More goblins closed in. An arrow cut the air next to Melkora’s head, ricocheted off the top of the tunnel, and bit into Vorst’s upper thigh. She howled in agony and grabbed at the wound, forgetting about her crossbow. Melkora jumped to her feet as quickly as her spinning vision would allow. She slashed in front of her to ward off the attacker, but only managed to cut part of the goblin’s spear away.
The creature pressed on and swung its broken spear rapidly. Melkora parried the attack and tried to counter. Roisin moved slowly in her grasp and her perception was dulled by throbbing pain. The goblin hit her with the broken spear across the arms and Roisin flew from her grasp.
Melkora collapsed to her knees and searched for her weapon among the corpses. A trickle of blood dripped over her brow and into her eyes. She brushed her forehead with the back of her hand and lost her balance, tumbling beside a dead goblin. After a frantic moment of searching, she latched onto the hilt of her dagger and turned over, ready to strike. The goblin attacker, almost directly over her, dropped its broken spear to the ground. It stared blankly at the tunnel wall as though confused.
Melkora didn’t waste the chance to kill the goblin. She crawled to her feet and drove Roisin through the goblin’s back with a spray of blood and gore. When she pulled her arm back, the creature dropped to the ground with a thud. Dead bodies clogged the tunnel. Melkora ran back to Gravlox and Vorst and waited. After a minute without an attack, she knew something was wrong.
“Don’t go…” Vorst whispered, clutching her bleeding chest. Melkora didn’t listen. Despite her own injuries, she couldn’t sit in the end of the tunnel and wait to die. She crept forward over the mound of corpses and inched her way closer to the two archer goblins as quietly as possible. The pair had dropped their bows by their sides and stood next to each other with blank expressions. One of them swayed slightly from leg to leg, but the other simply stared at a spot on the wall as though in a trance.
Melkora held her blade up and threatened to stab one of the archers. The goblin didn’t respond. She held Roisin to the creature’s pale neck and waited. Still, the goblin watched the wall and made no acknowledgement of Melkora’s presence.
When she ripped the blade across the goblin’s throat, blood spilled from the wound and creature yelped, but otherwise remained inattentive as it died. Melkora ran back to Gravlox and Vorst with a smile on her face.
“She’s dead!” she exclaimed. “Gideon must have done it! The goblins aren’t moving!” She could hardly contain her glee. The back of her head still throbbed uncontrollably, but elation helped to dull the pain.
All throughout the feeding tunnel, goblin warriors milled aimlessly about as they experienced consciousness for the first time in their lives. Most of them dropped their weapons and others had trouble standing on their own. Their minds were freed and for most, it was too much for them to comprehend.
“We should move,” Melkora said. The goblins didn’t appear overtly violent, but she couldn’t afford to take any chances. Another skirmish would likely bring her death. “Help me clear the rocks,” she said.
Gravlox was too injured to help. Six inches of wooden arrow stuck out of either side of his wrist. He felt with his fingers to see if the bones were broken and luckily, they felt intact. Vorst and Melkora use their hands to shovel fallen rocks out of their path until one large boulder remained. There wasn’t enough room in the tunnel to see over the top of the rock, so they pushed it and hoped Gideon wasn’t underneath them. After a minute or more of pressing their weight against the boulder, it gave way and tumbled to the chamber below with a resounding crack.
“Gideon!” Melkora called. She spotted the man covered in blood and slumped against a pointed stone pillar. The entire chamber was a disorganized mess of destroyed goblin flesh and dark red blood. The tremors had caused a land slide of sorts and a buildup of loose stones beneath the feeding tunnel served as a relatively safe ramp to the bottom. Melkora made her way down to the floor and rushed to Gideon’s side.
“Wake up!” she yelled at him. Gideon didn’t respond. She placed a hand on his chest and listened to his breathing. His breaths were slow and uneven. She could barely feel his heartbeat underneath his naked chest. Gideon’s entire body was covered in bruises and cuts that were just starting to clot on their own. His skin, normally a deep shade of swarthy olive, had turned to a pale sheen of grey splotched with patches of black and crimson. Melkora gathered up his clothes, armor, and swords and used what strength she had left to prop his head and back up in a sitting position.
Vorst helped Gravlox carefully descend the rock slide. The arrow in his wrist helped block the bleeding, but his hand tingled from a loss of sensation.
“How do we get out?” Melkora asked. Vorst scanned the area and spotted a small tunnel running downward at the southern end of the chamber.
“That might lead us out, I don’t know,” Vorst said.
“We don’t have time to guess,” Melkora responded. “Help me carry him.” She fitted Gideon’s pants over his body as best she could and raised Gideon from the ground with her shoulder. Gravlox took Gideon’s gear with his good arm and Vorst tried to help support the man’s weight. She was far too short to be helpful though and soon gave up altogether.
Melkora grit her teeth and urged all the adrenaline in her body to help her lift. Slowly, she brought Gideon off the ground and took a few steps forward. His feet dragged on the stone like a corpse, but Melkora bore him to the southern tunnel without complaint.
HALF A DAY later, Melkora emerged from a small ventilation shaft at the eastern base of Kanebullar Mountain. The sun had set and the moon shone brightly through the sparse foliage. She collapsed into the leaves and rolled Gideon to his back next to her. Gravlox and Vorst sat down behind the two humans and tried to fight off hopelessness.
Fires burned in the distance. The sky was choked with smoke and a light haze of ash fell from the sky. Melkora found a bright star glimmering behind the smoke and oriented herself toward Cobblestreet. She knew her village had been destroyed. The dragon had burned everything in its path toward Talonrend.
“How do we help him?” Melkora asked. Her voice was thin and ragged. Her lungs burned from the effort of carrying the larger man on her shoulder. A series of lumps had formed on the back of her skull that throbbed in pain with every beat of her heart.
Vorst looked to Gravlox and knew his shamanistic powers had not returned. The two goblins exchanged several lines in their high-pitched language and Gravlox shook his head.
“We can’t help him…” Vorst muttered.
Melkora knew enough about wild herbs and rudimentary medicine to make a poultice for cuts and scrapes, but Gideon’s wounds were far beyond her abilities. His body was wasting away in front of her and his spirit refused to be roused.
She rested her head against the leaves and closed her eyes to the world. She wanted desperately to sleep, but her desire to guard Gideon was too powerful. She offered up a meager prayer to Vrysinoch for guidance and waited.
Vorst draped Gideon’s travelling cloak over his body and removed the leather straps from his mail armor. She wove the straps around the arrow in Gravlox’s wrist to stabilize it and apply pressure. Her own wound on her chest had clotted well and proved to be less serious than her initial estimation. The skin was painful to the touch, but she was not in mortal danger.
Melkora had closed her eyes for less than ten minutes when a dreadful sound brought her suddenly back to alertness. Wings beat the air somewhere overhead.
“The dragon?” Melkora fearfully whispered. Vorst stood and listened.
“No,” the goblin said. “Smaller.”
Taurnil descended from the smoke and landed at Gideon’s feet with a twisted smile. His three tongues darted around the edges of his mouth like a hungry wolf about to feast.
Melkora couldn’t find the energy to voice her horror. The winged demon reminded her of stories her grandmother would tell her as a little girl of beasts who would steal naugh
ty children and devour them. The woman’s nightmares were far less terrifying than the unholy beast that stalked toward her.
“He’s mine…” Taurnil’s jagged teeth and darting tongues slurred his words into a sinister hiss.
Every fiber of Melkora’s body told her to run. She was battered and exhausted. Somehow, her feet inched forward and she drew Roisin from its sheath.
Fight for me, a gruff voice echoed in her head and startled her. Melkora knew the voice. She didn’t recognize it perfectly, but she knew it.
Fight for me… the voice beckoned once more like a whisper carried on a gentle breeze. It was Gideon’s voice. It had somehow changed, but she knew the familiarity of the voice without a doubt.
Fight for your god! Gideon urged her mind. Without thinking, Melkora launched herself toward the winged demon with reckless abandon. She swung her dagger in a blaze of steel and claws that rang in her ears like the sweetest music. In that moment, Gideon’s thoughts came to her as flawlessly as if they were her own. Beneath his flowing commands that directed her strikes, Melkora felt a hint of something divine.
Roisin darted through Taurnil’s flailing claws and pricked his pale flesh over and over. With every touch, the blade pumped magical poison into the creature’s body, eating its tissue from the inside. Taurnil retreated and leapt into the air, spitting his own vile toxins as he flew. The flow of energy through Melkora’s mind and body showed her the path of the acidic liquid before it even began and she easily dodged the attack.
Taurnil beat his wings hard and hovered a dozen or more feet above Melkora. He hissed and spat his poison again.
Melkora sidestepped and stared the demon in his black eyes. “You will die,” the woman spat. Her voice was foreign to her ears and sounded more like Gideon’s than her own.
Kill him, the voice in her head urged. Melkora launched herself from the ground and feathery wings sprouted from her shoulder blades to carry her higher. Taurnil growled and dove to meet her, but Melkora was faster. Her wings carried her straight under the pale beast and she drove Roisin upwards with divine strength and righteous fury. The dagger tore through the meat of Taurnil’s leg and carved through bone.
Taurnil pulled away and clutched at his tattered leg. Melkora reached to strike again, but her wings dissipated. In an instant, she fell to the ground on her stomach and the hilt of her dagger knocked the wind from her lungs. The winged beast shrieked again and turned in the air to flee. Taurnil held his ruined leg together as he flew above the trees back to his master.
“He will die, Gideon,” Melkora coughed as she struggled for breath. She kissed the crosspiece of her dagger and fell asleep on the cold ground.
UNDRAKK WAITED IMPATIENTLY before the western portcullis of Terror’s Lament. A winged demon carried one of the minotaur generals down over the walls and dropped the heavy beast down in front of Undrakk.
“Why is the gate not opened?” the shaman asked casually. He tossed his polished staff from hand to hand and looked anywhere except at the minotaur. Two frenzied orc clans waited at his back.
“King Qul asks that you wait here for him,” the minotaur said with authority. The general puffed out his chest and tried to appear intimidating.
“Does he?” Undrakk laughed heartily. “And why is that?” He planted his staff in the ground it stood on its own accord without the touch of Undrakk’s hand.
The general hesitated. “Yes…” he said without much bravado. “He wants you to wait.” The minotaur stood nearly twice the height of the half-orc, but shook nervously in his heavy armor.
Undrakk’s smile was unsettling. “Go and tell the good king I expect the city to be opened within the hour.”
The minotaur shifted from foot to foot and slowly nodded. He waved his winged demon escort back to his side and left Undrakk as quickly as he could. When the general landed on the inside of Terror’s Lament, he strode up to the castle doors and took a tentative step inside.
“My liege?” he called out. The stench of blood tickled his nose and gave him pause. “Qul?”
No response greeted him. The general walked several more paces into the castle and saw Qul face down in a pool of blood. He rushed to the king’s side and lifted him from the steps with a gasp. Qul was dead. The general ripped the crown from Qul’s eye and threw it against the wall in disgust.
He kicked the human’s sword off the dais and lifted Seamus’ corpse with one arm. He threw the body against the wall with the other dead humans and took stock of the room’s carnage. Most of the throne room was coated in blood. The dais was practically soaked in it.
With Qul dead, the minotaur clan had no king. By minotaur custom, whoever committed regicide became the new monarch. The general picked up the discarded human crown and brushed some of Qul’s blood from a jeweled tine. He picked up one of Qul’s metal poles and prepared to exit the castle and proclaim himself the king.
Before his hand pushed open the door, it was blasted apart by a violent burst of magic. Undrakk stood in the doorway with his staff pointed at the general’s chest. He opened his mouth to speak and the shaman struck him in the chest with a brilliant bolt of lightning.
A second bolt of lightning shot forth from Undrakk’s staff and coursed through the general’s armor. The heat from the blast roasted the minotaur’s flesh and cooked him inside his breastplate. A third blast knocked the minotaur several feet backward and killed the beast.
Undrakk glided his way to the dead general and plucked the crown of Talonrend from his head with the end of his staff. He brushed the gore from the crown and set it gently between his ears.
The half-orc sauntered out of the castle with an air of palpable confidence. The nearby minotaurs saw Undrakk’s crown and none of them were brave or stupid enough to challenge him. The winged demons bowed before Undrakk and the minotaurs followed suit.
“Qul is dead!” Undrakk shouted above the chaotic din. He turned to one of the demons and commanded it to rise. “Raise the portcullis,” he told the pale creature. It readily obeyed.
Undrakk pointed to another pair of demons that had been scavenging among the dead paladins. “Get the two possessed minotaurs from the walls. Bring them to me,” he ordered.
Facing the rest of the assembled minotaurs and demons, Undrakk magically enhanced his voice to echo throughout the entire city. “I am your king now!” he bellowed.
BY MIDNIGHT, THE two orc clans had entered the city en masse. Snarlsnout the Gluttonous sat on his chair next to Undrakk in front of the drawbridge and drank in the smell of the city’s destruction.
“Your warriors will patrol the walls and guard my city,” Undrakk told the chieftain. Kraasghul stood patiently to the left of the half-orc king and waited for his orders.
“The Wolf Jaw Clan will go to the villages along the river,” Undrakk instructed. “Clear the villages and burn them. Kill everyone you find.”
Krassghul nodded with a smile. Killing humans would suit his clan well. Behind the assembled leaders, Jan and Keturah stood tall. They were content to serve as Undrakk’s advisors. The two were still getting used to life as minotaurs, but it was a life they knew they would enjoy. The view from the front of Castle Talon was intoxicating.
Winged demons patrolled the skies above and their leathery wings cast fleeting shadows over the streets.
“The dragon and the giant bird are dead,” Taurnil said as he landed next to Keturah. She wrapped her arm around him and purred into his shoulder. “Gideon lives,” he spat.
“What?” Keturah exclaimed aghast. “How?” Her eyes caught sight of the garish wound on Taurnil’s leg and all of her newfound security vanished.
“A woman,” Taurnil replied, “with the power of a god…”
DAWN FOUND GIDEON and Melkora sprawled across the ground. Bits of morning frost laced Gideon’s beard and crusted Melkora’s eyes. As the sun warmed Gideon’s body, his skin began to change. The bruises under his flesh receded and the black splotches covering his body faded into deep shades of bro
wn and amber.
The tissue around his wounds cracked and peeled apart, but it was not unwelcome. Brown and white feathers wove themselves between the layers of Gideon’s skin and slowly pushed themselves through his body. Gideon’s mind stirred. He rubbed the weariness from his eyes and sat up.
His vision was sharper than he could fathom. He saw a tiny vole scurrying under a fallen branch several hundred yards away. The sight of the creature excited Gideon’s stomach in a way he could not describe. He stood from the ground and stretched his back. His spine cracked and groaned from the movement.
Great feathered wings unfolded from Gideon’s back and one of them brushed across Melkora’s legs. He felt the sensation of touch in his feathers and a flood of emotion rushed through his being. Gideon looked down at his body and saw small feathers growing from his skin like the petals of a flower. He wasn’t transforming into a bird, but rather merging with the physical image of Vrysinoch.
He stretched his hands out before him and smiled as his fingers curled over themselves into bright yellow talons. Vrysinoch, he whispered silently in his head.
The god’s response shook him to his core.
We are one.
The adventure concludes in Part Three of The Goblin Wars,
Rebirth of a God
Available at your favorite ebook retailer.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Stuart Thaman graduated from Hillsdale College with degrees in politics and German, and has since sworn off life in the cold north. Now comfortably settled in Kentucky, he lives with his lovely wife, a rambunctious Boston terrier named Yoda, and two cats who probably hate him. When not writing, he enjoys smoking cigars, acquiring bruises in mosh pits, and preparing for the end of the world.
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