The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

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The Wandering Inn_Volume 1 Page 598

by Pirateaba


  A single tree had grown from the rocky hillside where the Undercrawler tribe had burrowed into caves and around rock. It was old, and bore no fruit. But something hung from it now. Awful rotten fruits, swaying in the breeze.

  Bodies hung from the tree. Dark shapes, half-eaten by birds some of them. Most untouched in the cold. The rest were piled around the tree, or lay where they had fallen.

  Goblin bodies.

  Pyrite’s foot crunched in the snow. He stepped towards the tree, looking up. Hung bodies. And the rest—he saw Goblins fallen, most of them—

  Most unarmed. Pyrite looked around as the rest of Rags’ tribe halted and more Goblins entered the site of the massacre. They stared around. They could see what had happened.

  Goblins fought. Goblins fell. But see how they fell? Most had wounds on their backs. Few had weapons. They hadn’t been fighting. This was a slaughter. And most had died in the first attack. The rest—

  Had been hung. Pyrite stared up at the ancient tree, branches carrying the swaying bodies. Hung. What was the purpose? He couldn’t understand it. Humans killed Goblins. But hang them?

  “A warning. In case other Goblins come.”

  Redscar stared up at the tree, jaw clenched, hand on his sword. Rags had dismounted. She pushed her Carn Wolf’s head away from the body it was sniffing and looked around.

  Death. It wasn’t the first time Pyrite had seen it. But the destroyed tribe hurt his heart. He’d seen it too many times. He tried to push the feeling down, until he saw the message carved into the tree.

  “What is this?”

  Rags stared at the words. Pyrite stared too, but he couldn’t read. She could though, a little. And so could Noears. She called him over and the Goblin approached. The [Mage]’s face was silent as he stared at the words.

  “What?”

  Rags and the others stared at him. Noears spoke slowly.

  “What happens to Goblins. What happens to filth.”

  For a while, Rags stared at the words carved into the bark. Then she put a hand to the tree’s trunk. Her hand glowed, and the bark began to smolder and ignite under her palm. Her face was—Pyrite turned away. He stared up at the body and then saw something.

  A hand. Twitching. Was it just the wind? No. Pyrite watched and saw the hand moving again. One of the bodies overhead was still moving. One was still alive. Pyrite’s eyes went wide. He grabbed the steel axe at his side and raised it. Too short. The Goblin that was still moving was very small and hung higher than he could reach.

  “You!”

  Pyrite turned and barked. A Goblin looked up at him. Pyrite pointed.

  “Cut!”

  The other Goblins saw the twitching Goblin. They crowded around the tree and several Goblins were thrown up. They clung to the bark and began to climb towards the branch the Goblin was hanging from.

  Pyrite stood below the Goblin and stared up. The one that was alive was no more than a child.

  He was still alive. The Goblins were too small, too light to hang properly. The rope had failed to break his neck, and so the child had suffocated here. Pyrite caught him as a Goblin cut the rope and cradled him in his arms. The Goblin gasped and choked.

  Dying.

  “Here.”

  Rags appeared with a potion. She threw it and Pyrite caught the small vial. He stared at her for a moment. Any other Chieftain wouldn’t waste a potion on a single Goblin. He wasn’t sure he would. She glared at him.

  No time to question. Pyrite carefully uncorked the vial and poured it sparingly onto the child’s throat. The small Goblin began to shudder.

  The healing potion began to reduce the swelling around his neck, cure the puffy skin around his face. But he was so cold and small. Pyrite held him. The Goblin child was gasping, but his eyes were closing.

  “Don’t sleep. Open eyes.”

  Pyrite spoke to him. The Goblin gasped, and Pyrite slapped his face gently. He couldn’t sleep. If he did, he would die. Healing potions only cured so much. If the body was out of energy, they died.

  The child’s eyes began to close. Pyrite roared at him.

  “Stay open!”

  An eye opened. Two crimson eyes looked into Pyrite’s. He cradled the child and saw Rags approaching. Pyrite lowered the child and Rags stood over him.

  Somehow, the Goblin recognized Rags as a Chieftain. He gurgled, choked. Rags knelt by him.

  “Who did?”

  She spoke in the Goblin tongue. The child gurgled, coughed. His eyes were flickering. Rags knelt and Pyrite poured more healing potion on his neck. Rags bent her head by the child’s.

  “Who? Tell me. Who?”

  A whisper. The Goblin reached out and Rags grabbed his hand. She bent over him as Pyrite felt the child growing colder. He shouted for a blanket, a fire.

  The hand went limp in Rags’ hand. The child’s lips stopped moving. He closed his eyes. Pyrite grabbed his shoulder and shook him. Roughly. The Goblin’s head bounced, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  “Open!”

  He couldn’t sleep. If he did, the healing would—Pyrite felt someone grab his arm. He realized the child was cold. Very cold. He looked over his shoulder and saw the Rockfall Chieftain was holding him. She shook her head.

  Slowly, Pyrite let go of the small Goblin. He put him on the ground and stood up. The empty potion bottle dropped from his hand. Then Pyrite slowly bent and picked it up. Not good to waste—waste—

  He looked around. The other bodies hung from the tree. They lay on the ground, silent, unmoving. Rags stood in the snow, looking around. Her Goblins were looking at her.

  Her eyes were bleak when they fixed on Pyrite. She looked past him and at the Rockfall Chieftain instead. She nodded to the Hob.

  “Burn tree. Leave rest.”

  She turned away. Pyrite stood in the snow until the tree went up in flames. The bodies burned and fell, and he placed the Goblin child on the pyre and left.

  For the council of war.

  —-

  There was a Human town nearby. A large one, with guards and walls. It had probably been the one to send the adventurers after the Undercrawler tribe, but it wasn’t certain. The Goblins were split.

  Half wanted to destroy the town. The other half…didn’t see the point. Tremborag’s former Goblins were among the latter, surprisingly. They were all for slaughter, but they’d agreed with Rags’ non-violence policy when it came to Humans. Don’t hurt them, and they weren’t such a large threat.

  Redscar and the Rockfall Chieftain were for vengeance. So was Pyrite. But he sat in silence, waiting, watching Rags. She kept staring at her hand, the hand she’d held the child’s with.

  She did not kill Humans. She liked them. At last, the Goblins stopped quarrelling and fell silent. Looking at her. There was no proof. Anyone could have sent the adventurers. They could have come from anywhere. But it was the town, Pyrite was sure. They had asked, and a group had come to slaughter the tribe.

  But there was no proof. And everyone was watching Rags, now. Did she side with the Humans? The Undercrawler tribe had surely raided the town or nearby villages and farms for food when they were hungry. Maybe they’d killed some Humans who’d been alone. Maybe. Probably.

  That was life. But in the end Rags had looked up and spoken.

  “We attack.”

  An hour later, the Goblins were within sight of the town. They marched on it. Quietly.

  At first, the few guards on the walls didn’t seem to realize what they were seeing. But as Goblins appeared in the distance, marching towards the ten foot high walls, they raised the alarms. Pyrite saw people appearing on the walls in the distance, raising bows. There were a lot of soldiers at the gates.

  He didn’t care. Rags raised her arm, and crossbows snapped up. Goblins began to throw rocks from slings and loose bolts into the air. The defenders returned fire, but they had only a few bows, and Hobs with their own weapons picked them off one at a time.

  The gates opened, and an armored group of riders rode out.
They began to race around the Goblins, only to find a wall of terribly long pikes swinging in to face them. The Goblin pikes charged, and the riders had to retreat. Two were too slow and their mounts were impaled by the charging Goblins. The rest fled back into the gates.

  Pyrite marched behind the Goblins with pikes, hearing the thunk of crossbows firing, hearing a scream as a Goblin was hit by an arrow. A [Mage] blasted Goblins from the battlements for a moment before Noears hit him with lightning and arrows struck the mage from twenty bows.

  The gates were thick and heavy, meant to withstand a monster attack. Pyrite and eight Hobs grabbed a battering ram that Rags had ordered built and slammed it into the gates. It took three hits before the wood began to splinter. The Goblins behind them pushed, and the wood broke.

  The Goblins streamed into the city with a howl, meeting the defenders in a scrum at the gates. The Humans were numerous. They screamed in fury, defending their homes. The Goblins howled and rushed them.

  Pyrite was first into the fray. He charged into a man with a sword and felt the sword bite into his stomach. But the Human hadn’t expected Pyrite to run into the blade. The Hob grabbed the screaming man and struck him once with the axe.

  He was wearing a helmet, but the Human died anyways under the crushing blow. Pyrite picked him up and heaved the man back towards his friends. The armored corpse knocked over several Humans and the smaller Goblins swarmed them.

  Blood and sweat and heat. The cold and the burning cut in his stomach were distant sensations to Pyrite. He strode forwards, and saw a man with a heavy mace bashing down a Hob. He was an adventurer; his mace shone and he had a shield that was deflecting every weapon that came at him. Pyrite charged towards him and the adventurer turned.

  Silver-rank, probably. He was confident, trusting in his shield to protect him. The adventurer turned from the Hob and shouted.

  “Come on, you damn Goblins! Fight me!”

  He raised his shield and Pyrite’s axe crashed into it. The shield didn’t break, and the adventurer barely staggered. He lashed out with his mace. It had a spiked head and tore away part of Pyrite’s stomach. The Hob grunted, stepped back.

  “Come on, come on! What are you waiting for?”

  The Human snarled as he lashed out at Pyrite. The Hob had no shield and blocked with his axe. He was hit in his arm, and again in his chest. Both times the mace came away bloody, but Pyrite said not a word.

  He fought silent. Where the other Hobs and Goblins around him shrieked in fear and battle fury and howled as their friends and family bled and died, Pyrite hacked and cut and sometimes dodged in a void of sound.

  It bothered the Human. Pyrite’s expression never changed. He just stared at his opponent as the Human cursed at him. He swung his mace and Pyrite knocked it back with his own axe. He swung, and again the magical shield came up, taking his blow.

  Stalemate. The Human’s friends were dying, but he was helping hold the line. He raised his mace and Pyrite paused. He looked past the Human and spoke in a level, normal voice.

  “What’s that?”

  He pointed. The Human’s head instinctively turned. Too late, it snapped back. This time his shield was too low. Pyrite buried the axe in the Human’s shoulder, grabbed the screaming Human’s mace, and buried it in his head. He stepped back, breathing hard as the line of warriors broke without the adventurer to hold it.

  “Idiot.”

  He wrenched his axe free and walked past the Human. It was surprising how many times that worked. But no one expected a Hobgoblin to say anything in their language and so sometimes they looked, or just hesitated for a moment. A moment was all Pyrite needed.

  The rest of the Humans began to crumble once the Goblins got past the gates. Rags’ tribe outnumbered the Humans far too greatly, and her tactics were superior to theirs. She charged her pikes into the Humans while her crossbows hammered them. Pyrite didn’t fight another Human; the combination of the pikes and Redfang warriors waiting behind them was an impenetrable wall that the Humans defenders couldn’t break through.

  They found the majority of the townsfolk clustered in the square. They’d tried to flee through the opposite gates, but a second force of Goblins from the rear had blocked their escape. Poisonbite and her warriors had cut down several of the Humans, but they stopped when Rags strode towards them.

  “Hold.”

  The Humans stared at the small Chieftain with horror and fear. She looked at them. One of the Humans spat—the others dragged him back, afraid of her. But they hated her, and the other Goblins. Pyrite saw it in their eyes. Rags stared at them and then turned to him.

  “Bring me rope.”

  The Humans stirred. Some cried out in horror. Others began to beg. Pyrite stared at Rags and then got her the rope. He didn’t know what she was going to do.

  She hung the bodies from the houses. Not live ones, but the dead Humans. When Pyrite heard her orders he felt relieved. Relieved because she wasn’t retaliating in kind? The Humans would have hung them all. He thought about that as he oversaw the Goblins clambering on the rooftops.

  They hung the dead adventurer and guards from the rooftops, a grim mockery of what had come before. Then Rags pointed, and Goblins streamed into buildings, forcing out screaming Humans, coming out with grain, barrels of goods, sacks and objects like hammers, shears, buckets, pans.

  They looted the town for an hour and left. They took everything they could grab and carry. Food, supplies—

  The Humans tried to resist once. A man tried to stop them from taking some jewelry, saying that it was his wife’s. Pyrite thought of the dead child and broke his jaw and arm.

  The Flooded Waters tribe left the town in ruins. Both gates were broken, their defenders slaughtered. But they left the people alive. Poisonbite had argued against it, and so had Redscar. They didn’t want to leave witnesses.

  Rags didn’t care. Pyrite had seen her looking at the Humans, looking at children, and, for some reason, a young woman with brown hair. She’d forbidden the Goblins from touching them.

  So they’d left. There was no celebration as the Goblins marched back towards their camp, laden with their spoils. Not this time.

  —-

  It was a silent camp that ate and sat around the lake. Pyrite washed his wounds in the water, watching the dried blood float into the lake. It hurt, but he didn’t want a healing potion. That was a waste.

  The mood was too quiet around camp. Goblins sat around, poking with sticks at the ground, not doing much of anything. They should have been celebrating. They’d won a battle. But what they’d seen bothered them.

  It bothered Rags. And Pyrite. And because their Chieftain was silent, the Goblins learned from her. Pyrite stared at a young Goblin, practically no more than a child, staring moodily at the lake. He felt that shouldn’t be so. They had to smile. If they didn’t smile, what was the point of being alive?

  After some thought, Pyrite approached the small Goblin. He poked him. The Goblin looked up. Pyrite nodded to the lake.

  “Can swim?”

  The Goblin stared at him, and then nodded cautiously. Pyrite smiled.

  “Good.”

  Then he seized the Goblin, lifted him up, and threw him across the water. The small Goblin flew across the lake, screaming until he splashed into the water.

  Every Goblin head in the vicinity had turned the instant Pyrite had seen the Goblin. They stared at him, afraid he was angry. They watched the Goblin splash down, spluttering, and then swim towards the edge. Pyrite smiled again.

  “Next?”

  He looked at some of the small Goblins, the children. They edged away from him. Then a brave young female Goblin stepped forwards. She shrieked as he lifted her, and then tossed her into the air.

  She flew far. Pyrite was a Hob and she was very light. The other Goblins watched with open-mouths as the Goblin child cannonballed into the water. Half seemed perplexed, but the other half caught on.

  Pyrite threw the Goblin. Throwing was bad. It hurt if y
ou hit the ground. But what if you landed in the water? In that case—

  The next child went screaming into the lake, but he was laughing when he climbed out. And then other Goblins approached. Pyrite hurled an adult into the water and as the Goblin climbed out he shouted at the other Goblins, grinning and miming flapping his wings. Then they all wanted to try.

  —-

  Rags found Pyrite and a group of over twenty Hobs hurling Goblins into water. The sound had drawn every Goblin in camp, and the Hobs seemed to be enjoying the activity. They were competing to see who could throw Goblins the furthest, highest, or make them puke as they spun into the lake.

  Pyrite turned, sweating in the cold, bleeding slightly from his stomach where his wounds had opened up, to see Rags standing with arms folded. She stared pointedly at his stomach.

  “Pointless.”

  He shrugged. She was very smart sometimes, but not all the time.

  “Fun, Chieftain.”

  She looked past him as a screaming Goblin cartwheeled into the water, much to the entertainment of every other Goblin watching. She shook her head.

  “Stupid.”

  She turned to go. Pyrite grabbed her. Rags struggled, shouted, but it was too late. He heaved, and his Chieftain went flying.

  She was very light. The other Goblins stopped and stared as they saw their Chieftain arc high into the sky before crashing into the water. The entire time, Rags’ eyes were locked on Pyrite’s face.

  She glared at him the entire time she was flying, until she hit the water. That was rather impressive, actually. Rags swam out of the lake quickly, unlike the other floundering Goblins. That surprised Pyrite until he thought about it for a moment. Of course. The Flooded Waters tribe was good at swimming.

  That night, Goblins played in the water, laughing, some drowning until they were fished out. But they were laughing. The water was very cold, but they didn’t care. It was something new. And that night, Pyrite sat by his fire, wet, cold, bleeding a bit, but better.

  Around him, Goblins were sleeping. Pyrite was still up. He was always awake during the nights. He’d had a few good hours of sleep earlier, and it was important for him to be up while Rags slept. Just in case. As the fires dimmed and Goblins began snoring around him, Pyrite stared into the flames.

 

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