by Jim C. Hines
CHAPTER 13
“No plan survives the first encounter with your enemy, so why bother to make one?”
—Farnok Daggerhand, Goblin Warleader
Twenty-three goblins waited outside the doorway as Jig and Slash searched through Kralk’s armory, collecting every knife, sword, mace, morningstar, and ax they could find. Anything would do, so long as it was steel.
“Any reason you didn’t share these toys with the goblins heading out to the hobgoblin lair?” Slash asked.
“I’m betting they won’t be fighting pixies,” Jig said. “Not many, at any rate. The pixies will stay in their own world as much as possible. That’s where they’re strongest. And if I’m right, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
He picked up a quiver of steel-tipped arrows. He had also spotted an enormous bow, but he hadn’t been able to find a bowstring. Not that he or any other goblin knew how to shoot a bow. And the only crossbow had been disassembled so Slash could use the string in one of his traps. But the arrows were long and heavy enough he might be able to use them as spears, which could be useful against an airborne enemy.
He had to make several attempts to get the leather strap over his pixie-cursed arm, but once he managed, the quiver fit fairly well. Jig turned his head to search for more weapons, and the end of an arrow poked him in the ear.
Slash laughed as he stooped to pick up a nasty-looking barbed trident.
“Leave that,” said Jig. “Leave everything longer than your arm.”
“Why?” Slash asked. “You goblins not strong enough for real weapons?” He hefted a thick quarter-staff with iron bands around either end. “This could do some serious damage without drawing much blood, don’t you think?”
Jig ignored him. Carrying weapons under his arm, he stepped through the doorway, being careful not to trigger Slash’s traps. Several knives clanged onto the ground. Jig dumped the rest in a pile.
“Take whatever you can carry, but don’t overload yourself,” Jig said. He studied the goblins closely as they scrambled to arm themselves. He hadn’t tried to pick and choose who would accompany him. Instead he had let the goblins choose for him when he ordered the strongest warriors to help the hobgoblins.
As a result, Jig had been left with the weakest goblins in the lair: the scrawny, thin-limbed goblins who slunk into the shadows and hid from danger. The ones who survived through thievery and betrayal rather than facing their enemies head-on. The ones who had to be twice as cunning as the rest of the lair just to survive. These were the goblins Jig wanted.
Braf and Slash towered over the others. Even Jig didn’t feel like such a runt among this crowd. Most of the weapons had disappeared, and the goblins eyed one another warily as they waited for Jig to speak. However, the bulk of their suspicion was reserved for Jig himself.
Jig kept his back to the wall. They weren’t going to like this. He thought about Farnax and Pynne, remembering their reactions to the cramped tunnels of the mountain. If the other pixies felt the same way, they wouldn’t stay in Straum’s cave. No, if Jig was right, there was only one place they would go.
“The pixie queen sent a handful of pixies into our world to prepare the way,” he said. “They killed or enslaved most of the ogres, but instead of moving up into the Necromancer’s tunnels, they burrowed through the rock until they reached the bottomless pit, where they’ve been hunting and destroying the giant bats.”
To a goblin, a cave was the safest place to hide, with solid stone protecting you on all sides. For pixies, safety lay in the open. They would choose a place where they could fly, where they could ride the wind, and where any attacker would face an enormous disadvantage.
“They’re building their lair in the bottomless pit,” Jig said. “That’s where they’ll bring the queen. If we can get there before they do, we might be able to ambush them.”
As he had expected, his own companions were first to understand the implications. Unless they wanted to make their way through the Necromancer’s maze and a possible ogre attack, there was only one way to get back to the bottomless pit.
“I still smell like goblin filth,” Slash shouted. “Now you expect me to climb back down through—”
“No, I don’t,” Jig said. He had counted on Slash being the first one to complain. “This is a goblin mission. I’ll understand if you prefer to stay behind, where it’s safer.”
“I’ll go!” Braf yelled. “The hobgoblin might be a coward, but I’m—”
“Who are you calling coward, rat-eater?” Slash demanded, shoving goblins aside as he advanced on Braf.
Jig’s plan had worked. Now all he had to do was keep them from killing one another.
“I’ll go too.” Veka’s flat voice momentarily drew the attention away from Slash and Braf.
“Why, so you can get yourself pixie-charmed again?” Slash asked.
“You were enchanted too,” Braf pointed out.
Grell hit them both, one with each cane. Braf took it on the shoulder, and Slash received a sharp smack on the knee. Grell staggered forward a few steps before recovering her balance. Then, to Jig’s surprise, she whacked him on the arm as well. It was his sword arm, and the flesh was so numb he barely felt it.
“Stop standing there with your mouth hanging open,” Grell snapped. “You’re chief, remember? Try to act like it.”
Jig nodded. “We’re going to climb down through the garbage, to a tunnel that will take us to the bottomless pit.” He glanced at Braf and Slash. “You two stay in the back. Make sure nobody tries to sneak away. You too,” he added, nodding at Grell.
Grell raised both eyebrows but said nothing as Jig turned to lead the goblins toward the waste pit. More than pixies or the bottomless pit, this was the part of his plan he had been dreading. But it had to be done.
He stroked Smudge, perched comfortably on his left shoulder. Climbing down the pit was too dangerous . . . too vulnerable. It wasn’t a question of whether one of the goblins would try to kill him. It was simply a matter of when.
He strained to keep his sword from dragging along the ground. His good ear twisted back as he listened for every whisper, every footstep. What was taking them so long? They didn’t actually believe everything Veka had said about Jig being so dangerous and heroic, did they?
There it was. A slight change in footfalls. One set drawing nearer, while the others pulled back, giving the chosen goblin room to make his or her move. Smudge crept closer to Jig’s neck, warmer, but not yet hot enough to burn.
Jig kept walking. His timing would have to be perfect. What were they waiting for? Working up the nerve to attack? His back was turned. How hard could it be?
There, a quick indrawn breath. At the same time, Smudge’s feet seared Jig’s skin. Jig lunged forward, hunching his head and shoulders as he grabbed his sword arm with his free hand and spun, hoisting the blade into the path of his would-be killer.
His attacker slammed onto the broken sword, knocking them both down. Jig found himself staring into the face of Relka, one of Golaka’s kitchen assistants. The knife in her hand clattered to the ground.
Jig kicked her off of his sword. His shoulder felt as though someone had ground metal shavings into the socket.
Relka wasn’t dead. She clutched her bleeding stomach and scooted back, her huge eyes never leaving Jig’s sword.
“Stay here,” Jig said. “Have Golaka bandage you up. If you’re still alive when we get back, I’ll heal you then. Assuming we get back.”
He turned his back on Relka, trying not to feel too bad as she crawled away. He hoped she would survive. She made the best snake egg omelettes. But her attack had done what Jig hoped. The other goblins looked terrified.
Jig shook his head. It wasn’t hard to guess one of them would try to kill me.
Maybe, said Shadowstar. But think about what they saw. You just took out a potential assassin without even looking. They won’t try to stab you in the back again any time soon.
No, Jig agreed glumly.
He had never imagined he would feel sympathy for Kralk. Next time, they’ll try something sneakier.
Climbing up through the waste pit had been bad enough. Climbing down, leading a group of twenty-plus goblins and one grumbling hobgoblin was far worse. Only the cramped confines of the pit, which kept them all moving one at a time, prevented blood-shed. Even so, goblins were constantly stepping on one another’s hands, or dislodging dirt and worse onto the ones below.
Jig had ordered several goblins to carry muck lanterns. As an unexpected bonus, the light and heat seemed to frighten off the tendriled slugs that had stung Jig before. Unfortunately, the goblins kept accidentally igniting the waste that clung to the sides of the pit.
Even with several ropes anchored in the goblin lair, it was a miracle nobody had fallen.
Jig relaxed his grip and let himself drop a bit, away from the bulk of the group. His sword tip caught a rock, jamming his arm and nearly breaking his elbow before he managed to stop. To make things worse, his spectacles kept sliding down his nose. He tried to use his shoulder to scoot them into position, but they immediately slid back down his sweaty face.
“How many ogres and pixies do you think we’ll get to kill?” Braf asked, nearly falling as he shoved past another goblin to catch up with Jig.
“None if you keep talking so loudly,” Jig said. The noise shouldn’t give them away, not this far from the pit, but better to silence Braf now. They should be about halfway down by now, roughly level with the Necromancer’s maze.
Braf bit his lip and nodded.
Jig frowned as he studied the other goblin. “You didn’t get a weapon?”
Braf tried to shrug, and ended up hoisting his body higher on the rope. “I stocked up on rocks instead. If we’re going to fight pixies at the pit, I thought we’d want some kind of ranged weapon.”
Jig hesitated. “You thought of that yourself?”
“No,” Braf said quickly. A strange, frightened expression flashed across his face, then disappeared again. “Grell did. She told me I’d better stick to rocks, or else I’d hurt myself.” He scrunched up his forehead. “Or did she say she’d hurt me?”
Jig climbed a bit lower, thinking hard. “Braf, back when I was trying to get the goblins to help the hobgoblins, you told them they should do it because we’d be able to gloat. What made you say that?”
“Because it’s true!”
Maybe, but it had also been the perfect thing to say, the pebble that had started a rock slide, bringing the lair around to Jig’s plan. Just as Braf had done later, outside Kralk’s quarters, when he mocked Slash. Once again Braf had helped to persuade the goblins to do exactly what Jig wanted them to do.
Jig squinted up through sweat-smeared lenses, and in that instant, he saw it. Braf was studying Jig . . . trying to figure out whether Jig had guessed his secret? The expression vanished as soon as Jig noticed, but it was too late.
“You’re not as dumb as you pretend to be, are you?” Jig whispered.
Braf’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly Jig was very aware of exactly how big and strong Braf was. And Jig’s sword was pointed down toward his feet, with no easy way to lift it here in the cramped confines of the pit.
“Maybe,” Braf said, his voice as quiet as Jig’s.
They were still at least a body’s length ahead of the next closest goblin. Higher up Jig could hear Grell cursing and trying to rearrange her canes. Slash was swearing right back, threatening to cut the rope that held her harness. Others still stood around up top, waiting to follow.
Jig turned his attention back to Braf. “Then why—”
“You’d do the same thing if you were me.”
Jig stared, not understanding.
“How does a goblin captain take command of his group?” Braf asked.
“The same way a goblin becomes chief. Kill the former captain, along with anyone else who opposes you.”
“Look at me, Jig. Big, strong, and threatening. If you’re . . . well, someone like you, you’ll see me as a bully, and you’ll try to kill me in my sleep. If you’re a warrior, you’ll see me as competition. If you’re a captain, you see me as a threat. If you don’t kill me outright, you’ll send me out to fight tunnel cats or ogres or order me to march into a hobgoblin trap. You think it’s coincidence there are no old goblin warriors?”
Slowly, Jig shook his head.
“So I play dumb. I drop my weapon. I let others play their stupid tricks.” He grimaced and rubbed his nose. “I didn’t expect to get a fang punched up my nose, but the point is, if I’m dumb, I’m not a threat. The teasing and the jokes are annoying but better than the alternative. Oh, and a carrion-worm is about to crawl onto your hand.”
Jig yanked his hand away from the wall, which knocked his back and shoulder into the rough stone. The pale, segmented worm was almost as big as his arm. Jig waited until the worm squirmed away, dropping into the darkness with a bit of charred meat and bone clutched in its black pincers.
“So why do you let Grell hit you all the time?” Jig asked.
Braf laughed. “Grell knows what I’m doing. She helps me. I can pretend to be stupid, and she stops me before I do anything too dangerous.” He gave Jig a sheepish smile. “It’s kind of fun.”
“Fun?”
“Sure. You’re always so uptight, so afraid of messing everything up. With me, people expect it.” His smile faded. “Naturally, if you tell anyone, I’ll strip the skin from your body and feed it to the worms.”
“Naturally,” said Jig.
Braf grinned. “Hey, when did it get so cold down here?”
Sweating and warm from climbing, Jig hadn’t really noticed, but Braf was right. The stone was cool to the touch, and the air below . . . “Can someone lower one of those lanterns?”
A flare of heat from Smudge warned him just in time. Jig twisted, pressing himself to one side as a burning muck lantern tumbled past, splattering green flames as it went. Braf swore and flicked a bit of muck from his arm. Overhead, goblins yelled and cried out in pain as they tried to pat themselves out. Then the goblin who had dropped the lantern squealed as his fellows pummeled him for his mistake.
Still, it did what Jig needed. The droplets of burning muck illuminated a silver fog creeping slowly up the pit below.
“Where are we?” The words echoed through the abandoned cavern.
Jig wasn’t sure who had asked the question. He could feel the heat of the goblins gathered behind him. He took a few steps to the side, trying to get his back to the wall. He probably didn’t need to worry. These goblins hadn’t seen the pixies’ world yet, and they were too shaken to think about killing him . . . at least for the moment.
The rippling texture of the obsidian combined with the lead-colored frost created the illusion of being surrounded by molten metal. The light of their lanterns had taken on the same bronze tinge he remembered from his excursion into Straum’s cavern.
Shadowstar? Can you hear me?
Silence. The pixies’ world was expanding much faster than he had expected. That couldn’t be good.
Jig looked around, and for one panicked moment he wasn’t sure which tunnel led out to the pit. Everything was so different with the fog and the snow. They had come from the right, hadn’t they? Rubbing his fang, he began following the cavern wall. His sword dragged lines through the frost beside him.
“This looks a bit like our lair,” Braf commented.
Jig glanced around. Braf was right. The cavern was larger, but he could easily imagine goblins or hobgoblins making a home of this place. He hadn’t seen much the last time he was here, being too eager to escape, but now he looked more closely. Bits of rotted rope still circled one of the obsidian pillars, far too old to have been left by the ogres. When they reached the tunnel, Jig spotted a rusted hinge hanging from a scrap of wood beside the opening. He tried to pry it free, and the wood crumbled in his hand.
Jig had never heard of goblins living this far down, but clearly someone used to inhabit this cavern. Their own lair
might look like this one day, if they failed to stop the pixies.
“Keep your weapons ready,” Jig said as he stepped into the tunnel. “The last time we were here, we faced ogres and pixies both.”
“And rock serpents,” Braf piped up. “Don’t forget about them!”
The response from the other goblins was less than enthusiastic. Jig saw several glance longingly into the cavern, no doubt wondering if they would be better off climbing back through the garbage. Veka remained at the rear of the group. She hadn’t spoken at all since they left the goblin lair. He still wasn’t sure bringing her along was such a great idea, but so far she seemed safe enough, if a bit subdued.
“Come on,” Jig said, hurrying into the tunnel.
They passed a mass of carrion-worms, a knee-high mound of the squirming creatures huddled together to one side of the tunnel. They seemed to be climbing over one another, all trying to get to the top of the pile.
“They’re freezing to death,” Grell said. “They pile together for warmth. We do something similar with the babies, tossing them all into a single crib when the air gets too chilly.” She kept her arms close to her chest, and she kept stamping her feet. She was wearing an old pair of sandals, and her toes had already begun to turn a paler shade of blue.
The cold appeared to be even harder on the rock serpents. Jig saw several snakes coiled into tight spirals for warmth. They weren’t dead—one snake still struck out when a goblin poked it with his sword—but the snake’s reflexes were so slow the goblin actually survived the attack. For all practical purposes, the tunnel was unguarded.
“Smother the lanterns,” Jig whispered. As the flames died, he began to make out the open space at the end of the tunnel. A long stiff shape lay on the ground near the edge: Veka’s staff, right where it had fallen when Slash kicked her in the head. Jig glanced back. Veka had seen it too. She stepped past him, her eyes never leaving the staff. Several of the beads and cords broke free as she pried the staff up, leaving a perfect impression of the wood in the frost and ice. Jig wrapped his good hand around the handle of his sword, wondering if Veka was about to try something heroic again. But she seemed content to stand there staring at the staff.