Whatever was behind him was moving. Coming closer. Chasing him.
He came bounding around the corner and sprinted towards the stairs. Black Tooth stood stooped in his way, a hand shielding his eyes. Others were silhouetted at the top of the stairs.
“What are you doing, gob?”
Spicy shook the lantern. It had plenty of oil for what he had in mind. He ducked past Black Tooth and threw down his lantern. The glass shattered against the stone and the lit wick instantly caught the oil. The flame spread. Spicy kept moving, scrambling up the steps and pushing his way past the humans.
“Hey!” Blades said. He grabbed Spicy as he tried to dart by.
The roar that erupted from the crevice thundered around them. As the sound died, the men could only stare down the stairway. Then from inside the cave, Black Tooth screamed.
Blades shoved Spicy aside and drew his sword. Men began to back away. Alma pulled her bow off her shoulder and readied an arrow.
The driftwood still clustered around the opening exploded back into the faces of the raiders. A large stone was suddenly dislodged and knocked backward. One of the raiders was standing too close and was crushed. Dust rose and enveloped them. Spicy coughed and wiped it from his eyes.
A shape emerged and towered over them, taller than any bear Spicy had ever dreamed of. The thing was angled and narrow and curved in the shape of an S as it stood. The long head was that of an alligator lizard. The front claws had talons which, as Spicy knew, could carve stone.
It surveyed the men with bright, squinting eyes.
“Humans,” the dragon rasped.
The raiders stared up at the creature and didn’t move.
Without warning, it lunged and took down the closest man, savaging him and tearing away at his leather armor like it was paper. The man didn’t have time to scream.
The humans ran.
Alma let out a savage shout and fired. Her arrow vanished into the creature’s hide. She fired again, but the dragon’s tail swept back and batted her aside. The animal leapt and took down a second man, smashing his head into the rocky ground.
Lord threw the book down and pulled his sword. He and Blades approached the creature, Blades silent and Lord bellowing a challenge.
The dragon turned. Its lizard face bore an expression of disgust as it looked at the two humans. Then it grunted and convulsed. A cloud of steam frothed forth from its mouth and enveloped Lord. Blades screamed as he dove aside, barely escaping the cone of scalding air.
Spicy dropped to the ground. He saw Lord’s notebook lying next to him and picked it up. Smoke rolled from the mouth of the cave as the fire from the lantern spread to the dry debris. Spicy chucked the notebook into the flames. He saw one of Lord’s bags lying near him and he crawled to take it.
The dragon had knocked Blades aside. The man lay moaning. The creature bounded away after more of the raiders, who shouted and screamed in terror.
Spicy opened the satchel and saw more books. He could read the words on the covers of some, others not. He hesitated only for a moment and then stood to throw the bag.
“If you do that, they’ll kill us,” Thistle said. She lay against the boulder near him, fear in her eyes, her hands covering her head.
“They were going to anyway.” He pitched the bag down the stairs into the fire with a pang of regret. Lord had a second bag still around one arm. It held the things he called bombs. But before he could move to take it, Thistle hissed his name. She was busy gathering the chain attached to her the collar. She tugged at where it was fastened under her chin. He went to help her, but removing the pin would require a tool.
“We’ll get it later,” Spicy said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He helped her up and they ran.
Oren and three of the raiders had formed a line and were readying their bows. Soon they were shooting at the dragon. The creature had another man pinned and was ripping him to pieces. Then, impossibly, above all the noises came Lord’s bellow. Spicy paused to look but Thistle jerked him along. They rounded the far bend up the canyon and could only hear echoes of the battle.
One side of the canyon dropped away, revealing a cliff where the water would likely flow when the stream swelled. But now the waterfall was dry and the climb looked doable.
“Don’t get the chain caught,” Spicy said.
“Duh.” Thistle wrapped the loops around her neck until it looked like she wore a giant spring.
Together they descended. The rocky waterfall was much higher than Spicy had imagined. He forced himself not to look down but to concentrate on each hand placement. Several times his shoes almost slipped on the shallow toeholds.
A minute into their climb, a shadow appeared above them.
“Look out!” he cried.
A rock came tumbling down. Spicy and Thistle pressed themselves against the waterfall as more came bouncing past.
“I see you down there,” Blades shouted. “Climb up now and I don’t start shooting arrows.”
Spicy pulled himself up to where he could see. Blades was just visible above them. He didn’t appear to be holding anything, but it was hard to be sure.
“I’ve never seen him with a bow before and he’s not carrying one now,” Spicy hissed.
Thistle was looking down for her next toehold but hesitated. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a bow or a rock. He’ll kill us.”
“We’re right here, Blades,” Spicy called. “Or is it Martin? Lord will have your hide if you hurt us.”
Blades laughed. He was leaning over for a better look. No bow. “It doesn’t matter what Lord wants. He’s gone. He was dumb enough to run straight at that thing after what happened to him. But you’ve taken his books and they’re worth something. If I have to knock you down to get them, I will. Now climb up here now!”
“I don’t have them.”
Blades was craning his neck.
“Go,” Spicy whispered. Thistle continued to descend. Then he shouted, “I burned the books. All of them. So you need us alive. Between us we’ve memorized everything. But you’re never going to get our treasure.”
“You think I’m still chasing some treasure? I just need something I can sell. Books will do. So will a pair of overeducated goblins. But now you’ve pissed me off. When I catch you, I’m going to cut your eyes out.” Blades swung his feet over the edge and started climbing down. He was coming fast. Spicy lowered himself to the next foothold. Thistle hadn’t made it far.
“Hurry,” Spicy whispered. “He’s coming.”
“I’m going as fast as I can. Did you have to goad him?”
“I thought I’d distract him.”
“You’ve always had a big mouth.”
Blades was sliding, but he had enough control to adjust his descent and he was headed straight for them. He was about to collide with Spicy, the heels of his boots poised to kick Spicy off the waterfall.
Spicy let go and grabbed a leg. Then he pushed off the waterfall, and Blades and Spicy were both falling. They bounced hard on a stone slope and struck a shale face where sharp rocks cut and jabbed them as they tumbled. Spicy’s grip on the raider slipped. He bounced hard and went end over end. With one hand he caught a lip of a rock, which popped free. He slammed on his butt, his face, his shoulder, and finally tumbled until his feet found a slope of gravel. He planted his heels and hands as he slid, then finally skidded and slowed, his hands burning.
With a curse, Blades went crashing past him.
From above, Thistle was calling. He took a moment to catch his breath as the world spun. Everything hurt. It took a moment to confirm he was no longer moving. With trembling hands he inspected himself, but his limbs were all there and nothing felt broken.
He didn’t dare stand yet. The loose slope felt like it would start his slide anew at any moment. Thistle was heading his direction at a measured pace, deftly planting her feet and hands. Had he actually fallen that far without dying?
From somewhere below in the manzanita shrubs, Blades was cr
ying for help. It was a pitiful sound, and not loud enough to be heard by anyone still up above in the canyon. In fact, Spicy saw no one looking over the edge. Had Blades been alone? What of the dragon?
Scooching along on his butt, Spicy descended towards the cries.
Thistle was trotting after him, zigging and zagging down drifts of shifting gravel.
“Oh, god, please help,” Blades said.
“Spicy, stay away from him,” Thistle called.
The man had planted facedown on top of a shrub. His ankle was twisted at a sharp angle. Spicy had his own cuts and bruises but Blades had suffered much worse. The raider appeared to be stuck between a rock and the trunk of the shrub, his arms pinned. His broken leg was up behind him in the fork of a branch. He was wedged in.
“I can’t move. My leg…”
“Looks broken.” Spicy got closer for a better look. The man was completely immobilized and in agony.
Thistle caught up and hissed at him. Spicy raised a hand for her to hold on.
“Unwedge the leg,” Blades begged. “Please.”
It wasn’t a fake injury. Spicy had feigned plenty of those to try to get out of any number of tasks.
He pulled at the branch holding the man’s leg but the shrub was too strong. Lifting the leg made Blades howl.
“Take it. Take my knife. Cut the branch.”
Spicy would have to lean in to remove the weapon from the sheath on Blades’s belt. His sword was gone, no doubt dropped when fighting the dragon.
“Go on, gob. Do it.”
“Spicy,” Thistle said, “we have to go. More of them will come.”
“Give me a minute,” Spicy said. “I can’t leave him like this.”
He snatched the knife from the belt. Blades’s face had turned red and he was gasping as if having a hard time breathing. The blade was sharp but it took effort to saw through the thinnest part of the forked branch where the man’s leg was trapped. After a minute, the branch was almost sawn through but Spicy was exhausted. He grabbed the branch and began to bow it back and forth. Blades groaned. Finally the branch broke. The leg twisted free and Blades rolled out of the bush.
He began taking deep breaths, sobbing in relief. “Thank you, oh thank you.”
Spicy turned to leave.
“Wait. Don’t leave me. I can’t barely move. You need to get help.”
“I don’t need to do anything for you. You deserve to die for what you did.”
“Come on, I’m just a soldier. Lord tells us what to do and we do it.”
Spicy brushed dirt from his face. His throat was too dry to spit. “But you enjoy it. I saw you at my village. We’re taught to kill what we hunt as mercifully as possible. You came and took everything. And then you murdered my family, my mother…”
He was trembling. He hadn’t realized he was gripping the knife. He had slaughtered an animal before. Was this any different? It was just a human. Yet he hesitated.
A man shouted. Someone close, coming along the side of the hill and not from above.
“Help!” Blades yelled. “They’re here. They’re both here!”
Spicy turned and ran. Thistle was nowhere in sight. Charging downhill, he clawed his way through more of the red shrubs, which scratched and stabbed at him. But men were coming his way from the trees ahead. He froze and looked for a way past. One had a bow readied and aimed. Spicy’s heart hammered.
He raised his hands.
“Got the gob,” shouted one of the raiders.
A hand clamped on Spicy’s shoulders and thrust him to the ground. The raider patted through his pockets and took the knife. Spicy couldn’t help but grin.
Thistle had escaped.
The raider nudged him. “Why are you so happy?”
“No reason,” Spicy said. “No reason at all.”
Chapter Thirty
Hands bound, Spicy was led along a game trail that ran beneath the slope of the mountain.
The raider who guided him along pointed down to where the shrubs opened out to a wide stony field. A handful of the other raiders were gathered there. The humans appeared battered. Some had armor that dangled off straps. Others were missing weapons. Spicy counted twelve of them.
He was thrown down in the center.
Among the group, he didn’t see Oren, Black Tooth, or Alma. Then he realized Lord was missing as well. Blades had to be helped by two of the men who had found him. He groaned the entire way and was set down on a fallen tree.
“Where is everyone?” Blades asked. He was pale and his face was damp with sweat.
“They were killed by that thing up there,” Medico said. “What was it, Blades?”
“You saw it just like I did. It was some kind of big lizard.”
“Lizards are tiny things you can crush with your foot,” Medico said. “That was a dragon. Why didn’t you and Lord warn us you were taking us to a dragon?”
The other men appeared to want an answer as well.
“Because dragons aren’t real, okay? That thing up there is just some kind of animal.”
“An animal that spits flame? We’re no fools. Men are dead. You and Alma and Lord brought us up into the Monster Lands. Lord assured us of treasure. Of gold. With his books he led us from one goblin lorekeeper to another, all pointing us to their Spirit Rock and then to here. We walked into in places that were sacred and risked our very souls, but he had the stones to tell me not to worry. And you expect me to believe he didn’t know that creature was down there?”
Blades winced as he tried to adjust how he sat. “Take it up with Lord. This was his plan. He kept all the secrets to himself about what we’d find. Now my foot—”
“Lord’s not here,” Medico said. “He shared his plans with you and Alma. And then he convinced the rest of us to abandon our posts with all his promises. And to add to the injury, he refused us our rites. Maybe they would have protected us from that thing. But now we’re suffering the consequences for being where we shouldn’t ever have trespassed.”
A murmur of agreement came from the other men.
Despite his obvious pain, Blades smiled. “I don’t think your little doodles would have helped with the monster up there.”
Medico stepped closer and looked down at Blades’s twisted foot. “Little doodles? What do you think keeps my hand steady when I ply my medicine? Or keeps my ingredients pure? Or puts animals into my snares?”
“If glyph warden magic is so all-powerful, why didn’t it save the gob villages?” Blades snapped. “Their lorekeepers marked their doorways and wells and road markers. The last village had enough glyphs to fill a whole collection of books. Didn’t protect them. Didn’t save that lorekeeper, either. He checked himself out, if you missed what happened in that cave.”
“My magic is more powerful than any gob’s.”
Blades made a dismissive wave. “Okay. I believe you. Your glyphs are the most incredible thing and will save all of us. Lord was a fool. You happy? Are you going to help me or what?”
“Help you?” Medico asked. “Let me consider it. Perhaps we will come back after we go collect our horses. I’ll draw a glyph and say some words to protect you in the meantime.”
Spicy squirmed but the soldier kept a hand on him. With so few of the humans remaining, Spicy knew it was only a matter of time before an opportunity to flee presented itself.
Medico adjusted his backpack and motioned to the other men. They began to collect what little gear they had.
“You can’t leave me,” Blades said.
“Oh no? And whyever not?”
“Come on, Medico. We’re on the same side. We’re—”
“Allies?” Medico said, cutting him off. “Brothers in arms? Friends? No on all three counts. Without pay, we are truly nothing.” With a stick he scratched an X into the ground. “My recommendation to you is to move away from this spot. The creature up there still lives.”
“Wait! Stop! Medico! Hiller? Fieldman? Quinn? Come on, Quinn, we were in the guards together.”
As the men filtered past, no one gave Blades more than a passing glance. Spicy was shoved along. He met Blades’s eyes and saw none of the evil leer. All that remained was hopeless desperation. Blades tried to get up but screamed in pain as his twisted foot refused to support him.
“Why are we bothering with the gob?” the soldier with Spicy asked.
“At least he’s worth something alive,” Medico said.
A tall figure appeared on the trail in front of them. Lord stepped out of the shadows of the trees, with Alma at his side. One arm rested on her and she appeared to be taking some of his weight. Lord’s face was covered in white blisters. Tatters of skin hung down his forehead and cheeks where the flesh was bright pink.
“We’ve rallied,” Lord said. “Excellent. What weapons and equipment do we have left?”
Medico was at the front of the procession. He stopped in his tracks. “We thought you were dead.”
“That creature tried. But I’m not that easy to kill. Now we know it’s in its lair for when we return. We won’t be surprised again.”
“We aren’t going back up there,” Medico said. “Step aside. We’re not under your command anymore. We’ve lost half our men to the troll and now more to that dragon.”
“That dragon is just an animal like anything else you might hunt. And it’s the last thing in the way. We’ve made it. We just have to fight one more time and claim our riches.”
“Our riches? There’s nothing up there but bones. We should never have listened to you. Now let us pass. We’re going back down to the sea and returning home.”
“No one dismissed you from service, Medico,” Lord said.
Alma stepped away from the raider leader and nocked an arrow. Her quiver only had a single arrow remaining.
“We don’t have anything to fight a monster like that, Lord,” Medico said.
He took a step forward. Alma drew the bowstring back and aimed the weapon at him.
Medico snorted. “What are you going to do? Shoot us all?”
The Goblin Reign Boxed Set Page 16