Well armed. Their weapons were good bronze, finely crafted even to my eye. Between them, they held an assortment of specialized weapon such that they might deal with any situation. I saw axes and hammers, swords and stickleblades, even things for which I knew no name.
They were very, very good.
Much better than those Hobgoblins who’d attacked me outside the lodge. These were not the same at all. These had been clever enough to draw me into a trap.
I glanced at the walls quickly. The buildings were only two and three stories. I could scramble up the side in an instant. But in that instant I’d fall with a dozen pieces of bronze in me.
“Quick death by some other hand,” I said, “that’s what the Mothers say.”
The two Goblins made a move, I was close by now, and froze them with a snarl.
“Slow death,” the big woman rumbled, “by my hands.”
“Arukh aren’t easy to kill,” I growled desperately. “Goblins die first.”
The Goblins keened in fear.
We waited.
“Father,” I said finally, addressing the leader, “there is no war between us.”
“Against the Ara,” the big woman said, crouching a little as if to spring. “All the world makes war. You are an abomination in the eyes of the Mothers. No one wants you in this world.”
The unfairness of it welled up in me.
“Am I to die then?” I asked desperately. “Tell me why? Tell me whose hand is set upon my death? Copper Thoughts?”
“You are Arukh,” the woman said as if in answer.
“Not enough,” I replied. “Not enough. Arukh are everywhere. Why me?” I was thinking. Thinking quickly.
“All Arukh are the same,” the woman said, “that’s why they have no need for names.”
They had more than enough strength to take me. Why did they hesitate? To save the girls? Why risk them at all? Why lure me only to kill me? There’d be easier ways. They wanted something from me.
“No,” I said quickly. “We talk. Not fight. Maybe not need fight. Goblins live. Hobgoblins live.”
I watched them carefully.
“Hobgoblins live. Arukh dies,” the female said.
Despite her words, they still didn’t move. She didn’t move.
“Arukh never die alone. Talk instead,” I insisted.
No answer. Was I wrong?
“We talk,” I said desperately, “I give you Goblin lives for that.”
“Who trusts the Arukh with lives?” the woman asked, repeating an old Goblin proverb.
She was the hardest; I could see that. The others weren’t quite so determined. I stared at the one I took for leader. He seemed to give the faintest nod.
They were waiting for me, I realized. Waiting for me to show them that I was someone they could talk to.
“Proof,” I said abruptly. I glanced at the Goblin girls, not two arms’ lengths from me now.
“One of you go. Just one. The other goes after talk.”
They both scrambled. I leaped, caught them both, dragged one back with me. I held her underfoot as she shrieked with fright. The other I released to scamper to safety.
The Hobgoblins had moved in on me. I glanced to the right. I could get a few feet towards the corner, and then I’d have to fight.
“Talk?”
“No,” the female snapped, “kill.”
She wasn’t the one they looked to, though.
I stared at the leader. He turned his head from side to side at me, the way Hobgoblins do. Finally, he backed up a couple of steps and squatted.
“Talk,” he said finally.
“Kill!” the woman insisted.
“Talk.”
They all backed off, squatting down, weapons ready but not raised.
“Why did Copper Thoughts send you?” I asked. Copper Thoughts was my best guess.
The leaders brows wrinkled. That had surprised him.
“Copper Thoughts is a Human Shaman,” he said. “We serve the Mothers. We are the Brave Tohkzahli.”
I’d heard of them. They were very, very good.
“Is this the Mothers’ will?”
A hesitation.
“Yes.”
Liar, I thought.
He hadn’t expected that question either. The hesitation told me that whatever they were doing, they were doing it on their own and not because the Mothers had told them to.
What then? I wondered. If they lied about something that simple, they weren’t likely to tell me anything more than the Mothers’ verities. If it their purpose was wrapped in deceit, they might well try to kill me.
I shook my head with frustration. Try coming at it from another direction.
“Did you kill the Mermaid?” I asked bluntly.
It might be just possible. Hobgoblins were barely big enough for it, though I couldn’t make the madness of the attack match what I’d heard of the Brave Tohkzahli.
The question shocked them. I saw them glancing nervously from one to the other, confused.
Good. On strange territory they might react with something more than proverbs.
“No.”
“That one,” I pointed to the Goblin who’d scampered behind them, “spoke of the Mermaid.”
They had enough discipline not to look back. Damn them.
“Why?” I asked.
“Arukh killed Mermaid,” the big female rumbled. I noticed that she seemed to be making an effort to hold herself from swaying side to side.
Hobgoblins cared about the Mermaids? I thought. That was amazing. How had that come about?
“A Mermaid is killed,” the leader said. “We hear about that, and about an Arukh who goes around talking about the killing. About how the killing was done.”
He paused.
“Then we find one of our own.”
He glanced left. I followed his eyes. Up about half way down the other side of the alley, two buildings came together imperfectly, leaving a small false corner. There was a shape covered by rags.
I understood suddenly why the Goblins had gone to such lengths to lure me to this alley. It had meant nothing to me. But if it had... if I’d been too familiar, too easy or too reluctant to come in here...
They’d been watching me from the start I realized. The Goblins hadn’t led me to them. They’d followed. I tried to sort it out in my mind.
I stared at the shape.
It looked very fresh. Flies buzzed around it. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air.
Forgotten for a second, the other Goblin skittered away. I didn’t need her anymore.
I almost started towards the body before catching myself.
“Arrah?” I grunted involuntarily, straightening up. I think that is what saved my life.
I heard a sharp intake of breath from the big female, but no one moved.
I understood now. Hobgoblins hadn’t cared about the life of a Mermaid. I found the thought oddly disappointing. They were out only to avenge one of their own.
There was a body in the alley. There’d been a killing here. Suddenly, it all fit together. I was safe. All I had to do was convince them that their enemy was the one I hunted. I almost sighed with relief.
“I did not do that,” I said.
“Arukh lie,” the leader said genially, “it is in their nature, after all.”
The words were a challenge, but the tone was an invitation to respond. I stared at him. He was walking a careful line. I would have to be careful as well.
“I did not do that. But I know who did. The same one who killed the Mermaid. The one I hunt.”
“An Arukh.”
Accusing me? Or the other?
“No,” I said quickly, “not me. I hunt the killer.”
The lead Hobgoblin seemed to look inward, as
if picking the idea up with his hands and turning it over and over again to conceive the shape of it.
There were scattered mutterings around him. He whispered a few rasping sentences.
“We hear of you,” he said finally. “Everywhere you go, you talk of killings. Of the same kinds of killings, of eyes and tongue, of many wounds, of the body cruelly torn. If it is not you, how do you know these things?”
“I follow the killer’s trail, I see his work.”
There was a scattering of almost Arukh-like grunts. A few of them shuffled back and forth, stretching and preparing for an attack.
I could see the circular way their minds were working. The Arukh knew about the killings, therefore the Arukh must have done the killings. Despairing, I thought of the Dwarf who’d been killed on the street of joy.
Like him, I too would die and bear the blame, and the murderer would go right on killing.
Then a piece fell into place in my mind. An almost crystal calmness washed over me.
“The killer is a male,” I told them.
I could feel their muscles tensing as they prepared to come at me. My statement was greeted with a shrug.
“So?”
“He rapes the bodies, not just with his knife.”
The leader froze. I could see him thinking about it.
“Kakarupu,” he said.
A youngish Hobgoblin grunted.
“Go and see,” he ordered.
Kakarupu stood and turned to the body, and then turned away.
“I will not look,” he said finally.
The leader took his eyes off me. That was a good sign. I looked around. “Ankintapta, Ruhsthatsi, go and look,” he said, “and look carefully.”
Two females stood and went to the corner, pulling away the coverings. There was a fresh whiff of blood in the air, thick and rich as they did so. This kill was very fresh, I thought.
“You will talk to us,” the leader said to me.
“You are Khanstantin,” I said suddenly. The name had popped into my head from the stories I heard. Leader of the Brave Tohkzahli.
He inclined his head.
“You have heard of us. Speak. Leave nothing out. We will know when you lie, and then we will kill you for it.”
I told them about my examination of the Mermaid’s body, in detail. I could see the two females at the body were paying attention. As I described how I explored the wounds’ depth, I saw one conduct the same examination. The other staggered away and vomited.
I spoke of my retainer by the Selk, about the deposit with Iron Pants, and about my investigations on the Street of Joy, and with the Kobolds.
“We know about that,” Khanstantin said quickly. “We know of the killings among Kobolds.”
I grunted. I gave them the rest, leaving out the attack of Hobgoblins and the conversations with the Mermaids.
The female examining the body called another Hobgoblin over. They seemed to examine the area around the body.
“Well?” Khanstantin asked.
“I...” the female began. She paused. “Come here and see.”
Khanstantin got to his feet. With a motion, he waved for me to come with him.
We walked towards the body. I passed between two Hobgoblins, acutely conscious that now my back would be to them.
I halted, sucking in breath. This body was worse, much worse.
“Too much blood,” the woman said, “it’s hard to tell what was done.”
The other bodies had been bled and moved. This one had bled right where it was left. Its blood had settled into the bed of straw and mud beneath it creating a stinking muck that blotted other scents out. Down in the ruined remains of its crotch, blood had pooled and congealed, mixing with ragged remains of innards leaving a thick, rancid soup in the hollowed bowel of her pelvis.
“The lower parts are torn right open, perhaps a male organ went in, perhaps not. I can’t say from the way it looks. Can’t smell sex either.”
She waved at that part of the body, as if unwilling to touch it. This close, the odour of congealing blood was thick in our mouths, the air almost unbreathable.
Behind me, I could feel menace growing. The skin of my back writhed in anticipation of knives.
“But see here,” she said quickly, indicating a spot below the hips, between the bodies splayed legs. Two small depressions, partly filled with a scum of seeped blood. “As if someone knelt or lay at...”
“And here.” Indicating the ruined torso. “Blood is worked into the skin, not splashed, not drained. Blood shouldn’t go this way, be here... Not unless... he knelt... lay on... and pushed his body... the blood would go up, and between the bodies, it would...”
She stopped abruptly and took several steps away. She knelt, taking big gulps of air.
“You should not have had me do this,” she said softly, her voice heavy with reproach.
“I am sorry,” Khanstantin told her. “It was necessary.”
He looked at me. A cold silence grew.
Another Hobgoblin, this one a mature male, the one who’d been called over spoke.
“The wounds are as the Arukh described. There’s nothing here that needs iron, but it was a small knife, metal, two edges.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes,” the mature male said, “she was hit in the head, there is bleeding and a large dent. The bone in her head is broken. She was probably dying even as he took her. Probably she didn’t even know what happened.”
“A small mercy then,” Khanstantin said. “Praise the Mothers, whose wisdom knows no bounds.”
There was a murmur of amens.
He looked at me.
“Vhoroktik,” he said, “search the Arukh for her knives.”
Vhoroktik was the huge Hobgoblin female. I made myself relax as she stepped forward and put her hands on my body. Her eyes burned as if she wanted to tear me to pieces.
Roughly, she found my three knives and handed them to Khanstantin.
He glanced briefly and gave them to his companion, who examined each and shook his head.
“Show me her hands.”
Vhoroktik grabbed each of my hands and shoved them in front of Khanstantin, turning them over one way and another. I didn’t look at Khanstantin. I kept my eyes locked on Vhoroktik. She had strange eyes, with a flat nose and a heavy brow ridge. I could see where her skin had been blackened or burned to make it look more like a Hobgoblin face.
I felt a touch on my fingertips, as if Khanstantin was examining my nails.
“Show me her body.”
Vhoroktik grinned and shoved me, turning my body towards Khanstantin. I could tell she was waiting for me to resist, waiting to let loose her hatred.
Her teeth were odd. Where I might have expected fighting fangs, some were missing. Other teeth were strangely shaped, as if filed down.
I felt her hands at my side. The sound of stitches tearing open rasped in the night air as she ripped the delicate Goblin handiwork that bound my tunic.
I grunted angrily but held her eyes.
I felt cold hands on my body, examining the skin of my stomach, going lower, tracing my hip. Finally it stopped.
“It’s not her,” Khanstantin said finally.
“She’s Arukh,” Vhoroktik rasped. “Let’s kill her anyway.”
There was something wrong with her. She was far too big to be Hobgoblin, far too massive and angry.
“What are you?” I asked.
Her eyes widened. She hit me, a clouting blow on the jaw that spun me half way around. I growled, recovering and coming back up in red haze, the motion tearing my tunic further.
“Enough!” snapped Khanstantin. “Enough!”
“How dare you!” Vhoroktik seethed, bubbling with black rage. It seemed to radiate from her, dispelling the vicious humour that
she’d had when she searched me.
“I am Totzaklinh of the Brave Tohkzahli,” the words seemed to hiss out of her, and she seemed to struggle again not to rock back and forth. Totzaklinh was how the Hobgoblins called themselves in the Mothers’ speech.
“Enough!” Khanstantin roared. “Not here! Not now!”
Abruptly, Vhoroktik seemed to fold in on herself. She turned and took several stiff-legged steps away.
“Kill the Arukh!” she called back, her voice choking with emotion. “Kill them all!”
She started to sob loudly.
Khanstantin watched her sob. He looked back up at me.
“We should kill you now,” he said conversationally. Which probably meant that he wasn’t going to.
He gestured back at the body.
“What do you see when you look at that?” he asked.
The word meat leaped unbidden to my mind. I held my tongue.
“A dead Totzaklinh,” I said carefully, using the proper word of Goblin speech, rather than the muddier syllables of trade language.
He shook his head.
“That’s all you see? That was a person,” he told me. “Her name was Vakhavlanka. I did not know her well, but I knew her. She was young, coming into that age when females of our folk begin to feel the wish to bear, and learn the sadness that comes with knowing they never will.”
“She was missing a finger of her left hand, lost in some child game. She was not a fighter, only a house mender. She was good with her hands and very patient. She liked to carve things in wood, shapes and figures, as the Dwarves do. She was good among the children, known well for her patience with them.
“When I think of her, I remember her laughing. No one ever remembered anger of her. She did not deserve what was done to her. She did not earn this.”
He stopped and regarded me.
Vhoroktik’s sobbing made an anguished counterpoint to his words.
“I see a person,” he said quietly, “lost now to all things and all times. Something is gone from the world and now it is a smaller place for the absence. All you see is a dead body, it is all you are capable of. This is the difference between us.”
What could I say?
I’d never heard her laugh. Never watched her mind children or mend houses with thoughtful patience. I wasn’t there when she lost a finger, or heard her weep for children she could never have. I could see the pictures Khanstantin’s words had made for me, but in the end, I could not bind them to the lump of cooling meat.
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