total silence descended, even the two erstwhile combatants turning to stare in wide-eyed shock at Nazralind, who took advantage of the sudden quiet to speak at a more appropriate volume, in possibly the most cultured tones I’d ever heard from her.

“Congratulations, Highlady Flaethwyn. After today, you will be able to claim that you were once in a large room entirely full of goblins, every one of whom exhibited a more refined public bearing than yourself.”

I’d noticed, of course, that elves and the highborn most closely descended from them had a prismatic quality to their skin—not that they sparkled or anything, but they had an oddly glossy texture and under direct sunlight showed subtle undertones of blue and gold that you wouldn’t see on somebody pigmented solely by melanin. Magical genetic engineering by the goddesses, I figured, or some adaptation to Ephemera’s weird atmosphere. Now, Flaethwyn showed us that when an elf went completely pale and entirely stopped moving they actually looked carved from marble.

Pashilyn, clutching Flaethwyn’s arm, shot Nazralind the most irritated look I’d seen on the usually composed priestess, but the rest of the audience loved it. The delighted hooting, catcalls and wolf whistles from the surrounding goblins pretty well ruled out any further argument, unless the parties wanted to fight uphill against the noise.

“Holy shit, Naz,” Adelly exclaimed, “you can’t just murder somebody like that. You’re supposed to provoke them until you get an excuse to claim self-defense. We have a procedure.”

I couldn’t hear Zui’s sigh as the rest of the goblins were still carrying on, but her shoulders shifted heavily as she stepped forward. Flaethwyn was letting Pashilyn tug her back toward her group, and Ydleth seemed to be on the verge of lunging after the retreating elf when Zui stepped in front of me.

“C’mere, girl,” the goblin said imperiously.

Ydleth stared down at her, scowling. “What?”

“Down here.” Zui beckoned, then pointed at the ground with the same hand.

Putting on the particularly mulish look I recognized as the harbinger of malicious compliance, Ydleth bared her teeth and dropped to one knee, thrusting her face out as if daring the goblin to do her worst.

Judging by her expression, she was even more surprised than I—which was saying a lot—when Zui stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her neck, squeezing her close. Ydleth lifted both her hands, then let them hover awkwardly, clearly uncertain what she should be doing with them. Even though I wasn’t the one getting hugged, I could kind of relate. Man, it was hard to get a read on Zui. Every other thing out of her was either some new depth of saintlike compassion or being a prickly pain in everyone’s ass.

Aster gently tugged me back out of immediate earshot of what had moments ago been the battleground, murmuring as we withdrew.

“So, you and I are, conservatively, eighty percent of the offensive force of the whole group we brought underground. Naz and Adelly are all the backup we’d need for a simple hunt-and-kill mission, and they might be overkill. I selected the other two because of the other mission you outlined. Madyn and Ydleth are our secret weapon for getting in good with the goblins.”

I turned my most incredulous stare on her.

“Madyn has some of the best people skills in the organization, and that’s among a group of former prostitutes,” Aster continued quietly. “She has no hostility in her soul, and between having a funny story for every possible situation and always wanting to hear more funny stories, she can spark up and carry on a conversation with anyone. Look at her over there, already making friends.”

Indeed, Madyn had now drawn a crowd of five laughing goblins who were probably supposed to be on duty, telling them about a favorite client of hers whose kink was dropping trou, bending over the bedpost, and having her sing hymns to his butt. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this one, though I remained impressed that somebody in a pre-internet society could be so imaginative.

“Okay, I see the point there, but…” I cut my eyes back toward Ydleth. “Really?”

During the intervening seconds Zui had somehow broken down Ydleth’s coarse exterior entirely. She’d withdrawn the hug but was now gently holding the woman’s face in both green hands and appeared to be speaking softly to her, heedless of the tears dripping on her fingers. Ydleth was already reduced to hiccups. I always feel awkward, seeing someone cry, but at least the silly wench was quiet for once.

“You mostly deal with Ydleth in the aftermath of her causing trouble,” Aster said with a faint smile, “which is partly your own fault for avoiding her so much. Yeah, she’s loud and brash and not great with rules. Does that sound like any other large group of small people we’re currently trying to court?”

She looked pointedly around at the goblins, more of whom were drifting toward Madyn’s storytime.

“Look at the kind of art they make, and where they put it. This is not a culture that wants a place for everything and everything in its place. Yes, she has a large personality and is prone to getting in arguments, but she is also really good at making up afterward. Did you know that she and Sicellit are practically besties now?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I had not known that, and it made me blink in confusion. Last time I’d seen the two of them in proximity it had nearly ended in bloodshed. Wasn’t that just a few weeks ago?

“Plus,” Aster continued, “remember what Biribo said about goblins not having gendered social roles?”

“Well, I mean, they mostly don’t, aside from some imitation of Fflyr customs that comes with being a subordinate society,” Biribo said. “But for the same reason, they also don’t have people like Ydleth. You can’t really go against your culture’s gender roles if those aren’t a thing.”

“Right, fine,” Aster said a little impatiently, “but do you think the goblins will find it weird that she calls herself a woman?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “If anything, they’ll think it’s weird that she’s defensive about it.”

“Exactly. It’s already working, Lord Seiji. You only came in on the tail end of that, but you missed a truly amazing rant. It was almost as spectacular as one of yours. She tore Flaethwyn an entire new one about how cruel and rotten the elves and highborn in general are. Right in front of an audience of goblins, who now have ample food for thought about how goblins and lowborn have basically the same problems and should maybe be natural allies. That worked even better than I could have hoped; I wasn’t counting on Flaethwyn making herself such a perfect target. Honestly, what is that woman’s problem? Even for a highborn she goes out of her way to be an insufferable bitch.”

“Hm,” I grunted, considering. Now I was kind of upset that I’d missed it. I’m something of a connoisseur of rants, if I do say so myself.

“This is working,” Aster insisted, leaning closer to me and lowering her voice further. “I’m thinking, while the rest of us go off to take care of the Goblin King, we leave these two here. Have them help Miss Sneppit with whatever she needs as a show of good faith, and just let them work. They will earn us friendship and goodwill from the goblins, I guarantee it. Madyn is everybody’s friend, and Ydleth is basically a really tall goblin herself.”

“Okay,” I said, a bit grudgingly. “I still have reservations, but I can see how this is already starting to get results. And it wouldn’t have gotten this far if I didn’t trust your judgment, Aster.”

“All right!”

Everyone turned to look up at the loud voice. Sneppit had finished whatever backroom discussion she’d gone off to have, and now stood again at the head of the stairs, hands on her hips and looking down her nose at the assemblage below.

“So we’ve got here a Hero and an assemblage of King’s Guild adventurers,” she declared. “You all know what that represents: murder, looting, and general pointless destruction.”

An angry murmur rose from the onlookers and Yoshi’s group pulled closer together, making a protective formation around Amell, who I gathered wasn’t much use in a fight.

“More than that general fact,” Sneppit continued, “most of you know this group as the posse of hapless goons who’ve been stumbling around Dount for months now, looking for a way to stomp down here into our homes and kick heads in for no better reason than that the King’s Guild thinks we goblins might be up to something.”

“Now, see here—”

“Wait,” Pashilyn interjected, cutting off Flaethwyn’s shrill complaint.

Yoshi was staring intently up at Sneppit; I could see his hand quivering near the hilt of his sword, but he didn’t draw or even grasp it yet. His pixie familiar had descended right next to his ear and seemed to be speaking quietly to him.

For my part, I felt a surge of unease at the direction Sneppit was taking. This was not what we’d discussed. Was she double-crossing me already? Couldn’t I just once meet some new people and not immediately have to kill them all? Surely that wasn’t too much to ask.

“But,” Sneppit said after letting the tension build for a perfectly timed few beats, “Lord Seiji has just made a compelling case to me about desperate times and desperate measures, and has vouched for this guy Yoshi’s good character.”

Yoshi shot me a look of pure surprise.

“We all know Heroes and Dark Lords are brought here by the goddesses from another world,” Sneppit continued. “I admit I’ve never bothered to sit down and think about all that that implies. Why would I? None of us expected to ever see either within our lifetimes, let alone both in one place. But upon having it laid out for me by someone else who’s not even from Ephemera, I find I can understand how a person could land in Fflyr Dlemathlys, knowing nothing about goblins and hearing only the kind of bullshit the King’s Guild tells, and think he was doing the right thing by participating in a raid on our home. Besides which, when it comes down to it? Jadrak the would-be Goblin King is the enemy of us all. Me, you, and also the Fflyr, if he manages to actually launch his attack on Gwyllthean like he wants to. So, not to downplay all the fucked up stuff the King’s Guild represents… I am tentatively willing to believe there is room for a dialog here.”

“Are you serio—ow!” I couldn’t see which of them had elbowed Flaethwyn, but it didn’t really matter as long as it got done.

Now I could see what Sneppit had done, and I continued to be impressed. Just get up in front of a bunch of people and tell them something they don’t like hearing, and you’ll immediately lose them. But, if you start by pandering to their preconceptions, you can create a rapport and then more carefully bring them around to the position you actually want. It seemed to be working, too; none of the goblins looked particularly excited by this turn of events, but the green faces around me looked at worst thoughtful. Anybody who was feeling mutinous was keeping it to themselves, which would suffice for Sneppit’s and my purposes.

Man, it was nice to meet somebody else who knew how to put on a good showtime and wasn’t using it against me for once. I was starting to be excited at the prospect of what this goblin and I could accomplish together.

“So what do you say, Hero?” she demanded, raising her chin. “Think you can be a reasonable person and restrain your violent impulses long enough to work with us, and put a stop to this Goblin King nonsense?”

Yoshi’s throat moved as he swallowed, but with his entire little harem—what was left of it—watching him in silence, his expression remained resolute. Almost stereotypically so; I wouldn’t doubt he learned that exact configuration of facial features from watching anime. It wouldn’t shock me if he’d practiced it in front of a mirror.

“It’s—” His voice cracked and he blushed, swallowing again, but nobody so much as snickered. Glancing around, I was reminded by the wary expressions of the goblins that to them, a Hero was a monster out of legend. “It’s obvious to me now that there’s a lot going on here I don’t understand. You were right, uh… Um, I’m sorry, I don’t quite know how to address you? Politely, I mean.”

“We’re not big on formal titles,” she said, folding her arms. “I’m Sneppit, and I’m the boss around here.”

“Sneppit.” He nodded deeply, one of those gestures that verged on a bow. “Hajimemashite. What I meant to say was, you were right that we came in here not knowing the details or the politics. And…” He winced, but steeled himself and continued. “It’s increasingly clear to me you were also right about us, well, blundering around. We were invited into these tunnels by a goblin called Kalso who was desperate to escape the Goblin King. She said he was planning to invade the surface, and…” Yoshi paused, swallowing again. “We were attacked immediately, as soon as we came underground. Kalso was…was killed in the first ambush, and nobody else was willing to stop and talk with us until we met Omura-san and his friends, with your guards. I know you don’t owe us anything, but I would be grateful if you’d explain the situation so we don’t make any more mistakes or get anyone else unnecessarily hurt. We’ll be in your care.”

Stepping forward away from his group, he bowed to her again. All around the room, heads shifted as goblins turned to see how she would respond.

To my surprise, Sneppit smiled.

“Suneppito. Well, that’s a new one.” She glanced at me, then back at Yoshi. “Y’know, you guys have a crazy accent.”

Yoshi blushed again and I deliberately kept my expression calm and faintly amused. It was fine, I understood what she was doing, using humor to humanize us and soothe the general mood in the room. Successfully, to judge by the chuckles she got. Everything was okay and I was not pissed about this disrespect. Goddammit, I’d been living on Dount and saying Fflyr names for months now, my pronunciation was not that bad!

“The short version is that Goblin Kings are just something that happens every once in a while, and wouldn’t if you topsiders didn’t act like such shitheads all the time,” Sneppit continued, the levity fading swiftly from her expression. “You ever pause to consider what it’s like for a thinking, feeling being who’s every bit as much a person as anyone else, to be treated like some kind of…infestation? We get pushed out, attacked on sight, stolen from and murdered without consequence, starved and denied and generally kicked around like it’s this country’s national pastime. That pisses people off, Hero. You can only treat a group of people that way for so long before the anger and resentment builds up and there’s an explosion of violence. All it takes is for some goblin with more charisma than sense to come along when that pressure is at its peak, and boom. Goblin King. That doesn’t mean all of us are stupid enough to want this!”

She made a broad, annoyed gesture with both arms, and then began descending the stairs toward us while she spoke.

“Attacking the Fflyr is a wildly idiotic exercise in gratuitously messy mass suicide. Humans are twice our size, they heavily outnumber us, they mostly have better weapons and armor and a lot more Blessed per capita. Only an absolute moron would do something like this, and despite what I’m sure the King’s Guild has told you, we are not morons. This is only happening because a quorum of goblins have been abused so long that they’re too angry to think straight. Even among the Goblin King’s followers, not all of them are in that camp; there’ll be quite a lot just going along with it because everyone around them is whipped up into a rabid frenzy and they don’t dare try to go against the flow. Mobs kill anybody they can single out as a target. It doesn’t even take a good reason.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, dropping his gaze. “Yeah, we…we saw that.”

“So, yes, you’d better believe the Goblin King has opposition down here. The absolute fuck I’m gonna kill myself to momentarily inconvenience the Clans, or let that happen to the people I’m responsible for. And that makes me and mine a higher priority target than you, Hero. Jadrak needs all of us either obeying him or dead before he can afford to carry out his asshat plan. That means, whether or not any of us like it, you and I and Lord Seiji are currently on the same side.”

“How did you end up on this side, Lord Seiji?” Pashilyn asked suddenly. “Historically, Goblin Kings have been among the most valuable early supporters of Dark Lords.”

“Well, I can’t speak for Ephemeral history, but can attest that Jadrak is a piece of shit and Imma kill him,” I declared. “I was minding my own business, peacefully trading and socializing with a few goblins who were willing to talk to me, and that asshole sent his goons to kill them off, right on my very doorstep, apparently because he didn’t want any competition for my attention. So, yes, the Goblin King really did want to throw in with the Dark Lord. Unfortunately for him, I do not like it when people murder my friends. It makes me…”

I inhaled deeply, and let the breath out through my teeth, flexing my fingers at my sides.

“…irrational.”

“So…this happens…often?” Yoshi asked hesitantly. “Hasn’t anybody ever tried to make a permanent peace?”

“It’s a cycle, Yoshi,” I explained. “Goblins live and die by the contract; they like making deals, they normally dislike violence, and keeping your word is hugely important in goblin culture. To them, a person who cheats or takes things by force isn’t worth dealing with or treating with any respect, and taking their stuff is fair game. So humans cheat and rob and attack goblins because they’re bigger and stronger and can get away with it, and goblins steal from humans because…why wouldn’t they? Fair’s fair. Then humans attack goblins because they’re thieving little pests, and around and around it goes. Both constantly justify the other’s bad opinion. It’s a vicious cycle, and those only get broken when one party decides to stop, insistently do the right thing instead of the immediately obvious thing, and then keeps doing that long enough for the cycle to peter out and the other party to get on board. That is prohibitively hard to get any large group of people to do, under any circumstances. And here? Neither has any incentive. Fflyr society is set up to benefit a very small group of people at the expense of everyone else. Goblins and lowborn alike are all scrabbling to survive. To make permanent peace, you’re asking them to take on a very big risk for very uncertain gain. It’s not happening.”

By the time I finished, goblins all over the room were nodding along with me, which of course was the point. I could have let Sneppit explain that, but it served my own agenda to be seen as someone who understood and cared about the plight of the common goblin, maybe the only human who did.

She glanced at me, her expression revealing nothing, but I knew she’d caught onto what I was doing.

“The only other thing that breaks a cycle,” I said after giving them all a moment to think, “is if someone else breaks it. Someone more powerful than all the other forces involved.”

Yoshi nodded slowly, his expression pensive. My own people had arrayed themselves behind me by that point so I couldn’t see their faces; Flaethwyn looked so generally disgruntled and Amell so generally perturbed I couldn’t be sure how much they were even paying attention. But Sneppit gave me a look, a faint smile, and an even fainter nod. At the top of the stairs, I saw Rizz and Rhoka in their big hats and coats, both staring fixedly at me with unreadable faces.

And Pashilyn shifted her head to stare right at me, her expression flat and intent. A noblewoman and a priestess of the Convocation, she understood exactly what a Dark Crusade was and where I was going with this.

I looked right into her eyes and smiled.

She just tilted her head slightly, considering me.

Yup, this one was going to be trouble.

“All right,” Yoshi said, drawing in a steadying breath and letting it out swiftly. He had his resolute Hero face on again, clearly oblivious to these undercurrents. “Then let’s defeat the Goblin King. Together.”

Wow, that was almost too easy.

That was how I knew it was inevitably going to get…complicated.