by Vox Day
Then one rainy spring day, he’d come back to find the reed huts smashed and giving off a dreadful purple-tinged smoke that made one’s eyes water, the pretty goblines either missing or sprawled naked and dead on the ground, and nearly half the goblins he knew chained by their necks in a long line attached to the tree that served as the center of the village. No sooner had he turned to run than a massive gauntleted hand caught him by the throat and lifted him from the ground. He fumbled for the knife he used to scale the fish he sometimes caught when the frogs were scarce, but the big orc that held him fast only laughed.
“Stick me wid dat tickler and I’ll squoze you stupid head off, gobbo!”
Meerfin reconsidered and left his knife in its sheath. Eventually, there might come a time when he would question that decision, but at that moment, submission seemed massively preferable to being squozed.
At first, life in the Eighth Goblin Auxilary Foot marching under the menacing green-and-black banner of Chief Gutripper of Zorn Narvog hadn’t been a bad one. His skill with the frogspears translated quite well to the crudely sharpened thin wooden poles the orcs gave to their infantry auxiliaries, winning him a rapid promotion to first sergeant, and his ability to forage for meat of various kinds made him more popular with his unit than he had ever been with his village. He also forged a close friendship with a young forest goblin from the Aeglu tribe, who with his big eyes and soft yellow skin was as pretty as any of the Mequani goblines and shyly admired Meerfin in a way that made him feel nearly as tall as a great orc.
He hadn’t known it was possible to be so happy, especially in the army, bossed about by ruthless orcs. But the idyllic journey lasted no longer than it took for Gutripper’s army to reach the stony foothills of Hagahorn. There, both game and grain were hard to come by, and it was then, to his horror, that he learned how the orcs managed to travel without any wagons stocked with provisions for when the foraging of the wolfriders wasn’t sufficient to feed the army.
His first warning that the auxilary troops served a dual purpose was one evening, when they were all sitting around the fire and grumbling about the lack of food, and a squad of giant mountain orcs wearing creaking leather armor showed up and announced the arrest of five of his fellow goblin foot for treason. Their conspiracy was news to Meerfin, but like the others, he simply shrugged and assumed the orcs must have a spy in their midst.
There was much hushed whispering that night, and many suspicious glances were cast at the less popular members of the troop, but Meerfin didn’t see fit to give the matter any more thought. Instead, he went out into the night and managed to pin a noisy little bird to a tree with a lucky cast of his frogspear, which he plucked, then brought back to the camp and shared raw with Barkmoss in the privacy of what had over the course of the march become their tent.
Three days later, with the infantry reeling under the assault of a merciless sun, the march was halted early in the afternoon. Meerfin took the opportunity to climb the peak to the west in search of rock rats and managed to find two fat ones that were hiding out in the shadow of a large rock. But when he returned, his friend was nowhere to be found. A frightened young goblin in his phalanx said that the orcs had come back and dragged off Barkmoss and another goblin from the troop. Worried, but convinced there was some mistake, Meerfin immediately set off for the orc encampment. Perhaps the traitors had been forced to name others, or perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity.
But a part of him must have suspected the truth, for when he heard the crackling of the fire and smelled the mouth-watering aroma of meat being cooked, his fear knew no bounds. He charged recklessly into the midst of the huge, armored orcs and stared in horror at the sight of his sweet, sensitive friend spitted and roasting over the flames. They hadn’t even bothered to take his clothes off but were letting them burn away as his blood hissed and smoked when it fell on the coals. Speechless and sickened, he turned to face the nearest orc, who was grinning as he slowly pushed himself to his feet.
“Lads, we’s eating good tonight! Here’s anodder and we don’t even have to cotch it!”
Meerfin screamed and hurled the frogspear in his hand at the orc’s face. His aim was true, and the huge brute bellowed in bestial pain before staggering toward him with one arm outstretched. Meerfin ducked under it, drew his blade, and sank it into the orc’s exposed armpit, then withdrew the blade and shoved with all his might. Wounded and off-balance, the orc stumbled into the firepit, reached blindly out, then crashed face-first into the flames clutching the corpse of the spitted goblin in both arms.
As the orc screamed in agony and his fellows roared with cruel laughter, Meerfin fled for the mountains, tears of grief and anguish burning two hot trails down his face.
After waiting three days to be sure the Gutripper’s army had moved on, Meerfin traveled south. But he was soon lost in the unfamiliar terrain and somehow managed to wander west instead of east, toward the Man lands.
Two weeks after his unplanned desertion, he was captured by slavers, transported to Amorr, and sold to the Green stables as part of a lot of thirty whip-scarred orcs, half-starved goblins, and a wounded dwarf. He survived his first appearance on the sands of the great arena by pure happenstance, and his second on the strength of his rage when he and eleven goblins equipped with nothing but wooden spears were matched against a pair of armored orcs armed with spiked maces. Eight of his companions died, but in the end, both orcs were lying lifeless on the sands. The stablemaster fed them well that night, but in the morning, he was taken from the goblin compound with his hands and mouth bound and given to a man who promptly popped him into a rough burlap sack and carried him onto a cart.
It didn’t travel far, though, before he was taken off the cart and his hands were freed just long enough for his new owners to stretch out his arms and legs and tie them to some sort of posts driven into the ground.
He didn’t even struggle. In fact, he couldn’t summon up more than a mild curiosity about what would happen next. Whether he died on an orc’s spit in the army, upon an orc’s spear on the sands, or here on this cold stone didn’t matter to him any more than it did to the gods or the rest of an indifferent world. The gag still silenced his mouth, but even if they removed it, he would not have cried out. Who was there to hear? Who was there to care?
As he lay there, candles were lit around him, something wet was sprinkled upon him, and one or two men went about some mysterious business. He heard an amount of the strange and unintelligible language of Man being spoken, and eventually, the meaningless babble lulled him to sleep….
He awoke choking, with the sensation of a foul-tasting liquid filling his mouth. He gagged and tried to spit it out, but someone behind him lifted his head with one hand, and with the other, held his mouth clamped shut. He swallowed convulsively, then gasped for air once his throat was clear.
Around him, the candles suddenly burned high, then extinguished themselves as an evil-smelling smoke wafted upward from the wicks. Then, as he lay there, something inside him seemed to wake up, and he felt himself possessed by a strange sense of well-being, even of strength.
Why am I lying on this floor? What am I doing here? Who am I?
He—no, no longer he, but it—stared with fascination at the strange yellow-green feet with the curled claws that appeared to belong to its body.
What am I?
Looking up, it saw a domed ceiling arching over his head. A temple, it thought. Or to be more specific, a church. Its arms were tied to something, it realized as it tried to sit up. With a snarl, it curled its right arm and tore in half the cloth holding it down, then freed its other arm as well as its legs. Leaping to its feet in a single bound, it looked down at its naked body. It was thin and mostly light green, with yellow highlights upon its belly.
Goblin, it realized, and male. I am goblin?
Then awareness filled it, followed by exultation and a terrible feeling at its core that it dimly recognized as hunger. A wizard had placed it here, had reached a s
orcerous hand down into the nether planes, had plucked it forth, and had implanted it in this body of flesh.
I am no goblin, it realized as it searched the feeble, barely sentient mind of the body in which it was imprisoned. I am not this “Meerfin.” I am Vermilignum, and I am free!
It looked around and saw the remnants of a summoning circle, but the blood was smeared and dry in places. The salt was scattered, and the candles had guttered out. The magick circle could no more hold it than the paltry rags had held the spindly arms of the goblin it possessed.
The demon hurled himself out of the circle, out of this weak and worthless material form that could serve as nothing more useful than the doorway to this plane.
But some invisible, impalpable force held it in place, and instead of soaring free into the world, its body merely dove forward and landed awkwardly amidst the blood and salt. What was this? It tried again, and again, but all it succeeded in doing was causing the body in which it was trapped to jerk and hop about in an unnatural manner.
Exultation was replaced by rage. Who had done this to it? It ransacked the goblin’s mind, destroying everything it touched in its haste and fury, seeking to find the useful memories.
Finally, it found something relevant. A hand. Red robes. A man’s voice speaking the words of the binding spell. Then fear seized it as it recognized the spell and realized the implications. The spell drew its strength from the goblin’s blood, which was why it could not break the binding from inside the goblin’s body. In fact, every attempt to break the binding would only weaken the body, possibly even kill it. And, to its utter horror, it realized that the nature of the spell was such that death of the goblin’s body would not free it, but would rather dissolve it little by little, as it would still be bound to all the various components of the body as that mortal vessel slowly rotted away into nothing.
Power! What it needed was more power, enough blood to break through the spell and free it from this diabolical trap of mortality! What enemy had done this to it?
Furious and frightened, it turned its thoughts away from such pointless avenues and toward what the goblin senses were telling it. The scent of men filled its nostrils, an ideal source of blood and more than enough to suit its needs!
Sniffing and scrabbling on all fours, it followed the scent down the hall and into a large chapel in which five or six men in blue robes were talking with one another. Or rather, they were arguing, it realized from the angry tones of the voices. They were priests of some god or another, it seemed. It could have understood them had it wished, but it had no interest in the men, only in their blood that might free it and the flesh that might sate its ravenous mortal body.
Quietly, quietly, it stalked them, unseen in the long shadows of the torches in the center of the room. Closer, and closer, it crept, until it was nearly in range to spring.
“What’s that!” one of the robed men shouted, pointing at it.
That one was the first to die—with the goblin’s short, sharp teeth in his throat. It snarled and growled as it tore at him. Then it leaped at the next man, who stood there transfixed with sheer terror.
A third man simply collapsed, clutching at his chest, while the fourth tried to banish it, shouting banishments and exorcisms that did no more to free it from the goblin body than its own efforts had.
The fifth man, a hairless one, was fleeing as fast as his aged and decrepit legs would allow. It threw a candelabra at him, causing him to fall. Then it scampered over and smashed his bald head with the bronze device as if it were an egg.
The sixth man, the last, did not flee, but stood before it without any visible signs of panic, although it could smell the acrid scent of his fear.
“You are no goblin,” the priest said calmly. “Tell me how you are called, spirit, in the name of Our Immaculate Savior!”
“Vermilignum,” it told him. “Can you free me?”
“I don’t know. But I can pray for you, and for the poor beast whose body you possess.”
“This is no possession!” it hissed in anguish. “If you cannot free me, all I need from you is your blood!”
The priest nodded slowly. “Then take it, if you must. And may the Most High have mercy on whatever passes for your soul.”
It struck. The priest fell to the floor, and it fed upon him, filling its ravenous maw with the sweet taste of Man flesh.
Thus fortified, it began to consider how it might banish the spell. It hadn’t been summoned often, but often enough that it could picture how the summoning spells were structured. Presumably a reversal might be used to banish it. Even a return to the nether realm and its harsh master would be preferable to the slow dissolution it fancied it could already feel. But that was nonsense. The goblin might be dying as the binding slowly drained its life from it, but it was not dead yet.
The floor was painted with blood, both the circle and the reverse of every evocation it could remember. It gathered up the remains of the candles and placed them. A taste showed they were made from goblin fat. With a curse it lit them and then lay down in the midst of the crimson circle and began reciting the most likely invocation backward.
Nothing happened. It tried a second spell, then a third, and finally, in frustration, tried to hurl itself out of the goblin body by a sheer effort of its demonic will. A cold wind filled the death-desecrated chapel, and the candle flames vanished, but it was still imprisoned in body that was rapidly weakening now as a result of its efforts to escape. It looked around the chapel, desperately trying to think of another way.
Then it saw the answer in a small fountain on the other side of the chapel. Holy water! Surely that should suffice to break the connection! It rushed over to the fountain and plunged its head into the much-feared liquid, bracing itself for the inevitable burning to come.
But there was nothing! It thrashed about in bewilderment for a second, then slowly lifted its face from the water. Either through its summoning and binding or its own deadly actions, the chapel had been desecrated. The water was now simply water.
There would be holy water elsewhere, but even if it could be found, it might be hard to reach. Running water wouldn’t be as strong, but at least it was available. There was a river running through the city to the sea. There was always one somewhere in the middle of a city this size. Once it saw a bridge, it knew the river would be easy to find. But even as it made its decision, the goblin body shuddered with convulsions that made it hard to stay upright. The body was weakening too fast under the burden of the binding. It didn’t have much time
Shrieking with frustration and despair, it returned to the corpses, wrestled a blue robe off the body of the murdered priests and slipped it over its own head. The robe was too long, but would have to do if it didn’t want to attract deadly attention in the streets of the city of men. Bunching the priest’s robe up over the goblin’s thick and bony knees, Vermilignum ran out of the chapel and into the darkness.
SEVERA
The letter was sealed with red wax and bore the stamp of House Severus. It was with genuine delight that Severa began reading it for the first time.
It was with disbelief and dawning horror that she began reading it for the second time.
By the time she had finished reading it a third time, her horror and disbelief had given way to a fury unlike anything she had experienced before. It was one thing to suspect evil of those nearest and dearest to you, but it was something else altogether to see it confirmed in ink, written in a familiar and trusted hand.
My dear sister,
I trust this finds you and the others well. I must apologize for not having written you previously, but I am confident you will forgive me, for none know so well as I do your gentle nature. Do not harbor a grudge against me, little sister, for as you have no doubt guessed already, my failure to write you was no wish of my own, but rather a command from that authority which brooks no disobedience.
All Amorr mourns your absence. I only exaggerate slightly. The poet Gnaeus Rabirius (I re
fer to the young man of the knightly class, not the Senator, of course), was heard to declare that the departure of the three sisters of House Severus from the city was like the three stars of Kandaon’s Belt disappearing from the night sky. Nor is he alone in his sentiments.
But you must be strong now, sister, for now I must tell you something that I fear shall wound your tender heart. Even prior to your sudden departure, I was not unaware that you may have held a regard for a certain young hero of the arena, one which our father would not approve. I do not condemn or condone your feelings, for as it is written in the Ars Amatoria, “We are always eager for forbidden things, and yearn for what is denied us, like the sick man who longs for water because his doctor forbids him to drink it.” I have always had the utmost confidence in you, sweet sister, and I am confident that you are well-armored in virtue. If ever there was a woman capable of withstanding the soft whispers of her treacherous heart, it is you, my dear Severa.
I only tell you this so you will know that I understand your sentiments and that I grieve with you at the fall of Silicus Clusius of the Blue. He fought with courage and with skill, and I am confident that he would have been granted Missus had the wound dealt him by the trident of the great retarius, Montanus, not proven mortal. The brave manner in which he departed this world has been much remarked in the days following the games, as upon seeing Clusius had received his death, the crowd first applauded the victor for his victory before applauding the defeated for the nobility of his defeat. Still on his feet, Clusius saluted the crowd with his sword before falling stricken to the sands. The victorious Montanus rushed to his side and was even seen to dash tears from his eyes. I was there, and I can tell you it was most affecting.