Goblin Corps, The

by Ari Marmell

  Jhurpess did indeed return only moments later, running as fast as two feet could carry him and howling loudly enough that Cræosh didn't need the others to yell. His sides heaving, his mouth panting out gusts that steamed in the cold air, the bugbear collapsed. Sprawled at his companions’ feet, he stretched his arms wide, pointing both ways at once.

  “Yetis! Worms! Yetis! Worms!”

  Gimmol whimpered. “What's he talking about?”

  Cræosh and Katim traded glances. “The yetis are that close?”

  The troll shrugged. “It would seem…we didn't gain as much ground…on them as we'd hoped.”

  “And these worms he's blithering about?”

  A second, identical shrug. “Whatever they are…they would seem to be heading…this way. Why not…just move off the trail…Jhurpess left and allow them…to meet each other?”

  “Great idea!” Gork piped up. “Really, I mean it. Good luck!” And with that, the tiny creature dove into the snow and burrowed out of sight.

  Fezeill shifted into a near-mirror image of Gork himself and followed. Soon two kobold burrows dotted the landscape, already fading from view as the snow caved in behind them. Jhurpess dragged himself to all fours and crawled behind a small rise.

  Again, the orc and the troll exchanged looks. “I can fit behind the rise with Nature-boy,” Cræosh said, “and I know how fast you can run. What about the strawberry?”

  Katim glanced down at Gimmol, who gawped nervously back up at her. “I—I could dig!” he said frantically. “Maybe not as well as Gork, but—”

  “No. Any part…of your outfit would stand out…pretty dramatically against the snow. Even Cræosh…couldn't miss it.”

  “That's right,” the orc agreed. “I—Wait a minute!”

  The ground began to vibrate before the argument could escalate. “Not much time,” Cræosh told her. “Whatever you got in mind, better do it now.”

  Katim lunged, grabbing the gremlin by collar and crotch. Then, before the startled creature had even drawn breath to cry out, she took three running steps and flung. The gremlin soared like a very red eagle, screaming all the way, before he finally vanished behind a dune.

  “Not bad,” Cræosh complimented his companion. “Nice heft, good distance.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Could've used more of a spin, though.”

  “What…can I say? I’m…right-handed.”

  “Something to keep in mind, though.”

  The troll nodded. “For…next time.”

  And then, that more or less having covered it, they scattered.

  It was a smaller pack, as such things go: just the same six that Cræosh had spotted earlier. Still, a half dozen pissed-off yetis was not something to scoff at. The apish brutes sniffed the air as they passed, searching this way and that; but whether it was the influence of the Stars, the Ancestors, or just the prevailing winds, they clearly detected no trace of the hidden goblins. They took a moment to study the trail of churned snow Jhurpess had left in his constant back-and-forth, roared in unison, and loped onward.

  Another two minutes or so went by before the first of several heads and limbs appeared from the featureless white. “Are they gone?” Gork asked, scalp protruding from his burrow only enough to reveal his eyes.

  “Yeah, they're gone,” Cræosh told him. “I tell you, I’m starting to think this whole damn tundra is just plain unfriendly. Hostile, even.”

  Katim emerged from behind a hillock some distance away and jogged over. “Maybe they just…don't like you.”

  “Nah. I can't believe that.”

  “Try harder.”

  Gork, quite sick and tired of the pair of them, popped into the open. “How about this? You both rot! How does that grab you, huh?”

  Several vicious glowers landed on the little creature, but the kobold was far too worked up to notice. “I mean,” he continued, voice rising, “if it were up to the two of you, we'd already have died so horribly our mothers would feel it! We just had a pack—a pack—of yetis pass by so close that I’m amazed they couldn't hear my scrotum contracting in the cold! And they've just run off, in the direction we have to go—and where some other big worm-thing is probably waiting to burrow into our brains through our eyeballs! We're nostril-deep in dragonshit, and the two of you would rather strut around like rutting wefkoos than get dirty digging us out of it!”

  Gork was gasping heavily by this point, even sweating lightly despite the chill—and not because of his sudden outburst. It had finally dawned on him, right about a sentence and a half ago, exactly who he was ranting at.

  Cræosh advanced a single pace, wearing an odd expression. “Exactly what the fuck,” he asked, “is a wefkoo?”

  “Umm.” It wasn't precisely the reaction the kobold had been expecting. He swallowed. “It's a small creature, about this high…. We, umm, we raise them as food stock. Kobolds, that is. Underground. We think they might be distantly related to birds, although they certainly can't fly….”

  “Preening creatures, are they?”

  Gork nodded. “Unimpressive, though. Slower than rock melting, and not real bright.”

  “I figured.” Cræosh took another step. “You feel better now, Gork?”

  The kobold forced a grin across his face. “For the moment.”

  “Good. Then get your ass moving. Let's go see what's up with our furry friends and Jhurpess's worms.”

  Gork blinked, but he wasn't about to question the unexpected reprieve. He quickly fell in with Jhurpess and Fezeill as the squad set about tracking the yetis, and backtracking the bugbear.

  Katim fell back to march beside Cræosh, who was bringing up the rear.

  “I am somewhat…surprised,” she said.

  “What, that I didn't squeeze his head till it popped like a rotten grape?”

  “I was thinking more…like a badger, but yes.”

  Cræosh decided firmly not to ask why trolls had an expression in their language for popping badgers. “Thought about it. Really seriously thought about it. Gork's useful, though, in his own way. And the fact is, the little turd's absolutely right. We've gotta have other priorities right now.”

  Katim grinned, a semifrozen tendril of drool dropping from her maw. “But as soon…as there are no other…priorities?”

  Yeah, I don't think she's talkin’ about Gork anymore. “I've fought humans, elves, and dwarves, soldiers and wizards, even a small dragon once, and not a one of them could kill me. You can be sure as shit squishes that I don't intend to let one of my own team do it.” Deep within, a part of him cringed at so openly confronting the troll, but if there was fear in his soul, there was certainly none in his voice.

  The troll's smile widened. “Are you so certain…I mean you harm?”

  “I’m ‘worthy,’ remember?”

  “Indeed you are. Look on the bright…side, Cræosh. For the…moment, we still have…priorities.”

  Cræosh wasn't certain how (or if?) he would have responded to that, had not Fezeill's voice come drifting back to them. “Mind your step up here,” he called. “The ground's getting a little rocky and uneven. I think there's one of those chasms Katim mentioned off to the right. We shouldn't get too close.”

  The orc suddenly stopped short. “What's the problem…now?” Katim asked.

  “Um…Which way did you throw Gimmol, exactly?”

  The troll glanced about, taking her bearings, and pointed.

  Ahead and off to the right.

  For an instant, her jaw worked without the faintest sound. It was the first time Cræosh had seen her speechless.

  “Oh,” she said finally.

  “Yeah,” Cræosh agreed. “Oh.”

  Another moment of silence.

  “Do we…actually care what happened…to him?”

  “We don't. Shreckt might.”

  They dashed ahead, quickly overtaking Fezeill and the others. There was, indeed, a gorge—narrow but very deep—plunging away into the frozen earth, not far off their int
ended path. After a woefully inadequate explanation of the situation, Cræosh ordered them all to spread out and advance slowly upon the gorge, searching for a gremlin who might or might not already be a part of the landscape.

  It was Gork who finally stumbled over him. The ground here sloped toward the chasm, gradually at first but dangerously steep near the edge. Several piles in the snow suggested that something roughly gremlin-sized might have landed nearby and then tumbled down the incline.

  Or it could've just been the gusting wind. Gork had already climbed as far down that slope as he was willing to risk (not very), and was just about to haul himself back up when he heard whimpering.

  Damn. “Gimmol? That you?”

  “Help!!!!”

  “I'll interpret that as a yes,” Gork muttered, rubbing an ear. “All right, hold on! “Stars dammit all, why'd I have to be the one to find him? He gave serious thought to walking away, pretending he'd never found the annoying little scab, but the others had seen him come down this way to search. If he walked away empty-handed, and one of them found Gimmol later on, they'd certainly figure out what had happened—and then Gork might be the one lying broken at the bottom of the chasm.

  So instead he dug into his traveling pack and hauled out a worn but sturdy length of rope and a small piton. Clearing away a patch of snow, he hammered the steel spike into the rock, wrapped the other end of the rope about his waist, and crawled down the slope on all fours.

  And then…“Found him!”

  Yeah, found. But reaching him, Gork realized with a snout-long scowl, was something else again. Back pressed to the rock as though glued, Gimmol lay at the very edge of the slope, inches above the chasm's lip. Only a protruding stone, onto which the gremlin had jammed his left foot, prevented him from sliding over the edge and plunging into darkness.

  Steep grade, snow-wet stone, fingers numbed by the cold, and not a handhold to be seen. “You're really buggered,” Gork told him helpfully.

  Using the rope as a pendulum, Gork swung over beside the trapped gremlin and clung to the rock with his claws. Gimmol's eyes were tightly shut, but his twitch suggested that he heard the kobold coming.

  For no reason the kobold could discern, a few streaks of the cliff face beneath Gimmol's precarious perch were not only free of frost but seared black, as though touched by a recent fire. “Okay,” Gork said, studying the situation, “we'll get you out of here, but first I want to know—”

  “Look down,” Gimmol whispered.

  “I already know it's a long drop!” Gork barked. “That's why I’m not—”

  “Look! Down! Now!”

  Muttering all manner of obscenities, Gork glanced downward. At which point he lost all interest in the peculiar scorching—and very nearly his hold on the rope as well.

  “Oh, dragonshit…”

  It looked rather as if a segment of the cliff face was moving, shimmering and shifting in the shadows of the evening. But the kobold's vision quickly detected what had probably taken Gimmol some time to perceive.

  It wasn't the wall that was moving. It was the thousands upon thousands of worms, centipedes, and grubs that were swarming over it.

  Gork's heart seized in his chest and his muscles went stiff; but the thought of lying helpless as ten thousand tiny bites stripped the flesh from his bones broke his paralysis just as swiftly.

  “We've got to get out of here!” he squeaked, voice shaking.

  The gremlin opened one eye. “Did you figure that one out by yourself, or did someone read it to you from a book?”

  “You know, for someone in a spot as shitty as yours, you—”

  “Hey!” Cræosh's voice wafted down from above. “Who's strutting now, wefkoo?”

  Gork just sighed.

  “Worms!” That wavering cry, of course, from Jhurpess. A momentary pause, presumably while Cræosh strained to see farther down into the chasm, and then…

  “Shit on toast! Gork, get your ass up here!”

  “What about me?” Gimmol screamed.

  “We'll handle it! Gork, get up here!”

  He obeyed, hugging the rope the whole way like a long-lost (and very tall) lover.

  Cræosh and Katim lay belly-first upon the slope, as near to the edge as they could go without sliding. Yards away, on far more level ground, Fezeill and Gork awaited their next move. And Jhurpess…

  Jhurpess hung, one-handed, from Gork's piton, now driven into the earth much nearer the quivering gremlin. But even with the bugbear stretched to his utmost, Gimmol remained a few feet beyond reach. They might have tried the kobold's rope, but the worn hemp probably wouldn't support the weight of any member of the squad strong enough to haul Gimmol to safety.

  “Hurry!” the gremlin moaned pitifully up at them. “They're so close I can hear them!”

  Katim hissed once in irritation. “How sturdy is…your armor?”

  The gremlin blinked in confusion, glancing at the scrounged, mismatched leather covering his chest and limbs. “What?” he asked finally.

  Another hiss, with just a hint of aggravated growl sneaking in beneath it.

  “It's all scavenged,” Gimmol amended. “But it's real thick, and the straps are tough.” He whimpered, trying not to look down into the chasm. “But it's not going to do any good against…”

  The troll wasn't listening. With obvious reluctance, she uncoiled her chirrusk from her belt and passed it down to the dangling bugbear.

  “If you drop that…weapon,” she told Jhurpess, her voice tight, “you had better…be prepared to chase…after it.”

  “Jhurpess not drop weapon,” the bugbear muttered, insulted. “Jhurpess knows what Jhurpess is doing!” Then he glanced down at the hooked chain in his hand. “Umm, what Jhurpess doing?”

  Cræosh sighed loudly. “Use the damn hook!” he called before Katim could answer.

  Comprehension finally dawned. “Oh! Yes, Jhurpess understands!” The bugbear tossed the haft from his free hand to one of his prehensile feet. Then, his entire face scrunched in what, on him, passed for concentration, he began to twirl the chain.

  Cræosh looked over at the troll. “If he ‘understands’ this as well as he understood the concept of standing watch, we may be cleaning gremlin guts off your chirrosk for a week.”

  In lieu of any more meaningful comment, Katim snidely corrected his pronunciation.

  Gimmol, having caught a glimpse of the chain in the bugbear's grasp, was clearly having a few doubts along similar lines. “Are you insane? He's going to kill me! I don't want to die here! I eeeyaaaagghhhhh!!!!!!”

  The four-pronged hook came hurtling over the edge, flashing brightly but briefly in the sun, and the gremlin was absolutely certain that he was about to die.

  But Jhurpess, for once, not only performed up to expectations, he exceeded them. The hook lodged not in soft gremlin flesh, but around the straps of the leather breastplate.

  Gimmol's feet slowly rose from the tiny spur of rock that had saved him. He twisted slowly in the air, nothing but a single length of chain and the strength and skill (whimper) of the bugbear between him and the horror below.

  And then he was falling!

  It was a brief drop, barely a foot. He glared upward, determined to find some way—once he was back on solid ground, of course—to murder the bugbear for his carelessness. But the childish expression on Jhurpess's face suggested a panic akin to Gimmol's own. So what…?

  Another brief jolt, even shorter than the first, and the gremlin realized with a growing sense of dread just what was happening.

  The piton was slipping! Designed to hold only a curious kobold, it had performed admirably in standing up to the bugbear's weight—but now, between the swinging chain and the extra load of gremlin, it was right about ready to quit in disgust.

  Gimmol did the only sensible thing: he screamed his head off in a girlish falsetto. This was too much for the panicking bugbear, and he too started screaming, loosing that now-familiar wail.

  “Well,” Cræosh snarled b
etween clenched teeth, “that should make sure we attract any surviving yetis. Thanks, guys!” He pivoted toward Katim, but she was no longer there. She was, in fact, halfway down the slope already, her claws finding purchase in the stones that Cræosh wouldn't have trusted to support Gork, let alone the troll. Was she actually risking herself for Jhurpess and Gimmol? Had he misjudged her that badly? Had…?

  Oh. Of course. She was after her chirrusk. Never mind, then.

  When the slope grew too steep for her claws and powerful fingers to prevent her from sliding, Katim drew her massive axe and, utterly unconcerned with any potential damage to the blade, drove it into the first crevice she could find. Metal screamed and sparks flew, but the weapon felt secure enough to hold. Then, as Jhurpess had done, she allowed herself to drop until she hung by a single hand above the chasm.

  Grunting with strain, ignoring the sounds of Gork and Fezeill placing bets on what would happen, she twisted, stretching as far as her lanky arms would reach….

  There! She was hanging very near horizontally, her body forming a sideways cross, but she'd just been able to get a grip, not on the bugbear but on the piton. Muscles bulged, her snout twisted in agony—but slowly, so slowly, the spike slid fully free of the stone and began to rise, Jhurpess and Gimmol still hanging from it.

  Everyone above, and the pair dangling below, held their breath. The troll's entire body quivered, and for a moment she froze, struggling and failing to lift the load any higher. She heard Cræosh shifting above, perhaps even looking for a way to help, but she knew he wouldn't find one.

  But Katim wasn't finished. With a supreme effort of will, she again set the dangling pair in motion: not upward, this time, but side to side.

  Jhurpess, clinging to the piton and the chirrusk with everything he had, whined once but otherwise remained silent. Gimmol, who wasn't using any of his own muscle to stay aloft, apparently felt justified in resuming his screams.

  Back and forth, higher and higher, until finally the gremlin-end of the living pendulum, at its apex, reached Katim's own level. “Jhurpess,” she rasped, voice nigh incomprehensible with strain, “haul…Gimmol up…a few more…feet. Then…when I…tell you…let go!”