by Scott
The girl’s eyes went wide and she stepped… forward? Blacknail froze in confusion and the grin slipped from his face as he took in Khita’s delighted smile.
“A hobgoblin! I can’t believe this gang has a hobgoblin in it. That’s the sharpest thing I’ve ever heard.” She squealed in delight.
Blacknail stepped back from her nervously. Her unusual lack of fear unnerved him. What was wrong with this human? Saeter looked more than a little taken aback as well.
“What’s your name? How many people have you killed? Do you know any secret hobgoblin stuff?” she asked Blacknail excitedly as she took another step toward him.
Blacknail growled menacingly, but that failed to deter her approach. He threw Saeter a panicked look. He didn’t know how to get the female away from him without drawing a blade, and he had a feeling that would be frowned upon.
Saeter rolled his eyes but stepped forward and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Stop harassing my hobgoblin.”
“Who were you again?” Khita asked as she turned and pushed his hand off her shoulder.
“I’m Saeter, a scout. Now come with me.”
“Why should I go anywhere with you, creep?” she asked hostilely.
Saeter scowled at her. “Because the hobgoblin goes where I go.” He turned to walk away. “Come on, Blacknail. Let’s go see Vorscha.”
Blacknail was more than eager to obey and put some distance between him and the human female. She was weird. Saeter walked toward the camp and Blacknail shadowed his master closely, just in case Saeter needed to put himself between him and the girl again.
Khita watched them walk off for a few seconds before sighing and running after them. “Fine, where are we going? If you’re trying to get into my pants, I’ll bite your bits off.”
Blacknail’s master grimaced and gave her an insulted look as he continued walking. People gave them odd glances as they made their way through the bandit camp.
“I’m taking you to Vorscha,” Saeter explained.
“Why?” Khita asked.
“Because she loves dealing with hopeless cases like you,” Saeter told her gruffly.
Khita gave him a mean look but continued following them. “Does the hobgoblin talk?”
“Yes,” Saeter replied without looking at her. He seemed very annoyed.
“Why isn’t it talking now?” she asked.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Saeter answered in an exasperated tone as he turned to the hobgoblin. “Answer her questions, Blacknail, so she’ll leave me alone.”
Blacknail grimaced. He didn’t want to have to deal with this clearly insane youngling, but he had to do as his master ordered. “Yes, master.” His frustration was clear in his voice.
“He does talk! Why are you wearing that cloak? Is it magic?” she asked excitedly.
“No, I just like it,” Blacknail answered. Clearly she was both stupid and insane. Blacknail didn’t know a lot about magic, but even he knew it was rare and had absolutely nothing to do with goblins.
Blacknail sighed in relief when he spotted Vorscha and Geralhd up ahead at their campsite. They were seated right outside the large tent they shared.
“Vorscha!” Saeter yelled. “I got something here for you.”
The muscular woman stood and looked their way. Blacknail thought giving the girl to Vorscha was a great idea. He wasn’t quite sure what the warrior would do with her, but he didn’t really care as long as she was kept far away from him.
“Why do you have a little girl, Saeter? She’s not yours, I hope,” Vorscha asked with amused concern.
Saeter shuddered in revulsion at the idea of Khita being his daughter. “No, or at least I pray to the gods she isn’t. Red Dog recruited her. Apparently she insisted. I thought I should introduce you two, since I know how you like to pick up strays.”
Vorscha looked Khita over and frowned. “I might have to have a talk with Red Dog about this,” she said with more than a hint of threat in her voice.
“You do that,” Saeter responded indifferently.
As the two bandits had been talking, Khita had been staring at Vorscha with an impressed expression. “Gods, you’re big.”
“And you’re tiny,” Vorscha responded with an amused smile.
“I’m not tiny. I’m over seventeen winters old. You’re just huge,” the affronted Khita replied.
Vorscha looked Saeter’s way. “Well, thanks, I guess. I wasn’t looking for a new project right now, but I’m sure as death not going to let her wander around by herself either.”
“I don’t need any help. I can take care of myself!” Khita said as if she had been insulted.
“That might have been true in the city, but out here, things are a bit different.” Vorscha looked the girl over carefully. “Have you ever used a sword?”
“How could I? They’re kinda hard to hide, and the city guards don’t like people other than blue bloods having them. Besides, knives work just fine,” Khita said in a tone that suggested only idiots wouldn’t already know all this.
Blacknail smirked at the girl. He knew how to use a sword… sort of.
“There aren’t any guards out here, so everyone has swords or worse. If you’re going to survive a week out here, you’re going to need to learn to use one too,” Vorscha said.
“That reminds me, I wanted to pass off some of Blacknail’s sword training to you as well,” Saeter interjected.
Khita’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “If the hobgoblin’s going to be there, then I’m in!”
Vorscha threw the girl a confused look, and Blacknail felt a sudden spike of concern at the unexpected direction the conversation had abruptly taken.
“You want to practice sword fighting with a hobgoblin?” Vorscha asked Khita in disbelief.
“Ya, he’s so sharp and scary looking,” she said enthusiastically.
“And this makes you want to train with him?” Vorscha asked again uncertainly.
“Yep,” Khita said.
Vorscha sighed deeply. The movement made her bosom heave impressively. Off to the side, the still-silent Geralhd smiled appreciatively.
“Well, whatever works, I guess. What do you think, Saeter?” Vorscha asked.
“Blacknail should be fine. It might even help with his control. It’s not like they’ll be sparring against each other right off the bat anyway,” Saeter said.
“Looks like I’ll be training these two together then.” She eyed Blacknail and the grinning Khita. “This is certainly not how I expected to be spending the next little while.”
“Me too,” the hobgoblin muttered as he looked at the young woman grinning at him. His life had just gotten a little more complicated and a lot more annoying.
Chapter 22
Training with Vorscha was much more enjoyable than with Saeter. It was actually kind of fun, and he learned quite a bit faster from her. That was most likely because he took fewer blows to the head.
“Good, keep your weight mostly on your back foot,” Vorscha told him as he blocked one of her thrusts.
The tall, chesty brunette was obviously not putting all of her considerable strength behind the blow. Blacknail appreciated the consideration since she probably weighed twice as much as him.
“Now attack,” she said.
The hobgoblin eagerly did as she asked. He stepped forward and launched a horizontal slash, which Vorscha easily blocked. Not that he had been expecting to land the blow.
“No, that was all wrong. You were off balance. Stop,” Vorscha said with a frown.
“I’m sorry,” Blacknail replied submissively as he lowered his blade. The large woman was clearly a much more skilled fighter than him. Blacknail mentally added her to the list of people he didn’t want to challenge to a real fight.
“See, do it like this,” Vorscha explained.
The large brunette’s blade sliced through the air as she demonstrated the proper technique. Blacknail watched carefully. She was startlingly graceful when she had a sword in hand. A
s she flowed between different stances and attacks, her brown curls barely moved. Blacknail tried to copy her movements, but his weren’t nearly as smooth. He certainly had a long way to go in order to become any good at swordsmanship. He would just have to cheat in the meantime.
“Good, now practice that by yourself for a while while I go check on Khita,” Vorscha said as she watched him practice.
Blacknail continued repeatedly slicing the air as he practiced the move over and over. Vorscha gave an approving nod, then headed over to where Khita was practicing, or where she was supposed to be practicing anyway. Khita had stopped practicing quite a while ago and was now just standing around. The young woman was red-faced with exhaustion, and the sword she was supposed to be swinging hung loosely from her hand with its tip resting on the ground. She scowled at Vorscha as the older woman approached.
“Why have you stopped?” Vorscha asked in disapproval.
“Ugh, I can barely move my arms anymore. Can’t I take a break?” Khita whined.
“Ha, and you thought you didn’t need anyone’s help. It hasn’t even been half an hour yet. Real fighting takes a little more muscle than that back alley scuffling you’re used to, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe…” Khita muttered resentfully.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll have you in fighting form before too long. It will just take a few hours of practice every day,” Vorscha said with a gleeful smile.
Khita winced as if someone had just slapped her across the face. She didn’t seem to like Vorscha’s plan very much. “I don’t suppose I have a choice?”
“Nope, I already got permission from Herad to make you my subordinate. You have to do what I say, or its back to the city with you,” Vorscha said with a smile as Khita groaned.
While they were talking, Blacknail had grown bored of repeating the same technique, so he threw in a few other ones.
“Blacknail, come here,” Saeter called to him.
The hobgoblin flinched in surprise at the unexpected voice. He had been so engrossed in the feel and sound of the blade as it sliced through the air that he didn’t notice Saeter and Red Dog arrive. He recovered quickly though and walked over to his master. He dropped his blunt practice blade on the way over.
“Hello-ss, master and Red Dog,” Blacknail said.
Red Dog’s expression was unusually neutral. He didn’t scowl at the hobgoblin. Instead, he regarded him without judgment. “We have a job for you, hobgoblin.”
“Oh, what-ss is it?” Blacknail asked with obvious interest. Red Dog wouldn’t be here talking to him unless it was something out of the ordinary.
“There’s a small group of army deserters who have set up camp to the south. They’re robbing, and usually killing, travelers. Herad wants them dealt with and made an example of,” Red Dog explained.
“Men hunt in our territory, so we-ss kill them,” Blacknail summarized.
“Basically, yes. Herad does want some of them alive though. They’ll make better recruits than most of the riffraff we’ve been getting from Riverbend,” the bandit replied as he threw a disdainful look at Khita.
Blacknail agreed with Red Dog about the uselessness of the one named Khita, but he had to suppress the urge to remind Red Dog that he was the idiot who had recruited her.
“They’re hiding in the forest somewhere, so you’ll be helping me track them down. It’ll be good experience for you,” Saeter said.
Blacknail nodded. “I understand-ss, master.”
“How many men are you taking?” Vorscha asked. She had dismissed Khita and joined them as well.
“Just a dozen or so, and I see you’ve joined Saeter in this insanity,” Red Dog replied with a nod in Blacknail’s direction. “I mean fine, so he’s useful to have around. That doesn’t mean you should be training the hobgoblin to kill people better. Can no one else seriously see why that’s obviously such a bad idea?”
“He’s actually a very well-behaved student and learns fairly quickly,” Vorscha replied with a shrug.
“That doesn’t really make me feel any better,” Red Dog said.
“You can whine all you want on the way there. Let’s get going,” Saeter interjected impatiently.
Red Dog’s lips curled up in displeasure. “Fine, whatever. We’ve got the goblin, so let’s head out.” He seemed eager to get the job over with.
After a stop to grab some stuff from his shelter, Blacknail and the bandits were on their way down the road. Just as Red Dog had told Vorscha, their group was comprised of about two dozen people, with an about even mix of new and experienced bandits.
“Couldn’t we have used some of the horses?” one of the recruits complained as she walked beside Red Dog.
They had been walking down the old dirt road that cut through the forest for several hours now.
“There are too many of us for that. Besides, we aren’t going all that far and we’ll be moving through a lot of bush. You’ll just have to get used to walking distances farther than down the street,” Red Dog told her disdainfully.
“And riding can be even more painful and exhausting than walking if you’re not used to it,” Saeter added.
Blacknail heard something from up ahead. He froze, pulled his hood down, and listened. Everyone noticed his actions and stopped as well. Most of them had curious looks on their faces. A few had apparently managed to somehow forget he was a hobgoblin and looked shocked at his appearance.
“Horses, many of them, up ahead,” Blacknail announced as he stared into the trees that concealed the twist in the road ahead.
“Shit, could be a patrol or something. Everyone off the road and out of sight. Now,” Red Dog commanded as he moved toward the forest that ran along the road.
The rest of the bandits rushed after him, and they were soon all concealed along the tree line.
“I don’t hear anything. How do we know the hobgoblin isn’t making this up?” someone asked from where he was crouched behind a bush.
To Blacknail’s surprise, it was Red Dog who answered. “Because I’m smarter than you. Now shut up.”
Almost immediately, the sound of hooves reached the humans’ ears. The bandits were all crouched in bushes or leaning against trees, but as soon as they heard the noise, they turned to look at the road. They didn’t have to wait long for the horsemen to appear. They rode into view at a canter. There were slightly fewer of them than there were bandits, but every one of them was mounted and heavily armored.
The soldiers, and that was what they had to be, were even more heavily armed and shinier than Persus’s guards had been. On top of their padded clothing, they wore long chain mail shirts. Their legs were covered by steel greaves, and their lower arms by banded bracers. Their heads were protected by steel helmets that hid everything but their eyes and mouths, which could be seen though a large Y-shaped hole in the front of the helmets.
Blacknail was glad he was no longer out on the road. He could imagine the horsemen simply riding right over him and the other bandits. Most of them would have been trampled to death without much of a fight. It was just another reason why Blacknail really hated horses.
Most of the riders not only had swords at their waists but held long spears as well. One of the riders out front had a large blue piece of cloth tied to the end of his spear. It waved in the wind and snapped loudly behind him as he rode, showing flashes of a golden stag’s head insignia. As Blacknail watched the soldiers pass, he had to admit they looked dangerous. The humans in his tribe never looked quite so impressive.
When the riders were out of sight down the road, Red Dog spoke up. “That’s Lord Strachan’s banner. He’s the highest noble around these parts, but what are so many of his armsmen doing out here? He can’t have a lot of men to throw around these days.”
“It’s not likely that he’s looking for us or our camp,” Saeter replied. “He would be making less of a ruckus if he was after bandits.”
“Then what are they doing?” Red Dog asked.
“Coul
d be anything. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been out of touch with noble politics lately,” Saeter answered with obvious sarcasm.
Red Dog grunted in agreement before ordering everyone back onto the road. Then they were on their way again.
As the hours went by, many of the bandits tired out, including Blacknail. The hobgoblin had never walked so far before. The bottom of his feet ached and his boots were rubbing his skin raw. He had tried removing the boots, but Saeter had stopped him and told him that it would only make things worse. Blacknail wasn’t sure if he believed his master, but he did as he was told.
Eventually, Red Dog stopped the party with an upraised hand. Blacknail looked around and listened carefully, but he didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. It seemed like any other spot on the forest-enclosed road.
“There’s nothing here,” Blacknail muttered crankily to himself.
“We’ll stop here for the night and start tracking our targets in the morning. We’re too close to them to be using the road anymore. If they have the sense the gods gave goblins, then they’ll have someone watching the road,” Red Dog explained.
Blacknail gave Red Dog an annoyed glare at the obviously intentional insult, but most of the other members of the group seemed glad to be able to finally stop walking. Blacknail empathized with them. He couldn’t wait to get off his feet either.
The bandits split up for a few minutes to find a good place to set up for the night. Soon a spot was chosen. It was a small cluster of grey boulders large enough to shield them from sight and be somewhat defensible. There were nine stones, and each of them was taller than a human. Together, they were arranged in a loose circle. No trees grew within a few dozen feet of the stones, and the ground around them was hard with only a sparse covering of plants. Blacknail thought it was beautiful.
The hobgoblin ran his hand along the surface of the closest stone. It was smooth to the touch and warmer than he’d thought it would be. The sun must have heated it. From this close, Blacknail could almost make out faded patterns on the rocks, as though someone had carved pictures into them once upon a time. However, if the stones had once born images or words of some sort, the wind and rain had long since worn them away.
