by Vox Day
He swallowed his smile, though, when he realized Vergalvebel Bonecracker was staring at him. The non-commissioned officer had a calculating look on his bestial face, which was worrisome since Bonecracker was clearly the most intelligent orc on Sangrul’s staff. He was the one who had discovered the tax rolls, and although the grun-kor had no difficulty believing Bextor’s story of goblin incompetence, the vergalvebel still seemed to harbor some reservations.
“We’re getting better, Vergalvebel, don’t you think?” Bextor shouted at the orc, giving him a cheerful thumbs up.
But the black-armored orc did not respond, did not so much as roll his eyes. He only rubbed thoughtfully at the twisted scar that gave an evil cast to his left eye.
“Report to the grun-kor when you done,” he grunted menacingly then stalked away.
Well, that went well, thought Bextor sarcastically, wondering if one of the rotters from the sweep patrol had finally figured out what he was doing and turned him in. He scratched at the raised claw on his left arm. The brand itched from time to time. He hoped it wasn’t an ill omen.
But the summons was merely a routine one that required his signature on scroll after scroll of ratskin. At least, he hoped it was only ratskin. Those strange blue boots of Skullsplitter had turned out to be made from flayed troll, of all things. Bextor had never imagined that orcs might be literate, much less so scrupulously organized, but according to the grun-kor, Gwarzul had imposed a whole host of bureaucratic innovations on his barbaric tribal warriors. None were popular with the Red Claws, but while they grumbled about them, they complied.
He had learned to respect the Slayers, though the more he learned about them, the more he loathed them too. Fearing them, of course, was always easy. Although he was required to be in their presence almost every day, he never got used to it and usually found himself shaking badly once he was safely away. He imagined the constant stress was lopping moons off his lifespan.
The shaking had just worn off following his latest escape from orcish company when he heard someone calling his name. “Bextor? Bextor… Bextor!”
It was his brother, and his voice sounded frantic. Bextor quickly dropped the whetstone with which he was sharpening his sword and rushed outside with the naked blade in his hand.
“I’m over here,” he called out as Wiltor ran past the large straw-and-mud hut that served as the temporary barracks for the town militia. Skullsplitter had ordered the entire goblin militia to move from their homes and begin learning formal military discipline, although Bextor had ensured that they had done little more than start. “Behind you!”
Wiltor nearly toppled over as he attempted to stop on the rain-softened ground. Bextor would have laughed, except for the worried look in his yellow eyes.
“You’d better come, right now! They’re on the campus! Hurry!”
“What? At the college? Who?”
“Orcs. Two of them. One of them is that mean, ugly one.”
“That helps.”
“Shut up! I’m talking about the clever one, the officer. I don’t remember his name, but he’s got a scar across his left eye.”
Bonecracker. It must be Bonecracker. That couldn’t be good. Since Bonecracker had been the one to call him away from drill, he’d known that Bextor would be busy signing forms for a while. “The vergalvebel?”
“I think so. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s been in the library for more than an hour. I came as soon as I heard. He’s looking for something.”
“I’ll bet he is.” Bextor whistled for Upo as he sheathed his sword. “Sergeant Muckwoggle is inside. Tell him to find ten good goblins who can keep their mouths shut and bring them to the college, as fast as you can.”
Upo loped up to him and cocked his head curiously.
“What are you going to do?” Wiltor asked anxiously.
Bextor mounted the wolf and checked to see if his bow was still there. It was, thank Umm and his sixteen mudwives.
“Stop him, somehow. If I don’t, the game is up. And if I know the grun-kor, he’ll kill every last goblin in this town!”
The library was toward the back of the college, and Bextor rode Upo around the low wooden buildings at top speed. The big wolf nearly trampled a bewildered young hupu-in-training, but Bextor didn’t spare the poor goblin a moment’s notice. He was too busy scanning the area for orcs or any sign that the hoblets hidden nearby had already been discovered.
But the sight that greeted him upon his arrival at the doors of the library assured him that he was not too late. Wuler Stillbog, the head librarian, was seated on the front steps, moaning and holding what appeared to be a dislocated jaw. His two assistants stood nearby, showing similar signs of ill treatment.
“Don’t go in der, Bekkor,” Wuler warned him with some difficulty. “Dey’re still inside.”
“How many?”
“Two, but you can’t—”
Bextor ignored the injured librarian’s protests and slipped his bow from the saddle. He nocked an arrow and made a clicking sound with his mouth, ordering Upo to follow at heel. With the big wolf at his side, he cautiously entered the building. He made his way quietly through the first two rooms, then two more, following the scent of orcstink, which, more than the trial of upended shelves and dispersed scrolls, marked the path of his quarry.
Upo growled at the sight of the two orcs leaning over a table. Their powerful frames seemed to fill the small room on the east side of the library. They turned around at the sound, and Bonecracker grinned evilly as he recognized Bextor, standing at the entrance on the far side of the room.
“You think you fool me, puny gob?” The orc’s fleshy green face jiggled as he bellowed. He displayed a large scrap of torn ratskin in front of him. “You damn gobs be stinking little beasts, yar, but not so swamp-rot as you want we think!”
“It was the best I could do on short notice, Vergalvebel.”
“Me knew you protecting dose damn kobs! Eighty stinkers! Where they be, Drun Fenwick? You hiding them, dirty koblover! Me knew it! You be the traitor, and you never be thinking to smoke out no kobbers with those stupid damn patrols!”
“As you say, Vergalvebel.” Bextor drew back his bowstring and sighted the shaft. “But you should have left well enough alone. Another week or two, and you’d have been safely on your way to a clean death in battle.”
The huge orc scoffed, and his yellow eyes grew hard as he drew a dagger from his belt and effortlessly picked up a nearby table to serve as a large shield for his body. “Me seen you shoot, goblin. You can’t hit no troll at ten steps with that.”
“By the stinking muck of Reekmire, but you orcs really are astonishingly stupid.” Bextor released the string, and the Slayer shrieked as the arrow took him cleanly in the eye.
The big orc fell backward, his huge body shattering the wooden table over which he’d been leaning. Before he hit the floor, Bextor already had another arrow nocked.
Bonecracker’s companion roared and charged, but Bextor’s second arrow punctured his unarmored throat. The orc stumbled and dropped to his knees, where he fell easy prey to Upo’s razor-sharp fangs. The wolf snarled and worried viciously at the mortally wounded orc until Bextor called him off and finished the thrashing brute with a thrust of his sword.
Bextor was examining the scroll Bonecracker had been reading when Wiltor, Muckwoggle and the others rushed in.
“They’re dead,” Wiltor said incredulously, staring at the two huge bodies sprawled on the floor. “Bex, you killed both of them! How did you ever do that?”
“Never mind. We’ve got to think of a way to explain this somehow. Skullsplitter is going to go berserk when he hears the vergalvebel is dead. He’ll burn down everything from the swamp to the roadway!”
“Can’t we just sink the bodies in the Fens?”
Bextor shook his head.
“Wiltor, think about it. If they start tearing apart everything looking for these two, what are they going to find? Hoblets! Everywhere! And once they
do, it won’t take long to figure out how many goblins were involved in hiding them. Bonecracker was already suspicious—that’s why he was looking for the town archives. I can’t imagine he was the only one harboring doubts about the town.”
Bill Muckwoggle nodded and looked grim. “We can’t fight them in the open. But maybe we’d have a chance if we attacked at night.”
“Come on, Bill, you’ve seen them drill.” Bextor shook his head. “Asleep, they could still kill us all.”
“I have another idea,” Wiltor broke in. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“What is it?”
“Do you remember that old house, belonged to a goblin named Cattail? We can drag the bodies out there and tell the grun-kor that his two orcs were killed by hoblets that ambushed them while they were searching.”
“But there aren’t any hoblets hiding there!”
“There will be.” There was an uncharacteristic ruthlessness to his brother’s tone, and Bextor’s blood turned to ice as he began to realize what Wiltor was suggesting. “Don’t argue with me, Bextor. There isn’t any other way. It’s them or everyone, hoblet and goblin. At least they’ll have a chance to fight back, we can give them that much.”
Not waiting for a response, Wiltor turned to Bill Muckwoggle. “Take your boys and get these bodies wrapped in blankets while Bex and I get his story straight. Drag them over to Cattail’s place, then get back over here and scrub this place clean. Don’t miss a single drop of blood, understand? Their sniffers are as good as ours.”
Bill was obviously reluctant to obey.
Bextor decided that his brother was probably right and they had no other option. “Do as Wiltor says, Bill. That’s an order, okay?”
“All right, then, if it’s an order,” the sergeant saluted halfheartedly. “The boys’ll lick it up with their tongues if they have to, Bex. I mean, sir!”
Bextor winced at the thought. “Do whatever it takes, Bill. Our lives may depend on it.”
Bill saluted again and ran out to get help. Bextor glanced at the two dead orcs and shook his head. Putting an arrow through a murderer was one thing, but how would he be able to sleep at night if he allowed hoblets to be betrayed this way? Even if by doing so he saved dozens more. He forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes. They were intense, remorseless.
“We’ll do it because we have to, Bex. You can’t let the town burn for the sake of a few hobs. Now, let’s figure out what you’re going to tell that orc captain, and we’ll worry about the future later.
Bextor nodded, but the thought of facing Skullsplitter nearly made him sick with fear. The huge orc was not going to be pleased to hear about his officer’s death. Bextor only hoped the grun-kor was not inclined to kill the messenger.
Skullsplitter was apoplectic, to be sure, but fortunately his rage was directed at the sneaking, murderous hoblets and the traitorous goblin whose treacherous hiding of the hoblets had caused the death of his orcs.
“Where dey hiding?”
“In a house, sir, belonging to a goblin named Cattail. I, ah, I don’t know much about him, sir. He lives alone in a clearing near the swamp, in a big house. He is known to have had some doings with kobs in the past, grun-kor.”
“How many dey be?”
“We believe less than twelve, sir, but they are armed. They have bows, sir, the kobs do. It seems there was a window left open, which is probably how the vergalvebel caught their scent. He and the kor were investigating the area when the kobs ambushed them. The militia patrol that accompanied them immediately surrounded the building and prevented the kobs inside from escaping, but they didn’t have the numbers to storm it. Several of them were wounded as well, one severely, while they recovered the bodies.”
“You done good. Who command de patrol?”
“Sergeant Muckwoggle, sir. He’s my best non-com, sir. He was prepared to fire the house, but I thought it best to come to you first, sir.”
The orc’s nostrils were still flared with anger, but he nodded approvingly.
“Good on you, Drun Fenwick. You see now why we don’t let damn kobbers live? Dey like rabid rats! Gwarzul got it true! Now, follow me, and you see how Red Claw Slayers deal wid rebels, traitors, and koblovers!”
Bextor was amazed at how even in a white-hot rage, Skullsplitter was able to roar a few succinct orders, and, in what seemed like a matter of moments, have two bands of twenty orcs fully armored and ready to go into action.
“Me wants the gobbo alive, rokkul!” he commanded. “Kill de kobs, but me be making example of de traitor nobody gonna forget! Me giving a half-moon pass home to da kor be capturing him alive, but twenty lashes for da skwaak dat kills him.”
The orcs murmured at this, and Bextor didn’t wonder. He earnestly hoped Wiltor had told old Cattail to vacate the premises.
The march to the swamp end was a fast one, and Bextor had to give Upo his head in order to keep up with the fast-jogging orcs. The house stood alone. It was a sprawling one-level house that had started out as a muck miner’s hut, onto which rooms had been added over time. It would burn easily, being mostly constructed of wood, but burning the house was clearly not the Skullsplitter's intent.
Bill had somehow managed to reinforce his patrol, so the house was now surrounded by more than twenty goblins hiding ineffectively behind trees and small bushes. As Bextor dismounted and tied Upo to a tree, there was a quick flash of motion at a window and a goblin screamed as a shaft pierced his unprotected thigh.
Muckwoggle himself was bleeding from a shallow wound on his forehead as he rushed over to the orcs and gave a situation report. The tension in his voice was real, and Bextor marveled at the sergeant’s acting ability. Then a shaft thudded into the ground not two paces from his own feet. Bextor leaped backward and found himself loudly cursing the hoblets with genuine vigor. He didn’t need to act anymore—all their lives were in real danger as long as they were out in the open.
The orcs quickly formed two lines as the galvebels barked out their orders. One squad of ten veterans broke out powerful crossbows that sent bolts slamming into the wooden house with such violence that it seemed to shake, forcing the hoblet archers away from the windows. The rest of the kors and most of the galkors were battle virgins, Bextor saw. As one, they raised their round black shields, each marked with the red claw, when the grun-kor lifted his mighty meatchopper over his head. Bextor felt a rush of air on his face as the great blade came down, and his heart sank when the orcs rushed forward in silence, no doubt to avoid warning the house’s defenders of their charge.
If they reached the house without the hoblets hearing them…
With a sudden flash of inspiration, Bextor drew his blade and screamed. “Zoth Ommog and Gwarzuuuul!” Then he sprinted after the huge orcs.
About half of the surrounding goblins followed his example, shrieking and howling like a demonic horde escaping Hell. Their cries did not escape notice, and the windows were suddenly filled with hoblets, loosing shaft after shaft at the onrushing orcs. The crossbows answered, and the deadly missiles flew in both directions. At such close range, the results were lethal.
Several of the Slayers fell, and Bextor tumbled over the thrashing body of one big orc who’d fallen directly in his path. He felt something smash into his forearm and he dropped his sword, discovering that he’d been hit. Oh, but it hurt! It hurt! Sporkko, did it hurt! He dropped to the ground just in time to avoid a second shaft that whizzed by his shoulder, and he fumbled for his sword with his left hand.
It only took a moment, but by the time he managed to grip it properly and push himself to his feet, no more arrows were zipping through the air. Instead, ungodly shrieks were coming from inside the house. Groaning like a wounded swamp toad, Bextor stumbled into the house well behind the last of the orcs.
The battle was already over. It had ended almost as soon as it began. Not a single hoblet still lived, and Bextor was depressed to see that he recognized every single one of the fallen. There were eight in all. Mr
. Overdale lay beside his wife, his hands still gripping a sword much too long for him. Mr. Roundheel’s bow lay at his feet. He’d been hurled backward by the pair of bolts that killed him.
But hoblet and she-hob alike, they had died like wolves, fighting to the very end, not like their poor brethren in Zoth Ommog who had been butchered or sent to starve as slaves in the salt mines. There was little dignity in this desperate death, but there was honor in it. And better still, there was not a single hoblet child among the dead.
Wiltor and Cattail were surely taking the young ones to safety in the depths of the fens even now. But how hard it must have been, watching them say their last farewells to their brave parents. Bextor bit his lip, almost glad of the wound that gave cover to his glistening eyes.
But the hoblets’ sacrifice had likely saved the town. That was something, anyhow, Bextor thought as he staggered outside, wiping his eyes. He counted four orcs lying dead, pierced with arrows. Three more were wounded, as were nine goblins, including Bextor and Muckwoggle.
“That were brave, little drun,” Skullsplitter praised him reluctantly. Standing in between two of the fallen orcs, the orc commander looked as if he had a bad case of nausea himself. “Brave and… Real brave. Like a real kor.”
“Maybe a damn stupid one,” he heard one Slayer mutter to another. “We be in the stinking house afore they know if he don’t be screaming like a skwaak getting troll-raped. Wouldn’t lose no kor, forget four!”
“Gobbos,” the second orc spat like a curse. An arrow was still sticking out of his shoulder armor. “What you expect? Damn good the grun-kor don’t be thinking he take them with us no more.”
Well, that was good news, at any rate. Not enough to make him forget what he’d just seen, or the fire that seemed to be devouring his right arm, but good news all the same.
“Where is de traitor?” the grun-kor was roaring. “Me wants de damn koblover!”
Orcs were running in and out of the house, looking for signs of its owner while kors, no longer battle virgins, were carrying the hoblet corpses out of the building and tossing them into neat lines on the grass. They carried the bodies casually, some in just one hand, showing the dead less respect than they showed their weapons. It troubled Bextor, but there was no point in protesting. The hoblets were past caring about indignities now.