The Goblin Reign Boxed Set

by Gerhard Gehrke

  The captain sagged as he finally sat on a pile of ropes. One of the women had been berating him in Cityspeak for ten minutes. Spicy hadn’t followed any of it, but she was alone and Spicy guessed she had lost someone during the raid. Finally she gave up in disgust and went to the back of the boat.

  “Captain, where are we heading?” Spicy asked.

  The captain studied the goblin with bleary eyes. “There are other ports further in the delta that will take us in. Pinnacle has few friends here. But there’s no place for us I would call a truly friendly port. I didn’t spread enough wealth around. Lean years of late, you see. We had a truly special thing at Bird’s Landing.”

  “Why do you get to decide? Are you presuming I’m giving you the Cormorant?”

  Middle Finger took a moment to clean his glasses. “It’s not your boat.”

  “It’s not yours. I’m the one who captured it. The bounty is mine, as is all its cargo.”

  “You’re one goblin. Are you challenging me?”

  Spicy licked his lips. “Only if you plan on breaking trust with a member of your crew.”

  “Is that what you are?”

  “Yes. I’ve fought alongside your crew. We’ve rescued everyone we could, some of which are loved ones who sail with you. You know that. All I’m asking for is a deal.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  Spicy hesitated when he noticed others were listening. “We don’t know if the archduke is dead. The son took him and might make it back to Pinnacle. You saw the son they just threw overboard. If the duke’s like a troll, he’ll survive.”

  Middle Finger set his jaw. His face was all business. “Go on.”

  “There’s someplace else you could go. You have children with you that belong to some of your men. I’m guessing some are now orphans. I have the young ones from my village to care for and I don’t believe they’re safe here in the delta. Let’s bring them all up the Inland Sea. Back to my homeland. It’s far enough from the archduke that it might be safe. There’s plenty of places you could take this boat after, either to sell or use for whatever business you drum up.”

  “All the way up to the Monster Lands?”

  “Athra. That’s what we call it.”

  “That’s a long way away, Mister Goblin. We don’t even know if we have enough provisions for a voyage like that. Winter’s almost upon us. If you’re insisting on this, it will mean I stand to disagree.”

  “I’ve been in the holds. There’s enough to eat and more. But perhaps you’re forgetting something.”

  Spicy pointed to the dragon occupying a good portion of the main deck, as if anyone could forget that he was there.

  “I don’t want your boat. I don’t want to take anything from you. I might even consider some of you friends. But I demand that we make him safe. And that won’t happen down here in the delta. Let me take him home with me. All you have to do is provide the ride. I know it’s a long voyage. But this is a good boat. And last I saw, you have a dozen crates with bombs. I now know how valuable those are. You stand to make gold, which will help you get established wherever you decide to make your new home.”

  Spicy had no idea what to expect. Middle Finger was difficult to read. Spicy almost jumped when he offered a hand. Spicy took it and they shook.

  “It’s a big ask, sailor,” the captain said. “But you cared for me and mine. And who knows? Maybe when this big beast awakens, he’ll decide he has something to share with us that’s even better than bombs.”

  Spicy changed Goldbug’s sweat-soaked blanket out with a fresh one. His patient slept in a small bed nook on a collection of the softest bedding Spicy had ever laid his hands on. Goldbug continued to sleep fitfully. He hadn’t woken for over a day and remained feverish. A couple of the Bird’s Landing women came in from time to time and offered to watch him, but Spicy refused to be budged from his post.

  “Eyes forward,” he said to the sleeping form. “It’s a rule.”

  His thoughts went to Rime. He imagined what Rime would have said about all that Spicy had learned and done. He then wondered what he would tell his sister, Thistle, about Rime’s death.

  Had Thistle even known that Rime had a crush on her? She wore a blue ribbon he had given her, but such gestures were common in Boarhead. Thistle wasn’t stupid. She must have had an inkling of Rime’s feelings even as she had busied herself with the sage’s homework.

  The boat began to rock in earnest beneath his feet.

  What was he to do once they made the upper reaches of the sea? Athra was a day or two away, and then his ruined village would require another week, all assuming the children could make the trek and the dragon could travel. If Fath hadn’t recovered by then, they wouldn’t be able to leave the boat.

  All worries for the next day.

  He once again focused on his patient.

  The motion of the boat beneath him almost felt normal, if not natural.

  From the deck above, Dill was shouting at Eve to put something down. The laughter and squeals of delight that followed gave him hope they would be okay, that the worst of their experiences would fade. The human children were laughing too. Had some of them been witnesses to the archduke’s brutality in the mud village? Would the humans want to chance finding a home near Athra or in what was left of Boarhead?

  There were many other goblin communities untouched by Lord’s raid that would weigh in on such a move. Had the scattered remnants of Boarhead moved on or were they even at that moment rebuilding?

  It would be a difficult winter for them all.

  But in the new Sin Nombre with his allies, Spicy felt hope.

  He had such wonders to tell, and knowledge of men and their cities to share. Along with a dragon, the goblins held their portion of the world’s secrets. And Spicy couldn’t wait to put them to writing for all to see.

  Epilogue

  No one had seen the archduke for a month since his sudden departure on the Cormorant. Yet since the last chancellor’s disappearance, no one among his staff or court officials dared set foot into the basement of his palace.

  Pinnacle’s elite formed a ruling council. This privy body of prominent nobles and the major business interests of the Bay Kingdom had long ago lost patience with the archduke and his obsession with finding dragons. The city’s commerce had suffered as the treasury had been depleted. The war with Pater the Zealot had become an embarrassing folly, costing the kingdom lives and the confidence of its vassals and the minor dukedoms along the bay.

  With the archduke’s mystery mission and his failure to return, the council members convened and began to take steps to care for Pinnacle and her interests. The city of spires would once again rise. But she had debts.

  The first step would be to recall all available troops from the frontiers. Civil unrest had grown as empty bellies fostered discontent, which led to violence in the streets. Some of the older council members remembered the miserable months before the last thaw. The fires in those frigid days had almost consumed the city.

  The privy council took action. It sent fresh emissaries to the Dons to reignite trade. A tax amnesty was declared to the other dukes, who could increase the yields of their respective industries.

  But even as the council’s informal meetings in the outer courtyard moved to the more courtly setting of the palace’s banquet hall, the basement remained off-limits.

  Four weeks after the archduke had departed, a wailing began, starting at midnight and lasting until just before the dawn. The servants at the palace gathered to pray away the spirits that haunted the palace. The guard captain who responded to their panicked summons thrashed the page severely before hearing the keening himself, upon which he repeatedly made the signs of the three rings and joined the other servants in their supplications.

  The archduke appeared the next morning, ascending the basement steps, wearing only an ill-fitting robe. No one spoke as he walked down the great hall to the entrance of the palace. The servants put the word out and soon all were at the
ir stations, heads bowed low.

  It was the stand-in for the chancellor and the archduke’s chief accountant, the bald woman named Lady Huldai, who finally approached the archduke as he stood in the open doorway. He was gazing out at the rising sun as it crested above the eastern rooftops of the city.

  “My duke,” Huldai said, “you’ve returned to us.”

  “My sons,” the archduke whispered.

  “Your sons, my duke? They were with you when you departed. But I have not seen them since.”

  “My sons are lost to me.”

  The archduke turned and walked back through the great hall.

  Huldai hurried to follow. “I will fetch the physicians. Let me gather your guards and we can set out to search for your sons.”

  He passed the banquet hall and the kitchen as he headed to the basement stairs.

  She stopped at the top step. “Your orders, my duke?”

  “They’re all gone,” the archduke said. “No bone, no flesh. For their flesh is mine. But they are no more.”

  “We can search for them. But you must come to bed to take your rest. The council, they don’t listen to me. They have begun to withdraw soldiers from the north. My duke, the taxes, they’ve—”

  He raised a hand to cut her off. Then he turned and descended into darkness.

  The archduke felt his way along to the lab where he had grown his sons. The table of books and notes lay where he had left it, undisturbed during his absence. Hanging on a chair were the dark clothes the last of his sons had worn. They remained dirty and bloody from their long journey home.

  Once his son had carried him back to Pinnacle and brought him to the palace and its basement, the duke had realized that for him to continue, the son would have to return to the father.

  He would weep, but the last of his tears had dried up so many centuries before. He would work, but even as he struggled to light the lamp with shaking hands, he realized he was fading.

  So tired.

  The flickering fire threw golden light down on the pages before him. Yet the words set in writing held so little compared to what he knew—what they knew.

  The dragons.

  Those who wouldn’t share their secrets. That one of them would share so much with a goblin was so frustrating!

  He would be the perfect steward. Yet why the goblins and not him? The death of each dragon meant a loss to the ages—a waste only he could comprehend.

  Leaning close to the nearest book, he studied the lines of text. It bore the recipe for an explosive. He reached for another book and blew off a film of dust. This was the tome that held the techniques he had so recently employed. Yet it felt unfamiliar. His finger ran from line to line. It hadn’t been so long since he had grown his sons. But what had been the first step? And the second? Which combination of ingredients began the process?

  Must remember, he thought. But the haze in his mind had only grown. Perhaps the accountant had been right. He needed his rest.

  There would be time the next day to resume his work.

  Goblin War Chief

  (Preview)

  by

  G. Gehrke

  Chapter One

  Spicy,

  I’m addressing this to you. You may never read it because you might be dead. But I can’t believe that and won’t. Because if I lose you too, I might not be able to keep going.

  You lying your way into the dragon’s service wasn’t fair. You saved me when I should have been the one who saved you. That’s what big sisters are for. So wherever you are out there, I’ll pray to the moon, the Divine Mother, and whatever other god will listen.

  Come back.

  And in case you actually ever see this, I’ll be sure to use small words. Because reading was never your strong suit.

  That’s a joke.

  But you have no idea what kind of goblins I’m traveling with.

  —Thistle

  Thistle crept forward with the line of goblin hunters.

  The ten of them paused to crouch at the edge of a row of pines. Before them, a farm complex sat in the center of an open pasture ground, its three cottages, barn, and sheds all shrouded in darkness. The humans had quit for the day and now it appeared they had blown out the last of their candles and gone to sleep.

  The quarter moon above slid behind a cloud.

  Noe, the leader of the band, waved them forward.

  Silent as foxes, they rose as one and the line advanced, climbing a low fence and walking silently over the needlegrass and sedge that thrived within the muddy field. Each held either a bow or a spear. No one so much as whispered as they spread out.

  Thistle adjusted the short spear in her grip. She was unaccustomed to the weapon and had never hunted anything besides rabbit and other game she could hit and stun with a stick. A weapon like the spear would be used for boar and large prey. Or for fighting men.

  Some twenty sheep perked up as the goblins closed in. They began to murmur and bleat. A few seemed to want to climb their fellows as they clustered in the far corner of the corral.

  Noe pointed to the corral’s gate.

  One of the goblins, Ramus, veered off and worked to untie a knotted rope. Once it was undone, he swung the gate wide. A few sheep slipped past. Thistle clicked her tongue and waved more of the animals on. Another goblin got behind the animals and clapped his hands. The sheep obliged and soon the whole flock stampeded towards the opening. Ramus stepped aside to let them pass, and the animals scampered off into the night.

  Noe hissed to get Thistle’s attention. Then she pointed to the stone ring of a well.

  Thistle climbed the fence and removed a sack she carried around one arm. A bucket tied to a looped length of twine sat on the well’s lid. She set the bucket aside and pushed the lid away, revealing the shaft and the water below. The well’s precious contents would be the only reliable source of drinkable water for the farm. She opened the sack to reveal a pair of dead raccoons. Both had been caught in snares, the cords still around the animals’ throats. Their tongues dangled, their eyes wide. They reeked and she could hardly wait to free herself of them. Yet she hesitated.

  “What’s wrong?” Noe hissed.

  “Nothing.” Thistle dropped the sack and its foul contents down the well with a splash.

  Others of the party advanced on the first home, where a man was now shouting.

  “Who’s out there?”

  A figure appeared at the door holding a lantern.

  The goblins attacked. They swarmed the man, shoving him down and sending the lantern crashing in the doorway. A pool of flame ignited, illuminating the scrawny human as he feebly swatted at the air around him to ward off the three goblins who evaded him as they bounded into the home. A woman began screaming.

  The man scrambled to his feet and stumbled past the taunting hunters. Another pair of goblins were striking the outer walls of the cottage with the butts of their spears. A naked woman burst out through the door and ran in the same direction as the man. In the growing firelight, their footprints were visible in the light coating of snow covering the ground. The goblins around the cottage jeered as she fled.

  “Get the barn,” Noe ordered.

  Two goblins complied, entering the largest of the farm buildings. After a moment, an orange glow rose up from within. A few of the sheep that had found refuge nearby bolted as the goblins emerged.

  Thistle hurried to follow Ramus. He was jogging towards the two cottages on the far side of the compound.

  A goblin ahead of them tore open the shutters of one cottage. Candlelight burned behind a drawn curtain. Ramus picked up a piece of firewood off a loose pile and hurled it through the glassless window.

  A child inside screamed in fright.

  Ramus let out a barking laugh. He grabbed another piece of wood. Before he could throw it, Thistle stopped him.

  “They’re scared. We’ve done what Noe ordered. It’s time to leave.”

  Ramus was an older goblin with golden skin and deep-set eyes. He
was one of the two goblins from Boarhead who had survived the ill-fated hunting party that had been intercepted and cut down by Lord’s raiders right before the humans had come to their village. He and her father had been friends.

  Thistle was tall for a young goblin woman and Ramus stared at her, eye to eye, as if just now noticing her.

  “We’re not supposed to get into a fight,” she said. “They might have weapons.”

  As if punctuating her words, a woman in a nightshirt and fur-lined wrap emerged with a sling, which she loaded with a stone. She stepped away from the house and began to spin her weapon in the air. But before she could loose her rock, an arrow struck her.

  Arens, the second hunter from the ambushed party, loaded another arrow and finished the woman off. The child inside the cottage continued wailing.

  Ramus gave Thistle a shove. “If you’re not here to fight, get back with the wounded.”

  Thistle’s cheeks felt hot. The two hunters were her seniors, and both had hunted alongside her father for many years and might have even been there when he died. She had yet to hear the story about what had happened to her father. Neither had been willing to talk about it since her rescue and both spurned her when she asked. After all, she was still an unproven youth, with her child’s name, and no skills as a fighter or hunter to speak of.

  But she had been the sage’s apprentice, the one Lord had taken captive. Her actions had spared a dozen Boarhead residents from execution. And with Sage Somni now dead, she was the closest thing her village would ever have to a sage.

  Arens went to retrieve his arrows.

  More of the goblins appeared, moving to surround the last cottage. One set a torch to ignite a bale of straw set against one wall.

  “We’re supposed to scare them away, not kill them,” Thistle said.

  Before either of the goblins could say anything, she moved past them and entered the cottage. A boy sat huddled at the foot of a bed clutching a blanket. He had his eyes clamped shut and was whimpering.