The Goblin Bride (Beneath Sands Book 1)

by Emma Hamm

  Walking down that cliff’s edge without a light would be suicide. She could not manage to escape from where she was.

  She was taken by surprise when she realized that she wasn’t as alone as she had thought. There was a form by the stone dais. She had assumed that it was nothing more than a shadow. Jane had yet to learn that there were rarely shadows Below.

  It detached itself from the corner of one of the crystals, seeming to unfold into a great height before slowly making its way towards her.

  Jane recognized the creature. Not just from the strange ceremony that seemed to be delegating who got to eat whom, but from before in the mines. She recognized the braids that tied his hair back from his face. She recognized the square jaw and the soulless eyes.

  If she had been a stronger woman she would have attacked him. She would have clawed and bit and scratched the creature that had killed a good man. It was the least that he deserved for actions that had likely taken a human from his family, wife, children. She didn’t know who or what waited for Simon above ground, but surely there had been someone.

  She was a smarter woman than that. He was much larger, much stronger, much faster than her. She wouldn’t have stood a chance if she had tried anything.

  He walked towards her and she recognized the purpose in those steps. He was coming for her and no one else. In the dim light, Jane took the time to truly look upon the beast that had stolen her life.

  Power radiated from him even while doing something so mundane as walking. The hair that was braided back from his face on both sides of his head was pure white. He had a strong jaw, high cheekbones, and if his skin hadn’t been that sickly pallor of green, he might have been passably handsome. But she knew that as soon as he turned his head those strange ears would be revealed. And hidden underneath those deceptively thin lips were teeth sharp enough to cut through bone.

  He was wearing the same thing she had seen in the mines, leather strappings crisscrossing up his legs and feet. However his chest was no longer entirely bare. Soft looking furs were held by strappings and buckles that caught her eye as he moved. Even his arms were bound with the strange cords that he seemed to keep across his entire body. She wondered what purpose those could have other than decoration.

  Her eyes lingered on his hands, the curved black claws making her wince. But it was his eyes that made her the most uncomfortable. So black she could see herself reflected in them, Jane was horrified by the mere sight of them. There seemed to be nothing but despair and death in that darkness.

  Her pride ensured she remained strong, and kept her eyes upon him to watch as he came towards her. Lowering her eyes to the creature that was going to kill her would have been a bruise that her tattered pride could not stand.

  But in the end, she did lower her eyes. She looked down so that she did not have to see him progress further. She told herself it was because she did not want to see the monstrous visage before her. That the very sight of him was an offense to her.

  If she was going to die, then she wanted to go with the memories of her family in her mind. She certainly didn’t want to die looking on in horror as something so beastly killed her.

  He stopped in front of her and she kept her head bowed. At some point he was going to reach down and snap her neck. Perhaps he would fall upon her like some kind of rabid beast. His claws would be unavoidable and his teeth would sink into her neck. It would not be a pretty death. It would likely be more painful than she could imagine.

  She waited for many heartbeats until it was clear he was not moving. Eventually she stopped squeezing her eyes shut and realized that there was a distinct clicking sound that was coming from him. She didn’t look up immediately, fearing that there was yet another terrifying sound that these creatures could make. The last nightmare she needed was to look up and see some kind of bug crawling out of his mouth and making that terrible noise.

  Eventually she became annoyed with the sound and with anger in her eyes she looked up.

  He hadn’t moved since he had stood before her. Nor was there was a bug coming out of his mouth. In fact he looked much the same as the shadow that had pulled away from the crystals.

  She heard the clicking sound again. Blinking, she looked down to see that the clicking was actually coming from him striking his claws together loudly.

  He had been trying to get her attention.

  Brows furrowed in confusion, she squinted her eyes and looked up at him again. What exactly did he want from her? Was he ordering her around like some kind of dog?

  Once again the nails clacked against each other. The sound grated against her nerves. When she looked back down at the hand, he wiggled his fingers in a clear signal of what she was supposed to do.

  He wanted her to take his hand. It made no sense to her given the way that she had been treated so far. The humans had been forcibly taken from the tunnels. She could still feel the dry crust of blood on her face and head from where he had struck her against the wall. The other men showed similar abuse. The goblins had hardly shown kindness thus far. The other humans had been shoved and pinched away from the cave. So why was she getting treated differently?

  She didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust any of these creatures that made no sense to her.

  But she had no choice. This goblin in front of her was the only way she could live, and as selfish as it seemed, Jane did not want to die today.

  So she slid her palm into his.

  Jane was not ashamed to admit that she had thought his hand would be cold. Given the pallor of his skin and the general ashen quality she had assumed that he would be much like the place he lived in. Cold, wet, perhaps even slightly moldy would have satisfied her expectations. But this creature was warm. His skin pleasantly dry with the slight roughness of callouses along his palms.

  If she closed her eyes it would have felt like the hand of a human. If only she couldn’t feel the deadly points of his nails against the soft skin underside of her wrist.

  He pulled her upright, gently enough that she was shocked into looking up at him. There had been no gentility thus far. There had been no treatment such as this. Why now?

  She wouldn’t get her answers from him it seemed. Once she was standing, he pulled her towards the entrance of the cave with no regard to speed. If she did not want to be dragged, she would have to follow him.

  Once again she found herself traveling down the terrifying ledge that hardly had enough room for the two of them. She was placed on the outside with his large hand curling around her bicep. She tripped many times, her foot sliding over the edge and rocks skittering down into oblivion. How anyone could live in such a place, or walk down these walls with such confidence, was difficult for her to understand.

  It didn’t take long for them to reach their destination. He stopped at what looked like any other crevice in the stone walls around them. Before she knew what was happening, he was pulling her through the opening and into a cavern she had not noticed.

  He let go of her then, moving through the open space and disappearing around a corner.

  Jane wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold enough to send gooseflesh dancing across her body. There was a small stream of water here running along the far side of the cavern before disappearing into another hole in the cliff. A few of the goblin’s blue globes decorate the corners of the cave. However, she couldn’t see much else without more light. There were a few shadowed corners that might have suggested stones that were hidden in the shadows.

  She was exhausted. Everything that had happened was putting pressure on both her body and mind. There was still a part of herself that was certain she was going to wake up from this rather odd dream. Surely there was no such thing as goblins. There couldn’t be anything on this planet other than humans or the rest of them would know… Wouldn’t they?

  But the object of her thoughts rounded the corner again, one of the glowing blue lights held within a massive clawed hand. E
ither she was still knocked out cold and hallucinating, or there was definitely a goblin directly in front of her.

  He held out the globe towards her. His claws were dark points against the bright light.

  Taking the globe felt very much like playing a game of slap hand with her sister. Be quick about it or the back of your hand will suddenly sting bright red from the force. He didn’t flinch at all when she snatched at the light. He only stepped back a few feet to give her more space.

  She used the time to inspect what was now in her hands. It was a crystal as she had expected, but Jane realized now that it was hollow. The light was coming from liquid held inside of it by what looked suspiciously like a cork. As she rotated it in her hands, it appeared to glow a bit brighter.

  A rumbling sound came from the creature standing before her. The rippling growl made her head snap up, certain that he was going to be eating her now.

  But he did not seem aggressive. In fact, she would say he looked decidedly calm by the slump of his shoulders and the relaxed expression on his face. Perhaps the rumble was merely the way that they spoke. A deeper way of talking that she had yet to hear.

  He held a hand out for her once more and lead her to a back section of the cave. He pointed towards something in the darkness that she could not see. With the light lifted above her head, she noticed something similar to a hammock. Long vines she did not recognized were woven together and lashed to the wall, suspending the bed above the ground. As she watched, he mimed sleeping by putting his hands underneath his tilted head.

  “You want me to go to sleep.” She said quietly, feeling the weight of exhaustion pressing down against her shoulders. Sleeping sounded wonderful right about now.

  Discouraged and weak, she settled herself on the edge of the hammock and clung to it when it swung dangerous at her movements. This was going to make her sick if it didn’t stop its swaying. But the promise of a dream world far away from this one was too tempting to deny. It would be an escape from everything that had happened in the past few days.

  She tried to forget the creature, though she had not heard it walk away from her. For that reason alone she held up the light and looked to her right. She saw the glint of eyes staring back at her. He had to be sitting on the ground nearby or on some kind of stool for the reflection to be that low to the ground.

  “Are you just going to watch me sleep?” She said angrily.

  She didn’t expect him to understand. His language was so vastly different from hers. She did not consider that they would ever be able to communicate. Somehow she didn’t mind that fact. Jane didn’t want to speak with him.

  “Sleep.” The rumble from the darkness was heavily accented and slightly lisped as though his tongue had a hard time forming the words.

  Her heart stopped in her chest. Her ears strained to know whether or not she had heard him correctly. Did the beast she had assumed was nothing more than monster just respond to her in her own language?

  “You speak my language?” She asked quietly. Jane found she was suddenly uncomfortable in the darkness now.

  There was a long pause that gave her a moment to squint in an attempt to see him. It was too dark to make out more than just a little bit of his form. However, she was certain that she could see his lips moving as though trying to shape the correct sound through that mouth of sharp teeth.

  “Small.” Was the word he finally managed.

  “Small?” She was confused. Did he mean to say that she was small? She was hardly a small woman and yet compared to him, yes she likely was. But the more she thought about the word, the more she realized he was likely trying to say something else.

  “Do you mean to say you speak my language a little?”

  There was an affirmative grunt from the darkness, a shifting sound as he seemed to lean forward slightly towards her. The closer he got the more the blue globe cast his features into harsh shadows. He was so very different from her, so harsh and angled that Jane fancied there was nothing that could make him seem less like the stone around him.

  “You certainly understand me well enough.” Questions danced through her mind. How had he learned? Why could he not speak it, but hear it just fine? There was one questions more important than the others.

  “What is your name?” She did not know why it suddenly felt so important. Perhaps if she befriended the beast, she would be able to survive a little bit longer. It was as good a plan as any.

  A strange warble was her response, the vibration of his throat alerting her that the sound he made was likely a word.

  “I cannot say that. In my language?”

  Since he had leaned forward, she could see the movement of his lips a little better. He was definitely shaping the words before he said them. The movement, though frightening around the teeth that were continually bared, was endearing in a way.

  “Ruric.”

  That she could say. The R seemed rolled the way he said it.Her tongue was unfamiliar with the sound, though she found it was easy enough for her to replicate it.

  “Ruric. My name is Jane.”

  Once again his lips stretched over sharp teeth. “Jane.”

  Every now and then when he spoke, she could see one of his lips curl. She thought perhaps it was disgust or a sneer. But the more she watched him the more she thought the curl was because his teeth were catching on his lips.

  “Ruric, why am I here? Why I am not with the others?”

  The question made him straighten, retreating from her light until she could not see him at all. Perhaps it was something he was not supposed to answer. Maybe she had stepped across some kind of line that she would never understand.

  “Man.”

  Another one word answer that created more questions. “I am a human though. I’m the same as them. Are they with other goblins?”

  She heard a frustrated grunt, the low sound muffled as though he was trying to suppress it. “Man.” He emphasized the word, lingering upon the sound as though trying to make a point.

  Her mind worked, trying to decipher what he meant with one word responses that did not seem to be clear to her. She was so tired. Lying down had turned her brain to mush and wading through these questions was not helping.

  “Female.” And after a few moments, “Safe.”

  “Do you mean I’m here because I’m female?”

  The affirmative grunt answered her question more than the words he said. So she was here because she was female. It didn’t make any sense to her. Most of the creatures that she had seen had been male, so she was assuming that like her society this one was also ruled by the males of the species. To be here simply because she was female didn’t make sense.

  “Why? Why does it matter that I am female?”

  She could see him shifting in the darkness, saw his form slowly growing smaller as he stood and started to walk away.

  The globe was clenched hard in her hand as she tried to sit up, setting the hammock swinging violently until she laid back down. “Where are you going? You can’t just leave me in here!”

  But his form was already long past where she could see, and Jane couldn’t tell if he was even in the room anymore. All she could hear was the trickling sound of water and the light patter as it hit the stone around her. There wasn’t even the soft sound of breathing for her to guess where he was in the room.

  Once again, she found herself completely and utterly alone. Jane wasn’t used to that feeling. There had always been the sound of Willow’s light snores or the rustling of Luther as he shifted in his sleep. To hear nothing was not only terrifying but lonely.

  She fell asleep clutching the globe hard to her chest. It was the only bit of light left that she could hold onto.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I’D LIKE TO see the girl now, if you please.”

  The strange warbling trill of the goblin woke her.

  Jane sat up, her hair in disarray and her eyes dry. She had no idea where she was or what was
happening, until she shifted the globe in her lap and it tumbled onto the floor with rattling clink.

  The light within it burst to life, illuminating the cave around her. Then she remembered. Goblins, caves, Simon. The strange butterfly like woman that had haunted her dreams as she slept. Life had taken an even stranger turn than living in a desert and working in a mine. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take until her mind snapped like a string pulled taut.

  “Really, Ruric this is ridiculous. I’m only going to help her. Move aside!”

  Another grunt made her realize that the large goblin named Ruric wasn’t letting whoever was speaking in. If there was someone that was speaking her language that could also talk to goblins, she wanted to meet them immediately.

  Getting out of the hammock wasn’t going to be easy. As the two men muttered at each other, she tried to slide a leg over the edge and place it on the ground. All she succeeded in doing was making the hammock swing violently until she was dumped onto the ground with a shout.

  The ground came towards her faster than she expected and she wheezed to get more air into her lungs. It was her own foolish struggling that had transplanted her onto the ground. The pain in her chest could only be blamed on herself. Though she desperately wanted to complain, the hammock had been comfortable to sleep in. She just needed to learn how to get in and out without breaking a rib in the process.

  The cave echoed with the sound of running feet as both men came crashing towards her. She was lifted from the ground by her shoulders and placed gently back in the hammock.

  Jane was surprised at the gentility the goblin could show. His claws hardly even grazed her even with the speed he had lifted her. His strong arms had left a lingering warmth upon her body. She hadn’t realized she was so cold until he had touched her.

  “Are you alright, my dear?”

  Jane blinked in the darkness, trying to make out the forms that were around her while she struggled, yet again, to get out of the hammock.