by Kumo Kagyu
“Are you talking about what they call god’s blessing? Our god of smithing and steel is only good for courage in battle…” Nonetheless, Dwarf Shaman muttered a prayer to the great god Krome. He shrugged and shook his head, saying without malice, “Got to at least pray that our elf girl doesn’t lose her nerve when it counts.”
“Hrk…!” The elf’s ears could hardly miss this nasty little comment. “Just you watch! You’ll bow down to thank me when this is over!”
“Ahh, sure. Can’t say I’ve got my hopes up.” He waved an open palm. High Elf Archer gave a furious snort and rolled onto her back. Dwarf Shaman took his cue from her, looking up at the sky. It was full of stars, and the two moons. The stars sparkled as if someone had scattered precious jewels over black velvet. The moons shone like a pair of eyes, green and cold.
Perhaps it was the approaching summer that gave the air its unusual dampness and made it seem hard to breathe.
“I could do with just a breeze…” High Elf Archer muttered. Dwarf Shaman felt the same, though he said nothing.
Their party arrived at an abandoned plot of earth that seemed once to have been a village. The gloomy skeletons of houses in the moonlight cast obscene shadows on the road. This corpse of the village had gone wild, left to the overgrowth; it would have seemed desolate even in daylight. Now, at night, it would not have been surprising to find ghosts or ghouls there…
“Hr-ah?”
High Elf Archer made a strange sound. She looked over her shoulder, her nose tickling.
“What is it now? Stopping to sniff the flowers or something? Hm?”
“Oh, stop. There’s a weird smell…” She waved her hand in front of her nose, casting a glance around the area with an expression of deep suspicion. “It’s…kind of thick, and kind of prickly… And I can smell it even though there’s no wind.”
“…Sulfur, most likely.”
“This is sulfur?”
“Some kind of vapor mixed with sulfur, to be more precise.”
What that meant was not lost on any of them. They went silent and gave a collective gulp. The elf looked up, an anxious expression on her face.
“Above us!”
It appeared less like a living thing and more like a machine, flesh in the shape of a man-made bug. Its body was red, its head spiked as if it were wearing a hat. A red cap.
It flapped its batlike wings, and cruel, curved claws were visible on its hands.
A lesser demon. And there were two of them. This was a random encounter.
“Are they coming?!” shouted Dwarf Shaman, giving a crack of the reins and urging the horse on. The animal whinnied, having sensed things not of this world. The clacking carriage wheels began spinning in earnest as the horse set off at full tilt.
“Make him go faster…! No, give me the reins. You prepare your spells!”
“All yours!”
Nearly flinging the reins at Lizard Priest, Dwarf Shaman spun around in his seat. He was careful, of course, to hold tight to the shoulder strap of his bag of catalysts, lest it go flying away.
“Can’t we get away?” High Elf Archer said, licking her lips as her bow sang out with arrow after arrow.
“Don’t know about that, but—” Dwarf Shaman said.
“We cannot risk information getting out,” Lizard Priest said with a deep nod, as calmly as if he were getting ready to eat dinner. “We must kill them here.”
The demons appeared to have the same idea. With a rush of air, one of them dove at the carriage. As someone shouted out that initiative had been taken, there was a crash, and splinters of wood went flying.
The demon had swiped at the carriage from behind, its claws as deadly as any weapon.
“Ergh! Pfah!” Dwarf Shaman brushed bits of carriage out of his beard and bellowed, “If you ruin this thing, we’ll be the ones who take the blame!”
“I shall see to the safety of the horse, so if you would be so kind…” Lizard Shaman replied.
The next attack came from the sky as they chatted.
A rushing dive, wings folded. High Elf Archer glowered; the creature had a moon at its back. Her ears jumped, reading the wind, her drawn bowstring creaking.
“You stupid, stinking…!”
“AAARREMMEERRRR?!?!”
An otherworldly scream ensued. High Elf Archer had not missed her chance to fire. The demon, its hand nailed to the carriage by the arrow, writhed about, tearing up the wood with its claws.
“That’ll show you!”
The last thing the demon ever saw was an elf drawing her bow directly in front of it, the arrow tipped with a bud.
The bowstring made a sound that would have suited a high-quality musical instrument; it launched the arrow through the demon’s eyeball and into its brain. The creature’s neck snapped backward under the force of the blow. The corpse hung limply, scraping along the ground. High Elf Archer gave a smile of appreciation for her handiwork. “That’s one down!”
“Fine work! But as he is something of a burden, perhaps you could see him off our carriage?”
“Yeah, sure…guh, what?!”
In the space of an instant, several strands of High Elf Archer’s hair were caught by a claw and went dancing through the air. The monster that had come racing down had taken a swipe at her neck. High Elf Archer fell on her behind, trembling, still holding the shaft of the arrow she had pulled out. At the same moment, the dead demon slid to the ground, bouncing with a dull thump.
“Bit of a fright, there?”
“I’m not scared, I’m angry!”
She bristled at the tease from Dwarf Shaman, whose hand had been ready with his bag of catalysts the entire time, then glared up at the sky. With one fewer demon corpse on board, their speed was picking up again—but it was no match for a creature with wings.
“You, dwarf!” High Elf Archer shouted without taking her eyes off the air. “Can’t you use a spell to knock him out of the sky or something?”
“I guess I could, in so many words…” He closed one eye and peered up, judging the speed and distance between him and the enemy. The curtain of night was powerless before the light of the moons and stars, and dwarves could see easily through darkness anyway. “It’s just that if I brought him down with a spell, he’d only get back up again.”
“What?! Some spell caster! Stupid, stupid dwarf!”
“Aw, quit your whinin’,” Dwarf Shaman said coldly, frowning. “They don’t move by the same laws we do. Steel and iron are the ways to deal with them.”
“Physically, you mean. Well spoken!” Holding the reins, Lizard Priest twisted his huge jaws into a smile that reminded them of nothing so much as a shark. He seemed to do some quick calculations, then nodded in satisfaction. “Master spell caster, you say you can bring it down?”
“I should think,” Dwarf Shaman nodded. “Not for very long, though.”
“Then master ranger, kindly pretend you are going to take a high shot…”
“Can do!”
Without waiting to hear the rest of the plan, High Elf Archer loosed an arrow into the night. It was potent as magic, an arrow as only an elf could fire one, but the demon nimbly zigged out of the way.
“Aw, damn!” High Elf Archer clicked her tongue and nocked a new arrow into her bow, drawing the string.
“Now, then,” Lizard Priest said, tugging on the reins to slow the horse to a crawl. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to pierce him with an arrow tied to a rope?”
“An arrow tied to a rope…?!” High Elf Archer took the rope that had been tossed onto the cargo platform, her mouth a flat line as she gazed up at the enemy. The red-skinned monster continued to beat its wings, looking for its opportunity to come at them. “Fine, I’ll do it!”
No sooner had she spoken than she began to tie the rope to the arrow. The elf’s agile fingers had no trouble, even atop a rocking carriage. She kept her eyes and ears on the opponent, her hands moving as if someone else were controlling them. Her mouth relaxed. “You’re like a ge
neral or something,” she said.
“You are too kind.” Lizard Priest gave a broad shake of his head. “If you must compare me to something, I am like the feather on a shaft. I only set the direction, I do not…” Before continuing, his tongue flicked out and touched the tip of his nose. “Mm,” he said at length. “To have a functioning unit, one must gather an arrow head, a shaft, a feather, a bow, and an archer.”
Ahh. High Elf Archer smiled faintly. That was a metaphor she could understand. “I wonder if that would make me the tip. Come on, dwarf, make sure that spell’s on target!”
“Hmph! That’s quite enough out of you!”
As Dwarf Shaman shot back at High Elf Archer and got the enemy in his field of view, he noticed something: a single red light in the sky. It was burning in the wide, open mouth of the demon…
“Firebolt incoming!”
“Ahh, now!” Lizard Priest said with heartfelt joy, giving the reins a tremendous shake. The horse made an awful neigh of confusion and fear, and the carriage careened in a new direction, creaking all the while.
Just seconds later, a beam of flame lanced down at where the carriage would have been, embers flying into the sky. The glowing light illuminated Lizard Priest’s terrible visage.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaa! Now things have become interesting!”
“I think you’ve mistaken our carriage for a chariot, Scaly!”
“Indeed,” the lizard replied, provoking a “Nutter…” from Dwarf Shaman as he looked at the sky.
The red demon appeared to be readying for another dive, now that they had evaded its trademark firebolt.
Think it’s going to be that easy, do you?
Dwarf Shaman bellowed at the shadow as it grew steadily larger.
“Pixies, pixies, hurry, quickly! No sweets for you—I just need tricksies!”
Words full of the true power to bend reality poured out, and the magic circle caught the demon cleanly.
Normally, the creature should never have been able to escape the chains of gravity, no matter how hard it flapped its wings. Lesser demons were still demons; these monsters lived to twist the natural order.
“ARREMERRRERRRR!!”
The demon, which had fallen to earth, howled and flapped its wings mightily, shattering the magical bonds that held it. It would have its revenge on that dwarf, and that lizardman, and that elf. The mere thought of the blood of an ancient high elf, the smell of her liver, was enough to stoke the greed of the base creature.
“Take this!”
It was an arrow from that very elf that put an agonizing end to that greed. She had leaned out, bracing herself against the edge of the carriage, and ruthlessly fired a single bud-tipped bolt into the monster.
“AREEERM?!”
Thrashing with torment, the demon was just a bit too slow in noticing the rope tied to the arrow. And that was all the time the carriage needed to pick up speed and pull the rope taut.
A hideous roar of despair, enough to make the blood run cold, echoed across the plain.
The demon could not have imagined that it would be dragged across the ground behind the carriage. There was a certain pitifulness to it as it bounced along, restrained by the party as it scrabbled at the dirt and tried desperately to fly.
Lesser demons were still strong. If the trio couldn’t control its position, it would soon have its claws in the earth, and if it could stand, it would be only a moment until was in the air. And once aloft, it would be dangerous.
“What next?!” High Elf Archer shrieked, pulling another arrow out of her quiver.
Lizard Priest stood easily. “We strike the finishing blow, of course.” He held one of his catalysts, a fang, pressed between his palms. “O sickle wings of velociraptor, rip and tear, fly and hunt!” A large Swordclaw grew and then sharpened in his hands.
“What about the horse?!” But when High Elf Archer glanced back, she saw a Dragontooth Warrior with a firm grip on the reins.
“Wait a second, Scaly,” Dwarf Shaman said, his eyes going wide. “What’s this business about the finishing blow? Y-you’re not going to—”
“Jump? Do not be silly.” Lizard Priest shook his head with a considered motion that must have come naturally to him as a monk. “That would be ridiculous.”
In the next instant, the carriage groaned as Lizard Priest leaped at the lesser demon.
“O fearsome nagas! See my deeds, my great forebears!”
“AREEERMEER?!?!”
Claw, claw, fang, tail. He struck and slashed and tore at the demon as it struggled to resist him. The creature opened its jaws to let loose a firebolt, but Lizard Priest howled—“Grrrryaaahhh!”—and aimed a kick directly at its throat, crushing its windpipe. And then his Swordclaw found the demon’s head, lopping it off effortlessly.
The head went rolling across the ground and disappeared into the grass. The rest of the body, still attached to the carriage, trailed a spray of bluish-purple blood. Lizard Priest, standing atop the corpse, was quite calm despite the growing amount of blood covering him; he lifted his head happily.
“Ahh, I have earned merit this day.”
The sun had begun to peek over the horizon, and its rays cloaked Lizard Priest with an indescribable atmosphere.
§
“Look at this. Didn’t we secretly agree that we weren’t going to go against him?”
“Ah, but betimes my blood boils.” After Lizard Priest’s straightforward answer, he gleefully raised a block of cheese in both hands. He opened his mouth and tore into it, each bite accompanied by a cry of “Sweet nectar!” and a slap of his tail on the floor. “For I am a warm-blooded creature, you see.”
“Your jokes never make any sense to me,” Dwarf Shaman grumbled. He threw up his hands in resignation, but also to signal to the waitress that he wanted more ale. When drinking with friends, Dwarf Shaman felt it was only polite to fill his barrel of a belly as full as he could.
“So are we all together?”
“I don’t take your meaning.”
“Your arrow. Arrow and bow.”
“Ahh.” Lizard Priest swallowed the well-masticated lump of cheese with a great gulp and licked the crumbs from his lips. “The arrowhead is our ranger, the shaft that holds us together is you, master spell caster, and I am the feather…”
“…The bow is that girl, and Beard-cutter would be the archer—is that right?”
“Just so, just so.”
Dwarf Shaman took the ale the waitress brought him, watching Lizard Priest nod out of the corner of his eye. He brought the brimming cup to his mouth and took a sip, then downed it in a single gulp.
“However renowned an archer, if he shoots only at the sky he will come to harm one day.”
“Then again, if we hunt nothing but goblins, is that good or bad?” Dwarf Shaman, red-faced, let out a burp and ran a hand through his beard to wipe off some droplets.
“Whatever the case…” Lizard Priest began.
“Indeed, in any case,” Dwarf Shaman concurred.
“It is a fine party.”
“No complaints here.”
Lizard Priest smiled with his great jaws, and Dwarf Shaman let out a rumbling belly laugh. The two of them took the fresh cups that had been brought to them, and smacked them together.
“To good friends.”
“To good companions in battle.”
“To good adventures!”
Hear, hear! By the time the cups had been raised three times, they were empty.
How many times do we meet, and part?
Some vanish, to ash, as we must
With the hope of reunion does each journey start
Like flipping a page that is turning to dust
Remember the legend who trained many years?
What was his name? Now I cannot recall
You realize too late, now he’s no longer here
And though we have partings and meetings withal
Each such encounter is once, and that’s all.
&nbs
p; So night deepened for the adventurers.
Evening was encroaching as the shared carriage came to its stop. The sinking sun threw out its last red rays, and the world was painted purple alongside streaks of darkness. The vehicle’s stretching shadow merged with the huge, warped silhouettes of the town, creating cartoonish and bizarre figures.
When he heard children racing home in the distance, Goblin Slayer relaxed. He did not understand why his muscles grew so stiff in the carriage, even though all he was doing was riding along. He was fully conscious, but his body felt heavy, his head fuzzy and his footsteps uncertain and light.
I suppose this is the moment, he decided, closing his eyes for a few seconds to push back the dull pain within them. He recalled hearing somewhere, once, that humans could only fight continuously for at best about twenty days. Without rest, any more than that would likely degrade their abilities in a number of ways.
Goblin Slayer was not so optimistic as to assume he could last that long.
He set off at a bold stride, making a beeline for the building that towered next to the main gate—the Guild. He would make his report, collect his reward, see to his equipment, get some rest, and then go out once more to kill goblins.
It was the exact same routine he always followed. It never changed. It couldn’t.
But as he went to open the Guild door…
“Whoa!”
“Oh…my.”
It opened from the other side, and he found himself nearly running into a man and a woman coming out. The man jumped back a few steps when confronted with the steel helmet covered in crimson stains. His well-endowed female companion simply stood with her staff at the ready and her lips forming an elegant arch.
“Geez, pal,” Spearman said with a tremendously tired expression. “You really need to stop walking around with that helmet on.”
“Did I surprise you?”
“No more than usual!”
“You…know, you…look like living…armor, yes?”
Witch’s giggling seemed to make the already nonplussed Spearman even more irate.