by Eric Vall
“Can you listen at the door, Jack?” Nicola asked.
“I will,” I answered. “Shh, everyone.”
“This is bad,” I heard a voice say. I could tell it wasn’t Robert, so I guessed it must be Orm, and he sounded pretty upset. “The grooms are going to come in here in the morning, and we’re not going to be able to get out to see the gnomes.”
“We’ll just sneak out before anyone comes in to get the horses,” Robert explained. “We wait a couple hours, and then we hide the baby in a… a basket or something, and then we sneak out of here through the hallway, and we go to the main entrance, and-- hey, Orm, do you have any money?”
“You know I don’t!” the goblin replied. “Why are you even asking?”
“Because those guards at the door were being real dicks earlier,” Roberty answered. “I was thinking maybe we could slip them a little something to stay quiet, but I don’t have any gold.”
“You didn’t think this through at all!” Orm complained. “You didn’t even give the gnomes a specific time to come, so they’re just going to come to the gate and ask for us.”
“We can hide in the woods and wait for them,” Robert insisted as his voice rose over Roza’s escalating tears. “It’s gonna be fine. I just wish this fucking thing would stop crying.”
There was a loud banging sound, and the baby stopped crying for a moment, but then she started to scream again twice as loud.
“You need to get in there,” I told the priestesses in a grim voice. “It doesn’t sound good.”
“Rozaaa…” Penelope wailed, and before I could say anything, the naiad whipped her sword from her belt, ran over to the small door, and kicked it open.
“Shit,” I swore. “Aleia, Nicola, get ready to fight.”
“What the fuck?” I heard Robert say, and I zoomed down into the room, which was now clear on my map. While the door had been short, the room’s interior had a high ceiling like the stable. It was a storeroom full of a jumble of large wooden crates, and Roza was lying in a wooden box on a table screaming her head off.
Penelope brandished her sword in the air with two hands as she pushed past Robert and Orm to get to the baby, and the goblins just stood there with their mouths open as they stared at the blue woman.
When Roza saw the naiad, her face broke out into a smile for a brief moment before she started to wail again.
Penelope took one hand off the hilt of her sword and slid a finger into Roza’s tiny hand, and the baby grabbed the blue digit and jammed it into her mouth.
“Okay, Penelope, try to keep the baby quiet,” I sighed.
Nicola and Aleia burst into the storeroom with their swords in the air, and Orm and Robert threw their hands up.
“Hey, don’t kill us,” Orm pleaded. “It was all his idea.”
“Hey, Orm…” Robert said with a sneer that showed the glimmer of his gold fang. “Aren’t these the same girls who were with the gnomes the other night? I recognize their, uh, clothing.”
“Let’s just kill them and get out of here,” Nicola growled. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Be my guest,” I responded.
“Nooo…” Robert gasped, and his eyes bugged out of his head. “Please let us live. We’re supposed to get paid, and we’ll give you-- wait. If you’re here, does that mean the gnomes aren’t coming to bring us our ransom?”
“They’re stealing out bounty!” Orm growled.
The goblin’s deep-brown eyes glittered with anger, and he put his hand on his sword.
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said. “Cut them down.”
Aleia and Nicola each cornered a goblin, and the small creatures’ eyes suddenly watered from fear.
“Well, now hold on--” Robert began, but then he was interrupted by a loud banging sound and the noise of stampeding footsteps.
“Shit, someone’s coming in,” Orm hissed as he scanned the room for a means of escape. “That was the door! It closes shut behind them! We’re stuck!”
I zoomed out a little, but I couldn’t see down the long corridor.
Robert turned and pushed the door to the room closed so that he and Orm were shut in with the women, and the priestesses froze with wide eyes.
“Hide!” I instructed them. “Get behind those crates! Bring Roza!”
The three women slid into the maze of boxes, and it was just in time because a dozen goblins suddenly marched into the stable.
Chapter 19
“Orm!” a small soldier in silver armor shouted in a surprisingly gruff voice. The horses had started to whinny loudly again, and it was hard to hear over all the commotion. “Is that you?”
Roza took the opportunity to let go of Penelope’s finger and start screaming, and the guards all looked around the stable. They hadn’t come through the small door yet, though, so I hoped I had a little time to figure out what to do.
“Alright, where’s the fucking baby?” a second goblin guard yelled. “We know it’s here somewhere, so hand it over!”
“They’re not getting Roza!” Penelope hissed as she clutched the crying infant closer to her chest. “How are we going to get out of here, Jack?”
“I want you to be prepared to fight your way out,” I told the priestesses. “You need to overtake them.”
“I wish they couldn’t hear the baby,” Aleia whispered. “Otherwise, we could hide.”
“We have to work with what we’ve got,” I said.
“How am I going to carry Roza and my sword?” Penelope wondered as she scanned the storeroom with her eyes, and they landed on a large strip of brown fabric. “I have an idea. Nicola, toss me that piece of material over there. If I tie it around my shoulder, I can put Roza in the pocket.”
“Here,” Nicola said as she passed the fabric to Penelope.
The naiad slid the still-crying Roza into the rough sling she’d made, and then she grabbed her sword with both hands again as she crouched down with the baby against her chest.
“Keep her quiet!” Nicola hissed.
“I can’t anymore!” Penelope growled.
“Just wait and see what happens,” I told the women. “Orm and Robert are still between you and the guards. Maybe those two can fight the soldiers off.”
“Yeah, right,” Nicola scoffed. “I don’t think they can do anything.”
An armored soldier suddenly came bursting into the storeroom, and he gasped as he looked from Robert to Orm.
“You fuckers,” the guard said with a vicious expression on his face. “You know you’re not supposed to conduct business like this without the express consent of the council. You endangered the entire clan by-- I can’t fucking believe this-- stealing a baby and then asking strangers to visit our cave.”
“I-I-I,” Robert stuttered. “I confess. It was me who did it. Please pardon us.”
“A pardon?” the soldier laughed. “I don’t know about that. But I hear the baby crying, so where the fuck is it?”
“I don’t know!” Robert protested. “These… women came in here and took it.”
“Women took it?” the guard asked as he looked at the other goblin with narrowed eyes. “Horse shit! Step aside, I’m getting that baby!”
“Fine by me,” Orm said as he stepped out of the way with a wave of his reddish hand, and he pointed the way back to the priestesses with his long, curved, shiny fingernails. “They went that way.”
I wasn’t even surprised to see the weasley goblins giving up my women even though they were responsible for all of this. What spineless pricks.
The soldier started to navigate through the tangle of boxes, and I decided it was time for the women to act.
“Get him!” I shouted to Nicola, who jumped up with her sword in hand. The dark-haired woman put herself directly in the soldier’s path, but I knew the badass brunette could handle it.
The guard’s mouth fell open to reveal his tiny fangs, and just as he fumbled to reach for his spear, Nicola lunged to stop him. The goblin stumbled aside and wrenched the
spear free, but before he could put it to good use, the brunette priestess parried the weapon with her sword. The wood shaft of the spear splintered, and the guard was knocked to the side.
“Take that!” Nicola said with satisfaction as the soldier stumbled into a box. “Come on, let’s see what you’ve got!”
The brunette brandished her sword at the small man and gritted her teeth, and then she jabbed outward at his armor. Her sword made a dent in the dull metal, but the blade ultimately dinged off, and the goblin raised his fists as he faced off against Nicola.
“I don’t know who you are, but fuck you!” the small man snarled, but then the brunette kicked him into a crate. He spat in her face right before she stabbed him through the neck. For a brief second, the man was impaled onto the box behind him, and he stared at Nicola with hopeless eyes.
“You’re not getting Roza,” the brunette growled, and she yanked her blade out from the soldier’s neck with a spray of crimson. His short body crumpled to the floor, and the dark-haired woman waved her bloody sword in the air before sliding back into her hiding place “Who’s next?”
“There are two more men coming now,” I reported to the priestesses. “I’ll tell you when to act.”
Nicola ducked back behind a box just in time for another man to enter the room.
“What’s going on in here?” a goblin soldier boomed at Orm and Robert, and he put the tip of his spear to the center of Robert’s chest.
“Hey!” Robert put his hand on his belt as if to pull out his weapon, but the soldier slammed his spear into the other goblin’s small body and shoved him into the wall.
The guard stared for a moment at Robert, who slumped forward onto the weapon. When the soldier pulled his spear out of the other goblin’s body, a fountain of blood erupted, and Robert fell face-first onto the ground into a puddle of scarlet.
The soldier seemed oblivious to Orm, who was cowering under the table. The guard looked toward the back of the room where Roza was still screeching, and with his bloody spear in hand, the goblin began to move toward the priestesses.
The second guard followed, and the two small men moved slowly from box to box as they advanced toward the women.
“Okay, they’re headed for you, Nicola and Aleia,” I reported. “Cut them off at the legs!”
As soon as the first small soldier crossed into the brunette’s line of sight, she stabbed outward toward the man’s un-armored legs. Her sword cut him directly through the center of one of his skinny thighs, but when she jiggled it around to try to remove it, it was stuck.
“Fuuuuck!” the small man screamed and doubled over as rivulets of crimson ran down his rosy calf. “It fucking huuurts!”
The second goblin soldier attempted to crawl around the first man to get to the women, but too many boxes were in the way.
Then, with one big motion, Nicola finally yanked her sword out of the goblin soldier’s leg, and he stumbled backward into the other soldier, who was then trapped on the ground by his squirming, bleeding friend.
“Stab them!” I shouted. “Try to get under their armor!”
“Got it, my lord,” Aleia said in a grim voice.
The fairy rose to her feet and attempted to drive her sword through both men at one time, but she was blocked by the thin metal plating covering their chests. She tried to slide the tip of her blade under the top man’s chestplate, and to my surprise, the armor actually flipped upward into the air, and the goblin’s round belly was exposed.
Aleia jammed the tip of her blade down into the goblin’s abdomen, and the creature’s entire body seemed to deflate as blood gushed out of his mouth.
The still-living goblin attempted to crawl out from under his comrade, but the fairy was there with her sword above his throat. Then she slashed the guard across his neck, and his head lolled back on his spine.
“Fuck, Aleia,” I shouted. “That was unbelievable!”
“How many more are there?” the strawberry-blonde gasped. She swiped a hand across her sweaty face, which left a huge streak of watery maroon on her forehead.
“Eight,” I counted. “Hang in there. One soldier looked inside at all the bodies and left again, so I’m waiting to see what they do next. Let’s hope they’re not gonna retreat to call for backup. If they are, you’re gonna have to stop them.”
“I’ll ready my bow,” Nicola said as she swapped out her bloodied blade for the long range weapon. “I’ll get them as soon as they come in.”
“And I’ll hit them with my sling,” Aleia grunted before she also stowed her sword.
“Why can’t we run?” Penelope asked. “Do we have to kill all of them?”
“If they see you, you’re fucked,” I explained. “I hope you can get out of the goblin cave without anyone ever reporting a fairy, a human, and a naiad were here.”
“I understand, my lord.” the naiad responded as she continued to kneel with the crying baby on her chest. Roza’s screams were starting to disturb even my godlike serenity, so I knew it must have been awful on the ground.
“Four soldiers are about to storm in,” I told the women. “Aleia, Nicola, get ready.”
The women got into position behind boxes, and then they took aim.
As the first two men marched into the room, an arrow and a rock sailed directly at their faces. The slain men didn’t have time to react before they each fell to the ground, and the other two soldiers were left with stunned expressions.
Suddenly, a whimpering sound came from under the table at the front of the room.
It was Orm.
“I think I hear something over the baby,” one of the men said to the other as his eyes darted nervously around the room. He clearly couldn’t see Nicola and Aleia, who were holding their breath as they attempted to hide behind the crates. “And where the fuck did that arrow come from?”
“There’s got to be someone in here,” the second goblin soldier replied. “But it’s almost like I hear two babies crying.”
The guard pounded his fist on the table, and Orm audibly yelped.
“Who’s under there?” the first soldier bellowed as he stooped to look under the thick, unfinished pine. “Orm, is that you?”
“It’s me,” Orm confessed, but he pulled up his knees to his body and buried his head in his legs. “But I’m not coming out.”
“Yeah, you are, you fucking pussy,” the second goblin said as he reached a surprisingly thick red arm under the table and pulled out Orm. Then he positioned the coward on his back and put a foot to his chest.
“I know I don’t deserve to live,” Orm whimpered. “But if there’s any way…”
“No, you don’t deserve to live,” the first soldier agreed with a sneer. “You’re stupid, and you’re a troublemaker, and you always fuck everything up. You’ve done nothing but put this clan in danger for years now!”
Damn. It seemed like there was no love lost between these goblins.
“Please…” Orm whined. “I have a family.”
“No you don’t, you little weasel,” the second guard laughed, and then he pulled out his sword and slashed a thin red line across Orm’s throat.
Orm coughed and gurgled on the ground for a few long moments as blood poured out of the gash, but it didn’t take long for him to quiet.
The goblin who’d killed him stomped down on Orm’s chest with satisfaction, but then he looked at his friend with apprehension in his eyes.
“What the fuck is going on around here?” the guard hissed. “There are bodies everywhere.”
“Was it Orm and Robert?” the other goblin asked. “I don’t know how anyone else would have gotten in here.”
“Those pussies?” the first guard scoffed. “But you’re right, this doesn’t make sense. Just stay quiet and alert.”
“I don’t think anyone could hear us over that screaming,” the other guard whispered. “We still need to find the baby.”
“It’s so fucking loud,” the other small man complained as his eyes danced around
the room. “I can’t concentrate on anything.”
The two guards proceeded forward with their spears in hand, and for a moment, all was silent other than Roza’s persistent wails.
“Shoot again!” I told the women.
“You get the one on the right,” Nicola grunted as she and Aleia sprung up from behind boxes. Another arrow and rock flew toward the men, and while the brunette hit her soldier square in the neck and sent him flying backward, the fairy’s rock dinged off the other man’s armor.
“No!” Aleia swore as she slid back down to the ground. “I missed!”
“I see you!” the soldier shouted, but he was clearly stymied by the maze of boxes in the room, and he froze with his spear over his shoulder.
The pause was enough time for Nicola to shoot another arrow, and this one hit the man directly in the eye.
The soldier’s spear clattered to the ground, and the man fell to his knees as a deep red waterfall began to pour from his face. The arrow didn’t seem to have penetrated his brain, though, and he coughed and gurgled.
“Fuckkk…” the guard groaned as he attempted to pull the weapon out of his eye socket, but his hands were coated in his own blood, and he couldn’t get a grip on the arrow. Then the man toppled from his kneeling position over onto his side, and his motions began to slow.
“What’s going on?” Penelope gasped as she fruitlessly attempted to comfort the baby on her shoulder.
“There are still four more soldiers in the stable,” I reported. “They’re talking.”
“I want to go out there,” Nicola growled. “I’m tired of hiding behind these boxes.”
“I know you can take the four of them,” I agreed. “They’re small, but hurry before they decide to call for backup. Penelope, you stay here with Roza.”
“What’s our strategy?” the brunette asked.
“I want you to go with the element of surprise,” I explained. “Hide behind the door frame, and I’ll tell you when to shoot.”
Nicola and Aleia began to wind their way across the bloody floor through the boxes.
“Shit!” the fairy hissed as her foot sank into a bloody puddle, and Nicola grabbed her arm to pull her up.
