Douglas Niles - Goddess Worldweaver

“In that hole?” Borand demanded, skeptically eyeing the black circle in the ground. It yawned like a lightless well and seemed to emit many questionable odors. “I don’t like the looks of it.”

“You don’t have to like it,” the dwarfmaid retorted. “Just get going!”

Indeed, many fetid smells lingered in the air around them, and Darann felt grimly certain that most of that stink originated from within that pit. But she took a deep breath and knelt on the ground, reaching inside the dark circle until she felt a rung of metal placed in the wall. Leaning forward, she found another a foot below.

“There seems to be a ladder,” she reported. “I’m going to follow him.”

“Count me in.” Aurand, not surprisingly, came right behind, then Konnor, and finally the still-grumbling Borand. Darann, grateful for the loyalty of her comrades, tried not to breathe through her nose as she groped her way down the slippery but solidly mounted rungs. Even so, the air actually tasted of foulness, coating her mouth with a residue that was cloying and choking at the same time. After eight or ten steps, she landed with a wet splash onto a slick floor and moved to the side so that her companions could join her.

Her brother struck another of his ubiquitous matches. They quickly saw that they were in a drainage pipe, brick-walled and tall enough for them to stand without stooping. The water was only a few inches deep, and the air was thick with those foul, albeit unidentifiable, odors. Here the smoke from the match was in fact a blessing, for it obscured those unknown smells. There was a stone arch twenty or thirty feet away, a support for the pipe apparently, and the cylindrical passage seemed to continue into the darkness beyond.

“This way,” said the goblin, selecting one of their two options. In the light of the match his skin was a grayish green, and his mouth visible as a wide gash partially filled with crooked teeth, below those wide, brightly reflective eyes. His big feet slapped across the wet floor as he started off. After a moment’s hesitation, the four dwarves came behind.

The match fizzled and went out, and for a time they slopped along in utter darkness, Borand not wanting to expend his complete supply in this featureless passageway. Once they passed under a shaft leading upward, hearing sounds of marching feet directly overhead. The goblin continued on, and the Seers followed.

Finally their guide stopped, a fact that Darann discovered when she walked into him in the inky darkness. “Go up here,” the goblin declared. “Find Hiyram.”

Now Borand struck another light, revealing a set of iron rungs similar to those they had descended. The goblin led the way, and again Darann was right behind him. At the top of the shaft they had to push a heavy iron cover out of the way, though as soon as they started it moving, willing helpers grabbed on from above and slid it off of the exit.

The goblin quickly popped up. “These good dwarves,” he said. “Lady Darann comin’ up!”

“The Lady!” Immediately hands were extended, and the dwarfmaid allowed them to hoist her onto the ground. Her three companions quickly followed, standing somewhat nervously in the midst of a throng of goblins. Some of this rabble was wounded, and many of them carried makeshift weapons, mostly clubs and stones. More than one cast a glowering look upon the intruders.

“Where’s Hiyram?” she asked. “I need to talk to him!”

“Hiyram!” The shout was carried out from the group. “You waits here, stays quiet. Dwarves not happy in goblin-crowd, not now, not on this interval. Hiyram comes to find you.”

“I understand-and thank you,” Darann said.

A few minutes later, the crowd parted to let someone pass, and Darann practically sobbed with relief as she beheld the familiar, flop-eared visage. The goblin’s face brightened momentarily, then darkened with sudden, intense concern.

“Lady-you get from here!” he urged, his eyes wide. “The ghetto bad place now! You gotta go away! Why you come here now? Why?”

“I know about the danger,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I wish I could help you right away.”

“Metal-shirt dwarves come. They say we kill dwarfmaid with hot oil! No gob do that-was more black ones, dwarves of the ferr’ell marshal! We saw ’em, chased ’em, but no catch. They kill maid, blame us!”

Nayfal! Darann was not surprised to hear that the corrupt lord was behind the current attack. “There’s one thing I might be able to do. I have to talk to the king, to convince him that Nayfal has caused him to make a terrible decision. But I need help. You told me about a pailslopper… someone from the palace who heard of the plan to kill my father. I need to talk to her! Can you tell me how to find her?”

“She told me to tell none, but now…” Hiyram shrugged, gestured to their surroundings. “What choice do we have? Yes, I will say her name; she is called Greta Weaver, lives in room on top of Goat Hair Inn.”

“The Goat Hair? I know that place. It’s a soldiers’ tavern, not far from ghetto, on the road to the royal tower,” Konnor said. “I can find the place, once we get out of here.”

“Yes, that Goat Hair tavern. Good luck,” Hiyram said. “You can go from ghetto out pipe.” He gestured to the goblin who had guided them here. “Red-Eye Fobber will take you.”

“And you,” Darann said. “Can’t you get out of here, through the pipes underground?”

Hiyram shrugged again. “Lots of gobs go there, ladies and little ones. We fight here, till they can go. Send many away, but where to away? Get killed in ghetto, get killed in city, or drownded in lake? Find place to be safe-then we go, too.”

“Good luck, my friend,” Darann said, giving him an embrace. He hugged her back, then gestured. “Go, now!”

They started back toward the well they had emerged from, but they had taken only a dozen steps when a phalanx of dwarven guards came around the corner to block their path. The goblins and dwarves both froze for a second, until the sergeant of the Seers raised his axe and shouted a hoarse cry. Immediately, the dwarves charged forward.

“Run! Back there,” Hiyram urged, tugging at Darann’s hand. She hesitated, unwilling to flee in the face of her own countrymen, until Borand took her arm and pulled her along. She looked back, saw several goblins rush forward in attempt to slow up the attackers. A few sharp blows were enough to cut them down. The rest of the goblins turned and fled, carrying Darann and her companions with them.

“Here, another hole up there,” Hiyram said as they approached another intersection. “Run up hill, look in alley at top, on sword-hand side of street.”

“You come, too!” she urged.

“I come, but after you go-so run!”

Sensing that the stubborn goblin meant what he said, she cursed and started to run up a road that climbed the steep hill. Konnor fell in behind her, casting glances back at the pursuit, his sword ready in his hand. “Wait, here-take this!” said the dwarf. She saw that he had found a battered shield somewhere, now extended it toward her. Not sure what to do with it, she nevertheless took the buckler and held it awkwardly in her left hand.

Once more they looked down the street, toward Borand, Aurand, Hiyram, and the other goblins. They saw a wild melee at the intersection behind them, heard smacks of steel on steel and the surprised cursing of wounded dwarves. Somehow the motley group was buying them a little time.

“He said to look for an alley on the sword-side, on the right,” the dwarfmaid gasped, running short of breath. She spotted a dark gap in the row of ramshackle buildings. “That must be it!”

A goblin was in front of her, and she recognized Red-Eye Fobber, their original guide. “Hole in there,” he said. “Go down right away!”