Nowhere to Run

by Elliott Kay

  “You think everything is gonna change for them now that they have money? That doesn’t fix their other problems.”

  “Sure. That’s why we saw to their health needs, too,” said War Cloud. “Now they can work and take care of themselves even after the money runs out.”

  “If they don’t get robbed of it all first! This is a goblin camp. You think everyone here plays by the same rules of civility?”

  “They’ve got a few of Ruck’s toughs looking out for them while they get set up,” said Scars. He came up from behind them at a casual stride, looking over the last goblins to leave. “I hired ‘em to keep watch.”

  Her jaw fell even lower. “With your own gold?”

  “Sure, unless you want me to use yours?”

  “No! I want to know my crew isn’t crazy! Are you all in a rush to throw your money away?”

  “Where the hell else are we going to spend it?” asked Scars. “You want to go back to Eastford and shop in their stores? Or maybe invest it in a bank in the capital? What good does coin do us? It’s not like we need to save it up in the thousands to buy magical weapons at some enchanted treasure shop.”

  “Aw, that would be great, though,” said War Cloud. “Wish there was a place like that.”

  “What? No, that’s a terrible idea,” said Yargol. “It’s magic. You don’t go buy it in a store.”

  “I’ve seen it a few times in larger cities,” said Teryn. “Apothecaries sell potions. More than a few temples will provide magic for a ‘gift’ to their god. It’s hardly different from paying a merchant.”

  “Some gods are decent enough to heal the sick for free,” grumbled War Cloud. “It’s cruel to expect people to pay for their lives.”

  “A tonic to cure sickness or a magical trinket for a domestic convenience is all fine and good, and even a temple selling services has to answer to their god,” said Yargol. “Why would you want common stores selling dangerous magical power to whoever coughs up enough gold? Then you have random idiots walking around with deadly weapons far out of proportion to their intelligence or maturity. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

  “You also wind up putting even more power in the hands of the wealthy like that,” said Scars. “It’s a terrible business idea, anyway. You’d have to sink every drop of profit into security. Putting magical treasures on display is like begging for some stupid adventurers to come rob the place. There’s no deterring that. The danger is a draw in itself. Even if your security holds firm you’re still cleaning out bodies of morons who come to try their luck every night. And can you imagine the overhead costs? Ugh.”

  War Cloud frowned. “You mean the roof would be expensive?”

  “No. Well, literally the roof would be part of it I suppose, but overhead is what you pay to run a business. Rent, maintenance, employee wages...replacing the roof every time some idiot from the thieves’ guild tries to break in might count. It’d be a nightmare.

  "Plus how often would you even make a sale? You'd sit around in an empty shop all day, or you'd be up to your neck in window shoppers who can't afford anything. Spend half your time tolerating every jerk who thinks he can bargain you down on a sword that can cut through stone like it shouldn't cost any more than a cheap imported knock-off. Or then maybe you really do have customers who can afford to buy magic hammers and magic coats right off the rack. They'd be fucking insufferable. You know who has that kind of money?”

  “Royalty and nobles?” asked Shady Tooth.

  “Not as often as you might think,” said Teryn.

  “That’s right,” Scars agreed. “Nobles might buy something once in a blue moon, but that’s not your regular clientele. It’d be adventurers all the time. You’d have swordsmen trying to intimidate you by sharpening their swords in front of you while asking how much you want for the obviously better sword right there on your shelf. Or bards trying to ‘charm’ you. And gods, what about all the fucking idiots who practice ‘sleight of hand?’ Or some moron with his magical bartering hat and his bargaining spell trying to magic himself up a discount. What do you do with that? Throw him out?

  “’Surely you must need favors from time to time,’ they’d say, hoping for some stupid quest. Fuck no, I don’t need favors. You think someone’s gonna harass my family or threaten my business? I’ve got a box full of magical fireball wands. Nobody’s gonna fuck with me—except fucking adventurers.”

  His friends stared. Yargol shook his head. “Sometimes I forget you’re the only one among us who has ever held a real job other than mercenary work.”

  Shady Tooth folded her arms across her chest. “At least in a treasure shop you’d be able to get what you want. Half the stuff I loot turns out to be junk that doesn’t even fit, anyway.” She looked away, eyes drifting to the grove now empty but for the trash, and snapped back to her original point. “But you’re still throwing money away in a camp full of refugees. Where are they going to spend it?”

  “They don’t have any coin at all unless it comes in from the outside,” said War Cloud. “If I spread some money around, they spend it on each other, and maybe start building the place up?”

  “Pretty sure it’s more complicated than that,” said Scars.

  “Yeah, like what good is it if they’re all passing around the same set amount of coins?” asked Shady Tooth.

  “Pretty sure it’s more complicated than that, too,” Scars replied.

  “I see people in need and I’m of a mind to help,” said War Cloud. “That isn’t complicated for me. It’s what I do with my gold, and with my time.”

  “I’m not challenging your right to do what you want, just the sensibility of it,” said Shady Tooth. “I figured you’d at least save your coin to spend on something worth buying. Or maybe to live off of when we can’t run around doing all this anymore. Maybe not some silly pipe dream like a nice retirement, but something.”

  Scars let out a grumbling sigh. He stalked off into the sickly grove.

  Shady Tooth lifted one eyebrow as she looked to the others in an unspoken question. Yargol answered quietly, “We learned of his parents from the druids. One of them knew his mother and father well. They were—”

  “Not a big secret, but are we going to get on with this?” Scars interrupted without turning around. “Last I heard, this is some otherworldly nightmare waiting to devour us all.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” Yargol finished.

  “To be honest, I was hoping anyone in camp already given over to the corruption would come try to stop us by now,” War Cloud confessed. “It might have given us something to go on once we stomped them. Guess we’re on our own. DigDig?”

  The goblin leaned on his shovel nearby, largely silent through the conversation. He looked out into the dank and dreary scene. “You tell me. Want me to pull up the whole grove?”

  “Can you do that?” asked Teryn.

  “Maybe. Don’t know.”

  “Where would you put it?” asked Shady Tooth.

  “Don’t know that, either.”

  “Maybe start smaller, then,” Teryn suggested.

  “Fine.” The goblin turned to War Cloud. “Up to you.”

  War Cloud walked into the grove, looking for anything that might hold a sign. The scenery was hardly pleasant, but nothing looked particularly abnormal. He didn’t feel the sense of foreboding that warned of the undead. In truth, he’d never sensed the sort of corruption shown by the bounty hunters. He felt sure this would be the place, but had little to go on beyond the squalor of both its former residents and the plant life around him.

  Dastia was a hearth goddess. He’d just cleared out every tent and shelter that anyone here called a home. No one remained. Not even bugs or birds.

  His eyes narrowed. He’d seen a similar absence of life in the depths of Olen Zuck’s dungeon. Doubts faded while ideas grew. “A forest should hold some sort of life,” he murmured. War Cloud looked to the trees but heard and saw no birds. Not even in the largest willow. He strode to the dark, sagging
tree with one hand reaching for his blade.

  “Do you sense something?” asked Yargol.

  “Not yet,” he admitted.

  Then the tree trunk twisted and its boughs swept in to slam War Cloud to the ground. “Found it!” he growled in pain.

  “Shit,” grunted Scars. He tore his sword from its scabbard, thinking fast enough as he swung to go for a thinner target before ruining his blade. Rather than snapping free, the bough half-broke and half-bent in a display of putrid resilience. Only then did he notice the sudden stench all around him, too, threatening to turn his stomach. The bough snapped back at Scars to send him stumbling away, but at least War Cloud was free. “We don’t have the tools for this. We need axes!”

  “Damn,” Teryn fumed. She already had an arrow nocked in her bow out of sheer reflex, but she caught up with his thinking instantly.

  So did Shady Tooth. Knives would do little good against thick wood. She barreled into the grove, rushing straight to War Cloud and hooking her arms under his in time to rescue him from the next boughs to slam down at him.

  Forceful winds attacked the tree, blasting leaves and smaller branches from the boughs. Yargol stepped into the clearing with his staff high and torrents of air rushing past. The tree’s motion slowed as it fought against new resistance.

  “Wouldn’t fire be better?” Teryn shouted over the sudden wind.

  “Fire might spread into the camp. We can’t risk it,” Yargol answered.

  “Back me up!” shouted DigDig. He charged in, shovel up and ready to swing. Scars and War Cloud closed in to cover him as he crossed the short distance to the tree. Each hacked into swinging boughs and strained to give the goblin a clear run.

  DigDig leaped into the air for the final few steps, shovel raised for a downward thrust into the trunk at its base. He let out his mightiest shout as he made contact.

  The shovel chipped off a small strip of bark. A thick root snapped out of the ground in a curling motion to swat him aside. He tumbled away with a grunt.

  Scars and War Cloud kept fighting with the boughs. Yargol continued his assault of wind, steadily stripping all but the strongest wood. With nothing better to do, Teryn darted in under the tree’s reach to help DigDig up and out of harm’s way. “Are you alright?” she asked, but he stood well enough that she didn’t need an answer. He had other things on his mind.

  “What the hell? Why didn’t it work?” DigDig frowned at his shovel.

  “You already knew it doesn’t hurt people any more than an ordinary shovel,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t hurt anything living?”

  “That’s stupid! Digs up grass and roots just fine. Grass is alive. Magic is stupid. Ought’a find a shop and sell this stupid thing.”

  “We just went over that,” shouted Shady Tooth. She stayed at Yargol’s side in case any new danger came his way. Like Teryn, she wasn’t equipped for fighting big targets of living wood. None of them were except Yargol. Scars and War Cloud looked ready to back off. Thankfully, the tree didn’t move out of place. Its reach was limited. Away from the fight, Teryn saw it clearer than the rest of her friends.

  “No, DigDig, you’re right,” Teryn realized. “Go after the base of the tree. Dig up the ground around the roots. It’s not like it has legs. We can’t hack it down like this but maybe you can uproot it. Scars, War Cloud, keep fighting!”

  “Well, shit,” Scars grunted. He’d been about to give up, but at her call he stayed in, swatting at the boughs with his sword and trying to deflect them with his shield. Every near-miss still left him scraped up by branches. War Cloud suffered the same predicament. “Can’t your goddess do anything to help?”

  “This could get worse. I don’t want to waste her power on shots in the dark,” War Cloud answered. He took a heavy blow against the shoulder, but stayed on his feet. “Give me a weak spot and I’ll try for it.”

  DigDig rushed through the clear space between them, charging in with his shovel up like a spear. Rather than leaping again, he chose the same distance to plunge his shovel into the damp ground. As in the battle, the earth rippled from the point of impact, but this time it drove straight forward and up. Grass and earth exploded in a trench to the base of the tree, exposing deep roots and an unnaturally dark color to the bared ground.

  Roots bent and reached for deeper earth. Like the ground, they seemed dark and strange. DigDig thrust and pulled with his shovel to tear up more earth around the tree. Writhing roots grasped for shelter now out of reach. Most were thinner than they should be, flexible and oily—like tentacles.

  “Scars,” Teryn called out. She came in closer, risking the reach of the boughs but her friends had the tree well-occupied. “It needs to anchor.”

  “I see,” he replied. He looked to War Cloud and nodded before waving Shady Tooth in. If nothing else, the crew boasted an abundance of physical strength. Together they waded into the pit left in DigDig’s wake to hack and tear at every exposed root. The appendages severed easier than the boughs. Teryn joined in, finding her sword up to the task.

  DigDig kept working. Yargol continued his spell to weaken the tree’s counterattacks. Only a short minute of trudging labor and fighting later, more than half the tree was exposed and cut short of its roots.

  Scars waved Yargol in to cover DigDig as the goblin worked his way around the opposite side. “It’s got nothing to grab onto here,” Scars explained. “Soon as it’s free on the other side, we knock this thing over. Ready?”

  The pit left by DigDig didn’t have much of a slope at the base of the tree. Only a couple of the crew could fit. The others chose sides, ready to move when DigDig plunged his shovel into the ground for the final tear. Earth burst into the air on the other side of the tree, leaving roots grasping for support. The rest of the crew rushed in hard, practically tackling the tree trunk from below and pushing with all their collective might to tear it free.

  Sickly lurching sounds rewarded their efforts as more roots lost their grip. Motion from the tree itself followed. With a collective heave of effort, the warriors sent the tree tumbling over onto the ground, roots and boughs flailing alike as it came down. Mud flew up from beneath the trunk to splatter all four companions.

  “Ugh! Gross!” Teryn exclaimed. “This smells awful.”

  “The soil is corrupted,” said War Cloud. He held one arm out to his side to push Teryn and Scars away. “Back. Back!”

  They moved. War Cloud pulled the greatsword off his back, bringing on the golden glow of Dastia’s power. By its light, the others saw what he saw: a sickly, fleshy underside to the base of the tree trunk, utterly unnatural and pulsating rapidly. War Cloud didn’t hesitate. He leveled his blade and drove it in with a furious roar.

  The whole tree thrashed wildly as if in pain. That golden glow from his blade spread over the base of the trunk, burning away its interior. Within heartbeats, the motion stopped. The tree stiffened and lay as still as any other. The glow faded away. War Cloud jerked his sword free as ashes spilled from the interior of the trunk.

  He stepped back and stared at the pit. Dark and wet soil surrounded them all. “I think we’ve found the spot. Let’s clear it out.”

  “The digging is easy, but we’ll need help clearing the tree,” said Scars. He looked around the rest of the grove with a wary eye. “We should probably check some of the other trees, too. Might not be only one problem here. At least we know how to deal with ‘em now.”

  “Do not,” Shady Tooth huffed. “Do not say you’re going to hire someone.”

  “No, that’s fine,” said Teryn. “Scars doesn’t have to do it. I’ll pay for this one.”

  * * *

  Three more trees carried the same unnatural taint. Every one of them put up a fight.

  Extra help and proper tools made the going easier. Ruck complained about losing fighters from practice, but every orc and bugbear with an axe answered the call to make a quick coin. DigDig and War Cloud did the critical work of detection, uprooting, and purging, but between and after all th
at came plenty of chopping. Without the axes stolen from Barret’s camp, it could not have been done at all.

  Everyone went home with some extra firewood along with their pay. It was gross firewood corrupted by otherworldly powers, but it had to be burned, anyway.

  DigDig excavated the cleared ground with ease. His shovel revealed carved and shaped grey stone beneath the first tree, spreading out to reach the rest in a broad platform covered in runes in between spiraling arms reaching from the center. Yargol used magic to cleanse the first runes of dirt, but then thought better of touching the platform with more spells.

  More help soon arrived, this time in the form of any goblin folk with a decent broom or even a branch still bearing leaves. Some worked with their hands. Some simply blew away the dirt the same way Yargol’s staff might have cleared the whole platform.

  Shady Tooth stood back from the fine work in disgust until it was nearly finished. “You’re all going to be broke by the time this is over.”

  “It’s not like we’re paying gold for everything,” said Teryn. “This is an hour’s labor at most. Easy work. We need it done and we don’t have time to do it all ourselves. Besides, is all the silver we picked up really worth the weight?”

  “In magic bags that never get heavy?” Shady Tooth asked. She let out a sigh. “You’re out of gold already, aren’t you?”

  “No! No. Nah. I’ve still got gold. Some jewels. Stuff.” Teryn looked away nervously. “War Cloud might be running out, though.”

  Shady Tooth shook her head. “Fucking paladins.”

  “Did you have some plan for the money?” Teryn asked. “You seem bothered by all this. Is it more than a difference of opinion?”

  The answer didn’t come easily. It had to escape her frown along with a rumbling sigh. “Don’t tell anyone? I had thoughts about finding a ship somewhere.”

  “A ship?” Teryn blinked.

  “Theralda hates us. None of the neighboring lands are much better. All this nonsense could spread. Even if Dostin falls and whoever comes next condemns all his bullshit and exposes his crimes, all that hate is still there. All those feelings that drove it won’t go away. Who’s to say whoever comes after Dostin will be an improvement? It’s not like our people are always better, either. You saw it in the dungeon. Morons set themselves up as petty warlords all the time among the goblin folk just like humans.