Legends of Windemere: 03 - Family of the Tri-Rune

by Charles E Yallowitz

  “He doesn’t seem to be very good at his job,” Stephen rudely guesses. He cringes when Nyx punches him in the arm, the caster using enough subtle magic to make the impact hurt.

  “Timoran would have butchered the goblins and created more bad blood,” Nyx declares, returning her attention to the dryads and goblins. “I told him to back down and get my little brother to rescue me without harming the goblins. If we keep killing them then the situation will escalate into an all-out war. I refuse to be the cause of that.”

  “You’re truly a fascinating creature,” Stephen says in amusement.

  Nyx ignores him and lets her mind drift as she watches the dryads stretch and yawn. She smiles at a pack of young goblins that is scampering along the side of the tree. They screech and tackle each other in a playful game, which spans the entire village. The youngsters bounce off rooftops and dive through piles of straw, leaving the adult goblins to yell and clean up the mess. Eventually, the playful game brings the young goblins to the border of the village where they crash into one of the guardians. The large goblin barks at them and makes a long line in the dirt with his spear, pounding the butt of his weapon on the ground when done. Obediently, the youngsters line up in front of the guard and quietly stare at their feet. Walking behind them, the guardian raps each youngest on the top of his or her head with his spear. The blows are enough to make them dizzy as they wander back to the giant tree.

  “The elven thief who electrocuted and robbed me!” Stephen suddenly shouts, causing Nyx to jump in surprise. “That’s why I thought we met before. You smell remarkably like her. Are you related?”

  “I’m really getting tired of talking about my smell. I’m starting to think I have to bathe more than once a day,” Nyx replies, fighting the urge to hit the mercenary again. “Maybe I can convince the goblins to let you go, so I can get some peace and quiet. Only problem is that I have no idea how to communicate with them. I don’t know their language and I haven’t heard a single goblin use trade-speak.”

  “Why would we use your tongue amongst ourselves?” asks a squeaky voice from the top of the cage. “Do you speak goblin when we are not around?”

  Nyx and Stephen glance up to see a wrinkled goblin whose ivory horns have turned gray with age. He is wearing a simple vest of animal fur that has been decorated with crude drawings of beasts and trees. The goblin is holding a long stick with a natural hook at the end, which holds a small clay pot. With a surprisingly thin arm, he reaches toward the pot and pulls out a glowing worm. Nyx and Stephen inch away, fearing that the goblin is planning to drop the mysterious worm on one of them. Instead, the old goblin greedily slurps the worm into his mouth and happily chews on the slimy snack.

  “I see your point,” Nyx responds when the goblin looks down at her expectantly. “I apologize if I offended you.”

  “You are a very apologetic creature, pack killer. I warn you that you can apologize until you have returned to the soil, but it will not be enough,” the old goblin says. He climbs around the cage, so that he can stare into Nyx’s eyes. “We believe you are, as your people say, remorseful for your actions, but we do not see a purpose in apologizing. It does not repay your debt or bring back the dead.”

  Nyx sighs and looks to the tree with a few tears in her eyes. “I understand.”

  “What about me?” Stephen asks, seeing an opening to get attention.

  “You came upon our holy ground and relieved yourself,” the goblin states, baring his sharp teeth and returning to the top of the cage. “The spirits have been offended by you and demand an offering of apology. It will be nothing like the pack killer’s offering, but it must be something precious to you.”

  “Then we will have a problem because I hold nothing precious,” Stephen admits with a cruel sneer. “Sentimentality is for women, children, and the weak.”

  “A sad existence,” the old goblin whispers. He shivers when a cold wind passes through the area and he pulls his fur vest tighter around his chest. “If you hold nothing sacred then we must request a piece of you. A finger or a toe shall be sufficient to appease the spirits for your crimes. Do you prefer that we remove the piece or would you rather do it yourself?”

  “I promise that your people will suffer if you attempt to take a piece of me,” Stephen threatens the old goblin in a voice that is cold and predatory.

  “Can I pay his debt?” Nyx quickly asks before a fight breaks out. “He’s interested in me, which means I’m precious to him. So, I can give up a piece of myself to pay his debt.”

  The old goblin scratches his chin while he hums and closes his eyes. Nyx watches as the leaves of the great tree shimmer and shift in a random pattern. For a brief moment, she thinks she hears hundreds of voices whispering, but they vanish when she tries to focus on them.

  “The spirits accept your suggestion and wait to hear your offering,” the goblin says in a soft, dreamy voice.

  “My hair,” she immediately states. She glares at Stephen, who is chuckling at the absurd offering. “I try to take good care of it and it’s precious to me. It might not be worth anything, but it’s the best sacrifice I can think of.”

  “The spirits accept your offering,” the goblin whispers, opening his eyes and smiling at the half-elf. “It is not the coin worth of the item that the spirits are concerned with, but the inner value that it holds for the presenter. You, cruel warrior, should thank her and leave the forest as quickly as possible. I fear that your presence in our realm will cause further issues, blood spiller.”

  A tense dryad appears to open the cage door and carry Stephen to the ground. The black-clothed warrior glances at Nyx, laughing loudly as he walks into the forest. Nyx ignores his echoing voice and grows a magical blade from her hand. Without a second thought, she takes all of her hair in her other hand and slices through her tresses. She shivers at the feeling of wind on her bare neck and exposed ears as she hands the old goblin her severed hair. He flings the offering into the air where something carries it into the distant branches.

  “I feel strange,” Nyx whispers under her breath. She rubs at her neck and cringes when she imagines what she must look like. “Maybe I can get Sari to style this when I get back to Hero’s Gate. She has to know some short hairstyles.”

  “You will not grow it back with aura?” the goblin asks out of curiosity.

  “My hair wouldn’t be a worthy offering if I could grow it back so easily and be happy with the results,” Nyx answers, trying not to show her anger at the suggestion. “Now, what must I do to repay my debt?”

  “It has been decided that it must be a life for a life,” the old goblin replies. He casually reaches into his pot and stuffs a handful of glowing worms into his mouth. Their light shines through his nostrils until he swallows the gooey mess.

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “One life cannot replace many lives.”

  “You’re going to have me kill other people?”

  The old goblin crawls down the cage to stare at Nyx with an expression of confusion and concern. “I believe we have a misunderstanding. What is the definition of life for a life in the cities?”

  “It means that when you take a life, you have to sacrifice another life, sometimes your own, to repent,” Nyx nervously answers. She pulls out her necklace and rubs the amethyst to calm down until she sees the goblin is mesmerized by the gem. “This is the only thing I have left of my parents and village. They were destroyed when I was a child. I’m sorry, but it won’t be given up.”

  “That is a shame. We rarely see pretties like that,” the goblin softly mentions when he regains his senses. “As for your answer, I do not understand the point in killing someone to make amends for killing another. Would it not then lead to someone else having to kill another to make amends for the second killing?”

  “We have a system of justice, so we don’t kill people without good reason,” Nyx replies, struggling to follow the goblin’s logic.

  “I will take your word for that,” he says
with his head cocked to the side. “Our people believe that when you take a life that is not prey or foe, you must create a new life to replace the life lost. For you, it would mean creating hundreds of goblins, which would take an extensive amount of time and aura.”

  Nyx stares in horror at the old goblin before she can talk again. “You want me to give birth to hundreds of goblins?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want me to mate with goblins until I replace all the ones I killed,” Nyx says in a dull, stunned voice. The sound of melodic laughter draws her attention and she can see dryads find her words amusing. “I think I’m missing something important here. How do goblins breed?”

  “I do not understand what you mean by mate,” the goblin admits, scratching his head and casting dry flakes of skin to the ground. “To create new life, our females gather aura in their horns, which takes several sky cycles. When they have enough aura to create new life, they pray to the womb tree and wait for it to accept their proposal. They pierce the tree with their horns to deliver the collected aura and one day a new life will appear within the upper roots.”

  “I’m still not sure I like this,” Nyx claims, eyeing the large tree with renewed curiosity. “I’m not a goblin, so what kind of goblins would come from my aura. Would they even be goblins?”

  The old goblin gingerly pats Nyx on the head, leaving a patch of glowing slime on her remaining hair. “The womb tree only creates goblins. Their strength would be determined by your strength. This is the offer the spirits have made to you. To deny them means we will continue our raids and any attempt to rescue you will be an act of war.”

  Nyx is about to answer when one of the dryads screams and darts out of the womb tree, her elegant form vanishing into the evening shadows. The other dryads escape from the tree while the goblins scurry into their homes, their screeches of panic filling the air. Nyx is surprised to see the black and red forms of the krypters crawling down the womb tree. Their claws leave gouges in the trunk that leak thick, white puss. Hundreds of pixies try to attack the krypters, but they are batted away or shoved into the drooling mouths of the monsters.

  The old goblin looks around for a safe way down, but the krypters are already too close for him to escape. He is about to jump into open air and risk a deadly fall when the krypters abruptly stop and stare into the sky. The old goblin follows their gaze to see that Nyx has slipped out of the cage and is hovering high above the village. Fireballs whirl around her body, drawing the attention of the ravenous krypters.

  “You monsters want a taste of me?” Nyx hisses in a voice dripping with malice. “Come and get your fill!”

  *****

  “I lost the trail,” Luke bitterly announces. He kicks a nearby rock, sending it into the underbrush. “It looks like another group of goblins came through this way and trampled the original path. The second group split up, so I have no idea which trail to follow. It’s possible that all of the groups went to where Nyx is being held, but I don’t want to risk following a false path. This is frustrating.”

  “Then it looks like we have both failed,” Timoran says, his eyes still watering from the lingering stench of skunk onions. “These goblins are more intelligent than I expected. I had always thought of them as simple creatures that work off instinct. Could there be someone helping the goblins?”

  “The goblins are working alone. They’re simple creatures if you’re fighting them or they don’t know they’re being tracked,” Luke explains. He bends low to the ground, hoping to find a trace of Nyx’s boot prints. “It’s when goblins know they’re being hunted that they become a forest tracker’s headache. They have hundreds of tricks to hide their trail. The tricks they use depends on the terrain, the weather, the season, the time of day, and so many other minor factors that we would never notice. My grandfather tried to teach me all of their tricks, but he gave up after a goblin pack caused him to get lost in the forest for a week. He swore he would never underestimate a hunted goblin again. I’m not even sure if he found the pack before he came home. The point is that goblins are crafty creatures.”

  Luke runs his hands along the tracks, searching for deeper impressions in the trampled soil. He gets back to his feet and wipes his hands on his pants, his face twisted in focused thought. With a curious expression, Luke carefully walks to the nearest tree and climbs high enough to get a full view of the muddy ground. He silently moves his fingers through the air as if they are walking along goblin tracks.

  “You are getting desperate,” Timoran casually says. He takes a deep breath, but immediately retches from the foul odor.

  “Yes, but I’m trying very hard to ignore that,” Luke argues from his perch. “This is such a frustrating challenge because I have an entire goblin village working against me. Forest trackers don’t typically go after groups this big without other scouts to help. We’d also have an army backing us up.”

  “Would it help to climb higher and look around the forest?” Timoran asks, anxiously pulling at his red hair. “I have heard tales that goblins live under a large tree.”

  Luke drops from the branches and rubs his eyes. “They do, but have you ever heard of someone seeing one of these trees from a distance?”

  “A tribe brother once claimed to have stumbled upon a tree with a goblin village at its base,” Timoran answers, curious about Luke’s question. “He was with another tribe brother who attacked the goblins and was killed. The survivor was allowed to leave because he did not join in the attack and offered his daily kill to their shaman. My tribe brother was an honest man to the day he died on the hunt.”

  “I’m sure he was honest with you, Timoran, but he found the tree by accident,” Luke says with a polite smile and a small bow. “Anyone can stumble onto a goblin tree. Yet, they never see the tree until they are within the village at its base. Their tree is invisible to the naked eye and most magic spells. I could climb up there and stare directly at it, but all I would see is a large expanse of seasonal colors. Though, I do like where your mind is going, Timoran. We can’t track Nyx or the goblins directly, so we have to find something else to track.”

  “I am not sure I follow your idea,” Timoran admits, scratching the scars of his left arm. “I have hunted many creatures in my homeland, so I consider myself an experienced tracker. Yet, I have never heard of tracking one’s prey by tracking something else. There is always a sign of passage such as a broken branch or a fallen tuft of fur. If your prey puts up enough false trails and obstacles then it is time to stop tracking and flush them out.”

  “That doesn’t sound very subtle,” Luke whispers, knowing the barbarian will still hear him.

  “It involves a lot of roaring and stomping. Maybe throwing rocks or logs into the underbrush if you think they are nearby,” Timoran mentions. He looks around the area for something light enough to lift, but heavy enough to make a loud noise when it hits the ground.

  “Good idea, but that won’t help, Timoran,” Luke claims, pretending to cough into his hand to hide his smile. “The goblins went home where they have the advantage of numbers, so we won’t be flushing them out. We have to go to them.”

  “You are surprisingly calm, Luke.”

  “I have a plan, so we’ll find them soon enough.”

  “I hope Nyx can hold out until then.”

  “Nyx will be fine.”

  “You sound very confident.”

  Luke turns to Timoran and fixes him with a serious stare. “I’ve known Nyx for only a few months, but I’ve come to have utter faith in her. She’s one of the smartest and toughest people I’ve ever met. If she has gone willingly with the goblins then she has a plan to get out alive. Still, I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  “Then you should shut up and get to work,” Tzefira snaps as she steps out from behind a nearby tree. “Is there a reason you two maidens are talking instead of rushing off to rescue Nyx?”

  “I was just about to get us moving again,” Luke calmly states, turning to Timoran. “You aren’t g
oing to like this, Timoran, but I need you to follow the smell of skunk onion. The goblins didn’t realize that using the skunk onion to hide their scent created another trail. Most predators would give up as soon as they catch the scent, but we aren’t most predators. With any luck, Timoran can lead us to a point where we only have one collection of prints to follow and I can take over.”

  Timoran is already sniffing the air and grimacing in disgust before Luke finishes talking. The barbarian carefully walks around the area for a few minutes, his powerful legs a little shaky. Taking a hesitant breath, Timoran slowly jogs in the direction that the foul skunk onion stink is strongest. He builds speed as his senses narrow in on the horrible stench. Luke and Tzefira are a few yards behind him, their weapons drawn and tightly gripped. Timoran skids to a stop and turns to face the smaller warriors. With a crazed look in his blue eyes, the barbarian picks them up and sprints ahead as fast as he can.

  “I don’t like this!” Tzefira shouts as Timoran leaps over a small stream. She can feel her teeth rattle when he hits the ground and continues charging ahead.

  “I’m not enjoying it either, but you have to admit he’s pretty fast!” Luke yells back, his sabers held to his chest to avoid stabbing the barbarian.

  A terrifying screech fills the air, followed by a chorus of high-pitched screams. Timoran stops to put his allies down and they cautiously move toward the sound of panicking creatures. An explosion shakes the ground before an unearthly roar rips through the trees. No longer cautious, the three warriors rush forward, bursting into the goblin village and freezing in their tracks. Most of the goblins have gone into hiding underground with only a handful of defiant guardians standing at the base of the large tree. Hovering high above the village is Nyx, who is pouring magical fire into an enormous krypter. The monster has twelve heads and a forest of arms, its bulbous body greedily feeding off Nyx’s magic.