by Jim C. Hines
He tried not to think about that as he brought the sword to Smudge. The fire-spider watched Jig closely as he took one step, then another. Jig had used Smudge’s hatred of water to train him away from the muck. The only time fire-spiders went near water was to breed. He could tell Smudge fully expected to be spat upon the instant he went after the muck.
“Come on, you stupid spider,” Jig said. Sashi was chasing Braf around a tree. Grell had produced another knife and held it ready to throw, but she didn’t seem able to get a clear shot.
Smudge’s training held. He turned around and began crawling away. Jig gritted his teeth, grabbed the spider, and dropped him onto the sword. Smudge was already terrified, as the burns on Jig’s fingers proved. The muck burst into flames. Finally realizing Jig wasn’t going to punish him, Smudge began scooping muck to his mouth with his forelegs.
It figured. Now that Jig needed his sword back, Smudge refused to leave. Jig stuck the tip of the sword back into the lantern and shook it until Smudge tumbled free. Leaving Smudge to gorge himself in the green flames, Jig turned back to Sashi. She had ended the ridiculous pursuit around the tree by ripping the tree from the ground. Now she stepped toward Braf, arms wide.
Jig rested his blade on his shoulder, grabbing the handle with both hands. Before his spectacles, he wouldn’t have been able to aim well enough to do this. He swung the sword forward. Muck flew through the air like tiny green fireballs, splattering Sashi’s back.
“Good spider,” Jig whispered. Smudge didn’t look up from his feast.
Grell threw her second knife. This one barely nicked Sashi’s shoulder, but it was enough to distract her from Braf. She didn’t even seem to notice the flames making their way up her back, into her hair. What was wrong with her? Smudge had given Jig a number of unintentional burns over the years, and he knew for a fact that fire hurt.
Jig charged, swinging his sword at Sashi’s thigh. If they could take out her legs, they could run away. Also Jig was too short to aim much higher.
Sashi kicked him. The world flashed white, and Jig found himself on his backside, with snow down his shirt and pants, staring at the sky. He raised his head, and the pounding in his skull almost overpowered Braf’s shouts. Braf grabbed his hook-tooth and attacked again. This time he hooked Sashi’s ankle from behind.
She barely noticed, dragging Braf from his feet and ripping the weapon from his hands as she walked toward Jig.
“Don’t you know you’re on fire?” Jig asked. She acted like she’d happily let the meat cook from her bones as long as she got to slaughter a few goblins first.
Jig pushed himself to his knees. Where had his sword landed?
Sashi screamed. Oh, there was his sword, protruding from the flames that now engulfed her back and shoulders. Behind her, Grell hobbled back to retrieve her canes.
Sashi reached around, trying to grasp the sword, but her arms didn’t bend enough to reach. She spun around in circles, like a tunnel cat chasing her tail. Finally she appeared to give up. She took several shaky steps toward Jig, then collapsed face-first on the ground.
“Is she dead?” Braf asked.
Jig crawled toward the still-burning body. He would have walked, but he wasn’t sure his trembling limbs could hold him yet. “I think so.”
Braf used his hook-tooth to catch the handle of Jig’s sword and tug it free. Snow and steam hissed where it landed. Jig decided he could wait a few minutes to retrieve his weapon.
A loud whoop startled him so badly he fell back into the snow. Braf was shaking his hook-tooth at the sky and laughing. “Three goblins against an ogre. Did you see when I hit her with my hook-tooth? And, Jig, the way you flung that muck was brilliant! That ought to teach her not to attack goblin warriors.”
Grell rolled her eyes. With a pained groan, she hobbled closer and spread her hands, warming them over the still-burning ogre. “So does this mean we’re finished?” she asked.
“No!” Jig said quickly. Once their quest was over, Grell and Braf were free to kill him. “I mean, we don’t know Walland’s dead, and he did ask us to help his people. We should at least find out what’s been enchanting them. Whatever it is, they’re not doing a great job.” He stared at Sashi’s body. “We should be dead.”
“What?” Braf stopped dancing. “But you’re Jig Dragonslayer.”
Jig ignored him. Hot footsteps dotted his leg as Smudge returned. There was a distinct bulge in the fire-spider’s fuzzy belly. Smudge headed straight for Jig’s belt pouch, no doubt for a long nap.
“Jig’s right,” Grell said. “The only way so few goblins have ever overpowered an ogre is by sneaking up and killing him in his sleep.”
Braf chuckled. “Yeah, I know that song.” He raised his voice and began to sing.
“Their weapons drawn, the goblin party snuck through darkest night,
lusting for revenge after the morning’s failed attack.
But tonight the goblins meant to wage a goblin’s kind of fight.
With numbers great they stabbed the ogre squarely in the back.”
“Do you remember the last verse?” Jig asked.
“The ogre yelled in red-hot rage, the goblins yelled in fright,
and as he died the ogre seized a goblin’s neck and . . . crack!”
Jig clenched his hands together like an ogre killing his attacker. “Ogre Attack” was a children’s song, with gestures to accompany each line.
“We shouldn’t have survived,” Jig said. Whatever was controlling the ogres, it slowed their reflexes, made them clumsier. That might also explain why Sashi hadn’t seemed bothered by the flames. The enchanted ogres would be less effective fighters, but they wouldn’t stop fighting until they were dead.
Jig stared through the trees at the gray sky beyond. He doubted very much that Shadowstar had sent him here to kill the ogre he was supposed to be saving, but so far, the god hadn’t chastised him. Come to think of it, Jig had heard nothing at all since they descended into Straum’s realm.
Shadowstar?
Silence. What a wonderful time for the god to abandon him.
Grell had retrieved one of her knives, and was helping herself to a bit of well-done ogre meat from the shoulder, where the flames had died down. “So tell me, Jig. With all that running around, do you have any idea how we get back to the ladder?”
Jig stared. Already the snow had begun to cover their tracks. The trees all looked alike to him. It was one of the things he hated about this place. No tunnels, no walls, nothing but open land spreading in all directions. How was anyone supposed to find their way around?
“I—”
Grell snorted. “That’s what I figured.”
And people wondered why Jig hated adventures.
CHAPTER 4
“The difference between a Hero and an ordinary man is that when the ordinary man comes upon a flaming death swamp full of venomous dragon snakes, he turns around and goes home. The Hero strips down and goes for a swim.”
—Saint Catherine the Patient, mother of Glen the Daring From The Path of the Hero (Wizard’s ed.)
Snow and ice cushioned Veka’s fall, but the impact still knocked the wind out of her. She groaned and rolled over, spotting her staff a short distance away. She crawled over and used it to prop herself up.
From atop the ladder, Slash grinned down at her. “Where’s all your fancy magic now, wizard? I’ll bet you can’t cast your spells on a target you can’t see.” He disappeared, no doubt heading back up to the lake tunnel.
He was laughing at her, just like the other goblins had always done. Between one tight breath and the next, Veka forgot all about Jig and ogres and heroic quests. She shook her staff and shouted, “And how exactly are you planning to get past the lizard-fish alone, you ugly mound of dragon droppings?”
Slash reappeared soon after, looking far less cocky than before. “About that—”
That was as far as he got. Veka drew back her arm and threw her staff like a spear. It caught Slash right in the stom
ach.
Slash grunted and doubled over, clutching his gut. Time seemed to slow as Veka watched him recognize his mistake. His spear fell, and his eyes widened. He reached out, flailing for the edge of the pit. His fingers scraped the stone as he tumbled forward. In a slow, graceful dive, Slash somersaulted down and landed flat on his back, almost in the exact same spot Veka had fallen.
She picked up her staff and Slash’s spear while he gasped for breath. Large as she was, Slash was even bigger, and he had landed far harder than Veka. She nudged him with her toe. “Get up. Quickly, before we’re discovered.”
Slash touched his head, as though he were testing to see if the skull was intact. A fall from that height could easily result in broken bones, but hobgoblin skulls were notoriously thick. “Discovered by what?”
Veka pressed her toe to Slash’s head, turning it to one side. “Those things, for a start.”
Twin streaks of fire raced over the trees in the distance. Given the subdued coloration of everything from the sky to the rash on Slash’s face, which looked like old rust, the brilliance of the two flames was even more startling. The nearer of the two was bright green. The other was a deep red. They swooped back and forth, their paths crossing again and again.
“They look like they’re searching for something,” Slash said as he got to his feet.
Jig and the others. She wondered if they were in trouble. The two flames appeared to be coming from the direction of Straum’s cave. “What are they?” That they were magical in nature was beyond obvious, but they were too far away to make out any details.
“They’re dangerous.” Slash reached for his spear.
Veka yanked it back, out of reach. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you for pushing me through that pit. If I weren’t in the midst of a quest, I—”
Slash leaped forward, seized the spear just behind the head, and yanked. Veka stumbled, but she didn’t let go. She tugged back, putting all of her considerable weight into it.
With a wicked grin, the hobgoblin released the spear.
For the second time, Veka landed in the snow. Slash pounced, grabbing the spear with both hands and twisting. He nearly snapped Veka’s wrist as he wrenched it from her grasp. Before she could recover, he smashed the butt into her forehead. “Some wizard.”
Right then Veka would have given everything for just one spell that would take away that smug, arrogant smirk. Maybe something that transformed his teeth into worms. That would be fun to watch.
Slash looked at the ladder. The closest rungs were little more than shadows. Even with his spear stretching as high as he could reach, the tip barely scraped against the lowest solid rung. “We should get out of this clearing,” he said.
Blood heated her face. She had read Josca’s book so many times she knew most of it by heart. Nowhere did it say anything about the Hero being shoved into pits or taking orders from her own sidekick. A true Hero would have wrestled the spear away from Slash and beaten him senseless.
“We need to find Jig Dragonslayer,” Slash said.
Veka rubbed her head. “Why?”
“Unlike a certain oversize goblin braggart, Jig won’t have been stupid enough to come down here without a plan for getting out. If nothing else, that ogre he had might be big enough to hoist us up to the ladder. Unless you want to try your magic?”
Slash didn’t wait for an answer. Veka bit back a squawk as he grabbed her by the ear and yanked her toward the trees. He released her after a few steps, apparently trusting her to keep up.
Veka’s mind filled with all the things she would do to him once she was a real wizard. Her books thumped against her stomach as she ran, painful reminders of how far she had to go to truly follow the Hero’s Path.
They found Walland’s body sprawled upside down against half a broken tree. Another of the flaming lights, a yellow one this time, had already discovered it. Veka and Slash crouched behind a cluster of pine trees. The brown needles were encased in so much ice and snow it was nearly impossible to see beyond them.
“So much for your idea,” Veka whispered.
“Maybe if we dragged him back and used him like a stool?” Slash said.
Shadows twitched back and forth as the yellow light behind the body moved, almost as though it were pacing. Veka flattened herself to the ground. There were fewer branches down here, but now the snow began to chill her whole body. She gritted her teeth and remained, her ears wide as she listened to the high-pitched mumbling coming from the light.
“No life left in this one,” the voice said. “Is it really so difficult to subdue an enemy without smashing them to a pulp?”
The light brightened abruptly, shooting sparks in all directions as it leaped up to land on Walland’s shoulder. This was it: Veka’s first real view of her enemy, her nemesis, the foe she would battle as she traveled the Path of the Hero.
“The ogres were beaten by a bunch of pixies?” Slash whispered. He sounded as if he was fighting not to laugh.
Standing atop the ogre was a small winged man. If he stood on the ground, the top of his head wouldn’t even reach her knees. He had two sets of wings, like an insect, and the yellow sparks seemed to come mostly from the lower set. The wings had an oily shimmer around the edges. Otherwise they were clear as glass, save for faint yellow lines that spread through them like veins on a leaf.
Black cloth crossed around his chest, cinched into a knot at his waist. His black trousers were decorated with red beads that took on an orange shine when they caught the light from his wings.
The pixie gave Walland one swift kick, then flew into the air. “Where have your friends run off to, ogre?”
A low growl made Veka jump, but it wasn’t Walland. The sound came from an enormous dog that sniffed the air as it approached the dead ogre. It walked with a limp, and one of its rear legs was matted, probably with old blood. Gaps in its fur showed older scars, mostly near the throat. Strings of drool swung from its flat, wrinkled face as it bared its teeth and snarled at the pixie.
The pixie barely hesitated, glancing back only long enough to swing one hand in a lazy gesture.
The dog took a few more steps, snapping at the sparks falling from the pixie’s wings, before giving a sharp, pained yelp. As the pixie flew through the branches and disappeared, the dog sat and began to gnaw at its rear paws.
“What happened?” Veka whispered. Slash’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
The dog snarled, attacking its own legs with even greater ferocity. The pixie didn’t appear to be coming back, so Veka crawled out from behind the tree.
“That dog will rip you apart,” Slash warned.
Veka was more curious than afraid. What had the pixie done?
She was almost at Walland’s body when she saw. The roots of the nearby trees had coiled around the dog’s paws, anchoring it to the ground. Smooth black bark crept up its legs. Blood and splinters sprayed from its panicked jaws, but the pixie’s magic was too strong. No matter how the dog struggled, the bark continued to spread. It had reached its hips by the time Slash joined her. The dog’s yelps grew higher in pitch, and foam dripped from its mouth as it panicked. Slash reached for the dog and nearly lost his fingers.
“That’s no way to die,” Slash said. “Can you stop this?”
Veka shook her head, too fascinated to lie.
He grabbed the end of his weapon and swung it like an oversize club against the dog’s neck. There was a loud crack, and the dog dropped.
“Stupid pixies.” Slash nudged Walland’s body with his toe. “The dog was just looking for a meal.”
“How did it get down here?” Veka asked. “I’ve never seen a dog like that before.”
“Probably came with a group of adventurers.” He pointed to a worn scrap of leather buckled around the dog’s neck. A few rusted spikes protruded from the collar, though most had torn away over time. “They bring their animals along on their little quests, get themselves killed, and their pets either wind up in some other creature’s bel
ly, or they go feral like this poor thing. I remember one fellow who carried around a pair of trained ferrets who could disarm traps, chew through knots, all sorts of tricks.”
“What happened to them?” Veka asked.
“We caught one of his companions and tied her up for the tunnel cats. Sure enough, he sent his ferrets to free her while he fought the cats.” He grinned. “He should have taught them to be sure nobody had spread poison on the ropes they chewed.”
Veka turned her attention back to the dog. By now the tree had nearly consumed the body. Only the wrinkled face and one ear still showed, and soon those too disappeared. Tiny branches began to sprout from the dog-shaped stump.
The pixie had done this with nothing more than a wave of his hand. No wonder the ogres were so desperate for help.
Slash gave the wooden head a sympathetic pat. “What now?”
Veka didn’t hesitate. “Walland said they had taken over Straum’s lair. We’ll sneak into the lair and discover their secrets. That should give us the key to destroying them.”
For a long time Slash simply stared at her. When he finally spoke, he sounded almost resigned. “There’s something very wrong with you, even for a goblin.”
Veka didn’t answer. If she tried to explain, he’d only laugh at her. That, or he would go ahead and kill her.
But deep down, she knew. These pixies were her nemesis. Nemeses? It didn’t matter. The magic she had seen proved they were the archenemy she must defeat to finish her journey along the Hero’s Path. If she could overthrow these pixies, it would be a triumph unmatched in goblin history. Nobody would even remember Jig and his stupid song. When she returned, she would be Veka the Great. Veka the Mighty. Veka the Bold. She would have so many adjectives, the other goblins would take all morning just to greet her!