The Goblin Corps (70 page)

“So beautiful,” Gork whispered.

“What?” Cræosh whirled, the hem of his robe twirling around his ankles. “Beautiful?! That
noise?”

“No,” Gork breathed, his face vaguely slack. “Every time the chant comes to an end, I picture myself smashing them in the face with something heavy. It seems to help.”

Cræosh tried it. It
did
help, but only a little.

Hoping to distract himself from the maddening acoustic deluge, he resumed his abortive inspection of their surroundings. His initial assessment of the building as “functional” remained intact, but the interior was at least a little more opulent.

They stood at the rear of an enormous chapel, filled primarily with long pews. Thick stone columns, ringed with carvings that presumably depicted important events and figures from human mythology, supported an arched ceiling about three times Belrotha’s (normal) height. Stained-glass windows leaked puddles of shifting, multicolored light across the floor, and the air was equally polluted with what Cræosh could only assume the humans considered to be incense.

At the far end of the chamber, a raised dais held a simple stone altar flanked by fonts. One held water, the other some sort of wine or nectar that was providing heaven on earth to a thick cloud of fruit flies. On the wall beyond hung a shape, about the size of a small wagon wheel, that couldn’t quite decide if it was a stylized sun or a compass rose. The orc couldn’t tell right off if it was actually made of gold or simply gilded, but either way…

Without even looking, he snagged Gork by the collar just as the kobold was stepping forward. Gork’s feet flew out from under him and he hung limply from his heavy robe.

“No,” Cræosh said simply.

“But—”

“No.”

“Cræosh—”

“No.”

The kobold sighed. “You’re a bastard, Cræosh.”

“Yes.” He returned the kobold to the floor with a faint thump and then firmly guided the little creature to turn around and look at something else.

It was but a few moments later that someone, finally, arrived to greet them.

He was an older man—forty to fifty, if Cræosh was any judge—but in good health. His slow pace was that of the contemplative, not the infirm. His robe was not terribly dissimilar from their own, except it was an eggshell hue rather than brown; it looked pure white compared to the iron gray of his hair.

“Can I help you, Brothers?” the man asked, his voice deep and yet somehow gentle, soothing. “You appear lost.”

“We seek Father Thomas,” Gork said, advancing a step.

The older man nodded. “I am Thomas.”

Excellent!
It was why they’d chosen the temple as a starting point—they knew Thomas would be easier to locate than the others—but finding him first thing was a stroke of fortune.

“My name is Brother Gerald,” the kobold told him. “My brethren and I have traveled many leagues to be here with you.”

“Did you now?” Thomas asked, his voice neutral.

Gork hesitated. This one wouldn’t be so easily fooled as the gate guards, not if their conversation touched more than briefly on theology. But this wasn’t exactly a functional place for murder: too many parishioners scattered throughout the pews, flipping through holy books or chatting with each other; too many members of that unseen choir. No choice but to bull through.

“We did, Father. We’re a…” Thomas wouldn’t be so quick to buy the “deformed monks” story, but neither would he be so quick to panic. “We’re a leprous community—no longer contagious, I assure you. We keep to ourselves, mostly, but with all that’s going on, we’ve come from the south, in order that we might enter into this very temple and contribute our own prayers for the victory and safe return of our armies.” Gork swallowed, shivering slightly, repressing the urge to look behind him.
It’s part of the disguise; even if he somehow hears, he’ll
know
it’s part of the disguise….
“And to petition the gods to lend our good soldiers strength and glory in crushing the forces of the hell-spawned abomination who dwells in the Iron Keep.”

Cræosh erupted into a violent coughing fit.

“Are you well, Brother?” Thomas asked, real concern in his voice.

“Fine,” Cræosh croaked. “Just a bit of road dust, aggravating the—uh, my weakened lungs.”

“And where are my manners?” the old priest said suddenly. “You have, as you say, traveled far, and I’m quite certain that you could use some time to recover from your journey. If you’ll follow me, we have extra sleeping cells for visitors. They possess little in the way of comforts, I fear, but then I imagine that you’re accustomed to even less. You are welcome to them for as long as you wish.”

“You are too kind, Father,” Gork said courteously, trying to repress a snicker. All they had to do now was get him into one of those cells and…“We are indeed weary. And I’m certain that whatever accommodations you provide will be eminently acceptable, in our eyes and the eyes of the gods as well.”

They followed, some few steps behind, as Thomas led them around one of the massive stone columns and into a tiny side passage that might well have gone completely unnoticed without his guidance. Torches in sconces burned cheerfully, shedding more than sufficient light to brighten the windowless corridor. They passed several younger priests on their way out, greeting each with a simple nod. Fortunately, as it was afternoon, the sleeping chambers were unlikely to be occupied.

“So, my brothers,” Thomas said conversationally as they walked, “what order do you hail from?”

Gork’s expression grew momentarily alarmed beneath his hood and bandages. “My brethren and I serve, ah, the Church of Saint Ignatius,” he said, pulling from his memory the first religious figure that captive priest had mentioned.

“Indeed,” the Father said. “Truly a steadfast brotherhood, yours.”

Unsure how to respond, the kobold kept his mouth shut. He noticed, between the sounds of footsteps, that Gimmol was mumbling to himself. He wanted to reach back and smack the gremlin—monks, Gork was fairly certain, didn’t mumble unless they were praying—but doing so would probably be an even more obvious infraction than the gremlin’s idiocy. Gork gritted his teeth and stayed silent.

Father Thomas finally led them to a line of doors, simple and unadorned. Given the narrow expanse of stone between each, the rooms must have been tiny indeed.

Thomas opened the nearest, then stepped back. “Does this meet with your approval, Brothers?”

Gork made a show of looking the minuscule cell over. “It does indeed, Father. I…” He stopped, curiosity slowly giving way to a sinking feeling of dread, as a gentle tickling wafted across his nostrils and he smelled the faint scent of herbs. He spun and saw the priest’s hand extended and the last traces of dried and powdered leaves settling through the air.

Oh, Stars, what’s he done?
He was already moving toward the old human, several of the others falling in beside and behind.

“All-Seeing Divine,” Thomas prayed, backpedaling before their advance, “gods of my ancestors, gods of my children, gods of my soul, I beseech thee now to shield thy servant from danger, from those who would corrupt thy house, those measured as both his enemies and thine.”

Okay, the man wasn’t retreating that quickly, had even slowed down as his prayer reached its end, so why couldn’t they seem to catch him? Why did everything seem to be…slowing…

Oh, dragonshit.

Gork’s limbs simply went away. He could
see
them, and he wasn’t feeling particularly dizzy or sleepy or anything; he just had no feeling anywhere in his body. He teetered, frozen, keeping his feet through exquisite balance and sheer luck. He heard some of the others toppling behind him, but couldn’t even look to see who’d fallen.

“Foolish creatures,” Father Thomas announced. “Did you think I couldn’t see through so transparent a charade?” His robes swishing around his boots, the priest stepped forward and placed his hands on Cræosh’s hood. “I know already what you are not. I would know what you are.” And with that, he yanked cloth and bandages back, revealing a swamp-green face and squinting red eyes.

“Orc!” the priest hissed, again retreating a pace. He sneered in growing comprehension at the other “monks” arrayed before him. “The Dark Lord has far more gall than even I gave him credit for. To send goblins into Brenald, into my temple!” He smiled, then, and it was not the kindly smile of an elderly priest. “Well, if you don’t mind waiting here a few moments, I’ll be back with the King’s Watch. I’m sure they’re going to have all sorts of interesting questions for you to answer.” With a dramatic flourish, Father Thomas moved to depart.

The instant the man’s back was turned, Gimmol advanced, as casual as a summer stroll, and plunged his short sword into Father Thomas’s back. The pristine white of the old man’s robe became a deep, rich red. He gasped once, staggered, and toppled.

“Well,” Gimmol said, practically sauntering back toward his companions, “that should about settle that.” He knelt beside Cræosh and Belrotha and cast his spells. Flexing fingers and twitching feet were evidence enough that they would recover within seconds.

He’d just risen, in fact, to move toward the next of the fallen goblins, when a shadow flickered across Gork’s face. Thankfully, Gork wasn’t the only one to see it, since he couldn’t even move to shout a warning.

“Down!” Cræosh shouted, wobbling unsteadily to his feet, far too late to do any good.

Father Thomas, his teeth clenched so tightly against the pain that his jaw creaked, had arrested his fall, bracing one hand against the wall. With the other, shaking but strong, he yanked a hand-axe from within his robe and swung at Gimmol’s unprotected head.

And then Belrotha was there. With a banshee howl, standing tall against the drug that hadn’t yet faded entirely from her body, she hurled the gremlin clear of harm’s way—not to mention a good twenty feet up the corridor—and took across her ribs the blow meant for Gimmol’s head.

Had Thomas himself been uninjured, the blow might have penetrated both her leather jerkin and her thick hide—but he wasn’t, and it didn’t. Belrotha staggered, grunting once at the pain. Then she exhaled a single hot, pungent breath into Thomas’s face and crushed his skull against the wall.

“What were you saying?” Cræosh asked casually as he helped the battered gremlin back to his feet.

“That…should about settle it,” the gremlin repeated painfully. “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry?” the orc asked, amazed. “We’d all be fucked if you—how did you do that, anyway?”

“Magic,” Gimmol said cryptically, kneeling so he could attend to the others.

“Well, no shit, magic. But we were frozen. I thought you had to move and talk and all that to cast a spell.”

“That’s true. Actually, I had a protective spell going
before
the old man paralyzed you.”

“That’s
what you were doing!” Gork burst out as the gremlin’s magics sent feeling coursing back through his muscles. “I thought you were just talking to yourself.”

Gimmol shrugged. “I try not to talk to myself. There are so many more interesting conversationalists about.”

“But how did you know he was going to do that?” the kobold insisted.

“Well, I didn’t know, exactly. But you saw what Havarren’s list said about him. ‘Herbalist and alchemist.’
Some
of us know to take that stuff seriously.”

Cræosh and Katim both stared at their feet, seeing as how they’d laughed and scoffed at that when first studying the scroll they’d been given. “So he’s a
healer,”
the orc had snickered. “That should take about half a minute.”

“So,” Gimmol continued, “I cast a spell to cleanse the body of poisons. It’s not all that potent, really—I normally use it for sobering up—but I figured that anything he could throw at us would either be pretty weak, or at least take a while to fully work its way—”

“I think,” Katim said before Gork could explode, “that he meant…to ask how you knew that Thomas…had seen through our…disguises.”

“I’m kind of curious about that myself,” Cræosh added.

“Oh.” He sounded a little crestfallen. “Well, it was sort of Gork’s fault, actually. Don’t get me wrong,” he added quickly, sensing the coming diatribe. “I mean, obviously you had no way of knowing. But I’ve read up on a lot of this, of course, so I knew—”

“Knew
what?”
Cræosh demanded.

Gimmol smiled ruefully. “Ignatius is the patron saint of health and beauty. There’s no way they’d ever accept a colony of lepers, or the deformed, into their order. The instant you used Ignatius’s name, Father Thomas only had to look at us to know you were lying.”

“Oh,” Gork said after a moment’s pause.

“Yeah,” Gimmol agreed.

“Well,” Cræosh said, glancing around, “it’s done. This corridor’s pretty well abandoned at the moment, but it ain’t gonna be too long until someone finds him. We want to be out of here before that happens. And we still have work to do here.” He shrugged philosophically at the others’ puzzled expressions. “We’re supposed to ‘display’ the bodies, remember? This is messy, but it’s just a start. Let’s get to it.”

Nobody paid much attention to a procession of monks wandering through the temple; or rather, they were noticed as newcomers, but otherwise went unremarked. And thus unremarked, the Demon Squad remained also unmolested as they proceeded from the tiny hallway, through the chapel, and on toward the front doors. It took every iota of control to maintain that steady, plodding pace when every instinct screamed at them to
run
, to be well and truly gone before their handiwork could be discovered.

But when the huge temple doors boomed shut behind them and the midday sun prodded ardently at the heavy fabric of their robes, they still heard neither hue nor cry from behind, no alarm of any type. They were clear.

“What now?” Gimmol asked.

“There.” Cræosh pointed. A small crowd was gathered alongside the temple’s side, and not a few clerical robes—both the white of priests and the brown of monks—bustled within. The various clergymen handed out small bundles of dried meats and loaves of a hard bread to the assembled citizens. “See if you all can’t find a loaf of something to hand out.”