The Goblin Corps (49 page)

“No! No way! It’s damn cold enough this far north already! Not a chance! I—”

Cræosh sighed and once again lifted the kobold off his feet, one huge palm wrapped around the struggling creature’s head. “There are worse things than a little cold, right?

“Mrph!”

“I thought you’d see it that way.” The orc dropped Gork to the ground.

“You know,” the kobold snarled as he brushed himself off, “the next time you do that, I might just take a bite out of your hand.”

Cræosh shrugged. “And I might just squeeze until your brains come oozing out of your ears like so much—”

Gork and Katim both turned away, determined not to hear whatever metaphor the foul-mouthed orc intended for “oozing brains.”

Cræosh grinned briefly before turning his attention toward their pet sorcerer. “How about it, Gimmol? Can you speed up the boat the same way you’ve been accelerating us?”

“I’m afraid not, Cræosh. Creatures only. I might get us to row a little faster, but that’s it.”

“Ah, well,” Cræosh sighed. “Doesn’t really matter, I suppose. Taking the river’s faster than walking anyway. All right, you losers! Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow, we’ve got a boat to catch.”

It was an hour past noon, and the Demon Squad was huddled silently in a thick patch of brush and scrub just west of Timas Khoreth, watching the ebb and flow of traffic on the road.

Well,
most
of them were silent. Gork was still at the tail end of a snit and was grumbling all manner of profanities in Kobold.

“I thought you
enjoyed
being sneaky,” Gimmol whispered to him.

“Oh, bite my ass, gremlin! I’m
finally
in a position to pull rank on the humans, and you bastards won’t let me!”

Cræosh sighed. “We’ve fucking been through this. We can’t afford to go through official channels to requisition a boat. Queen Anne—”

“Yeah, yeah, Queen Anne’ll catch wind of it. But we’ll be long gone by the time she does!”

“You want to count on that, Shorty?”

More profanities in Kobold. More long hours spent watching the constant river of humanity flowing through the gates of Timas Khoreth. Merchants entered, soldiers departed, horses and donkeys and mules wandered past, lost in their own equine thoughts.

“The problem isn’t really getting in,” Gork said, his attentions finally directed toward the issues at hand. “There are entrances besides the main gate, so we can enter in ones and twos. I haven’t seen a
lot
of goblins in the crowd, but there are enough that so long as we don’t try to pass all at once, we shouldn’t stand out too badly. No, the real challenge is going to be getting
out
.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Cræosh admitted. “Any particular reason that we can’t just sail out?”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t know this, ‘cause you pretty much got to Timas Khoreth just in time for them to assemble our little shindig, but I had some time to explore. There’s a guard tower just north of the city proper. It sits right at the intersection of the Krael and the smaller tributary that flows through Timas Khoreth. We have to sail right past it to get out.”

“Could we just make a run for it?” Fezeill asked. Then, when it appeared that Gork was ignoring the doppelganger, Cræosh nudged him in the shoulder.

“No,” the kobold said. “We’ll be fighting the current until we reach the Krael itself. And even with Belrotha paddling, that’s going to slow us down. A lot.”

“We could portage it,” Cræosh suggested, though his voice was doubtful. “Have Belrotha carry the boat until we’ve reached the Krael.”

The ogre’s eyes widened. “But if me carry boat, me be under the water!” she protested.

Gimmol patted her reassuringly on the calf. “No, Belrotha. If we need you to carry the boat, it’ll be
out
of the water.”

“Oh.” She beamed after a minute. “Me got it now.”

“Good.” The gremlin smiled.

“But if us out of water, what us need boat for?”

Gimmol gave up.

A brief discussion, however, proved that particular line of thought unnecessary. “…really don’t think,” Fezeill was saying, “that even Belrotha could carry a boat big enough for all seven of us.”

“I’ve seen more than seven…people stuffed into some fairly…small boats,” Katim said.

“No, he’s right,” Gimmol said, rejoining the main conversation. “If it was just a question of the river, sure. But remember, whatever boat we steal has to be able to navigate the Sea of Tears, too. That means sturdier, and
that
means bigger and heavier.”

“Well,” Cræosh said abruptly, rising to his feet and dusting off his hands, “there’s no help for it, then. We grab the best boat we can, paddle like drowning dwarves, and hope we clear the tower before they realize what’s happening—or that something better comes up in the meantime.”

All told, it wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all they had. The squad waited until the sun had just begun to caress the western horizon. Then, as one, they abandoned the dubious safety of their patch of scrub and dashed toward the walls of Timas Khoreth.

It was, as Gork had foretold, simplicity itself to actually enter the city. Fezeill, of course, had no difficulties whatsoever. The bulk of the squad, in ones and twos, just fell in with the regular traffic, now rushing to pass through the main gates before nightfall. Those who would stand out
too
much from the crowd—Katim and Belrotha, specifically—moved around to one of the posterns, meant primarily for refuse. Katim crept up on the single unwary guard and smacked him over the head. She’d decided (reluctantly) that she couldn’t justify killing a fellow soldier under the present circumstances, and had pulled her blow accordingly. Nevertheless, when trolls hit people, they tend to stay hit. The guard didn’t wake up for half a week, and to the end of his days, the poor fellow swore he could see a small flock of purple-winged hedgehogs fluttering at the periphery of his vision.

It took even longer for them to wend their way across town without drawing excess attention, forcing them to remain alone or in pairs rather than reassembling—the fact that Jhurpess and Belrotha both got lost on the way didn’t help—but finally they’d gathered, crouched in an alley not far from the riverbank.

Slowly, methodically Cræosh, Katim, and Gork surveyed the area. Now that the sun had set, the pier was lit by a series of lamps hanging from eight-foot metal poles. Most of the vessels moored here, thumping hollowly against the waterlogged jetties in the shifting tides, were rowboats and rafts. Two, however—a small, flat-bottom barge and a single-masted fishing vessel—looked capable of surviving the Sea of Tears.

There remained, however, a problem. Two problems, actually, and they were both sitting beneath one of the streetlamps, using a wooden crate as a makeshift table. The staccato smack of cards being slapped down onto the wood reverberated softly in the night air, occasionally followed by either a chuckle or a grunt and the clatter of coin changing hands. Even over the damp scents of the river, several of the goblins could detect the tang of sour sweat and cloying pipe smoke.

“I’m still not entirely opposed to killing them,” Gork said in a low whisper. “I mean, it’s not as if there aren’t more where they came from. My people have a theory that it was the humans who taught rabbits everything they know about breeding.”

“Leaving aside the trouble that murdering two guards is gonna cause us if we’re discovered here,” Cræosh explained—again—”I’m not really sure how King Morthûl’s gonna take it if he finds out we were killing his soldiers on our way to see him. I’d sort of rather he be in a good mood when we meet him.”

“Amen to that,” Gork agreed firmly.

“Good. Then shut the fuck up, unless you’ve got an idea that
doesn’t
involve stabbing them in the back.”

“Could Katim just bash them?” Gimmol asked. “Like the guard at the gate?”

The troll, however, shook her head. “I couldn’t be certain…of getting them both before one could…sound an alarm.”

Much to the horror of the rest of the squad, the bugbear grinned broadly. “Jhurpess has idea! Katim
can
go hit guards! Jhurpess will take care of the rest!” Before anyone could stop him, or even
think
of stopping him, the bugbear jumped up to the nearest second-story windowsill and scrambled onto the roof.

“I think,” Fezeill said, “that the word of the day is ‘shit.’”

“Shit!” Cræosh agreed. “All right, Dog-breath, I don’t see that we’ve got any choice anymore. Nature-boy’s gonna do whatever he’s gonna do, regardless. Get out there and beat their heads in before all hell breaks loose.”

Katim nodded and charged, keeping to the shadows almost as well as Gork could have. It was only when she reached the circle of light in which they played that the guards noticed her at all.

The first collapsed facedown on the table before he’d even managed to stand, the side of his head bruised and bloody. Katim lunged over the crate, grabbing the second soldier by the hair and slamming her other fist into his jaw—but not before he’d lifted the signal whistle that hung on a cord about his neck and loosed a deafening screech.

Just as they’d feared. It was a short whistle, aborted abruptly when the troll’s fist drove the tiny device through the man’s front teeth, but it was enough. Already, the faint sounds of running feet echoed from nearby streets.

The remainder of the squad broke cover, racing to join the aggravated troll. “So where,” she asked, her raspy voice even darker and more dangerous than normal, “is the…damn bugbear? He—”

As though summoned, Jhurpess materialized from the flickering shadows directly beside them. “Jhurpess done,” he announced happily. “Squad can go now.”

“What did you do, you stupid monkey?” Cræosh asked.
This was not going to be pleasant….

“Jhurpess gave guards a better reason for the alarm,” he said. “Squad
really
should go now.”

“He’s right, Cræosh,” Gimmol called from Belrotha’s shoulder, a perch he’d resumed while waiting in the alley. “The guards’ll be here any second.”

The orc stubbornly shook his head. “Not until we know what he did!”

The far end of the dock erupted into a towering fireball that could probably have been seen from the tundra, followed by a roar that could have been described as the angry growl of thunder’s pet dog. Heat washed over them; a deluge of acrid fumes made their eyes water, their nostrils burn. Dark silhouettes raced toward or around the fire, shouting and flailing, utterly oblivious to the gathered goblins.

“Lamp oil?” Cræosh asked, shouting over the roar of the fire.

Jhurpess nodded. “Soldiers keep it in small shack at end of pier. Jhurpess smelled it.”

“Did it ever occur to you,” the orc snapped back, “that the pier’s not gonna be the only thing to burn?”

“Jhurpess not worried. Squad has a few minutes before flames reach it; plenty of time to get on boat.”

“
Boats
burn too, you asshole!”

The bugbear’s face fell. “Oh,” he said quietly.

Cræosh’s sword hand twitched.

“As it happens,” Gork said acidly, stepping between the arguing pair, “the fire hasn’t
reached
the fishing boat yet. Do you want to be angry because the boat
could
have caught fire, or because it
did?
Besides,” he added, pointing at Jhurpess, “do you really want to smell that much hair burning?”

With a final glare, Cræosh stomped away to board the vessel.

None of the squad had ever done any real sailing, but Gimmol remembered enough of what he’d read in the past to direct the others. After only a few false starts, the boat drifted steadily away from the pier. The current fought them every step of the way, and the wind was too limp to do much good, so Cræosh, Katim, Jhurpess, and Fezeill (having, to Cræosh’s disgust, assumed the shape of an orc) set to rowing. Belrotha’s help would have been welcomed, but the oars were situated belowdecks, and she just couldn’t fit. Still, the four oarsmen—oarsgoblins—weren’t precisely lacking in muscle, and the vessel moved steadily toward the River Krael.

They came
this close
to pulling it off. The soldiers, forming a bucket brigade and desperately struggling to quench the fire before it spread, might never have noticed the boat was missing. But it was not to be so easy. Perhaps the firelight reflected off something on the stolen vessel; perhaps a wayward creak reached their ears despite the crackling of the flame; perhaps someone had just happened to look the right way at the wrong time. Whatever the case, a barrage of shouts and pointing fingers aimed themselves at the boat.

“Well, that tears it,” Gork muttered as he looked back over the spindly railing. “Next time we just kill the bastards and be done with it!” Of course, most of the squad was belowdecks manning the oars, and Belrotha stood by the wheel, steering under Gimmol’s direction, so there was no one there to hear him. He continued to curse anyway.

“Hey!” Gimmol called to him, not looking away from the dark waters. “We’re coming up on the watchtower!”

“So?” Gork shouted back.

“So get to the damn prow of the ship and keep a lookout!” the gremlin ordered him. “We’re not moving all that fast. The soldiers may have had time to get them a message!”

Grumbling, Gork shuffled to the front of the ship and cast his eyes upward.

Not much more than thirty feet tall, the tower stood only a few paces from the bend where the tributary met the Krael. Torchlight burned in the narrow windows, but the kobold had no way of knowing what activity, if any, was going on beyond them, nor could he see, even at this distance, what might be happening behind the crenellations on the roof.

“Looks clear so far,” he called to the gremlin, “but I can’t tell—oh, dragonshit!” A sudden loud snap, audible even at their current distance, sounded from atop the tower, and something blotted out the glittering stars.

“
Catapult!
” Gork hurled himself, screaming, to the deck. Just beyond the stern, the water burst upward in a short-lived geyser, drenching everyone on deck.

“They’re getting our range!” Gimmol cried, clinging desperately so as not to be hurled from his perch. Gork, for once, couldn’t blame the gremlin for the panic he heard in Gimmol’s voice, since he was right there with him.