The Goblin Corps (10 page)

“You’re the best Hrark could do, huh? I’ll have to have a few words with that little puke.
And
with the guards who tossed you in here in the first place. Ooh, have I got some plans for them!”

It was not the hobgoblin speaking. A new voice, then—a stranger. But the kobold just couldn’t find the strength in him to sit up and see who the newcomer might be.

“Well, you’ll have to do. Too late to find a replacement. I’m going to assume you’ve got your uses, though I’m buggered if I can see ‘em from here. Better prove me right, though. Else…”

Gork weakly twisted to one side, hoping to catch a glimpse of the speaker in his peripheral vision, and encountered, instead, the charred corpse of the hobgoblin who had attacked him.

The proper response, Gork decided, was to throw up again. Which he did. Twice, just to be sure he’d covered all salient points.

“Great. All right, let’s get that head dealt with. You’ve got a meeting to attend.”

Gork felt a sudden pressure on the back of his skull, followed by yet another burst of pain. With no small amount of gratitude, he allowed himself, once more, to pass out.

It was perhaps two hours after the troll’s arrival when Cræosh’s well of patience ran dry. With a grunt of irritation, the orc slammed a fist into the wall behind him, knocking a loose chunk of brick to the ground. “That,” he told his startled companions, “is it! I’m sick of this shit! If I wanted to stand around with my dick in my hands, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with you all watching.” Once more gathering his traveling pack, he pivoted toward the nearest street.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Gimmol called nervously, nursing the large bruise spreading across his jaw. “I mean, they’re going to expect us all to be here, and if you’ve gone, they might…”

The gremlin’s voice suffocated and died beneath the sheer malevolence of Cræosh’s glare, though his jaw kept moving for some seconds afterward. With a nod of approval, the orc took two steps toward the road, only to come within a hairsbreadth of colliding with a brown-haired, dull-featured human.

“Watch it, you idiot!” the orc shouted, one fist raised to smash the obstruction from his path.

“Idiot?” the human asked with just the faintest accent. “Me? I’m not the one walking away from his assignment, am I?”

Cræosh snarled—but only a little, since the man did have a point. “Are you supposed to be our leader, then?”

“Perhaps I should be. But no. I’m a simple soldier, although maybe not as simple as some. I—”

“All right, you maggots, fall in! That means line your asses up! Now!”

Cræosh was irritated, impatient, and rapidly coming to despise the very notion of the Demon Squad. On the other hand, his mother had raised him a sensible orc—one who knew that you
never
argue with a disembodied voice. They never wind up attached to anything pleasant.

The troll already stood in the courtyard, the human having stepped up beside her, albeit not
too
close. Still grumbling, Cræosh moved to join them. Maybe now, they’d find out…

An enormous crashing sounded behind them, followed immediately by the bugbear’s shrieking voice. “Red gremlin won’t hurt Jhurpess now! Red gremlin won’t hurt Jhurpess!”

Every face, even the troll’s, went slack in shock. Jhurpess stood over the prone and bleeding body of the gremlin, Gimmol Phicereune, slamming his enormous cudgel again and again onto the prostrate form.

“What the fuck?” Cræosh whispered to the courtyard at large. The human shook his head slowly, and the troll continued to gawk.

“Stop!”
The voice thundered between the buildings, somehow intensifying rather than fading each time it echoed. As though lifted by an unseen hand, the giant club—Jhurpess dangling from the narrow end—rose a dozen feet into the air. For a moment it hung, the bugbear swinging gently in the breeze, and then it dropped like a—well, like a giant club. Bruised only slightly but shaken to the core, Jhurpess rose, casting a suspicious glance at both the gremlin and the club, and brushed himself off. Sullenly, his weapon dragging behind him, he moved to join the others in line.

“What in the name of the Ancestors was
that?!”
Cræosh demanded as the bugbear came up beside him.
They’ve assigned me a fuckin’ lunatic! I didn’t know bugbears
had
lunatics!

Jhurpess stared at the orc as though
he
were the crazy one. “Cræosh not know?” he asked.

“Know
what?!
I swear, I’m gonna start breaking people if—”

“Bright!” the bugbear whispered fearfully. “Poison!”

It was the troll who picked up on it first. “Nature,” she growled.

Cræosh pondered that. “Huh?” he finally rebutted.

“Bugbears live…in forests. Hunt there. Bright…fur or coloration…”

Cræosh finally understood. “…is often a sign of poison,” he concluded for her. He turned back to the bugbear. “You,” he told the hairy creature, “are
really
fucking weird.”

“Shut up!”
the voice demanded.

The orc grinned slightly. “I was wondering when he’d get around to that,” he whispered to the troll. She just shook her head.

Slowly, as though trapped in quicksand, the gremlin began to drag himself forward. Blood caked his head and the side of his face, and edges of broken collarbone protruded through torn flesh. Still, the agonized creature did his best to obey the orders shouted down at them by…whatever.

He’s determined
, Cræosh noted silently, his opinion of the gremlin rising a tiny notch.
Gotta give the little shit that much.

The garish red armor grew slowly brighter, as though the sun itself were staring at it, and Cræosh realized that the gremlin had actually begun to glow. Faint at first, barely leaking through mouth and nose, and then brighter, until the little creature was practically incandescent. As the astonished onlookers squinted, bruises faded, gashes pulled themselves shut, and the collarbone shifted back into something resembling its proper state with a sequence of horrible pops. The glow faded, leaving the gremlin to stand before them under his own power—far, perhaps, from the picture of health, but no longer in any immediate danger. His eyes wide, though not quite as large as the bugbear’s, Gimmol took his place at the leftmost end of the line.

“Get in there!”
the spectral voice shouted. Cræosh thought, at first, that the unseen commander must be talking to the gremlin, even though Gimmol had already done just that.

The air rippled. Like a fish leaping from a tranquil pond, a figure appeared before them. Smaller even than the gremlin, and covered in his own collection of fading wounds, he stood for a moment and brushed himself off, as though the teleportation had somehow soiled him. Then, glancing about with far more curiosity than fear, the kobold sauntered over and took up a stance beside the troll. Cræosh noticed with some amusement that the kobold was the only one who had not chosen his place in line based on height, something the others appeared to have done instinctively.

And finally, in a burst of sulfurous smoke, the mysterious officer made his own appearance.

It was all Cræosh could do to swallow his laughter. Dark gray skin covered a gargoyle’s face and form. Two membranous wings sprouted from the creature’s back, and rock-hard talons tipped its digits. Narrow cracks in the stony façade peered from above a draconic muzzle, and a barbed tail scratched idly at the empty air.

It also stood maybe twenty inches tall—although, because it was currently standing in midair, it remained at eye level with the orc.

“My name is Shreckt,” the imp shouted. “And it is my unfortunate duty to turn the sorry lot of you into something vaguely resembling soldiers!”

The tiny demon began to pace, his feet clacking audibly on the nothingness on which he stood. “As of right now,” he continued, “I wouldn’t use any one of you to wipe my ass! But by the time I’m through, you’re all gonna be worth something! You’ll be soldiers, or you’ll be fertilizer, and I’m fine with either!

“Now,” he said, halting and turning to face the group, “before we go any further, let me get this out of the way. Invariably, some dumb fucker decides that, since I’m short, he doesn’t have to listen to me. And that, you looming shits, ain’t gonna cut it. So, any of you think you can take me? Now’s the time to try.”

Cræosh rolled his eyes, despite his complete lack of surprise, when Jhurpess stepped forward.

“Jhurpess can fight little thing,” he announced, hefting his club. “Jhurpess will—”

Jhurpess, however, did nothing but scream as a bolt of lightning burst from the imp’s tiny hand, crackling and sizzling its way down the courtyard, and slammed the bugbear halfway through the nearest wall.

“Anyone else?” Shreckt asked when the roaring, the thunder, and the sounds of falling masonry finally ceased.

Not surprisingly, there were no takers.

“Good.” The imp gestured at Gork. “Help the monkey up.”

“What?” Gork squeaked. “Me? But he—”

Shreckt raised a hand; the kobold immediately hurried over to the bugbear.

Jhurpess’s fur smoldered, and even Gork’s hand on his arm seemed to cause an inordinate amount of pain. Nevertheless, the bugbear struggled to his feet—using Gork primarily as a crutch, nearly shoving the kobold’s head down into his own rib cage in the process.

“All right, then,” the imp continued once the mismatched pair had limped back into line. “Here’s the situation. I tell you to do something, and you do it. That, and that alone, is your life until I say otherwise. You will not speak unless I tell you to. You will not fight unless I tell you to. You will not think—well, that’s probably not much of an issue. You will not eat, sleep, shit unless I tell you to. Any questions?

“Good. Names!”

“Gork!” the kobold piped up immediately.

“Jhurpess,” came weakly, a moment later.

“Gimmol Phicereune,” the gremlin announced next, “and it’s a distinct pleasure—”

Cræosh reached past the human and smacked the gremlin on the back of the head. Gimmol shut up; possibly because he got the hint, possibly because it was all he could do to stay conscious.

“Omb Fezeill,” the human said.

“Cræosh.”

And finally, “T’chakatimlamitilnog, of the…House of Ru.”

Even the imp looked taken aback. “Say that again?”

“T’chakatimlamitilnog,” the troll repeated, snout furrowing in bewilderment.

“Right,” Shreckt said after a moment. “‘Troll’ it is.” His demonic visage swiveled toward Fezeill. “True forms during inspection, soldier.”

For the first time, an actual expression crossed the human’s face. “Is that really necessary?”

The imp’s flinty face actually developed crags as his features scrunched up. “Is that really necessary
what?!”

“Sir!” the man corrected. “Is that really necessary
sir?”

“Yes!”
the imp shrieked.

Slowly, the “human’s” body began to warp. The squad watched intently—some in fascination, some in disgust, and one in outright hatred—as his true form appeared before them. Loathsome white flesh, vaguely akin to a maggot’s, bulged from between segments of a dark gray chitin. The creature’s eyes, protruding hideously from the sides of its head, only added to the insectoid image. Multifaceted, they stared, unblinking; Cræosh found himself confronted by a hundred tiny orcs contained in those alien orbs. A faint lump with gaping nostrils was the closest thing the creature had to a nose, and the mouth was full of jagged ridges made of something akin to bone. Its fingers were clearly built for grasping, for tiny barbs edged the digits from palm to tip.

It was, even for those used to supping with gremlins and fighting with trolls, more than a little repugnant.

“Doppelganger,” Gork grumbled under his breath.

“Better,” Shreckt said. “I expect you to look this way every time I call assembly.” There was silence, then, except for the
tap-tap-tap
of the imp pacing across thin air.

“Gork!”

The kobold, still studying the doppelganger, just about came out of his skin. “What?!” And then, before the imp could draw breath to reprimand, he corrected, “What,
sir?”

“You’ve had some, ah, problems with the local authorities.”

“Yes, sir! You were there, sir!”

“Indeed.” Shreckt scowled. “For better or worse—worse, I expect—you idiots are my charge for the time being. And that means nobody fucks with you except me.”

The imp actually rubbed his hands together. “Now, I’ve got a few
activities
in mind for the soldiers who arrested you. But we need to set an example, Gork. Did you get a good look at the man who accused you in the first place?”

The kobold hesitated a moment. Then, “I wish I had, sir. But I’m afraid not.”

Shreckt’s face fell. “No?”

“No, sir.”

“Not even a glimpse?”

Gork shook his head.

“Drat. All right, then, that’s it for now. You’re billeted in that piece-of-shit building to your left. Between the roaches and the bird droppings, it oughta feel homey enough. Each and every one of you, equipped and ready to move, better be lined up in this courtyard at dawn tomorrow. You,” he added, glaring at the bugbear, “get your ass to the infirmary. I’ll be buggered if I’m healing any more of you myself today, and I expect you in top form in the morning.” With that, and another puff of smoke, he was gone.

Slowly the group dispersed, milling about in various directions. A puzzled and vaguely suspicious expression on his once-more-human face, the doppelganger appeared at Gork’s side.

“Why?”

“Why didn’t I turn you in?” the kobold clarified.

Fezeill nodded.

“Real simple,” Gork told him, his little muzzle twisted into an evil grin. “I don’t
want
you in trouble with Shreckt.”

“You aren’t upset about what happened?”

“I didn’t say that.” Gork’s grin grew wider, revealing jagged, yellowed canines. “You see, I want to deal with you myself.”

The kobold delighted in the feel of Fezeill’s gaze boring into his back as he casually wandered away in search of a bunk that wasn’t
too
disgusting.