A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  The screaming and cheering in the rose garden answered that question.

  Then another band of goblins came marching along the terrace. Gath shivered and lifted his head. “Mom? You have to do some shouting.”

  “What?” Inos said.

  The leader strutted, looking important. Beside him walked a goblin youth, perhaps no older than Gath, although much shorter and thicker. He was smooth-faced and bore no tattoos. There was a discussion with the chief guard. Then leader and youngster came forward together — father and son, most likely. They looked over the captives. The boy grinned and pointed at Gath’s conspicuous blond head. The leader waved for two of the others to come and take him.

  Gath croaked, “Mom!”

  Inos reeled to her feet. “No!” she shouted. “Not this one! Choose someone else! You will not take this one!” She glared and stamped her feet and kept on bellowing.

  And it worked! They could not understand the words, but her tone was enough. The young goblin paled to a sickly green and backed away. The older man scowled, but he also seemed cowed by Inos’ fury. He said something to the boy, who nodded and pointed quickly to another captive, a youth in footman’s livery.

  Inos sat down again before her wobbling knees gave way under her. The footman was pulled out from the crowd and dragged away, howling in terror.

  Everyone knew how goblin boys earned their tattoos. Once they had used other goblins. Now they used prisoners.

  Gath mumbled, “Thanks, Mom!” Then he rolled over on his side and threw up.

  4

  The sun sank down behind the smoke. The main house was a glowing shell now, the welcome heat fading before the cold of a winter evening. Very few of the captives remained. Three times Inos had prevented one or other of her children being removed, and now she knew why her shouting had such a truly sorcerous effect. Years ago, Rap had laid a royal glamour on her. When she gave orders, people were compelled to obey. So far it had worked, but she suspected that it was far from foolproof where goblins were concerned. It obviously provoked fury in them, and one of these times it might well get her killed out of hand.

  Then Gath stirred and lifted his head from her shoulder.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Remember about Blood Beak?”

  Inos stared at him, wondering if he was hallucinating again. Then she realized that his earlier talk of goblins had not been the hallucination she had thought at the time. He looked somewhat better now, anyway. “No.”

  “Death Bird’s son. Dad told us. You must remember!”

  “I’m afraid I don’t, dear.”

  “You do!” Gath said urgently, twisting his mouth as if it tasted bad. “Dad met Death Bird at Timber Moot. Blood Beak killed a bear single-handed! Dad teased me about it.”

  “Oh, yes, I do remember,” Inos said, lying. “What about it?”

  “He’s here. He’s coming. The old man speaks impish.”

  “Right!” Inos gave her son a hug. “Well done!” At last she could see some action in store.

  A few minutes later, yet another small procession of goblins came striding along the darkening terrace to inspect the scanty supply of captives. All the men had been removed, and all the younger women. The women were not coming back anymore. The men never would.

  The leader was a powerful-looking goblin, but the greasy rope of hair hanging down his bare chest was streaked with gray. That would qualify him as old to Gath. At his side walked an adolescent, beefy even by goblin standards.

  They came to a halt and Inos jumped up before they even spoke to the guards.

  “Hail to Blood Beak, son of Death Bird!”

  The goblins recoiled a pace in unison, but perhaps they were more surprised by her blond hair than her words.

  “I am Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar! I demand to speak to Death Bird!”

  The gray-haired goblin frowned, moving his lips. If he understood impish, then obviously it was not well.

  She tried again, speaking more slowly, keeping it simple. Gesture. “Am Inosolan! Woman of Chief Rap. Rap chief of Krasnegar, friend of Death Bird. Am his woman.” Gesture. “These his son, his daughter. His children.”

  Young Blood Beak asked a question. The old man repeated what she had said, and some of the words sounded right. Everyone turned to stare hard at Inos.

  “Friend of Death Bird!” she insisted. She stalked forward on legs like jelly. “Blood Beak? Great hunter! Hear how you kill bear with sword.”

  “How know this?” the leader barked.

  “Death Bird tell Rap, his friend. Very proud of Blood Beak.”

  Translation… The older man was deferring to the king’s son, but the king’s son brightened at hearing how his reputation had preceded him. He gabbled something, waving hands.

  The leader nodded, then spoke more respectfully to Inos. He tapped his chest. “Am Giant Feller of Beavers. Here Blood Beak of Ravens, Death Bird son, as say. How come this place?”

  Relief poured through Inos like a spring freshet. “Am guest. Friend of goblins. Not enemy of goblins. Friend of Death Bird many years ago. Long ago knew Death Bird. Was Little Chicken. Very little!” She gestured to indicate a big man.

  She was already mastering the awful pronunciation. Amusement flickered on some of the ugly green faces even before Giant Feller translated.

  Then young Blood Beak scowled and jabbered something.

  Everyone looked at Gath.

  “Need captive,” Giant Feller explained apologetically. He pointed to Blood Beak. “Is killing soldiers all day. Has not shown worthy, er, manhood marks.” Then he nodded at Gath, and shrugged. “Is only man left.”

  Inos recalled with horror how close Death Bird had come to earning his tattoos by killing Rap. She sensed a horrible irony, as if the Gods were about to play a monstrous joke on her — like father, like son!

  “Is son of friend of Death Bird!”

  “Die slow. Is great honor.”

  “Oh, no it’s not!” Inos screamed.

  5

  The rose garden was the worst. After that, nothing could ever seem bad again.

  The Kinvale rose garden had been one of the wonders of Julgistro. Every summer gentlefolk came leagues to view the rose garden. In the golden days of youth before her father died, Inos had played skittles there; she had listened to music on warm evenings, and blushed at Andor’s polished compliments. Now women were being raped wholesale there. Small fires burned where men and the remains of men lay staked out between the bushes, mingling an acrid smell of burning rose twigs with savory odors of roast meat. Spectators applauded and offered advice as boys continued to dismember the living in ingenious ways. In the background, the great house was a blackened ruin, still dirtying the sky with smoke.

  Upright, Gath was so dizzy he could barely walk, but to show weakness before goblins was to invite instant execution. He staggered along, leaning on Kadie. Inos followed, trying to make sense of Giant Feller’s guttural jabber.

  It had been a very close-run thing. She had protested that Gath was already too weak to make a suitable victim for Blood Beak, but the young lout had decided that a king’s son was ideal material for a king’s son to work on. Only when the case seemed hopeless had some goblin soldiers arrived with a husky young gardener they had just discovered hiding in a hayloft. Gath had been saved, but Inos was certain she would never sleep again. That other boy’s face would haunt her forever, and the certainty that she could not have rescued him would be no comfort, because she had lacked the courage to try.

  Now she was being treated as an honored guest, being shown the rose garden. Not being taken to Death Bird. Death Bird was not at Kinvale, which seemed to be a minor training exercise, or perhaps a rest and recreation posting. Death Bird was at the front.

  “Imp soldiers will come soon,” she said cautiously.

  Giant Feller laughed, showing yellow teeth. “No imp soldiers.”

  She was not fool enough to mention the IXth at Shaldokan. She
would let the invaders discover that for themselves! But she soon learned that the situation was much worse than she had realized. Giant Feller had no qualms about telling her the details, he boasted of them. The goblins had not come through the defenses at Pondague, they had outflanked them by an unmapped pass and fallen on the Imperial forces from the rear — massacre! They had ambushed the IXth and XXIst legions somewhere south of Kinvale — more massacre! The entire impish army in northwest Julgistro had been wiped out, or so he insisted. Now Shaldokan itself was invested. It would fall within a day, he assured her, and then the goblins would cross the frozen Paddi River. The road to Hub lay open before them.

  Yes, it was bluster, but barbarian flavoring did not hide the taste of cold truth. This was Death Bird’s destiny, which had been predicted for twenty years. The Gods’ decree was being fulfilled at last and there was nothing any mortal could do about it, except maybe the imperor. The ultimate limits of the disaster had always lain outside even Rap’s ken.

  Inos thought of the unlamented Proconsul Yggingi who had started this war in trying to acquire a word of power that did not exist. She thought of Rap’s misgivings about the coming of the millennium. She thought of the dwarvish evil he had seen brewing in the ambience… Anything was better than thinking of the people dying all around her in the rose garden.

  * * *

  That night the royal guests from Krasnegar were entertained by the goblin chiefs in the Kinvale stableyard. Death Bird’s deputy in the Kinvale area was his nephew, Quiet Stalker, an unusually tall goblin, and dangerously young. Inos did not like the way he looked at Kadie, but then she did not like the way any goblin looked at — or to — anyone!

  Giant Feller explained that Krasnegar had a female chief. This freakish institution presented social difficulties and provoked much garbled discussion. In the end Quiet Stalker issued a decree, which was then translated: Inos and Kadie would eat in the corner, away from the central fire that was the place of honor. Gath would sit with the chiefs as official Krasnegarian delegate.

  Gath’s ash-pale face broke into a smile at that news.

  “Barbarians!” his sister whispered furiously.

  “Sorry, Kadie. You just have to accept that you’re naturally inferior!”

  “Furs off!” Giant Feller said.

  “What?” Gath stared in horror at the strip of leather the goblin was offering him. As the fire blazed up in the middle of the courtyard, the assembled chiefs were pulling off their buckskins. That shoelace was formal wear.

  “Now we’ll see who’s inferior!” Kadie crowed, and flounced off to the designated women’s quarters by the water trough.

  Shuddering with cold, Gath removed Inos’ fur robe and his doublet and his sweater and his shirt and his undershirt. He handed them to his mother with an appalled glance, and she turned to leave while he still had pants on. There was nothing else she could do.

  Grunts of surprise from the goblins… “Say about arms!” Giant Feller demanded.

  “Had a fight,” Gath admitted. The chiefs crowded around to admire the raw swellings on his knuckles and the purple-yellow bruises covering his forearms. Suddenly he had some status.

  Inos headed for the horse trough. When she looked back, he was clad in the skimpy loincloth, kneeling close to the bonfire. The goblins’ skin looked dark green in firelight. Gath’s gaunt shape was a shimmering pale wraith in their midst, but already turning pinker. His far side, which she could not see, was probably blue.

  “Oh, well, the doctor did say to keep him warm,” she said.

  But Kadie was past seeing jokes. Kidnapped princesses were fine in romances. Rap had always joked that Kadie, were she ever to be carried off by a handsome imp on a white horse or even a jotunn in a longship, would not merely enjoy every minute of it, but would also instruct her captor in the correct procedures. Reality was different. She was understandably crushed by the goblins’ barbarity. Her eyes were dry, but they had a strange, jittery look to them. Pale and shivering, she huddled close to her mother, and barely nibbled the abundant roast cow that was brought across to them. And yet she was coping very well for her age.

  Inos kept an eye on Gath. He was managing to sit erect. He had no need to make conversation, of course, only stay conscious.

  And Inos herself, who had so royally blundered into calamity? She decided just to keep her mind on the children. Nothing else was as important — not her kingdom, abandoned and perhaps falling into chaos, nor her husband, lost somewhere in an Impire tottering before the onslaught of the millennium, nor the uncountable victims of this war. She could do nothing about any of those. She must concentrate on the twins and herself. They were three penniless refugees among thousands, perhaps millions, and they had no way home. This was the worst disaster of her life.

  After the food came the entertainment, which was provided by Death Bird’s son and the gardener. Then a couple of captured legionaries were brought in and the chiefs took turns with them. Fortunately, Gath was not invited to share in the fun, although he had to watch. Inos and Kadie were luckier, being required only to listen. For Inos this yard was a scrapbook of happy memories of life and fun among the Kinvale horses. She knew every stall in the stable, and could remember most of the horses that had inhabited them all those years ago. Now it echoed with screams that went on and on and on, for hours. Die! she kept thinking. Die! Die!

  It was still not as bad as the rose garden.

  * * *

  Finally, when the last man choked to death on his own blood, Inos and Kadie were summoned to the center, to stand outside the circle of chiefs. The men sat cross-legged on the dirt, grinning up at her with their angular eyes and fearsome teeth. As warriors, they had much to grin about. She positioned herself as close to her son as she could, trying not to look at the caked blood in his flaxen thatch. Logs crackled and sparked on the fire — chair legs and picture frames, mostly. She was on the downwind, smoky side, of course.

  Gath looked up. “I agree to what he wants, Mom.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “I’m not quite sure yet, but I know it must be all right.”

  “Er, thank you, dear.”

  Quiet Stalker spoke. Kneeling behind the young leader, gray-haired Giant Feller interpreted.

  “Says friend of Death Bird friend of all goblins.”

  Inos was not a subject of the imperor. She was his ally, but there was nothing in the treaty about making war on his enemies. “Am friend of goblins,” she agreed.

  “Asks if also friend of imperor?”

  “Yes.”

  She feared that remark would be suicidal, but it wasn’t. Goblins admired courage above all and apparently bravado also. Nodding in approval, Quiet Stalker spoke again.

  “Asks if know imperor?” Giant Feller explained.

  “Met him long ago. Very old man now.”

  Even before that answer was translated, she saw that it was wrong. Odd-shaped eyes glinted suspiciously in the firelight.

  “Is dead! Young imperor now.”

  That should hardly be a shock — Emshandar had been in his nineties — but now the goblins would wonder why she had not known.

  “Forgot! Met young imperor long ago, too. Was only child.” She could have said that Gath had seen Shandie in a vision the previous summer, but she was certainly not going to. She didn’t understand that episode herself.

  Quiet Stalker said something too fast for her to guess at, and there was a brief exchange of remarks around the bonfire. No one seemed to argue with the young leader. Then the older man translated the decision.

  “Sun rises, send to Death Bird, send children.”

  That was a real relief, and the best result she could hope for. Death Bird had a smattering of impish culture, and if there was any shred of hope for her and the twins in this new goblin kingdom, then it was with the goblin king himself, Rap’s old friend. But there was more to come.

  “This night, lies with Quiet Stalker.” Giant Feller’s finger pointed at Kadie.
>
  Inos and Kadie said, “No!” in one voice.

  The goblins grinned.

  Gath whispered, “Mom!” urgently.

  “You chief woman Krasnegar,” Giant Feller said. “Say want friendship. Order daughter sleep with goblin chief! Make good friendship.” He was barely translating now, just repeating Quiet Stalker’s words in a clearer pronunciation.

  So Inos would have to try her royal occult glamour on the whole goblin high command. She drew a deep breath —

  At her feet, Gath raised a skinny pale arm. “Let man speak!”

  The chiefs guffawed, but Quiet Stalker nodded with a gleam of anticipation.

  “Pink one speak.”

  “Krasnegar women are very wild,” Gath said, staring intently across the fire. “My sister is very, very wild! Can the goblin chief tame this girl?”

  Giant Feller had trouble passing this on, and when he did, the chiefs all rolled on the ground with mirth.

  Very quietly in the hubbub, and without looking round, Gath said, “You can do it, Kadie. They haven’t noticed.”

  Noticed what? Inos stared angrily at the blood on the back of his head and wondered if the blow had knocked out his wits. A fourteen-year-old boy must know what sort of sleep was intended, surely? He couldn’t be that innocent! Then she glanced down at Kadie, but her face was so white and rigid that it conveyed nothing at all, a china doll bundled in a fur cloak. She looked years younger than she had that morning when she interrupted the council meeting.

  “Give orders, chief woman!”

  Inos felt a whirl of faintness. Once she had expected to be married off to a goblin and the prospect had so repelled her that she had contemplated suicide. She could not abandon her daughter to this abomination without a fight…

  Suddenly Gath was shouting in true guttural goblin. “Am man, give orders! Hear treaty?” He waved at Kadie. “Lies with Quiet Stalker only. No others. No help! Say if can tame her?”

  The chiefs were following his jabber better than Inos could. How had he learned their tongue so fast?