Melkora’s mind refused to believe what she heard. Her store had a small apartment above it where she lived. She had watched her mother and father try to defend Cobblestreet from the horde that crossed the river. Her father was brave and had killed a handful of the goblins, but there were only so many villagers. The endless goblin swarm had swept them away as Melkora watched helplessly from a window.
“You fought at the siege?” Torvald asked with admiration. He appeared to be slightly older and stronger than Melkora, although he clearly had no idea what he was doing when it came to physical combat.
Gideon was glad the two siblings had not heard the wild tales of his exploits that circulated everywhere else. He was dead tired and had little patience for celebrity treatment. “Yes,” he said. “I fought alongside the militia. We lost hundreds of excellent men that day.”
Melkora set her lantern down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “After seeing the army pass through Cobblestreet, I don’t know how Talonrend survived.”
“She has high walls,” Gideon said. “And goblins are exceptionally short. Now, how about beds?”
Melkora had significant doubts about letting a pair of goblins into her home, but the fear that welled up in her chest when she saw Maelstrom and Regret on Gideon’s belt had not yet dissipated. Whatever the warrior wanted from her, he could easily take it.
“Follow me,” Melkora said. There was a wooden staircase in the corner of the general store that led to the upstairs apartment.
“We will keep watch,” Vorst said. “Goblins do not need sleep like humans. We will watch.”
Gideon remembered the last night he had spent under the protective watch of Gravlox and Vorst and been captured by a band of minotaurs. It had been a valiant fight, but he could not battle five fully armored minotaurs on his own while half asleep. He resolved to rest with his back to the door and one eye open.
Vorst could tell that her presence filled the human family with more than curiosity. They were terrified of her and Gravlox. Goblins had taken the woman’s parents and destroyed her livelihood. The village she had grown up in was a lifeless husk of what it had once been.
“Come with me, Grav,” Vorst ordered her companion. Gravlox readily obeyed and followed her back into the street. It didn’t take long for the door to be shut behind them and blocked with a heavy piece of furniture.
“Where are we going?” Gravlox questioned. She led him to the center of Cobblestreet and then east toward the Clawflow. At the edge of the rushing river, she stopped. The water was choked with the debris left behind by the goblin campaign. A huge swath of once-grassy riverbank had been trampled into filthy mud on either side of the river. To the north, stones and makeshift planks were still in place that served as a temporary bridge.
“Do you remember this place?” Vorst asked. She took a quick step onto a rickety plank and somehow the waterlogged wood held her weight.
Gravlox scampered after her and chased her into the mud on the other side of the river. “Of course I remember it,” he said. The night air was cold enough to frost his breath and make his feet shiver where the river had touched them.
Vorst followed the swath of destruction the goblin army had left behind until she found what remained of the Cobblestreet graveyard. The headstone had been trampled into the mud and several nearby trees had been felled and chopped into timber.
“Do you remember the ghost flowers?” she whispered, prying one of the headstones up from the cloying mud.
Gravlox wandered to the headstone and sat in front of it. He scraped mud out of the carved letters and traced them with his fingers. “Can you read their language as well?” he asked, indicating the strange symbols.
Vorst sat next to him on the muddy ground and sighed. “Not very well,” she said. “I haven’t had much practice.”
The human language continued to baffle Gravlox. While he had learned several of the more common words and phrases, complex sentences still sounded like guttural barks compared to the melodious and high-pitched goblin speech. “You’ve never told me, Vorst,” he began. “How can you speak their language?”
Vorst sighed and leaned back on her hands. “I was trained to be an assassin, Grav, you know that.” Her voice was so sweet and delicate that it contrasted with her words in an ugly manner.
“But who taught you to speak?” Gravlox had been aching to ask that very question since the first time he heard her communicate with a human.
Vorst waited a long time before responding. “Before I started my training… I served Lady Scrapple as an emissary of sorts.”
Since goblin society rarely required spoken diplomacy with other races, Gravlox had a difficult time understanding what it meant to act as an emissary. “What did you do?” he asked.
Vorst didn’t know where to begin. When she thought back to her year and half as an official diplomat for Lady Scrapple, she realized that she had played a part in the orchestration of the war. “Lady Scrapple would invade my body and use me to communicate her plans to others.” With the feeling of true freedom fresh on her mind, it was painful to imagine being so wholly dominated.
“Do you remember the man outside Talonrend that fought Gideon?” Gravlox nodded. “I met with him and another human female in the woods not far from here. That’s how I knew where to look for a necromancer for your poison.” She felt like she had betrayed him; her memories tasted like bitter deceit.
Gravlox could tell how much it pained Vorst to recall her past. “When Gideon kills Lady Scrapple…”
“I don’t know what will happen.” Vorst remembered the exact moment she felt freedom for the first time. The disconnect from the hive mind had been jarring, but it was the most wonderful sensation she had ever known. “The goblins will have no direction. They will be leaderless. Chaos will ensue and Kanebullar Mountain will not be safe. When it is done, we need to run as quickly as we can.” Her voice was deadly serious and she sounded afraid.
Gravlox inched closer to her and slid his hand around her back. She shivered against his touch, but did not pull away. “We’ll make it out,” he whispered. There was no way Gravlox could predict the future, but his words still brought comfort to them both.
“Where will we go from there? Back to Talonrend to fight the orcs and minotaurs?” her voice was full of pain and longing.
“Maybe it will be finished by then.” It wasn’t much consolation. “Talonrend withstood the entire goblin army. What’s a few hundred orcs? The city will still stand when we return.” Gravlox knew Vorst longed for something more. She needed something permanent to give her hope and purpose.
“Gravlox… I…” Their lips met before she could whisper another word. In the cold mud of the trampled graveyard, they held each other and experienced a closeness that neither of them had ever thought possible.
In front of the lovers, the muddy headstone swayed back and forth. Gravlox felt it with his mind, but he didn’t care. He was lost in the kiss. After what only felt like a single heartbeat, Vorst pulled away.
“The flowers,” she gasped. The wispy tendrils of a single ghost flower slithered from the ground and slowly climbed atop the stone.
“Souls of the dead,” he said. Something about the ethereal vine frightened Gravlox, but it intrigued him more than anything.
“When I die,” Vorst began before Gravlox cut her off with another kiss. She pulled away from him and looked deeply into his eyes. “I’d like to become one of these flowers,” she finished.
Gravlox smiled and brought her back in close to him.
MELKORA GAVE GIDEON the privacy of the apartment’s only bedroom and slept against the wall in the upstairs hallway. Torvald and his children slept in a small root cellar under the general store where it was safest. She didn’t quite know what to make of the man, but Melkora feared him above all else.
As a thief, Melkora had broken into Castle Talon several times. She had never stolen anything from the castle, but had eavesdropped on plenty of conversa
tions and sold the information she gleaned to wealthy aristocrats looking for fresh gossip.
With her back against the rough wooden wall of her hallway, she barely slept. At any moment, Melkora expected Gideon to rip open the door, slaughter everyone in the building, and steal all of her possessions.
An hour or more before dawn, Melkora rose from her fitful slumber and walked silently to the small closet at the end of the hall. Cursing herself for not regularly oiling the hinges of the closet door, she pulled it open and waited for someone to hear. After a moment, she thought it safe and pulled a hidden string that unlatched a false panel in the back of the closet. Behind the secret compartment hung Melkora’s only belonging worth hiding.
Roisin, the Rose of the Forest, once belonged to a wealthy merchant that had often travelled through Cobblestreet on his way between Reikall and Talonrend. Melkora couldn’t remember the merchant’s name, but she would never forget the look on his face when he learned that his dagger had been stolen.
The Rose of the Forest, so named for the intricate pattern of leaves and flower petals etched into its hilt, was an exquisite piece of art with a razor’s edge. Melkora had never used Roisin against an opponent in battle, but had trained with it for years and had no doubts concerning its effectiveness. Using target dummies she set up in the forest, Melkora had never found a material strong enough to resist the blade.
She took Roisin from a hook in her closet and clutched it tightly to her chest. Her eyes filled with wonder as she watched an inky black liquid course through the delicately etched veins of each leaf. Melkora had watched it a thousand times, but it never ceased to amaze her.
“Going to kill me?” Gideon asked from directly behind her. He clamped a heavy hand down on her shoulder and disarmed her before she entirely knew what was going on.
“How did you—”
“I heard the closet door opening.” Gideon knew he had no right spying on the woman and sneaking up on her, but he couldn’t be too safe. No one could be trusted.
Melkora sighed and let her arms hang in defeat. “Give it back,” she said, holding her hand out for the return of her weapon.
“For a thief, you aren’t very quiet,” Gideon said. His gaze fell to the dagger and as he inspected it, he could feel his consciousness drawn toward the beautiful design. It took him several concerted efforts to stop staring at the dagger. “No wonder you didn’t hear me coming…” he said as he gave the weapon back. Gideon noticed the flowing black liquid within the leaves on the dagger’s hilt and took a cautious step back.
“Poison?” he asked with overt derision. “A woman’s weapon indeed.”
Melkora shook her head and fetched a leather sheath from the closet before returning the false panel and shutting the door. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ve never killed anyone.” Her voice was full of shame. Gideon pitied her.
“Taking a life is nothing to be proud of,” he explained with a comforting tone. When she looked confused, Gideon continued. “A thief can take a purse or a coin and claim it for herself, yes?” She nodded. “But what if you learn the man it was taken from hasn’t done anything wrong and needs the money to feed his children?” Gideon thought of the hundreds of goblins he had slain and the scores of orcs he had left to rot in the foothills. Every last one of them tainted his soul. “You can’t give a life back.”
Melkora understood, but her apparent bravado would not be calmed. She had a yearning for dangerous adventure that lurked just behind the soft green of her eyes. It was a yearning that Gideon had seen before—a yearning that typically got young men killed.
“Where are you going?” Melkora stubbornly asked. She eyed the prince’s swords and Gideon knew what she was thinking.
“You want to know how I got these swords.” A flicker of recognition played across her face and gave her away. “Let’s say the prince no longer needs them and leave it at that.”
Melkora’s jaw nearly fell from her head. “You stole them!” she shouted. Her eyes beamed with newfound respect. “And yet you lecture me on the virtues of a thief!”
Gideon couldn’t help but feel sorry for the young woman. From the looks of it, she had a reputable and legal business, a sturdy home, and at least a brother and a pair of nephews. A life of crime offered little reward and demanded that she risk everything.
“I’m coming with you,” Melkora said as though she were stating a simple fact of the weather. “I’ll get my gear.”
“You haven’t heard where I’m going,” Gideon reminded her.
“Try me.”
“Into the heart of Kanebullar Mountain to slay the leader of the goblin race, a hive mind entity guarded by a skeletal dragon and thousands of slaves, a being older than Talonrend and more powerful than Vrysinoch.” Gideon stood in the hallway with his hands on his hips as the woman collected herself. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but she had stopped in her tracks.
“Into the mountain?” she finally asked.
“Why else would I have two goblins traveling with me? They are my guides.” Gideon turned and collected his heavy cloak from the bedroom before walking down the narrow staircase. The sun was just beginning to cast its glow around the side of the mountain to warm the village streets. In the town courtyard, he could hear two high-pitched goblin voices busily speaking back and forth.
“I’m still coming with you,” Melkora said defiantly, although a hint of fear still played under her voice.
Gideon stood in the doorway and let his mass block the woman’s path. “It will not be easy,” he said.
“I can handle it.”
“Are you prepared to die? Can you leave everything behind? Even if we survive, there might not be anything left when we return. The orc clans have rallied together in the west and they will likely attack Talonrend within the week.” Gideon let his words hang in the air while Melkora tried to absorb what he had said.
“The way it sounds, I’m as good as dead staying here and waiting for Cobblestreet to rebuild. My only child left with the refugee caravan weeks ago. What more do I have to lose?” Melkora took a step forward and Gideon extended his hand.
“Welcome aboard,” Gideon said, taking her hand and clapping her on the shoulder. She smiled from ear to ear. “The goblins can be noisy and their language will grate against your ears, but I trust them with my life. I used to carry the most powerful sword ever created but believe me when I tell you this: I’ve never met anyone or anything as potently destructive as Gravlox. I have no doubt he could bring the mountain crashing down on top of us.”
Melkora pat the dagger at her side and stretched her arms. “I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting for a miracle. Give me a moment to say goodbye to my brother. I don’t own my own armor, but there are few pieces somewhere in the shop that might fit.”
Gideon pulled his cloak back and showed her his sleeve of mail. “I’ve never been too fond of armor. Meet us at the fountain when you’re ready.” With that, he left the woman to her business and stepped out into the light of dawn.
“Melkora will be joining us,” Gideon said to Vorst at the fountain. There wasn’t another soul to be seen down any of the streets.
“We’re eager to free our brothers and sisters,” Vorst replied.
Gideon sat down on the edge of the empty fountain and took a roll of bread from his pack. “What’s the mountain like? How is it organized?”
Vorst laughed. “It isn’t organized like one of your cities with buildings and streets paved with stone. It is dark and there are thousands of tunnels. You would get lost for weeks.” As she spoke, Gideon noticed a disfiguring wound on her hand that he had not seen before. Where her left pinky finger had been, the skin was bubbling and starting to form a scab as though it had been freshly cauterized.
“Was there a fight?” he asked, indicating the wound with a nod of his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Vorst lifted Gravlox’s left hand up to reveal a similarly garish amputation. She didn’t know how to ad
equately explain what had happened in the graveyard, so she smiled and silently hoped that he wouldn’t ask her any more questions.
Gideon could tell that the wounds, whether self-inflicted or not, were identical for a purpose. He instinctively pulled his own left hand closer to his chest. “You’re both insane,” he muttered under his breath, but Vorst had already turned her attention back to Gravlox.
Several moments later, Melkora emerged from her store with a pack slung over her shoulder and Roisin at her side. She wore an ill-fitting leather jerkin covered in brass studs that was obviously made for someone much larger than her. To accommodate for the large size of the jerkin, Melkora had cut a strip out of the back and tied it with heavy string like a corset. He wasn’t sure if it would be useful in battle, but Gideon had to admit it was a fine choice as far as her figure was concerned.
The four unlikely companions set out at once through the forest beyond the Clawflow. Following the tracks left by the goblin army was easy, but nothing about the mountain’s looming presence made anyone feel confident.
QUL LED HIS march from the very front. His heavy plate armor and massive hooves thundered with every step, just as he intended. The greatest warriors of the minotaur race marched in step behind him, and Undrakk had produced a horse from somewhere that he rode with elegance unnatural to his heritage. The half-orc was an unsettling presence among the clan, but no one would dare challenge him.
A mile to the south of the minotaur battle formation, the combined orc clans made so much noise Qul thought another battle must have been joined. One of Qul’s generals, a squat minotaur carrying a wide assortment of axes over his back, called to the king and reported the arrival of two minotaurs from the north.
Qul stopped his stride and waited for his clansmen to approach as the column continued marching behind him. The general halted as well and tensed. Something about the stride of the two minotaurs was off-putting and Qul could sense it as well. Minotaurs, while typically bipedal in everyday life as well as combat, often covered great distances utilizing their ability to gallop on all fours, as any hoofed creature typically did. The two minotaurs from the north walked standing upright, but their movements weren’t fluid and their balance seemed precarious at best.
The Goblin Wars Part Two: Death of a King Page 19