It seemed as if for a second they turned and looked. As if across the field, our eyes met.
The Prince was gone. The Horsemens’ battle fell apart without guidance.
The Brave Tohkzahli, their quarry lost, withdrew from the battle, and after a few skirmishes none dared follow them.
Horsemen seemed to quarrel with Dwarves over their reluctance to attack the Hobgoblins. I saw blows exchanged. Interesting.
Dwarves and Horsemen departed the field, as did Vampires. It was as if everyone had shed too much of their own blood to want the ground they’d soaked.
By the time the sun sat on its peak in the sky, the field was empty of all but the dead and wounded.
I made my way down.
Carrion birds and dogs were stealing onto the clearing now.
“Honest Arukh,” a voice said behind me, full of bitter sarcasm. The little Arukh jumped. I didn’t bother to turn.
“Mothers’ love upon you,” I said casually. My eyes searching around me.
There. There. And over there, the shadow coming from behind the wall. How many others? Enough, I guessed.
“May you die a slow, slow, awful death,” the voice said acidly. There was a long pause.
I waited.
“But by some other hand.”
I turned.
It was one of the Hobgoblins of the Brave Tohkzahli. I eyed him critically. There was little trace of battle mud, or blood or fatigue upon him.
“We thought it was you there, hanging like some carrion bird to watch the feast in making.”
“The Brave Tohkzahli fought well,” I offered neutrally.
The little Arukh tugged at my elbow. I glanced. She was spotting them too. I gave her a tiny nod.
“We always do.”
“And you yourself fought well?” My pitch rose a little, making the statement a question.
He laughed at my careful insult. “The Brave Tohkzahli always set aside watchers.”
He used a Goblin word for watchers.
Watchers wasn’t the right meaning. The Goblin word he used was for ‘ones who show’ or ‘ones who teach.’ But that didn’t make sense.
‘Ones who look upon and correct.’ Yes. That made sense. And what would such a one be for in a place like this?
“I take it,” I said thoughtfully, “that the Brave Tohkzahli seldom lose, and never lose twice.”
He laughed bitterly. “Clever Arukh.”
Behind me, the little Arukh whined nervously. She had sense enough not to draw her sword. Impractical weapon anywhere but a battlefield. In the time it would take her to have it out, they’d have us dead.
“Arrah,” I said. “What do you want with us?”
“We could want nothing from an Arukh,” he replied. “But if it is your wish to do so, we would not be offended if you walked in the direction that we walked. Or at least, no more offended than is usual from the presence of an... abomination.”
He used the Dwarf word, stumbling a little over the harsh consonants, rather than the Goblin word.
We. He was the only one in sight, but he was plainly telling us we were surrounded. I knew that already. The fact that he would say it told me that this was not an ambush.
“Perhaps we might walk elsewhere,” I offered, “I hesitate to pollute your footsteps.”
“That,” he said bluntly, “would be hostile.”
I nodded.
The little Arukh whined again. I rumbled low in my throat to calm her.
“You have said you do not want our deaths. For this, we would not offer hostility.”
“It is well,” he replied. He turned.
I could feel the little Arukh preparing to bolt. I set a hand lightly upon her, willing her to relax.
“Come,” I told her.
We began walking, skirting around mounds of rubble and the remains of fires.
After a few moments, we joined the main group of the Brave Tohkzahli.
I didn’t see them until I was almost on top of them. They’d found the wreck of a building, quickly cleared it into a makeshift fortress. I admired it with newly battle conscious eyes, almost invisible, many escape routes, and near impregnable. They’d copied many aspects of Dwarf fortification, and combined it with Goblin impulses.
I saw again why they were so very, very dangerous.
Many of the Brave Tohkzahli here had been in the battle. I saw some laying and panting, gasping with the fatigue and trembling that often followed fighting. Others made tea, another Dwarf affectation, or tended their own or companions wounds.
In the center of the Fortress was clustered a group that I took to be the leaders. Vhoroktik was among them. She didn’t notice us at first. I had an instant to watch her unawares. More than twice the size of the others, she still looked Hobgoblin and moved unaffectedly in Hobgoblin ways.
She saw me and stiffened.
“Arukh,” she said.
The... ‘watcher who corrects,’ gave a perfunctory bow.
“This one watched, this one saw,” he told them, indicating me.
“Oh,” one of the leaders asked, “what did it see?”
I didn’t know his name, and no one spoke it in my presence, but I noted a scar cutting across his lip, slurring his speech a little.
I cleared my throat.
“What is it you want of me?” I almost used the Dwarf honorific.
“We have fought and bled by your words,” he replied. “Surely you can spare us a little more. So much has already been shed, it must be cheap now.”
Words or blood? The threat was obvious.
“I saw the battle.”
He nodded.
“I saw the Brave Tohkzahli fight.”
Nods.
“They fought well. They fought bravely. They drove all who came before them.”
“As it always is,” he replied, cutting me off.
I was silent for a second.
“I saw Khanstantin.”
They looked interested. Angry but attentive.
“His band cut the Prince from his horse, they cast the Prince into the mud.”
Nod.
I tried to speak in the style of the awkward ballads that the Hobgoblins sometimes shared among themselves.
“The Prince looked upon Khanstantin as he looked upon the Prince. The Prince’s bowels ran loose, he dropped his sword away and fled before Khanstantin’s gaze.
“But even as Khanstantin raised his spear to end the Prince, he was cruelly taken from behind, ridden down unsuspecting by Horsemens’ treachery.”
I waited.
“Kill them,” Vhoroktik said, her voice flat and dead. Her eyes burned.
My heart leaped.
There was a quiet grunting of approval. A small murmur of disavowal.
“Now?” a middle aged Hobgoblin asked.
Vhoroktik squinted, and then shrugged.
There was a bubbling of whispered conversation that we all heard perfectly well. They argued about what to do with us. I squatted in front of them, pretending to casually examine my gear.
After a moment, the little Arukh behind me did likewise.
I waited, heart starting to pound, sweat pooling down my back.
They had no good reason to hold us. No good reason to want us, and they knew it. I heard them argue it.
But they’d just come through a battle, they’d shed blood and lost lives, and somehow, in ways that they couldn’t fully express, I was a part of this.
They had no use for me. But they were still unwilling to let me go.
Hobgoblins are like that. They’ll pick things up, useless things like sticks or weeds or pieces of clay, and carry them around like treasure for hours or days at a time. Then they’ll put them down for a second and wander off, forgetting all about the
m.
I have seen Hobgoblin women cradling stones to their breasts as if they were babies. Like Arukh, the Hobgoblins are barren, born only from the union of Goblins and Humans.
I decided to be patient. Sooner or later, they would forget about us and we would leave. If not... we’d need to save our strength for when it was needed.
“You saw where he died. Take us to him.”
I nodded as I tightened the lacing on a piece of forearm guard.
Out on the battlefield, crows were beginning to gather.
We walked past corpses of beast and people. We were not quite prisoners. Weapons were not quite pointed at us. I could not help but stare at the bodies. Some laying slack almost whole and peaceful, others torn, contorted ruins.
They’d come all this way to die here. Had they realized it?
I didn’t know.
One of the corpses moved.
I walked over. It was a human. Dressed like a Horseman, but I could tell he wasn’t a true Horseman. His clothes didn’t have the right look.
He lay curled up, half resting against the corpse of a bull. His blood mingling with the bull’s in the mud around them.
A spear pierced his gut, ran out the backside of him. He held it, as if willing it not to go further, when it had already done its work. There was a rent in his side where he’d been torn open, green bile oozing trickles through dried blood.
Pieces of gear were scattered around. Waterskin. Clothes. As if he’d desperately been trying to repair his wound before he’d lost consciousness.
I wet a rag from his gear and cleaned the blood from his face. For a moment his eyes cleared and he caught my wrist.
“Don’t kill me,” he said.
“You are dying, man,” I told him. “I haven’t killed you. It was someone else.”
“Ahh... mother,” he whimpered, a spasm coming over him. “Water... so thirsty.”
I held the skin to his lips. He gulped thirstily, half of it spilling from his mouth. He was bleeding again, the exertions setting it running.
“Help me,” he begged.
“You are dying, man,” I said again.
“Mother...,” he whispered. “Mother don’t let me go...”
He held tight to me, pulling me towards him with fading strength.
“Hold me,” he whispered.
Slowly, he went still. His grip loosened and I pulled away. He was still breathing, although not well, and his blood pooled beneath him. Where the spear had pierced his side there was a foul smell, as if it had torn his guts open.
He wouldn’t live to see the night.
His body shuddered. His eyes were closed.
He’d wake to pain again, I thought. He’d cry out for water, and for his mother.
I could cut his throat.
“Don’t kill me,” he’d begged me.
Did he know what he was asking?
Half conscious lips formed a word.
Mother? Who was his mother, I wondered. Who were his people? How was it that he was dying by measures alone in his own blood and shit? Why had he come to this place?
Uncomfortable with these thoughts, I left him behind.
Let him cry mother to someone else.
Vhoroktik stepped forward, glaring at me, she took his head in her hands and twisted roughly. There was an audible snap.
She stood and spat at my feet.
“Animal,” she said to me.
I turned away.
I found Khanstantin’s body. I wasn’t sure it was his, it was face down in the street. I turned it over and cleaned the muck off his face.
They found and examined each of the Hobgoblin bodies.
None lived.
I stepped back and sat on the Prince’s horse.
A carrion bird landed near Khanstantin. I hit it with a stone.
The Hobgoblins gathered around Khanstantin, tears running down their faces.
Khanstantin’s head was turned towards me. His eyes were open. His jaw slack.
He looked surprised, I decided.
Vhoroktik knelt, lifting the body, cradling it against her massive breasts. Khanstantin looked so small in death.
She roared. The Hobgoblins around her jumped.
“Ayah,” she howled, “Khanstantin is gone from us. How will we live? There is a hole in the world now. There is a hole in me.
“’Keep me,’ I told him, ‘keep me at your side, and I shall protect you.’ But he didn’t. When the time came he kept me back and went ahead to die alone.”
She wept, tears running down her cheeks, sucking in great breaths and letting them dribble out in torrential sobs.
Many of the Hobgoblins wept. Strange coughing sounds filled the air around us as they wailed their grief.
“Would that I were dead,” Vhoroktik howled, cradling his body in her arms and turning around and around, “dead in his place. Khanstantin is dead and I do not know how to live with him dead in the world.”
Her eyes caught me and she stopped.
“He died,” she snarled at me, “doing your work.”
“If you’d killed the man, my Khanstantin would be with us now.”
She put the body down, laying it gently at her side. Hobgoblins seemed to clear away from the two of us. A space opened between us, containing only us.
“Foul Arukh, despised, unwanted, abominations, excrement, stillbirths,” she cursed me. “You taint the world with your existence.”
“Arrah,” I breathed almost inaudibly.
“Arrah Arukh!,” she grunted, I could see her trembling, almost rocking from side to side, her head nodding as if barely stopped from bobbing automatically.
I stepped back.
She was working herself into a killing rage.
“Murderers, rapists...”
“Rape is bad,” the little Arukh said.
That seemed to startle Vhoroktik, she turned to the little one. “Bad,” she grunted, rocking freely, “Bad. Bad. BAD.”
“Hurts,” the little Arukh said. “Hurts inside and outside. Makes feel alone inside. Makes feel dead inside.”
Vhoroktik shook her head, her anger seeming to dissipate. “Yes,” she said. She focused on the little Arukh as if she’d never seen her before.
“Makes feel dead inside. Alone and dead,” Vhoroktik repeated. “I feel it now, alone and dead. I should be dead, not him. I know how to be dead, he knew how to be alive. He is no good dead.”
Now her body was swinging freely from side to side, in great slow arcs.
The little Arukh stepped closer. I watched fascinated.
They circled each other, their eyes locked, moving slowly in a parody of readying for combat.
“Bad thing,” the little Arukh said. “Bad thing.”
The little Arukh swung her hand out into the space between them. Vhoroktik caught it and held it.
They stopped.
“Bad thing,” Vhoroktik said, her head bobbing. “Bad, bad thing.”
“Arukh hurt.”
“Make hurt.”
“Feel hurt.”
“Make hurt,” Vhoroktik said this emphatically, anger creeping back into her voice. I could see her muscles tensing as she pulled on the little Arukh’s arm.
“Make hurt,” Vhoroktik spoke it like a promise.
I tensed.
The little Arukh allowed herself to be pulled closer.
“That one,” she said, nodding at the body of Khanstantin. “he stop hurt.”
Vhoroktik tilted her head.
“Stop hurt. Gone. Hurt again.”
“Stop hurt, stop alone, stop dead,” the little Arukh glanced toward Khanstantin, “that one.” Vhoroktik followed her gaze.
“Khanstantin,” she said softly.
“The one... Khanstantin,”
she said slowly, pronouncing it carefully, trying to get used to the concept of beings with names, “he...”
I could see her struggle to try and put words together, they wouldn’t come. She had no way to express herself.
“Arrah,” said Vhoroktik, “yes.”
“Arrah.”
They were crouched, almost squatting now. Their bodies rocking back and forth in tandem.
The little Arukh pointed at me. They both stared.
“Mine,” she said.
Vhoroktik’s face darkened.
“Arukh.”
“Mine.”
“Arukh hurt,” Vhoroktik insisted.
“Make feel, not hurt,” the little Arukh said. “Not rape. Like Khanstantin. Feel live. Make not feel dead.”
Emotions chased across Vhoroktik’s face, she seemed to become thoughtful. Finally she shrugged.
“Arrah,” she said.
“Arrah,” the little Arukh replied.
They let go, stepping carefully away from each other. Vhoroktik stood, straightening slowly as she backed towards some Brave Tohkzahli.
I stared at her. I’d never seen an expression like that before. The little Arukh backed up until she was right against me. Until I felt her body against mine.
“The Mothers say that you should destroy the Arukh wherever you find it,” Vhoroktik said without conviction. There was a muted chorus of agreement.
“The Brave Tohkzahli do the will of the Mothers,” she said slowly. A stronger chorus.
“The Brave Tohkzahli suffer for the Mothers will.” She was choosing her words very carefully.
Again, muted agreement.
“The Brave Tohkzahli have suffered enough today,” she said. “Let us bind our wounds and care for our dead. We must chant their songs to the Mother in Earth.”
She made a move as if to pick something up. To pack things and go. She stopped and looked.
“The Mothers will must be done. The Mothers permit others to kill the Arukh. That is their will. We will not do it. Let others do it.”
“You Arukh go away now. We Tohkzahli must care for our dead. It is no place for Arukh to be.”
She picked up a leather sheet and covered Khanstantin’s body in it. With exaggerated care, she rolled the body in the sheet, wrapping it.
The other Hobgoblins, taking their cue, ignored us, and self-consciously commenced their little activities.
The Mermaid's Tale Page 25
