The Goblin Corps (66 page)

“And the fourth?” Gork asked.

“The most important. Lidia Lirimas. A rather feisty woman, and a closer companion to duMark than are the others.”

“A female?” Cræosh asked, ignoring twin glares from Belrotha and Katim.

“Easily the most dangerous of the four, orc, your prejudices notwithstanding. Even more so because we want this one alive.”

Everything went silent, down to the shifting and grinding of the troll’s teeth in her jaw.

“Alive?” It was actually Gimmol who found his tongue first. “You want us to carry duMark’s favorite and most dangerous friend to you? From Shauntille?
Alive?
Havarren, it’s over a month from Shauntille to Dendrakis, even
without
trying to control a captive or avoid an army on the way. And no, before you ask, I
can’t
maintain my acceleration spell that long.”

“Not alone, you can’t.” Havarren snapped his fingers, then opened his palm to reveal a plain copper ring. “This contains a portion of my own magics. Channel your spell through this, as you did your charm of opening through the skull talisman—a clever use of magic, gremlin, I must admit—and you should be able to make the journey in about a week.”

“Great!” Cræosh said. “Hell, we can get there in a day or two with that, do what we have to do, and—”

“No. A spell of this power is child’s play to detect. Activate it now, and duMark will be waiting for you in Shauntille with open arms. You use it on your way out, not before.”

Cræosh glowered at him.

“Is all this particularly wise?” Gimmol asked, his tone uncertain. “Do you really want duMark any angrier than he already is?”

“Even wizards make mistakes, when they’re angry enough. But more importantly, it keeps him occupied. He’ll have to return home, figure out what happened. Even with his magics, a proper investigation should take him several days. By then, you should have delivered your captive to us. She becomes a bargaining chip, or at the very least, another obstacle to slow duMark down. Even if he’s willing to sacrifice her, he can’t allow himself to appear so cold-blooded.” Havarren smiled. “Wouldn’t do to sully the reputation, would it?

“And it takes four powerful enemies off the field. At the moment, they’re not riding with the armies, but they’d involve themselves in the war sooner or later. Preventing that, and depriving duMark of their assistance, is worth the effort by itself.”

“Just to make damn sure I’ve got this in a row,” Cræosh said, “let’s review. We’re going to infiltrate Shauntille. We’re going to take on, and kill, and publicly display the bodies of three of the greatest champions they have to offer. Then we’re going to capture a fourth, and bring her back here alive. Does that just about sum it up?”

“Fairly succinctly, yes.”

Cræosh laughed. It was an ugly, guttural sound, the voice of ridicule rather than humor.

“You find something amusing, orc?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe Fezeill’s still fucking haunting us.”

Katim nodded. “He’s right. I appreciate you trusting…us with such a mission, but wouldn’t…human or doppelganger agents prove…more appropriate?”

“It would. In fact, we’ve already tried. An assassination team already made one attempt. One of the targets—Kuren Bekay, we believe—slaughtered the lot of them. And we simply haven’t a second appropriate team available. Not many of our doppelganger or human operatives are good enough to take on these targets, and those who might are engaged in other, equally important operations. To put it bluntly, you’re the only ones available who might be remotely good enough to pull this off.

“More to the point, these are King Morthûl’s orders. You’re welcome to march to Dendrakis to ask for explanations, if you want. I wonder what he’ll turn you into?”

“Say!” Gork’s face brightened. “Wouldn’t that work? Couldn’t you make us look human?”

“Disgusting,” Katim muttered.

Gimmol, however, was shaking his head. “Illusions aren’t that hard to detect, if you’re looking for them. And if the wizards in Shauntille are on a war footing…”

“Your little friend is correct,” Havarren confirmed. “I could
actually
transform you into humans.” He smiled at the faint shudders running through his audience. “But it would defeat the purpose. Trying to fight, or sneak, or whatever it is you do with new muscles, newly shaped limbs…We’d lose the very skills we chose you for. Maybe if you had a few months to train…” He shrugged. “Well, you’ve got a long journey ahead of you. Plenty of time to come up with something. If it was easy, we wouldn’t need a Demon Squad to handle it.”

All eyes in the squad swiveled toward Belrotha. The mage sighed.

“Yes, that is something of an issue, isn’t it? Belrotha, you won’t like this, but I’m afraid that, in your case, there’s truly no choice. I assure you that it’s quite temporary.”

The ogre blanched. “What…?” she began.

Havarren chanted something, then reached out and tapped the recoiling ogre on the hip. For an instant, nothing happened.

An instant later, and Katim was the tallest member of the squad.

For her own part, Belrotha was staring wildly at the scenery around her, a thin sheen of sweat on her face. Finally she turned, desperately, to Gimmol. “How wizard make world grow?” she asked anxiously.

Cræosh, who was standing on tiptoe just for the novel experience of looking
down
at the ogre’s head, decided he probably wasn’t helping matters and stopped.

“…a delicate balance to keep her shrunken without weakening her,” Havarren was saying. “When you cast your hasting spell through the ring, the energies should be enough to overwhelm the spell and return her to her normal size. If not, however, it ought to reverse itself in about a month.

“And now, I have my own preparations to make, and you have a long walk ahead of you. I suggest you get some sleep.”

“Do you think?” Cræosh asked him. “I figured we’d sit up until dawn playing tiddlywinks. I don’t suppose you might bring us a set? I left mine in my other pants.”

Strangely enough, Havarren ignored him. A casual wave, and he was gone.

“I’ve got to learn to do that,” the gremlin muttered.

One by one, the others wandered back to their blankets and dropped off, leaving Gimmol to stand watch—and to try to calm the profusely sweating ogre.

Day upon day, mile upon mile upon mile, creeping along the coast of a flesh-and-steel sea set to crash upon the borders of Kirol Syrreth. They stayed well away from the main roads, did most of their traveling in the dark; nevertheless, the threat of discovery nipped constantly at their heels. Four or five times they’d been forced to shelter in a copse or a gully to avoid the army’s scouts, and once they’d had no choice but to kill a lone outrider who stumbled upon them—actually
over
them, having literally tripped on Gork—in the dark. They buried the body, smoothed over the shallow grave as best they could, and pushed on throughout the night so as to be gone before he could be missed.

During the hours of daylight they slumbered, nervous and fitful, none able to sleep for more than a few hours straight. Tempers grew frayed with every passing minute, as misery gained ever more ground and patience was forced into retreat.

Belrotha was clearly having the hardest time of it. She never strayed from Gimmol’s side, constantly glancing at her friend—now walking beside her, since she was too small for him to perch comfortably on her shoulder for any length of time. So accustomed was she to looking down at her companions that she spent most of her time speaking to their shoes, rather than their faces; she’d proved unable or unwilling to make the transition to what Gork had rather irritably referred to as a “shorter way of thinking.” Gimmol spent every waking moment comforting and reassuring her, but it was anyone’s guess how much good he was actually doing.

It was just after sunset of their sixth evening on the road when the traffic began to change. The last straggling soldiers and supply wagons of the armies had passed them by, and the byways were beginning to fill instead with farmers and merchants—sparse at first, but in rapidly growing numbers. The goblins breathed a sigh of relief, to be finally beyond the reach of that enormous army, for the changed demographics could only mean that Shauntille itself drew near.

And that revelation, in turn, drove home rather sharply the point that, given their snappish and unpleasant journey, they’d not taken the time to confront the most pressing issue facing them. Namely, how the hell were they to set so much as one foot inside the city without being swarmed over and torn limb from limb?

They clumped ever more tightly together as they marched, conversing quietly, proposing and then shooting down plan after notion after idea.

“Even if I was strong enough to disguise the whole lot of us for any length of time,” Gimmol was patiently explaining, “it’s not an option. They’ll probably detect that sort of thing, remember? Havarren already went through this.”

“But people don’t usually notice the little things unless they’re given cause for suspicion,” Gork argued. “Trust me, I know. They’ll only detect the disguises if we give them a reason to look for them.”

The gremlin shook his head in frustration. “This is sorcery, Gork. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Eh,” Gork said dismissively.

Gimmol sucked in his breath and held it for the count of ten. “Gork, my magics aren’t all that powerful. Any wizard of halfway decent standing can actually
see
the magics I generate, including my illusions, with only the simplest of detection spells. And with the city on a wartime footing, I can
promise
you some of them have those spells constantly active. If I try to cloak us with an illusion, they’ll find us as easily as you’d find a single burning torch in a dark cavern.”

“Eh.”

“Listen, you stupid—”

“I believe,” Katim growled from behind (and above), “that we’re…getting somewhat off topic. Since…magic is not an option, let’s…think of another, rather than…arguing
why.”

“Sounds good to me,” Gimmol said, glaring sidelong at Gork.

“Eh.”

“Where the fuck is Nature-boy?” Cræosh interrupted suddenly.

The squad almost stumbled over themselves, so swiftly did they jerk to a halt. They had a decent amount of light yet; the sun had only just dipped below the horizon, dyeing the earth with a red-tinged aura, and the gleaming moon, just shy of full, had already begun its ascent. On both sides of the road, the land was barren of crops but overgrown with weeds and stubborn grasses, acre upon acre still fallow from the slowly diminishing winter. A few wildflowers sprouted here and there, reaching tentatively from those less pleasant weeds as though seeking escape. Obviously, with the armies on the move, insufficient laborers remained behind to work every field.

Cræosh stepped on one particularly lovely bunch of those wildflowers as the squad spread through the high grasses. If something had happened to Jhurpess, if he was laid out in that overgrowth, they might never find him. He was just about to call the goblins back together, suggest something a little more drastic than a simple sweep, when the missing bugbear’s shaggy visage popped up from the weeds a few yards ahead. Cræosh very nearly took the simian head off its neck before he realized who it was—and even afterward, a part of him was seriously considering it.

“What the hopping three-legged fuck are you
doing
?!” Cræosh shouted, only
just
keeping his voice pitched low enough not to carry on the still air. “You don’t sneak the hell off by yourself, and you
sure
as hell don’t sneak up on me like that! Ancestors, are you
trying
to get yourself beheaded? ‘Cause if you are, all you had to do was ask!”

As the others gathered, Jhurpess slowly rose from his crouch, casually picking the worst of the leaves, burs, and twigs from his matted fur. “Cræosh finished ranting now?” he asked.

The orc scowled. “Let’s just say I’m taking a breather long enough for you to explain.”

The bugbear shrugged. “Jhurpess was just walking along with squad, not doing much of anything.”

“Like usual,” Gork muttered.

“Then, Jhurpess noticed a strange smell. Smell like burning wood.”

“Probably a campfire,” Gimmol suggested.

“Jhurpess thought so too. But smell was coming from other direction, not from the road. Jhurpess knew that if whole squad went to look, whoever was there might see. So Jhurpess went alone to find out.”

Katim grinned at the look of consternation slouching its way across Cræosh’s face. “Go ahead and say it…Cræosh. You know it’s true, and…it’s just going to eat you until…you spit it out.”

For a long, frozen moment, the orc scowled as fiercely as his face would permit, hating everyone and struggling to figure out whom he hated most. Then, with what sounded very much like a sigh, he turned back to the bugbear. “That was actually pretty decent thinking, Jhurpess. Good job.”

The bugbear beamed.

“Still should’ve fucking told someone you were going, though,” Cræosh reminded him.

“In any case,” Gimmol quickly interjected, “you obviously found something, didn’t you?”

A nod. “Yes, Jhurpess find big human house.”

“Well twiddle-dee-shit,” Cræosh said sourly.

“A house?” Gork asked incredulously. “All this for a
house?”

“Have you ever considered meditation?” Gimmol asked. “This temper can’t be doing your heart any good….”

Ignoring him, the kobold reached up and snagged two fistfuls of bugbear fur. “All you found was a house!” he repeated, seeming unable to wrap his mind around the concept.

The bugbear cocked his head. “Why Gork upset? It not Jhurpess’s fault that smoke was coming from house.”

“Well, no, but…but…” Gork trailed off, his expression helpless.

“Besides, Jhurpess did not just find a house. Jhurpess found a
big
house.”

Cræosh and Gork both opened their mouths to comment—or, in the kobold’s case, perhaps to scream—when Katim spoke. “Jhurpess knows the difference…between a large house and any…other type of building.”

The bugbear nodded. “Jhurpess been in lots of cities lately. This was not castle, or barn, or anything. This was built like house, just big.”