The Goblin Wars Part Two: Death of a King

by Stuart Thaman

  “Their leader, the half-orc, he must have been a magic user,” Gideon surmised. “He spoke with such confidence and controlled the minotaurs so easily, yet he was not built like a warrior.”

  “That is why he forced his minions to attack us, instead of doing it himself,” Asterion concluded. “The closer he is to the cave, the weaker he becomes. He might’ve known that you are a paladin and chose this location for that exact reason.”

  Gideon gave the minotaur corpse a spiteful kick and watched the beast’s horned head slump to the side. “Even without my divine powers, I am unstoppable.”

  Asterion lowered his voice and placed a gentle hand on the paladin’s shoulder. “Do not let pride overcome you,” he chided respectfully. “Arrogance will get you killed.”

  Gideon let Asterion’s words hang in the air without acknowledgement. He grabbed the makeshift torch from the priest and thrust it into the small tunnel. With a grunt, Gideon squeezed himself into the tunnel. There was barely enough room for the big man to crawl and he had to constantly stop to shift his sword to a different spot on his back. Asterion followed behind, his movements slowed by age rather than size.

  After several minutes of twisting and turning in the cramped passageway, Gideon saw light coming from a source other than his torch. He hesitated. Asterion’s words echoed in his head. If there was something alive on the other side of the passage, he would be defenseless against it. For a moment, Gideon thought to abandon the investigation and shimmy his way back out of the tunnel. Smoke drifting up from the torch blew into Gideon’s face and he struggled to stifle a cough.

  “What is it?” Asterion called from a few feet behind him, ruining what remained of their subtlety. Gideon held his breath and pulled himself around the next turn of the tunnel, jabbing the torch out before him. Unfortunately, Gideon had gone too far. His powerful legs propelled him around the blind turn in the tunnel and sent him falling nearly a dozen feet to the hard stone below.

  Gideon shook the momentary dizziness from his head and leapt to his feet, ready to defend himself. The room, lit by Gideon’s fallen torch and a smoldering collection of embers sitting in a metal brazier, was empty. Asterion poked his head tentatively around the edge of the tunnel and scanned the room.

  “There’s nothing here,” Gideon grumbled with a hint of dissatisfaction. He had expected some sort of mysterious temple with a pulsating crystal in the center, sapping all of the magic from the air. Gideon envisioned a huddled group of robed acolytes chanting and worshipping the dark artifact that stole his magic, but the room before him was small and ultimately uncharacteristic.

  A few piles of damp leaves and sticks were scattered around the cavern and the meager light made shadows dance on the walls.

  Asterion dropped gracefully to his feet and brushed the dirt from his clothing. “This is merely an antechamber,” the old man asserted with confidence. Gideon studied the room and looked for another connecting tunnel like the one he had just come through, but found nothing.

  “This is a dead end,” the paladin replied. “Whatever denies our magic here must be a natural phenomenon.” He wracked his mind, searching everything he had learned at the Tower, but thought of nothing natural that could so completely cut him off from his sword.

  The priest waited a moment, letting Gideon struggle to find an answer, before pointing to the shadows on the stone. “Look how they move,” he whispered, hoping that Gideon would draw the same conclusion he had. A long moment of silence made it obvious that Gideon’s powers of deduction were not as sharp as they should be.

  “Air is moving from this chamber, through the tunnel, and out of the cave above,” Asterion explained like he was teaching pupils at the Tower. “Therefore, another opening must exist. The shadows would not move and flicker unless airflow was causing the fire to shimmer.”

  Gideon knew that the old priest was right, but he saw no opening anywhere in the chamber. “Then find the next door,” he growled with more venom in his voice than he meant.

  Asterion smiled to himself and began tapping his fingers against the stone as he walked around the room. “Someone has taken great lengths to conceal whatever it is that has cut off our magic.”

  Softly humming the tune to a hymn, the priest walked around the perimeter of the cavern, gently tapping his fingers every few inches. At one grime-covered patch of stone near the smoldering brazier, the old man's fingers made no sound. The wrinkled skin of Asterion's hand passed effortlessly through the stone without the slightest noise.

  Gideon grunted and moved to Asterion's side. “An illusion,” he sneered. The powerful warrior believed that such low-handed trickery was better suited to thieves and jesters than to honorable persons. He thought back to the way the minotaurs had toyed with him, seeking to torture their captives rather than execute them. No, Gideon concluded silently, an illusion was exactly the type of magic that he should have expected.

  “Can we pass?” he asked, longing for the heavy familiarity of the throwing axes that usually dangled from belt. He was nervous about wielding Nevidal. What if the magical enchantment returned after a battle concluded? He would be forced to kill Asterion to satisfy the blade or risk being consumed by the power.

  Asterion felt out the edges of the passageway before taking a bold step through the rock. The dark tunnel was tall enough for Gideon to stand, but so narrow that if a fight began, he would never be able to swing his hand-and-a-half sword freely.

  The chamber beyond the hidden tunnel was almost exactly what Gideon had hoped to find. In complete contrast to the previous cavern, the large spherical space at the end of the second passageway was decorated with beautiful tapestries and brilliant golden candelabras. The floor was covered in hundreds of tiny, fist-sized eggs that pulsed with red light. At the far end of the chamber, a pool of silky black liquid flowed from a carved stone skull into a basin on the floor. Although the liquid did not leave the basin by any visible means, the endless stream did not cause it to overflow.

  “The eggs...” Asterion gasped. He reached out, nearly touching one, but thought better of it and pulled back his hand. A thick red webbing of slime stretched between the eggs, linking them and carrying their red light all over the chamber. The priest peered into one of the eggs intently and studied the moving shadows contained within the milky shell. He couldn't see much, but the pupa moved quicker, agitated, and emanated a violent aura of fear and anger.

  Gideon reached out with mind, attempting to sense a source of magic within the room, but was immediately repulsed. Whatever it was that severed his connection to Nevidal reacted with such ferocity to Gideon's mind he nearly fell to his knees. In the brief moment that it took for his magical consciousness to be repelled, Gideon could feel the presence of other beings in the cavern.

  “We aren't alone,” he informed Asterion, trying to cover the fear in his voice. “I felt two others, maybe more, somewhere among us.”

  Asterion gulped and took a step back inside the tunnel. “If they wanted to hurt us, they could have already,” he whispered. “Let's count our blessings and leave this place before our luck runs out.” Gideon nodded and urged Asterion forward.

  The two emerged from the cave system and drank in the cold night air. “What were they?” Asterion asked of the two beings Gideon had felt.

  “I don't know, but they came from the pool at the end of the chamber and they felt powerful—too powerful for us to handle.” Gideon shook his head and tried to clear his mind, but none of it made sense.

  “Perhaps they were cloaked, made invisible with magic similar to the illusion of the stone wall.” Asterion paced the ground in front of the cave opening and rubbed his arms together for warmth. He was thankful that the minotaurs hadn't taken his heavy traveling cloak when he was captured.

  “No,” Gideon responded. “They would have ambushed us if they were simply waiting under the protection of an invisibility spell.” Gideon thought back to the brief moment he had felt their power. The memory was overwhelm
ing. “They were the pool of liquid,” he finally said, unsure of how to put words to what he had felt.

  Asterion nodded and continued his solemn pacing.

  “What does it mean?” Gideon begged after a few minutes elapsed. “What does any of it mean?”

  Asterion rubbed a sheen of sweat from his brow and stopped his pacing. “Have you ever studied the properties of a phylactery?” he asked the paladin.

  Gideon flexed in response. “I spent most of my abridged time at the Tower training and fighting, not reading books.” More and more, Gideon was realizing how absurdly little he knew about life beyond Terror's Lament.

  “A phylactery,” Asterion explained softly, “is an enchanted vessel designed to contain the still-living magical essence of a powerful wizard once their human body is deceased.” The old priest pondered a moment before continuing. “I have never heard of a phylactery in liquid form...” he breathed, imagining the possibilities of two powerful souls occupying the same unusual phylactery.

  “Could it be a tribal shaman, someone like the half-orc who captured us?” Even as Gideon spoke, he realized the terrifying possibilities. He had witnessed the end of a human far more powerful than any half-orc.

  GRAVLOX AND VORST trekked through the rocky foothills as quickly as their short legs could carry them. Without the need for sleep or much rest, the goblins traversed several miles before Gravlox stopped to scout ahead with his magical senses.

  “We aren't far,” Gravlox said as he opened his eyes and let his consciousness return to his physical body. The enchanted circlet atop his head hummed with fading power.

  “How many of them are out there?” Vorst asked. Gravlox had barely spoken to her since they had turned away from Gideon's trail. The shaman had tried to use his abilities to find the captured humans but was unable to see even a glimmer of Gideon's magic soul. Gideon and Asterion were either too far away or already dead. The thought sickened Vorst.

  “I can only see one,” Gravlox told her, pointing a finger east. “It is a brilliant light, brighter than Gideon...” Gravlox rubbed his hands together and set his feet in motion once more. A throwing axe swung back and forth at his side as he trekked, a solemn reminder of the man he had left behind.

  Vorst walked a few paces behind Gravlox. Silence hung between them like the stench of death. She didn't know what they would do when they reached their destination. Gideon had thought he felt the presence of other paladins in the foothills, but Gravlox could only see one. A solitary magic user, stronger in power than Gideon, could easily destroy them.

  “How do you know it is a paladin?” she dared to ask. “What if the light you see is something different? What will we do?” What if it isn't human? She wanted say. During her time as an assassin in Kanebullar Mountain, Vorst had studied some of the properties of magic. A powerfully enchanted artifact could give off emanations similar to a magically gifted human or goblin.

  “Gideon felt a paladin as well, Vorst,” Gravlox muttered as though the explanation was painfully obvious.

  Vorst's anger boiled over. “Which side are the humans on?” Vorst yelled. “Humans only killed goblins during the battle, or did you forget that? We are escaped prisoners! They will cut us down without hesitation.”

  Gravlox turned and gazed into Vorst's eyes for a long moment before responding. He could see her anger, her rage, all of her emotions welling up from the fear that sat in the pit of her stomach. “If they will not listen to reason and help us find Gideon,” he stated grimly, “then I will kill them.”

  SNARLSNOUT THE GLUTTONOUS waited impatiently for his slaves to carry him to the top of a small rise covered with scraggly pine trees. The morning air was bright and cold and carried the distinct scent of pine sap to the orc chieftain. Several miles ahead of him, Snarlsnout could see a faint black line that his scouts had discovered to be the human convoy.

  “Where will they go?” he asked the gentle breeze. Snarlsnout knew the land to the west well. The Half Goat Clan controlled the lower reaches of the mountains from Talonrend to a small river they called Goat Stream. Their lands were bordered to the north by cave-dwelling minotaurs. To the south, the land opened up to a wide plain of swaying grass as far as the eye could see.

  The Wolf Jaw Clan lived several miles to the north of Goat Stream. The nomadic clan of orcs, unlike the agriculturally minded Half Goats, mingled with the cave-dwelling minotaurs and other beasts that lived in the snowy mountains. Snarlsnout tried to remember any tales he had ever heard of orcs crossing Goat Stream to the west and returning. He had been chieftain of the Half Goat Clan for several generations, but still he could not recall a single detail about the lands west of the river.

  Common orc legends spoke of great winged creatures strong enough to carry deer and wolves in their talons. If the superstitious rumors were to be believed, the forested region beyond Goat Stream was home to hundreds of wicked beasts that could tear an orc apart in an instant.

  Snarlsnout sighed. Deep in his gut, he felt pity for the human refugee column. Even if they somehow survived a meeting with the two orc clans, they would have to march through the wild forest. According to his scouts, the human column had no escort. Snarlsnout had expected an impressive array of human soldiers to be guarding the caravan, but no such army had been seen.

  “They have no idea...” the mountainous chieftain whispered. He thought of his clansmen, eager for battle and indescribably brutal. Since the scouts had spotted the human column, the scent of blood was in the air.

  “Take me back to the clan,” Snarlsnout ordered his slaves. The chained orcs heaved and grunted under the weight of the stone dais, struggling to carry it down the slope without tripping, but they obeyed without a word of discontent.

  APOLLONIUS RAN AS quickly as his heavy armor would allow. Steel greaves pounded on the streets of Talonrend and sent a thunderous wall of sound into the air. Apollonius led a group of eight soldiers from the gatehouse on the eastern side of Talonrend through Terror's Lament. Several guards waved to them and pointed, shouting excitedly.

  The nine soldiers stopped to catch their breath next to one of the guards. “Which direction?” Apollonius demanded. The young soldier pointed directly east. His face was pale and full of fear.

  “Another attack?” The guard asked sheepishly. The new recruit was so untrained he had his sword buckled on the wrong side of his body.

  “We can't be sure, but we must respond as though it is,” Apollonius replied. “Lower the portcullis behind us and send someone to warn Herod.” He looked up toward the top of Terror's Lament and shook his head. “Where are the damned archers?”

  The guard gulped down his fear and looked away. “Training, sir,” he muttered.

  “All of them?” Apollonius could tell by the look in the man's face that not a single archer remained on the walls. “After you warn Herod,” he hurriedly explained, “get the archers from their damned training!”

  The young guard offered a rigid salute and broke away at a run for the palace. “The portcullis!” Apollonius shouted at the man's back. Whether his senses were dulled by fear or the loud noise of his metal boots, the guard did not turn back.

  Apollonius loosed a bellow of rage and frustration and grabbed the nearest soldier in his party. “Kharon,” he commanded, “shut the portcullis and get to the wall. You will be our eyes. If you see anything, call down a warning.” The highly trained and experienced Templar nodded and ran to the gatehouse without a word.

  Since Darius' death, Apollonius had made an effort to learn the names and skills of every soldier left under his command. Most of them were young, untrained, and nowhere close to being ready for battle, but Kharon was one of the best. The battle-hardened veteran had survived the goblin attack and Apollonius trusted him beyond the shadow of a doubt.

  The remaining eight soldiers drew their weapons and exited the city at a measured pace. Several hundred feet to the east, they could see dust rising up from the field of bones, reminding Apollonius of horses runnin
g in a circle. He motioned with his hand and the seven men behind him fanned out in a semi-circle with their swords leveled before them.

  Their heavy boots crunched through the tangle of goblin bones like a fully-loaded wagon rolling over loose cobblestone. With every step, Apollonius felt something other than dry bones breaking beneath his greaves. Subtle snaps of energy popped and crackled with every bone he crushed. At first, Apollonius thought the tingling sensation he felt was part of the thrilling anticipation of battle. It didn't take the commander long to realize something else was happening.

  With a raised fist, Apollonius slowed the marching group to a halt. “Do you feel it?” he whispered through the slotted mouth guard of his helm.

  “What is it, sir?” several of the soldiers responded. “Magic?”

  Apollonius steadied his breathing and kicked some of the bones out from under his feet. They appeared normal, as far as he could tell. Pale, white and yellow shards of broken skeletons crunched loudly as he stopped on them. A distinctive pang of energy accompanied his footfall and gave him pause.

  “Sir,” one of the soldiers offered a handful of bones out to the commander. Apollonius took the bones in his armored fingers and rolled them around, searching for anything unusual. With a sigh, Apollonius made a tight fist and crushed the bones in his gauntlet. Underneath the dry snap that he expected, Apollonius heard a gentle buzz escape his closed hand.

  All of the soldiers grabbed handfuls of bones and crushed them in their palms. It was clear they also felt the otherworldly sensation. One of the men smashed a goblin bone and tossed it into the air directly above his head. Although there was no wind, the broken bones moved noticeably toward the growing dust cloud to the east.

  Apollonius watched the soldiers throw handfuls of shattered bones into the air and all of them appeared drawn to the shadow of Kanebullar Mountain. “We need to move,” Apollonius commanded.