For the Love of a Goblin Warrior (Shadowlands)

by Shona Husk

  The gold around the woman’s neck gleamed with a lure that promised everything and would deliver nothing. He’d fallen for its trap before, and he knew that for a goblin there was never enough gold to satisfy, but he would try. Could he lose himself in the mindless lust and become a heartless goblin again?

  It would be so easy to give in.

  The cross was only finger-lengths away. He could take the gold. Take enough gold to bury all feeling. He’d find a place to hoard it, and build a castle and fight all who’d tried to steal it from him. That was what goblins did. Yet the goal that had once sustained him now lacked true desire; it was empty, as if he was trying to force himself to want when he wasn’t sure what he wanted. It would have to do. Gold would smother the other thoughts. Gold could always fix things for a goblin. But for a goblin there was nothing to fix but the need for more gold.

  His gaze darted to the soldiers, but they weren’t watching him. Could he steal from her? He shouldn’t, but he needed the screaming of a thousand memories in his head to stop and gold had solved his problems for so long. The necklace swung closer and he gave in to the glittering temptation. If he took the gold, he’d become goblin and find peace. With a flick of his fingers, the gold came away in his hand. The woman didn’t notice. Her gold burned his palm. He waited for the swell of desire, the pleasure of holding the precious metal, the rising need for more, but it didn’t come.

  Instead, there was silence as the screaming stopped and for a moment he glimpsed a clarity of mind he’d thought lost. Then it was wiped away as a slippery sense of disquiet took hold of his gut. Taking gold had never caused him discomfort before. He tried to push aside the unease and regain the calm, but it slid through his fingers. Goblins didn’t have feelings. They had urges. He couldn’t allow himself to feel. If he did, he would drown in despair.

  He imagined gold, piles of it, the cold metal in his hands, and a hunger that couldn’t be sated. But his skin didn’t change to gray, and his joints didn’t thicken. He remained stubbornly human.

  How was that possible? He wanted gold. He was stealing gold. He should be goblin. He’d given in before and found peace, but this time he was denied and he knew the truth. The man who’d pulled him from the Shadowlands was right: Meryn had been cursed and was now free. He was human and couldn’t go back. The realization brought no joy, only more of the heartache he couldn’t fully explain.

  The woman stood and beckoned him forward, her voice calm, her lips still curved. She hadn’t noticed his theft. He fisted his hand so the points pressed into his palm. The guilt didn’t fade. He should give the necklace back before it was too late, before she realized and labeled him a thief, but when she glanced at him, he couldn’t. The look in her eyes would change from concern to hate. Her kindness would be gone, replaced by the fear he was more used to seeing. He sat frozen, unsure what to do next. The woman spoke again.

  When he didn’t move, one of the men in blue grabbed his arm and forced him to stand, then talked to the woman. She nodded as they spoke, her gaze flicking to him. And Meryn knew they were talking about him as if he were a simpleton.

  He couldn’t do anything right. He slipped the cross into the folds of his tunic and tried to listen as if he could force comprehension, but the words washed over him and didn’t stick. Their language was too different and unfamiliar; they didn’t understand him either. He sighed and bit back the frustration, then followed her because that seemed to be expected.

  The soldiers didn’t accompany the woman. What was going on? Where was she taking him? Should he make a run for it? He glanced over his shoulder; the men were still there, lingering by the door. Meryn forced himself to follow the woman. For the moment he would do as asked—at least until he had a better understanding of the world.

  She picked up a piece of parchment and a stylus off the counter. They stood at the side near the door where the mother and children had gone. Was he about to be taken through the door? He didn’t want to go there if that was where the crying child was. He couldn’t listen to the screaming without hearing the echo of his own children. He swallowed the brittle points of anguish that lodged in his throat. Taking gold hadn’t dulled the edges. How much would he have to steal to surrender his humanity again? Would he ever be able to breathe without hurting?

  “Nadine.” She pointed at her chest just below were the golden crucifix had hung, her neck now bare.

  Her gold weighed heavy in his pocket. He shouldn’t have stolen it, yet how could he give it back? She would know what he’d done and she would stop being nice to him. She was the first person to care in too long, and as a human, he needed that. The guilt swelled in his stomach, but he ignored it and focused on what she was saying. Her name.

  Nadine. That wasn’t a name he was familiar with. It wasn’t Roman or Decangli. Where had her family originated?

  She raised her dark eyebrows, waiting for him to respond.

  He tapped his chest. “Meryn.”

  His name sounded strange on his lips. It had been a long time since he’d spoken it aloud, longer since he’d said anyone else’s. Goblins didn’t have names; even as a goblin he’d known that by having one he was different.

  “Nadine.” He pointed at her and copied the inflection in her voice. He’d learned Latin, the language of the invaders, by listening and repeating. He could do the same again. Maybe it would keep his mind occupied and away from the thoughts he didn’t want to examine.

  She nodded. As she wrote, she spoke, but all he understood was his name on her lips. He remembered the last woman to call his name had been his wife—not in love but in terror. She’d needed him as the Romans invaded their home and slaughtered their people. Instead, she had summoned a strange creature. A goblin. His wife hadn’t recognized him in the body of a goblin. It was better that way. She’d have been horrified to see what he’d become.

  He’d failed to help her when she needed him most.

  Nadine glanced at him and then back at the page as if wondering what to write. He stared at the squiggles, but they made no sense—he could read a map, not words. She was educated and in a position of authority. Admitting his theft would result in his death. For a heartbeat he let himself consider dying. It should be easy to surrender to fate and know he would live again as another man in another life…but would he? What kind of afterlife waited for a man like him? He wouldn’t be allowed into the Hall of the Gods to feast; he would be forced to wait outside and then be reborn into a life where he would have to make reparation for crimes he didn’t remember.

  He’d been cursed for a reason and then he’d given in to that curse.

  Dying had never been an option; he’d always fought for life. Since becoming goblin again seemed out of reach, that left living. He released a slow breath. It had been so long since he’d been human in the Fixed Realm he didn’t know how.

  Nadine spoke to the woman on the other side of the counter. They both looked at him, and he recognized the look of disdain in the eyes of the other woman, as if she were judging him unworthy and beyond help.

  Did he need help? He glanced at Nadine. She was talking to him and pointing at his head. He touched his forehead and his fingers came away red and sticky. Red blood, human blood. Not the black that lined goblin veins. He was all right. The wound wasn’t fatal.

  Nadine opened the door the woman and baby had gone through and indicated for him to follow. He hesitated, not sure what was on the other side. But she smiled again, and he trailed after her because she seemed to care and on the outside of the building there were people who’d try to attack him, and he no longer had weapons. With a shake of his head, Meryn took a step forward. The woman with the brilliant smile led him to a small room. Men in white coats followed. They talked among themselves. Then the men examined him the way Nadine had, checked his head, his eyes, and his pulse. A man addressed him, but his words made no sense.

  When Meryn didn’t respond, the man issued one order then left. Nadine sighed and studied him, a faint frown crea
sing her brow. He knew that look. She was tired, and he was a problem. If their roles were reversed, he’d have passed the problem on to someone else and gotten on with his job. He’d been someone of importance. His fingers touched the metal around his neck, a symbol of rank, the weight of responsibility. He’d failed more than his wife. He was a useless man in a world he didn’t understand.

  A young man in the same loose clothes as Nadine joined them. She spoke to the man, then turned to Meryn and addressed him as if he could understand. Her gaze remained steadily on him and he straightened his shoulders. He didn’t feel so broken or lost in her eyes. She pointed to the man.

  He glanced between the two of them. Nadine was handing him on to someone else. He understood that. But could he trust this newcomer? The man obviously listened to Nadine, because he nodded and smiled at Meryn. But it lacked the sincerity that Nadine’s smile had; the man thought him an idiot.

  Nadine raised her eyebrows and repeated whatever she was saying. He might not have understood the words, but by the way they moved their bodies and the tone of their words, he could at least grasp part of what was going on. And while he may not trust the man, he had to trust Nadine. There was nothing deceitful in her expression, and she’d shown him only kindness.

  Meryn nodded and followed the man through lengths of white corridor. The man didn’t speak or look at him, as if he wasn’t worth the time and effort. The rudeness rubbed. It wasn’t his fault he was here and unable to speak the language. But since he couldn’t even voice his displeasure at being treated like an inconvenient slave, Meryn focused on his surroundings, looking for clues and details about the world.

  Everything smelled odd. Not like the nothing of the Shadowlands. This place had a smell, a sharpness that tried to mask the scent of illness and death. He knew those scents too well, yet no one seemed to be dying here—at least not of battle wounds. Maybe it was plague or wasting illnesses.

  He muttered a prayer to the gods that he wouldn’t fall prey to whatever illness they had that needed such a large building, then stopped when the man gave him a quizzical glance. When the man looked away, he finished silently.

  Why couldn’t Nadine have come?

  Tension crawled up his back and lodged around his skull, making the wound pulse. Warmth trickled down the side of his face. He wiped it away with the edge of his sleeve. Brilliant red stained the fabric. His stomach turned; he’d seen too much blood spilled without good reason. The man went into a small room and turned some handles. Rain began falling from a spout. Meryn stared, but the man was unconcerned; he put his hand under the water as if to check, then he pointed to Meryn and spoke a few words.

  When Meryn didn’t respond, the man pretended to wash his hands, then pointed to the water again. This time Meryn got it. He was supposed to get into the water.

  Meryn unclasped the broach from his cloak. For a moment he stared at it as he remembered being given it. A gift from a king. That king had died, and his son, Roan, had taken the role even though he’d been too young and untried. Meryn held the wolves in his hand, unwilling to hand it over. The man tapped the wooden bench, so Meryn folded his cloak, placed it on the bench, and put the clasp on top. He stripped off his tunic and pouch. The gold inside clinked; Nadine’s cross and his Roman coins. Then he pulled of his boots and trousers. The man was watching, but it was with bored indifference.

  With one eye on his belongings, Meryn stepped into the water, expecting the bracing chill of rain. But the water was warm, hot on his skin, sluicing away the gray dust and leaving him clean. He tipped his face to the little rain and opened his mouth. It tasted clean. He scrubbed his face and beard, and ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, avoiding aggravating the gash on his head. The water drummed on his head and down his back. The cuts on his hands and head stung, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t been clean in so long.

  The man spoke and held out a bottle of something. Meryn held out his hand and the man squirted a blob into his palm. He looked at it; he wanted to sniff it but the man was watching and waiting. So Meryn rubbed his hands together and went to wash it away, then it foamed in his hands. Soap.

  Soap like nothing he’d ever seen. A liquid. He washed, everything and everywhere, scrubbing the remains of the Shadowlands from his skin, if not his mind. He would never be free of his memories. He closed his eyes and forced them back; he couldn’t deal with them—any of them, and if he let them slip through, the screaming would start again.

  He jerked his head up and tried to shake off the agony that filled his heart. He failed, but at least it wasn’t crushing him with every breath. The man offered Meryn what looked like a small blanket and Meryn took the hint.

  The blanket was thick and soft and soaked up the water. He rubbed himself down and dried his hair as best he could; his fingers brushed his torque. A sign of rank—or it had been. Again wolves, they faced each other around his neck. Pack animals. He’d helped lead the tribe. He and the king would meet and talk late at night, plotting a way to be free. They’d failed. He’d failed. The Romans had won.

  His fingers closed around the metal as if to pull it off, but he couldn’t. It had belonged to the man he had been, someone he’d been proud to be. Now he was a no one, dependent on some stranger to hand him clothes and show him how the world worked.

  Meryn put on the pale blue pants and tunic that were offered. While his clothes were familiar, they were filthy, and he didn’t want to be wearing the Shadowlands. He picked up the clasp and placed it in his pouch. Gray dust stuck to his damp fingers, but he didn’t have a choice, so he put it on. The pouch contained everything he owned. Then he picked up his boots. He wasn’t leaving his only pair of shoes either.

  Satisfied, the man talked at him, not to him the way Nadine had, and then started walking away. Meryn glanced at his old clothes one last time, then walked away, hoping he could leave the Shadowlands behind so easily.

  Chapter 3

  Nadine hung Meryn’s chart at the end of a bed, ready for when he returned. He would be under observation until the specialist came down and did a neurological assessment. Then he’d either be admitted or turned out. A scan had already been ordered, since Meryn couldn’t tell them what was wrong. Nadine just wanted him to be okay…and to know what had happened to him.

  A man in hospital scrubs, a little taller than herself, followed the orderly into the ward. He was holding boots and around his neck was a band of metal. A torque. He looked at her and gave her a tentative smile. Nadine looked again and realized it was Meryn. Without all the dust he looked like a new man. Several other nurses paused to look at him, as if he commanded attention with just his presence.

  Meryn acted like a man used to being obeyed. And while he couldn’t communicate it, he knew it. He moved like a man who knew his place, and yet when she looked in his eyes she didn’t see confidence, only uncertainty, as if he wasn’t sure about anything. But he didn’t glance around the ward the way many patients did, he still carried himself as if he feared nothing. He understood more than what he could say. She wanted to hear him speak again—in any language.

  He placed his boots down and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “How are you feeling?” Nadine did a quick couple of checks. He hadn’t gotten worse. She checked the wound on his head. Now that she could see it clearly, it didn’t seem that bad, but it could use a few stitches. But that would have to wait until the doctors had made a decision. All she could give him was a temporary bandage.

  He glanced up at her and said a couple of words. Not Latin this time, but the language he’d first spoken. His voice was deep and melodic. She bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling while wishing she could understand him, so she could ask him what had happened, why he’d had a sword, and what the torque around his neck meant. As usual, she had too many questions that would never be answered.

  “Where are you from?” she asked, knowing he wouldn’t be able to tell her but needing to fill the silence. “And what do you do for a liv
ing?”

  Had he been living on the streets? His arms were strong, roped with muscle, and he had hard calluses on his hands. He had to have been working, and working hard, until very recently.

  He spoke several complete sentences that made no sense, then again in what she was sure was Latin. The more she heard, the more convinced she was. And he was trying to tell her something that was important to him. She smiled and shook her head. For a moment they just looked at each other. His gray eyes unreadable, as if he didn’t know how to make himself understood. She wished she had more time to spend with him, but they were too busy.

  Nadine touched his hand and a shiver ran along his skin. It had been a long time since anyone had touched him. He’d been fighting goblins and killing for so long…long enough for the world to move beyond anything he might have imagined. The last person to lay a hand on him had been his wife. As if on cue, the screaming in his head grew louder, denying him any peace. He didn’t deserve any after what he’d done.

  The thousand misdeeds would haunt him forever.

  Nadine placed a small cloth against his scalp. Whatever was on it stung the open wound. He pressed his teeth together and said nothing. Nothing he said meant anything anyway. When she was done, Nadine touched his shoulder for a moment, murmured something, and walked away.

  For a while Meryn watched her work. She spoke to people, made notes about the ones in bed, and then hung those notes at the end of each bed. Most of the people looked worse than him. He shouldn’t be here taking up space when he wasn’t ill or gravely wounded. He rubbed his eyes to try to focus. He was tired, like he hadn’t slept in days. How long had it been? There’d been no way to gauge the passing of time in the Shadowlands. Did goblins even sleep? He couldn’t remember. He knew since becoming human again he’d only been able to snatch a few naps, but even then he’d been alert for the slightest sound. Maybe he should lie down, that’s what everyone else was doing—those that weren’t hidden behind curtains.