Nothing from Bella, but she was well-protected. I lay down, and closed my eyes. There would be no sleep tonight, but I would try to relax and let my body recoup at least. In the morning, I could make a liar out of the banshee. No one was dying on my watch, not this time.
I’d been a tough man for a long time, leading a life most of these sleeping here tonight couldn’t imagine, sliding between two worlds with ease. I’d lost all concern for my own life, living from job to job, relying on bullets, not magic, to get those jobs done. If I didn’t come back from one, no one would care for long. Oh, mother and Margot would wail, Devon would grieve, but there was no one loved me enough to lie awake wondering what had happened. When you deal with the devil, you become him, a little, and my job was monsters who had slipped their leashes. Is it any wonder I’d become one? Tomorrow I’d paint the wall with goblin gore, and then I would go release Bella from the prison I’d put her in. I rolled over and opened my eyes, giving up on sleep.
Morning in the underground halls was not heralded by a rising sun. We had left all the light globes illuminated, to help the watchers, and to keep the light-sensitive goblins at bay. Oh, they could attack in the light, but they were less likely to do so. No, what woke my crew was me banging on the wall and shouting, “rise and shine!”
There was grumbling, but I pampered them with a hot breakfast, and coffee. The coffee mostly shut them up, except for the tea drinkers. I gave them an hour, and then walked through, making sure each one was ready to go for the day. Alger stopped me with a touch on my shoulder. I followed him to the ward.
“What is on your mind, nephew?”
“Just the mission. Are you ready?”
He studied me intently for a moment. I held his gaze. “All right, then. Let’s go,” he touched his wand to the ward and it blinked out of existence. “Hunting time.”
I waved Dean forward, and gestured Alger back. At least this time they weren’t waiting for us right that second. Anticlimactic, but that was fine. I could live with boredom. Excitement could kill someone.
Having only two halls to worry about today was simpler. Knowing I had too many men to effectively move in one hall meant I could risk splitting the group. We checked the tops of both halls, and I sent Ash and Olive with four of Joe’s men down the smaller side hall. They would check in with us at each cross hall. For once, I had appreciative thoughts for our ancestors and simple architecture.
Progress was a familiar reprise of the day before. Illuminate a stretch of hall, move to doors, seal them, repeat. We found a goblin campsite around noon, with a tiny fire ring in the center of the hall, and the dust disturbed all around in what I guessed was enough space for the mob that had attacked us yesterday. I read this as a good sign. They had been quite a ways from their home encampment.
I told Dean, “We’ll smell it, you know, long before we trip across it.”
He nodded, “And isn’t that a wonderful thing to look forward to. Have you asked about missing folke?”
“No, and I’m not going to.”
“I won’t talk about it.” He promised, his eyes going to a point far over my shoulder and about a century before. We’d both seen things no sane being should. Sometimes I wondered if either of us was still sane. Him, with his obsession with death and danger, and foray into the human world... me, with my monsters.
I grunted and went back to the group. “This is good. Means we’re unlikely to have another ambush. Let’s move.”
I wanted to get this done, today. Prolonging it was only going to drag my untrained men down, and I hadn’t slept the night before, and wouldn’t until we were finished. Safety first, but speed next. We sealed doors and walked halls. The junior crew parallelling us was getting ahead of us, and I sent a messenger to tell them to hang back at the next cross hall.
Chapter 27 - Nasty, Tricksy, Thieving...
So there were only five men who saw the goblin’s surprise. It was carefully placed on a teepee of sticks from somewhere, or maybe bits of broken furniture, right in the center of the hall, facing us. I raised my hand in the signal for stop, silent. We all stared at it, barely even breathing.
Bella’s face in death was faintly greyish, her hair tangled and partly obscuring her features. But the bloody stub of her neck made it very clear she was freshly murdered. I felt a wave of rage well up, and pushed it back, locking all emotions aside. Behind me, there was a broken murmur, and then William stumbled past me. I caught him by the arm, and he almost pulled me off my feet.
“Hey!” I grabbed him in a bear hug, and he fought me. We wound up with Alger and Dean helping pull him back, while I looked past him at the very pale Henry. “What the hell?”
“M-my wife.. Lorinsa...” William sobbed, reaching out for the gruesome warning.
I looked back at it, at my princess...
Alger stepped past me and made a gesture so fast I almost missed it. In a hissing of dust falling, the object on the sticks was revealed as an ancient skull of some animal. Dean let go of William, who drew a deep breath ending in a hiccup. We all looked at each other, then the rag and bone totem.
“What did you see?” asked William.
I answered, “someone special,” without going into further detail. They didn’t need to know.
“Me, too... well, my mother.” Henry supplied in a shaken tone.
Dean just lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Alger shook his head. “This was not a goblin idea. We need to be prepared to face traps and mind-tricks, I think.”
I ran a hand over my face, feeling the stubble I hadn’t bothered to shave off. “I’ll let the others know. Hope they didn’t have one of these.”
We walked around the goblin head game as close to the walls as we could get. None of us wanted to be near it, even knowing it was harmless now. I wondered what would come next. My team was shaken, even Alger and Dean, who had seen the elephant before. Beorn came strolling up from the cross hallway.
“Hey, what’s that?” He asked curiously.
“Don’t touch it,” I told him. “Everything OK with them?”
I knew it was, he was too relaxed to be worried. I wanted to distract the young man from his curiousity.
“Yes, sir. There’s nothing over there but empty rooms. They are waiting, at the next cross hall. Ash said he would ward it until we got there, just in case.”
Good man, caution was a great idea in light of our new discovery.
“All right, let’s get up there.” I raised my voice a little. “Nobody touch anything. Don’t believe your eyes, or ears... check with me, or Alger, if you have any weird things happen.”
They all nodded, and Dean took his usual place. I shook my head, and followed. I was ready to get this over with. At the cross hall, Ash dropped the ward and we conferred. I’d made a decision and I needed his input.
He shook his head. “No sign at all, Olive and I have been looking for footprints or disturbances in the dust.”
“Then I want to ward off the hall here, at the cross hall, and at the end of the cross, blocking the side hall altogether. We will concentrate on this hall. I want all of us together as we near the main encampment.”
“You think there is one?” he asked, the leaves in his hair rustling as he looked up at me. Wood elves might be small, but they are strong, and tough.
“I know there is. This could get messy.” I warned him.
He just nodded. I talked to the rest of the group while he and Alger set sealed wards. As soon as we could, I chivvied them into action. I’d been right on one thing. We could smell them first. It was like walking into a sewer wall. Dean stopped cold, one foot still raised. Then he lowered it, shook his head and snorted, then blocked his shoulders and went in like a bull charging in slow motion. I took a deep breath and followed him.
Behind me, I could hear gagging as my men experienced eau de goblin for the first time. Even Alger had turned a fine shade of green. None of them had thought through a whole settlement of little green guys living in the great
hall, sewage not being something they had to think about in our land of magical disposal. They also didn’t know what I did about the culinary preferences of goblin families. Not something you would talk about at the dinner table at Court.
Some smells fade with exposure, until you can’t really notice them. This one had a life of its own, and that life was a violent one, assaulting our olfactory nerves relentlessly. Even my stomach was roiling, and I was concerned with the effect on our fighting ability. But it took a back seat to the concerns raised when we hit the edge of the trash midden.
I raised my hand, and brought everyone to a halt. Dean looked at me, having paused by himself before going into the tangled mess.
“I’m thinking prime location for booby traps.” I told him, and he nodded.
Then he angled his body so we blocked the view of the men behind us, and made a subtle hand gesture. I followed his gaze.
“Dammit,” I said, softly enough to not be heard by the others.
“Yeah. We’ve got enough green kids for this to be a problem.”
We looked at one another. I didn’t have time to linger over a decision, we were going to arouse curiosity, probably already had for Alger. The old man didn’t miss much.
“Let’s pull back. I need some time.”
“I’d say a meal, but I’m not hungry.” He followed me back to the group.
“We’re so close, I want to pause and get ready.” I told them. I didn’t tell them, yet, about the bones in the midden.
I took them about halfway back to the last set of doors, and Alger set a ward between us and the goblin camp. Once they were as relaxed as they were going to get with the stink, I looked around at them.
“This is going to get bad. I don’t know how many goblins are in there, but I’m willing to make a guess.” I paused and looked around at them, “and that would be, a metric buttload. You know we already had a skirmish. That’s all it was, a skirmish. No one was seriously hurt. Yes, Leo went back to the front, but Melcar” - I looked at the wood elf, and he rustled his hair with a nod of agreement - “says that he will recover, although he may lose sensation in some fingers. We rolled through them like a hot knife through butter. That is not going to happen in there.” I pointed down the hall.
“I’m going to call for back-up. But just getting to camp is going to be hard, not physically, but mentally.” Now they looked confused, except for Dean and Alger, who were half-listening, and mostly watching the wards. I went on, “I’m sure you’ve heard stories. I know I did, as a lad. Goblins are our boogeymen, and no tale is too gross to regale one another with late at night. The truth is... worse. Goblins eat anything. They have to, having adjusted to living underground so much that they no longer grow plants or keep animals like we can to live on.
“They do farm, though. Fungus, mostly, but in times of need, they eat one another, their own children... and whatever else they can catch.” I took a deep breath, “that includes people. We know this camp had eaten at least one fairy, we found the evidence in the midden just now. The problem is, they also keep their captives to be eaten at leisure. So we don’t know what we are facing, and we cannot just seal the Great Hall and obliterate them all.”
Now they all looked more than slightly sick. Even Melcar was looking ill, and I knew he had to have a strong stomach. I wasn’t going to tell them that even if we rescued people in this place, they would most likely have lost their minds. I had checked back with the three frail waifs we had taken out of Elc’hoor, and they had progressed to being able to feed themselves and use a toilet. They were unlikely to ever emerge into reality again.
I also didn’t tell them that despite my fears that this would be the case, I had still contemplated sealing and deflagrating the Great Hall anyway. It might be the most merciful thing for those poor souls. As the day had worn on, though, I knew that whatever kind of a monster I was, I was one who still had hope. This was going to get ugly, and the banshee’s wail haunted me, but it had to be done.
“You’re all volunteers, and you didn’t sign up for this. If you need to go back to the front, no one is going to hold it against you.” I made contact with William and Henry, who were both very young, and very shaken by the dirty trick earlier. “We know there is some malevolence at work here that is much more cunning than any goblin I have come across. So there may be traps in the trash midden, even before we reach the goblin encampment. Once we are in the camp itself, there will be trash everywhere. They are semi-nomadic, and when a camp gets too disgusting, they just move on.
“This camp may be close to uninhabitable, because they are being kept here for an attack on Court. Everything moving in camp will attack you. Women, children, and every weapon you must assume is poisoned. They make up for their frail bodies by making sure they have every advantage over the enemy. You saw what happened to Leo, and that was just a scratch. Alger is going to help you with personal protection spells, but they will be powered off your magic, and they will draw down your energy.”
I took a swallow of water and drew a breath. “Are there any questions?”
“How are we going at them?” Dean growled. I knew he was ready to go now, but I wanted to wait for backup and weapons.
“We’re not just using magic. I’m having two crew-served machine guns brought in. I’ll be on one, and Olive,” the slight wood elf nodded at hearing his name, “on the other, because we have the experience. We’ll each chose two men to be with us, and give you a quick orientation. I know some of you may protest that using them is not a fair fight, but -” I looked around, meeting each man’s eyes - “we can’t afford to fight fair.”
Chapter 28 - Rest & Reinforcements
Joe transported in then, at the back of my group, and I nodded at him in greeting. “We’ll have a hot meal, and a few hours to plan and rest, then we go in.”
I walked back to Joe, taking him a little further away. “It’s bad, Joe.”
“I heard some of that.” He studied my face. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m ok. The younger ones are going to have problems. What’s the news up front?
“The King told me to tell you that the Great Hall is stone, he doesn’t anticipate an attack of nostalgia, and to cleanse it with fire.”
That sounded like the old man. “I can’t just do that, unfortunately.” I explained to him briefly the reason we had to take the camp one step at a time.
He looked past me at the men, who were eating and lounging. There was no boisterous chatter as usual, though. “How many do you need?”
“How many do we have?” I countered with a sigh.
“Enough, I think. The Great Hall isn’t that big.”
“Only the size of a football field,” I grumbled.
He gave me a funny look. I sometimes forgot that some things didn’t translate well. I went on, “I would like to use a few sprites for reconnaissance, if we can find a few not afraid of their own shadow. I need to know where any captives are.”
I handed him a written list, and he unfolded it and took a brief look before folding it back up and nodding a silent farewell. He walked back down the hall for a moment, then disappeared in a transportation spell. I stared after him, thinking. If Joe was rattled... I turned and looked at my men, lounging subdued with their food mostly uneaten.
I took a deep breath and headed back toward them, getting ready to stop by each one and try to give them a pep talk. We had a few hours, I wanted them to try and get some sleep, something I doubted any of them would be able to do. I put my hand on Henry’s shoulder, and felt him jump out of his skin as he looked up at me.
“Oh! Lom...”
“Want to go back to the front?” I asked as gently as I could. Young men and their sense of amour propre.
He shook his head. “No, sir, I volunteered.”
“Tomorrow, don’t be a hero.” I caught his eye. “I don’t want to have to go talk to your parents.”
He swallowed, but held fast. “I am ready. I don’t want to die
, but... Well, if we don’t do this, then my parents, everyone at court, they’re in danger.”
I nodded. “You’ll do fine. Follow orders, make sure you stay with your team.”
“Yes, sir.”
I walked away, and Alger came up next to me. “If that’s your idea of a pep talk, you need to work on it a little.”
“I know. I’m not used to working with...” I gestured at the hall full of my men.
“Anyone?” he supplied with a raised eyebrow.
“Pretty much.”
“It’s been a while since I did,” he mused.
I looked at him. “When did you do it at all?”
“Before you were born. Anyway, carry on.” He turned and walked away, leaving me grumpily contemplating his back. Alger being enigmatic meant there would be no answers.
I had made it through all the new men by the time the reinforcements started arriving. I supposed I was going to have to start calling them my old men, now. They had been through two days of goblin hunting in these dark halls, now. It’s not a lot of time, but it can do things to a man fast under that kind of stress.
A very small transportation bubble popped by my head and revealed four sprites. They tumbled about in midair for a second, then one after another they formed into a diamond formation and snapped me a salute. I was amused, but tried not to show it.
“The McGregor brothers, reporting for dooty, sorr!” the one in front snapped. “We haird ye needed to rool t’ skies!”
Now I did laugh. “You’re insane, Ewan, you know that?”
“Aye,” he grinned in a way that only reinforced my proclamation.
“They have poison arrows,” I warned him.
Pixie Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 1) Page 20