by Jim C. Hines
She fought to stand, but her body wouldn’t obey. Straum’s body. Magic and ice and decay had turned the skeleton into a solid mass of bone. She would have to break the bones to move them. This had been a mistake. How could she have been so foolish? She tried to release the spell, but even in death, Straum was too powerful. His body sucked Veka’s power and refused to let her go. She was inside Straum’s bones, but she couldn’t move them. She would have laughed at the absurdity, but even that was beyond her.
Veka felt nothing. No cold, no pain, nothing but magic. The river of magic pouring from the portal in her mouth, the currents flowing through the room, the tiny spot of warmth on her side . . . no, that was Veka herself, felt through Straum’s body. Her jaw throbbed, as if she had tried to swallow one of Slash’s goblin prickers. Was that the portal causing her such pain?
There was Moltiki, crawling around the front of the hill toward Veka.
Would she even feel the strike, or would her existence simply end? Worse yet, would her mind remain trapped inside Straum’s skeleton, blind and deaf and forever unable to move? Despair began to weigh her down as much as the bones themselves.
Time seemed slower, trapped inside the dragon. She could feel each ripple of Moltiki’s muscular body as the great snake drew back to strike. The pixies darted about, sending currents through the magic like bugs on the lake.
As she waited for the serpent to finish her, a single thought wormed through her mind. Jig would have found a way.
Anger burned through despair. Jig always found a way. He always won. Veka was the one who got captured by a pixie peon or eaten by a flaming serpent or stabbed through the gut by Jig Dragonslayer! Jig had slain Straum, and Veka wasn’t even strong enough to overcome the power in the dragon’s dead bones. It wasn’t fair!
The portal pulsed in her jaw as waves of magic poured from the pixies’ world. Veka tried to shut out everything except that portal. Forget the pixies. Forget Moltiki. Forget Slash. She didn’t even know if the hobgoblin was still alive.
Jig would have succeeded. So would she. Straining every bone in her neck and jaw until they felt ready to shatter, Veka wrenched Straum’s head to one side and snapped the great jaws down on the serpent.
There was a moment of tremendous pressure. She thought about the younger goblins who, when harassed by mosquitoes and other bloodsuckers, would pull their skin taut to trap the bugs in place. Blood would continue to bloat the mosquitoes until they exploded. At that moment, Veka felt a great sympathy for those poor bugs.
The skull shattered, and Veka lost consciousness.
Rough hands shook Veka’s arm. She opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. The light felt like knives going straight to her brain. “No goblin should have to wake up to that ugly face,” she mumbled, shoving Slash away.
“About time you woke up.” Slash sat against the wall of the cave. He had wrapped torn singed strips of her cloak around his leg. Water dripped down from the melting ice.
Veka looked around. Moltiki’s body had been cut completely in half, either by Straum’s jaws or by the explosion that followed. Huge shards of bone littered the cave floor. If the pent-up magic had done that to a dragon’s bones, she wondered how bad the damage had been on the pixies’ side of the portal.
She reached up to touch her face. Her fangs had driven right through her cheeks when she clamped Straum’s jaws down around the serpent.
Blue blood. She stared at her hands. The metallic glow of the pixies’ world was gone.
Slash was holding up one hand to block the sight of her blood. “Do you mind?”
She wiped her hands on her apron. “That box. What was it?”
“Needle trap. I pried it out of one of the Necromancer’s doors a few months back. Dipped the needle in lizard-fish poison for good measure.” He pointed to the pixie who lay dead near the tunnel entrance. “I had been planning to install it in a little chest and leave it in front of the goblin lair.”
He gave a sheepish shrug. “The chief only told us not to kill goblins. Is it my fault if you hurt yourselves on one of my toys?”
Veka was too exhausted to do anything but shake her head. Even that was a mistake. The bones in her neck popped and cracked, shooting pain down her spine. All she wanted was to lie down and sleep for the next few days.
“How do you think Jig did?” Slash asked.
Veka snorted. “He’s probably back at the goblin lair, sipping klak beer while the other goblins make up new verses for ‘The Song of Jig.’ ”
Slash chuckled. “Forget ‘The Song of Jig.’ I want to know what they’re going to sing about this.” He waved an arm to encompass the snake, the bone debris, the dead pixies, and the multicolored slush dripping from the walls and ceiling. “I’ll tell you this much, though. The first goblin to call me ‘Slash’ in a song gets a lizard-fish spine in her boot.”
Veka stared at the scar running down his face. For the first time she thought to wonder how it had happened. “Who did that to you?”
He flushed. “I did it myself. An ax trap I was working on misfired.” He shrugged. “Could be worse. You should see what my friend Marxa looked like after her fire trap went off prematurely.”
Veka nodded absently. Reality was gradually beginning to seep through her shock. She was still alive. The portal was destroyed. The pixies had all died or fled.
She glanced at the tattered remains of her cloak, wondering what had happened to Snixle. She had forgotten all about him when she tossed away the burning cloak. If he had remained inside her pocket, she would have been able to smell his burned remains. She crawled over and poked the cloak. A bit of ash floated free, all that remained of her spellbook.
“Hey, Veka.” Slash still wouldn’t look at her. “That snake was going to kill me. One more bite. . . .” He grimaced and touched the bloody bandages on his leg. “I mean, if you hadn’t stabbed him like that. He . . . you . . .” He shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t say it. Not to a goblin. If the other hobgoblins found out a stupid, fat, ugly rat-eater like you had saved my life, they—”
“Shut up, Slash.” Veka rolled her eyes. After everything else she had been through, the hobgoblin’s insults were no more bothersome than gnats. The normal kind, not the orange pixie gnats. Besides, if he got too uppity, she could still bounce him off a few walls. “You’re welcome.”
She tried to stand up, and her head began to pound. “Forget that,” she muttered. With the portal closed, she had to try several times to cast her levitation spell. The pixies’ magic was still here, but it was dissipating fast, like smoke in the wind. Eventually she managed to tap into that fading power. Ever so gently, she lifted herself from the ground. A second spell scooped Slash after her. Together they floated out of Straum’s lair and into the wider cavern, toward home.
CHAPTER 17
“Well, that didn’t go quite the way we had planned.”
—Poppink the Pixie
Jig had experienced plenty of unpleasant awakenings in his life, from the time he woke up to find a group of goblins preparing to drop a baby rock serpent in his mouth to the time he discovered Smudge building a web in his loincloth. This one topped them all. Not only was Tymalous Shadowstar’s voice booming loudly enough to crack his skull, but when he finally opened his eyes, Braf’s face filled his vision.
Braf grinned so widely a bit of drool slipped from his lower lip. “It worked! You’re alive!”
You weren’t joking, were you? asked Shadowstar. Less than a day, and already you’ve got goblins trying to kill you.
Jig groaned and sat up. “Yes, I’m alive.” He stopped. The pain in his back was gone. Drying blood covered his vest, but the wound itself had disappeared. Why am I alive?
Because Braf fixed that nasty hole in your back.
Jig stared, trying to absorb that piece of information. Braf had healed him. Braf, who was now standing next to Jig. Standing on two bare, perfectly healthy feet. Grell sat on the ground behind him, tending a small fire. She had taken the rem
ains of Jig’s muck pouch and set the whole thing aflame.
You . . . he healed me? But I thought you couldn’t do anything down here. The pixies—
Look around, Jig.
The tunnels were the same red and black obsidian he was used to. The flames rising from his muck pouch were a healthy green. This was the chamber where he had fought the pixie queen. Without the sparkle of magic and the flurry of pixie lights, Jig barely recognized the place. The blood on the ground gave it away though. A sticky blue puddle showed where Jig had passed out.
Noroka still lay face first on the ground, snoring loudly. “You healed her too?”
Braf nodded. “Those pixies broke her nose pretty good, but she wasn’t dead.”
“Pixies. Right.” Jig looked out at the bottomless pit. “How many others survived?”
“Counting us?” Grell asked. “Maybe five or six. I’m not counting you, because you should have been dead. Would have been, if Braf hadn’t stuck his finger in your back and—”
“Thanks,” Jig said, cringing.
“The others already started climbing back up to the lair,” Grell went on. “I wanted to follow, but this clod kept insisting you were alive, talking about how he had to save you. When I asked how he planned to do that with the bones of his foot all crushed to gravel, he sat down and started fixing his own foot. After that I figured maybe he knew what he was talking about for once.”
“How did you get here?” Jig asked.
Braf pointed to a rope hanging down the side of the pit. “One of the ogres tried to fly straight into the tunnel. Snapped his wings, but he nearly got me. Grell snuck up and jabbed a knife in his ear. We tied the rope around his body and climbed on down.”
Jig stood up, testing his balance. He was filthy, hungry, and exhausted, but everything appeared to be working. He crouched by Noroka and shook her until she stirred. “Watch her,” Jig warned. “Stop her if she tries to go over the edge.”
Braf and Grell looked confused, but they didn’t argue. Braf stepped toward the pit, arms spread.
“My head hurts,” Noroka said. “I think the mountain punched me in the face.” She gasped. “Grop. He—”
“Took a dive into the pit,” Jig said. “Do you want to do the same?”
Noroka scowled. “Is that a threat?”
“No.” Jig realized he was grinning. He didn’t know how long he had lain there, but it was long enough for the pixie queen’s magic to disperse. If the steel arrowhead hadn’t killed her, the wind would eventually do the job, smashing her against the walls of the pit. Most of the pixies had probably suffered the same fate as they flew so recklessly after their queen, trying in vain to save her.
He stepped to the end of the tunnel and looked into the darkness. The muck fire gave enough light for Jig to see the nearest bubbles of the pixie nest. They sagged gray and broken from the walls. He saw pieces flaking away, spinning as they disappeared into the dark.
Of all the goblins who had come with him, only a handful still survived. He wondered how the goblins back at the lair had done against the ogres. If things had gone as poorly there, Jig might have singlehandedly overseen the extermination of half the goblins in the mountain.
Is that why you spoke to Braf? he asked. To replace me with a follower who doesn’t get everyone around him killed?
Don’t be daft, snapped Shadowstar. I spoke to him because it was the only way to keep you from bleeding to death. I actually asked Grell first, but she told me to go to hell. I wiped it from her mind, so she doesn’t remember. But that left the idiot.
Braf isn’t—
I know he’s not as dumb as he pretends to be, but he’s still a goblin.
Thanks.
“What now, Jig?” Braf asked.
Jig stared for a long time before realizing what Braf meant. Jig was still chief. Braf and the others still expected him to tell them what to do. Jig groaned and rubbed his head. “We should go home,” he said. “We have to find out if anyone survived up there.”
“Braf and I will go first,” Grell said. “He can haul me back up, and then you two follow. We shouldn’t put too much weight on the rope. That ogre was a big fellow, but we don’t want to push our luck.”
Jig nodded.
“Watch out for that nest too,” Grell added. “Those chunks are hard as wood when they fall, and they’ll scratch you good. The big ones could knock you clean off the rope.”
“I will,” Jig said.
“Of course some of the pieces are pretty sharp. We’ll be lucky if one doesn’t cut the rope clean through as we’re trying to—”
“Will you just go?” Jig snapped.
“Hmph.” Grell grabbed a bit of rope and began tying herself to Braf. “See if I ever share my sugar-knots with you again.”
Jig climbed slowly, despite his fears. He had hesitated at first, not sure whether he should go first and give Noroka a clear shot at his back. But if he followed, it would be just as easy for her to cut the rope, sending him into the pit. In the end he decided he was too tired to worry about it. If she killed him, at least he wouldn’t have to be chief anymore.
His mind hurt as he tried to absorb it all. What had happened to the pixies’ world? No matter how he thought about it, he kept coming to the same answer: Veka. She and Slash must have found a way to close the gateway. Jig spent a fair amount of time wondering how in the name of the Fifteen Forgotten Gods she had managed to pull that off.
Then there was Braf and Shadowstar. By all logic, Jig should have been happy. Let the goblins come to someone else for a while with their broken bones and their bloody wounds. Let Braf be the one the ogres sought out when pixies invaded. Braf could have Tymalous Shadowstar, and Jig could have some peace and quiet.
Yet every time he thought about it, the idea of Braf taking his place made his teeth clench tighter.
Why, Jig, I think you’re jealous.
Jig rolled his eyes. Can’t you snoop around in his mind for a while?
I did. It’s boring. Besides, who says I can’t snoop in two places at once? Now tell me, what’s really bothering you?
You, said Jig. You pushed me to go to the lower caverns with Walland. You pushed me to fight the pixies. You pushed me into that fight with Kralk. You’ve been trying to control me all along, just like the pixies controlled their ogres.
Haven’t we already been over this? Shadowstar asked, sounding a bit testy. Jig, what do you think would have happened if you hadn’t gone? The pixies would have swept through this mountain, and every last goblin would be dead or a slave.
Jig wrapped his arms and legs around the rope and rested briefly. Kralk could have led that fight.
Jig, the goblins are dying.
Jig snorted. That’s what happens when goblins fight ogres.
That’s not what I mean. Think about that cavern where the ogre refugees were hiding. Who do you think used to live there, and what happened to them?
Jig didn’t answer.
You goblins have always lived in the dark, dank holes of the mountain. Even before you sealed the way out a year ago, you isolated yourselves from the world. You hid, and you fought, and you died.
I sealed the entrance to protect us, Jig snapped. And if this is your solution, I’m not impressed. All you did was speed up the process.
No, the pixies did that. Jig, you can’t go back to hiding in your temple, and the goblins can’t keep hiding in their mountain. Straum’s cavern is wiped out. The Necromancer’s tunnels were already dead, if you’ll forgive the pun. And there are other empty lairs, places where goblins and hobgoblins and other creatures used to live before they died out. If things don’t change, empty lairs will be all that’s left.
You want us to leave? Jig asked.
I want you to stop isolating yourselves. Jig, your race was brought here to help protect the treasures of the mountain. Those treasures are long gone. The goblins have no purpose. All you do is fight the hobgoblins and the other monsters, when you’re not fighting yourselves
.
Jig shook his head. I can’t—
You have to lead, Jig. Kralk couldn’t have done it. The hobgoblins won’t. If the goblins are going to survive, you have to be the one to guide them.
It all sounded so reasonable. Jig rested his face against the rock. Why didn’t you tell me? Why not trust us to make our own decisions?
Shadowstar didn’t respond, and Jig didn’t bother to repeat himself.
The goblin lair was empty. Braf and Grell had opened the door from the waste pit, and the cavern was as quiet as the Necromancer’s throne room.
“Do you think the ogres won?” Braf asked.
Jig shook his head. The pixies’ control over the ogres should have been broken, but that probably didn’t matter. The ogres would have found themselves free, in the midst of a battle with goblins and hobgoblins. Being ogres, they probably reacted the same way the goblins would have: by finishing the battle. But if that was the case, why hadn’t they overrun the lair? Where were the goblins who had remained behind? There were no bodies, no signs of battle, aside from day-to-day goblin messiness.
He hurried past the others, running toward the kitchen. Dying muck fires flickered to either side as he peered through the doorway.
The kitchen was empty. The cookfire was little more than embers.
“Golaka left her kitchen?” Braf whispered, sounding shaken.
Jig wanted to weep. He didn’t have the strength for another battle. He reached up to pet Smudge. The fire-spider didn’t seem worried. Maybe the events of the past few days had burned out his ability to feel fear.
By now Noroka had emerged from the waste pit. She cocked her head to one side and said, “Jig, listen.”
He tilted his head and twitched his good ear. Screams coming from the hobgoblin lair. He started to reach for his sword, forgetting the pixies had thrown it away. Grimacing, he snatched a large kitchen knife and headed for the tunnels.
The closer they came to hobgoblin territory, the stranger the sounds became. He didn’t hear the ring of steel or the high-pitched squeals of wounded goblins. The taunts and shouts weren’t as loud or hateful as he would have expected either. Some of the voices actually sounded like they were singing.