Goblin Hero (17 page)

There was no sign of Veka. She must have fled while they were busy stabbing and saving Slash.

“I should have stabbed ’em both,” Grell muttered.

Jig had a hard time disagreeing. He was a bit surprised Veka hadn’t attacked them the moment she awakened. If she could fling Slash about and seize control of giant bats, surely she could do a fair amount of damage to a few goblins and ogres. He remembered the wild glee on her face while she was riding the giant bat. The only reason Jig could think of for her to retreat was so she could return with reinforcements.

Trockle seemed to be thinking along the same lines. She scowled at her son and niece. “You’ve brought the pixies down upon us.”

“Sorry,” said Ramma and Arnor in unison.

Trockle turned to Jig, and he raised the bloody sword. She shook her head. “Killing you wouldn’t help us now. Go fight the pixies, if you can. You might buy us a brief head start. Or if you prefer a quick death, we can—”

“We’ll fight the pixies,” Jig said.

Trockle turned and punched Arnor in the arm. “As for you and your cousin, you’re going to be on dung-drying duty for the next month!” Both ogres shot hateful glares at Jig as they left.

Grell and Braf looked at Jig.

Jig knelt, wiping his sword on Slash’s pants. Why did they keep expecting him to tell them what to do? Any other goblin would have killed Slash and Veka the moment they learned of the pixie spell. Because of Jig, Veka had escaped to warn the pixies.

Jig glanced at Slash’s body.
Well, it was pretty gross, but—

That’s not what I meant,
Shadowstar said, sounding cross.

Will you just go fight the pixies?
snapped Shadowstar.

Right. Jig stared at his sword. One old goblin, a runt, and an idiot against Veka and the pixies. Not to mention a fainting hobgoblin warrior.

“Braf, would you wake Slash up?” Maybe this time the hobgoblin would stay conscious long enough to help.

Not that he really expected it to make much of a difference.

CHAPTER 8

—Nisu Graybottom, Gnomish Illusionist From
The Path of the Hero (Wizard’s ed.)

 

 

 

There was nothing quite like watching someone run a sword through your traveling companion to help you shake off the last vestiges of unconsciousness.

Veka kept her free hand on the rock as she hurried through the tunnel. Blind panic had brought her this far, with no thought except to put as much distance between herself and Jig Dragonslayer as she possibly could.

She should have expected this. Jig had seen her true potential back there in the pit. He felt threatened. He preferred the old, pitiful Veka. Josca had warned of the jealousy a Hero could expect from those closest to her. She touched the comforting outline of the book through the outside of her cloak. Veka was a victim of jealousy, just like Li’ila from chapter five: The Descent.

Like Li’ila’s husband, Jig feared her and hoped to do away with her before she grew too powerful. That didn’t explain why they had killed Slash, too. Then again, Slash was a hobgoblin. How much reason did they need?

Veka turned around. Maybe she should go back. Jig might try to hide and flee from battle, but she was Veka. She had the power to defeat ogres and goblins both. She grinned, remembering the giddiness of riding the giant bat through the pit, her cloak billowing, her hair blowing in the wind. All she lacked was her staff.

She scowled, trying to recall where she had lost it. She had been trying to release the spell on Slash. For some reason, she hadn’t been able to undo the magic, and then . . .

“He kicked me!” Remembering that indignity was the final insult. She rubbed her scalp, feeling the blood clotted to her hair. Of all the ungrateful, cowardly, hobgoblinish things to do! It made her feel a little better about his ugly demise.

She wouldn’t have been so upset if it were Slash who had been planning to kill her. She was a little surprised he hadn’t tried already. But to hear Jig and Grell talking about who should be the one to stab her . . . “They wanted to kill me.” The words sounded distant and unreal.

Her throat hurt, as though she had tried to swallow a rock, one with lots of corners. “I went to Jig for help!” How many times had she imagined the day he would see her potential and share the secrets of his magic, teaching her the things he had never shared with any other goblin.

He had seen her potential all right, and it had terrified him. Jig was no Hero. Nor was he a Mentor. What kind of Mentor plotted the murder of his own apprentice? Even if she had never officially been his apprentice.

But Jig had failed. He had made a mistake, killing the hobgoblin first. Veka was no longer the helpless fool everyone thought she was. She would go back there and show Jig Dragonslayer what real magic could do. She would—

She glanced at her legs, which refused to budge. She pinched her thigh and winced. Why couldn’t she move?

She tried an experimental step backward, toward the bottomless pit. Her legs obeyed, but when she tried to go forward again, her muscles went rigid.

“What’s wrong with me?” Maybe it was a curse of some sort. She wouldn’t put it past Jig. She turned around and tried walking backward toward him, and again her body rebelled. She could flee, but she couldn’t go back to confront him.

“Trying to fight Jig Dragonslayer will get you killed, either by Jig himself, or by the pixies searching for him,” she whispered.

One hand reached up to touch her lips. That was her voice, but it certainly didn’t sound like anything she would say. Though it was a reasonable point. Assuming the pixies were searching the pit, they would eventually find this tunnel.

“Jig means well, but he’s going to get every last goblin killed.”

It was her mouth. Her voice. Her teeth that nearly pierced her fingers when she grabbed them and tried to stop herself from talking. She waited to make sure the voice had finished before asking, “What’s going on?”

“Currently, you’re standing in a tunnel with your fingers in your mouth.” The inflection was slightly off, emphasizing different syllables and blurring the sentence together so it sounded like one long word. The fact that her fingers were still probing her lips didn’t help her enunciation much either.

“Who are you?” She folded her arms and braced herself. Her legs twitched, but she tightened the muscles. She might not be able to walk back to the others, but she could stop herself from leaving. “I’m not budging until I get some answers.”

“Fine. My name is Snixle,” Veka’s own voice said, sounding exasperated. “I’m the guy who helped you cast that illumination charm on your hobgoblin friend. The one who guided you through the levitation spell. The one who helped you take control of that bat before he could eat you. I’m the guy trying to save your life, who can teach you far more powerful magic than anything you’ve done so far, but only if you get out of there. It’s much more difficult to teach the dead.”

Veka started to argue, but her lips refused to open. Her neck and jaw muscles began to cramp as she struggled against herself.

From the direction of the pit, a faint purple light began to fill the tunnels. “Pixies.” She couldn’t tell if she or Snixle had been the one to speak.

Veka frowned. “The pixie following us was pink, not purple.”

“Which means there’s probably a second pixie. Lights combine into new colors. Don’t you goblins know anything? If they’re sending another pixie out into your world, they must really want your friend Jig.”

The rock in her throat grew sharper at the mention of Jig’s name. “Why him?”

“Look, if I promise to answer your questions, will you please get out of the tunnel? We passed a crevasse near the floor a little way back. You can hide down there.”

“Heroes don’t hide,” Veka said. “If these pixies are coming for Jig, they won’t expect me. I’ll have the element of surprise.”

“I’m sure that will be a tremendous comfort when your bones begin to grow through your skin. Look, no matter how surprised they are, they’ll either kill you on the spot, or they’ll wrest control from me and make you fling yourself into the pit or slam your own head against the wall until your skull cracks. You can fight me, but you won’t be able to resist them. Is that really how you want to meet your end?”

“I can—”

“No, you can’t,” Snixle said, cutting her off. He sounded absolutely certain. “Not yet, at least. You can’t save your people if you’re dead. Do you really think the pixies would send anyone but their strongest warriors to hunt in your world?”

Reluctantly, Veka allowed Snixle to take control of her legs, hurrying back a short distance. A smell like damp seaweed marked the place. She lay flat on the ground, feeling the outline of the opening, an irregular crack on the edge of the floor. She hadn’t even noticed it before. Snixle must have been attuned to her senses for some time.

She should fit, though it would be tight. The ground beyond angled sharply downward. She heard water trickling from overhead. The crevasse extended up as well.

“Goblins have a rule about surviving strange tunnels,” she muttered. She pulled her cloak tight around her body and slipped her feet into the hole. “A rule for figuring out which ones are dangerous.”

“What rule is that?”

“They’re all dangerous.” She scooted deeper, grimacing as her hips and stomach scraped the rock. By now the approaching pixies were bright enough for her to distinguish the individual colors. The left side of the tunnel was more pink, while the right was bluer. If they found her here, wedged halfway into a hole, they wouldn’t even need to attack. She would die of humiliation.

The soles of her boots touched the far side of the crevasse. She squeezed her fingers in next to her stomach and pulled. Her feet searched for traction, anything she could use to help drag herself through. This was worse than the time a group of older goblins had threatened to plug a privy with her.

No, on second thought, it wasn’t quite that bad.

Her hand slipped, scraping skin from her knuckles. Gritting her teeth, she reached down and tried again, straining and tugging.

The edge of the crevasse scraped her stomach as she finally slid inside. She clung to the rock as her feet searched for traction. The crack fell away at an angle, passing underneath the tunnel. Water trickled along the bottom. Already it had begun to soak into her cloak.

“They’re almost here,” Snixle whispered. Without warning, her hands relaxed. Only Snixle’s control of her jaw kept her from screaming as she slid into the darkness.

She stopped moving almost at once as her legs jammed into the rock. Cramped as it was, it would be nearly impossible to really fall. The hole dropped more sharply here. She lay on her stomach, staring up at a crack of light with one leg dangling into the drop-off. The other pressed against the rock, bracing her in place.

As the pixies passed, their lights briefly illuminated the crevasse. Water and brown sludge covered the rock. A quick glance showed that same sludge now covered her cloak and boots. She waited until the light disappeared, then pushed herself up.

“What are you doing?” Snixle whispered.

“The pixies are gone. I’m getting out of here.”

“There will be others. Pixies and worse. They’ll be even more vigilant now that the queen has awakened. All they care about is eliminating every possible threat to the queen’s safety.”

“The queen?”

“She came over before, asleep in a shell of magic to protect her from the shock. This place is so warm and dry. Even with all of the changes below, the transition will be quite a shock. But soon she should be ready to leave the dragon’s cave. She might already be on her way. That’s why they must capture Jig Dragonslayer.”