Bones. The cages are made from bones.
As disgusting as it is, I have to give it to the goblins; if anything, it would seem they are resourceful. I study the joints, and they appear to be lashed together with a hard, yellow fiber.
I point it out to Lexa and she scrutinizes it before glancing over at me. “It looks like sinew.”
“Can we cut it?” I whisper and hold up my blunted rock.
Lexa shakes her head. “Sinew is very tough, about the only thing that will work to loosen this is moisture.”
I lift my fingers to the material and pull at it with my fingers, I can’t even get a fingernail between it and the bone it is resting on.
I let out a small huff. “It sure is wound tight.”
Lexa shakes her head and begins tugging on bones to see if any give way. “Sinew shrinks when it dries. It is advantageous material.”
I pick up my rock and try to saw at it, but the way the cord is tied to the bone makes it basically impossible to get the stone where I need it. I try a different joint with the same result. Sighing, I drop the rock and rub my face.
Lexa slowly rolls over, so her back faces me, and I hear gentle clinking. I peek over to see her fiddling with the lock through the bars.
She turns her head back to me. “If we can find something narrow and sturdy, I can pick this lock.
As carefully as we can, we search the floor of our cage and as far out as we can reach through the bars. But the surface is clean. Someone had swept this site to ensure there was nothing of use in here to aid escaping prisoners. Luckily, I had managed to grab that rock on my way here or there would have been nothing to cut our bonds.
I drop my head back on the bars behind me, and something stabs my ear. I turn slowly to eye a charred section of the bone where it has cracked a little, I lift my bound hands and, with great difficulty, wedge my fingernail in the crack and begin to pry the bone loose.
My fingernail bends back, and I bite my lip at the unpleasant feeling. I continue my work until I have freed a thin sliver about as long as my finger.
I turn slowly and hold it out to Lexa. Gently she takes the bone slip from my fingers and tests its strength. Lexa looks up at me, and I see hope in her eyes. “This will work.”
The goblins by the fire begin screaming and shouting at one another. Some sort of drink slushes around and spills all over the floor from massive cups they grip in their fat oily hands.
The leader, Gremunt, pushes the small yellow goblin. “Just go see if dey be awake yet!”
The small yellow goblin yelps and scampers towards us. Lexa tucks the bone shard into her sleeve, and I push the rock to the other side of the cage bars, hoping it remains hidden in the shadows.
The vomit-yellow goblin approaches and peers through the bars. His breath stinks like rotten meat, and he extends a long claw-like finger through the bars to poke at my leg.
I clench my jaw and do my best to keep from moving as he presses the jagged fingernail into my skin. I feel the moment it breaks the barrier, and the slow trickle of blood that runs down my leg.
He retrieves his finger and turns back to his goblin party. “Dey still be sleeping,” he bellows.
I open my eyes a crack and watch as the lead goblin gets up and stumbles over. “It won’t be long now. Dey should be waking any moment now, den we can has our funs with dem.”
The brown-red goblin points at Lexa. “Can me plays with her?”
The leader goblin raises his eyebrows. “She be so skinny, and ugly too. Why would you want dat for your goblinhood?”
The brown-red goblin shrugs. “Dey be so weak and defenceless it makes me feel big and powerful.”
The other goblins take a moment to process his words, and slowly they begin to nod in agreement. Lexa's hand grips mine, and anger surges through me at the words.
The leader goblin turns back to the cage and rubs his chins. “Me suppose once you be done, we can still put her on da table.”
The other goblins nod eagerly. The leader goblin moves towards the lock. Adrenalin rises through me, and all thoughts of pretending to be asleep fly from my mind. I kick viciously at the cage, and the bone bars shudder and Lexa starts violently at my movement.
The leader goblin hastily steps back. “Oh, me see you be awake now. Just in time to enjoys da fun.”
My thoughts race, and I bellow, “You wouldn’t be speaking like that if I had my magic berries!”
That stumps the goblin and he pauses to look at his comrades. “Magic berries?”
“Yes,” I scream kicking at the cage again, but being careful not the break the last four strips holding the binding on my feet together. “They make anyone who eats them ten times stronger and superfast,” I scream.
Lexa looks at me in alarm. She must think I have lost it, but her look of distress is only helping to support my performance to the goblins.
“Dey make me stronger?” the leader repeats.
The other goblins nod. “And fast,” one adds.
The vomit-yellow goblin grins. “Dis must be why Lord Darkmor wants her.”
The lead goblin pauses and a small smile crawls onto his greasy features. “Da money be for da girl, not da berries,” the lead goblin answers slowly. “So, we take berries!”
“No!” I yell. “Those berries are super rare, and I won’t tell you where they are!”
The goblins chuckle. “We has ways of making people tell, but first we check through your bags.”
“No!” I yell again, making a big scene of crawling to the bars as the goblins began to rifle through our belongings.
Lexa crawls up beside me and whispers, “What are you doing?”
I give her a small smile. “Remember the berries from the cave that we thought were Elmaras? I picked some and put them in my bag before we realized what they did. I never got around to taking them out.”
Lexa's eyes widen in surprise and I turn away from her to watch the smallest goblin hold the bag up with the bunch of fruit in it.
He waves it about with pride. “Me finds it, me did!”
The leader snatches it from his hand and stomps over to me dragging his club on the ground behind him.
He waves the bag in my face. “Be dese your berries?” he taunts.
“No,” I sniffle.
The goblin gives me a grin. “Me dinks dey are.”
The other goblins crowd in around the cage, rubbing their hands eagerly. “Let’s eat dem,” the vomit-yellow goblin cries.
I make a show of swallowing. “There isn’t enough for you all.”
The leader turns his wrinkled snout to me. “What?
I cringe back into the cage bars behind me. “There isn’t enough for all of you,” I repeat.
The goblins eye the bag in the leader's hand and then each other with suspicion.
Lexa adds in a small voice. “It will work the best on the strongest of you.”
I look at Lexa. “Why would you tell them that? Now the strongest of them all will become the most powerful being in existence.”
Lexa offers me a weak shrug. “Perhaps the most powerful will be lenient on me for sharing this information?”
The little red-brown goblin flexes his gigantic arm muscles. “We all know I be da strongest.”
The lead goblin lets out a savage cry and smashes the small goblin in the face with his club. The little goblin flies backward and tumbles over a rock and out of sight. A pool of yellow blood seeps across the dirt where he lays still.
After that, an all-out fight erupts, and the goblins fight one another for the bag of ‘magic’ berries.
The leader takes out most of the group efficiently, and he snaps the neck of the vomit-yellow goblin and drops him to the floor at his feet. Silence fills the cave.
The lead goblin breathes heavily and gives us a hard stare as he scoops up the bag and stuffs the whole bunch of berries in his mouth. “Me be da strongest, and with da power of dese berries me will becomes more powerful den even Darkmor.”
He gives us a grin and makes his way to the cage, adjusting his meager loincloth. He points at the body of the brown-red goblin. “Now me be seeing what Greenub means about using weak, defenseless humans to satisfy me goblinhood.”
Lexa and I crawl as far back into the cage as we can as the large goblin fumbles with the lock.
“How long will it take for the berries to work?” Lexa cries.
I snap my rope bonds. There is no point keeping them on now, and I will need my hands and feet to fight. “I don’t know. He is bigger than we are, so it’s hard to tell.”
The goblin chuckles as he slips the key into the lock. “You be worried about me super strength. Me interested to see how dat works too.”
He swings open the bone door and peers in with a grin, reaching his large greasy hand into the cage. Lexa and I inch back into the corners of our tiny enclosure. It is no use, there is nowhere to go.
The goblin grabs Lexa's calf, his whole hand closing over her calf muscle. With a bellow, I launch forward and kick at his heavily muscled arm. The goblin roars in rage and releases Lexa's calf, delivering a backhand to my head that has me seeing a burst of silver stars.
“Stay down,” he roars. He returns his attention to Lexa and seizes her again. Lexa grabs onto the bone bars and kicks wildly until the goblin screams in rage.
I shake my head and resist the urge to vomit as I grab hold of Lexa's leg and pull her back inside the cage. Lexa launches forward and buries the bone shard into the hand of the goblin who howls in anger and snaps back his fist.
“Putting you humans in da same cage be a bad idea.” He grumbles, flashing us a line of pointed teeth. Suddenly he pauses, shakes his head, and lets out a large yawn.
“What da?” The goblin stutters as he struggles upright and staggers from side to side. He points at us accusingly. “You lied about da berries.”
His legs give out from under him, and he collapses into a pile on the ground beside us. He struggles forward, gasping as he turns to look at us, his dark black eyes condemning. His body lets out one final shudder as he rolls over to face the roof and lays still.
Hastily we scramble out of the cage, and I am quick to pull one of the disgusting knives from the torture table. We pause just out of reach of the unconscious goblin, and I observe him for signs of breathing. The creature’s chest doesn’t move.
“I think it’s dead,” I mumble and poke it in the leg with the tip of the rusted knife. The creature doesn’t so much as stir.
Lexa breathes heavily, still recovering from the ordeal of what almost happened to her. “How can you be certain? The berries only put us to sleep.”
I nod. “None of us ate an entire bunch, let alone all in one go.”
I put my knife under Lexa's necklace and gently press it against the creature’s throat, just in case it is more alive than we think it is.
Lexa darts in and pulls the necklace off its neck and quickly stuffs it into one of her pockets.
I look over at the other creatures trapped in cages throughout the room. I grab the key from the lock in our enclosure, and together we set about releasing the animals who are quick to flee out of the cave and into the darkness of the cavern beyond.
Chapter Nine
Wanted
I head over to the fire and collect our scattered belongings. Amongst them, I find a stretched dried hide with a picture of my face drawn on it and the number ‘1408’ scribbled under the words ‘Reward: 10,000 gold coins.’
I study my drawn face and note that they even matched the color and length of my hair. My features are startlingly similar, even right down to the red scar through my eyebrow that I received during my last arena fight. I lift my hand to my face and run my finger along the old injury. In a few years it might fade, but I doubt the hair in my eyebrow will ever grow back through the scar tissue.
I hand it to Lexa, who inspects the grimy leather. “Well, at least we know how they figured out who you were.”
I nod and toss the leather into the fire and watch as the dying embers slowly consume the words and the illustration of me.
Lexa straps her belongings back to her belt. “This will make traveling more difficult. 10,000 gold pieces will be tempting for most creatures.” She approaches me and inspects my features. “We could change how you look a little.”
I gape at her. “How?”
Lexa indicates the fire. “The picture shows you with very long brown hair and we can use charcoal to dye it black.”
I reach up to touch my hair. “Do you think it will make much of a difference?”
Lexa bites her lip and studies my face. “I think it will make enough of a difference so that people who aren’t specifically after you will not realize.”
I take a deep breath and move to the other side of the fire, away from the dead goblins. “Let’s collect our stuff and head out of here. Whoever was coming here to get me may arrive at any moment.”
We gather our things, and Lexa drops one end of a torch in the fire. “Okay, let’s go.”
Wearily, we sidestep the dead bodies and the puddles of sticky yellow blood that oozed from them as we head for the cave exit.
We enter the cavern, and I notice the bug things that had dragged us here lashed cruelly to a large stalagmite. I draw my sword and walk over to them. “I am going to set you free, so don’t use your sleeping gas on me, okay?”
I slide my sword through the ropes binding them. The bugs’ glittery eyes focus on me for a minute, and slowly it nudges its large head against my body.
Awkwardly, I pat the top of its head. “It’s okay, little buddy, you’re welcome.”
The creatures slowly back away and together they skitter into the stunted trees and out of sight.
Lexa comes to stand beside me. “I think you made a friend.”
I give her a weak smile. “I hope they have better luck than they have had in the past.”
Together we walk down the hill and away from the carnage behind us. Lexa indicates a worn path leading back to the cave. “Anyone heading here will likely follow that path, so we should move into the trees and try to find cover while we make alterations to your appearance.”
I eye the worn path as we step away from it and into the sparse trees. “If we lose this path, how will we find the others?”
Lexa glances back at me as she moves aside to avoid a ring of mushrooms. “It is far more likely our attempts at finding them would only prolong the search. The goblins made no effort to cover their tracks and Melissa will make quick work of them. It would be prudent to alter your appearance sooner rather than later. We have time now and so we will use it.”
I never thought it possible to temporarily alter a person’s appearance without magic. My eyes flick up to watch Lexa's back as she dodges a tree. I have certainly experienced more things since leaving the compound than I thought I ever would.
Lexa leads us around a large rock. “I think here is a good place. This rock should shield the fire from the view of the road, and we are far enough away that we will not be heard.”
I nod, and together we start gathering fallen bark from the balooga trees for the fire, while Lexa uses a small, sturdy stick to dig a hole. She places the largest of our branches inside it and packs the hole so the small log stands on its own.
Slowly Lexa leans the other branches alongside it and she piles them thickest to thinnest working outwards, stuffing dried leaves in gaps as she goes. We mix balooga water with dirt and apply the mud to the outside of the mound until all but nine holes are filled—eight at the bottom and one at the top.
Lexa sits back on her heels and washes her hands in the water streaming from the balooga tree trunk. “Usually when we make charcoal, we make it on a much larger scale than this, but we only need
enough to keep your hair dyed so, we will have to make more when we run out. One of the shortfalls of charcoal is that it is not easily transported, and unless it is properly cared for, it will become useless,” Lexa explains as she shakes her hands dry.
She returns to the small mound and carefully lights a fire at the top of the hole and uses small amounts of balooga leaves to keep it going. It isn’t long before the furnace is blazing and kicking out a surprising amount of heat.
Lexa sits back and rubs her shoulder. “This will take a few hours to make and cool. We will probably be here for the night.”
My stomach rumbles and Lexa chuckles. “I guess we should try to find some food.”
I look up at the balooga trees. “Maybe we can find more of those seeds?”
Lexa climbs to her feet and holds her hand out for me. “We won’t know unless we look.”
A short while later we return to the furnace with a balooga seed, a cluster of cavern mushrooms I identified recalling my lesson with Lucas back at the rebel camp and a medium-sized lizard Lexa caught.
I set about building another fire, this time for cooking, while Lexa heads over to check on the furnace and she plugs each of the holes with mud.
Lexa washes her hands as I set a large flat rock on our small cooking fire and wait for it to heat up. I turn to Lexa. “Why did you cover the holes with mud?”
Lexa wipes her face with the back of her hand and leaves a small streak of mud across her cheek. “We need the fire to starve, so the charcoal is not compromised. We should be able to retrieve it in the next few hours.”
I smile at her and lean forward to wipe the streak of mud off her face with my thumb. “How sure are you that it will change the color of my hair?”
Lexa seems lost for a moment before replying. “I have never used it on hair, but I have seen charcoal used many times to change the color of clothing and as paints. I believe as long as you don’t get your hair wet it should take at least a few days to come out.”
I take my knife and pull the meat from the balooga seed before placing it on the hot rock and each bit slimes in my grasp and rips off before I am ready. Lucas had made it look much simpler than this. The meat sizzles pleasantly with each addition of white flesh, while Lexa expertly prepares the lizard and slowly roasts the mushrooms in the fire alongside it.
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