by Emma Hamm
He had to grit his teeth through the words to force them past his lips.
“You see?” Dumar nodded. “At least he’s speaking sensible now. I would nominate Shusar. He may be small, but he is intelligent and not afraid to use a heavy hand.”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?” The Queen smiled at him. “We want to keep her alive so that she can keep us alive. Are there other nominations?”
Micah spoke up. “Illyrin is large enough that she could not overpower him. He may be shy but I believe that he would be a good option.”
“Absolutely not.” Dumar’s voice cut through the calm. “He is not a strong enough hand.”
“Yet she would be safer than with Shusar. We all know he has enough reasons to want to kill her.”
The Queen nodded slowly, that gnarled finger tapping on her chin once more. “We will send all three. One goblin will sleep at some point and the council will rest easy if she is being watched at all times. I want you to lead them Ruric, under the explicit condition that they are allowed to overrule you if they think that she is manipulating you. Is that understood?”
Ruric nodded in response.
“Good.” She said. “I want you to leave immediately. That human has a head start. You have a lot of time to make up. Get into that City and remove him. Bring our son home safely.”
Her words darted towards Ruric and left more pressure upon his shoulders. She trusted him to lead them when he did not trust himself.
She stood to leave, silencing the rest of the council members that attempted to argue with her once more. Ruric had seen that expression on her face before. She was settled into her opinion and no one was going to change that.
He was surprised when she paused by him. Her hand held onto his forearm and the clawless hands dug into his skin.
“You may not trust her, but I do.”
He shook his head at her. “How, grandmother? How can you trust her after everything that has happened?”
Her hand patted his arm firmly. “She makes decisions with her heart. And while we might not agree with it, that is not a bad quality. Someday she will learn how to listen to both her heart and her head at the same time. On that day, you will see why I will continue to trust her.”
His eyes followed his Queen as she walked away from him. Strange how she had always managed to remain wise and confuse him at the same time. Her words would echo in his head for the rest of the day.
4
“You want me to what?”
Jane had only just managed to sneak back into the cave by the time Ruric returned. Her arms were still scratched and her head ached from where it had hit against the hard stone.
However, she was feeling a sense of exhilaration just by seeing the moons. She felt lighter than she had in months.
She was still breathing hard when Ruric swept into their cave.
“We need you to follow him. And if he gets into the City, we need you to stop him.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you understand, Ruric. The City is not as easy to get into as your people think. I can’t walk in there and expect them to welcome me with open arms. It’s not like here.”
Ruric shrugged. His green tinged skin seemed to glow in the blue lights of the cave. Even through everything that they had done, Jane still found him strangely attractive. It was the strength in him. The power that called to her because she felt an answering echo within her own breast.
“Micah has said you will succeed.”
“Oh!” She laughed though the sound was much darker than happiness. “And because Micah believes in me, your people will now trust me with their future in my hands? Somehow I seriously doubt that Ruric.”
He placed a hand at the small of her back and guided her towards the small carpets that filled the cave. She saw every step of the way clearly as there were many globes lighting their way. No other goblin had so many lights to chase away the shadows. But he knew that she preferred them.
The lights were too bright for this conversation. He remembered all too well the heaviness that had weighed upon the council members.
He would be lucky if she did not feel the same pressure.
“I will be going with you.”
His words seemed to echo slightly in the cave. He watched as her eyes widened in shock.
“You don’t know how dangerous that will be.”
“No.”
“Has a goblin ever been above ground?”
“Not that we know of.”
She growled with frustration. “Then it is foolish to go with me. You could die within hours or days. It is too much of a risk.”
“It is the only risk we can afford to take.” His growl had more presence than hers, but was no more intimidating. “You have to go. You have to stop him. Or do you wish to see him return with an army?”
“I have never wished that.” She said quietly. For a moment her head dropped to look at her hands. Her open palms were tilted towards the ceiling. There were no more callouses on her hands, just smooth skin. Jane had never experienced such a luxury before she was taken here.
Finally she looked back up at him, the expression on her face one of complete and utter loss. “I cannot promise that I can stop him. Even if I make it into the City, there are too many unknowns. If we go, there is no guarantee that we will be able to stop him.”
His spine straightened. His expression was cool and confident. “I have led many raids. I have killed many creatures. If you get us into the City, I will stop him.”
“I do not question your strength, Ruric. I question whether or not the plans he has put into motion can ever be stopped.”
And there it was. The real guilt that had eaten away at her since the humans had killed so many. Whether it was her fault or not meant nothing to the future. Jane had not helped them kill nor had she helped them escape. But she had not attempted to stop them. This in itself meant that she was responsible for the future of this hidden world.
They were all slowly sinking into a pit of quicksand. She couldn’t stop the rush of time. Whether that was an army or a small group of men that were going to attempt to kill the creatures she now considered her own, it was likely something was going to happen.
“Jane.” Ruric leaned forward, though he did not touch her. “We do not have a choice. We must go now. We have to try.”
She slowly nodded.
“There’s no way to know that we’re going to succeed.”
Ruric shook his head at her. “We have to succeed.”
Therein lay the problem. Jane couldn’t promise that they would. The City was a vast expanse of unexplored land to her. She wasn’t even certain she would be able to get in through the walls.
She owed these people. They had shown her such kindness and their world was too fragile to threaten. Most of the goblins here didn’t want to fight or even knew how to fight.
The same could not be said about the human slaves that had lost their lives rebelling against these creatures. The goblins had a lot of work to do before they understood that humans were the same as them. The humans had a lot of work to do before they were capable of understanding that there was an intelligent race that lived below them.
She feared that no matter what she and Ruric accomplished, the cork had been wiggled free. Humans were bound to find out about the goblins eventually. But they had more weapons, more abilities to kill than the goblins could understand.
“I can agree to try.” She whispered.
Once more she looked at him and met the pitch black gaze of his eyes. Once they had terrified her. His eyes had seemed soulless when they stared at her. But now she understood that looking upon them was the same feeling as looking up at the night sky. She felt so incredibly small.
“That’s all I can ask.” He whispered back to her.
In a short amount of time, they gathered what they needed for their newest adventure together. Jane was silent as she packed the small amount of things that she could take. Ruric had disappe
ared to prepare the others and left her alone to take what they would need from their cave.
This was the first moment he had allowed her to do more work than him. She walked through her home with a light in her hand and carefully chose every small bit that she thought would help them. The items she chose were not the ones he would have.
The flashlight was bundled quickly, as were the clothing that she had arrived in. Cloaks were gathered into her arms but laid out only at the end. A few reeds and two knives were rolled inside the large bundles of cloth. The rest was food that she could gather that had been drying in the back of the cave. Fish that he had insisted would go rotten were instead edible as she had smoked them.
They were meager things, but they were all she had. Jane wanted to take a few crystals to remember this place by. The goblins would assume she was taking them for currency. They would assume she was running away.
The thought didn’t register as strange in her mind. Jane had yet to realize that she was already planning to never return.
This place had become her home. Merely the thought of leaving created such mixed emotions within her gut. To see sun and sand again was an opportunity that set loose butterflies of excitement deep within her belly. But it also created a sense of guilt at leaving this place.
Her hands trailed along the walls and she smiled at the light that blossomed in their wake.
The smart choice would be to remain Above whether it was offered or not. There was plenty of mending to be done between the goblins and humans. Frankly she wasn’t certain whether that could ever be achieved.
It certainly wouldn’t happen if no one tried.
She said her goodbyes quickly to the place she had come to think of as home and hefted the pack onto her shoulder. By the time Ruric returned, she was seated once more by the gathering of bright crystals. Her eyes did not move from their light for a long time.
Finally she looked at him and nodded her head. “I think I have everything.”
“Nothing else?” He asked quietly. “You bring very little.”
She could hear the worry in his voice, and at the end, the resignation.
Jane shook her head in response. “No. The rest we’ll gather when we get there. We cannot afford to take too much. These things are very different and will likely gather too much attention.”
Her eyes looked over him critically and she added, “We’ll have to find you and your men clothes when we reach the surface. You can’t walk around like that. Boots will be the most uncomfortable I’m afraid.”
He stood. His powerful height had always given him an advantage over her. Yet in this moment Jane stood stronger than he. She was confident in her actions. This was her world that they were going to. Ruric realized he wasn’t fond of this position.
A strange fluttering in his stomach was making him edgy. Nothing felt right about this. She was likely to run as soon as he gave her a chance. The chance of the mission succeeding was minimal. And if they did not succeed, his people would have more to blame her for than ever before.
Ruric wasn’t certain when he moved, but he knew the moment he stood in front of her that his entire body had been aching for her. Not just to be close, but to smell her, to feel the soft texture of her skin.
His clawed hand raised to gently press against her cheekbone. She was so delicate in his grasp. He could crush her with just a thought. And yet when he touched her, she curved inwards towards him.
“Are you ready to go home?”
Her blue eyes looked up at him. “It was never a home. I just didn’t know that until I came here.”
With those words echoing in his head, he watched as she stepped away from him. Her body had grown thin in these few weeks. The strength he was accustomed to seeing in her was waning. How had he not noticed this before? She was not the same woman he had brought down here. The fire within her would never be stamped out, but the confidence in her body was less.
She hefted one of the packs over her shoulder and gestured for him to do the same. “Come on then. Let’s head out. There’s no use stalling.”
The other goblins waited for them in the armory. Their shadows stretched towards the pair that walked towards them.
Shusar had been an obvious choice. He was small enough to pass as human as long as the others didn’t see his face. He was the most likely to notice the first moment when and if Jane strayed towards her own people again. Illyrin would be the other half of the bulk that would help them should they enter a fight.
Both goblins stood when the couple entered the cave.
“You are ready then?” Shusar asked quietly in the goblin language.
“Yes.” Ruric replied. “And you?”
Illyrin shifted, the beads in his hair clacking softly. “As much as we ever will be.”
Ruric nodded slowly.
“Ruric?” Her soft voice caused all the goblins to look at her. Not because they were surprised that she spoke, but because they had all nearly forgotten she was there. “Is everything alright?”
He was always forgetting she could not understand their language. It was something he would need to remedy as they traveled. “We are unsure whether we can be above ground for long. We are as ready as we will ever be.”
As was her way, Jane then surprised him. “We should bring more flasks of water. What we carry now is enough to keep us alive, but your skin will be unused to dryness of the desert. Bring what you can to drink, but bring more than you would need here.”
The spark he was so used to was back in her eyes. Perhaps the adventure was bringing back the woman that had fought him so fiercely.
Shusar nodded towards her. “She appears ready.”
“Too ready?” Ruric asked as the woman he called wife gathered more flasks from the corner.
A grim expression crossed the elder goblin’s face. “I’m not sure that there is such a thing in this case. We will all need to be on our guard it seems.”
“I will not have her harmed, Shusar.”
“It is not my intention.” But that grim expression hadn’t shifted from the other goblins face. “But if she strays, I make no promises.”
Ruric was about to argue when Jane finally returned. She stopped before the others and swished the water in the four flasks she held in her arms.
“It’s not quite enough.” She said. “But it’ll have to do. We can’t carry too many or we’ll be slow.”
Ruric nodded. “We should carry as many as we need.”
“I’m not certain where we’ll be exiting the caves, but hopefully we’ll be able to stop at a town and refill. Speed is the goal here isn’t it?”
He stared at her for a long moment. Ruric drank in the excitement and determination on her face. She seemed so small holding the skins of water that were too large for her.
He couldn’t lose her. The thought was always bubbling at the corner of his mind. It hovered around him like a dark shadow that refused to disappear even when the light touched it.
Their mission had given her a purpose. A reason to keep living and surviving. She was going to redeem herself. She was going on an adventure. He understood those feelings. But in this moment she was closer to the Jane that would rather have bit him than let her near him.
The Jane that had looked his Queen in the eye while she was on her knees before creatures she no doubt considered to be nightmares.
That was a woman he knew how to deal with. He knew how to gentle her, how to calm her soul into trusting him again.
“You stay with us.” He muttered as he strode towards her. His hand caught the back of her head and he pulled her towards him so that his other hand could span her back. “Any sign of trouble and you run.”
She did not seem to have any of the same worries as him. “We’re going to be fine, Ruric. But if you or your men start feeling sick, you go to the caves. I’ll find Simon.”
But he did not know whether or not that would be enough. How could she stop a man she did not know how to find? How could a
ny of them?
“Ruric.”
The deep voice snapped both of them away from each other.
Jane tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear and nodded towards the two goblins waiting for them. “Alright then. Time to go isn’t it?”
As one, the goblins and human woman turned. She stayed in between all of them and was quickly lost in the many turns and climbs they made.
There were points when she was certain she was going to get stuck. The small spaces were eerily similar. They travelled further into the caves and she realized this cave ran perpendicular to the cave she had just been in.
There was a certain quality to the air that she had not yet forgotten. A dry heat that made her want to shake off the cloak she had wrapped around her shoulders.
That smell reminded her of home. Or something like it. Not necessarily the place she remembered when she dreamed. But it was the closest thing she would get to a home.
But wasn’t a home supposed to be somewhere filled with love and laughter? In the tent, those emotions had been present. Yet her memories were filled with something much darker than that. Hardship, hunger, dehydration until her tongue had swollen in her mouth. These things always seemed to war with the good memories.
Was a home supposed to feel like that?
Or was it supposed to feel like the beauty the goblins had given her? A safe place to lay down and sleep. Food aplenty and water that chimed in her ears. Glowing fish that skittered whenever she made ripples around them. A protector that wanted nothing more than for her to smile.
Her thoughts were as confusing as they always were. It was impossible to decide whether she liked Above or Below better.
After hours of traveling, Jane paused. Her eyes drifted shut as she breathed in air that seemed to wrap around her body. Arms of wind slid across her skin for the first time in months.
“We’re close.” She whispered into the breeze.
The goblins shared a worried look.