by Sam Ferguson
He saw a young goblin, no bigger than Dezri, reach out and cling to one of the females. It formed a tiny little green fist as it half-buried its face in the woman’s leg. It was the fist that struck Aikur the hardest. In an instant, he saw not the goblin, but his own son. A tiny little fist the same shape as Dezri’s, and a pair of green eyes looking up to him now.
Aikur held up his left hand, and then slowly put away his axe with the other. “It’s over,” he said.
One of the young goblin women relaxed a bit, and then pointed to a box near the front of the building.
“Ekat lodun,” she said.
Aikur shook his head. “Don’t understand you,” he said.
She moved forward and Aikur reflexively gripped his axe handle with his right hand. The female paused and held up her hands, gesturing to the box with her chin.
“Ekat lodun,” she said again.
Aikur let her move to the box. She reached down with one hand and pried the lid open to reveal hunks of gold and silver.
“Ekat lodun,” she repeated again as she pulled out a hunk of gold and then held it out to Aikur.
He looked at the precious ore and then shook his head. “No, I don’t want your things,” he said. “I only wanted…” he caught himself and stopped talking. What would he say? He only wanted to destroy them all because they might have had something to do with his wife’s murder? They wouldn’t understand his words anyway. He walked backward to the door and then ducked out from the hut. As he spun around, he saw the eight elderly goblins kneeling in front of the hut, each holding necklaces or rings made of gold as if offering him payment. “I’m not here for your gold,” he said. Aikur walked back to the destroyed bridge and looked out over the chasm.
Paavo and Krip were gone.
Chapter 8
Aikur stood staring across the chasm for some time, not sure how he was going to get back across. Then again, he hadn’t necessarily expected to live through the encounter. If this was the group that had destroyed Jeriston, then the war was over. Revenge for his family and Jeriston had been served, and it had been easy. He frowned. It had been ridiculously easy, now that he thought about it. Sure, he was a Konnon, born and bred for war, but the goblins had been easier to defeat than even he had predicted.
What’s more, the fear he saw in their eyes did not show a savage race.
What had Lord Consuert been so worried about? Were there more warriors out roaming the countryside? It was certainly possible that a proper army was out pillaging while the town defenders remained behind, but even then, it was too simple.
The large Konnon stopped then and turned around. The eight elders were watching him, but had not moved from their position outside the wooden hut. The female that had offered him the gold had come out and was directing the other to gather the infants as well.
Gold. Why had she offered gold?
Aikur grit his teeth as a wild idea came into his head.
The large Konnon walked back toward the elders, keeping his hands visibly away from his axe and doing his best not to look imposing, which was difficult when his shoulders were nearly half as wide as some of the elders were tall. As he approached they each knelt back down and again offered their jewelry. Aikur pointed to the female and motioned for her to come to him. She stood, staring at him with her black eyes and frowning, obviously contemplating refusing.
Aikur stepped close to one of the elderly females and reached down to her bony, green fingers. He closed the goblin’s hand around the jewelry and then pushed it back toward the goblin.
“I don’t want that,” he said.
The other elders looked confused.
One of them spoke to the others, but another quickly shushed him.
The young female goblin moved toward Aikur. He pointed back to the chasm and mimed the bridge falling with his hands. “How do I get out of here?”
The female cocked her head to the side.
Aikur grunted. “Come with me,” he said, waving for her to follow him. He took two steps and then looked back to see she was still standing where she had been. He looked down to the dirt at their feet and a new idea came to him. “Very well.” He went back toward the female and then bent down to draw with his finger in the dirt. “This is where we are,” he said as he drew a crude looking plateau. He then moved his hand left and drew a stalactite. “This is where I came from,” he said as he moved to draw the precipice and the long cave he had used to enter the goblin’s territory. He drew the bridges and then a stick figure to represent himself. “This is me. I want to go back here, but the bridge is gone.” Aikur mimed everything with his hand and then wiped away the first bridge. “How do I get out?” Aikur asked.
The elders looked to each other, a couple of them mumbling something indistinguishable under their breaths. The young female looked at the picture in the dirt for a moment, and then grunted and waved her arm for Aikur to follow.
“Emok ereh,” she said.
One of the elders waved a hand and barked something at the young female goblin, but she snarled at him. Aikur watched the older goblin bow its head. None of the others spoke.
“Emok ereh,” the female said again.
Aikur followed her back into the wooden building. The younglings looked up at Aikur with the same fear they had before, but they were not huddled together this time. Now they were spread out along the walls, sitting down as if waiting for something to do. The contrast between the goblins and his own people was striking. Here, the elderly and the young didn’t fight. They were entirely putting their fate in Aikur’s hands. On New Konnland, had a band of Kottri managed to slay all of the warriors outside and storm into a city, even the five year olds would have fought to defend themselves. It was impossible to fathom how the goblins could let one single warrior conquer everything. If they didn’t have a larger army outside somewhere, then they were not shaping up to be half as savage as Aikur had expected.
“Emok ereh,” the female said once more as she moved to the back of the building and pulled back a set of black bear furs to reveal a short door. Aikur narrowed his eyes at the portal, for it wasn’t set into the rear wall. It was several feet in from that, and looked as though it led to a cellar of some sort. The female goblin grabbed a torch from the wall nearby and opened the doors.
A gust of dry, warm air flowed out from the doors and brushed over Aikur.
“Sihtyaw,” the female said before stepping into the doorway and going down a steep set of stairs.
Aikur followed after her, grabbing a torch of his own for good measure. He was not going to trust the goblin as his only source of light. He had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling and turn to the side to make his large feet fit upon the short, steep steps. The two of them descended twenty feet and came to a landing in a seven foot wide tunnel that wound like a corkscrew through the rock, going down deep. Neither of them spoke for the space of thirty minutes as they followed the path around and around. The air grew warmer, and stale, giving off a slight hint of sulfur as they reached the bottom where the tunnel sprawled out in a straight line.
“Where does this go?” Aikur asked.
The female goblin motioned for him to follow. “Dnal nus, emok, emok.”
Aikur shook his head and followed after her, figuring he had come too far now not to see it through. After another ten minutes, a chamber opened up on the right. Aikur looked in and saw four goblin males sitting around a very large geode that had been broken to reveal the crystals inside. The turned and looked back at him, but they didn’t jump or reach for weapons. In fact, they didn’t have any weapons.
“Kosar do mah,” the female said to them.
One of the males put a hand to his mouth, the other three hung their heads. Aikur then realized that the female must have told them of the destruction above, but if she had, then why weren’t they angry? Why weren’t they charging toward him?
The female continued on, beckoning for Aikur to follow. The four goblin males turned back to thei
r massive geode and prostrated themselves before it, apparently calling out in some sort of prayer. Aikur followed after his guide and they continued walking through the tunnel. They passed another six chambers, each like the first with some sort of crystal or small pile of precious ore in the center and a group of goblins that appeared to be busy praying. Each time the reactions were the same. Some of the goblins would be stunned, and others would weep and hang their heads. After a few seconds, each group of goblins would turn back to praying, but none of them made a move against Aikur.
It occurred to the Konnon that perhaps this tunnel led to a dead end, and the plan was to lure him to a trap, but he never saw any weapons near any of these goblins, so unless they were going to fight him with only their hands, there wasn’t much to be worried about.
After another half hour of walking, they did in fact come to a dead end.
Aikur reached around for his axe, but the goblin female strode up to the wall and hung her torch in a crude loop of iron attached to the side wall and then moved three paces to her right and slid aside a small covering in the wall to reveal a strange metal lever. She gripped it with both hands and leaned with her body, pulling the lever to the left. There was a series of clicks and pops as she pulled it into place. She then moved to the right wall and uncovered a second lever hidden in the wall. This one she pulled to the right. Along with the pops and clicks there was a puff of dust and dirt that fell from the ceiling on the far wall. Then, ever so slowly, a large circle of stone set into the wall began to roll to the side, revealing a short cave of maybe thirty yards that opened up to the forest outside.
“Do sinar ans truner reven erom,” the female said. She pointed to the cave with one hand and then bowed her head.
Aikur looked at her, and then glanced back up the tunnel. Something in his gut told him that this was all very wrong. “Come here,” Aikur said. He bent down to the dirt floor, setting his torch off to the side, and began drawing once more. Off to one side he drew a large mountain with a cave opening in it. To the left a few feet he drew the outline of a house, and then another stick figure to represent himself. “This is me, this is my home,” he said. “This is your home,” he said pointing to the female and then to the mountain he drew. He drew a shorter stick figure to represent the goblin. “This is you,” he said. He then drew two more stick figures next to him, one for Karyna, and another for Dezri. “This is my wife and son.” He paused, staring at the images in the ground for a moment before continuing. “Your people,” Aikur said as he drew more goblins in the dirt. He made sure to give them spears to show they were warriors. “They came to my home and attacked.” He dotted the dirt between the mountain and the house to show travel. Then he wiped the house, his wife, and Dezri away. “They killed my family. So I came here.” Aikur circled the stick figure representing himself and then dotted the ground to show he followed the others. Then he wiped the goblin warriors from the dirt.
The female stood and stared at the drawing, rubbing her shoulders with her green hands as if suddenly cold. “Kosdarin, moktar,” she said, shaking her head. She knelt down and redrew the mountain, this time putting the goblin warriors inside the outline of the mountain. She redrew Aikur’s house and family as the large man stepped back to give her room. Next she drew a group of men on what appeared to be horses. She circled them and then pointed to her mountain. She made dots in the dirt from the horsemen to outside the mountain, and then drew dots from the goblin warriors to the same spot and drew an X. “Ereht rakams finigit ans werger.” She then drew dots back into the mountain. Lastly she wiped away the dots that Aikur had used to represent goblins coming to his house and instead drew a long line and put her hands up like an X across her body. “Werm nigin der smeck. Werm nigin der smeck.”
Aikur narrowed his eyes on her. He knew it was just as possible that she was lying, but if she was telling the truth, then it was apparent that she was saying her people had nothing to do with his family.
“No,” Aikur said with a shake of his head. “No, you’re trying to trick me.” He got up and went for the exit without looking back. His anger was rising again. How dare the female try to claim innocence. Aikur had found goblin bodies at his home. His wife had followed them into the forest. He had seen all the proof he needed.
He could hear the stone sliding and scraping its way back into place, sealing off the passageway to the goblins’ inner city once more as he continued through the short cave and stepped out into the forest. Night had settled upon the trees now, bringing with it a chill in the air, but Aikur didn’t mind. He had spent many nights out in the elements before. He glanced back to the small cave and wondered why there was no goblin sentry posted here as there had been at the other entrance. Perhaps they believed the massive slab of stone was sufficient to keep intruders out.
Aikur turned toward the west and began walking. If he could, he needed to find Paavo and Krip to let them know everything he had done and seen. He walked for only a mile or so before he heard something in the bushes ahead of him. Aikur started to reach for his axe, but then stopped when he heard Krip’s voice.
“We should find a place to spend the night,” Krip said. “We’ll be no good to anyone if we exhaust ourselves.”
Aikur smiled. “Over here,” he said loudly.
Paavo came around a tree and into view, grinning ear to ear as Krip came around the other side.
“Aikur!” Krip shouted as he rushed up to greet the man. “I wasn’t sure we’d see you again.”
“That was an incredible stunt you pulled with the bridge,” Paavo commented. “How did you get out, did you find another bridge somewhere?”
Aikur shook his head. “No, they have a tunnel. It goes down through the plateau and then out the side of the mountain. It was a long trek, but uneventful.”
“Really?” Paavo asked, his eyes glancing beyond Aikur and into the darkness. “Where does it come out, exactly?”
Aikur thumbed over his shoulder. “I can show you in the morning, but first we should set up camp. Do either of you have anything to eat?”
Krip pulled his bag around and started rummaging through it. “I have some food.”
Paavo grabbed his water skin and tossed it to Aikur. “You must be thirsty, take what you need. There is a fast-running stream not far from here. I can refill it after you’re done.”
Aikur caught it and nodded his thanks as he uncapped the water skin and began to drink deeply of the cool water inside. He let the liquid rush through his throat until he had drained half of the container, then he wiped his mouth and tossed it back to Paavo. “Thanks,” he said.”
An owl hooted off in the trees nearby.
“This other entrance,” Paavo began again. “Is it far from here?”
Aikur shook his head. “Maybe a mile, or just a bit farther,” he replied. “The thing about the cave though is that it doesn’t look like an entrance, it’s sealed off with a secret door of sorts at the end of it.”
“How did you get through then?” Paavo pressed.
“A goblin led me out,” Aikur replied.
“A goblin?” Krip snorted. The veteran frowned and pulled out a piece of bread. “I wouldn’t have thought you would have left any alive.”
Aikur shrugged. “I killed every warrior they had,” he said.
“So then this goblin that let you out, you killed him too?” Paavo asked.
Aikur shook his head. “It was a female, actually, and no. There are a handful of goblins left inside, but none that pose a threat.”
Paavo grunted. “Then tomorrow we will go back in through this secret passage and finish the job,” he said.
Aikur took the bread that Krip offered and then turned a hard stare on Paavo. “We’ll let them be,” he said. “The children are too small to cause any trouble,” he said. “The elderly are far too old. There won’t be any trouble from this lot again.” He chose not to tell them of the female’s denial that the goblins had ever attack in the first place. He still wasn’t su
re he believed her, though he had softened a bit toward the idea since leaving the cave and allowing himself time to cool off.
“No, Lord Consuert was clear. We have to wipe them out or drive them out. If they want to live, then they will need to go across the mountains and into the deserts in the east. We have no other choice.”
Aikur took a bite of the dry bread and chewed it while thinking how to respond. He knew people in Kelsendale were different, but what possible reason could there be for wiping out the children? There was no honor in such atrocities.
“Did you see any gold?” Paavo asked.
Aikur stopped chewing. He glanced to Krip and saw the veteran had a confused look on his face, and then back to Paavo, who only pressed for an answer.
“Well?” Paavo insisted.
“What difference does that make?” Krip asked.
Aikur swallowed the half-chewed bite. “I saw some, but not much,” he replied.
Paavo sighed and folded his arms. “What about in the secret tunnel. Did you see any sign of ore deposits, or mining perhaps?”
Aikur cocked his head to the side. “Why the sudden interest in gold?” the Konnon asked. “I thought the goal was to make our borders safe, or was there something you forgot to mention to Wallace?”
Krip tossed his sack on the ground. “Paavo, what is the meaning of this?”
Paavo shrugged. “If the mountain has wealth to offer, then Lord Consuert will want to know. It will help pay the wages for everyone who fought.”
“You mean for everyone that is fighting,” Aikur corrected. “This wasn’t the group that sacked Jeriston. They were entirely unorganized. They wouldn’t have been able to defeat an entire town, certainly not in one night either. So there must be another group out there somewhere,” Aikur commented.
Paavo wagged a finger. “It has been a pleasure to work beside you, Konnon,” Paavo said. “It’s only too bad that your grief has driven you mad.”
“Mad? What are you talking about, Paavo?” Krip put in.
