The Goblin Reign Boxed Set

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “Just you,” Lord said. He made the smallest gesture.

  Alma snapped off the shot. Medico groaned and crumpled. None of the other men moved.

  The hand on Spicy’s shoulder relaxed. Spicy knew it was the time to flee. But seeing the raider doctor get murdered froze him with fear. Alma strode over to Medico’s body and unceremoniously yanked the arrow free.

  “Ha!” Blades shouted. “Ha-ha! Nailed him! That’s what you get for being a coward!”

  Lord limped towards the line of men. “All I ever asked was for you to trust me. We’ve come this far. There has been sacrifice. Plunder has been meager. But all I require now is for you to help me finish this. The creature up there is wounded. It’s but an animal. Perhaps it has fled but most likely, it has once again retreated into its warren. There it lays bleeding and ready to expire. It remains to us to finish it off.”

  There followed no cheer or words of approval, only the dejected compliance of men used to taking orders. One man went through Medico’s pockets and collected what he could. Another took the man’s pack.

  “What about me?” Blades said. “My foot?”

  Alma pointed to one of the soldiers. “Get him a crutch. Keep up, Martin. We’re going back uphill.”

  The soldier with Spicy gave him a nudge and Spicy found himself moving along with the silent band. They were returning to where a dragon lived, and now the humans had no reason to keep him alive.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “See? The monster can bleed.”

  Lord limped across the streambed, stepping between the bodies of two of the raiders. Dark stains marked the stone, but it could have been human blood. A few of the survivors unceremoniously disarmed their fallen comrades.

  Spicy knelt to pick up a knife from a scabbard lying between the rocks. With it, he could cut the twine binding his wrists.

  Blades smacked him with a crutch, knocking him down to the ground.

  “I don’t think so,” Blades said. He bent awkwardly down and took the knife for himself and thrust it into his belt. He then propelled himself forward. He had rough-hewn sticks under either arm and his bad foot was raised high as he hobbled along.

  They had spent an hour returning to the canyon, climbing a high slope with the aid of ropes. The canyon had a second way down they had missed earlier, which Lord and the other fleeing soldiers had discovered in their escape from the dragon. Blades had to be hoisted the entire way up the cliff. Spicy had made the climb with little aid even with his wrists bound, surprising himself with his own resilience.

  With Thistle free, he felt something close to hope, regardless of what might happen to him.

  Spicy watched Blades stagger past. At Spicy’s feet was a spattering of blood. He could smell it. It was sickeningly sweet but could have belonged to a man or a deer or any other creature. Yet there were drops everywhere, even in places where no dead human lay.

  Had they actually wounded the creature?

  Alma walked ahead of everyone, scanning the way forward and the high wall of stone above, each step carefully placed. Eventually she signaled for Lord and the rest to follow. The group of raiders formed up near the boulder with the writing and the glyph of eyes.

  No one wanted to get closer.

  Lord turned to face them with his back to the cave. From his pocket he removed a small wad of green leaves and shoved them in his mouth. He breathed deeply as he chewed and then spat. His own large sword was missing. He bent to pick up a fallen spear.

  “We know what’s in there now. We’ve faced down greater threats. Don’t let the childhood fear of some closet monster keep you from the riches that are hidden an arm’s reach away. We’ve seen it. It hurt us. But we hurt it too. Right now it’s nursing its wounds.”

  “It’s getting dark soon,” one raider said. “We need to fall back to the horses. Get reinforcements. Come back another time.”

  “Not if it means allowing the beast to recover. We press it now. Take up what weapons you can. When it comes out, we kill it. It won’t surprise us a second time.”

  “And how do we get it to come out?”

  “Our little friend roused it once. I’m sure we can entice the beast again with the aroma of goblin.”

  A soldier shoved Spicy forward.

  “Wait, hold on,” Spicy said. “You need me for when you get inside. There’s more writing on the walls. A lot more.”

  “Then you’ll have to be quick. Draw the creature out and run back up here.”

  He was nudged along to the top of the stairs. The fire had burned away much of the dry debris. Only the smell of smoke remained.

  “I can’t go back down there. I have no lamp—”

  Blades hitched forward. Before Spicy could do anything, the soldier behind him grabbed him. Spicy squirmed. Blades managed to keep his makeshift crutches pinched under his arm. He took Spicy’s bound hands and drew the blade along the skin, drawing a red line. Spicy screamed and tried to pull away as blood ran down his fingers.

  “Tell the beast soup’s on,” Blades said.

  The soldier shoved him down the stairs. He tumbled and landed at the bottom and immediately began to run back up. But Alma stood above him with an arrow aimed at him.

  “Go,” Lord said. “Bring it out. If you don’t emerge in ten minutes, we throw in all the wood we can find and we start another fire.”

  Spicy backed into the darkness. With his hands bound, he couldn’t stop the bleeding. If the beast was in the cave, it would have heard them. And now with his fresh blood dripping on the stone floor, the monster would smell him.

  Black Tooth’s body lay nearby. He crept closer to it. From the man’s belt he recovered a knife and freed his wrists. He tried not to look at the corpse as he worked, but it was impossible not to. The man had been gouged and torn. Spicy’s fingers trembled as he ripped Black Tooth’s tattered shirt away and wrapped an unburned stick with it.

  Warmth emanated from the charred husks of singed wood. Spicy blew slowly on one promising piece and was rewarded with a few embers. He gathered more unburned material together. Soon he had a small fire. With it, he lit his makeshift torch. It threw a pathetic amount of light into the darkness.

  “Start moving, gob,” Blades called.

  “I’m going, I’m going.”

  He proceeded forward into the dragon’s den.

  He thought furiously. He wished he had paid more attention during his time in Sage Somni’s library and had read more books with fewer pictures. An animal, he reminded himself. He was dealing with an animal. As Lord had said, it was hurt. Like a wounded mountain lion, it would retreat to its den. That was where the hunters would finish it. This “dragon” possessed no supernatural powers. It would hide and even Spicy’s presence might not dislodge it.

  He tried to make himself believe that.

  As he treaded past the bones of the deer, he realized that Black Tooth’s body hadn’t been moved but remained where it had fallen. So too the human bones at the base of the cliff. The beast didn’t eat humans. But that still left goblins as a possibility.

  “Ganjo the Goat went down the hole,” he whisper-sang, “to take a look at a monster…”

  He had to stop to catch his breath. He was breathing too hard and too fast. It would leave him with no strength to run. He was no longer a newbie hunter sneaking through a morning meadow in search of rabbits to hit with a hunting stick. He had faced down deer, seen a mountain lion. And then he almost chuckled when he thought about his dealings with the troll named Hog.

  He had tamed a troll. Where was the stud for that particular accomplishment?

  All he had to do now was taunt a dragon and run. Still, the knife in his hand was a pathetic thing. He put it in his belt and wiped the blood from his hand on the wall. Then the writing caught his attention again. With the torch held close, he got a better look.

  The squarish words were scratched so deeply into the walls, it was as if whatever scribe had written them had gone over each entry multiple times
with a sharp stylus.

  Spicy’s lips trembled as he studied each unfamiliar word.

  Some of the scratched letters were exactly as deep as the claw marks at the front of the cave and those outside. It wasn’t possible, his mind told him. He ran his fingers along the lines of mysterious words. Each was meticulously etched. A beast couldn’t do that. Yet the evidence was clear. No stylus had written the text.

  This was the work of a claw.

  “Dragon,” he whispered.

  He strained his ears. He heard no breathing. Surely the torchlight would be visible in the back of the thing’s lair. He moved along to where the hallway opened out into the second chamber. The back wall had been broken out. Beyond the hole stretched more darkness.

  Hiding was out of the question. If the beast was here, it saw him and smelled him. And the humans would soon be smoking him out. Lord was mad, he decided, and would never give up, even though Spicy knew there was no treasure inside the cave. Nothing but bones and ancient writing carved by a dragon.

  “Hello? Dragon?” He listened to his words echo away. He swallowed dryly and spoke louder. “I’m not with the men outside. They’re not my friends but my enemies. I know this is your home. I don’t particularly want to be here.”

  From somewhere came the drip of water. He stepped cautiously forward. Soon the shadows crowded him as the torch dimmed. The cloth had burned away, leaving little but a smoldering stick.

  Among the rubbish he found another small pile of shredded bark and leaves. He lit it. It burned quickly, and he knew the light wouldn’t last. But it was enough to see where the creature made its nest.

  An area of floor against one wall had been padded out with sand and small stones. A long impression filled the center that reminded Spicy of the tracks of a snake. The floor was replete with gouge marks. But further along in the back of the nest, things glimmered.

  With his hand raised as if to ward off spiderwebs, he walked across the nest, careful not to disturb it. The smell of the dragon lingered. Now it reminded Spicy of his own body odor if he didn’t wash.

  Against the wall, hanging on broken corners of stone, were articles of human clothing. A vest. Pants. A pair of necklaces with flat metal pendants. There was also a chain with a simple gold ring. On the floor beneath it all were a few copper pots, a metal cup, and some random utensils, all shoved into a corner.

  Hardly a horde.

  Among it all he found the bottom fraction of a thick candle set in a brass lamp. Using a twig from the dying fire, he lit it. He picked through the rest but found nothing useful. And none of it could possibly be the treasure Lord had set out to find.

  “Dragon?” he called. “Are you here?”

  Perhaps the creature hadn’t returned. What if it was wounded and had slunk off someplace else to lick its wounds? That meant all Spicy had to deal with was the humans at the entrance, who even at that moment were probably preparing to start another fire.

  He stepped over pieces of rubble to the hole in the wall. It led to another hallway. One end was caved in. The other ran off into the further darkness. Here the walls bore more scratch marks. The strange lettering was everywhere, from ceiling to floor, the writing in perfect lines.

  The fear of the dragon fell away as he marveled. Was this some language even more ancient than the old script? It couldn’t all be gibberish. Some portions of the lettering were vaguely reminiscent of the goblin language exclusive to the sages. Perhaps with enough time and access to the now-burned library, he could make sense of it.

  He wished Somni was still alive.

  He wished his sister was there. She was the smart one.

  A faint breeze caressed his face. But as he tried to locate its origin, it stopped.

  His foot nudged something. Shining the light down, he saw four arrows covered in blood. Droplets coated the floor. He looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling.

  Drip.

  Another spatter of blood dropped down past Spicy’s face.

  The creature in the hole above exhaled. “You’re no sage,” the dragon said with a hiss. “But you smell like one.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ever so slowly, Spicy showed his hand to be free of its weapon, even as he squinted up at the black hole. “I’m not one of them. One of the humans, I mean.”

  The creature inhaled. “That, I can smell. You’re a meat eater. A tool user. And you fear.”

  “I know the sage. One of them, at least. Sage Somni from my village of Boarhead. He tried to keep this place a secret. He died for it, all to keep the humans from knowing you’re here.”

  Something moved and shifted. A cascade of gray dust descended from above. The dragon let out a wheeze. “He failed.”

  Spicy licked his lips. “There were too many humans. They killed everyone to find this place. Their leader is obsessed with your treasure. Or something that you have. I don’t know what.”

  “Does it matter? He’s here. He hurt me. Now you’re here.”

  “Yes. No. I mean, I’m not with them. They forced me down here to lure you back up out of the cave where they’re waiting. They’ve regrouped and have more weapons.”

  The dragon didn’t answer. Spicy’s candle was sputtering. It had no more than a couple of minutes before it would be out, leaving him in darkness.

  Above him came the sound of a body shifting. A large head descended through the hole, followed by its neck. Its eyes caught the orange candle flame and reflected it. Spicy backed away as the rest of the dragon dropped down to fill the hallway. The creature thrust its head forward until it was inches away from Spicy’s face.

  “So a sage has perished,” the dragon said. It followed Spicy as he stepped back into the creature’s den.

  “Somni stepped off Spirit Rock to avoid being taken by the humans. Sage Thurten was also murdered. Sage Glomer was in Blackpool, which is the closest village…I don’t know what happened to him, but I think he killed himself.”

  The dragon maneuvered around Spicy. The creature’s body was now a wall on all sides of him.

  “And how did you come to be in the humans’ employ?”

  Spicy drew himself up so as to not touch the creature. He could feel heat radiating from its body. “I’m not. They captured me and my sister. I’m…she’s an apprentice, a good one. Somni was training her. The humans needed Somni to translate and stole some of his books. But my sister’s free now. I helped her escape.”

  “And yet they still come.”

  “Yes. You have something they want.”

  A low purr escaped the dragon’s throat. This became a dry laugh. “My treasure. Tell me about the human who leads them.”

  “They call him Lord. I believe they follow him because he promised them gold. But he’s obsessed with whatever knowledge Sage Somni refused to give him. He had a journal with notes. It led him to Spirit Rock and now here.”

  When Spicy hesitated, the dragon drummed a talon on the stone floor. “Go on.”

  “I burned the journal. But whatever he wants is here. Maybe it’s you, but it sounds like he wants you dead. Could your body be worth gold to him? I don’t know. But I’m starting to think there’s something else inside this place that he needs.”

  The dragon moved away from him as it stared down towards the front hall. “This Lord—he’s a learned man?”

  “I think so. But he still needed my sister to read and write, at least in the old script. But the writing I see here, on the wall, it’s like nothing I’ve seen, even in Somni’s library. Did you write this?”

  “That is none of your concern.”

  Spicy got closer to one of the walls. “All those claw marks outside are meant to keep everyone away, aren’t they? But your claws are your writing tools.”

  “You presume, goblin.”

  “That makes you a keeper of knowledge. But for who? For what reason? You’re like a sage with no one to come and learn from your recorded wisdom.”

  “Because it’s mine and mine alone!” the creature
shouted.

  Spicy was taken aback by the ferocity of the reply. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “But you did, goblin. You and your sages can all jump off your Spirit Rock and quit bothering me. Except…the humans are here.”

  Spicy nodded. “I don’t believe they’re going to go away.”

  “Then let them come.” The dragon began to move to the broken wall and the dark space beyond.

  “Wait! They’re going to burn you out. Even now they are gathering wood for a fire to fill this place with smoke if I don’t lead you out.”

  “Fools.” But the dragon hesitated.

  “Is there a back way where we can escape?”

  “We? You and I are not together. But no, there is no back way. I have the one entrance.”

  “What about the breeze I felt underneath your hiding hole?”

  “The upper level to this place. The rocks above form something of a natural chimney. But I could never fit through it.”

  “Could I?”

  The dragon carefully gazed at Spicy. “For what purpose? You can flee through the front back to your captors.”

  “Or I could distract them. If I can climb out and get them to believe you’re at their rear, it will give you a chance to go out the front.”

  “I stand a better chance waiting for them down here,” the dragon said.

  “If they start their fire, they may see the smoke coming up through the chimney. They’ll stop it up.”

  The dragon began to cough. Spicy couldn’t help but take a step back.

  “Why should I trust you?” the dragon asked.

  “I don’t know if you knew our sage, but he loved knowledge above all else. He protected you and this place with his life. I don’t understand it yet, but it must be worth fighting for to keep it out of human hands.”

  “That’s it?”

  Spicy was at a loss for words. “I don’t know what else you want me to tell you.”

  “You don’t want to see them dead for what they did to your fellow goblins?”

  “Of course I do. I would give anything to turn back the clock to keep them from ever coming. But that’s not possible. At the very least, I’ve freed my sister. If the humans would only just go away, I’d gladly let them. But I fear what they might learn here and who else they will hurt.”