by W.O. Cassity
***
Donadeir felt the heat consuming his body as his muscles fought against the ropes binding him. He wasn’t certain what he was tied to, but he could feel it give a little as he tried to jerk himself free. His head and lungs burned as he continued to scream, not even recognizing his own voice. Everything was sheer darkness, and the pressure was growing behind Donadeir’s eyes when his ears heard silence over the ringing of his own cries.
Opening his eyes, the pressure quickly abated as he looked around in confusion. More than twenty goblins were silently staring down upon the fight happening at Donadeir’s feet. The goblins looked even more confused than he was. As the lone figure pushed himself up off the goblin lying on the ground with a dagger in its chest, Donadeir saw a face he recognized.
“River Rat!” Donadeir exclaimed.
Donadeir stared down in disbelief. The dock boy had managed to put his dagger into the goblin’s chest. In his hands, River Rat held the goblin’s poking stick, and he unskillfully flailed it through the air in a poor attempt to scare away the goblins gathered around him.
“Don’t call me that!” Adam barked back at him after flinching.
“Behind you!” Donadeir said in an outburst of panic. “Idiot!”
Donadeir watched as River Rat turned to face the crowd of goblins. He could see another small goblin had begun running toward him, but it stopped halfway as its eyes came to meet his rescuer’s. As impulsively as it had decided to attack, the cowardly goblin quickly followed the impulse to run away back to the safety of the crowd. All of the goblins erupted in laughter and unsettling glee filling the valley with chaotic dissonance.
The dock boy wasn’t much of a hero, and Donadeir was pretty sure the goblins viewed him as more of an early dinner entertainment than threat. The unruly crowd of goblins danced and jumped about at the intrigue surrounding its main course for the evening. Several goblins in the crowd began to step forward, only to have their cohorts stop them as they began to squabble amongst themselves. They were trying to decide which one would engage River Rat first. It looked as if there was some kind of pecking order at work, much in the way dogs challenge one another for dominance.
The pit in Donadeir’s stomach began to grow when he realized several of the stronger goblins had begun to step apart from their ranks, eyeing both the dock boy and each other as if they wanted to make this a more interesting encounter.
“Attack them, moron!” Donadeir exclaimed. “Wait! Untie me first!”
“Talia!” Adam cried out, looking uncertain what he should do.
“Now, Adam!” Talia cried out with her every breath.
“Talia!” Donadeir shouted with surprise. “This maniac is getting us killed!”
There was no time, Donadeir knew, as the goblins began to advance on them. Dismay overwhelmed him as he watched the dock boy grabbing for the ropes around his waist, scrambling for anything he could find to hold on to and closed his eyes. He wanted to scream at him to fight instead of clinging to him like some sort of coward. Suddenly a low rumbling and a crashing sound behind him became deafening.
Donadeir had achieved flight.
All the noise drowned out Donadeir’s screams as the tension of the vine ropes nearly crushed him as they drew him skyward with Adam kicking and screaming along for the ride. As the boulder made a rumbling smash into the valley’s floor, Donadeir felt a moment of weightlessness and believed he would float away. Then as quickly as Donadeir became light as air, gravity remembered its prey and tried to crash him back down to the ground, only to be stopped by the ropes secured around his body which cinched tightly and knocked the air from his lungs, what little was left anyway.