by Jenna Grey
They had passed through the main trading area by this time and were in narrower side tunnels lined with small cave houses, cut from the rock, on either side. This led it turn to larger tunnels, more sombre and lined only with torches. The railway track that the dwarves had once used to ferry the ore backwards and forwards still lay rusted under their feet. These tunnels Lily did find claustrophobic, and she was finding the air just a little too thick to be comfortable. Gertrude was getting restless too, snorting and bucking from side to side.
“Is it much further?” Lily asked.
“It’s a fur as it wants ter be,” Nob said, a little waspishly.
It was only another couple of minutes before they found themselves emerging into an enormous cavern, the roof so far above them that it was lost in darkness. The walls glittered with the reflected light of a million stars, not precious gems, but quartz crystal, that caught the light from the hundreds of torches and candles that burnt brightly in every corner of the vast space.
Lily just stopped in her tracks and stared at the spectacle before her, dazzled by its sheer absurdity. The whole cavern was filled with hobs and various other creatures, a total madhouse of sights and sounds, too much to take in all at once: the court of King Grendel.
To be fair it looked a lot less like a court than a den of thieves or feyfolk in need of psychiatric care… which in fact it almost certainly was. The whole place was a madness of chattering, laughing swearing, singing, dancing and cavorting creatures of all kinds, interspersed with huge piles of goods, ranging from trunks and chests to musical instruments, weapons and livestock. A pig with four piglets was running riot in the middle of the room, being chased by a very fat female hob, who was brandishing a massive cleaver. Several fights were going on in various parts of the room, and Lily was pretty certain she spotted a couple of corpses amongst the sleeping forms, who were draped over pieces of furniture like some kind of modern art.
And as they walked in, the entire assembly fell totally silent, apart from the odd rumbling snore, burp or fart. Lily felt all eyes on them, and she winced, shrinking back into her cloak and wishing to high heaven that someone would say something.
Before them was a great throne, and on it was Grendel, a giant of a hobgoblin, larger even than Mawgum, surrounded by a bevy of what Lily supposed were hobgoblin beauties, all draped around his throne in various alluring positions, ever attentive to the needs of their semi-conscious Lord and Master. Grendel sat slumped on his massive throne, legs splayed, head drooping on his chest, a vast goblet of wine, spilling its contents onto his great meaty thigh. He was the ugliest looking brute that Lily had ever set eyes on. His entire face and body were covered in piercings, nose, ear, lip and nipple rings, enough hardware to send any metal detector into serious overload. The crown he wore had slipped down over one eye, only being held up by one hob-sized ear.
Nob ran forwards and gave a low, sweeping bow.
“We got some visitors here, Boss, High She they is, and they wants to see yer on urgent business.”
There was a vague stirring from the throne, and Grendel opened one bloodshot eye, peering at Nob and trying to focus.
“Whosat?” he asked.
“They wants ter see yer, Boss,” Nob said, jumping up onto the platform and drawing so close to the King that he was standing between his legs, his nose almost pressed against Grendel’s crotch, peering up into the King’s enormous nostrils.
“Wosat?” Grendel asked again, the word barely crawling out of his lips. He peered down at Nob suspiciously, still with only one eye open, giving a thunderous burp.
Connor tossed a look at Lily, and she didn’t need to read his mind to see that he was as worried as she was. He gave an exasperated sigh and took matters into his own hands, leading Gertrude forwards and pulling back his shoulders to speak.
It had been quiet before, but now a terrible silence fell over the entire assembly, that almost made Lily’s ears ring. They knew, every one of them that terrible news indeed was on its way if two members of the High Seelie Court had come to bring it to them.
Connor drew in a breath and said:
“There is no way to break this to you gently, Majesty… Ahriman, King of all the Djinn has declared war on all of feykind. He is leading an army towards Tunneltown at this very moment, an army so vast that it will wipe away anything and everything that stands in its way.”
Connor paused for a few moments to allow that to permeate into Grendel’s few working braincells and waited for a reaction. Nob and the other members of the court seemed to have understood the gravity of the situation far more quickly than their monarch had. He just sat there staring blankly at them for a moment, the last of the wine spilling from his goblet as his arm slipped off the support.
Connor ploughed on regardless.
“Your Majesty, you need to take steps to defend your people, bring them into the city to protect them.”
There were murmurings from the court now, whispers and a few gasps and moans.
“How does yer know all this then, Master?” Nob asked, and there was no levity in his voice now. He stood stock still, trembling just a little. Connor drew in a breath, and held it for a moment, then said:
“I am so sorry to bring you this news, but prepare yourself for the worst. A band of goblins, under Ahriman’s rule, have butchered your kin to the north of here, a whole village, all of them dead, every male, female and youngling. I am so very sorry.”
There was a response then, a low murmur, of unintelligible mumblings from the whole assembly and the underlying sentiment was sheer blind panic.
“Knockwood village yer mean?” Nob asked. “Not Knockwood. Me brother and his family live there,” Nob said, his voice breaking.
“I am so sorry,” Lily said. “They’re all dead. We couldn’t stop to bury them. We had to get here to warn you.”
Nob, began openly weeping, whipping his hat from his head and burying his face in it. And there were sobs and moans from the assembly now, open weeping and wails of misery. Connor and Lily left them to their grief for as long as they could, but Ahriman wasn’t going to wait for them to get over their pain. It was to his advantage to strike fast and hard to make sure they didn’t have time to get provisions for a siege and get everyone inside the city. And he could strike at any moment.
Grendel still seemed totally oblivious, his eyelids drooping and his head dropping to his chest. Nob, still sniffing and hiccuping sobs from time to time, jumped up onto the dais and grabbed a hold of Grendel’s huge nose ring, giving it a tug and waking Grendel with a start. Grendel blinked himself back to semi consciousness, and glared down at Nob. He seemed to finally realise that there was someone else in the room and they were talking to him.
“The same goblins killed a friend of ours. Someone that you all know,” Connor continued, indicating the large bundle lying on the floor behind Gertrude. He wasn’t even bothering to address Grendel now, just generally speaking anyone who was sober or sane enough to listen.
Lily could see that Connor was getting angry now, frustrated by the worthless lump of lard that dared to sit on the throne and call himself King. A riot was going to break out if Grendel didn’t take control of the rapidly panicking assembly soon.
“Wos he sayin’?” Grendel asked Nob, pushing aside a comely hob wench the size of a baby hippo away as she tried to mop his brow.
Connor, furious now, took out his knife, and striding forwards, cut through the ropes holding Mawgum’s body tied into the tarpaulin; it flopped open, spilling its terrible contents into the dust.
There were screams and shouts of horror from everyone in the room and Grendel finally took notice. He stood up shakily and tottered forwards, staring vacantly down at Mawgum’s body.
“Mawgum?” he asked, dropping like a rock and kneeling beside the bloody body. Then he burst into tears and began wailing, terrible grief stricken wails, that reverberated around the cavern, drowning out all other sounds. He wailed for several minutes, and when he f
inally stopped he gave Connor a desperate, questioning look.
“How’s this happen? Who did this?” he asked, between sobs, stretching his linguistic ability to its furthest limit.
“The Shadow King, the King of the Djinn,” Connor repeated, “and he’s heading this way with an army vast enough to wipe every hob from the face of the world.” Grendel pulled himself up, still blubbing, and palming snotty tears from his face, wobbling back to his throne and plopping back down on it. “You need to prepare for war, Your Majesty, your people are in great danger. The Shadow King has already taken Midgard, and now has his sights set on all of Elphame. Guim Athar has already fallen, your own people have been massacred.”
“But… I don’t understand,” he said.
That was clear enough, the Hobgoblin King’s brains had been well and truly scrambled, through drink and disuse. Connor looked down at Mawgum’s body and said:
“We shouldn’t discuss this over poor Mawgum’s remains. Word must be sent to his sister so that she can arrange a burial for him. In the meantime perhaps we could give him back some of his dignity and find somewhere peaceful for his body to rest.”
Grendel just stared at Connor for a few moment’s while his one working braincell caught up with the situation and nodded vacantly. He ordered two of the larger hobs to drag Mawgum’s body away.
“You lot sod off,” he bawled, waving his arm around to encompass everyone in the room. “We got important stuff to discuss.”
There was a general rumble of disapproval and complaint from the assembly, but some of them reluctantly began to move towards the door, taking with them as much food and drink as they could carry. Guards, the strangest assortment of military personnel that Lily could ever have imagined, began to usher the more reticent of them out of the room, by prodding them in the bum with their spears, picking up those that were unconscious, and carting them out bodily. A few protested, not wanting to be left out of anything and were forcibly removed in none too gentle a fashion, until the entire room was cleared of fey, leaving behind just the sow and her piglets and a few sundry farmyard animals wandering listlessly around the room.
Grendel had fallen into a morose silence. Lily stepped forwards, climbed the dais and tentatively patted Grendel’s massive forearm, wrinkling her nose up at the stink emanating from him and trying not to gag.
“It was very quick,” she said, “he didn’t know anything about it, and we killed the goblins that did it.”
“We gave them a very nasty end as well,” Connor added.
“Howzat?” he asked, cheering up considerably at the mention of violent revenge.
“Trust me, they paid dearly for their treachery,” Connor continued. “But we need to speak of other things now. My wife and I have to get to the Winter Court to warn King Elidor. If he sends an army against Ahriman, they will all be massacred. Ahriman is too strong. We need you to send an emissary with us to announce us to King Elidor and Queen Adeline ‒ introduce us to them.”
Grendel gave Connor and Lily a perfunctory examination, from head to toe and tossed them a less than friendly look. Lily supposed she could understand that. For all he knew Lily and Connor could be evil incarnate, lying through their teeth and up to something nefarious. She guessed that Grendel hadn’t managed to stay King of Tunneltown for so long by being a trusting soul.
“Who are you again?” he asked.
“I am Lord Connor McAleister and this is my wife, Lily. We are amongst the last of our kind, the Tuatha Dé Danaan, and we are the only ones who can stop the Shadow King.”
“You from the old lot then, the old gods?” Nob asked, thoroughly excited at the prospect, and doing a fair impersonation of a One Direction fan, getting a one on one with Harry Styles.
“We are.”
“But there aint none of them left,” Grendel said as sober now as he was ever going to be.
“And yet, here we are,” Connor replied. “Grendel, you need to call all of your people in, bring them here into the safety of your tunnels and prepare for war. I believe that you can hold out indefinitely here… at least for a very long while, to give us time to defeat the Shadow King. Dig in and keep your people safe.”
“I can do that,” Grendel said, his face suddenly becoming grave and almost betraying some kind of intelligence. He gave Lily and Connor another thoughtful look and said, “You two must be tired and hungry. Nob, you take these two younglings. to a nice room and get them settled in. It’s too late tonight ter set out to the Citadel, yer can start off first thing in the mornin’.”
Chapter Twelve.
Lily couldn’t say that she’d be sorry to get some sleep, they had spent a great deal of their energy fighting the goblins, and she could barely stay upright. She was a little bit dubious about what sort of accommodation they might be offered, but right at that moment would have slept on a pile of sacks ‒ it wouldn’t be the first time. Hobs began trooping back in and settling themselves down again, and Lily realised that most of them actually slept here in the throne room. One of them pulled back the heavy brocade curtains of what must have been the King’s bed, a great four poster of an affair, carved from solid oak, and sturdy enough to take the weight of several generously proportioned hobs ‒ which is exactly what it was doing. There were a number of hobs, of all shapes and sizes sleeping on it, limbs dangling over the edge, bodies lying one on top of the other like one huge, very ugly puppy pile.
Nob beckoned Lily and Connor towards the door.
“Old Nob’s sorry to hear about old Mawgum,” he said, as he led them through. “I liked him. Did me a lot of good turns did old Mawgum. Yer say yer topped the bludgers what did it?”
“Well and truly topped them, Nob. We gave them the death they deserved.”
Nob stopped in his tracks and gave them a wary inspection, raising one cautious eyebrow.
“Then yer all right in my books. Come on, let’s find yer a bed.”
Nob led them through into a small side chamber, which although cluttered and not exactly Home and Gardens, was at least warm and comfy. It did look rather like a hobgoblin version of Tutankhamen’s tomb, with odd bits of furniture, boxes and weaponry lying in haphazard piles around the place, and there was the strong whiff of body odour and age about the place. Still it was a bed for the night.
“Well, that went a lot better than I thought it would,” Connor said, once Nob had bounced out of the room “At least Grendel’s going to help us.”
Lily perched on the end of the enormous bed, and pulled her boots off, her legs dangling over the edge and her feet not touching the floor. Her toes, which had been frozen solid had soon got life back into them once they got into the warmth of the city, but now they were stinging and painful and so were her fingers and nose. If she’d been human she would certainly have had frostbite. The High She could even heal wounds that would have been fatal to mortals relatively quickly. The wound that Connor had recently sustained would certainly have killed a human, but with a little bit of healing and Sawgum’s poultice, he was more or less healed completely now. If a fey managed to avoid accidents or murder, then they could potentially live for thousands and thousands of years, perhaps almost indefinitely, especially if they used strong magic to bolster their own natural healing abilities. She had been so lost in her musings that she hadn’t even noticed that Connor was just sitting there, staring into space. She gave him a little nudge and he started, then turned and smiled at her.
“A penny for them,” Lily said. And she saw his thoughts before he even had time to give voice to his answer. He was deeply troubled, and so very weary.
The smile slipped away.
“I was just thinking that we still have to get to the Citadel and there are bound to be more goblin raiding parties between here and there. I don’t really want to get anyone else killed,” he said.
“We don’t have any choice. We can’t just march up to the Citadel gates and declare ourselves. We need Grendel’s escort.”
“I just don’t wa
nt to get any more people killed, that’s all. Mawgum’s death is our burden to bear. It’s a hard thing to live with.”
“You don’t have to tell me, I have more than enough burdens of my own to cope with,” Lily said.
The terrible image of Claire’s rotting corpse, the grotesque remains of her mouth speaking Ahriman’s words filled her mind and she felt bile rise in her throat. She forced her mind away from it, and it was a blessed relief to see Claire’s loathsome carcass slip from her mind. Claire’s death was her burden to bear, and for all she knew Kieran was dead as well. Hecate had said that he was all right, but that was then, and anything could have happened between then and now. If she just knew that Kieran was all right then she would feel so much better.
“I’m sure he’s okay,” Connor said, closing his hand over hers, taking her thoughts from her. “I know how worried you are about him. We could try and find him if you like, search for him across the worlds, the way we located the holdall.”
“Can we do that, from here?” Lily asked, the idea hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Of course, it’s harder to bridge the world’s, but like you said we’re the old race and we can do things that other fey can’t do.”
Lily let out a little moan of exasperation.
“But that’s just it, Connor, you seem to have an inbuilt knowledge of magic, even though you’ve spent your life so far trapped between worlds, you know so much more than I do. I’m hopeless at it,” she said, flopping back on the bed, her legs still dangling over the edge. Connor hoisted himself back on the bed and lay beside her resting up on his elbow so that he could look down at her.
“That’s not true,” he said. “You just need more faith in yourself.”
When she looked up into his eyes, for just a moment, all of her fears and miseries faded into nothingness, and all she could feel was love. She reached up, stroking the smooth silk of his cheek. No sign of a beard, not even scrappy fluff, like most of the fey males.
