The soldiers of the goblin praetorian snarled at the three men’s hubris. With gnashing teeth and drawn weapons they rushed forward, sure that they’d overwhelm them this time.
The trio of acolytes each spun a box over their heads; they buzzed as they cut through the air. As one unit the acolytes hurled them into the thickest throngs of the pursuing goblin army. As each caisson landed, the wielding acolyte shouted his word of power.
Three explosions boomed in rapid succession as the caissons detonated in a fireball of splintering, jagged shrapnel. The blasts gutted the over-pursing cluster of warriors and spun the king’s forces into disarray. Bloody, mutilated casualties flinged chaotically through the air, separated from their respective body parts as the wake of each explosion further decimated the remaining forces. The assassins stepped out from the cover of the pillars and quickly dispatched the injured and engaged the panicking remnants.
The dying casualties of the caissons yipped in pain and frustration. Their painted goblin brethren walked among them casually sweeping their falchions back and forth, severing the heads of their wounded adversaries.
In the distance, the second and third battle groups moved through the flickering torchlight and verified that the wholesale slaughter was complete. They branched off in different directions to check every nook and cranny where sneaky goblins might have hidden. The sudden lack of screams and squeals cast a harrowing pall throughout the gallery by stark contrast.
Absinthium and his group approached the large, central chamber; grr’SHaalg quivered with excitement. The saferoom resembled a large, stone box, spanning from floor to ceiling of the brothel. The gigantic, square compartment had doors on all four sides.
Nvv-Fryyg’s chamber remained silent and grr’SHaalg imagined the cowering goblin king hiding within, fearful to even breathe lest he give away his position. If he thought they would overlook him and continue the massacre elsewhere, he hoped in vain. Absinthium gave the doors a quick tug and push. He found them firmly locked, as expected.
Absinthium stepped back several paces. What remained of the main group broke up into sub-groups and crouched in front of each door. An Acolyte stood at every immense entry, accompanied by a dozen goblins so that Nvv-Fryyg couldn’t escape out another side as they breached an entry on one side. At the main door stood only Absinthium, the remaining Acolytes, and the two goblin diplomats: grr’SHaalg and tyr-aPt. The rest of their bladesmen had been sent to clean up the dead.
The three Acolytes at each side door whirled a chained caisson high; each box sang its ominous tone as it whined and spun grim circles above the heads of their masters. One by one they released the chains and flung a charge box at the massive doors. The spiked and wickedly sharp protrusions stabbed firmly into the wood of the doors and lodged there. The thuds of their impact echoed through the fairway like the footsteps of approaching doom.
Absinthium muttered a crescendoing incantation. A sickly, cracking noise reverberated around them as the main doors gave away. The arch-mage used his supernatural forces to rip them outward and into the fairway. They split apart and flew to either side of the sorcerer. The cowering goblins in the room stood dumbfounded as to what had just happened. Then, as if their instincts kicked in, they scattered and ran to the other three exits of the room.
The Acolytes shouted their words of power and magically ignited their caissons. A set of ectoplasmic explosions incinerated the remaining doors, catching any goblins that tried to flee in a cloud of shrapnel and alchemical flames. Smoldering splinters of burning wood embedded deeply into Nvv-Fryyg’s furnishings. The remaining contingent of bodyguards stood in a circle, protecting King Nvv-Fryyg with their bodies. Opposition barred each exit.
Knowing that their end was at hand, the remaining goblin guards surrendered their weapons, casting them down at their clawed feet. At grr’SHaalg’s order, they solemnly marched out the rear door to the room and were silently executed leaving the trembling king alone to face his end.
King Nvv-Fryyg sat on the floor, disgraced and humiliated. Under the best of conditions, he was an immensely obese mass of ugly tissues. Purple and blackened, his gnarled visage held none of the presence and power that the dread demon beh’-tsah possessed. Nvv-Fryyg’s appearance was one of pathetic disgust and revulsion. A lifetime of gluttonous pursuits of various lusts had left him decrepit in many ways. He could barely move without assistance; he constantly ate if he was not satisfying his other carnal appetites.
He blubbered, begging for his life. Recognizing the Luciferian prophet, he entreated Absinthium, asking why he had been attacked, promising he would fix whatever insults he had caused the mage or the Order if they had somehow heard his harsh words. Nvv-Fryyg babbled about his deal with the Luciferians and invented stories of inflated devotion and loyalty. “We struck a deal, you and I,” the King insisted.
“Deal?” Absinthium scoffed with his booming baritone voice. “I made no deal with you, Nvv-Fryyg. You couldn’t even grace me with your presence. Get on your feet, worm.”
grr’SHaalg and tyr-aPt stepped into view from behind the arch-mage. The goblin king’s face fell when he recognized the two of them.
“You two,” Nvv-Fryyg accused. “I should have devoured you when you were still young! You were always scheming and plotting.”
“Always doing what we were trained for: doing the work of a king so that you could play. Now it is time that the true masters of this kingdom step forward and take their throne,” grr’SHaalg snapped.
“You will pay for this! I set you up as a diplomat. I made you who you are. I chose you, grr’SHaalg, as my most trusted worker and picked you from the litter of my eldest brood. My associates will not stand with this. They will usurp you if you sit on my throne.”
“Oh, spare me. Everyone who had any sort of connection to you is already dead,” grr’SHaalg toyed with him. “Besides, there are none others fit to rule after my brother and I were satisfied with our invasion. This is what you would do in my situation, that is, if you had any inkling left of how our politics worked.”
grr’SHaalg and tyr-aPt walked toward the defeated, corpulent Nvv-Fryyg. Each drew a wavy-bladed kris and a three tined claw that resembled some kind of primitive garden tool.
A runner from the battle group at the harem’s entrance reported that no more resistance could come. Everything was dead.
“What excellent news,” grr’SHaalg commented, “I always enjoy good reports as I feast!” The goblin stabbed a hooked fork through his sire’s carapace; the barbs caught hold of tissue. grr’SHaalg gleefully ripped outward, pulling with it the web-like mesentery sack that bound the fallen king’s swollen intestines together; his tube-like organs spilt outward and quivered.
He and his brother fell upon the goblin ruler with weapon-like utensils slashing and gouging. The bulbous portions of Nvv-Fryyg’s body easily tore open and attempts to ward off any blows were for naught. Ichor and entrails flowed out of his lacerated, puncture-burst hide.
The shrill screams thrilled his murderers. The strike team looked on grimly as a frenzy of blood and viscera blotted out the King’s essence, pooling all of his life into a viscous puddle on the floor. The crunching sounds of his body being devoured signaled that Nvv-Fryyg’s overthrow was complete and his body had been consumed by his successor. The ultimate goals of Absinthium and his dread master were coming to fruition.
Absinthium grinned through the blood splatters that decorated his face. Even the kingdoms below the surface became increasingly pliable to the demon’s manipulations. Soon everything would all belong to beh’-tsah.
The acolytes watched over the goblinoid “feast of ascension.” King Nvv-Fryyg’s spine and head tumbled away from the ecstatic meal and rested against Absinthium’s foot.
“Save the face!” grr’SHaalg snapped through his bloody maw. “We must make a statement! A symbol to rally the troops around the new throne… a throne that I give to my brother.”
Absinthium
bent to retrieve the fleshy, heavily jowelled skull which had grown fat with age and comfort. Yes. A display of power would cause a rally, and a successful assassination is so seldom not part of a perfect plan.
Chapter Thirteen
Rashnir and Zeh-Ahbe’ traded turns pushing a large handcart as they meandered along the countryside beyond Grinden’s outskirts. They’d already traveled far from the encampment as they gathered wood for their fires, but they had further yet to go. They dare not cut much live timber near the city; the townsfolk felt a kind of ownership over it and they dared not stir up any more trouble. Relations had already pushed past the tipping point.
Local firewood supplies had quickly diminished in the grounds nearest their make-shift home. Zeh-Ahbe’ and his people were used to foraging for supplies and they already knew some of the easier pieces to collect fallen timber. The Say-awr’ had made it a habit of harvesting only the wood that none would miss so that when their tribe moved on they would leave without having left a trace.
Their cart was only half full of smaller logs and they scouted the area for fuel that would be easiest to harvest. They could come back with a small group of workers in the near future and build their stockpile out of larger timber cuttings then.
“I don’t know that we will really need much heavy stock,” Zeh-Ahbe’ noted, reminding Rashnir of their pending trip. “And it certainly seems that the forces in Grinden want to push us out even further beyond the borders.”
Rashnir nodded his assent. But everyone already knew the townsfolks’ disposition and Kevin hadn’t finished his plans yet for an eventual relocation.
“Not that I have a problem with a more remote location,” Zeh-Ahbe’ continued. “When we were still Kil-yaw’ we always seemed to be on the move, never stopping.” He looked towards the distant copse of trees wistfully.
“Did you ever feel compelled to slow down… stop… put down roots?” Rashnir’s thoughts turned back to his earlier days, the time before Kevin, before Harmarty’s murder, before Kelsa was lost.
“No,” Zeh-Ahbe’ laughed. “It has never been our way. Have you?” He noticed the glower on his friend’s face.
“Just once.” Rashnir frowned. “That was a long time ago.” He ended the conversation and they traveled in silence for a few minutes longer. Rashnir didn’t like the melancholy chord that had lodged in his mood. He decided to change it and struck out in song as they pushed the cart along. Soon, they were both in merry spirits again, singing a common tavern song.
***
Absinthium finished drawing the circle on the floor and tossed the chalk away. It skittered across the worn shale and into the fire the mage had built just beyond the circle. The eager flames danced brightly in the dark tunnels that branched far away from Under-Grinden, the goblin city. The pyre illuminated grr’SHaalg and tyr-aPt’s gory feast just behind him, painting it with hellish tones.
The mage looked at his chief acolyte and wordlessly nodded to the bloody leakage escaping the feast in viscous rivulets. The hooded acolyte dragged his foot across the ground and smeared the trail, redirecting it away from the magic sigil his master had drawn. As a trained arcanist, the acolyte knew that the circle must not be contaminated during the communion.
Sitting cross-legged in the center, Absinthium stared into the fire, mumbling a mantra of praises to his dark lord until his pupils contracted fully. Up from the logs, the flames twisted and bent into the shape of the demon over-lord beh’-tsah. The air within the circle crackled with energy and made the hairs on the wizard’s arms and neck slowly rise on a tide of gooseflesh.
“You were not scheduled to contact me.” His eyes narrowed to a look somewhere between judgment and concern. “Does all go according to plan or have these acolytes failed in their tasks against Nvv-Fryyg’s complacent bodyguards?”
“No,” Absinthium smiled and smoothed the hair on his neck. “All went perfect and according to plan. I contacted you in the aftermath of such a minor victory and with an eye to a greater prize.”
The demon regarded his servant curiously. He beckoned for him to proceed.
“We are so close to these krist-chins this very moment, veiled from their sight just below ground. We saw the loyal residents of Grinden rejoice at the sacrifice we made from one of those cultists. Bloodlust is contagious; it rallies men and sways the undecided.”
“Such as it was, those forsaken one’s sacrifices are the vilest of flavors. What is it that you are suggesting?”
“An overt display of power. We stand in the shadows near their homes, well equipped and ready to assassinate their leaders. We could make an example of this festering religion swiftly and decisively. The pieces are in place, it could be easily accomplished.”
The demon stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“You would find it difficult to proceed if this evangelizer’s body guards are by his side. They should not be underestimated. But discouragement is an equally powerful tool against our enemy as much as the fervor inspired in our own by adversaries’ heads mounted on pikes.”
“So, shall we proceed?”
“There is something more coming. I have foreseen a powerful weapon coming to our enemy. It is the next step in our private war. A king would not send out warriors ill-equipped. Stalk your prey carefully, arch-mage. It is a promising plan, albeit impromptu. If you see the chance to act, then do so.”
The beast’s flaming eidolon summoned twelve smaller tongues of fire. Each melded into the shape of an acolyte and he regarded them thoughtfully.
“Test your minions here. But should they falter, do not let your failure be known. If you succeed, spread their fame.” beh’-tsah grinned a wicked, toothy smile. “Bring me a trophy worthy of displaying or devouring.”
Absinthium nodded. “For your glory, lord.”
The flames shrank back to their original size and form and the mage rose and beckoned to his own. “The day is not yet done, acolytes. Grander prizes await than…” he motioned to Nvv-Fryyg’s shredded remains, mildly disgusted, “…this.”
The mage beckoned to his goblin counterparts. “I need you to bring my acolytes your fastest skolaxis. I have a mission for them in Grinden.”
***
High above the hill country, the mountains trembled. A tremor of power, a premonition and portent of things to come radiated the very molecules of the air. A spirit quake.
The minor movement sent a tingle up the back of the watcher. Something important had finally developed worthy of his gaze.
He chastised himself momentarily as he spun the wheels of the ancient machine and rotated the giant telescope around its wide berth where it remained firmly nestled within a brick parapet, jutting off of the Babel Tower which spiraled upwards from the Briganik Mountains. He had felt the tremor much earlier. The preacher and his angelic bodyguards had not entered the realm unnoticed; the watcher saw them come in, but thought they lacked credibility. What impact could one human and his guards have in the face of hay-lale’s thoroughly fallen creation?
Even the Watcher had to take precautions against the powerful forces at work in this realm. He’d hidden himself with spells far older than the Gathering. From his secret room he watched the Dragon Impervious hatch and nearly topple the first demonic government. The watcher saw the ancient vampire lords spawn their own brood in the children of the dust and wage war against the lupines; he saw them bury their secret golems and plot against the demons.
Even when the elf, Dri’Bu, departed for the company of the preacher, he had not entertained the thought of their movement altering the course of this existence; the Watcher had been learning and observing far prior to that elf scholar’s interest in things—before Dri’Bu had even had his first real observation. As he focused his machine in to watch the area around Grinden, the Watcher’s mind changed.
Maybe these are the ones whom I’ve waited for. Perhaps this is my opportunity!
The buzzing sensation in the air informed his soul
. He knew that everything was about to change. Fallen creation had arrived at the cusp of an important new season.
Part of the Watcher could smell it: the subtle scent of smoke. Fire is coming.
His interest had certainly piqued. Little else warranted his attention, and so he watched.
***
“Right there,” Rashnir pointed. “Don’t you see it?”
“The horses?” Zeh-Ahbe’ ventured.
“No. just beyond the horses. It’s a goblin hole,” Rashnir pointed out.
Zeh-Ahbe’ stared at the distant landscape. Eleven horses stood near the trees to which they were tethered. A rocky outcropping with a sunken cleft hid partly within the copse of dead trees which rose tall beyond the soil. Stripped of bark and leaf, it was that sort of lumber which attracted the two scavengers and their handcart.
“Firstly,” Zeh-Ahbe’ said, “I’m impressed you can identify a goblin hole at such a distance. Secondly, I’m not sure why you think that anything ahead is out of the ordinary.” He continued pushing the cart onward, not understanding why his friend had been set on high alert.
“You really don’t get it?”
Zeh-Ahbe’ shook his head negatively.
“I thought werewolves were supposed to have heightened senses, or natural intuition or something about things like this,” Rashnir jested.
Feigning indignation, Zeh-Ahbe’ said, “It might be another story if I was still a werewolf, but I’m not entirely sure that you’ve got a solid grasp on the exact capabilities of my folk.”
“Fair enough,” Rashnir said, pointing again to the horses as they drew closer. “Can you tell me the last time you ever saw a goblin riding horseback?”
Zeh-Ahbe’ nodded and glanced into the cart, reassured that the axe was still where he’d left it. “Okay. Now I’m feeling some intuition, or whatever it was you were talking about.”
The Kakos Realm Collection Page 27
