The Goblin Corps (11 page)

As ordered, they were all lined up like good little soldiers when the dawning sun finally broke over the horizon. (Although it must be noted that Gork, panting just a bit, had arrived with seconds to spare, and Jhurpess had simply bedded down in the courtyard once he’d returned from his side-trip to the infirmary). And, good to his word, Shreckt appeared but moments later. He carried a riding crop, cut down to his size, that he slapped against his leg as he marched back and forth across that same stretch of nothing.

“Good,” he said with a grin. “You can follow orders. Not a bad start.”

The imp took a moment to examine them each in turn. “You’re here,” he began, “as part of this squad, because you’re
supposedly
among the best your races have to offer. Trained and experienced soldiers, or killers, or—whatever. So it would be redundant to try to train you further in any
conventional
capacity.”

Cræosh didn’t know about the others, but he was starting to get a twitchy feeling in the pit of his gut. Never, in all his years of war, had he heard of any “unconventional training” that didn’t involve extreme discomfort.

“The Serpent’s Pass,” the imp persisted, “is the only route through the Brimstone Mountains large enough for an army. But Dororam might utilize the other passes to try to squeeze smaller groups of his people around behind our main defenses. Likeliest places for
that
are the northeast mountains, in the Steppes. So step one is to make sure that you ‘elite’ can function as well there as you can down here.”

Cræosh winced. He
hated
the cold.

“Your first exercise, then, is straightforward enough. Survive four days in the tundra. Then we’ll talk further.”

The troll raised a clawed hand.

“What?”

“Four days…will barely get us…into the Steppes. Even from…here, it is…quite a long walk.”

“True.” Shreckt grinned malevolently. “That’s why you aren’t walking.”

Cræosh had enough time for a single mental
Shit!
before they were surrounded by an abrupt puff of sulfurous smoke—and Shreckt, cackling maniacally, stood alone in the courtyard.

“S
omething,” Lidia murmured softly, “is bothering you.”

“Is it?” duMark asked, spinning as his restless tread once again carried him to the limits of the small bedchamber. “What could possibly have given you that impression?”

The young ranger’s lips quirked. “You’re pacing like a caged orc, that’s what. If I’d known you had this kind of stamina, I’d—”

The half-elf halted, one hand raised. “Do not even
think
of finishing that sentence.”

The long-legged redhead matched her gaze with his, and he could see the wheels turning behind those eyes. It was she, however, who finally gave.

“Sorry, Ananias. I guess I’m still a bit sensitive about it all.”

In the months following the assault on the Iron Keep, Father Thomas—longtime companion of Ananias duMark and chirurgeon of the finest order—had worked his hands raw repairing the damage General Falchion had inflicted. But while Lidia was no longer in pain, and she could breathe easily and smell clearly once more, there was little even the old man’s skills could do for her appearance. He’d straightened the cartilage as best he could, but she still looked like what she was: someone who had been punched in the face by a warrior wearing a steel gauntlet. The shape of her skull was disturbingly
off
, her nose uneven, the flesh around it permanently discolored. The loss of her former beauty had done nothing to diminish her fervor to fight for good, for freedom, and all the rest of it, but her companions were proving far less adaptable than she herself.

She could ignore it easily enough when it came from the others. From Ananias, after all they’d once been, it was a stab to the gut every time he looked at her—or, more accurately, refused to look at her.

Not that she’d ever show it.

Putting her own humiliation behind her, the ranger rose lithely to her feet and stepped in front of the pacing wizard, blocking the path he’d already beaten into the carpet.

“Had you actually stuck with one direction,” she told him in response to his irritated expression, “instead of turning around each time you reached a wall, you’d be at the Brimstone Mountains by now.”

“Pacing helps me think,” he snapped at her.

“No. Pacing helps you
feel.
If you were thinking, you’d have come up with something already.”

With a defeated sigh, the stately half-breed planted his rear on the bed. Only slightly self-conscious, Lidia sat beside him.

“He
must
know by now,” duMark said—as he’d
been
saying, now, for days on end. “A blind leech with brain damage could see Dororam’s armies gathering. So why hasn’t he
done
anything?”

“Maybe your own efforts are distracting him? You said you had a few schemes working…”

“Not possible. They haven’t progressed far enough.”

Slowly, almost fearfully, Lidia extended a comforting hand and placed it on duMark’s shoulder. She was, she realized with bitter self-loathing, absurdly grateful when he didn’t brush it away. “It’s not as though he’s ignoring the threat,” she told him, her voice calming. “You yourself told me that the patrols around the Serpent’s Pass have increased fourfold. Why—”

“But that’s not like him!” DuMark surged to his feet, allowing Lidia’s hand to fall uselessly to the mattress. “Morthûl doesn’t think defensively! Never has, never will! No, he’s plotting something, all right. I’d bet my beard.”

“You don’t have a beard,” Lidia told him curtly. “And what are you doing using a dwarven expression, anyway?”

DuMark glowered at her for a full minute. “Are you through?” he asked finally.

She shrugged, her bobbing shoulders making her red curls dance around her head. “For the moment.”

“Good.”

“Look,” she said, heartily sick of the whole thing. “You’re so hot and bothered because you can’t figure out what Morthûl may or may not be doing? Why don’t you find out already? What’s your magic good for, anyway?”

The sorcerer shook his head. “The Iron Keep’s not the sort of place you can just scry on, Lidia. The Charnel King protects himself against that sort of thing.”

“So? When was the last time you took the easy way out?”
Not counting me
…

Slowly, a grin stole over duMark’s features. “You know, Lidia, you might just have a point after all. I think I
will
go find out what his Bony-ness is up to.”

“And how are you planning to accomplish that?”

“Well, I thought if I were polite enough about it, I might just find someone to ask.”

Gork found himself screaming, just a little bit, as he materialized about fifteen feet above the frozen tundra and plummeted into the snow.

He screamed a lot louder when Cræosh appeared directly over him a moment later.

The orc, arms flailing, fell into the snow with a resounding whump. Grumbling mightily, he dragged himself to his feet and had barely vacated his self-made hole before the next of his companions (Jhurpess, it so happened) appeared from thin air above his head and plunged groundward.

Once the last of the Demon Squad had arrived—the troll, who was the only member of the group to actually land on her feet—Cræosh began examining his surroundings, trying to determine exactly how deep the shit they were in might be.

Very
, was his first conclusion.

“It’s fucking cold,” was his second. “I think my testicles are somewhere near my throat.” His companions, for whatever reason, didn’t feel the need to comment on that particular pronouncement.

“Where are the mountains?” Gimmol asked, trying to look every way at once. “Didn’t Shreckt say something about mountains?”

“Where food?” Jhurpess chimed in with his usual priorities. “Jhurpess hungry!”

“Jhurpess always hungry,” Cræosh muttered. “Jhurpess better shut the hell up, or Jhurpess may find himself eating his club.”

“For that matter,” Fezeill said before the bugbear could respond to the orc’s taunts, “where’s the kobold?” He didn’t actually
say “I don’t want that little bastard out of my sight!”
but everyone heard it in his voice, even if they weren’t certain why.

Cræosh’s brow wrinkled. “You know, I didn’t see him land.”

“Must…have arrived before…you did.”

But the orc merely shook his head at the troll’s suggestion. “I dunno. I think I would have seen—”

Gork’s head popped from the snow a few yards away. A murderous glint in his beady little eyes, the kobold literally dragged himself free and stalked toward Cræosh, brushing clinging clumps of white off him as he went.

“You—you stupid elephant! You nearly killed me!”

“Beg pardon?” Cræosh asked, stepping back out of sheer instinct. “What’re you talking about?”

“You!
It’s all very well to be built like a damn brick when you’re bowling people over or—or eating buildings, or whatever it is you do, but it doesn’t help you
fly
, does it?”

The orc finally got it. “I, uh, landed on you, didn’t I?”

“You’re damn right you did, you monstrosity! You’re lucky I didn’t decide to
carve
my way out! You—”

Seeing the orc—and, for that matter, the rest of the squad—collapse into gales of helpless laughter was quite certainly not the effect Gork had been shooting for. With a final disgusted grunt, he spun on his heel and wandered some forty or fifty feet from the others, where he then proceeded to sulk.

“All right,” Cræosh said, once he’d finally regained some semblance of control. “Our first step is to figure out where the hell we are. Then, we have to decide how to go about surviving this miserable place for four days.”

“Why,” the goblin lamented sadly, “couldn’t he have let us pack some extra clothes?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a test, then, would it, runt? Shit,
anybody
can survive the Northern Steppes if they’re
prepared
for it.” His brow, however, twisted in thought. “You were right about one thing, though. The imp
did
say something about mountains. Guarding the passes, and all that.”

“There is…a mountain range off to…the east. I can…just barely see it.”

Cræosh wandered over, squinting. “I don’t see anything but snow, snow, and—wait! Is that—why, yes it is.
More
snow!”

Except for a quick sideways glower, the orc’s sarcasm went ignored. “Trolls…have very good…sight. Better than…other races.”

“All
other races?” he asked distrustfully.

Was it his imagination, or was that actually a look of mild embarrassment stealing over the troll’s features? “Still cannot match…elven sight.”

“Well, don’t take it so hard. You wouldn’t
want
to be an elf. At least you’re not named Bunnybugger or Treeface or something.”

“I’m so…relieved.”

“If you two would allow me?”

The orc and the troll turned as Fezeill stepped between them. As he passed, Cræosh could see the doppelganger’s legs lengthening, his torso narrowing, his ears shifting beneath his hair. Even though he
knew
who it was before him, had watched the Fezeill take on an elven shape, the orc had to brutally repress the urge to murder the horrid creature on sight.

Finally, after a few minutes of staring through elven pupils, Fezeill said, “There is indeed a mountain range many miles to the east. But it’s far, far too small to be the Brimstone Mountains.”

“Well, that narrows it down, anyway,” Cræosh said. He paused, dredging up old lessons in geography. “There’s only, what, two or three ranges in the Steppes, right? So all we have to do is figure out which one it is, and we’re set.”

“Set? All it…tells us is where we are. There…remains the small matter of…survival.”

“So we survive.” The orc—who, despite his blithe façade was preventing himself from shivering violently through sheer stubbornness—signaled those who had lagged behind to catch up. “Let’s move it, people!”

Gimmol, Jhurpess, and then, somewhat grudgingly, Gork, all gathered. “Move?” the gremlin asked, his face puzzled. “Where do we have to go?”

Cræosh pointed forcefully in the direction Fezeill-the-elf was staring. “There. Mountains.”

“Oh?” Gork asked, voice still sullen. “And who decided we were going that way?”

His face fixed in a tight grin, the orc lifted his tiny companion from the snow, palming the kobold’s head as if it were a melon.
“I
did. Any objections?”

“Mrmph,” Gork reassured him.

“I’m so glad to hear it.”
Thump.
“Any other questions?”

Jhurpess, Gimmol, and Fezeill watched the kobold stand up and once more dust the snow from his shoulders. As one, they shook their heads.

The troll, however, calmly returned his glower. “You are quite quick…to take over, yes? If I…
were
to object, what…would you do?”

Cræosh blanched internally, but he wasn’t about to back down in front of the others. “Care to find out?”

The temperature dropped far enough to freeze the snow into solid ice. The rest of the squad stood as motionless as if they, too, had been frozen, terrified that the slightest movement might set one or another of their deadly companions off.

And then…

“Not…just now. I have…no objections.”

Cræosh breathed a subdued sigh of relief.

“But if…I did, you would certainly…be the first to know.”

In other words
, the orc translated,
this ain’t over.

Well, he’d deal with that when it came up. For now, there was the pesky matter of survival, and standing around with their thumbs up their respective asses wasn’t particularly conducive to that goal.

“Fine. Fezeill, we should keep a visual fix on the mountains. You’ll stay in that form for a while, and—”

“I think not.”

Cræosh snapped his jaw shut. “And why is that?”

Even as the doppelganger answered, he began to shift. “Because elves are just fine sight-wise, but they are somewhat lacking in the insulation department. As you said, ‘It’s fucking cold.’” By the time he had finished speaking, a second bugbear—somewhat lighter in hue than Jhurpess, though equally hairy—stood in the elf’s place.