The Goblin Corps (25 page)

“Of course,” Katim agreed, struggling not to gnash her teeth. There went her excuses for getting away from the damn orc
and
for keeping watch over the kobold, in one fell swoop.

Trolls believed in no higher power—no gods, no spirits, no Ancestors—but she couldn’t help but wonder, as Gork vanished over the nearest rise, if she hadn’t offended
something.

It didn’t take Gork long, since finding a good spot for a campsite in an open field isn’t an entirely challenging prospect. He selected the area around a large tree some few hundred yards off the road. The grass was dying as winter solidified its hold on Kirol Syrreth—thank the Stars it hadn’t started snowing on the plains yet!—but remained thick enough to sleep on comfortably. Yes, this place would be perfect; he—

“Hello, Gork.”

“Ibriudra! Birri irugu!”

The kobold jumped, even though he instantly recognized the voice and the gibberish both.

“Ebonwind. Where…? Oh, of course.” He retreated a few steps so he could look up into the tree without straining his neck.

Sure enough, there the dark elf was, sitting comfortably in the branches. His gray cloak hung down in folds, flapping gently in the wind, and his peculiar familiar stood perched on a spindly bough.

“You building a nest up there?” Gork asked.

“I was under the impression,” the dakórren said mildly, “that we had an appointment.”

Gork snorted. “There’s not much to tell you so far. Why don’t you flutter off before the rest of the squad starts to wonder what’s keeping me, and come back when I’ve got something worthwhile?”

“But Gork, I’ve seen the troop movements along Tiehmon’s Way. Would you have me believe they’re sightseeing?”

“Damn near. It’s a training exercise, Ebonwind. It’s not big enough to interest Dororam, which means it’s not big enough to interest the elves, which means it’s not big enough for them to react to, which means you can’t react to them reacting.”

“Tell me, Gork, do you always speak at such oblique angles?”

The kobold shrugged. “Call it a bad case of non-Euclidean grammar. Now go away so I can report back without being hanged, burned, beheaded, and castrated for treason.”

“I must say, I’m disappointed, Gork. I do hope you’ll have something more interesting for me the next time I make the effort of visiting you.” With that he was gone, a single leaf, slowly falling from the tree, the only sign of his passing.

“Oh, sure,” Gork muttered to himself as he headed back toward the highway. “Like it’s my fault King Morthûl and General Falchion haven’t ordered the army to gather around a campfire and sing songs. Dragonshit…”

“What the fuck took you so long?” Cræosh raged as he approached. “Shit, I could’ve found us a nice steamy spring in the tundra by now! What the fuck’s out
there
to worry about? The grass too sharp for you?”

“You really wanna know, Cræosh? I had to relieve myself. That enough detail for you, or did you want shape, color, and texture?”

The orc actually backed down. “Well, I was just wondering, is all. It took you forever.…”

Gimmol snorted from behind them. “That’s probably because he forgot how to do it. Are you going to be okay next time, Gork, or should I give you written instructions?”

“You pestilent, mewling little—”

“Fall in!”
Shreckt, standing ramrod straight at about ten feet in the air, snarled down at the sullen squad. “All right, you assholes, that’s just about enough! Do it on your own damn time! Gork!”

“Sir, yes sir, yes—”

“Shove a squirrel in it! I’m not in the mood. Did you find us a campsite?”

“Absolutely!”

“Then why aren’t we there yet?”

With a backward glare at Gimmol, the kobold led them through the gently waving grasses.

If he noticed Katim’s stare at all, he failed to recognize the gleam of suspicion within.

An invisible audience watched as the motley assemblage spread out a variety of sleeping rolls and blankets, many chewing on dried meats better left unidentified. Silently, somehow striding
atop
the blades of grass rather than bending them, the unseen spy approached—only to freeze, still some distance away, as the troll’s nostrils flared.

No nearer, then, not now.

The watcher’s attentions skipped over the kobold, wrapped and snoring in a burlap sack he’d made into a sleeping bag. This one he already knew.

The doppelganger, the ogre, and the bugbear were less than nothing; the one was too unobservant to notice if anything went amiss, the others too stupid to act on it.

The orc was a bit more alert, and suspicious by his very nature, but so long as they were careful, he’d not prove a threat.

The gremlin…Something about the gremlin rang false. He was a joke, plain and simple. He wasn’t stealthy, he wasn’t quick, and there was some question as to whether he knew which end of a sword was the dangerous one. All the worst human and elven stereotypes of the goblin races, rolled up into one strawberry-colored package.

But there
had
to be more to him! This gremlin had been assigned to a
Demon Squad!
Best of the best, and all that rot, even allowing for the usual exaggerations of propaganda.
Something
about this gremlin made him squad material, and that unknown, if nothing else, made him a possible threat.

Potentially, the imp was the biggest danger. His spells, his abilities, his diabolical nature all gave him a decent chance of penetrating any subterfuge he encountered. But he was also the squad’s training officer, which hopefully meant he’d not be accompanying them on any future missions.

And then, there was the troll.

An invisible fist clenched tight. The damned hyena-faced, fur-coated bitch could ruin everything! If any one of the misbegotten assemblage were likely to detect him at exactly the wrong time, puzzle out what he was really doing, it was apt to be her.

She was already suspicious, of that he was certain.

“Ih? Niva ith ira. Adaba birru?”

“Yes, my little friend,” Ebonwind whispered, voice too low for even the troll’s sensitive ears. “I couldn’t agree more. Doing it now would attract too much attention though—and besides, she
may
just want in on the deal.”

“Diburi,” the tiny creature avowed firmly.

“Then
we’ll kill her. We can afford a little patience.”

“Ib eyda.”

They awoke the next morning to find that someone had shit in Gimmol’s hat.

The gremlin never could prove who did it, but given the previous day’s arguments—and Gork’s comment, over breakfast, that “I guess
someone
didn’t need any instructions”—no one had any real doubt.

Shreckt had ordered Gimmol to store the thing until they reached the River Krom, where he could wash it thoroughly. The others had reacted primarily to laugh uproariously at the various spiky tufts that the gremlin called “hair,” heretofore concealed beneath the hat. All in all, not Gimmol’s best day.

It got a little better, however, on the
following
morning, as the entire squad awakened to the kobold’s anguished screams. At some point during the night, someone had taken the thinnest of his wire lock picks and twisted them together into a useless knot.

Again, no one doubted who the guilty party might’ve been. But what Gork and the others couldn’t figure out was
how
he did it; those picks never left the kobold’s side, remaining in one of his many pockets even while he slept. And Gimmol just wasn’t that stealthy. The mystery kept Gork brooding for the duration of their journey—which also had the unexpected but welcome side effect of heading off any further salvoes in this private little war.

And finally, after a march that lasted several lifetimes, the Demon Squad arrived at the River Krom where it emerged from the icy waters of the Sea of Tears.

The city of Sularaam sat on a small island in the river’s headwaters. Ingress to the city was made possible solely by boat or by bridge, and those bridges were monitored
very
carefully. As the squad set foot on the eastern span, several of the ubiquitous black-garbed soldiers stepped forward, swords and halberds held at the ready.

“State your business in Sularaam,” commanded a droopy-eyed fellow with a shaggy mustache.

Cræosh grimaced and Jhurpess fingered the butt of his club. But Shreckt floated into view and said, “Demon Squad. We’re to report to Castle Eldritch.”

And the guards stepped aside to let them pass.

“Jhurpess not understand,” the bugbear confided quietly, falling into step beside the orc.

“Gee,
there’s
a shocker,” Cræosh said. “You don’t understand? I’m flabbergasted. Tell Shreckt to stop the march so I can lie down.” Then, as the furry creature stepped toward the imp, Cræosh yanked him back by the collar. “Never the fuck you mind. What don’t you understand this time?”

“Guards here are nicer than guards at Timas Khoreth.”

“Not nicer, hairball. More professional.” The orc gazed approvingly at the great walls, the structured and orderly streets beyond. The armor worn by the patrolling guards was spit-shined, and several keeps stood within the city’s center. “Timas Khoreth may have a garrison bigger’n my daddy’s middle leg, but Sularaam’s actually a
military
city.

“Um, you ain’t gonna take two steps in there and collapse again, are you?”

“No. Jhurpess not do that anymore.”

“Good.”

There was a brief pause. “What ‘Sularaam’ mean?”

They’d barely reached the far side of the bridge when the carriage appeared. Hauled by four horses so pristinely white that snow would’ve stained them, it traveled so smoothly that it seemed to float over the cobblestones. The windows were curtained, preventing even an ephemeral glimpse of who or what lay within. The driver, too, was hidden, wrapped in a shroudlike brown robe, a corpse awaiting interment in some musty crypt.

Cræosh found his teeth clenching. He heard an almost subvocal hiss from the troll and saw the fur on her neck standing up.

“You feel it too?” he asked.

Katim nodded once, tightly. “Magic. Listen!”

Listen he did, and his hackles rose farther still. He heard the low roar of the crowd around, the muttering of his companions, the methodical whispering of the river—but the carriage itself rolled along as silent as a fog. If the great, gold-plated wheels made even the slightest thump, Cræosh sure as hell couldn’t detect it.

“This,” he murmured, “is less than good.”

And then Belrotha stepped forward, her gargantuan hip bone knocking Cræosh completely out of her way. “Me see this before,” she told them. “Queen Anne use it to find me in Itho.” She frowned briefly as a thought, starving but determined, crawled across the open expanse that was her mind. “Hope Itho doing okay without me,” she pouted. “Many ogres in Itho stupid.”

“Embarrassing, isn’t it?” Shreckt chuckled from atop the giant figure. “The ogre’s smarter than you are. We’re
in Sularaam!
Who
else
would’ve sent the carriage?”

Cræosh scowled. “Just being cautious, sir. You never know—”

“You
never know. The rest of us know at least once in a while. Now shut up and
fall in
!
“

They stood side by side in perfect military stance (the occasional glower at the tiny sergeant notwithstanding) as the carriage drifted to a smooth halt before them. The brown-robed driver immediately dropped—flowed?—to the ground and bowed.

“Greetings and good day to you, sirs and ladies. On behalf of Her Majesty, Queen Anne, I bid you welcome to Sularaam and wish you only the most enjoyable—”

“Stow it, lock it, shove it. Where’s Queen Anne already?”

Katim grunted in exasperation. The rest of the squad—Shreckt included, for a change—stared at the orc in slack-jawed horror.

“Diplomacy,” the troll rasped at him. “D—I—P—L…”

But the robed figure chuckled, the sound strangely muffled within the depths of its hood. “I take no offense, friend troll. Indeed, I was warned that some of your companions might prove impatient. If you will all kindly step inside, then, I shall happily take you to Her Majesty.”

Cræosh looked askance at the carriage. “What are you, stupid?” he asked.

But again, Belrotha pushed past them, pausing only briefly as she reached the carriage. Then, with a sigh that resembled nothing so much as an earthquake on tiptoes, she pulled the door open.

The entire squad gathered around, gobsmacked at the opulent chamber.

“Me not like this,” the ogre said to them, “but me do it before.”

“Jhurpess want to go home,” the bugbear wailed.

“How the fuck?” Cræosh asked.

“Has anyone here actually
heard
of grammar?” Gimmol lamented.

“I believe I can answer that,” the robed driver said—responding, presumably, to someone other than the gremlin. “As I’ve heard Her Majesty explain it…
Ahem!
‘A simple matter of the bending of space around a fixed position. The magic creates a confined area in which the
actual
size is not limited by the restrictions or the shape of anything else around it, although the
apparent
size remains subject to natural laws.’”

The entire squad blinked in unison.

“Oh,” said Gork.

“Yeah,” Cræosh added. “What he said.”

The imp, however, had had quite enough. “All right, quit staring, pick your jaws up off your damn toes, and get in the carriage! Queen Anne’s waiting for us, and I, for one, do not intend to be the one to explain why we’re late!” And just for emphasis, he sent a crackling blue bolt of lightning from his palm to slam, sizzling and popping, into the dirt by their feet.

There was something of a bottleneck as Belrotha and Jhurpess attempted to leap through the door at the same instant. As they
did
finally squeeze through, and as the bugbear resumed breathing on his own after only a few moments of treatment, there were no further problems.

Robe, as Cræosh had already come to think of him, watched as the various soldiers planted themselves in whichever chair they found most comfortable (and assuming they were large enough to remove whichever of their companions had chosen the same seat first). Then he said, “If you require anything during your ride, just pull on that rope there.” He gestured toward a thick, knotted cord that hung down from the ceiling directly by the thick wooden door.