---LUDA, GOBLIN CONCUBINE OF LORD KLAR POV
I sneak off deeper into the forest and wait. Her patience is such, it is mid-afternoon before she makes a break from the clearing. I keep her footfalls within earshot and try to ensure my scent drifts away from her. She didn’t confirm whether she could smell, not that I had blood on me, mine, or theirs.
Their main camp isn’t far away, which makes sense. She waited until she could return with some daylight to spare. Her arrival draws out several of her friends, shall we say? The majority are female hobgoblins. Stiff leather armour and similar weapons with a tendency to stand together in groups, no, not groups, teams. Five and six seem to be the typical number of members, with at least one male. A huge hobgoblin pulling an old limping female goblin alongside him by a chain commands everyone’s attention.
She reports in, and even with my hearing, I can’t eavesdrop. I don’t wish to creep any closer and risk detection, so I wait and observe. His bellow of outrage, though, is plain. Immediately, two teams bolt from the camp, one running north along the river, the other south. He holds her up by the neck, her legs flailing. After deeply biting her lip, he paints her face with her own blood, using his tongue. Holding her away from him to assess his work, he shortly after flings her aside. A third team rushes in to strip her body except for a linen shift, and they add her to the end of a hobgoblin slave coffle. None in the coffle object or even tease her. Being a former chaser, now captive, is nothing to them. Beside them runs a goblin slave coffle, which barely notes the addition to their shared misery. They lack hope.
At dusk, the two teams return, and I settle in to take a brief nap. My next move will be in the dead of night.
Whispering creeps into my dreams. I try to ignore the interruption, and then, slowly opening my eyes, I dispel the notion I am dreaming.
“How many?” hisses a voice.
“Fifteen and the leader,” says another.
Both are close to where I lay. I assume a good hiding place for me is also a good hiding place for someone else, and this spot has the advantage of a good view of the slaver camp.
“Are you certain the tribal goblins will follow us in?”
“They want to rescue theirs as much as we want to rescue ours.” He pauses, then shrugs, I suspect because of his next words. “That is as far as we can trust them, and they say they have scouted the camp to confirm.”
Their footfalls alert me to the fact as a group, they advance and converge on the slaver’s camp. Several small campfires provide enough light as much for the hobgoblins standing watch and for the new arrivals. I am tempted to join them, yet I hold a suspicion. If the goblins have scouted the camp, they have underestimated the number of slavers. Goblins or not, they can smell the attackers if the wind throws their scent in the wrong direction.
The goblins sneak into the camp well enough and quickly take out two hobgoblins on watch. The rescuing hobgoblins sneak through the gap and immediately dash to the tents. They soon exit, faces displaying various forms of confusion. The goblins have disappeared into the night. Four teams of slavers materialise from separate directions, and as the rescuers try to run, nets, pole loops, and those balls tied to ropes fill the open space of the camp. The balls interest me greatly. Around one leg or two, the rope between the two balls entwines to slow or trip. When a hobgoblin trips, a slaver jumps on their back, trussing them up as quick as can be, hands behind their backs and then ankles. There are a few dead on both sides. Some rescuers did not wish to live as slaves and sold their lives dearly.
The goblins return from the shadows. With a confident snarl, the huge hobgoblin hands off the goblin slave coffle to them as well as several other rope-bound goblins. I assume the slavers held the scouting party separately somewhere. The goblins cautiously retreat from the slaver’s camp, and I can understand their mistrust, but I suspect hobgoblin slaves are worth more than goblin slaves, so to the slavers, a pure value transaction.
The slavers break out a drink that isn’t water but isn’t wine, either. I wait until the camp settles after most teams crawl back to their tents if they can’t walk. With the goblins free, why am I still here? There is the possibility the slavers could come sniffing around Lord Klar’s camp, and I am confident he would chase them away. They could venture into other Clan lands and practice their craft. I could stop them now and save many from misery. Or, unknown to me, they are now planning to leave the valley at first light. My decision comes down to a basic choice. If they live, they will continue to practise their trade, and if I do nothing, I will share a minor portion of any future blame.
I sneak by the watch, taking advantage of their respective blinds as they patrol the edge of the clearing where brush and bush stick out here and there. My plan is simple. Enter each tent and murder the slavers I find in their sleep. If I am discovered, I will bolt for the forest. Their snores attract me. I figure those snoring will be deeper into a drunken sleep and the most likely to slip quietly into death. I prefer a dagger thrust through the eye, but all the slavers don’t sleep on their backs. For those who don’t, I slide my dagger across their throats while placing my hand over their mouths. The downside of this method? The gushing of frothing blood.
“Wake up, you shit!” A thump follows the words. Change of shift, I suspect. I lie low amongst my dead tent companions and await the eruption. If I bolt now, with the watch returning to the centre of the camp from all points, one of them may get lucky. Usually, the watch would expect their relief to find them. Those on guard duty must have become impatient.
“You check the other tents. You rouse the boss. While I feed the campfires, you two keep your eyes open.”
During his shouting of orders, I slice an exit into the tent canvas. Stealth, a slow and quiet exit, is my aim. A slaver sticks his head inside my tent and rolls each sleeper over. Coming to the last, he expects the same, of course, and in that moment of discovery, my dagger impales his eye, securing his silence. I am concerned by the meaty thump and freeze in place for a moment to listen before exiting the tent. Staying in the shadows, I creep behind another tent and wait.
“Shithead, what the hell are you doing that takes so long?” His boots scuff and stomp towards the tent I have left. During this time, I slit the canvas on the tent before me. Instead of entering, I fade back into a nearby light brush. During daylight, my hide would be useless. In the dead of night and subject to searching hobgoblin eyes, I am confident the leaves are enough to break up my body outline. My dark leather blends with the night and shadows cast by the campfire light.
“Shithead is dead,” he whispers. I can only assume he informs the two hobgoblins nearest to him, who have their eyes peeled.
“What is going on?” I recognise his deep, growling voice, the leader.
“Didn’t he tell you?”
“No, he said you would and to come quietly. Something is up.”
I assume their leader doesn’t treat the bearer of bad news well.
“We have an intruder.” He pauses. I can only assume he swallows long and hard. “They have visited each tent and, as near as we can make out, slaughtered them all in their sleep.”
“What!” Thumping and gurgling follow. Silence, and then a body crashes to the ground.
“You are now promoted. Search each of the tents.”
I hear the noise of his progress. He rolls over each of the dead and kicks some. The flaps of the tents open and close. Then noises emanate from the tent in front of me. There is a silent pause, and I crouch low and drawback on the bowstring. A hobgoblin head peers cautiously through my tent slit. I release my arrow; my sister would be proud of me as only the feathers protrude from his eye socket.
“What was that?”
I hear a slap. “You idiot, don’t you recognise an arrow hitting soft flesh,” growls the leader, who then spits. “Alright, whoever you are, you have my attention. What do you want to go back into whatever hole you crawled out of and leave us be?”
He has two left that I know of and a chained crone, probably tethered somehow in his tent. There is the oversized hobgoblin coffle across camp near his tent. I listen as if my life depends on it.
“Come on now, don’t be shy. We can make a deal!”
I am sure they are guessing where I am, but since most of them have died in their tents, one hobgoblin approaches from the right while the other approaches from the left. They meet, inspecting the corpse of their newly promoted watchman.
“Shit, an arrow through the eye.”
“Do you think he would have seen it coming?”
The first stares at the second while grinding his teeth. His feeling of disbelief is unmistakable, building and threatening to explode.
“Seen it coming! What sort of question is that, you snot? He was my friend.”
The second pushes the first back and out of his face. “Meant nothing personal, but an arrow to the eye, you know…”
The striking fist from the first lands on the jaw of the second. “Did you see that coming? No, I guess not, since I didn’t punch you in the eye.”
The second massages his jaw. “I told you I meant nothing personal.”
The first lands a second punch, this time in the second hobgoblin’s eye, sitting him back on his bottom. “Did you see that coming?”
“No.” The second crawls away while trying to stand. I hear him trip and stumble several times. The first stares after him and then turns his attention to his friend’s corpse. He grabs him, and after some effort, shuffles him into a sitting position.
“Why aren’t you with the other one?” asks the boss.
He removes the arrow tenderly from his friend’s eye socket, but all the care in the world doesn’t stop the eyeball from being caught behind the arrowhead. He flings the arrow over his shoulder, which I catch. Instead of the expected clatter into the bush, nothing. After a moment of contemplation, during which I sneak forward, he slowly swivels his head to check. I plunge the arrow into his eye.
“Go back and get him now, you imbecile!”
I set the second body into a sitting position against the first body and, slipping through the slit, enter the tent. Hearing the approach of the second hobgoblin, I unsheathe my dagger.
He chuckles, as I thought he would. “Did you see that coming, ha! Let me remove that for you.”
My left hand narrowly parts the canvas, and my eyes quickly scan for a kill strike. I push through the slit, the tearing loud. His head turns towards me, and my dagger strikes upward under his chin. Behind me, I hear the heavy stomp of boots. Leaving my impaled dagger, I immediately tumble forward and away from the tent. Fortunately, the tent tangles and slows him.
“There you are! She said you were a goblin, and I didn’t believe her. She said you were a goblin, the likes of which she had never seen before. I didn’t believe her. Now I believe her.”
I scramble backwards, climbing to my feet, while he frees himself from canvas and rope. I am down to one dagger, my other sticks out of a corpse. My hide keeps my bow and quiver safe as I couldn’t risk either catching on the brush as I crept up on the grieving hobgoblin.
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“Come here, you little shit. I want the pleasure of wringing your neck, releasing, allowing you to regain your breath and then wringing your neck again, over and over until you expire.”
He isn’t small. Most hobgoblin tower over me, but his bulk is a mountain—cords of muscle wind around his arms and legs. I can’t see his chest because of his shirt, but I assume the same. I give away ground, circling the tents as he stomps forward. Our chase livens up the hobgoblin slave coffle, especially the recently captured. They shout to be freed so they can help. I have my doubts. Their chains would need a key.
His unpleasant smile seems to confirm my chances. I pick up the three-ball weapon and swing it around my head. But for my reflexes, I would have knocked myself senseless. They require practice, perhaps even lessons. His breaking out into uncontrolled laughter is why he doesn’t close the distance between us. I look for another weapon, something with reach, as I reason he will never release me alive once I am within his grasp.
I find and throw several poles with loops at him. He blocks some while dodging the rest with smooth ease. In between, I locate and throw spears. He treats them like the poles. His reflexes are superior. I suspect nanorobot enhanced, as unbelievable as that is or could be. Their presence in his body would also explain his oversized muscles.
“Young one. Flee. Save yourself as you have done enough,” wails a frail voice. I glance in the voice's direction, and a chain around her throat tethers her to an immense square iron weight. The effort and determination to shift this burden far enough to poke her head outside his tent must have been enormous.
“Shut up, old one. What does your sense of smell tell you about this one?”
“She smells of victory, while you smell of all the Klugite potion you have murdered for.”
I doubt she can smell either of us because if she could, Lord Klar’s seed and his nanorobots flow in plentiful supply through me, a potent scent. She assumes I am not Klugite, while she knows he is from long imprisonment. I wonder if their potion is a form of Lord Farmer Hob’s blood.
We are at a stalemate. I can easily keep my distance, yet I can’t attack and wound him from afar.
“Where does he keep the keys to the hobgoblin coffle wise one?” I shout.
“You tell him, and I stomp you to death, hag.”
“I am too old to threaten any more. They are in this tent, young one. Now do your worst, you brute!”
I skirt around him, feigning to reach his tent. He backs off while keeping an eye on me. With various moves and countermoves, I position him close to the hobgoblin slave coffle. Is this close enough? He doesn’t need to give any more ground, and he knows. Then a rope drops over his head. He raises his hands and gets several fingers under the loop as the loop tightens. His thigh muscles gather as he tries to step forward. Two sets of hands from the coffle hold the pole. Another circle of rope drops over his head, and his perfectly placed hands prevent any throttling. He can’t move forward, and he can’t move back because of the poles.
Dashing towards his tent, I hear a dry snap and then a second. Without breaking my stride, I glance in his direction. Both poles are now broken in two. He advances on the coffle, swinging his fists as rage overtakes him. One pole thrusts at his midriff, a slither of wood piercing his flesh, and then his balled fists smash on the holder’s head. A crack and the holder’s body collapses. I am inside the tent when I hear shouts. The entrance isn’t an option; the rear is equally obvious, so I slide my dagger into the side of the tent opposite the coffle side.
I am out as he enters, skirting the tent and bolting for the coffle. I throw several sets of keys at them and then skip away. He places his foot on the neck of the wise one and slowly presses down. Raising my hands in frustration, I know I can’t intervene and hope to survive. She doesn’t make a sound, her silent smile celebrating her ultimate release from his service.
He approaches the slave coffle, but enough of the former slaves have spears in hand to jab at him to fend him off, which leaves me. As he turns to face me, I make my run at him. He crouches, clenching his hands in anticipation. I fade away to one side, away from the coffle. He swings his torso in that direction, chasing to intercept and grab me. While out of range of his hands, I step on my other foot and change direction completely. His hands reach after me, and his torso turns back. I successfully evade him, and when in line with his body, my dagger strikes the back of his ankle. I keep running. He swears, so at least he is in pain, but I am hoping for more.
As I turn, I catch sight of him trying to stand. One leg folds, and he collapses. A wounded beast is the most desperate, and I return to circle my prey.
“That wasn’t nice, but I have survived worse.” He swivels on his bottom and then climbs until he is on his knees, trying to face me as I dart back and forth, searching for an opening. Another stalemate until several hobgoblins with spears join me. They dash in, trying to stab and dance away. None, like me, want to get too close. Several light wounds ooze blood, yet they stop bleeding shortly after they start—a sure sign of nanorobots.
“Keep watch over him. I will return,” I say. I run off to fetch my bow and quiver and my second dagger.
The scene remains the same when I return.
“Roll over and submit, or I will fill you with arrows.”
“I have survived worse,” he spits back.
After I empty a quiver of arrows into him, he lies motionless in the middle of the camp under a rising sun. I remember our decapitation of Xorbrim, another regular consumer of Lord Farmer Hob’s blood. During the spontaneous celebrations, I am uncertain if my temporary allies will accept such a disrespectful act as proper.
“We have one task left to us,” I shout, to bring them back to reality.
The celebration quietens as they turn to listen to me. “You heard the wise woman. He drank many Klugite potions, and even at the end, he claimed he had survived worse, not once but twice. How do you think this is possible?”
The former captives exchange looks. I leave them to answer the question, and after a while, I find what I am searching for and return to his corpse.
I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder. “What do you intend to do with that?”
“I mean to chop his head off, as I want to sleep peacefully at night. Do you?”
“But you can’t. He is dead. Chopping his head off won’t make him any more dead.”
I must be careful here because I can’t reveal the possibility of nanorobots or the potential benefits of the Klugite potions.
“If you prefer, we can burn the body, but I must be absolutely certain he won’t return.”
The hobgoblin steps back, and I take up a position in line with the leader’s shoulder. Swinging down with the axe at his neck, I imagine myself felling a tree trunk to enable me to complete the foul task. As I kick his head away from his shoulders, I lean on the axe and take a deep breath. His body didn’t turn to dust, so I guess he has lived a natural life span. I realise the silence when I stop thinking.
All the hobgoblins stand back, their eyes full of disgust and possibly a touch of fear.
“It had to be done, I tell you.”
They ransack the camp making a deliberate effort to avoid me. The raiding hobgoblins and some of the former captives take the most. Then ones and twos pick out what they need. Finally, the female hobgoblin he abused remains, and I wonder if she holds any ill will towards me when she holds out her hand. I give over the axe handle to her.
She swings high, chopping low at his genitals until his groin region is bloody. Inspecting her, I now see what the other hobgoblins saw. Black blood spatter—a horrific sight. I shrug at her and fetch what remains of the camp to throw over his torso, including his tent. The wise woman’s corpse remains in place because I can’t find the key to her chain. I strike a small flame with flint and grass, feeding this fledging fire with tent canvas. Once the tent canvas is alight, other things burn, including the dead branches we tossed on for good measure. Once the heat in the fire grows, his body becomes the fuel, and at the flame’s height, I toss his head onto the pyre.
Venturing towards the river, she follows, and I carefully pluck off each piece of armour and undergarment and wash them one by one. Once done, I soak my body in the river. She joins me, and we wash his blood from each other.
“What is your name?” she asks.
“Luda,” I reply. “Yours?”
“I need a new name. I have dishonoured my birth name by serving that monster and being a slaver. You name me.”
“What if I decide on a name you don’t like?”
She smiles. “Then I will ask you to pick again.”
“What about Briksia?”
“Mm, yes, Briksia, a northern valley name, so far removed from the south as can be. Excellent choice. Was she someone you knew?”
She was Zoria, but no longer. “Yes, and no. Someone I should have spent time to know better.”
“I hope to treat the name better than my own, and what will you do with your name?”
I quirk my head. “I have my name.”
Her light laughter is a break from all the seriousness and is welcome. Then she lays her hands on my shoulders and stares into my eyes. “You are Luda no more. You see, to the captives, they named you Stealth. Then, after you chopped his head off, they renamed you.”
I am afraid to ask, but she expects me to. “What did they name me?”
She drops her hands from my shoulders. “Luda Bloodstalker.”
My throat dries. Using a cupped hand, I scoop and drink water from the river. “He was dead.”
“He was the last sign, the teams you slew in their sleep and those on watch… As they stole from each body, your handiwork was present for all to see.” She blushes. “I, trying to defend my cowardice, may have also embellished your stalking prowess while in the slave coffle. They, of course, didn’t believe me until they discovered all your kills.”
“Luda, the Stealth sounds better…” I muse.
“You were for several heartbeats… Axing his head off raised a few eyebrows. Debating chatter followed. Then they visited each of the tents. Five or six dead in each, either through the eye or across the throat?” She shakes her head. “Three tents worth, and the two on watch?”
I hold up a hand. “Enough.” I stomp out of the river and begin dressing.
Her splashing steps follow shortly after, and then silence. I swivel about and catch her staring. “What?”
“Y… you are the same as him.” Her voice wavers, and her body deflates. “That is why you didn’t underestimate him, isn’t it?”
I fish a dagger out of my clothes and armour pile. “And?”
“I promise to keep your secret… you don’t have to kill me.”
I thumb the blade edge. “What gave me away?”
“Your naked body, a body that no goblin, however well fed, should have, your athletics, your strength, your…”
I hold up a hand again. Her blathering is annoying now. I get the hint, keep your clothes on when around “others”.
Her corpse falls back with a splash, and my dagger slips out from under her jaw. Either I attained complete surprise, or she accepted her fate, but there wasn’t any resistance. The river current frees her corpse from the riverbank. I blink and realise I can’t permit her body to float down the river and wade in after her.
Shovelling the last of the soil, I hear my sister-wife approach and climb out of the freshly dug body-length hole.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
I swivel about in all my naked glory. After all, why work up a sweat digging a grave and needing to rewash your clothes?
“You can sheath your sword, sister. I have slain all our enemies.”
Zergoa’s eyes inspect the naked corpse, which I am about to roll into the fresh grave. There isn’t any judgement. Her gaze then reaches the discarded pile of hobgoblin clothes and armour already in the hole. Then finally, my goblin-sized pile set well away. “While naked?”
I chuckle. “This one, yes. The others, no.” I want to laugh and laugh… I grind down on my teeth and resist the urge, knowing full well stopping would be beyond my control once I start.
Zergoa sheathed her sword. “The others are on the pyre?”
I nod, too afraid to open my mouth.
“Dress yourself, sister-wife, and I will finish this for you.”
I open my mouth to protest, then close it and reach for my belongings.
The body lands in the hole with a quiet thud, and immediately after, the shovel’s blade striking the dirt pile rings in my ears. Between each shovel load, my dressing continues. Zergoa is replacing the topsoil and debris I had set aside when I finish, snapping my daggers in their sheaths. The disguised ground is good enough to fool most, except those skilled at searching.
“With enough time, her body will disappear forever. What about the pyre? The smoke drew me, and I am certain others will show interest.”
Her calm voice brings me back from the precipice, my urge to laugh forever gone. “They will find about twenty stripped hobgoblin bodies, a goblin wise-woman with a crushed neck and a pyre burning down a huge hobgoblin slaver.” In a daze, I listen to myself list the death toll. Perhaps Bloodstalker is appropriate. My eyes fall on the fresh grave, and I remember there are more, the dead from her slaver team.
“Come,” she says.
Her hand grabs mine, and I allow her to guide me. When well away from the grave, ten armoured female hobgoblins meet us. I overhear their conversation yet don’t listen, and all I pick up is they found five corpses in the forest. That is good. They can’t be Zoria, Xorbrim, Argro and Yalo because they would have reported discovering only four bodies otherwise.
---ROKE, EATER CLAN ASSASSIN POV
The two males hiss and snipe at each other, and I wish I weren’t here with them. While they are oblivious, I am keeping two ears out for interlopers. The wild hobgoblin females are the greatest danger, yet they are hunting for animals, and their dedication to that task allows us to remain undisturbed. I glance again at the two, who demanded to escort me. Their true purpose and story sit with Clan Head Sakvorpa. I know little.
“She can stay here and observe,” hisses the stranger assassin. Our Clan Head has some deal with his master, is all I know.
“It is not about staying, it is about an opportunity, and if you don’t follow me, you won’t be here to take advantage of any opportunity,” Clan Eater Senior Assassin Xataran grouses.
“Opportunity! You cur of a pig trotter, they have not permitted us to be close enough to see the young upstart, let alone plan his assassin! Too many goblins and they are all Oath Keeper tribe. They know each other. They go out of their way to know each other because of their absurd lineage. So, no sneaking in and blending. To make things worse, the wild hobgoblins from Clan Beastbane infest the forest, hunting and trapping for wild game with little to no skill, scaring any potential kills.”
He exaggerates, of course. They are successful more than they are not.
“What is the point of both of us following Lord Torngul’s Major Domo?” asks Xataran.
“Opportunity,” hisses Noxeh, our guest assassin.
“We don’t have orders to assassinate any of Lord Torngul’s retinue.”
“You pair don’t.” He spares me a glance. Most generous of him, although I rather he didn’t. “I, on the other hand, can exercise my judgement and securing some bait to draw out the young upstart may be a possibility depending on who joins that useless Major Domo of Lord Torngul for the trip back to Hobgoblin Town.”
“Quiet, both of you,” I hiss and nod toward several distant noises. Huntresses approach us, it seems.
P.S. If you are not reading this chapter for free on Royal Road or Scribble Hub, then the website you are on has stolen my story.