by Jim C. Hines
A short distance ahead, a human in leather and steel armor stood on the edge of the lake, surrounded by fallen goblins. He wore a green tabard with a picture of a giant four-legged boar standing in front of a tower. The animal appeared almost as large as the tower itself, and it held an enormous sword in one paw.
Humans wore strange clothes.
A dent in the human’s helmet suggested the goblins had landed at least one good blow before they fell. Of the four goblin bodies scattered across the snow, only one was still moving.
‘‘Oh, no,’’ Jig whispered. The surviving goblin had fallen onto the ice at the lake’s edge. She struggled to push herself up on twin canes of yellow-dyed wood. One cane punched through the ice. She fell back with a curse, losing her grip on the cane.
‘‘Come on,’’ said Relka. She started to rise, but Jig dragged her back.
‘‘Humans have weird rules about killing unarmed old women,’’ Jig said. ‘‘Some of them do, at least. Grell will be fine.’’
This human appeared to be one of the ‘‘honorable’’ ones. He kept his sword ready, but didn’t try to stop Grell from crawling to the edge of the lake.
‘‘At least you put a stop to that blasted drumming,’’ Grell said. She took another step and her remaining cane slipped.
The human laughed.
‘‘Oh, think this is funny, do you?’’ Grell rolled over and slammed her cane into the human’s leg.
The cane broke. The human laughed even harder.
Jig shook his head. ‘‘It’s not a good idea to laugh at Grell.’’
Grell stabbed the broken end of her cane into the human’s thigh, right through the bottom corner of his tabard.
The human staggered back. He reached down with his free hand to rip Grell’s cane from his leg.
‘‘We’ve got to save her!’’ Relka grabbed Jig’s hand and pulled him over the ridge.
They weren’t going to make it. With only one cane to support her hunched body, Grell could barely even walk. The human was going to kill her, which would leave the goblins without a chief.
The last time that had happened was close to a year ago, when a hobgoblin named Slash killed the previous chief. The goblins had chosen Jig to take her place.
Jig still had nightmares about his short time as chief. Half of the lair had expected him to solve all of their problems. The other half had been busy plotting to kill him and take his place. Jig wasn’t about to let that happen again.
He yanked his sword from its sheath. In the songs and stories, warriors sometimes threw their weapons as a last resort to kill distant enemies. As Relka ran ahead, Jig steadied himself, drew back, and flung his sword as hard as he could.
Either Jig was no warrior, or this wasn’t the right kind of weapon for throwing. Probably both. The sword nearly cut off Relka’s ear as it spun end over end. She dove into the snow.
The sword curved to the right and bounced harmlessly off a tree, halfway between Jig and the human. A bit of snow sprinkled down from the branches.
Everyone turned to look at Jig . . . who had now thrown away his only weapon.
Relka was busy digging through the snow. She must have dropped her knife when she tried to avoid Jig’s sword. Wonderful. With a single throw, Jig had managed to disarm both himself and his companion.
Relka waved at him. ‘‘Don’t worry! Shadowstar will guide you to victory!’’
Jig stared at the limping human. Jig was unarmed, but the human carried enough weapons for three goblins. He switched his sword to his left hand and drew a knife with his right. He flipped the knife, catching it by the blade, and threw.
The knife spun past Jig’s head, close enough for him to hear the whirring sound of its passage. With a loud thunk, the knife buried itself in a tree trunk.
Right. Warriors could throw their weapons. Goblins were better off running away.
Jig turned to run. He leaped over the ridge, skidding and flailing his arms for balance. He managed to run a whole three steps before tripping over a tree root. Rocks scraped his knees and hands, and the impact stole his breath. He pushed himself up. Snow smeared his spectacles, rendering them all but useless. He peered over the top of the frames at the blurry figure of the approaching human, who now carried swords in both hands.
That was simply unfair. Two swords against none? Jig squinted. Was that—? It was! The human was carrying Jig’s own sword in his off hand.
‘‘For Shadowstar!’’ Relka waved her knife as she charged to Jig’s defense. It was a typical goblin tactic, with typical results. The human stepped to one side. Relka was running too fast to change direction, but she tried anyway, saving her life in the process. She stumbled, dropping her knife again as she fought to recover her balance. The human’s follow-up attack missed, and then Relka was face-first in the snow.
‘‘There’s no place to run, goblin,’’ the human said. He had faced four goblins, and he wasn’t even breathing hard! ‘‘Turn around and die like a man.’’
Now there was a stupid suggestion if Jig had ever heard one. Jig pulled himself to his feet and searched his pockets for weapons. There were at least twenty pockets sewn into the cloak, enough for Jig to carry most of his belongings.
Unfortunately, that was far too many pockets to remember exactly where everything was. He found an old smoked bat wing, an extra pair of socks, some dead wasps he was saving for Smudge . . . hadn’t he tucked a knife in here somewhere?
The human twirled both swords. The blades hissed through the air. His hands moved so fast Jig could barely follow, and his swords were all but invisible as they created a web of whirling steel. One limping step at a time the human advanced, bringing those blades closer and closer to Jig.
Jig reached into his hood and grabbed Smudge. For a moment Jig simply stood there, letting the fire-spider’s warmth thaw his numb fingers. Then Jig threw him at the human.
Smudge landed on the human’s chest and clung there, a blurry spot of black and red in the middle of the human’s tabard. He had landed near the head of the beast embroidered on the tabard, like a tiny smoldering hat.
Unfortunately, the tabard gave no indication of bursting into flames. Either Smudge wasn’t as frightened as Jig, or else the poor fire-spider was too cold to generate enough heat.
Well, on the bright side, Jig wouldn’t have to worry about the other goblins trying to make him chief again.
The human’s scream was so unexpected—and so terrifying—that Jig found himself screaming in response.
Both swords fell to the ground as the human grabbed the edges of his tabard and tugged it away from his body. He shook the tabard faster and faster, trying to shake Smudge free. Jig could have told him not to bother. Each of the fire-spider’s legs had tiny hairs, like burrs, that let him cling to almost anything.
The human changed tactics. Still screaming, he dropped to his knees and tried to yank the tabard over his head. Unfortunately, he forgot to remove his helmet first.
Slowly Jig walked over to retrieve his sword. The human was still trying to rip the tabard off his helmet when Jig stabbed him.
He wiped his sword as he waited for Smudge to cool. Apparently all that flapping had been enough to wake Smudge up. The poor spider struggled to climb down off the human. The meandering path of smoldering spider footprints on the tabard was proof of Smudge’s dizziness.
Jig stared at the dead human, trying to understand his reaction. You’d think he’d never seen a fire-spider before. Smudge wasn’t even the biggest specimen Jig had encountered, being only a little larger than Jig’s hand.
Humans were weird.
More shouts made Jig jump. He might have killed one human, but there were plenty more running about, and Jig didn’t have enough fire-spiders to fight them all. He cocked his head and twitched his good ear. The other ear had been torn in a fight with another goblin, long ago. Still, a single goblin ear let him hear better than any two-eared human.
From the sound of it, the humans were gettin
g closer.
Jig plucked Smudge from the human and stroked the spider’s still-warm thorax before returning him to his hood.
‘‘I knew Shadowstar would bring us victory,’’ Relka said. Blood dripped down her cheek. Her fang had broken the skin when she fell.
‘‘Right,’’ said Jig. ‘‘Maybe next time Shadowstar can kill the human, and I’ll stay in the lair where it’s warm.’’
Grell appeared to be uninjured, judging by the volume of her cursing as she yanked her remaining cane from the ice. Jig grabbed the human’s sword and gave it to her as a substitute. The tip sank deep into the earth, so Jig went back to retrieve the scabbard.
Grell took another step, resting her weight on the sheathed sword. With a grunt of approval, she hobbled over to the human and whacked him with her remaining cane.
‘‘Blasted humans,’’ she said. ‘‘Don’t they know the dragon’s dead? Treasure’s all gone.’’
‘‘What were you doing so far from the lair?’’ Relka asked.
Jig was more interested in knowing how Grell had made it so far. Grell was the oldest goblin in the lair, with the possible exception of Golaka the chef. But where Golaka had gotten stronger and meaner with age, Grell got smaller and wrinklier, like fruit left out in the sun. Sometimes Jig thought the only thing keeping her going was sheer stubbornness.
Grell began walking toward the lair, wheezing and grunting with each step. ‘‘There are too many humans for them to be adventurers. Adventurers are like tunnel cats. A few of them might be able to live and hunt together, but if you add more, they all start biting and clawing and hissing at one another.’’
Relka cocked her head. ‘‘They’re not exactly the same, though. When you eat tunnel cats you spend half the time picking fur out of your meal. You don’t have that trouble with adventurers. Except dwarves.’’
Grell jabbed her cane at the human Jig had killed. ‘‘There could be a hundred of them. Far too many for us to fight. And a few of the warriors are saying they saw elves.’’
‘‘That’s why you wanted to stop the drumming.’’ Goblins didn’t have formalized signals for battle. So long as the drums kept beating, the goblins kept fighting. If the drummers died or ran away, that was the signal for everyone else to do the same.
Jig perked his ears. He only heard one drum now, off to the other side of the lair.
‘‘I sent Trok out to shut that one up.’’ Grell scowled. ‘‘Probably should have been more specific about how to shut him up.’’
Jig’s skin twitched with every shout and scream. He reached for Grell’s elbow to hurry her along, but a rheumy glare made him back down.
‘‘Maybe they’re hunting,’’ Relka suggested. ‘‘For food, I mean. There hasn’t been as much to eat since the snow came. Humans have to eat too.’’
‘‘Humans don’t eat goblins,’’ Jig said. His stomach clenched at the thought of the things they did eat. Dried fruit and porridge and bread. What little meat they ate had all the flavor cooked out of it. Jig had been a prisoner of human adventurers for only a few days, but it had taken close to a month for his stomach to recover.
The last drum fell silent. After a lingering scream, so did the drummer. Shouts echoed up and down the mountain as the goblins began to retreat.
Jig squeezed through a clump of pine trees and waited, holding the branches out of Grell’s way. He could see the lair from here. How bad would it be to let the branches slap Grell to the ground so he could scamper to safety? Smudge was already getting restless in his hood. The cloak was relatively fireproof, but the wisps of Jig’s hair weren’t.
A trio of limping goblins scurried into the lair up ahead. A fourth followed, hopping on one foot. His other leg bled from the thigh, leaving a bright blue path in the muddy snow.
The cave was partially hidden by a fallen pine. A heavy gate had once blocked the way, but that gate had disappeared a few months back. The hobgoblins had stolen it to build a bigger cage for their trained tunnel cats.
The pine tree didn’t block anyone out, but it did hide the lair from casual view. The only drawbacks were the brown needles that tangled into your hair, and the sticky sap that covered your clothes, not to mention the overpowering pine smell. The smell had faded with time, but the tree seemed to have an endless supply of brittle needles with which to torment innocent goblins.
Two more warriors disappeared into the lair before Jig and his companions reached the tree. Jig played with one fang and tried not to let his impatience show as Grell hunched to step inside. Her joints popped, and she wheezed with every step.
Jig could hear the humans shouting as they closed in. Grell was right. There were an awful lot of humans out there.
Trok ran past, knocking Jig into the snow as he tried to get into the lair. He didn’t make it. As he squeezed past Grell, she dropped her cane and twisted her claws into Trok’s ear. With her other hand, she shook her borrowed sword until the scabbard fell free. ‘‘Relka, do you know any good recipes for goblin ear?’’
‘‘Four,’’ Relka said. ‘‘Do you want something spicy?’’
‘‘Spicy food puts me in the privy all night.’’ Grell gave up trying to draw the sword. She clubbed Trok’s foot with the partly sheathed weapon. ‘‘Of course, I could put him on privy duty as part of his punishment.’’
Trok was a big goblin. He wore several layers of fur to make himself look even bigger, despite the fact that all of those furs made him sweat something awful. Trok’s glistening face twisted into a sneer.
Grell pinched her claws deeper into his ear, drawing spots of blood. Trok yelped and backed down. He rubbed his ear as he waited for Grell to pass beneath the pine tree.
Neither Jig nor Relka received the same courtesy.
The obsidian walls of the tunnel muted the sounds of battle somewhat as Jig finally scurried into the darkness of the mountain. His eyes struggled to adjust. The warmer air had already painted a film of mist onto his spectacles. But no goblin who survived through childhood relied on vision alone. Jig could hear Grell grumbling and stomping her feet for warmth up ahead. A quick sniff assured him that Trok wasn’t waiting nearby to take his annoyance out on Jig.
Grell’s cane and sword tapped the rock as she moved on. From the sound of it, she was limping even worse than usual. The cold had been hard on her, and she had asked Jig and Braf for healing almost every night for the past month. Jig and Braf were the only two goblins ‘‘gifted’’ with Shadowstar’s healing magic. That gift meant they both spent much of their time healing everything from cold-dead toes to rock serpent bites to that nasty case of ear-mold Trok had gotten a few months back.
The last glimmers of sunlight faded behind them, replaced by the comforting yellow-green glow of muck lanterns burning in the distance. Jig splashed through puddles of half-melted snow as he followed Relka and Grell through the main tunnel toward the rounded entryway into the temple of Tymalous Shadowstar.
Glass tiles on the ceiling portrayed the pale god looking down at the goblins. As always, Jig’s gaze went to the eyes. Sparkling light burned in the center of those black sockets. No matter where you stood, those eyes always seemed to be watching you.
Once, Jig had painted a blindfold over Shadowstar’s face. The god had not been pleased.
The temple was the first cave anyone saw after entering the mountainside. Looking back, Jig probably should have put it somewhere a bit more out of the way. Mud and slush covered the floor where goblin warriors had stomped their boots and brushed themselves off as they passed through. Other warriors stood dripping by the small altar in the corner, where poor Braf struggled to heal them as quickly as he could.
Relka touched her necklace. ‘‘Make way for Jig Dragonslayer!’’
Grell coughed.
‘‘And Grell,’’ Relka added hastily.
The announcement of Jig’s arrival didn’t have the effect Relka was hoping for. Instead of spreading out to make room for Jig, the goblins split into two smaller swarms, one
of which immediately surrounded Jig, the same as they had done with Braf.
‘‘Why should Jig Dragonslayer provide the healing power of Shadowstar to nonbelievers?’’ Relka demanded. She wrapped both hands around her bone-and-knife pendant. ‘‘How many of you have donned the symbol of—Ouch.’’ She stuck her finger in her mouth. Apparently the knife blades on her necklace were still sharp.
‘‘Everyone back to the lair,’’ Grell snapped. ‘‘You think those humans are going to stop once they reach the entrance? Go on.’’
Slowly the crowd dispersed through the three tunnels on the far side of the temple. All three merged a bit farther on. No doubt there would be further injuries to heal once the goblins reached that junction and fought to go first.
Grell grabbed one goblin as he turned to leave. A bloody gash crossed his scalp. ‘‘You don’t have pine needles in your hair. How did you manage to get yourself injured without leaving the tunnels?’’
‘‘Bat.’’
‘‘A bat did that to you?’’
‘‘No.’’ He pointed to another goblin. ‘‘Ruk was trying to hit the bat with his sword, and—’’
‘‘I would have got him, too,’’ interrupted Ruk. ‘‘But then he flew away.’’
Grell rubbed her forehead. ‘‘Ruk, go up the tunnel and wait by the entrance. Humans don’t see well in the dark. They’ll be disoriented. Stay there and kill anything that comes in. Anything that’s not a goblin, that is.’’
She smacked him with a cane for good measure.
Ruk left, grinning and jabbing imaginary humans with his sword. Jig watched him go. ‘‘Do you really think he’ll be able to slow down the humans?’’
‘‘Nope,’’ said Grell. ‘‘But any idiot who’d slice his own partner is one I won’t miss. When he screams, we’ll know they’ve entered the mountain.’’
Despite the imminent attack from the humans, Jig found himself relaxing as he followed Grell deeper into the dark tunnels. The closer he got to home, the more the smell of muck smoke and Golaka’s fried honey-mushrooms overpowered the scent of pine. His boots clopped against the hard stone. He ran one hand over the reddish brown wall, smiling at the familiar rippled feel of the obsidian. The warm air drifting from deep within the mountain helped drive the worst of the numbness from his fingers. Of course, that air also carried the faint smell of hobgoblin cooking, but at least it was warm.