Chapter 8 – Actually Retrieving a Glaive

“So, this is the place,” Blip informed as she stared at the home they’d all invaded once before.

It was slightly larger than the grandma’s house. As before, there were no signs of anyone at home, but they all knew better.

Kit adjusted his trousers and flexed his muscles. “When I get in there, I’m gonna,” and he mashed a fist against his other hand. “Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

Onch held out his arm. “Hold it metalbrain. No amount of muscle can hold up to the magic we saw in there,” he said as he nodded toward the home. “Statter, check the back.”

Statter rolled off towards the back of the building with his bow strung and ready to fight. Blip nervously twirled a knife as stared at the windows on the second story.

“We need to calm down,” Two observed. His voice carried his own nervousness. “I don’t feel like being turned into a pulp.”

Onch’s fingers itched for his dagger, but he left it in its sheath. “Ok. One step at a time,” he said more to himself than the others. “Blip, you go first. Get the door open. Signal when you’re done.”

Blip pulled a face but followed orders. The truth was that none of the goblins had ever witnessed such ferocious offensive magic before. Kit, who was still raring to go, had not had the pleasure of hearing the loud bangs and experiencing the violent ripping of this human’s magic. Most goblins had no magical abilities, and those that did had next to none. Magic was to be feared.

Kit followed after Blip and stood impatiently outside the door. He even had the nerve to tap his foot impatiently as he waited for the door to be unlocked. Two shook his head in displeasure.

Onch waited patiently. Statter had yet to return; he had no doubt found something more interesting at the back. Blip obviously had no intention of entering through the very door she was opening which kind of confused Onch. He’d thought both of the Triabians would be more interested in a bit of thievery, even if that wasn’t the objective. They were more scared of the magic than he’d thought.

Kit, on the other hand, was bound to cause problems. If he could, he was going to run through the place roaring at the top of his lungs for his weapon. That left Two and himself as the only sane and functional pieces of the operation.

Onch caught Two’s attention. He motioned for him to act as a lookout. As ever, Two nodded in agreement. Onch himself hopped up the steps to the porch just as Blip managed to pop the lock.

She saluted lazily. “All yours.”

Onch growled. He stepped in front of Kit and blocked the doorway. “Calm yourself.”

Kit looked ready to wrestle a bull. He flexed his arms and stretched like he was about to run a marathon.

“What’s there to worry about? You weaklings can stay here. I’ll go collect what I need and be out in a bit.”

Onch shook his head. “Nope. The human mage is more powerful than you think. One hit from his magic and you’ll be paste.”

They’d searched the surrounding area to no avail. It was obvious to all of them that someone had purposely moved the glaive. Probably picked it up and took it to their house. Kit had claimed that it was no ordinary weapon. Rather, it was the creation of some master blacksmith. Hence, the most likely place they’d find it was in the home of a mage.

Kit took a menacing step forward. “Get out of my way if you know what’s good for you,” he said, his stance becoming aggressive.

“Have you already forgotten your stupidity?” Onch asked. “It’s been only a few hours since you got beaten up by a bunch of humans with sticks and rods. What’re you gonna do about a mage?”

Kit blew a raspberry. “The humans couldn’t hurt me.”

“I beg to differ. Stop being a child and consider what’s at stake.” Onch looked warily behind himself. He hoped their little conversation wouldn’t wake the mage. “We do this my way. The smarter way. Grab the glaive and get out. Any time I tell you to stop, you stop. Any time I tell you to move, you move. That’s how we’re going to get out of this in one piece and with your weapon.”

Kit huffed impatiently. He tapped his foot like before. “Fine, fine. Let’s just get in there.”

Onch was not entirely convinced. He signaled for Two to approach.

“You,” he said turning to Blip. “Keep an eye out. And collect your lost companion. No doubt he’s up to no good.”

Blip just smiled cheekily. She twirled her knife faster and faster. She jumped over the porch railing down to a patch of flowers, smothering them all. In a few seconds, she had disappeared around the back of the house.

Two cleared his throat nervously. It was good to know that Two felt the same as him. Onch’s heart rate had nearly doubled due to anxiety. If he didn’t get a move on, he’d die of a heart attack.

“C’mon then.”

Kit pushed past to enter the home first. Two took up a position close to the stairs but not far from the main door. He’d alert them of any sign of the mage.

Onch stepped carefully. He didn’t want to hit anything and give away their presence. Kit though, had no such qualms. His heavy footsteps caused the floor to creak every second step.

Onch held out both hands. “Can’t you walk quietly?” he hissed as quietly as possible.

Kit raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m walking normally.” He made no effort to lower his voice.

Onch scrunched his face and held a finger to his lips. “Just shush,” he ordered exasperated.

They searched the entire ground floor with no luck before they came to the same room Onch had been in when the mage had attacked. He entered cautiously. There was some sort of sound coming from the room.

“ZZZZzzzzz. ZZZZzzzzz.”

Regular snoring emanated from the slumbering, obese human who lay sprawled over a sofa. Onch couldn’t tell if this was the mage himself, or someone else. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to reveal himself to them.

He turned to Kit and held a finger to his lips. Kit nodded but proceeded to stand over the sleeping human. He looked down at the slumbering form and frowned. His crossed arms flexed, but he made no motion to touch.

The room was arranged the same as before. Even the damage caused by the mage’s spells hadn’t been fixed. There was a new window though.

A quick search yielded no results. There was nothing downstairs. Onch motioned Kit to follow. Both goblins met up with Two at the bottom of the stairs and looked upward. A nervous cough pushed up Onch’s throat, but he fought to settle it down. He didn’t want to wake any humans.

“What’re we waiting for?” Kit asked in a forced whisper. “It’ll be daytime soon.”

There was truth in the statement. They’d been out and about for a while now and needed to get back to their hidey-hole. Any longer and the entire human race would be after them.

“Up we go then. Two, keep an eye on our sleeping friend.” Onch pointed to the room from where snoring emanated even as Kit began to loudly climb the stairs.

Two shook his head, turning to keep an eye out in the other direction. There was sure to be some conflict if they didn’t start working together. Two was doing the lion’s share of the work while the Tribians were busy playing around. Kit had yet to prove himself. All the burden couldn’t fall on one.

Those thoughts were for later. Right now, Onch had a glaive to find and a promise to fulfill so that he could get back to the real work. Thinking that, he ascended the stairs swiftly, albeit more quietly than Kit.

The red mass of muscle was searching each room thoroughly. There were no signs of anyone else in any of the rooms until they opened the last door. A wash of colorful light and sound filled the room from a screen across the area from them while a young-looking man wiped a cloth over something that looked like a harpoon. Thankfully, the man was facing away from them, and the sounds, hitherto unheard, masked the opening of the door.

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Onch grabbed Kit even as he tensed up. A massive glaive lay on a rack with an assembly of an axe, a sword and a multitude of different harpoons. What was it with this guy and harpoons?

Kit turned angrily. He attempted to shove the smaller goblin off, but Onch had a good grip on Kit’s trousers. The bigger goblin stopped his attempts. It was either that or lose his trousers, and he had enough decency to not want that.

“What’re you planning to do?”

Kit rolled his eyes. “There’s only one thing to do. Get in there and take back what’s rightfully mine.”

They spoke in hushed whispers. Onch fervently hoped the human was too busy to notice the both of them having a tug of war over pants.

“Let’s wait a bit. He might go to sleep, or go to another room. We can sneak in and take it then.”

Kit rolled his shoulders. “It’s almost dawn. We don’t have time. Plus, why would he go to sleep when he hasn’t slept at night?”

Onch pulled the door closed just a bit. Surprisingly, he found himself agreeing with the bigger goblin. Humans generally sleep at night. Sometimes you could find them napping during the day, but they were known to sleep at nighttime.

So, if there was little chance that this human would get out of the way and also a chance that the downstairs human could wake up anytime, needed to move fast. There was a time limit.

The trouser pulling stopped as Onch closed his eyes in thought. The rack was within the human’s vision, so there was no chance of getting in and out without being seen. Kit was too large for that anyway. A diversion sounded good, but Two would be in a difficult position if the downstairs human were to wake up. Not to mention, at least one of them was a mage. That made things a bit trickier.

He could always get Blip and Statter to pull away the downstairs human while he himself took care of this one. The only problem was getting both goblins to do exactly as he said. He was pretty sure that would take more time and effort than they currently were willing to give. Onch wasn’t sure he could pull it all off.

The pressure got to him, and against his better judgment, he relented to Kit’s demands. At least if anything went wrong, Kit would be the one to suffer.

“Well then, what do you propose?”

Kit smiled. It was the first time he’d done so. “It’ll be a small matter to sneak up on that puny human. Just make sure the downstairs one doesn’t wake up.”

With that, he turned and surprisingly gracefully closed the distance to the human. He didn’t even give Onch a chance to reply. At first, it looked like he’d make it without being heard. Turns out their luck wasn’t that good.

The human turned around lazily. His eyes grew to the size of saucers when he saw what was coming at him. BAM! A shot rang out from the harpoon in his hands.

Onch cursed. That was no harpoon! It was a magician’s weapon. Just their luck that the mage had to be here. Sounds came from downstairs, but he didn’t have the time to find out what was going on.

Kit’s blood fell to the floor from a nasty-looking wound on his left thigh. About a dozen small holes ripped through the wall behind them as well.

While Kit wrestled for the weapon in the mage’s hand, Onch launched himself across the room. The glaive was heavy but not so heavy that he couldn’t lift it. The blue-colored shaft was lined with red-colored runes and ended in a wicked curved blade of expert craftsmanship. Holding the glaive like a battering ram, Onch raced for the exit.

He was out of the room in seconds, and he bounded down the stairs with reckless abandon. Two was nowhere to be seen, but that was expected. He’d been told to stay hidden.

As he was exiting through the main door, the world blew up into a thousand splinters. Some kind of magic hit the doorframe and the porch beyond, throwing him off balance. The glaive went flying out of his hands to rattle down the stairs of the porch and lay on the path to the road.

Onch lay dazed for a few moments before he was pulled up by a pair of hands. He looked up to find Blip urging him with words and gestures. He only understood the gestures. The ringing in his ears didn’t let him understand what she was saying, but he understood the gist of it. Get up and make quick with it.

He roared as he pushed himself up. His right arm stung, and a quick look down confirmed he was bleeding from somewhere.

One of the humans came outside wielding one of the harpoons, or rather, mage weapon. He aimed it at Blip only to fall forward head first. Kit emerged from the doorway holding a bloody and broken vase, roaring at the top of his lungs like a wild beast. He discarded the broken fragments of pottery and jumped off the porch. His hands gripped the dropped glaive, and he spun around to finish the job.

“NO!” yelled Onch. “Leave it!”

Kit looked torn. His moment of hesitation ended when the second human could be seen rushing to the door with another mage weapon in his hand. The commotion had woken up others on the street, and lights could be seen flicked on in multiple buildings.

Onch pushed Blip forward and grabbed at Kit. “C’mon!”

Kit whirled and easily outdistanced them both. A shot rang out behind them. They raced to the pothole Two held open for them. Statter held his bow strung and drawn. He narrowed his eyes and was about to let go when Blip stopped him.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Leave the stupid humans.”

One look at Kit’s wound and Onch’s bleeding arm was enough to make his face go a different color. He stashed his bow behind himself and slipped down to the sewers. Kit followed shortly, then followed by Blip. Onch gingerly reached down and sat at the lip of the drainage hole.

“Is it bad?” he asked. The ringing in his ears had subsided a bit.

Two took a second to reply. He looked closely at Onch’s arm. “No. Looks like a bunch of splinters.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Onch replied as he slipped down to land directly at the bottom of the hole. It wasn’t a long drop, and he didn’t want to use his arm.

He patted himself down, reassuring himself that he hadn’t lost any of his weapons or the assignment missive. Two dropped down beside him and watched as his brother checked his belongings.

The others were nowhere to be seen. No doubt they’d moved on. A quick check of his arm assuaged any notions of major bleeding. He growled in frustration. It wasn’t supposed to go that bad.

“We’re going to get ourselves killed,” mused Two next to him. “We haven’t even truly started the assignment.”

It was true. It was hopeful thinking to believe the two brothers were enough for the task. They themselves didn’t have what it took to complete the mission on their own. This was much different from the usual bashing of heads and guarding of goods they were used to. Of course, they’d taken on odd jobs once in a while, but this took the cake.

“Do we have a choice? Imagine if even one of those mages were to attack us at home. They’d slaughter goblins left and right. The mage who gave us this job must be even stronger if the chieftess is afraid of him.”

Two just stood mutely. A few moments passed as each brother imagined the worst. Two was the first to snap out of it and move forward.

“You’ve gotta make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Of course it was Onch’s job. He muttered choice curses annoyedly as he followed Two back to their hiding place. Two would never be able to control the others. It just wasn’t something he did.

The two brothers were about as greedy and backstabbing as the average goblin, but there were limits. They relied on each other for one. They also weren’t keen on being left alone and finding their clan wiped out. No matter that their clan was filled with sleazy cutthroats, in times of need and war, it was best to stick together.

Not to mention the fact that they’d been dependent on the other races to supply them with water for years now. There was not a drop to be found in the goblin lands. It even didn’t rain. Whatever water they could get their hands on was usually dark and murky. Merchants would usually fill half the barrel with dirt to make more of a profit.

More importantly, no goblin wanted to die. There was nothing glamorous about death, no second chances and no one would remember them after they died. Well, maybe they would if they could get this endless water supply thing done. Everyone wanted to live life to its fullest, and Onch was no exception.

Kit was nursing a bloody thigh while Statter pulled out a roll of bandages when they reached the open area they’d become residents of. Blip was talking excitedly as she bounced around sending splashes of water all over the place.

“That was so cool! Did you see how I opened the door? Then it was awesome,” she trailed off to point at Kit. “You, you were awesome. You knocked the human out just before he was about to send me to the grave!” She squealed and continued like a rabbit finding carrots. “And you,” she announced as she turned to Onch. “The way you flew when the door exploded. I thought you were gone for sure.”

Onch did not appreciate the sentiment. “We nearly got killed because of our haste to get things done. We should’ve pulled out when we found the glaive. It was always possible to go back.”

Blip shook her head back and forth. “No, no, no. It was perfect. Just the kind of battle fit for a group like us.”

While Onch felt it was more of a scramble than a battle, he didn’t find a need to correct her. “Well, I’m happy someone here thinks we’re getting somewhere because I sure don’t.”

He sat down and washed the blood off of his arm with the dirty water. He was a goblin, infections were rare.

The blood washed away to reveal a few splinters that he readily pulled out. He was lucky the blast hadn’t hit him directly. He’d be mush otherwise.

Two cleared his throat. “That was much too close. I, for one, am not doing that again.”

Statter tied off a knot over the bandage he’d wrapped over Kit’s leg. He looked up and nodded in assent. “You couldn’t get me to go back there on pain of death.”

Two and Statter continued to converse in the background as Onch lay with his feet in the water. He was hungry. And tired. It would be so nice to just relax and forget about everything.

He was brought out of his daydreaming by a toe stubbing his side. Blip looked down at him with a cheerful grin.

“What’s next?”

Onch covered his face with his arm. At least he was beginning to be seen as the leader of the group. With things in his control, he could make sure mistakes like this never happened again.

“Two,” he called out without moving.

“Yeah.”

“I think we should all rest up. Once you’re rested enough, take Statter and Blip to the grandma’s house. I want this done sooner rather than later. Once we find her,” he took a moment to remember, “her most memorable place, we can get her there and get out of here.”

Two yawned before responding. “Sure. I don’t think I can go tonight though. We need food first.”

Onch grunted. “Food. Yeah, food first.”

The goblins took their time to wind down. Surprisingly, Kit was silent. A quick look told Onch that the red goblin had fallen asleep where he lay. Each goblin drifted off to sleep one by one until he was left last.

His arm stung, which was why he couldn’t get to sleep. The rest was welcome enough though. He ran the scenario over and over in his mind, thinking of how he could’ve done better.

The others needed to be preserved. There were ten grandmas in total, and this was only the first. If they were to lose a member, the dragon might not let them take on any additional help. They’d be whittled down until it was just him left, after which it’d be his turn to visit the grave, or they could all be killed together at once.

Onch swallowed audibly. No sir. He wasn’t ready for a visit by death. He still had plenty of life left in him.