The Goblin Corps (34 page)

And of course, it was at that point, with success close enough they could kiss it, that fate had pushed them down and laughed at them.

The unit had been spotted, not by roving orc patrol or trollish scout, but by a rag-clad goatherd following a stray kid over a small rise in the foothills.

For the sin of poor timing, he would have to die; Erik hadn’t cared for the idea, but there was no help for it. They couldn’t allow the Dark Lord to learn that an enemy vanguard had been spotted in his lands. His men had known it, too, and hadn’t even awaited his command. Feathered shafts had flown, but the goatherd had already dropped his crook and his rogue goat and fled madly back the way he’d come. Feet pounding, the scouting party had given chase, over first one hill, then a second…

Erik had felt his stomach drop into his heels hard enough to bruise. There, nestled in a tiny vale, was an equally tiny village. Lights twinkled in windows; puffs of smoke rose languidly from chimneys.

It was barely a hamlet, home to fewer than fourscore inhabitants. The unit could take the lot of them—indeed, might
have
to, to keep word of their presence from reaching the Iron Keep. But Erik, who had performed some pretty heinous deeds in the name of duty and his king, was nonetheless unwilling to put an entire village to the sword.

All right, Plan B. If they couldn’t hide their presence, they’d confuse the issue. Erik had given the order for his men to ride on the village, steal any obvious valuables, kill one or two of the menfolk—he could live with that amount of bloodshed, if need be—and generally do everything in their power to appear as raiders instead of spies. They’d be reported, sure, but the survivors would describe an attack by bandits, not a military engagement.

And so they’d charged, swords raised high, screaming like lunatics. Most of the villagers had run; a few had attacked with rakes and shovels (and been promptly cut down), and Erik and his men had been doing a pretty convincing job of banditry when they learned fate still wasn’t through toying with them. One of the Brimstone Mountain patrols, apparently having spotted the commotion from high in the passes above, had appeared on the lone road leading from the village into the peaks. The unit’s only viable escape route had vanished.

Erik, cursing, had tried to remember if he’d missed any major religious observances lately. He’d obviously pissed
someone
off.

Okay then, Plan
C
, and it was this to which Erik’s friend and fellow officer, Branden, was so adamantly opposed. They’d take the entire village hostage! Erik would demand free passage and the right to keep the riches they’d stolen, in exchange for the townsfolk being left unharmed. It probably wouldn’t get the unit out alive—Erik was certain that the Charnel King’s men couldn’t have cared less about their citizens—but even if it didn’t, it would cement their identities as bandits. More importantly, every moment of delay was valuable; the instant the patrol had appeared, Erik ordered his three stealthiest men to flee, to make for the mountains by whatever routes they could find.
One
of them, at least, must escape to report back!

Now, most of the citizens were locked up in various shops or houses, while Erik, Branden, and three other soldiers watched over the largest single gathering in the town’s only tavern. One townsman—the young goatherd who’d spotted them in the first place, in fact—was given a scrawled list of demands and sent to meet the oncoming patrol. Soldiers and citizens alike grew nervous as they awaited an answer.

Perhaps he was giving vent to a hidden streak of cruelty, or perhaps Erik, like most citizens of Shauntille, simply couldn’t comprehend why the humans of Kirol Syrreth didn’t just rise up against Morthûl. Whatever the case, he lost no opportunity to chip away at the hostages’ hope of rescue.

“The soldiers don’t care about you,” he told the huddled citizens for the umpteenth time. “You watch! We’ll probably have to kill a few of you just to make them believe we’re serious.”

“Erik,” Branden said quietly, “maybe you should stop this….”

“And once they do come,” the larger man continued unheedingly, “it’ll be without regard for how many of you go down with us. Hell, maybe they’ll
deliberately
slaughter you, too. Weaklings and parasites have no place in the high-and-mighty empire of the Iron Keep, now do they?”

“Erik—”

“Shut up, Branden! I—”

His forehead plastered with sweat despite winter’s chill, the third of the lieutenants—this one a slim, black-haired man by the name of Dale—slammed open the front door and stuck his head inside.

“They’re moving!”

Erik straightened. “Attacking?”

“Don’t think so, sir. They’re not coming in at a charge, and they’re splitting up. I think they’re moving to block the other roads.”

One hand on his chin, Erik nodded. It made sense; so long as they believed they were dealing with bandits, the soldiers of Kirol Syrreth had no reason to suspect that the path to the Brimstone Mountains was the only escape route the hostage-takers would consider.

A soft rumbling danced through the hostages, an indecipherable mishmash of whispers and sobs and sighs, from the moment they heard the patrol was moving. Erik slammed his foot down hard on the wooden planks, putting an abrupt stop to the sound.

“Shut up! All of you, just shut up!” He was raving now, his wide-eyed stare more than enough to convince his hostages and his companions both that he’d begun losing his grip on the situation. “You think they’re coming for
you?
You think they give a damn about you? I told you, they don’t! Whatever they decide to do, they’ll just trample you down in the rush! Split your skulls if you get in the way! Nobody gives a damn about the lot of you! The soldiers out there don’t, the rest of the army doesn’t, and Morthûl sure as shit—”

“You’re partially right, Erik.”

The young soldier’s voice melted away, though his mouth continued to move. He spun wildly, seeking any possible source for that horrible voice. It was inhuman. It was
cold
, the winter winds outside given speech.

And standing as he was on the western side of the Brimstone Mountains, Erik had a horrible suspicion as to whose voice it might be. A wet stain began seeping down the inseam of his leggings.

“You…you know me?” It was, all told, a fairly stupid question, but the fact that he had enough presence of mind to string words together at all was little shy of miraculous.

“I know you well,”
the disembodied voice taunted him.
“Erik Kaleth, lieutenant. Officer in the armies of that warthog, Dororam. Fourth-generation career soldier, two sisters, one brother. Betrothed to a young woman back home who pretends ignorance of the whores you frequent, so that you in turn will not suspect what she’s doing with said brother of yours. Shall I continue?”

Erik’s throat and tongue produced only a faint gurgle.

“This creature was partly correct,”
the voice said, and though there remained no visible sign of the speaker, everyone present knew that he had turned from the soldier to the huddled townsfolk.
“Sending in my soldiers to crush these insects would indeed have endangered you all.
” The invisible presence focused on Erik once more.
“And no matter what propaganda Dororam and Theiolyn and their ilk choose to spread, I do not casually slaughter my own.

“You brought this on yourself, you pathetic fools. For you have left me no choice but to deal with you…”

The wooden floor bulged, the planks disgorging a swarm of twitching roaches and glistening beetles. They spouted upward in a geyser of thrashing legs and clacking mandibles. Soldiers and hostages shrieked in a single voice, united in terrified revulsion.

From the center of that horrid fountain rose a greater shape. Vermin poured from it in a living rain, revealing a worn yet regal robe, a silver crown, a dead and decaying figure that scowled with the one remaining half of its face.

“…personally,” Morthûl concluded, revealed in all his profane splendor. “I believe this is yours.” Casually, he tossed something at Erik’s feet, where it landed with a sodden splat. It took a moment for the soldier to recognize that what he saw was three human hearts, partly melted and congealed into a single mass.

Erik had sent three men to sneak their way around the patrol….

Branden retched across the toes of his boots, and Dale had begun, ever so softly, to cry. And Erik—Erik raised his blade, screamed his defiance at the Charnel King of Kirol Syrreth, and attacked.

Branden never knew if it was an act of sheer desperation, or if his commanding officer had finally slipped the final bonds of reason. Nor did he know why the Dark Lord, master of a thousand spells, chose to meet that attack with his bare hands. Perhaps it was an amusing diversion; perhaps he simply didn’t consider Erik to be worth any greater effort.

The Charnel King’s skeletal hand slammed into Erik’s chest before the sword could fall. Branden saw leather freeze and shatter, saw pink skin turn white, then blue, beneath those fleshless fingers. The Dark Lord flexed, driving fingertips of bone into his enemy, and the skin did not tear; it
cracked
, sending slivers of frozen skin and blood to clatter around Morthûl’s feet.

Nobody breathed, as though all in the room were as dead as Morthûl himself.

Erik gasped but otherwise didn’t move at all, paralyzed in a mockery of combat by the unending cold of unhallowed graves.

A huge wood-roach, seemingly undisturbed by the cold, poked its antennae from the cuff of the Dark Lord’s sleeve. Then, seeing a new environment to explore, it quickly scuttled over the skeletal arm and into the gaping wound in Erik’s chest.

Dale finally threw up.

Other insects followed the first. After a moment’s pause, even shaking his sleeve to ensure that no other vermin cared to make the trip, the Charnel King
pushed.
Frozen flesh shattered; ribs snapped like twigs. Branden cringed, unable to conceive of such pain, and actually felt relief for his friend when Morthûl drew back, holding Erik’s blackened heart in his hand.

But Erik wasn’t dead.

The side of the Charnel King’s face that still wore flesh creaked audibly as it curled in a smile. “You led these men.” He spoke almost affectionately in Erik’s ear, though loudly enough for the others to hear. The profane yellow glow pulsed in rhythm with his words. “You will atone for your sins, Erik Kaleth, and theirs. Forever.”

With one final sob, his last act of free will, the undead thing that was Erik Kaleth marched outside to await the orders of his new master.

“All of my citizens,” Morthûl intoned solemnly, “may leave. Go to your homes, and do not emerge until tomorrow morning. Each of you will be compensated for the indignities you have suffered here today.”

With a shuffling but quite rapid pace, the townsfolk fled.

Erik’s heart cupped casually in his right hand, Morthûl rounded on Branden and Dale. “Your fate is less fixed,” he said, his teeth dreadfully backlit by that horrid aura. “You are my enemy. You threatened my people. And you displayed a rather appalling lack of intelligence in going along with this idiotic scheme. But obedience and loyalty are virtues I admire, even when granted to foolish commanders and foolish kings.

“So I make you this offer. Cooperate. Answer my queries truthfully and I will allow you to go free. Refuse me, and serve your commander in death as you did in life.”

A moment, perhaps so they could mull it over, and then, “Why are you here?”

Either some last remnant of nationalism pierced Dale’s veil of terror or, more probably, he was simply so overcome with terror that he couldn’t think straight. “We—we just wanted to take the town!” he sobbed at the Charnel King. “You—you know why we’re here! You got our demands. You—”

It was Morthûl’s left hand this time, the digits partially clothed in that same not-quite-skin. A rotting thumb broke three of Dale’s teeth and sank through the roof of his mouth. Even as the man spasmed, his voice emerging in a choked gurgle, two more fingers invaded his body, his eyeballs bursting beneath them like engorged pimples. From where he stood, Branden could see clearly enough to note several wriggling things fall from the Charnel King’s hand to slither down Dale’s throat.

He doubled over, vomiting again—and racked with guilt that his only conscious thought was
Thank the gods Dale spoke first.

“I don’t care for liars,” Morthûl said calmly. “Such lies invariably lead to a, ah, loss of face.” And with that, the Charnel King tightened his fist and yanked, breaking free the entire front of Dale’s skull.

Despite the various substances that spilled from the gaping hole, the faceless thing called Dale caught its balance before it toppled and shuffled slowly through the door. The bloody face landed on the floor with a hollow clatter.

“One opportunity,” the Charnel King said, turning finally toward Branden, “and one only, to avoid the fate you have just witnessed. I am losing my patience.
Why are you here
?”

“We were scouting!” the soldier shouted, hysterical. “We needed to confirm that your armies were training, up north.”

“Confirm?” Morthûl asked, a new edge to his tone. “And where did Dororam get this information that he wished to ‘confirm’?”

“I don’t know.” Then, as the Dark Lord’s hand twitched, Branden dropped to his knees, sobbing. “I don’t know, I swear I don’t! Please, I wouldn’t lie to you! Not here, not like this! Please…”

Morthûl nodded slowly. “I believe you. It appears we have a spy somewhere in our midst.” Slowly, clearly pondering, he began to turn away.

And then, as though he’d forgotten some bauble, perhaps his hat, the Charnel King suddenly stopped short and turned once more. “Oh, yes,” he said, his tone such that Branden almost expected him to slap himself in the head. “You.”

“M-me?”

“If I do release you, how do I know you’ll not cause any further trouble in my lands?”

“I—I wouldn’t!”
Gods, I’m
never
coming anywhere
near
here again!