Vashti Valant - Slave of the Goblin

“But I feel nothing for him now,” she said. She nodded out toward the goblins. “The monsters should have tried another assault by now. Something is agitating them.”

“Your elven eyes are sharper than mine,” he admitted. “Can you see what is going on in that knot of soldiers?”

“There is a newcomer. He is addressing all the officers. They are arguing. He…oh, gods. It’s him.”

“Acariel?”

“His real name is Akraz.”

“Akraz?” Hunter whistled. “As in Akraz the Terrible, the Goblin General?”

“That would be the one, yes,” she said bitterly. Terrible doesn’t begin to describe it. “Now he’s mounting a wolf. Now he…”

“What? Laya, what?”

“Look at them,” she said, stunned. “Look at the goblins.”

“By the gods of Light!” Hunter said in shock. “They’re fighting each other.”

Indeed, the goblin army had fissioned into two halves, which fell on one another with merciless abandon. Akraz led the smaller but more cohesive cohort. They positioned themselves between the others and the thorn walls of Sylvindell.

“Hunter, don’t you see?” cried Laya. “Akraz is leading the officers loyal to him against Zathstragomal! They’re rebelling against the dark wizard! He and his troops are defending our city!”

Akraz could not convince all of his men to turn on their cruel overlord. No goblin harbored Zathstragomal any affection, but many feared him too much to betray him, not even in the cause of their own freedom. However, the troops that remained loyal to Zathstragomal lost all heart when the elf and human armies returned. Finding themselves trapped between Akraz’s rebels and two fresh armies, the goblins scattered.

Akraz knew he could not expect the newcomers to distinguish between his own troops and those still loyal to Zathstragomal, so he ordered his sub-chiefs to sound the call for surrender. His soldiers put down their weapons and the flag bearers lofted white flags in place of the black banner of Zathstragomal the Malicious. Unfortunately, goblins had used such tricks before with no intent of honoring the truce. Would the elves trust Akraz to keep his word? Or would they decide the safer course might be to let their peerless archers pick off the rebels one by one?

One of his loyal sub-chiefs, clearly plagued by the same worries, drew his wolf up alongside Akraz.

“At least your sister’s family is safe, as you requested,” the other goblin said gruffly. “Well, all but that ass of a husband of hers. Sorry, he was drunk as a mosquito in a beer mug and wouldn’t budge. But we rounded up all the little rascals, sure enough.”

“I’m sure Hwega will be equally grateful that you brought her children and left her husband,” Akraz said. “Thank you.”

“I expect we’ll all be in pots soon,” said the sub-chief. “The elves are cannibals, you know.”

“If you were so sure of that, why did you agree to follow me in this crazy plan?” demanded Akraz.

The sub-chief grinned. “Because it was you that asked it. That’s enough for me. Besides, being et might not be so bad. Maybe they’ll at least fatten us up first.”

“Whatever happens to us, I don’t think we’ll be ‘et’,” Akraz said. However, he knew no more than his companion what he could expect.

For himself, Akraz expected no forbearance, and he did not care. Any future without Laya by his side would be empty whether he was formally punished or not. He only hoped that he had not made a disastrous choice for his men. Would the elves enslave them, or slay them in cold blood? Had his band of would-be rebels exchanged one overlord for another fate just as cruel?

They had blindfolded him, stripped him to a loincloth and bound him in cords. He waited on his knees in an empty room to hear what his fate would be. The council, Akraz had been told, would discuss and decide what do with him and the other goblin rebels.

Footfalls alerted him that the elven warriors had come for him. They prodded him to his feet with the tips of their spears. They escorted him from one building to another. While they were outside, he felt the coolness of the air and gauged that sunset drew near. How appropriate. When they meted out their judgment upon him, he would revert to a monster.

A bell reverberated throughout Sylvindell, calling all public citizens to attend to the ceremony in the Palace of Justice in the center of the citadel. The clanging caught Laya already on her way up the steps into the Palace, but she paused for a moment in horror when she recognized the pattern of the chimes.

Treason. Disgrace. The highest punishment.

No, she begged the gods of Light. How can they still blame Akraz for giving away the location of the city after what he did to defend it? Surely they must realize that Akraz couldn’t have been the one who betrayed us after all!

The streets outside the Palace of Justice began to fill with curious elves. No one had been sentenced to the highest punishment in the land for over three hundred years. Some elves, who had seen this before, had come prepared with slender wood rods. Opportunistic vendors sold sticks and arrows to the rest of the crowd for use in the upcoming ceremony.

The guards at the Palace gates stopped Laya. “It’s already full inside.”

“I am Nemesis,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height. His eyes widened.

“I beg pardon, my lady Nemesis,” he said with a bow. “Please, enter.”

The council met in a large oval chamber. Against one wall, in a semicircle, the council members, the king and queen and their closest advisors, sat on graven thrones. The Seeress had no throne, but she stood to one side near the front of the room, veiled to hide her face which was forbidden to the eyes of any but the gods. Her mother had been a seraph and her father an elf prince, and she had inherited her mother’s feathered wings.

Opposite the Seeress, also with no official throne, Hunter leaned against the wall, with his arms crossed. A sunset shadow of stubble darkened his unshaven face. He had not yet cleaned the grime of battle off his mud-splattered leather tunic and britches, which made him look more human and disreputable than usual.

Laya went to stand near him. She said in a low voice, pitched only for Hunter, “Surely they won’t go through with this?”

“What else can they do?” Hunter asked. “He confessed. I was in the council during the trial, Laya. It was damning. I couldn’t believe it—and yet I could. I even understood what drove him to do it.” He gave her a piercing look. “He thought it was the only way he could have you. As perverse as it sounds, he did it out of love.”

Laya’s heart pounded. “But surely, what he did to turn the tide of the battle must make up for any earlier mistakes.”

“I’m sorry, but even though he changed his mind in the end, it doesn’t excuse him, since he was the one who put Sylvindell in danger in the first place. The queen was only barely able to call enough rain clouds to extinguish the fires. Otherwise, the blaze alone might have accomplished what the goblin army could not.”

The blow of a horn demanded the attention of the assembly. The crowd parted to form a central aisle from the doors to the podium of thrones. Lathaniel walked down the aisle first. Like Hunter, Lathaniel still wore the stained and torn garments he had worn into battle. He even still wore his bow and quiver across his back. However, unlike the human, the elf lord still managed to look elegant. His shoulder-length blond hair was tied back from his face with small braids and his face was clean-shaven. He was handsome, Laya had to admit. If his sister Taniya had lived, she would have been a great beauty, with the same brilliant blue eyes and gold hair.