T. Lain: The Savage Caves

The first goblin in line lifted another javelin, and Tzrg jumped at him. It wasn’t something Tzrg was normally apt to do, but these were desperate times. Compared to the folly of the whole mission, jumping at an armed opponent who had the twin advantages of the high ground and familiar territory wasn’t so foolish.

Tzrg wished he’d remembered to pull his dagger before he landed on the middle goblin. Instead, they started wrestling. Tzrg was lucky at least to the extent that the middle goblin didn’t know how to wrestle either. They were all elbows and grunting. The added weight of Frsj on the end of his rope didn’t help Tzrg.

The goblin on the right pulled the javelin out of his shoulder with a wet pop!, and a high-pitched wail. Nlnz followed Tzrg’s lead and jumped up onto the shelf as well. With javelin in hand, Nlnz managed to slip off the side of his opponent’s guard, avoiding the ambusher’s stab at him with the sharp javelin. Nlnz sank his own sharpened stick into the ambusher’s throat. There was a gurgling sound, and the goblin died just as Tzrg managed to get his dagger free.

Tzrg pushed back against his opponent’s face in order to get his arm in between them and stab the middle goblin. That saved Tzrg’s life-the wounded ambusher jabbed between Tzrg and the middle goblin, obviously aiming at Tzrg. Instead, the already bloody javelin that once belonged to Tzrg found its mark in the side of Nlnz’s face. It dug a deep, nasty, ragged furrow in Nlnz’s dull yellow skin, and blood burst out of the wound. Nlnz made a deep, sick sound as he died.

Tzrg sliced through the spidersilk rope that joined him to his two dead friends, then he reached out and grabbed the javelin with his left hand and stabbed the middle goblin in the ribs with the dagger he held in his right. The dagger was a little rusty and not as sharp as it once was, but it was a fine weapon, made by elves and stolen by Tzrg’s great-grandfather before Tzrg was born. It was the knife of the chief of the Stonedeep Tribe and had been carried by Tzrg’s ancestors for generations, until Rezrex came and made himself chief.

The middle goblin didn’t die at first, but he stopped fighting. Tzrg took that time to slash out to his side, cutting the wounded goblin’s throat so that a waterfall of blood washed over the shelf. The dead goblin released his grip on the javelin, and Nlnz’s limp body fell away in the other direction.

Tzrg, still holding the javelin, slid backward off the shelf and called, “Mjk nlvdv!” to warn Rezrex and the other goblins of the falling bodies.

The middle goblin came with him, landing flat on his face while Tzrg managed to land on his feet.

Tzrg slid down a few feet and sheathed his dagger. He took the javelin in both hands and drove it into the Cavemouth goblin’s back. The enemy goblin twitched once and was dead. The sight didn’t please Tzrg. There was no going back now that Cavemouth blood had been spilled. There was a war on, and it was a war that no one but Rezrex wanted. Though he had accepted the fact that he wasn’t as smart as Rezrex and so wasn’t sure he’d ever understand why Rezrex would start a war with the Cavemouth Tribe, Tzrg was curious. The idea that a different hobgoblin, an enemy of Rezrex’s, had taken over the Cavemouth Tribe had occurred to Tzrg. Then there was the idea that maybe Rezrex wanted the Stonedeep Tribe to have all the vast caves for themselves. Or maybe he was just setting the two goblin tribes against each other for fun, just to see who would win.

Working hard not to slip on the blood-slick stone, Tzrg turned back and was soon face-to-face with Rezrex. Tzrg met the hobgoblin’s gaze for just a second before looking down. Rezrex barked out something in the hobgoblin language. Tzrg didn’t understand that complex, strange tongue, and he wasn’t sure if Rezrex was scolding or congratulating him. Tzrg just kept his mouth shut.

Rezrex laughed, pulled a young goblin warrior up, and waved him into the tunnel. A few more goblins followed, then Rezrex, the last couple goblins, and Tzrg took up the rear. As they passed him, Tzrg could see the fear and confusion on the faces of the goblins. They didn’t know what Rezrex had in mind for them either, and they were afraid they were going to find out the hard way, as if they hadn’t already.

Tzrg was no better with numbers than any goblin, but he was smart enough to count to eighteen. By his count, only three Cavemouth goblins were dead, and already, thanks to Rezrex, more than three Stonedeep goblins had spilled their lives on a cave floor for the hobgoblin’s mysterious cause. Though both tribes had more than eighteen goblins, Tzrg was pretty sure that the Cavemouth Tribe was the bigger of the two.

Rezrex was sending them out to be killed, leaving fewer goblins back in the home caves to protect the females, the young, and the hive spider queen.

What was the most confusing part of the whole thing for Tzrg was the fact that the Stonedeep Tribe was as rich as Tzrg could imagine a goblin tribe being. They had a healthy, happy hive spider queen, who kept her drones obedient and plentiful. The goblins always had enough spider meat to eat, and the drones hunted and gathered cave beetles, blind fish, and other delicacies. The caves were secure, with no tunnels leading deeper and only one way up into Cavemouth territory. The Cavemouth Tribe provided a buffer against any incursions from the surface, and the Stonedeep Tribe stayed home, deep underground with their hive spiders, ate well, made little goblins, and took good care of their caves.

Tzrg, deep in thought, had let himself fall behind. When the first sounds of battle echoed around him from behind the Border Sink waterfall above, his blood ran cold. He stopped, listening to metal clang against metal, bones crack, goblins scream and die, and Rezrex shout orders in his oddly accented Goblin. The sounds echoed in the tight confines of the shaft until they made Tzrg’s ears ring. The goblin was sure he could hear the screams of females.

Tzrg took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his javelin, and joined the fray.

“We’ve made good time,” Regdar said, turning to look at Jozan. “The village should be just over this next hill, and we have a few hours of daylight left.”

The priest nodded.

“We could continue on,” Regdar suggested, “camp along the road.”

Jozan patted the neck of his dappled mare and smiled. “They warned me about you in Lianne,” the priest said.

Regdar felt his hackles raise. “They warned you about me, Father?”

Jozan coughed out a laugh and said, “They told me you liked to do things the hard way.”

“Did they?” Regdar asked.

He was not amused. Regdar didn’t think he chose one “way” or another. There was little to fear along the road west from the frontier town of Lianne to the city of New Koratia. How hard could one night outside the confining walls of a smelly old inn be? Regdar slowed his horse and looked over at the priest. Jozan’s polished scale mail glinted in the sun, a heavy mace-a real weapon, Regdar was pleased to note-hung from the side of his saddle. Around his neck, strung on thick twine, hung a wooden carving of a stern-faced sun-the symbol of Pelor.

There was something about this priest that Regdar liked. Maybe it was the fact that Jozan looked more like a soldier than a priest, or maybe it was that he was closer to Regdar’s own age than any man of the cloth Regdar had ever met. After six years in the Duke’s infantry, escorting a lone priest of Pelor-the god Regdar most honored himself-was easy duty. Regdar didn’t feel like someone was standing just over the next hill waiting to kill him. He wasn’t thinking about the tragedy that had sent him into the army in the first place. He was just riding west through good, clean, hilly country on a good horse, with good company.