Goblin Corps, The

by Ari Marmell

  But for all their pondering, all the possibilities, all their theories, the goblins knew that, ultimately, they could never be sure.

  All they knew for certain was that as the gremlin clambered up atop the bar, unseen sword ready to strike from unseen fist, Bekay spun away from Cræosh and whipped the back of his fist into Gimmol's skull.

  A wet snap, like a rotten branch cracking from a dying tree, echoed across the confines of the Capering Kobold. All other sound ceased as every eye in the squad fixed on the brown-robed gremlin, now clearly visible. The befuddled look on his face was almost funny, in its way; he seemed to watch, all uncomprehending, as his sword slipped from slackened fingers and bounced, point first, upon the floor. A sliver of Cræosh's mind, incongruous as the notion was, insisted on pointing out that such treatment couldn't possibly be good for the blade.

  Limply, his head flopping at an angle that not even a serpent could have duplicated, Gimmol crashed to the floor in a graceless heap.

  Somewhere across the common room of this tiny, run-down tavern, the gates of hell must have torn open, for the agonized wails of the damned blasted their ears, their organs, their souls—a torrent of sound the goblins could never have imagined.

  No, Cræosh realized, an inexplicable shiver dribbling along with the sweat down his back. Not hell. It's not the damned screaming, it's…

  Belrotha. The animalistic bellow peaked even as the orc recognized its source, descending—devolving—into a guttural, mindless snarl. Cræosh looked into the ogre's face, and he cringed.

  No sentience remained in the creature staring back at him. Whatever awareness, whatever limited intelligence was normally to be found in the visage of an ogre were gone, washed away in a primal deluge.

  Cræosh, however, had not lost his mind, and was therefore wise enough to get the hell out of her way.

  The tavern shook beneath her tread, the charge of a maddened beast. Glasses and mugs tumbled from shelves to shatter across the floor; dust snowed from the rafters. Bekay, his own expression uncertain for the first time, raised his axe for a beheading stroke that the ogre was clearly in no position to avoid. Cræosh, shaking free of his fugue, darted toward them, even knowing he was too far, that he could do nothing to stop the blade's inevitable fall….

  But something else dropped loose from the ceiling, along with the clouds of choking dust. Something—someone—that Cræosh, once again, hadn't even realized was missing.

  His short muzzle twisted in lunatic rage, Gork plummeted from the rafters of the Capering Kobold and drove his kah-rahahk into the human's beefy arm.

  Flesh tore beneath the jagged blade, naked bone glinted in the lanternlight, and spattering blood beat a rhythmic tattoo on the floorboards. Bekay howled, an overdue sign that he was, for all his might, only human. The monstrous axe slid from his slackening fist.

  Gork tumbled from Bekay's shoulder, rolling skillfully as he hit the floor—uncomfortably near that falling axe—and came smoothly to his feet halfway across the room. Blood trickled across the kah-rahahk; from its barbs hung decorative streamers of flesh and muscle.

  “Not bad, Shorty,” Cræosh cheered, glancing at the gaping wound on Bekay's arm. “But couldn't you have picked a lethal spot?”

  “No,” the kobold told him, his voice far more serious than Cræosh had ever heard it. “He's not mine to kill.”

  Belrotha, who'd retained just enough presence of mind to pause long enough for the kobold to clear her path, was unyielding as an avalanche when she finally slammed into Gimmol's slayer. And all the strength in the world didn't make Bekay any heavier.

  A length of the bar disintegrated as the stampede of two crashed through it, through the barrels and bottles behind it, even partly through the back wall. Blood and alcohol spilled over them from a dozen decanters and a hundred lacerations.

  The rotted-meat stench of her hot breath blasting Bekay's face, Belrotha wrapped her arms around his chest and heaved. His feet left the floor; his ribs creaked audibly beneath the pressure; he gasped raggedly, struggling to regain the breath her charge had knocked from him. Over and over, he drove his good fist into Belrotha's head and neck. Cartilage cracked as her nose flattened and spread across her face; teeth fell from their sockets; bruises formed across her collarbones, outlining sharp-edged fractures. Cræosh and Gork, Katim and the newly risen Jhurpess, flinched in sympathy with every blow. And still Belrotha would not let go, seemingly oblivious to the damage he was doing her.

  For what felt like minutes but must have been the span of only a few breaths, she seemed confused, as though unsure what to do with him now that she had him. And then, a final roar sent beads of blood-flecked saliva across Bekay's face. He tensed, clearly prepared to be dashed to the floor, or squeezed until he broke, rallying his strength for a final effort.

  Belrotha did none of these. Belrotha craned her head forward and ripped through his jugular with her rotten, blackened teeth.

  Her head vanished entirely into the eruption of crimson bursting around her lips. Bekay's sandaled feet kicked in a gruesome dance, and then the mightiest warrior in a dozen kingdoms went finally limp. For some minutes, Belrotha clung to the body, savaging the ruined throat, squeezing the ribs until the entire torso resembled a mealy apple. Only then did some light of sanity begin to shine through the mask of blood, and she allowed the corpse to slither noisily from her arms.

  Cræosh, uncomfortably aware that he had played a smaller role in this battle than perhaps he ought, gave the body a few solid kicks, luxuriating in the sharp sounds as the last surviving ribs snapped. No one else appeared at all impressed, though, and after one last kick for good measure, he reluctantly turned his attention to the tavern's other corpse.

  Slowly—even, Cræosh would have said if he wasn't sure he knew better, respectfully—Katim and Jhurpess lifted the broken body of the gremlin from the debris of the shattered tables. His empty eyes were wide, glassy; his head flopped obscenely as they carried him. But for the first time since Cræosh had met the brightly clad gremlin, so many weeks ago in an overgrown courtyard in Timas Khoreth, the nervous squint was gone from his face. Gimmol—terrified of failing his companions, failing in his duties, more than he'd ever been of the enemy—was terrified no longer.

  And never, not once, had he failed them.

  His footsteps crunching in the detritus, the orc approached the surviving length of bar on which they'd lain the body. As gently as he knew how, Cræosh placed a hand on Gimmol's shoulder. “Ancestors and Stars watch over you, Strawberry.” He grinned weakly. “You did good for a little turd.” It was as affectionate as he could get; he was pretty sure that, somewhere, the gremlin understood.

  He glanced over, puzzled, as Katim began tearing the monk's garb from the small shape. “This is not who…he was,” she said, holding the robe up for inspection and then tossing it aside. She gestured at the brightly hued armor that waited beneath the drab cloth. “If he is to remain…here, so many miles from his…home, let it be as his…true self.”

  Stunned, Cræosh could only nod. He couldn't begin to guess if she meant what she said, or if she was just going along for the sake of the others, but either way it was the most respectful thing he'd ever heard her say about anyone she wasn't planning to enslave in the afterlife.

  Jhurpess limped up next, still slightly doubled over. For a long while he hesitated, staring at the brilliant red that had come near to getting Gimmol killed the first time they met. Timidly, he stretched out a hand and laid it, briefly but firmly, upon the gremlin's chest. Then, his eyes downcast, he stepped away.

  And finally, Belrotha. Tears streamed openly down her face, washing furrows into the blood that clung to her cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them off. A sob racked her heavy frame, and a single tear flung itself from her chin to land glistening on Gimmol's cheek.

  With a shaking hand, she drew a tiny, thin-bladed knife from the back of her belt. Made, to all appearances, from a random scrap of metal, crudely heated and beaten into so
mething resembling a blade, it could only be meant as a tool, not a weapon.

  “Him always sit on shoulder,” Belrotha told them, her voice quavering. “Him say it a better way to see the world, than to always look up.” With the knife held tightly between her fingers, she reached down and carefully removed both of Gimmol's eyes. She then pressed his lids shut, hiding the empty sockets from the world. “Him always travel with me now,” she declared, solemnly swallowing first one mushy orb, then the other. “And maybe him watch over me…” Her voice cracked, and the tears flowed once more. “Even though me could not watch over him!” Belrotha wailed once and then collapsed in the corner and wept.

  For a time, the silence of the tavern was broken only by the ogre's wrenching sobs and the occasional shout filtering in from the street. Cræosh stared into space, unsure of what to do next. They couldn't stay much longer. Obviously, word had gotten around that Bekay had usurped the tavern for his own use, but sooner or later, someone who hadn't heard was going to pop by for a tankard. The warrior's body had to be “displayed” by then, and they had to be gone. Nor could they just leave Gimmol's body; bad enough to have a murderer loose in the city, but if the authorities learned of a goblin presence, they'd crack down hard.

  Now if he could just find politic means—by which he meant “non-suicidal”—of convincing Belrotha that they had to move on….

  And the Ancestors, blessed be their names, provided.

  “Kuren?” From the front door, creaking slowly open, rang a melodic voice, its notes made sour by worry and grief. “Kuren, we heard about Thomas. Are you…?”

  It was somehow awkward, that shared moment of stunned immobility as everyone took in the sight of everyone else. The newcomer, as tall as Katim but far more slender, boasted revoltingly lush locks of golden-brown hair, irises to shame the deepest ocean, intricately embroidered leathers, upswept ears, and a recurved bow strapped to his back. Thanks to Havarren's descriptions, he might as well have been wearing a six-foot tapestry embroidered with “Erris Brookwhisper”—but even had his identity not been obvious, the goblins would have demanded his bloody death on aesthetic principles alone.

  “Do you fucking mind?” Cræosh snarled at him. “We're in the middle of a funeral!”

  Brookwhisper, to his credit, was fast. He'd almost gotten his bow unslung when his efforts were interrupted by a loud twang. His obnoxiously deep eyes crossed as he struggled to focus on the primitive but extremely sharp arrow now protruding from the bridge of his nose. One step, a second, and he flopped bonelessly to the floor.

  Cræosh glanced first at Kuren Bekay's body, and then back at Brookwhisper's. “Not that I'm complaining,” he said, “but that was somehow anticlimactic.”

  “Convenient, though,” Katim pointed out.

  “It was that.” The orc shrugged philosophically, then offered Jhurpess a grin. “Nice shot.”

  “Jhurpess thanks you,” the bugbear replied, raising his own bow in a half-salute. “What squad going to do now?”

  “Hmm…We should string the bodies up there, and, uh, there.” Then, when nobody objected, he approached the ogre in the corner, ready to run at half a second's notice. “Belrotha, we can't take Gimmol with us. There's just no way to hide him.”

  “Me know,” she sniffed. “Him have to stay.”

  “We can't just leave him, either,” the orc clarified. “We can't let the humans know we're here.”

  “What you want to do?” she asked suspiciously.

  “We're gonna have to burn the place down,” Cræosh said.

  For a moment, Belrotha pondered that, then nodded. “Him would be okay with that.”

  “Cræosh?” Katim asked. “If we burn…the tavern, we'll destroy the other…bodies as well.”

  “I know. That's why I want them as obvious as possible. I figure if we put Gimmol in the back, behind the bar, and then start the fire there, it'll take a while to engulf the whole room. A few people will have seen the other bodies by then, if only when they run in to see what the smoke's about.”

  The troll's nose wrinkled in distaste.

  “I don't like it either,” he said, “but I don't see that we have much of a choice.”

  “I'm not real good at hauling corpses around,” Gork piped up. “I'll take care of getting the fire ready to go.” He glanced briefly toward one of the parchment windows. “It's too bad the surrounding buildings are mostly stone,” he commented absently. “It'd be nice to take the whole neighborhood along with the tavern. Ah, well…”

  The kobold sauntered toward what was left of the bar, ignoring the sounds of dragging, cutting, sawing, ripping, heaving, and hammering (mostly in that order). He expertly surveyed the jugs and carafes that had survived the battle unbroken, hopped up onto a rickety stool, and selected a wide assortment. These he poured in a shallow layer across the bar, the floor, and Gimmol's body. Every scrap of loose wood from the broken tables and chairs he placed strategically throughout the spreading alcohol. To this he added a pile of rags he found tucked behind the bar (presumably kept for washing the glasses on what, judging by the encrusted scunge, must be a monthly basis at best).

  “Ready when you are, Cræosh,” he called.

  “Just about, Shorty. Just one more coil…there!” Cræosh meandered over to stand beside the kobold.

  “You've got to drape the intestines just so,” he commented critically, “or they just slide off and land in a heap on the floor.” He tilted his head, examining their handiwork. “Does it look to you like we nailed Bekay's right hand a little crooked?”

  “It looks fine, Cræosh.”

  “I suppose so.” The orc sighed. “There's never enough time to do a really good job with these things.”

  “Cræosh…”

  “All right, all right. Don't get your testicles in a clinch.” Carefully checking his robe for any rents and tears too large to be easily hidden, the orc raised his hood and moved to join the others, who were already shuffling through the door. “You coming, Shorty?”

  “Just let me kick over the anthill.”

  Cræosh nodded and slipped out.

  His snout burning as the vapors of the alcohol permeated the air around him, Gork stood beside the gremlin whom he'd spent months tormenting. The gremlin who'd then saved all their lives more than once—well, who'd saved Gork's life, since Gork wasn't so concerned with the others—using a power with which he could easily have slain Gork a dozen times over, had he chosen to do so.

  Ignoring the frightened seconds as they skittered away, the kobold turned to search the wreckage behind him. It took only a moment to find what he sought; he'd a pretty good idea of where it had fallen, after all.

  As gently as he'd ever filched a coin purse, Gork lifted Gimmol's stupid-looking porkpie hat from beneath a jagged table leg. The feather was creased sharply across the middle, and try as he might, Gork couldn't make it straighten out. Giving that up as a lost cause, he ran his hands over the hat itself, shaking the dust and splinters from it as thoroughly as he could. And then he placed it, ever so slightly crooked, atop the gremlin's head.

  The night air was already redolent with smoke, made pungent by the sharp tang of alcohol and the disturbingly appetizing aroma of roasting meats. From his new vantage atop a nearby baker's—a perch easily enough obtained, despite the encumbering robe—Gork watched not only the growing flicker of his handiwork, but also those others who watched it.

  Heads were beginning to pop through various windows, and running footsteps could be heard in the nearest side streets. A few quick-thinking souls were shouting for their neighbors to form a bucket brigade, and already one brave citizen had torn a hole through one of the parchment windows and begun to scream at what he saw within.

  And of course, there was the rest of the squad, huddled once more in that alley. Expression and identity were difficult to determine from above, thanks to the thick hoods, but their postures and gestures suggested that they watched the growing conflagration with some concern. Gork briefly
considered waiting to see how long it would take for one of them to go look for him—but he quickly decided that he didn't want to know, since it was entirely possible they'd never bother. Instead, he pried a chunk of shingle from the roof and winged it into the alleyway, smirking as it careened off the orc's head. Four gaping hoods tilted his way, and he waved.

  Cræosh's return gesture was somewhat more crude.

  “You may want to get out of that alley,” the kobold called in a loud whisper. “It's going to get pretty smoky, and I think we want to be gone before it gets too crowded.

  “I'm going to take a look around from up here,” he continued. “I'll catch up in a few minutes.”

  The robed procession ambled into the street, skirting the edges of the throng that was already forming around the edges of what had been the Capering Kobold.

  The non-capering kobold flinched as a contingent of the city watch came running along the street, then forced himself to relax. They'd never spot him way up here, and they'd probably be fixated enough on the building, spitting flames like a stuttering dragon, so as not to notice the others, either. And even if they did, the disguises should hold up for a little longer. Hopefully…

  Ignoring them for the moment, then, Gork scanned the rest of the gathering crowd. The ugly man there, wringing his hands and pleading with the guards in almost eunuch-high tones to do something, was probably the owner of this not-so-fine establishment. Nothing of import there. Wait, that man there in the back! Was…? No, he was nobody. Just a tall, thin human who bore a passing resemblance to Nurien Ebonwind. (Gork remained a tad jittery at the thought of the dakórren coming back for revenge.) And there…Oh, yes.

  The flailing arms and strident demands coming from the witness who'd peered in through the tavern's window had finally managed to divert one of the guards from the fire. Gork watched the soldier's expression ripen from aggravated impatience, through disbelief, to utter horror; saw his cheeks go white even in the ruddy glow of the burning building. The kobold couldn't hear a word, but he knew very well what the witness was describing.