by Garon Whited
Together, we bound and interrogated our prisoners. I needed the help; I don’t speak goblin very well at all. I understand it just fine, but I can’t think of the words I want. A few more goblins for dinner, perhaps, and maybe that won’t be a problem.
Raeth and Bouger both speak goblin. Bouger is better at it; his father’s domain has a goblin problem on the border. Both of them picked up a lot from their time in the mines. Since we had an interpreter, we didn’t need to speak the merchant pidgin language—it takes a lot of effort to get anything but transactions across in that tongue, but you have a chance of talking to almost anybody in the world with it. Maybe not a good chance, but a chance.
We dragged them off the road, posted guards to keep us private, and waited until they were all awake and looking surly. Nasty headaches will do that to you, but goblins have a natural bent for it.
“Who are you?” Bouger asked the first one. The goblin shook its head and spat at him.
I picked the little guy up in full sight of the other prisoners, bared my fangs in a hiss, and bit the goblin in the neck. Yuck. It was blood, but it wasn’t what I call tasty. I drained it as dry as a rattling sack of sticks, dropped the remains, hacked the body into small pieces, and cut off the head. I punted the head as high and as hard as I could. Then I grinned, fangs out, and pointed at the next goblin to interrogate.
Bouger barely finished asking a question before the goblin was answering it. The others were trying to contribute more information.
They didn’t know a lot. They were part of a scouting force that was looking over the territory around their new city and killing anyone they found. Nobody was supposed to get away. Nobody was even supposed to know about them. They would have just let us go by if I hadn’t obviously seen them. Later, other forces would have grabbed us; their little scout troop would have picked off anyone who tried to flee.
As for who they were serving, they didn’t know exactly. There was a prophet that promised a dominion in the fertile land outside the Eastrange, and they had joined up. Now they just did what their sergeants told them to—in this case, Bakaru, a rather unpleasant orku.
“Where is Bakaru?” Bouger demanded.
“He’s back in his tent, waiting for us. We’re supposed to go back and report before sunup.”
“Why sunup?” I asked; Bouger translated.
I got looked at with a mixture of fear and pity. “Because we’re goblins.”
Bouger pointed out, “They hate sunlight, sir. Most breeds won’t be out during the day for anything less than an orku with a whip at their backs.”
“Fair enough. Tie them together in a line and let me have them; I’ll see what this orku has to say for himself.”
“Sir?”
“Well, I want to know what we’re getting into. I heard the part about ‘our new city,’ and I don’t think it’s because they just built one.”
Raeth nodded. “He’s right. We’ll wait here.”
“Good.”
With my remaining guides, I headed off to meet Bakaru.
Bakaru was doing maintenance on his equipment when we got to his camp. He spoke a version of Rethven’s pidgin or merchant tongue; apparently, goblins and orcs don’t speak the same language.
As a side note, the Rethven language has more than one dialect—much like the difference between the Queen’s English and the English spoken in the deep South of the United States. The elves, goblins, orcs, viksagi, and Kamshasan people, to name a few, also have differing languages or dialects. The merchant tongue is actually an ugly mix of all of them, good enough to get a point across when trying to trade—and not much else. It is not a language of eloquence or poetry, but it works. Where such language is used, I have expanded on it to reflect the spirit and meaning of the conversation. So if a goblin seems more eloquent than you’d expect, it’s because I made him sound that way. That said, I’ll probably not mention it again. But I have a new appreciation for translation spells.
Bakaru was a little over six feet tall and covered in muscle. When his arms moved, it looked like a demolition derby under his skin. His skin was a mottled sort of gray. He had large eyes under thick brows and a forehead that sloped back more sharply than a man’s. He reminded me of pictures of Homo Neanderthalus, with just a touch more of a gorilla in the face. His hair was held back in a tail by a leather thong. He was wearing leather and chainmail and had a nasty-looking serrated dagger in hand. He stood up when he saw the first goblin.
“You! What are you doing here so early!” he demanded, gesturing with the dagger. “Coward! Lazy! I’ll have your heads for this!”
Then he caught sight of the rest of them as they shuffled forward—and the rope binding their hands. He dropped the dagger to grab a spear and sword as he glared into the darkness.
“Who’s there?”
What the heck. I stepped from the shadows and into the moonlight, smiling at him. “Me.”
He snarled and lifted his spear. I hissed and drew Firebrand. He dropped his spear and sword and went to his knees. I blinked in surprise.
“Master!” he declared, knocking his forehead on the ground.
I think the goblins could have taken me right then, if they had tried. I was dumbfounded.
“Who are you?” I asked.
He didn’t get up, but he did stop pounding his head on the dirt. “I am Bakaru of the Cracked Tusk Clan, leader of these miserable goblins in your service, Lord of Blood!”
I wondered what the hell he was talking about. Still, if he’d mistaken me for someone else, this was a good time to quiz him.
“What is your mission, and where is your commander?”
“Master! I am to drive these scum to kill any who might try to escape your new domain. I was sent from the city your forces have captured; there you will find my commander.”
That matched up nicely with the goblins’ report.
“What was the human name for the city?”
“Gate of the East, master.”
Crap. I made a mental note to beat Murphy over the head if I ever saw him.
“Good work. Now, you will keep my presence a secret. Neither I nor the people I am with were here. Forget us entirely. Do you understand?”
“Yes, master!”
“On your feet. Get back to what you were doing, and ignore any sign of us.”
He leaped to his feet and started to berate his goblins for coming back to camp; I untied them and left them to be yelled at.
Back at the wagon train, I called a huddle in the command wagon—Tamara’s wagon, my wagon, the one I called home. I explained what just happened and asked for suggestions.
“Is there no way through to the place you have prepared?” Bouger asked.
“Could be, for people on foot, but I doubt it. I don’t know if there’s a way through a horse—a normal horse—could follow. There’s likely some climbing involved.”
Raeth looked thoughtful. He had been thinking while I’d been telling the tale.
“If there is an easy way—which I strongly doubt—we will have to destroy it behind us. If there is not, then we should go south to Baret and take ship around the Eastrange, though it will cost us time. We should also come to know the forces that occupy Eastgate; if they are all as subservient as this orku, we may have little difficulty. If there are few enough, perhaps the way can be cleared.”
I nodded. “In any case, scouting is my job.” I held up a hand to suppress objections. “I’m faster, I see in the dark, I have a horse that can leap tall wagons in a single bound, and I stand a good chance of telling a significant number of bad guys to shut up and leave me alone. If you have a rational argument, I’ll hear it now.”
There was a thick silence. Tamara finally broke it.
“’Tis better than a journey to face the Hand,” she said, trying to smile. The sentiment was met with a good deal of grudging agreement. Once everyone else was out of the wagon—for the first time in days—Tamara and I held each other.
“Lord?�
�� she asked, her face buried in my shirt.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I must speak before you go. Will you listen?”
“Sure.” I had no idea what she wanted to talk about, but I’m not too unreasonable. Usually.
“I have been a priestess and performed the rite of winter every year since I was sixteen,” she began. “Every year, the Mother selected someone and I would lie with him. Some were handsome, some were gentle, and some were neither. Yet they did the bidding of the Mother, whether they knew of it or no. When they had come and gone, there was nothing more of them. Over two dozen men, and not one ever tried to see me again. Such is the way of the rite.”
I could have been jealous. I could have been upset. But I wasn’t. I found that very weird. She’d just admitted she’d taken a couple dozen different men to bed—well, had sex with them—before she met me. It’s not a rational thing, jealousy; but hearing her story, I’d half-expected it to rear up and snarl.
Not a twitch. That does it; now I know I love her.
“I see,” said I, and stroked her hair. “And the Mother was happy with—wait a second. Over two dozen? I thought this rite was once a year!”
She looked up at me. “But it is. Every winter.”
“How could you have started at sixteen, then? Two dozen men would mean you’ve been at this for over twenty years—you’d have to be at least forty!”
She dimpled. “I have lived forty-two years, my lord. I have performed the rite twenty-six times—twenty-five times before you.”
“You can’t be that old!” I protested. “You can’t be a day over twenty.”
Her dimples became more pronounced. “Health and long life are but two of the gifts of the Mother to Her chosen. Now, will you hear my tale?”
“Uh, yes. I’ll shut up.” And I did. She settled her head against my chest again and continued.
“With each rite, they would simply arrive, traveling from nowhere to nowhere, passing through to whatever fate She has in store for them, pausing only to please Her as they go. This is the way of things. I would see them for an hour or half an hour or for only a few moments; some never even spoke, but fulfilled their roles as beasts in the fields might. They served their function and were gone. But you… I met you, spoke with you, knew you, and you went away… and you came back.” Her voice was low and intense and she held me as hard as she could.
“I carry your seed in my womb, as is fitting; any priestess would bear a child at Her will. But She never allows the one who sired the babe to be anything but a name, if that. Yet, though it was many days later, She drew you back to me. First, you came to me, then I came to you. She chose us—the last of Her priestesses, the last of the Lords of Night—and it is Her desire we be together.”
“I must remember to thank Her,” I said, sincerely.
Tamara looked up at me, squarely in the eyes. “Please do. And do one thing for me?”
“Of course.”
“Come back. Always, always come back.”
“If I can, I will,” I promised. “Now promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“If I don’t come back, it’s because I can’t. Come shove a dragon off me or burn down a temple—but come find me.”
She nodded, eyes bright. “I will.”
I knew it wouldn’t be easy to go scouting, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be. Tamara matters a lot more to me than I ever realized.
While we had our conference in the wagon—and also during my private farewells with Tamara—everyone was roused to turn the wagons around, one by one, and hitch up horses again. It was going to be several hours on the road before they came to a southern fork. While I scouted Eastgate and the mountains, they would head south at best speed, just in case.
If it came right down to it, we could go around the Eastrange by boat from Baret, but it would take a long time. I think the Baron would be willing to let us do that, if we could avoid antagonizing the Church in his town any more.
I decided to start with the mountains; it was the least risky of my options. Bronze and I headed southeast like a bullet.
“I don’t suppose you can find my mountain again, can you?” I asked, shouting into the wind as she galloped like a freight train. She shook her head, spraying flame-shot smoke over each shoulder in turn.
She says she can’t, boss.
“Thanks, Firebrand. Crap. That means we’ll have to camp somewhere along the range and wait for dawn; I’ll have to seek it.”
So we did. It wasn’t a bad morning, all things considered. I found a nice spot in a ravine and dragged some pine branches over to help shade it. I wrapped myself in blankets and reflected how some things never change.
Once the sun was fully up, I sent out a spell in the general direction of my mountain. I’m well familiar with it, so I got a good lock on it.
Bronze and I spent the day trying to walk, climb, or scramble in the general direction of my mountain. It didn’t go well. Periodically, I’d use my crystal to get more of an eagle’s-eye view of the terrain; it wasn’t pretty. Rather, it was quite pretty, in a rugged, impassable fashion. I also learned if something looks like an easy route from a thousand feet up it can be a treacherous, nasty, evil path when you’re trying to walk along it.
I also got a new appreciation for how blasted thick the Eastrange is. Eastgate sits on the thinnest, narrowest section of the whole range—even so, the pass is over a dozen miles long. Everywhere else, it’s wider. You could lose whole armies in those mountains and valleys. It was almost a country of its own. I found several nice valleys almost side by side—and impossible to get to from each other, short of using grappling hooks and rope.
Somewhere around mid-afternoon—and a lot more scrying spells—I called it quits.
“Bronze, I don’t think there’s a way through around here. At least, nothing we can expect women and children to take. You and I might get through this section and sneak up on the mountain, but it’d take more than I’ve got to get everyone across. This place is rugged as the dark side of the Moon and less hospitable.”
She tossed her head and stomped.
She says we can take these overgrown pebbles, boss. Just give her a chance and she’ll kick a road through.
“I don’t doubt you can do it, old girl,” I said, patting her neck. “I wish I had the time to let you. But we’d just have to destroy it afterward; we can’t have a road leading to our hidden lair. It looks like we’ll be scouting out Eastgate tonight.”
Bronze tossed her head and turned around, heading northward along the mountains.
She says that kicking a road through an army will do just fine, boss.
“Thanks, Firebrand.”
I wouldn’t mind carving a path, either.
“I’ll bear that in mind. But I want to see if we can get through without bloodshed.”
There was a long silence from Firebrand. We passed a large rock, possibly a marker of some sort. It had been squared off and carved on, but the markings were worn away.
Boss, has it ever occurred to you that you’re weird?
“On many occasions. People tend to point it out. What weirdness did you have in mind?”
What are you? Firebrand asked. I paused, surprised at the question.
“Hmm. I used to be human. I still feel like one, sometimes. I’m a nightlord. A vampire. I’m also a wizard and a knight—”
That’ll do. A nightlord. And what do you eat and drink?
“Blood and souls.”
And you want to get through Eastgate without bloodshed? Who’s crazy here, you or me?
I chuckled. “I see your point, if you’ll pardon the expression. But as it happens, I don’t particularly care for killing.”
Oh, now that is weird, boss.
“Would it help if I mentioned that goblins taste terrible?”
Hmm. Well, at least that makes sense.
I chuckled as we galloped north.
FRIDAY, MARCH 3RD
Well, Eastgate has been sacked. Someone rolled into town and beat the place to a bloody pulp, then started rebuilding and fortifying it. Mostly goblins; hundreds if not thousands of the little guys were running around—I can’t call it “marching”—and doing general labor. They were like ants, swarming over everything. Overseeing them, about one to every ten or so, there was an orc with a whip, apparently a sergeant. There were also whole units of orcs, obviously the elite divisions, who were loafing around in full kit—a reaction force in case of attack.
I saw all this from a mountainside about four miles away. Getting up there would have been a serious activity for a professional rock-climber. I prepped a gravity-shifting spell in advance for it. Instead of a nearly-vertical cliff face, it was as though I had tilted the whole mountain back about forty degrees. A comparative walk in the park. It did give the whole world a sort of tilted look to it, though; standing straight meant I was the one tilted.
As for watching such details from four miles away… well, dragons have really good eyesight.
Burp.
I wonder what else I can eat and what effects it would have? Does all monster blood carry with it strange qualities? Come to that, is it the blood or the spirit? And do I really want to catch things and coldly devour them to experiment?
I guess I’ll just wonder.
Anyway, it didn’t look like my people were going to fight our way through that lot. Being highly optimistic and assuming we could, A: roll up three times our number of enemies outside the defenses, and B: get inside the new palisade around Eastgate, we would still have C: about two thousand enemy soldiers in town that would contest our passage.
If I could cast spells at night, there would be no problem getting through. As it was…
I wondered if we could bribe them.
“Any ideas, Firebrand?”
Kill them all, drink their blood, consume their spirits, and burn the bodies?