Gideon took a step backward and watched the servant work. “I should go,” he stated when it became apparent that Herod’s voice would not return quickly.
“Wait,” he managed to gasp between wet coughs.
Gideon stopped short of the doorway and turned back to the prince.
“When I die… Apollonius….” Herod wheezed so violently his head knocked the jug of water from the attendant’s hands. “Apollonius will support… you… for the throne…”
Gideon felt like he had just been hit with a smith’s hammer in the center of his chest. “Herod, I…” He was at a loss for words. A thousand different thoughts rushed through his head. Behind all of them, the image of a skeletal dragon flitted through his mind.
“I forgot,” Gideon quickly said to change the subject, “the Archbishop was murdered.”
Herod shook his head dismissively as he pounded on his chest to get his lungs to cooperate. The news of the Archbishop’s untimely demise didn’t seem to faze the prince. Herod stretched out one of his hands to signal Gideon to leave.
Two other armed attendants entered the room with wet cloths and more water. The glint of metal caught Gideon’s eye. On a peg near the door, Herod’s magisterial tabard hung loosely over his sword belt. Maelstrom and Regret, Master Brenning’s most legendary creations, rested calmly under a thin layer of dust.
Gideon waited a moment before reaching a hand out and touching the leather of the sword belt. No one inside the cold room noticed his movement. Gideon let out a sigh and thought of Nevidal trapped in the floor of the star room. He let his hand fall back to his side and took a step into the hallway.
“Fine,” Gideon conceded, keenly feeling the absence of his own weapons. He took a step back into the room and quickly snatched the sword belt from the wooden peg. Without any means of properly concealing his theft, Gideon strapped the swords around his waist and pulled his travelling cloak tightly around his body as he walked out of the castle.
GIDEON WAS HALFWAY through the center of Talonrend when Apollonius found him. “Gideon!” the soldier called out. “I heard you had arrived.”
“What of it?” Gideon responded, holding his cloak shut in front of him. The hilts of his new swords poked up under the cloth of the cloak, but Apollonius didn’t seem to notice.
“Have you spoken to the prince?” the young captain inquired. He wore his military armor complete with golden epaulettes and a short sword laden with emeralds identifying him as the captain of the guard.
“I have,” Gideon responded. “He does not look well.”
Apollonius took a step closer and lowered his voice, despite the two men being alone on the deserted streets. “I fear the prince will not last more than another week. When he meets Vrysinoch—”
“You will be king,” Gideon cut him off. “You have the support of the military and that is all that matters.” Apollonius looked bewildered. He shook his head and started to protest, but Gideon interrupted him again. “There are orcs coming from the west and a band of minotaurs is working with them. There might be more. Send couriers to the villages along the Clawflow and get the people inside the walls. When the orcs arrive, the goblins will be surely be with them.”
“No,” Apollonius stammered. “You’re to be the new king!” he practically shouted.
Gideon pushed past the man in the direction of the Tower of Wings. “I have a dragon’s master to kill,” he said flatly, rubbing his palms over the hilts of Maelstrom and Regret.
“The bone dragon?” Apollonius wondered aloud with obvious confusion.
Gideon turned on his heel and looked the younger man in the eyes. “Where?” he demanded like a criminal asking for ransom.
“The dragon…” Apollonius’ eyes grew wide. “It formed from the bones of the goblins outside the walls… We…”
A huge smile broke out on Gideon’s face. Finally, after years of living an uncertain life, he knew exactly what it would take to earn the favor of Vrysinoch. “Thank you, Apollonius,” Gideon said with a refreshing wave of calm. He continued in the direction of the Tower—he needed to find Gravlox and Vorst and learn everything he could about the leader of Kanebullar Mountain.
SEVERAL HUNDRED MINOTAURS descended from the foothills to join the two orc clans as they assembled on the plains three score miles west of Talonrend. Undrakk, the mysterious half-orc shaman, walked ahead of the thunderous group with all the authority and respect of a king.
Atop the rocky rise where the humans had made their magical escape, the war counsel convened. Snarlsnout sat on his stone platform like a god dedicated to gluttony. Slaves brought him mashed pieces of rancid goat meat that he noisily slurped from wooden bowls.
Next to Snarlsnout, Gurr paced nervously back and forth. The minotaurs, taller and broader of chest than even the largest of orcs, made the fierce warlord uneasy. In addition to the minotaur presence, Gurr also felt a fresh pang of defeat—something he had not experienced in a long, long time. He was hungry for human flesh and vengeance.
Kraasghull, the newly appointed leader of the Wolf Jaw Clan, sat cross-legged on the ground a few paces from the Half Goat entourage. After Jurnorgel’s death, Kraasghull was unsure of how to lead the Wolf Jaw Clan. The warriors were restless and in the presence of their ancestral nemesis, Kraasghull was unable to prevent brawls and murders from tearing the two clans apart. Only the overwhelming threat of the minotaurs was able to hold the alliance together.
Undrakk stepped forward to address the gathering. “Chieftains,” he began with a twirl of his magical staff. “The time has almost come.” He dipped into a low bow and ushered the minotaur leader forward to introduce him. “This is Qul, the leader of the northern clans.”
“King of the Mountains!” Qul corrected as he strode forth. The minotaur king was beyond monstrous. He stood somewhere over fourteen feet tall and weighed as much as several draft horses combined. In full battle regalia, his armored chest was as thick as Undrakk was tall. For weapons, Qul had two metal clubs strapped over his back most humans wouldn’t even be able lift from the ground. Qul disdained slicing weapons such as axes and swords. When the minotaur king engaged in battle, he wanted to hear the bones of his foes snapping with every strike.
“Soon I will be king of the world!” he bellowed. A silver medallion around his neck let Qul communicate and understand most of the common languages including the human and orc tongues. It changed his speech from the gruff language of the minotaurs to a dialect the assembled orcs could certainly understand.
Snarlsnout, from his vantage point above the rest of the orcs, could not see the top of Qul’s hairy head. He looked beyond the towering beast to the gathered army Qul had brought with him. Unlike orcs who charged into battle wearing very light armor so as to remain agile, minotaurs dressed for war much like a castle would prepare for heavy bombardment. They wore large plates of solid metal that covered nearly every inch of their muscled bodied.
It made sense, Snarlsnout had to admit. Orcs always relied on numbers and ferocity in battle. Like goblins, they were relatively easy to replace. A single orc female could produce more than a dozen other orcs in her lifetime and orc children were ready for the battlefield by the age of five. The advantage of the minotaurs was just the opposite. A single minotaur trained for war could slaughter orcs for hours before falling. Although Snarlsnout had little previous interaction with the mountain-dwelling clans, he knew that incubating a minotaur in the womb took nearly two years and birth frequently killed the mother. While the females of the Half Goat Clan were certainly with the army, few of them were soldiers. As Snarlsnout surveyed the gathered minotaurs, he suspected that every single adult member of the clan was dressed for battle.
“Remind me never to piss off a minotaur clan,” he mumbled to no one in particular. He glanced down at Gurr and shook his head. The foolhardy orc had puffed out his chest in an attempt to look intimidating, but even Gurr knew that Qul would utterly destroy him in battle.
“We are one week’s m
arch from the high walls of Talonrend,” Undrakk explained to the gathering. Qul took a step back and respectively lowered his head as Undrakk spoke. Snarlsnout noted the small gesture of obedience with a curious look.
“I have seen their walls,” Kraasghull interjected. “How will we bring them down?”
A few scattered murmurs came from the orcs, but the minotaurs remained peacefully silent.
Undrakk smiled and spread his arms out wide. The sounds of wings beating the air swelled up from somewhere north of the armies and Snarlsnout looked to the sky. His rheumy eyes could barely make out the small black dots rising into the air from behind the minotaur lines.
“We will go over them,” Undrakk yelled with glee. “Talonrend will be ours!”
TAURNIL CLACKED HIS oily black claws together with glee. The small scorpion stood before a pool of shimmering black liquid that flowed from a carved stone skull. His master’s energy roiled with energy waiting to be unleashed.
Your brothers have joined the orcs, Keturah’s voice echoed through the chamber. Taurnil could feel her joy. It is time for you to free us.
Taurnil skittered through the chamber of broken eggs and slowly made his way to the cave opening where the bodies of several minotaurs were still strewn about on the stone. Using Taurnil’s many eyes, Jan and Keturah inspected the corpses.
That one, Keturah purred as Taurnil approached a dead minotaur that still had all of its limbs. The small scorpion reared back on its hind legs and punched its inky black stinger into the flesh of the minotaur. Putrid liquid from the cave rushed from Taurnil’s tail and into the minotaur’s vein.
Jan telepathically directed Taurnil to another corpse where the scorpion’s tail stinger struck again. Within moments, the black liquid of the phylactery corrupted the two minotaur corpses completely and the once-dead creatures began to stir. Keturah’s stolen heart slowly beat to life, but no blood flowed through her organs.
“It worked, brother,” she said from the ground as her muscles awakened. Her human voice grated with the heavy vocal cords of the minotaur’s neck, but they functioned nonetheless.
It took several long moments for Jan and Keturah to fully enslave the muscle structures of their new minotaur bodies. Keturah was the first to stand. With a lumbering stretch, she tested the colossal size of the beast she inhabited. “You were right to have Gideon brought here,” she said awkwardly. Her thick bovine tongue slurred her words. “He delivered the finest bodies we could have hoped for.”
Jan and Keturah, both occupying similar male bodies, lumbered from the cave entrance with as much grace as a drunk being tossed out of a tavern. “I could get used to this,” Jan remarked, feeling his massive body with his rough hands. Despite his breath frosting the wintry air, the thick hair covering his body kept him warm. He flexed and watched with wonder as his muscles bulged all over his arms and chest.
“You better get used to it, brother,” Keturah chided. She tried to adjust her brown mane into a more feminine position, but soon gave up. “I don’t know if the phylactery will hold our spirits again. The magic is not permanent.”
“Speaking of which,” Jan remarked, “I need to test my abilities. We were in that cave for weeks, right next to the eggs. They soaked up every ounce of magical energy they could.”
“Let’s move,” Keturah said flatly. She was eager to test her powerful legs and thundering hooves on the rocky soil. “It will take a few days to reach Talonrend.”
Keturah began pumping her legs and any hint of regret she might have had washed away. Her new body was incredibly powerful. Even wearing heavy plate armor over her thighs and torso, she was faster than any human she had ever seen. Competitions of strength and physical ability were often held between pit fights in the Talonrend arena and she had seen many foot races. No human compared to her speed. Her hooves pounded against the stony soil and sent clumps of dirt and rocks flying up behind her. As her pace continued to increase, Keturah felt her chest heaving and her ribcage shifting lower against her center of mass. Before she knew it, her hands hit the ground as balled fists and she began galloping, nearly doubling her speed.
Jan ran up alongside her, matching her stride, and grinned. Before his human form had died outside Terror’s Lament, Jan’s only fear had been facing a trained soldier in single combat. Without the use of his powerful magical abilities, he was nothing more than an average built man with little muscle and even less tenacity. Jan knew without a doubt his minotaur body would be able to easily crush any human who stood in his way.
GRAVLOX PACED BACK and forth on the creaky floorboards of an abandoned home. Dust covered everything and the only window was covered with a wooden shutter. In the darkness, his goblin vision allowed him to see as clearly as if it were bright sunlight. In more ways than one, he felt like he was back in the tunnels of Kanebullar Mountain.
When he called out with his mind to the realm of magic, he achieved nothing more than a minor headache. He ran his hands along the stone walls and tried to speak to them. After one final effort, he collapsed into an old wooden chair and lifted his feet up to a small stool. The human furniture was far too large for his body, but he slouched and made the best of it.
Gravlox looked down at his clothes and let out a long sigh of despair. During all of the fighting and running and fleeing, he had dropped his traveling pack and the sword Vorst had given him. His enchanted circlet was still somewhere in the star room, and he was left with only his leather vest and studded skirt.
“I am nothing,” he told the three empty chairs around the table. His stomach growled and he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. While he required far less food than the larger humans and his body remained efficient with only minor sustenance, he still felt strong pangs of hunger that soured his mood.
With a grunt, Gravlox carried one of the wooden chairs into another room and placed it beneath a cabinet. Using the chair as a ladder, he was barely able to reach the bottom of the cabinet. After a moment of blindly groping with his hand, he found a chunk of bread stale enough to be used as a blacksmith’s hammer. He brought the bread down to the table and eagerly began scraping the green and blue mold from the surface into a little pile. When he had the bread entirely cleaned, he tossed it aside and began mashing the mold into a gooey ball. It wasn’t nearly as desirable as the white cave mold he often ate in the mines of Kanebullar Mountain, but it tasted good enough.
Gravlox was about to search another cabinet when he heard Vorst’s voice from outside. Back in his home, Gravlox had nearly swooned every time he heard her squeaky voice. At that moment, so consumed by self-loathing and doubt, it grated against his ears and made him wince. He trudged to a door at the back of the house and yelled at her to be quiet.
In her typical manner, Vorst ignored his chastisement and continued leaping through the air and rolling through grass and flowers. Behind the abandoned house, there was a small courtyard encased by three other houses in a square pattern. The small goblin couldn’t be seen, but her piercing voice surely carried through the surrounding buildings and into the streets.
Gravlox stood in the back doorway for several long moments as he contemplated his sudden return to life as an average goblin. A weak goblin. He shook his head and bit back a growing lump in his throat. “I want…” He couldn’t finish the thought. What did he want? His power to return? Surely. But to what end? Life in a deserted human city, while he had only experienced a few short hours of it, did not hold much appeal.
The front door to the house swung open and brought Gravlox from his trance. Gideon stood in the doorway with his travelling cloak pushed back behind the hilts of two swords. The former paladin strode through the dark room with an air of confidence and determination Gravlox had never seen.
“Vorst!” he called out, waving the goblin to his side. “I’ve heard tales of a dragon rising from the bones of the goblins in the field,” he told her with a gleam in his eyes. “I intend to kill the one who controls the dragon.”
; Vorst didn’t bother to translate the conversation into the goblin language for Gravlox to participate. “Lady Scrapple controls a dragon?” she said with amazement. Her mind reeled and thought of the implications. If the matriarch’s mind was so thoroughly consumed by reining in a dragon, was that why her telepathic link to the hive had been lost?
“I need to know everything about Lady Scrapple.”
Vorst smiled, but shook her head. “No one sees her,” she said softly, suddenly afraid of speaking out. “She lives in the deepest chamber of our mountain, but cannot move.” Gideon’s perplexed expression made her continue. “She is the mountain,” Vorst finally said. She had never before attempted to put Lady Scrapple into words. Every goblin was born with an innate sense of what and who the Mistress of the Mountain was. After all, she was a living part of each goblin mind, until Gravlox was born and her link with Vorst was severed.
“If you're going to kill Lady Scrapple,” Vorst began, “you need to find the goblins that bring food to her. They will lead you to her cave.”
“So she can be killed,” Gideon concluded with a smile.
“I think so...” Vorst thought back to all the other goblins she knew in the mountain. While she certainly cherished her newly acquired freedom, she wasn't sure the rest of the goblin race would be able to comprehend the death of their master.
“Good,” Gideon said as he turned to leave. Vorst took Gravlox by the hand and chased after the man.
“We're coming with you,” she stated defiantly. Before Gideon had the chance to protest, she and Gravlox began gathering what little they had and made ready to leave.
“Fine,” Gideon replied. He knew there was no use arguing. “You'll need new weapons. I intend to cleave my way through Kanebullar Mountain. We’ll have to fight for every inch of ground.” Gideon flexed his arms and felt the fleeting warmth of the winter sun on his head. His braided beard swung back and forth as he checked the street for civilians before motioning for the two goblins to leave the abandoned house.
The Goblin Wars Part Two: Death of a King Page 16
