The Goblin Corps (67 page)

The troll nodded. “Sloped roof?” The bugbear nodded. “Chimney?” Nod. “But bigger.” Vigorous nod.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Cræosh demanded.

“It’s not a house, you…dolt. And nobody’s going…to build a mansion way…out here. He’s describing a…church.”

Cræosh pondered a moment. “Could be. Humans have some strange ideas of what churches are supposed to look like. I haven’t seen one yet with a halfway decent spike pit. So what?”

“So if there was smoke…coming from the chimney, it…suggests that the church is…occupied.”

“At the risk of repeating myself, so the fuck what?”

The troll grinned widely, a thin tendril of spittle wobbling in the breeze. “I’m willing to wager that…we might just find ourselves a…few nice, voluminous hooded…monks’ robes.”

Slowly, Cræosh too began to grin.

“Who calls?” As fast as his arthritic knees would permit, Brother Elton shuffled down the hall toward the front door. Whoever stood without hadn’t bothered with the tarnished brass knocker, and the old monk had barely even heard the faint tapping at the wood. Uncharitably, he wished he hadn’t—tomorrow they were patching the holes in the thatch, and his back ached from his efforts today at restoring the herb garden for the new season, and he really pined for his bed—but he dismissed such thoughts. If someone had come to the abbey so late, they must surely be in need. He called out again as he neared the door. “Why are you not at home abed?”

For a long moment, silence. And then, a peculiarly hoarse voice called from beyond. “Father? (cough) Can you help me, Father? (cough, cough) I’m lost, and (cough) sick.”

A child?
“Abide just a moment!” he called out, fumbling at the locks.
What was a child doing out here alone? He can’t live nearby, or he’d know my proper title. This damn war; everything’s in such chaos out there….

Brother Elton hauled the door open and got one brief glimpse of the “child”—a short, scaly, lizardy thing—before everything
inside
was in chaos as well.

The moon and stars, glowing merrily now that they no longer had the setting sun competing with them, were put abruptly to shame by a new rival from the earth far below. Glass shattered with a musical tinkling as wood, thatch, and tar ignited in a fearsome conflagration. In moments, the old mortar began to crack and flake from between the bricks; the stones to lean outward, ready to topple. The smoke loomed high and orange, illuminated from beneath, otherwise invisible against the night sky. By morning, this house of faith and comfort would be just another heap of loose rock and charred earth.

Some distance away, proceeding along the main road, a small train of monks trudged toward Brenald, capital of Shauntille. This late, the road was empty of other traffic—and just as well it was, since the monks didn’t quite have their act together.

“Me not like robe,” Belrotha complained, her voice surly. “Me can’t move right. Arms trapped. Me feel like a fish.”

“At least she’s consistent,” Cræosh muttered to no one in particular. “She smells like one, too.”

“Ah, you’re just pissy because you can’t move either,” Gork taunted him.

The orc responded by stomping his foot on the rather prodigious train of cloth that followed the kobold through the dust—the robe was, after all, made for someone almost twice its current owner’s height—and held it there until Gork reached the end and tumbled to his face with a sudden lurch.

“I hope,” Katim sighed, “that we can…make this a little more convincing…by the time we reach Brenald.”

Gimmol glanced at her. “Um, Katim?”

“What?”

“Your snout’s showing.”

Katim cursed, trying unsuccessfully to tug the hood far enough forward to hide the offending visage. “Stupid humans. How do…they smell at all with…those tiny things, anyway?”

No one answered her, because Jhurpess chose that moment to fall headfirst beside the kobold, having once again tripped over the massive club that he insisted on keeping under his robe. It was, to put it mildly, something of a travesty in the annals of disguise. When the weapon wasn’t tangling his legs, it was protruding obscenely from his collar or forming a huge hump across his back. Cræosh’s and Belrotha’s swords weren’t proving much more cooperative, either.

“All right, that’s it,” Cræosh announced. “We camp right here, and we don’t move from this damn spot until we’ve hashed this shit out.”

There was, thankfully, no argument.

“Gork, Gimmol,” the orc continued, “cut those stupid things down to size.” A thought struck him. “Try to remove the extra lengths of cloth intact. I think we can use them.” The two small soldiers looked puzzled, but each drew a knife from somewhere or other and quickly complied.

“Okay, great. Um, anyone here know how to sew?”

Silence reigned, disturbed only by the constant—and, in Cræosh’s opinion, rather maddening—chirp of background crickets. Finally, looking vaguely embarrassed, Gork raised his hand.

Cræosh blinked at him. “Really?”

Gork shrugged, his expression sheepish. “Kobolds live underground, remember? Lots of jagged rocks and sharp edges. Sewing’s something of a universal skill.”

“Whatever.” Cræosh tossed him back the extra cloth. “Think you can make a large—and I mean
large
—sack out of that? Something Belrotha could carry? Something that might just fit a couple of swords and a really big fucking stick?”

Jhurpess looked wounded at the description of his favorite weapon, but held his tongue. Gork laid the various strips of cloth out lengthwise and then glanced critically at the weapons in question.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said dubiously, “but there’s not a lot of room for error.”

“So don’t fuck it up.”

“And it won’t be comfortable or easy to carry.”

“That,” Cræosh said sagely, “is not my problem.” Belrotha glared at him.

“And it’s going to look pretty weird,” Gork warned.

“Stick a holy symbol on the end of it,” Gimmol suggested, fingering one of several pendants they’d “borrowed” along with the robes. “Make it a ceremonial bundle or something.”

The orc nodded. “That should work. Now, about—”

The bugbear raised a hand. “Jhurpess’s club is taken care of, but what about Jhurpess’s bow?”

“Shit,” Cræosh responded thoughtfully.

But Gork shook his head. “An unstrung bow shouldn’t take up that much room. I can probably squeeze it into the pack. As long as we don’t need it without a couple minutes’ warning, we’re gold.” He scowled. “Even the swords won’t be accessible all that easily, you know. If we’re attacked suddenly…”

Cræosh shrugged. “We’ve all got knives on us. Anything unexpected comes up, they’ll have to do until someone can get the pack open.” He gave Gimmol a slap on the shoulder that sent the gremlin staggering. “If we’re doing okay without your magic, that’ll be your job,” he said.

“Oh. Glee.”

“Katim, short of some quick surgery, I don’t have a clue what we’re doing about that damn snorter of yours.”

The troll shook her head and uttered a gurgle that probably passed as a trollish sigh. Carefully, she removed a handful of bandaging from her pouch and began to wrap it around her head and snout. She also leaned into a steep huddle, giving herself a stooped, even hunchbacked appearance. Once her snout was fully wrapped, she craned her head down, tucking her nose beneath her collar. The resulting shape was crippled and deformed, but more or less human. Thanks to her steep hunch, the hood hung over most of her head, allowing only tiny glimpses within—and those revealed only a swatch of bandage.

“That can’t be comfortable,” Gork said.

“You have no…idea,” Katim replied, her voice heavily muffled.

“Can you see anything besides your feet?” Cræosh asked.

“Barely. One of you gets the…honor of leading me. And the disguise…is gone to hell and back if I…have to fight anyone.” With a supple twist of her neck, she pulled her face up and out. She kept her snout bandaged, however, for quick concealment.

The remainder of the night passed in preparation. Gork stitched the excess cloth into a passable sack, which proved just a hair too small for the gathered weapons. So he unraveled it and started over, cursing loudly the entire time. Then, when the loop proved too small to sling over Belrotha’s arm—even at its current, reduced size—the kobold actually screamed. Fortunately, with the aid of a short length of rope (suggested by Gimmol), he found a way to adjust that loop without having to disassemble the entire bag once again, and thus was a severe emotional breakdown, followed by murder in the night, narrowly avoided.

And then, finally, there were no excuses remaining. It was time to get back on the road.

Every nerve in the squad was stretched to the breaking point as they sauntered calmly out onto the highway, wandering past and through an ever-growing flow of traffic. Katim was forced now to keep her head perpetually down. The discomfort, the fact that she had to rely on the others to guide her, or both made her even edgier than usual. The others had to keep their faces covered too, of course, but at least they weren’t functionally blind.

“Have I mentioned,” Cræosh groused, “how much we could use Fezeill right now?”

Even through the bandages and the hood, he could
feel
Gork’s glower.

For every pair of human eyes that lit upon them, the orc felt a surge of adrenaline flow through his arms and chest, felt his hand twitch of its own accord toward his hip and a sword that was no longer there. Each time, he was convinced that
this
weakling human would be the one to penetrate a disguise that felt ever more feeble, ever more futile, with every passing mile.

But each new traveler reacted just as the others had, either waving a friendly greeting or, more often, ignoring the “traveling monks” completely, far more concerned with the road ahead than with being cordial to those who shared it. The trek to the gates of Brenald was nerve-wracking and hideously uncomfortable, but it never did cross that fine line into dangerous.

And then they were there. Walls taller but less robust than those of Timas Khoreth blocked the bulk of the city from sight, allowing only narrow glimpses through the main gate—a main gate that was manned only by a pair of soldiers and which stood wide open, beckoning all travelers to enter. This was a city that
could
be fortified to withstand siege, but hadn’t prepared itself to do so. Dororam must have figured that the presence of the Allied armies between here and the Brimstone Mountains rendered his own lands safe from a major counterattack.

The goblins of the Demon Squad were really looking forward to proving him wrong.

“Jhurpess,” Cræosh hissed as they stepped nearer the guards, “I want to make something abundantly clear.”

“Yes?” the bugbear asked.

“You pull any of your cowering, whimpering shit here, I’m gonna yank out your tongue. Via your ass.”

“Jhurpess understand.”

“I’m
so
glad.” They waited patiently while the guards asked a few casual questions of a small merchant caravan that arrived just before they did. Cræosh pointed over the travelers’ heads to a large building visible between the gates. “If we get separated, meet there.

“Gork,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower as the line shuffled forward, “if we need any scouting, you get to do it. Your Manspeak is up to it, and you enjoy skulking anyway.”

“I’m tired of skulking,” Gork whispered. “I thought I might prowl for a change. Maybe even lurk. Is it okay with you if I lurk?”

“Gork…”

“Because I wouldn’t want to ruin any of your plans. How set on this are you? The skulking versus lurking thing, I mean.”

“Are you through?” Cræosh asked irritably.

The kobold pondered that. “Probably not.”

The last of the merchant’s carts trundled through the gate, and it was now the goblins’ turn.

Captain Sirribeth of the Brenald Capital Guard and Lancers had long since ceased berating her men for slouching and bantering while standing post. The processes of gate duty were mind-numbing, capable of boring even the most attentive sentry into insensibility; so long as they remained aware, and asked each entrant the questions they were required to ask, she wasn’t about to yell at them for a little unprofessional fraternization.

But she was heartened to see them straighten, snapping to something approximating attention, as the procession of monks, the hems of their robes coated in road grime, approached the gates. The guards knew when to pretend a certain element of respect. Sirribeth stepped in to handle this one herself, plastering her lips into a welcoming smile, and then almost tripped over her own boots as the passing wagons offered her a clearer glimpse at the brethren.

“Is that a child?” asked one of her subordinates, one Corporal Dennis.

Her lips struggled to turn down of their own accord. The lead figure looked no taller than her own son. “If it is, they’re recruiting a lot younger than we are,” she replied.

In fact, the entire bunch appeared more than a little odd. There was another child or midget, only a tad larger than the first, while three of the others were taller than Sergeant Boldryn, the biggest man in her unit. Only one of the lot looked to be of average height, and he walked with a shifting, arm-swinging gait more animalistic than human. The first trickles of suspicion began pooling at the base of her skull. Still…

“Greetings, Brothers,” she said formally, advancing into their path. Unsure as to whom, precisely, she ought to be addressing, she rested her gaze neutrally between the first two monks. “May I inquire as to your business in Brenald?”

“You may,” the short one answered, his words hoarse. She’d heard similar tones in the voices of men too much enamored of their pipes. Sirribeth shuddered slightly. She’d never cared for the habit herself. Wretched-smelling stuff, that.

She craned her neck downward, focusing on the spokesman. “My apologies, Brother,” she told him. “It’s just—”

“Just that you expected someone tall enough to have experienced puberty.”

Sirribeth made a faintly strangled sound, somewhere between a gasp and a chuckle. “Well, um…”
This isn’t exactly what I expected….