Goblin Quest (9 page)

Riana started to reply, but Darnak interrupted, which was probably all that saved the girl from a beating. Barius looked angry enough to loose his temper on anyone who got in his way.

“So how are we to be getting out of this little hole?” Darnak asked. He took the lantern and un-shuttered all four sides. He couldn’t aim the light upward without spilling the oil, but this was enough for them to see the dark shadow of the ceiling. “Looks a good fifteen feet to me. Lucky the ground is softer here.”

“Lucky I landed on your belly and not your hard head, Darnak.” Ryslind grimaced. “I’d have broken bones for certain.”

Darnak grinned. “Aye. Though there’s something to be said for the thickness of human skulls as well. They say it’s the only substance harder than diamond.”

“Enough of your banter,” Barius said. “Brother, can your arts release us from this prison?”

Ryslind took a deep breath. “Give me a moment. Magic requires a clear head, and mine still spins.”

While they waited, Riana walked over to Jig. She studied him with obvious distaste, but when she spoke, her voice was quiet, even respectful. “Thanks.”

“Eh?” Jig blinked, unsure what she meant. He was still a bit dazed by everything that had happened. Worse yet, he had the nagging sense he had forgotten something. The worms were all dead, but still. . . .

“For knocking me out of the way back there.”

“Oh. I saw a carrion-worm catch a rat like that once.” He sighed. Giblet the rat had been a good pet. To this day, he suspected that Porak had deliberately turned Giblet loose by the worm’s nest.

He scowled. Something about pets . . . oh no.

“Smudge!”

He ran at Darnak and tried to pull the lantern away. The dwarf swatted him with his free hand. “Here now, what’s this?”

“My fire-spider’s in there.”

“What?” Darnak held the lantern higher and peered inside. “Ha. So he is. So that’s how you were lighting this thing.”

Very gently, he set the lantern on the ground and slid the glass back. Smudge scurried out, apparently unharmed. He raced away from the lantern like he was fleeing Straum himself. Halfway to the far wall, he stopped and rubbed his legs together, one pair at a time.

“Probably trying to clean off the lantern oil,” Jig said. He knelt and held out one hand for the spider.

Smudge glanced at him. Then, very deliberately, he turned away and continued to groom himself.

“I am ready,” Ryslind announced. He had taken another coil of rope from Darnak’s pack. As the others watched, he sprinkled a bit of blue powder on the rope and began to chant. One end of the rope rose, reminding Jig of the way the carrion-worms had reared up to attack. The rope climbed steadily higher until it reached the ceiling.

“I don’t suppose that magic rope of yours can punch through the trapdoor?” Darnak asked.

Ryslind frowned. “Do not disturb my focus. I need to channel more power.” His voice was deeper than usual. His brow wrinkled, and the end of the rope curled into a tight ball. Ryslind’s eyes flashed red, and the rope slammed against the trapdoor.

A shower of dust fell from the ceiling, making Jig’s eyes water. Ryslind said the word again, this time with a wave of his hand for emphasis.

On the third try, a large square of rock swung down. Jig leaped back, afraid the stone would crash onto their heads. But it scraped to a halt, spraying them all with another layer of dirt and grit.

“Quickly,” Ryslind ordered. “The longer I hold it open, the more it drains me.”

Barius was already climbing. Darnak sent Riana up next, then looked back at Jig. “Your turn, goblin.”

“My name is Jig,” he grumbled. Climbing out of the pit was difficult. Jig had never been strong, and his hands and arms weren’t used to this sort of work. But he eventually reached the top. Barius, who had reached down to help Riana out of the pit, didn’t even look at Jig as he struggled to hook his ankle over the edge. Darnak followed a minute later, and then Ryslind, pulling the rope up behind him.

Stone grated loudly as the trapdoor sealed itself. Jig sat on the floor, trying to catch his breath, when he noticed Smudge clinging to his leg.

“Decided to forgive me after all, then?” Or maybe the spider had simply decided that coming with Jig was better than being left alone in the pit. It didn’t matter. Jig felt better for Smudge’s company. At least, he felt better until he spotted the hobgoblins coming down the corridor.

 

This was the first time Jig had really seen the adventurers in battle. During that first attack, he had been too busy hiding to watch much of the fight. He only saw the end, when Darnak and Barius beat the last few goblins. And the fight in the pit would have been too chaotic to follow even if he hadn’t been elbow-deep in worm guts at the time.

But now, watching the others draw weapons and prepare for the hobgoblins’ attack, Jig began to understand why surface-dwellers slaughtered goblins time after time.

Ryslind slipped his bow from his shoulder and nocked an arrow in one smooth motion. Barius and Darnak each took a step forward, leaving room for Ryslind to fire while at the same time shielding him from attack. Two hobgoblins fell before they even reached the adventurers. A third stumbled over the bodies of his fellows, and Barius’s sword licked out to slice deep into the side of his neck.

Three hobgoblins down before the fight had even begun. Jig stared in disbelief.

All the hobgoblins wore armor they had cobbled together. Bits of plate mail strapped over leather and chain, and several had shields of varying designs as well. All used swords or axes. No kitchen knives here. This was a force that could overrun a goblin patrol in a matter of minutes.

Despite their strength and numbers, the hobgoblins didn’t stand a chance. Jig wouldn’t have recognized the adventurers as the same people who had, minutes before, shouted and snapped at one another like children. They were a team, working
with
one another, whereas the hobgoblins struggled as much among themselves as with the enemy.

That was the key, Jig realized. That ability to trust and work together in battle. Barius didn’t bother to protect his vulnerable left side, trusting Darnak to smash anyone who tried to attack him there. Neither faltered at all when Ryslind fired his arrows between them, and each of those arrows took a hobgoblin in the throat or chest. Were these goblins, they never would have trusted one of their number to stay behind with a bow. The temptation to “accidentally” shoot someone who might have stolen your rations, insulted your family, or stepped on your foot at last night’s dinner was too great.

The hobgoblins suffered from the same lack of trust. They tripped over one another, yelled and fought their way to the front, and seemed to have no plan beyond this straight charge. Jig watched as one hobgoblin pushed another out of the way. The one being pushed stumbled forward, and Darnak smashed his skull with a twirl of his club. The adventurers hardly needed to work at all. The hobgoblins were killing
themselves
.

And then it was over. Jig heard the survivors retreat back up the tunnel. Bodies covered the ground in front of the three adventurers. The carrion-worms would eat well tonight.

As he watched them clean their weapons and armor, Jig began to think he had been lucky when Porak sent him ahead as a scout. Had he remained with the patrol, he would have been cut down as easily as these hobgoblins. Easier, since he had been unarmored and practically unarmed. It made him embarrassed to be a goblin.

One unexpected blessing was that victory had improved Barius’s temper. He didn’t even insist on retying Jig’s bonds. Instead he seemed to glow with pride as he checked to be sure the others were uninjured.

“Three victories in a single night,” he gloated. “Surely the gods smile upon my quest. We shall find the rod, for nothing beneath this mountain has the strength to stop us.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Come, let us find the entrance to the lower tunnels. We will rest there before descending, to give my brother time to renew his strength. Lead on, goblin.”

Lead he did, guiding them away from the hobgoblins and through the slowly descending tunnel that led to the lake. He didn’t even worry about what they faced there. Jig was too confused by what he had just seen and by what it meant.

All his life Jig had believed surface-dwellers killed goblins through trickery. They used enchanted weapons, spells to call fire and death, and fine armor the likes of which no goblin could make. Certainly some of that was true. That spell Ryslind had used to sneak up on their patrol, the one that made him appear to be a part of the rock, was magic no goblin could hope to fight. Nor was Jig’s knife a match for Barius’s sword or Darnak’s club.

But there was more. In their fight with the hobgoblins, the adventurers had used no magic. Their weapons, while of good quality, were no more magical than those of their foe. There had been no time for trickery or ruses. And still
they had wiped out three times their number without losing a single one of their party.
Barius struck like a serpent, fast and deadly. He knocked hobgoblin swords aside with ease, because he
knew how to fight
. His sword was a part of him, and it twisted and dodged past his enemy’s guard like a living thing. How many hours had he trained to be able to do that?

Jig flushed when he thought back to his poor kitchen knife, and how much he had secretly longed for a sword, thinking that all it took was a bit of steel to make him the equal of these adventurers.

The dwarven follower of Silas Earthmaker had stood like a god himself, unmovable and untouchable as his club lashed out to break swords and bones alike. He too must have worked hard to develop such strength of arm. Sure, dwarves were tougher than most races, but Darnak had taken that toughness and strengthened it further. Jig looked again at the dwarf’s pack, remembering how much equipment had been stuffed into that bulging leather pack. Jig would be hard-pressed just to lift what Darnak carried around as though it were nothing.

Ryslind was the worst of them all. As a wizard, he was the one enemy no goblin would expect to defeat. But he had used no magic just now. Instead, he had sent one arrow after another safely past his companions. Jig had watched him more closely than the others, and the wizard had not missed a single shot. That cold precision terrified Jig.

Could it be that what the surface-dwellers said about goblins was true? Could goblins be the clumsy, stupid creatures Barius and the others assumed them to be? If so, what did that mean for the fate of Jig’s people? They would never accomplish anything, not if the smallest group of surface-dwellers could slaughter them with such ease. It meant goblins were nothing but a nuisance, existing only to die at the hands of adventurers like this.

No, that wasn’t it. The problem wasn’t the adventurers, but the goblins themselves. They were incapable of working together, of planning or growing. All they could do was charge into battle and get themselves killed. Or in Jig’s case, they could hide and watch from the shadows while the others died.

His people, his entire race, were no more than a joke. Jig had betrayed his captain, letting Porak die for an insult Jig had committed. He was nothing but a worthless coward, the same as every other goblin.

Jig perked his left ear as he heard the faint sound of water lapping the stone shore. His right ear continued to listen for sounds of pursuit. Despite all he had seen, a part of him still couldn’t believe the dreaded hobgoblins wouldn’t come back to finish them off. Depressed or not, he had no desire to let the hobgoblins get their claws on him.

The air was cooler here. A thin green film of moss covered the walls and ceiling, even the edges of the floor. The air smelled like dead fish as they neared the lake.

“How far to this lake?” Barius asked. “I feel as though we’ve passed through half the mountain. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if we found ourselves emerging from the far side.”

“Up ahead,” Jig said, reminding himself that they couldn’t yet hear the water. “Not far.”

“Excellent. Then let us rest here for the night. Assuming it is still night, that is. Who can tell this far underground?”

“It’s nigh about an hour past midnight,” Darnak said without looking up from his map.

“Who but a dwarf, that is?” Barius said, still in high spirits. “We will take turns watching for danger. I shall watch first. Each man takes a shift of one hour. No longer, or you will begin to lose your focus. Darnak, I will awaken you when my shift is up.”

Jig knew without being told that he would not be asked to take a watch. Trust a goblin to protect them in their sleep? Ridiculous. Might as well ask a carrion-worm to stand guard.

He curled into a tight knot, back against the wall, and tried to pretend he was back in his lair. Safe and well-fed, with nothing more to worry about than the jibes of the other goblins. But the waves in the distance slipped into his weary thoughts. In his dreams he found himself in the water, trying to swim away but unable to move his arms while the lizard-fish surrounded him, coming closer and closer with those poisonous spines. . . .

CHAPTER 5