by Cory Herndon
“You do look tired, Uncle,” Teysa said. Was Uncle planning to wake up? She dared not ask, but his tone carried a strange air of finality.
“My favorite niece, you have grown into a cunning and beautiful young oligarch,” Uncle said, leering at her in a way that she’d long ago gotten used to and even learned to use to her advantage. The Orzhov had a very exclusive family, and many uncles had married their nieces to keep the bloodlines going. Not that Teysa would ever go through with such a thing.
“Thank you, Uncle,” Teysa said, belying no hint of her lingering physical repulsion. “I have always strived to please you and impress you.”
“As you should, as you should,” Uncle replied, “and I assure you it has paid off. Good night, for now. I will see you again … when we arrive.” Within seconds, the old creature’s beady eyes had closed, his head lolled to one side, and he began to snore wetly.
The next second a miniscule pellet of concentrated pyromana shattered the glass near Melisk’s head and left through the opposite window—but not before it incinerated a significant portion of Bephel’s head and both his eyes along the way. The faithful thrull flopped over sideways and twitched pitiably as blood and brains pooled around the smoldering hole in his wedge-shaped skull.
“Gruul!” Melisk shouted, loudly enough for the guards stationed outside the patriarch’s car to hear.
The patriarch continued to sleep, unaware and happily unconscious.
* * * * *
Crix fiddled with the trigger and firing assembly of a disassembled bam-stick to pass the time as the lokopede continued the long trip to Utvara. The goblin acolyte was one of only a very few non-Orzhov on the lokopede’s back tonight, and none of the others—prospectors who’d given the Guild of Deals their life savings for a chance to reach Utvara—wanted anything to do with her. Crix wouldn’t have been there at all if her master had not insisted on sending her to deliver a set of personal instructions to the overseer of the Izzet-run Cauldron power project. She’d requested and been granted permission to make her own report upon her return, and Crix intended to have something impressive to show the magelord Zomaj Hauc when the time came. If time allowed—and at this point, it most likely would—she also hoped to get in some anthropological studies of the locals, who might make good expendable labor once the Cauldron was running at full steam.
The goblin did not kid herself. She was almost as high up in the echelons of the Izzet hierarchy as most of her kind could ever expect to reach. But Crix figured it could never hurt to be well-rounded, just in case that ever changed. She knew hers was an uncommon intelligence among her kind—a gift from the magelord who had claimed her as an infant and used magic and alchemy to enhance her abilities. Crix was always looking for ways to thank him and show him that the enhancements had not been in vain.
She didn’t mind the work or the long journey, but the absence of other goblins onboard made her antsy. She was surrounded by what she took to be the typical Orzhov retinue of ghostly servitors, ghoulish but more or less human retainers, and the less intelligent imps and thrulls that moved among them. They were all in some way part of the Orzhov helot slave class but still treated Crix as much less than an equal.
Three in particular had harassed her at the departure station and had found time to pester her for the rest of the trip. The trio of thrulls who bore the serpentine ouroboros symbol of House Karlov on their thin, gray skin had been the only ones to give her trouble, though she’d expected more. The Orzhov, in general, were longtime business associates of the Izzet, but the two guilds rarely socialized, largely because the individual members could barely stand each other. Crix had never had a problem with them, but those three sure had a problem with her. They seemed to take every chance they could to “accidentally” trip her as she passed from her car to the dining coach or “mistakenly” slough off their skin while standing near her soup. When they’d departed for the patriarch’s parlor car, she’d been relieved.
It was at times like these she wished she carried an entire bam-stick with her instead of just the lucky mechanism that her biological sire, a great observer in the corps, had taken from the body of a Gruul savage. This weapon component, he’d said, had survived the heat of a thousand suns and was a testament to the Izzet goblins’ skills with metals and magic. He’d given it to her just before he’d left for one final observation flight that had ended in his fiery death.
Booking passage on the Orzhov lokopede had been surprisingly easy with the help of the magelord. Zomaj Hauc had a way of getting cooperation out of people. In fact, he had several ways, many of which Crix had never seen personally, to her relief. This time he’d simply contacted the fat old patriarch who owned the thing and told him he needed transportation for a courier. Then Crix was on the next zeppelid to the Orzhov territories. Flying directly to her destination was not impossible, but Crix wasn’t keen to ride a giant bird that would have just as soon eaten her as given her a lift.
The lokopede offered an amazingly smooth ride and was capable of more speed than she’d been led to expect. A quick wave of a sensory crystal confirmed the creature had been heavily enchanted to enhance performance, and with a little focus the crystal had told her how much of each elemental force the enchantments had required. Her notes on the subject would please his lordship. Crix did a quick calculation in her head, multiplying the levels of mana required times the number of legs a goblin would need to keep pace.
“Now that’s strange,” Crix said to no one in particular. The crystal was sensing more than just the lokopede, the various enchantments worn by it, and the beings along its back. There was a cluster, several tiny nodes of energy that formed a sort of cloud at this distance, off in the hills. She peered out the window to see if her eyes could confirm what the crystal was telling her.
There was nothing there. Strange indeed. What could that cloud of energy be?
Intrigued, or at least diverted, by a new puzzle, Crix was still fumbling for her pocket abacus when the entire car lurched to one side. The jerking motion knocked Orzhov retainers, servants, and her lucky bam-stick mechanism to the floor. Crix dived after the ornate little piece of metal and caught it before it slid into a pile of ice that one of the servants had dumped across the gold-weave marble tiles. Cries of surprise gave way to shouts of alarm, many of them including the word “Gruul.”
“Oh, dear,” Crix said. “Guess that explains that, eh?” A hunched old man in a white apron struggling to gather all of the ice cubes back into a bucket thought she spoke to him.
“Don’t need explanations,” the miserable helot said. “Just don’t kick that ice, huh?”
“Er, right,” Crix said. She pocketed the lucky assembly and gingerly stepped through the ice and the babbling passengers to the door that led, eventually, to the private carriage of the patriarch himself, two cars ahead. She noticed she was the only one not clamoring for a look out the windows, but then she’d already heard what she needed to know. The Gruul were savages in the best of cases, but what she’d heard of these Utvar Gruul was worse: cannibals, at the very least.
The master would never forgive her if she didn’t warn the patriarch and his retinue and do all she could to protect him. Crix was an extraordinary goblin in many ways. More than just her intelligence had been augmented by the magelord. And Zomaj Hauc took business partnerships very seriously. He never betrayed a trust unless he could get away with it. Since Hauc was the master of the Cauldron, and the Cauldron sat within Utvara, he and the patriarch were by default partners. Crix’s goal was clear.
Besides, if something happened to the patriarch, she doubted she’d get to the Cauldron at all.
The guard usually stationed at the door had joined the crowd around the window, so she slid the door aside without asking permission. She found the next carriage, the dining car, to be equally chaotic and covered in dangerous, slippery foodstuffs. There wasn’t much that could knock a goblin off her feet. Crix’s people had uncanny balance, and her own was even b
etter, thanks to Hauc. Without much trouble, she maneuvered through the car until she reached a door that did still have its guard. Two of them, in fact.
“Hello,” Crix said amiably and favored the pair of helmeted, pale-skinned humans with her toothiest smile. “I must warn your masters of this impending danger. May I pass?”
“No.” The helmets, which only showed twin sets of unnaturally golden eyes, concealed which one had said it. “Can’t imagine they don’t know, goblin.”
“The name is Crix. Surely their safety is of the utmost importance,” she said. The guard was probably right, but even so the appearance of giving warning would still serve both her master’s and her purposes. “Perhaps the two of you could at least ask—”
“No one goes in, goblin,” said the one on the left. Her ears told her what her eyes couldn’t. “Attendant’s orders.”
“Really,” Crix said. She chose a different tack. “Surely this attendant would reward your initiative if you made an exception in this case.” The car lurched again as if to emphasis her point.
“Attendant don’t like initiative,” said the right guard. “Had a cousin, got flayed for showin’ initiative. Just stay put, Crix, before we use you for spear practice.”
Crix opened her mouth to apologize but caught herself. Debating these guards was pointless. Time to bring out the big bam-sticks. She raised one hand, palm facing the guards, and let her sleeve slide down to her elbow. The golden eyes widened appropriately when the Orzhov lackeys recognized the glowing, tattooed name of Zomaj Hauc.
“You recognize this,” she said. “Good. Would you like to—” a sound of shattering windows rang out from what sounded like three cars back, and she flinched. “Reconsider?” Crix finished.
“Goblin’s got a point, Grubber,” said the guard on the left.
“A good point,” said the guard on the right. “Lots of good points. Good goblin.”
“Patronizing me will get you nowhere,” Crix said, “but opening that door will keep your names out of my report to my master.”
“Grubber, you idiot, open the door.”
“Right.”
Grubber, the one on the right, gave a light knock and shouted through the door, “Message for you, marked urgent!” he called. Without awaiting a reply, the second guard pressed the door release, let the golden panel slide to the side, and shoved Crix through.
“Thank you,” Crix managed as she stumbled over the threshold. A tiny vestibule separated the two cars. A second sliding door—this one unguarded—was just a few feet ahead of her. As the door behind her clicked shut, the one in front of her slid quickly aside to reveal the luxuriously appointed patriarch’s car.
The name, Crix guessed, would probably be less than accurate soon, though the more accurate “bloody-massacre car” probably wasn’t about to catch on.
The patriarch inside appeared quite dead. Crix could see his bloated, exposed heart, raw after what looked like lots of vigorous, deranged slashing through layer after layer of human blubber. What looked like an angel with black wings lay bleeding on the carpeted floor, and pieces of gray-skinned thrull were everywhere. The only two survivors—a tall, bald man in expensive robes and a younger human woman dressed in similar attire—stood over the patriarch’s corpse. The woman’s face was twisted with shock. The man was bloodied but appeared impassive—until he saw the goblin, that is.
“I am a message bearer,” Crix began, raising her marked arm. “I am to deliver a message of utmost importance to—”
“Another one!” the young woman cried. “Don’t just stand there, Melisk, kill it!”
Crix looked from the somber man to the gore-covered young woman and back to her own wrist. It was time to use a little of the independent strategizing all couriers had to fall back on now and again. She was through the door before Melisk took his second step and was legging for the sixth car as fast as her feet could carry her.
The guards who had let her in, Grubber and the other one, must have received some kind of silent signal from Melisk. Or maybe, Crix supposed, they were the types to give chase to anyone who came bursting out of the patriarch’s car as fast as she did, leaving bloody footprints. Whatever the reason, they shouted warnings and orders to halt as she half-ran, half-careened through the chaos in the car. Out of the corner of her eye, she realized she couldn’t see any Gruul who had made it inside yet. So far, they were just attacking windows, from the look of it, doing plenty of damage to the occupants and the lokopede from a distance. Too bad. She could have used the confusion to escape more easily.
She didn’t have any further time for analysis of Gruul strategy though. She needed to start forming her own. The guards with their much longer legs would catch up to her soon if she didn’t figure out a way to slow them down. Crix pushed the door to the third car open and was once again in a vestibule. The noise of shouting and metal striking chitin echoed inside, and she had a moment to be glad for the lack of windows in the connecting chamber.
Crix reached into a pocket and produced a small lump of pliant, silvery metal, then pressed the metal and her marked palm against the edge of the door she’d just left. Sometimes the quick and dirty spells worked best. She rushed through the words to a simple but effective welding spell.
The power of the pyromana almost melted the metal doorframe. There would be no sliding that one aside unless the guards knew a spell that could shatter magically fused steel.
Crix took a deep breath and did her best to compose herself in her temporary refuge. She went to the sliding door that led into the third car and pressed the release just as Grubber and his nameless partner used the universal door-opening spell on her seal—a pair of heavy boots. The metal door, its edges still glowing red-hot, clattered noisily into the vestibule just as the goblin slid the door shut behind her.
“Simplicity works both ways,” Crix muttered and bolted back through the car she’d started in.
There they were. This next car was filled with Gruul, who must have struck just as food service began. The Gruul tore into the Orzhov servants and cooking staff, scattering food, wine, cooking utensils, and body parts over the slick floor. Crix slipped on what she hoped was some kind of meringue and crashed into—no, through—a shrieking ghost, one of many confused and angry specters who weren’t happy to find their journey to Utvara cut short. Her wild slide through the gore and foodstuffs ended at two tree-trunk legs wearing lizardskin sandals, wiry hair, and chunks of something resembling fungus. She wiped gelatinized dessert (if that’s what it was) from her eyes and looked up into the seething face of the bandit.
He was human, he was ugly, and he was very, very angry from the look of it. What looked like a fresh wound showed on his throat, but it didn’t seem to be slowing the savage down. The Gruul raised a bloody club lined with jagged pieces of stone and roared, which gave Crix just enough warning to roll to one side when he brought the weapon crashing into the marble floor. Now on her belly, the goblin scrambled between the human’s legs and pulled herself to the next door back.
“Stop that goblin!” she heard one of the Orzhov guards shout as she fumbled for the door release. The Gruul who had just about smashed her to a pulp saw the new arrivals and flashed ritually sharpened teeth in a wide, bloodthirsty smile.
“Er, actually, I don’t think we need to stop that goblin anymore, Grubber. We’re probably needed back in car one.”
“I think you’re right.”
Crix didn’t hear whether her pursuers survived her Gruul attacker because she’d made it to yet another vestibule. Something slammed into the door behind, and she hoped it was the Gruul. Sure, the guards were trying to catch her on the orders of a murderous Orzhov, but they seemed like decent fellows. The Gruul she’d seen was a monster.
Before blindly heading into another car that was no doubt already filling with bandit attackers, she considered her situation. She was in a tiny room of her own, which was helpful. No one seemed to be attacking this linking vestibule between cars three a
nd four. That meant, she hoped, no one was watching them from the outside either.
She hoped even more that if she managed to get out, she could get to the Utvara township before the plague killed her. But one problem at a time.
The “walls” of the connecting vestibule were little more than accordioned leather, she saw upon closer inspection. It was thick—the hide of some large grazer from the look of it. The important thing was it was organic, which meant it would almost certainly burn. The goblin pushed up her right sleeve and debated with herself briefly just how much power she could spare—the magic of the tattoos would not last forever without recharging, but she wouldn’t last three seconds in a physical showdown with one of those Gruul.
With her right index finger, Crix drew a roughly goblin-shaped outline on the vestibule interior. Then she drew her hand back into a fist, counted to three, and threw what could generously have been called a punch right where the sketched goblin’s heart would have been.
The invisible outline she’d traced glowed orange, then white. Then the entire shape fell away like a pastry popping out of a mold.
“Oh, this is going to hurt,” Crix said as she tracked the rocky landscape flashing past her and the daunting drop from the side of the lokopede. Then she took a deep breath, put one forearm over her face, and leaped through the hastily made exit one step ahead of the roaring creature that bashed through the door and into the vestibule behind her. She flew through open space, cold air rushing into her face—
—only to stop short when four cold, viselike fingers latched around her ankle.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Grubber snarled. “You want to drop? You want to face them?”
Grubber spun Crix by the ankle, and she got a good look at the attackers still outside the lokopede. She could see at least a dozen, all savage roars and flashing blades, atop scaly riding beasts and dromad-sized Husk-cats that were easily keeping up with the besieged caravan. The nearest one was only a few yards away, and as Crix yelped involuntarily, the Gruul, a viashino with wild eyes, raised a glowing bam-stick and drew a bead on her.
