The human politicians proved a capacity to act just as crafty as goblins, which seemed to pop up with greater frequency. Goblins were prone to wearing trinkets of jewelry. Their uniquely identifiable trinkets made it easier for humans to recognize and learn the names of the various denizens who they crossed paths with frequently; rare was the human who could discern the difference between one goblin and the next without some sort of obvious mark or disfigurement.
Local shop owners were the first to accept the goblins. They made huge steps towards tolerance and the normalization of ekthroic diversity. Free trade even motivated the breakdown of the communication barrier.
While the pervasive infusion of ekthro increased the population, Grinden also saw the reduction of human numbers as Christians depopulated. Days into Dyule’s campaign, it became rare to find a solitary religious dissident traveling in the city now. Mostly, they traveled in groups for their own protection. Any that still visited Grinden probably traveled to proselytize undecided family members. There were very few left who had yet to take a committed stance for the Luciferian doctrines and both sides fervently fought the shrinking middle ground.
With the town unified against them, it was unthinkable that any known Christian might try to actually vote in the upcoming general election for the steward. Though an official law banning the heretical religion still pended, the need for this type of law was the driving force behind the election in the first place. Any Christian brave enough to cast a vote would simply have his or her vote disregarded, instead. Many of the city-folk jested how sheep would obviously vote against a slaughter.
Tension brewed, simmering aboveground in the city. The Luciferian Order intentionally stirred the unrest. So preoccupied was the surface world that none knew of the secret war exploding in the subterranean kingdom below.
***
Far beneath the surface of the Mountains of Arnak a long passageway connected the nearest goblin throne city to the newly formed subterranean city of Under-Grinden. Few knew of its existence, meaning none could guess its real value. The goblin king Nvv-Fryyg had long since ignored his duties to his realm and grown soft to all but personal dalliances.
A contingent of traitorous warriors slinked through the tunnels and prepared to spring a trap set by the treacherous goblin grr’SHaalg and his brother tyr-aPt. Their nearly silent feet slapped in the darkness; perfectly straight and carved clean, the wicked creatures could move speedily with no craggy, broken flooring threatening to trip them up.
The high quality tunnel’s craftsmanship diminished nearest Under-Grinden, where the work was newest, and where typical goblinoid work took over as they secretly hollowed out a new cavern. Goblins were not usually capable of delving such highly constructed tunnels. Many chained slave-gangs of dwarven craftsmen had been pressed into service; only they had the skills required to build such a grand subterranean highway. Most of them had been snatched from dwellings near the Drindak Canyons after the Goblins secretly connected their networks to the deepest and darkest depths of the craggy canyon back in Nvv-Fryyg’s ambitious days. The tunnels joined the pits where the chasm was rumored to be bottomless, where the goblins knew the skolaxis bred.
Construction of this immense underground trade route had been in progress for more than fifteen years—in the dark, unlit halls thousands of slaves had lost their lives to the project. The tunnel first opened with an exit opening in Zipha, where slaves were easily purchased and a life’s value was measured in gold.
Clad in black, the group of human traitors veered off of the dwarf-hewn highway and crept through the condensed, seeping slag of a rough-hewn tunnel at a surprising pace for beings that were unaccustomed to these conditions. Their shadows danced across the carved walls and stretched long by the flickering of torches and glassine bottles of luminescent larvae, which fed on various local lichens. The group began the journey less than two days ago at the tunnel’s nexus, far below the city of Grinden.
This massive tunnel system was not a product of pure goblin design. While grr’SHaalg and tyr-aPt directed its completion, it was an anomalous discovery. The underground tunnel system had ancient, unnatural origins. Cut far below the scope of most goblin or even dwarven tunnels, it extended through the depths where the stone’s density defied most tools. The enslaved mining crews merely connected their own access points to the pre-existing tunnelways. In fact, many of the pre-existing tunnels remained unexplored. The quality of the tunnels surpassed any other known mines—even the most ancient of the Dwarves. As the goblins forced dwarven slaves to complete the final tunnels, they connected the royal goblin city and its highways to the network, giving the illusion that the high craftsmanship of the network belonged to the glory of goblin kind as if they had somehow created this thing.
At the heart of Grinden, far below the city’s foundation, an immense spherical chamber mirrored below what existed above. It was a perfect counterpart to the trade routes, which connected to the central hub in that city; the chamber of Under-Grinden spanned the size of a small village; it sprouted tunnels in every conceivable direction. The cliché phrase, “every road leads to Grinden,” was true of the underground passageways as well.
Those cloaked in darkness and traveling the subterranean path cared little for trade routes, infrastructure origins, or the politics of men or goblins. Likewise, they remained indifferent to the plights of the slaves that toiled in the endless dark. The caves and tunnels would be completed as a glorious achievement for the goblin kingdom; the nameless faces in the dark would be forgotten; this clandestine paid no attention to either—they only did Absinthium’s bidding without question.
grr’SHaalg, chief caretaker of the tunnel project, saw its glorious potential as the tunnel system neared completion. The nine other goblin kingdoms would want access and rights to branch off with their own local tunnels, giving their species expedient access to virtually any point on the surface world. But the ambitious creature saw the unassuming travel network as the key component to his meteoric rise to power.
His carefully developed plans did not include the tenth king, King Nvv-Fryyg, his progenitor. This group of hooded surface dwellers took a secret route under the mountains. It led to the foot of the goblin king’s hall; this group of secret assassins was pledged by the arch-mage to supplant the obstinate goblin monarch. Nvv-Fryyg too often lapsed into paranoia and secluded himself for days on end seeking his perverse self-gratification. Nvv-Fryyg had too long stymied grr’Shaalg’s plans for progress, but no longer. The Luciferians needed foot soldiers, and grr’SHaalg was happy to supply them provided Absinthium helped him depose the reclusive Nvv-Fryyg.
Along with grr’SHaalg and tyr-aPt, many of grr’SHaalg’s loyal goblin bladesmen pledged their support; they used an amalgam of chalks and oils to paint their faces, identifying themselves as comrades to the thirteen cloaked surface dwellers. Six men each flanked the human leading the attack wedge; Absinthium led his personal Acolytes: his highly trained assassin-mages. Not even the Luciferian High Council knew that they existed.
The arch-mage planned to personally assist in Nvv-Fryyg’s assassination and see to it that the treacherous goblins’ plans truly aligned with his own. Tonight he would keep his half of the pact he made on the night of Harmarty’s murder.
Picking their way through the shadows, the goblins led the Luciferian assassins through several twisting, craggy tunnels. After winding back and forth through the narrow, jutting excavations they spilled out into a large antechamber. The room appeared freshly dug from a seam of softer, porous stone.
The chamber was barely large enough to hold the assassin teams that had gathered for this mission. The goblins, mage, and his acolytes all crouched in the dugout space and prepped for the pending battle. Absinthium’s strike team checked their gear with cold precision.
They had been handpicked early from their combat training by Absinthium and personally tutored in a wide array of disciplines. They enjoyed the privilege of the broa
dest training and the most specialized studies on select topics. Normally, receiving a personal apprenticeship from outside of your own discipline never happened, but Absinthium had more freedom than any other mage within the order. He had no accountability and could do whatever he desired.
Each of the Acolytes started as a promising student of the combat disciplines when Absinthium escalated their studies under other masters and intensified their training, crossing them with an array of disciplines to give them the skills that their master desired. Their talents made them, corporately, the most deadly force alive—the only ones to learn of their existence would, seconds later, slip past the veil of the living. The acolyte force was the personal, directed weapon of the arch-mage. They were talented in both physical combat and in the schools of magic; all of their specialized studies made them living weapons, and nothing more. They spoke little. They lived and died to serve their Dread Lord: the demon beh’-tsah and his avatar Absinthium.
Each acolyte’s cloak and cape protected him from view and leather tapes wrapped forearms and hands to form pliable greaves. They each wore thick, leather vests to protect some minor degree against weapons; they were too valuable of assets for the mage to leave them defenseless, but they sacrificed armor for stealth and harnessed mobility over protection.
Silent as wraiths, they checked each other’s additional armaments. The acolytes expected that the goblin king’s army would mount a fierce resistance as soon as they discovered the invaders. Built for speed, quick release pouches lined the assassins’ belts and each pocket contained various alchemical concoctions; they wore bandoliers from hip to hip, each holding a wide array of jagged throwing blades and holstering their sharp and terrible kamas. The serrated, reflective blades of the hook-like weapons were not dissimilar to ceremonial blades wielded by the execution guards during the Grinden execution days prior, although these were handled by experts with no compunction for mercy.
grr’Shaalg’s goblin bladesmen watched them prepare with fearful detachment. After each assassin checked his gear to satisfaction, the teams moved into position. Absinthium moved to the lead at the front of the chamber, ready to initiate the massacre.
The arch-mage stood before the wall of crumbling, malleable earth and used the butt of his staff to scrape a magic sigil in the earthen barrier before stepping back a short distance. His acolytes poised to strike. They tensed their bodies like recoiled adders.
Absinthium spread his arms apart and shouted a word of power to trigger the spell. A massive explosion blew the wall inward, away from the throng of assassins. The noise of the detonation echoed through the chambers that opened up before them and the power word rang in the ears of those on the safe side of the explosion.
Acolytes and bladesmen poured through the yawning breach as it spread before them, still crumbling into earthen heaps. The explosion blew stone shards through the lavish facility that had long been the lounging room in King Nvv-Fryyg’s harem. Jagged shrapnel wounded or killed many of the room’s occupants: the goblin king’s concubines and other courtesans’ blood splattered across the place where Nvv-Fryyg spent so much time—where he engaged in the lusts of his flesh instead of guarding against internal coups.
The painted goblins expertly wielded their weapons. They swung their falchions in cocky, uppercutting motions knowing that they possessed the element of surprise and would not need to defend themselves yet. Goblin concubines shrieked and fell under their vicious strokes. grr’Shaalg’s assassins killed everything with the potential to breath.
Absinthium’s Acolytes wielded a kama in each hand. Swinging with trained precision, they severed joints and cleaved bodies. Within seconds, the gore of the king’s concubines splattered the chamber like a macabre painting; the metallic taint of hot blood finally overrode the musty reek of goblin sex pheromones.
Specific battle groups formed and briefed prior to the attack broke off to their own headings to fulfill their personal directives. The four sub-groups each ran through the exits of the decimated lounging room led by goblin scouts.
Three of the groups went to purge the kingdom of Nvv-Fryyg’s reign, slaying all of grr’Shaalg’s potential political enemies in the attached chambers. The last of these groups had the duty of sealing off the entrance and preventing any more goblins from entering or escaping into the subterranean depths of the suburb where the harem was located—a place just beyond the caverns of the royal hall. The group would hold the line even against a rescue attempt by Nvv-Fryyg’s army; the other teams would reinforce them as they finished their tasks.
A battle group broke through the doors of the rookery in search of the innumerable goblin whelps. None of Nvv-Fryyg’s line could be left to survive; they could not be allowed to present a threat to the mutineers. The third group went in search of more rooms such as the one they’d invaded through and repeated the process. The harem contained countless rooms to suit the desires of the king and to house and maintain Nvv-Fryyg’s goblin sows.
The largest of the groups, the point team, contained the remaining six Acolytes, Absinthium, and a large contingent of goblin bladesmen. grr’SHaalg and his twin brother tyr-aPt accompanied them as they stalked the doomed king. The two goblin diplomats knew that their talents were of the political sort rather than with weapons; they remained at the center of the group which kept them protected. There was no way out. They would find the king somewhere within the confines of the stinking, underground dwelling.
With all the screaming, Nvv-Fryyg’s bodyguards and royal court would undoubtedly surround him for protection; the praetorian guard and goblin magistrates usually accompanied Nvv-Fryyg on these holidays of carnality. The entire chain of command in the underground kingdom would fall with one swift blow and the deep kingdom would be in full submission to the plans of the demon lord. Soon, beh’-tsah would have control of the Babel Heavens, several kingdoms including Jand, and the subterranean hub of all the goblin kingdoms. Each location provided a foothold for beh’-tsah’s aggressive expansion plans. In due time, hay-lale’s entire realm would fall sway to the demonic overlord’s wishes.
The assassin teams exited the bloody chamber just as the first of Nvv-Fryyg’s guards came to investigate the murderous cacophony echoing through the brothel. They expected no trouble beyond the squabbles of the royal mewling quim and so the pitifully small contingent of warriors brashly sauntered into their slaughter. They did not expect to die the moment they entered, but die they did as they fell to the sickle-bladed kamas that hacked them apart with nary chance to survey the scene.
Absinthium and the main battle group took their company on an immediate route to the central chamber of the habitation. The central room was the banquet hall where the king resided and greeted any guests that might somehow find themselves invited to Nvv-Fryyg’s most endeared residence. It was the most likely place where Nvv-Fryyg might be found.
Beyond the main doors of the massacred chamber yawned a large, pillar-dotted expanse that created a fairway. It stretched to the various wings of the brothel, forming elaborate and expansive hallways. As the main group headed towards the central fairway, they immediately encountered resistance.
Three of the six Acolytes branched off, each sprinting different directions to scout for more resistance and probe the defenses that protected the king. The guards would probably move Nvv-Fryyg to the safest place of entrenchment as the dank air filled with the screams and shrieks of goblin sows and their brood who fell under the assassins’ blades.
Goblins of both factions clashed; falchion and spear spilled blood on both sides as the arch-mage uttered curses and spells which shook the air around them. Dark magic caused his enemies to burst into flames or opened grievous wounds without physical contact.
The acolytes sprang into action using the support pillars that spanned from floor to ceiling as cover. They darted from behind the pillars to attack with their claw-like kamas and grabbed their unsuspecting victims like trap-spiders ambushing unsuspecting q
uarry. Surprised members of the praetorian guard shrieked as Luciferian assassins yanked them behind cover and chopped them limb from limb.
An immense wave of goblin defenders continued flowing towards them. Nvv-Fryyg’s soldiers, a much larger force, had finally been roused by the air-splitting screams of so many casualties. They charged with confident, reckless abandon, but underestimated the power of the battle-mages who operated with complete indifference to the situation, as if it was mundane. Their cool apathy made them unbelievably scary.
The defending goblins surged towards their oppressors and looked as if they split the forces of the attackers open. A band of Nvv-Fryyg’s bodyguards took initiative and charged the opening where Absinthium stood undefended and alone. He allowed a brief smile to crawl across his face and warn the guards that they’d fallen into his trap.
Absinthium screamed a curse and swung his staff with a fierce, smooth motion; his spell projected a wave of sonic destruction before him. The vibrating waves blasted flesh from bone. An entire swath of goblins burst into annihilated chunks of rent flesh as his attackers erupted and fell to the floor as bone and sinew threshed apart.
Immediately following, the acolytes and painted goblins pushed forward in unison, completely dominating the field of battle. Panicked defenders turned and ran for the shadows. The acolytes rewarded the cowards by throwing daggers into their backsides.
Nvv-Fryyg’s forces fell back to regroup with their swelling ranks as grr’SHaalg’s goblin scouts, pretending to be routed, sprinted past and lured more of the praetorian in to rebuild Nvv-Fryyg’s decimated army and encourage them to strike at the Luciferians again.
As the scouts scrambled back to the cover of the pillars, three acolytes stepped out dangling a small wooden box taken from their munitions bearer. The boxes, about a hands length in width, depth, and height, brandished metal spikes protruding in every direction; they gripped the devices by their chain, not unlike a morning star.
The Kakos Realm Collection Page 26
