The Good Guys Chronicles Box Set

by Eric Ugland

  Someone behind me gave me a push — my bet was on Ragnar.

  Onwards.

  Statues were positioned around the perimeter. They’d been made with some skill, but not a whole lot of artistic beauty. The things were hideous. Creatures I never wanted to realize existed, let alone see, even if just carved in stone.

  There was a doorway to the left, one to the right, and a stairwell in front of us leading to another large open archway, and while I could tell that there was a room of sorts beyond, I couldn’t see anything on ground level. You know, what with the ground being a full story above where I was. Directly above, the ceiling soared, and, at the top, I saw another carving: a great black thing with tentacles. I could just make out some gold filigree up there as well. Unique design, but nothing I’d pick for my home.

  I knelt at the carpet and slid my axe blade underneath. Just to peek. Stone floor.

  Nikolai stepped around me and walked over to the dead creature. He knelt.

  “Hobgoblin,” he said.

  “I’msorrywhat?” I replied.

  “Hobgoblin. Goblin’s bigger cousin. Harder, faster, smarter.”

  “Awesome.”

  The creature was bigger than most humans, about six or seven feet tall. A solid amount of muscle under what looked to be thick orange skin. Not like bright orange, not unreal, but like a muted carrot. Or a tanning salon aficionado. Black finger nails came to points, and wiry black hair shot out of various places about the body. The facial features were heavy, with little subtlety. Shorter legs than I was expecting, the ratio was all off, especially as compared to the lengthy torso. The hobgoblin must’ve had great balance with such a low center of gravity. And, unlike the rest of the goblins I’d interacted, the hobgoblin was clean. Neat. A creature which bathed regularly and understood basic concepts of hygiene.

  I stayed at the edge of the carpet and looked from the left door to the right door, trying to discern anything that might give me a clue which way we should go.

  The rest of the group walked over to the dead body. Ragnar, naturally, dug through the hobgoblin’s pouches and pockets.

  Without any warning, a creature dropped from the ceiling, enveloping the entire party.

  Except me.

  “Fuck.”

  Chapter 125

  It looked a bit like the membrane that made up a batwing, but thicker. Almost like a black leather cloak, with a singular grasping hand-thing on its back facing the ceiling. Likely, that was the means by which the creature’d held onto the ceiling.

  Muffled cries came out from underneath.

  I planted my feet and swung as hard as I could, the axe whistling through the air. It sliced right through the creature’s membranous body like it was nothing. Chop and slice and deal with ichor. Chop and slice. Chop and slice.

  The thing tried to crawl away, but it couldn’t move particularly well. When I got close to the middle of the thing, I made a big horizontal slice, lopping off a big chunk. There was an eruption of thick black oozy blood, or some other equally noxious bodily fluid, and the creature stilled. But it started undulating a second later when my friends underneath it pushed and pulled, attempting to get out from under the thing.

  I ripped the leathery skin apart, afraid of using the axe when I didn’t need to, thinking what might happen if I were to cut into Nikolai. As soon as I tore the skin, though, I heard a bang and a roar.

  To my left, a hobgoblin came into the room, axe held high above his head with both hands.

  I kicked my axe up, grabbed and threw it, almost in one motion. It hit the orangeskin smack in the head, splitting the skull and stopping the momentum of his upper body. The lower body continued, legs shooting up in some sort of gruesome slapstick.

  I could hear his friends coming up from behind. So I sprinted over to the newly-deceased body and snagged his axe off the ground. Which I promptly threw, catching the incoming opponent by surprise. Another solid hit, another spray of blood, and it was fightin’ time. The hobgoblins certainly didn’t seem like they had much in the way of concern for life, straight up shoving their dying buddy out of the way to get to me.

  Three of them came at me. One had twin swords, one held a hammer, and the last had a hand-axe in each meaty fist.

  I stomped my foot on the first hobgoblin’s mushed melon, and ripped my battle axe free, getting it up in front of me just in time to block a swinging hammer. I jabbed out with the butt of my haft, connecting directly with Hammer’s disgusting pig-shaped nose. There was a satisfying crunch, and I saw his eyes close involuntarily. The nose is always a painful spot, no matter what species you are. I jammed my foot down on his booted foot, then pushed the hobgoblin over as soon as he became unbalanced.

  Double-Axe tripped over Hammer, while Twin Swords put on a quick display of skill with his double blades, flashing, twirling, spinning, basically the whole nine yards of showmanship.

  I swung overhead as hard as I could, and though Twin Swords crossed his blades to block the axe, I had a lot of speed, a lot of strength, and a lot of weight behind me. The blades snapped off at the hilt, and my axe went through about forty percent of the hobgobbo, leaving the poor fucker’s face in a perpetual state of surprise. But there was no way I was getting that axe out any time soon — it was firmly embedded in the creature’s spine. Which meant I had to grab a broken blade. It was dull, so there wasn’t really any danger to me. I scooped one up.

  By the time I turned, Hammer and Double Axe had untangled themselves. Double Axe was making his attack, two chops coming in from the right. I threw the blade at him and leapt back at the same time.

  His axes went wide, and my thrown blade did nothing.

  Both hobgoblins grinned, obviously happy at me appearing as if I was completely defenseless.

  I reached into my bag, and pulled out a spear. It must have looked very strange, this little bag hanging off the big dude, and here I go, reaching in and pulling out a seven-foot-long spear. Frankly, I’m pretty sure that bizarre image is all that kept them from attacking while I was defenseless and struggling to get a seven foot long spear out of a comparatively tiny bag on my belt.

  As soon as I had it out though, Hammer charged and Double-Axe was a mere heartbeat behind.

  Hammer swung overhead. I deflected it to the side, and slammed the butt of the spear up and into the side of Double-Axe’s head. He grunted in pain, and it threw his attack off, axes once again swinging wide through the air.

  The two forced me back, keeping the pressure on and making it impossible for me to get my spear around to the front, where the pointy bit might do some actual damage. Instead, I had to block like mad, thumping with either the haft or the ends, and it was less like I fought with a spear and more like I fought with a staff.

  My back hit the wall, which meant Hammer hit me. Straight in the shoulder with a solid, fleshy thunk. Pain blossomed out, and I couldn’t move my arm. I dropped the spear, and the axes slammed straight into my chest.

  Then an arrow came out Double Axe’s eye, garnishing me in gore.

  Hammer turned his head to look behind him, and got a face full of spear from Ragnar.

  Again, splashing me with all sorts of gnarly carnage.

  I dropped the spear, pulled the hand axes out of my chest, and leaned back against the wall that’d nearly killed me.

  “You okay, boss?” Ragnar asked, pulling a piece of cloth out of a belt pouch and wrapping it around my chest.

  “Perfect.”

  Chapter 126

  We were a pretty solid mess.

  The thick leathery creature’s corpse took up most of the floorspace. Lots of gross stuff oozed out of it — the carpet was definitely ruined. Shame, too. It really tied the room together.

  Turns out that the creature managed to magically stun everyone when it fell. It wasn’t particularly tough to kill from the outside — it was definitely an ambush predator — but had I been trapped underneath, it would have been game-over for the group. Once the creature was dead, the stun w
ore off, and they’d gotten out, only to see me about to have my ass handed to me by the two hobgoblins. Thankfully, Emeline had good aim. It was her arrow that popped the hobgoblin’s eye.

  The dungeon gave us some more orbs, one large green and one smaller blue. The green dropped a bunch of coins and two vials full of thick red liquid. The blue orb, on the other hand, dropped a pair of gloves. No coins, nothing else, just a pair of gloves.

  I shot my identifier spell over towards it.

  Gloves of Grip

  Item Type: Rare

  Item Class: Gloves

  Material: Spider Silk

  Durability: 200/200

  Weight: 3 lbs

  Requirements: n/a

  Description: A pair of gloves able to grip on most anything. Grab ahold, keep it.

  I relayed the information to Nikolai.

  He picked them up and looked them over.

  “I worry they are cursed,” he said.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “They make no mention of being able to let go of an item, do they?”

  “So we leave them here?”

  “No,” he said, and tossed them at me. “There are things to do with magic items, even those we have no desire for.”

  I fumbled to catch them, then shoved them in the ol’ bag of holding.

  Everyone looked a little worse for wear. Those who’d been under the creature were coated with a sort of mucus. Donner had a massive red mark on his back, I suppose where the creature had bitten him. Looking at the remains, it was remarkably squid-like, right down to having a beak of sorts under the fleshy head. Except for the hand thingy on the top of the thing — at least, it would have been on top had I not lopped it off.

  Nikolai took a cursory look over the hobgoblins, then waved for Skeld and Ragnar to come over.

  “You,” he said, pointing at Ragnar, “you’ve got higher skinning and butchery. You work on getting the skin off this creature. Skeld, assist.”

  He walked over to me.

  “You okay?”

  I pulled my shirt away and looked at my chest. It was still bleeding a little, but it was definitely stitching itself back together. And, my other arm was working fine.

  “Give me a minute and I’ll be 100.”

  “Follow,” he said while looking over at Emeline. “You’re on guard. Donner, this way.”

  Donner nodded.

  Nikolai walked over to the open door that the Hobgoblins had come through. He paused before crossing the threshold, and ultimately remained on our side. The door revealed a large open space, almost like a football field, just, you know, minus the grass. The ground was stone, marched on enough that there were grooves ground down. Huge chests lined the whole left side, too far from us to get any idea of what might in them. A whole host of stone archways sat across from us, looking almost like a Roman aqueduct. But not a single other door in the whole space.

  “Mustering grounds,” Nikolai muttered.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  “Heal Donner,” came the reply.

  I gave Nikolai my best dirty look, but he didn’t see it, and I doubt he’d have cared in any case. I reached over and laid a hand on Donner.

  Donner slapped my hand off him.

  “No magic,” he snarled.

  “But—” I said.

  He pushed me up against the wall, and got right in my face. “No magic.”

  I knew I could shove him back — despite his impressive bulk and surprising weight, I knew I was still stronger than him. I knew that I could also heal him, so maybe knocking him the fuck out would be for the best. He’d wake up feeling groovy, B.A. Baraka style. But if he didn’t want magic, I wouldn’t do it.

  Hands up, I said, “You don’t want magic, you don’t get magic.”

  His muscles clenched for a second. Then he relaxed and let me go.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  “Magic is evil,” Donner replied. “There can be no good from it. Just look at where we are. Had I known you were a magic wielder, I cannot say I would have come with you.”

  “Noted,” I said. “And if you want to go your own way once we’re out of this, yeah.”

  “That’s the area where the hobgoblins get their armies ready to battle,” Nikolai said. “Which means they live through the arches beyond. My guess, then, is that the goblins live behind us.” He looked over his shoulder at the closed door on the other side of the chamber. “And we should get moving before someone else gets curious about this noise.”

  As soon as the hirð boys were done skinning the beast, we stripped the hobgoblins of their armor and weapons, then we headed up the stairs. I was hugely curious about the doors we’d left untouched, but Nikolai seemed certain they were a bad idea.

  The top of the stairs, there was a large arched tunnel, going on and on. Wide open space. Far to the end, there was what seemed like an identical room to the one we were in. About halfway to that room, a pillar stood in the archway.

  We walked as a group, moving slowly, spread out in a line. There was plenty of space between us. I had no idea how this place had been built.

  A bell rang out, almost like a church bell, echoing off the stone walls.

  Drums boomed to life from behind us.

  Then in front of us.

  Different rhythms and tones, but sounding as if they came off the same types of drums.

  “I think we should move faster,” I said.

  Looking for traps was put aside for the moment, and we started walking with purpose.

  The drums got louder.

  We started jogging.

  Now the drums were thundering, and we began to run.

  As we got to the center where the pillar stood, I could see a large gleaming jewel on top of it. Something bigger than my head and sending bright red rays around the area, like a crimson disco ball. Slack-jawed, I stood transfixed for a second, until I got a hard smack on the back of my head from a grimacing Nikolai. The others in the party were similarly staring at me.

  “We have company,” Nikolai said, pointing to one end of the hall, and then the other.

  I followed his points. Where we’d come from were red shields. Behind the shields, armed with spears just tall enough to be at the ceiling, were hobgoblins. The other end, blue shields. But otherwise the same.

  Both sides held.

  Then they chanted. First one, then the other. Back and forth, they screamed at each other, slamming spears against shields, raising fists. It was all rather impressive; and I felt some genuine terror. Loud. Primal. Powerful. But as long as the groups stayed at either end of the halls, it was fine.

  Naturally, that’s when they charged.

  Chapter 127

  Despite the complete lack of chance we had of victory, I took a position against the red group while Donner went up against the blue. We each had one Lutra with us, and our two ranged members took up their positions behind us on either side of the pillar.

  I’d like to say I felt no fear facing down the charge, but that’d be a lie. The only thing I managed to do was remain still and hold my axe.

  The armies thundered down the hall, the noise overwhelming. The sight was overwhelming, too.

  I took a deep breath and resigned myself to a glorious death fighting for my friends, hoping beyond hope I’d be able to stay upright long enough for a miracle to happen.

  The charge halted on a dime. Out of nowhere the hobgoblins slammed their shields on the ground and held their spears straight up.

  I snuck a glance behind me. Same thing with the blue guys.

  Stillness for a moment.

  The group in front of me began to part down the middle, and a grizzled hobgoblin in ornate armor started moving towards me. Hands behind him, he walked without a care, but with just a little curiosity. He made his way through his troops until he stopped in front of them. Looking at me.

  “Hrm,” he said. Then he moved past me.

  I followed him with my eyes, not daring to make any move
ments.

  There was a mirroring action from the blue team. A similarly grizzled veteran hobgoblin came out and looked over us, taking the opposite direction around the pillar. Finally, both hobgoblin leaders came together, and stood, perhaps, three feet apart.

  “Who is the leader here?” Red asked, his voice gruff, but a whole lot more civilized than I’d expected. Sure, it sounded a lot like he’d been gargling whiskey his whole life, but it would have been only the finest single malt. No blends for this classy gent about to kill me.

  All the eyes went to me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “What are they saying?” Nikolai asked in reply.

  “Do we need to switch to Imperial?” Red asked, his voice a little clearer as I realized he was speaking the common language I’d heard up in Osterstadt.

  “I got you, bub,” I said. “I can speak goblin if you want to go that route. Either way, I’m the cat you want to talk to,” I said.

  “Who will you fight for?” Red asked, continuing in Imperial.

  “Fight for?”

  “Yes,” Blue replied, also speaking Imperial. “Certainly you realize you cannot take both of the armies. You will perish.”

  “Should you join one of us,” Red continued, picking up where Blue stopped, “and you survive the battle, we may look kindly enough upon you to keep you as a slave.”

  “Slavery or death?”

  “I suppose the options do come down to that,” Red said, bringing one hand out and inspecting his sharp black nails. They looked a bit more like claws on him.

  “Have you considered option C?” I asked.

  “No,” Red said. “There is no—”

  “I am intrigued,” Blue interrupted to say, getting a withering look from Red. “What is your proposal?”

  I looked from one army to the other. At their shields, their spears. Everything was extremely well used. Not busted in any way — it all looked top notch. It had been well-cared for, but this was not parade ground equipment. These cats threw down on the regular. And if they fought all the time, and they fought here, that meant they had to be fighting over something. The only thing I could guess worth fighting over would be the red gem up top.