by Sam Ferguson
The large Konnon started to jog across the bridge. The planks creaked and squeaked beneath him with each step he took as the bridge swayed and bounced.
A goblin emerged from a hut near the bridge with what appeared to be two half-dressed females clinging to his arms. The goblin stopped and stared at the guard’s corpse, and then looked across the bridge to see Aikur.
“Kohn sikamar!” the goblin shouted. The two females dove back into the tent while the male pulled a sword and moved toward the bridge. “Kohn sikamar!” he shouted again.
A faint whistle split the air, and before the goblin could reach the guard’s body, an arrow struck his heart and dropped him to the ground. A few goblins from within the settlement saw the commotion and took up the warning cry.
Shouts of “Kohn sikamar!” cut the silence and echoed off the caverns walls.
The two female goblins burst from their hut armed with spears and dressed in armor.
Aikur grinned as he ran faster for the other side. He had hoped the women-folk were warriors, for then he could repay in full the goblins that had murdered his wife.
The females sprinted nimbly onto the bridge, closing the distance much faster than Aikur was, but he didn’t mind. He was saving his strength. So long as the goblins didn’t cut the bridge down, it was a natural bottleneck that would give him an advantage over their larger numbers. Given the fact that they had so many full storage rooms on the other side of this bridge, he hoped they would only cut it down as a last resort. Then again, if they did cut it, there were worse things than death.
The first female closed in, her eyes red with anger and the veins in her neck and forehead bulging out of her grotesque, green skin. She stabbed at Aikur, but the move was clumsy. He parried with the top of his axe and then countered by slamming the pommel of his battle axe into the goblin’s jaw. So forceful was his blow that the goblin flew up and over the edge of the bridge, screaming as she fell to her death.
The second goblin pulled a crude crossbow from behind her and fired, but Aikur managed to step to the side of the bridge and let the bolt sail by harmlessly. He then jumped up and down, causing the bridge to heave like an ocean’s wave, knocking the goblin off balance when she tried to step forward. The creature stumbled and fell to her face, exposing her neck and back, which Aikur exploited quickly, driving his axe into the back of her skull and neck.
By this time, Paavo had fired several more arrows. Aikur looked up to see three goblins lying on the bridge, and several more back on the plateau.
“I’m out,” Paavo shouted after a while. “Shall I join you?”
Aikur looked back to see Paavo drawing his short swords, but Aikur shook his head. “Stay there, guard the rear. This fight is mine!”
When he turned back to the goblins, he noticed that four of them had loaded bows and were arching back to compensate for distance. A second later they fired. Aikur, knowing he couldn’t outrun the arrows or move nearly enough to the side to get out of their path, picked up the female goblin’s body and hoisted her up like a shield as he knelt down beneath her corpse. Several jolts of force pounded the body, but nothing reached him. Aikur watched as the goblins reloaded and fired two more volleys before deciding to use another tactic.
“Kosmekah!” one of the goblins shouted, hoisting a sword high in the air.
Aikur grinned and dropped the body. “That’s right, come get a taste,” he said, rising to his feet and taking up his axe in his right hand while grabbing the fallen goblin’s spear with his left.
The goblins fought each other, pushing and shoving to get onto the bridge. The writhing mass rushed out to meet him, but could only stand two goblins wide along the bridge, as it was far too narrow to allow more. A couple goblins even managed to trip and fall before reaching the bridge, which only made Aikur laugh as he calmly walked toward the heaving line of gnashing yellow teeth and buggy, bulging eyes advancing toward him.
As the goblins came within twenty feet, Aikur launched the spear, catching the lead goblin in the shoulder. It wasn’t a lethal injury, but it caused that goblin to stop, which then got him trampled as the others clambered over him to get at Aikur. Several of the gruesome creatures tripped and created a sizeable pile-up that slowed the rest of the group. Aikur smiled and then gripped his axe with two hands. He swept horizontally, gashing one goblin across the chest and cutting through a second goblin’s neck. Both goblins fell, creating yet another pile-up that gave Aikur the advantage. He slammed one, then another, and then took several steps back, putting distance between him and the surging group, allowing them to fight against each other to reach him. Goblins were easy targets, but tired and clumsy goblins were even easier.
A spear flew through the air at Aikur, but the large man ducked and deflected with his axe. A moment later a short goblin lunged up to strike Aikur, but the large Konnon kicked the creature in the chest, sending him back to knock into four other goblins, taking them all down and creating another blockage.
Two more goblins squeezed through, but Aikur had plenty of time to react. He cleaved the first goblin’s head in half, slicing off everything above the nostrils and sending the gore flying. Then, using his momentum he spun around and lashed out with a back spinning kick that caught the second goblin in the right shoulder and knocked him off the bridge. A few more burst through the blockage to get at him next, but Aikur cut the first with an overhead chop that buried his axe into the goblin enough that he could swing the entire corpse on the end of his weapon. He first turned left, slamming into a goblin and nearly knocking it from the bridge, and then he swung right, knocking two more down to the planks before the corpse came free of the blade and slipped off to fall on top of the others.
Aikur pulled his axe back, leveled it so that the point atop the blades was aimed like a spear, and then jabbed two more goblins in the throat and face. So quick and strong were his strikes that goblin bodies piled up in front of him like a fleshy green wall, but for every pile he made, ten more goblins pushed their way onto the bridge. He fought for several more minutes, hewing down foe after foe without taking a single hit himself, and then backing up a few steps to allow more of the buggars onto the bridge.
Then, just as he came within twenty yards of the stalactite, Aikur smiled. He could see that the last of the goblin warriors had made it onto the bridge, too enraged by his attack to see what he had led them to. Aikur quickly dispatched four more goblins and pushed their bodies back into the swelling crowd to buy himself two seconds of time. Then he spun around. He seized the guide rope at his left and came down hard on the rope at his right with his axe. The blade cut through the supports as easily as if it had been made of a single thread. The bridge jerked and spun, sending at least a dozen goblins flying over the side.
“Are you insane!?” Krip shouted.
Aikur wasn’t listening. He had a plan, and it would work. He turned and cut the other guide rope and then held on with all of his strength as his body went weightless for half a second. Then the bridge fell out from beneath him for a moment before he too began to fall.
Goblins shrieked and screamed all around him as they fell to their deaths.
Aikur clung to the rope and somehow managed to hitch his battle axe to the harness on his back so he could use both hands. The bridge accelerated as it swung through the darkness, but the large Konnon kept his grip. As they careened toward the cliffside he realized that he would need something to absorb the shock, and he only had a couple of seconds to figure it out. He maneuvered to grip a plank a couple feet up and then began climbing the planks as if they were rungs on a ladder. He encountered a goblin a few feet up, but the creature didn’t notice him for it had its eyes closed and was clinging to the rope with both hands and its legs. Aikur reached up and socked the goblin in the groin from below, which made the thing release its grip and fall. Aikur then continued climbing.
The next goblin pulled a dagger and clumsily swung at Aikur to keep him at bay, but Aikur grabbed the goblin by his ankle an
d yanked hard. The first tug produced no results, but the second ripped the goblin from the bridge entirely. Aikur snarled at the next goblin up, who had just watched the other be pulled from the bridge, but instead of fighting back the goblin only squeaked and scaled around the bridge to hang onto the underside by the planks, hoping to avoid its comrade’s fate. Aikur smiled.
Perfect.
Aikur climbed up and quickly grabbed onto the goblin’s hands from his side of the bridge. At first the goblin’s eyes went wide, as if it expected a killing blow any second, but then it knit its brow at Aikur for a moment before turning around.
It let out a feral scream that could have woken the dead as they swung the last few yards toward the cliff side. Aikur braced himself for impact, aligning his body with the goblin’s to absorb as much of the crash as possible.
There was a sickening cascade of crunching bones and rupturing tissues that cut the goblin’s blood-curdling scream short. Though it helped to have the goblin in front of him, Aikur still felt the wind pushed from his lungs upon impact. He nearly let go, slipping two rungs downward before he could force himself to focus just enough to cling to a thick plank.
Other goblins screamed above him. Some of them fell off, others had been crushed on the wrong side, and a few lucky ones managed to stay on the bridge. After a few moments of struggling for breath, his lungs inflated once more and energy flooded through him. He rested his forehead against the plank and coughed a couple times before daring to look up.
There was a goblin about ten feet above him that was dangling upside-down with its ankle caught in the ropes and another couple of scattered goblins farther up the bridge. None of them looked too sure of themselves at the moment, and better yet they didn’t even seem to register that Aikur was still on the bridge with them.
He took in a deep breath and looked up to the top. He was still a good seventy yards from the top, but he could make that as long as no one cut the bridge above him. Hand over hand he climbed up the planks, working his toes into the spaces between the rough-cut wood as best he could for footholds. After a few seconds, the dangling goblin noticed him and just stared wide-eyed. Aikur winked at the creature and then punched the goblin in the face, shattering the wretched thing’s nose and knocking it unconscious. He continued up the bridge, following after a couple of goblins that had finally started the ascent themselves.
After a while, one of them looked down and saw Aikur gaining on them.
“Hosaka menaw!” the goblin shouted.
Aikur redoubled his climbing efforts, but it was no use. Three goblins part way up the bridge were now working furiously to cut the ropes with daggers and dislodge the portion below them, sawing back and forth as fast as their skinny green arms could move to keep Aikur from reaching them. The large Konnon made it to the goblin that had sounded the alarm and reached for the thing’s leg, but it pulled its feet up and then kicked at Aikur. The goblin was fairly weak to begin with, but given the angle of attack, the creature was entirely ineffective. Aikur took a couple soft hits on the shoulder and the top of his head and then timed his move so that he would reach up and grab the goblin after a kick. Aikur seized the thing around the ankle and yanked hard enough that the goblin’s knee popped out of joint and the thing let go of its hand holds. Aikur tossed the flailing goblin out into the abyss and then continued upward.
The guide rope on the right snapped.
The bridge swung out to the left, hanging Aikur precariously over the chasm. He looked up and realized there was no way he could reach the next goblin in time. The rope on the left side was fraying badly and some of the fibers were beginning to explode apart before being cut due to the weight they now supported.
Aikur looked to the stone wall in front of him and made a split-second decision. Rather than fall, he was going up the cliff. He scrambled around the back of the bridge and then reached out for a stone lip. Just as the fingers of his left hand gripped the lip, the other side of the bridge came loose. Aikur let go and held to the rock as a few of the planks struck his back and then fell beyond him.
The goblins, pleased with their plan and believing that Aikur had fallen to his doom, shouted and cheered, and then began climbing upward once more along the bridge.
Aikur held still, hoping that perhaps they couldn’t see him. Then, after a few seconds he looked up to check on his enemies. The last one was just clambering over the top. Aikur dragged himself up along the cliff face, using small ledges and angled cracks to hold onto. His forearms burned after only a few feet, but he had expected that. He was a large man, and was not accustomed to using his muscles this way. Still, he focused on the goblins that had gotten away.
“Three warriors,” Aikur said. “Three more to kill.” He pulled himself upward until at last he reached the remaining portion of the bridge. He reached out and grabbed onto it. Instantly his forearms felt better as he now had much larger supports to hold onto. His ascent quickened, and he reached the top in just a couple more minutes of climbing. All the while he was listening for any hint of his enemies. Hearing nothing, he decided to risk coming right over the top and onto the plateau. After all, he couldn’t dangle over the chasm forever. Up and over he went, rolling across the solid plateau and sighing in relief upon seeing only the dead goblins that Paavo had slain with arrows waiting for him at the top.
He pushed himself up to his feet with a grunt and then trudged off toward the center of the settlement. The huts and small towers around him were so crude and basic that it perplexed him any of these creatures could have bested his wife. Had they surrounded her? Poisoned her somehow? Or perhaps she had the morning sickness from being pregnant and couldn’t fight to the best of her abilities.
A sound from a hut on the right caught his attention. It wasn’t loud, but it was distinct, like a whimper or a cry. He pulled his axe from the harness and used it to hook the cloth flap covering the entryway and pull it back. Inside he saw a disheveled, wrinkled goblin with thinning gray hair and dim eyes sitting in front of two small goblin infants. The old goblin stretched out its arms as if to shield the infants with its own body.
Aikur took two steps closer to inspect the rest of the hut. There were no beds to speak of, at least not proper ones. There was only an old quilt along the ground with a few dirty blankets folded at the end. There was a small wooden box to the left, filled with large wooden balls, a club, and what looked like a doll with hair made of straw. Seeing the doll made Aikur recall Dezri’s stuffed animal. He looked back to the old goblin, who still sat defiantly, protecting the younglings.
“No,” Aikur said with a shake of his head. “I’m not like you. Not even now.” He backed away and let the flap fall closed. No matter how deep his hatred, he couldn’t kill the defenseless infants. It wasn’t right. He walked beyond several rows of huts until he found the three escaped goblins standing behind one of the huts and seemingly arguing amongst themselves. One of them thumped its chest and then slapped another goblin in the face, but that didn’t seem to settle it. Instead, the two drew knives while the third took a step back and watched.
Aikur let the knife fight play out as the two competitors hacked and slashed at each other for the better part of two minutes, each scoring a hit on the other every once in a while across the forearm or shoulder. Then, they rushed each other and became so entangled as they hit the ground that it was impossible for Aikur to know who was winning. After a few moments, the goblin on top went stiff and its eyes shot open wide. It moaned and then fell to the side. The other goblin jumped up and shouted as it pumped its hands into the air.
It then saw Aikur and the victorious snarl faded from its face, replaced by an open-mouthed stare. Aikur rushed in. The goblins, to their credit, didn’t run away. They charged with only their daggers.
They should have run.
Aikur killed them both in a matter of seconds. He then spun around in place, looking at the other huts nearby. How many more of them were here? In no particular order, Aikur began tearing down
the front flaps on each hut. Many of the living spaces were empty, some had only infants, and others had elderly goblins. Occasionally they had both an elderly goblin and an infant or two inside. Whenever he found an adult, he made it move into the center of the settlement, carrying the infants with it.
He wasn’t going to hurt the infants, but he didn’t want to end up being surrounded by angry goblins either. It was better to maintain situational control than to let a false sense of security enable an age-stricken goblin to fire a crossbow at him.
After about an hour, he came to the largest hut in the settlement. Wailing and crying went up from some of the elders gathered in the center of the settlement, but none of them made a move to stop him. Aikur walked up and noticed that this particular hut had wooden doors. As he examined it closer, he discovered that it not only had doors, but the hut wasn’t built with leather and cloth walls. Underneath the patchwork flaps were walls made of wood as well.
“The chief’s hut,” Aikur muttered to himself. He moved to the front door and kicked it in. A pair of young, adult goblin females yelped and jumped back to protect a group of goblin younglings. These were not infants, but children. Aikur stepped inside and looked at the terrified youngsters staring at him. He then looked to the women, who were scantily clad in clothes made from animal fur that barely covered the essentials. They were not fighters as the others had been. They had no weapons, and they looked as frightened as the children.
Aikur took in a breath and surveyed the group. Thirty children in all. That number added to the seventeen infants outside, along with the eight old goblins and the two adult females in here and there was quite a large number of survivors. Survivors that would never forget his face. They would grow up, and one by one, or perhaps en masse, they would come looking for him, just the way he had come looking for their parents.
Suddenly he found his rage dissipating.
