Jean Rabe: Goblin Nation

It looked like a wolf, but it was the size of a mountain pony, stocky, and covered with coarse, black fur streaked with blood. Despite his keen hobgoblin senses, Direfang had not heard it approach. He’d been alerted only when it snarled as it loped toward him, inches-long fangs glistening from saliva and back legs propelling it off the loam and into him, the impact knocking his axe free and slamming his head against the hard ground. The beast pinned Direfang’s shoulders to the earth and sunk its teeth into his thick neck.

Its breath was as foul as stagnant water, and its body reeked of long dead and rotted things. The odors hit the hobgoblin like a pounding wave. Direfang fought for air and tried to shove his arms up to pitch the dread thing off him. But it was stronger and heavy, its nails digging into the hobgoblin’s chest as it clamped its jaws tighter. Direfang hadn’t had time to call out a warning to his companions, though he heard others’ warning cries as he struggled-shrill, angry, frightened hoots from the goblins who had been toiling with him. Some called for everyone to flee, others to join the fight; one shouted hoarsely that Direfang needed help. But no one came to the hobgoblin’s rescue.

From the snarls and howls rising around him, Direfang could tell there was more than that one overlarge wolf that he was finding impossible to dislodge.

“Not … die … this … way,” Direfang managed.

He reminded himself that he’d fought Dark Knights and ogres and survived an insidious plague, all of those opponents more formidable than that one creature. The muscles bunched in his arms as he wedged his hands farther under its chest. He gritted his teeth as the beast ripped a piece of his flesh free and its jaws shot toward his throat again.

“And … not … die … this … day!”

Direfang redoubled his efforts and pressed up again, finally moving the creature just enough so he could get out from under it and shove it away. He got to his knees as it came at him once more, teeth clacking and its deep, throaty growl intensifying. Direfang batted it back with both fists. The hobgoblin felt blood running down his neck and chest, warm and sticky and considerable-no doubt the reason he felt light-headed. He instinctively raised a hand to his wound as if to staunch the flow then stopped himself and used both hands to instead grab the relentless beast by its ruff.

The creature was incredibly vicious if not crazed. Direfang sensed madness about it-staring at its red eyes with no visible pupils fixed on him, lips flecked with foam; there was a constant rumbling in its chest as if it were a smelter being stoked.

“Bloodrager!” Direfang heard someone call. Grallik, he thought, as the voice did not belong to a goblin. “They are bloodragers!”

So the creature had a name and a seemingly fitting one. Direfang fell back on his haunches as the bloodrager drove forward and nearly knocked him prone. He barely managed to keep it at arm’s length.

“Not … this … day!” the hobgoblin repeated, twisting his fingers tighter into the fur and wrenching its head down and around. He was trying to snap the bloodrager’s neck, but that was proving elusive. He took a different approach, letting the creature come uncomfortably close and feeling its hot, fetid breath on his face as he prepared to use its momentum against it. Direfang got beneath the beast and pushed it up and over so it landed on its back. The hobgoblin jumped to his feet, fought against the dizziness, and prepared to meet its next charge.

In that instant, Direfang got a quick look at the chaos around him. At least a dozen bloodragers had descended on the goblins who had been working to clear a stand of trees. There’d been more than a hundred goblins there heartbeats before, but many had obviously fled. There was Grallik too. The half-elf wizard had his back to a dead tree and was gesturing at one of the largest bloodragers.

Direfang heard a whoosh of fire and knew it emanated from Grallik, but he looked away as his own foe drew all of his attention, its feet churning then leaving the ground as it leaped fiercely at him. The hobgoblin ducked and slammed his fists into the creature’s rib cage. The impact knocked the air from its lungs, and it dropped to the ground, shaking its head and trying to regain its balance. The hobgoblin didn’t give it the opportunity. In three steps he was on the bloodrager, hands finding and gripping its slimy muzzle.

Its stench seemed somehow stronger, competing with Grallik’s smell of fire, the singed flesh, and the hobgoblin’s leaking blood. Direfang fought to keep from retching. Sweat streamed into the hobgoblin’s eyes, making everything look fuzzy. He threw his head back and gasped for fresh air, all the while keeping a firm hold on the bloodrager.

“Fight the bloodragers! Don’t run!” Direfang hollered. “Stay and fight! Stay strong and win!”

“Stay and win!” shouted Knobnose, a potbellied young goblin who’d been trying to fight his way toward Direfang. He wielded a bent axe he’d been using to chop at a tree. “Win for Direfang!”

“Win for the Flamegrass clan!” cried an orange-skinned goblin.

“Win for Rockbridge!” bellowed a gray-furred goblin with a long, bent nose.

“Be fast! Be deadly!” became a chant that started with members of the Fishgatherer clan and spread to the rest.

“From the sides! From behind it!” Direfang managed to shout. “Stay away from the teeth!”

Then Direfang forced the cacophony to the back of his mind and with his waning strength managed to pry the bloodrager’s jaws open. The hobgoblin marveled at the muscles in the specimen and felt them ripple beneath his fingers. The creature shook wildly, and its teeth sliced at Direfang’s fingers. Despite the new pain, the hobgoblin held on tighter.

“Die … this … day … monster!” He opened the jaws wider still. “Die now!” One more effort and he broke the bloodrager’s jaws with a loud crack, sending it into even greater contortions. He drove his fists into the beast’s sides rhythmically, like a drummer setting a cadence. Even then it whipped its head back and forth furiously, its bottom jaw hanging grotesquely loose and a thick line of blood running over its lower lip. It twisted its neck over its shoulder, and its hellish red eyes locked onto the hobgoblin. Direfang kept pounding and felt its ribs snap.

“Fight close!” the hobgoblin commanded as he risked a glance around. “Fight together! Be fast!”

“Fast and deadly!” Knobnose shouted. “Fast and win!”

Direfang continued to snap orders at the goblins close enough to hear him. Only a few balked, hesitant to step near the bloodragers, and those were mainly goblins who had joined the band in only the past handful of days.

When the beast finally collapsed beneath Direfang, he continued to strike it with one fist, still feeling it feebly wriggle beneath him. He pressed his free hand hard against the jagged tear in his neck, blood still flowing over his lacerated fingers. There was no healer with their workforce, and so Direfang realized he very well could die that day.

There was another whoosh of flame then another. Screams and howls followed. Direfang glanced up from his motionless foe. A half dozen bloodragers lay dead, caught by Grallik’s bursts of magical fire and hacked up by the goblins who wielded axes.

The remaining bloodragers were being contested by goblins who continued to wail their shrill war cries. Goblin corpses were scattered across the loam. It was as gruesome a battlefield as Direfang had ever seen.

Growing weaker, Direfang awkwardly pushed off from the carcass and stood, holding his palm tighter against the wound on his neck. He felt flaps of skin and swore he could touch the muscle beneath.