When Goblins Rage (Book 3) (22 page)

“You ever thought I might kill you first, Eli?”

“All the time,” he said with his impish grin wide on his stained face. “And Nysta, my friend. That, too, would be a great honour for me.”

“Reckon that settles it,” she said with a mocking sigh. “Fellers like us? Killers and thieves, all? We're mad. The lot of us. It's the only explanation.”

“How can you say this thing? Do I look mad?” He lifted his head and showed his face in profile. “Look at me. I am the most sane man in the whole of the Deadlands. See?”

“You?” She snorted. “You're the craziest of all, Eli.”

Sharpe's voice roared from outside. Muted by the window and the bitter wind, she couldn't make out what he'd said. Eli grimaced at the sound, though, before grinning again. “Come, my friend. Let us go outside and watch the coward pretend he is a Lord. And then let us show how it is really done.” He held his hand out to her. “Let us show him the real King and Queen of the Deadlands.”

She looked at his hand with a sceptical eye, before taking it and letting him haul her up off the bed. Knew he meant it as nothing more than a gesture of friendship. A token of acceptance that they were the same. Two killers who only felt alive when in the heat of battle.

A helpless thrill of anticipation swept through her chest, rising from the ball of fear in her belly. But she frowned at him anyway. “Does it matter right now if he wants to be Lord? Soon, an army of Caspiellans are coming to kill us, and there's fuck all we can do to stop them coming through those gates. Right now, we're all the same. We're all royally fucked.” She led him to the door, her free hand checking her weapons. “Let him play at being Lord. He's not a bad leader. He did okay last time. If you go out there and fuck with him, his guards won't fight so hard. Then we'll really be fucked. Leave it, Eli. That's what I'm saying. Leave it for a better time.”

Eli's hand tugged free and he looked at her, fuming. “Which side are you on?”

“Same side I'm always on,” she retorted. “Mine.”

“But if it came down to it. Him or me? Which one would you choose?”

“That depends,” she said. Absently, she recalled how she felt when she'd been talking to Sharpe after the last battle. How he'd reminded her so much of Talek.

Inwardly, she cringed at the memory. Hating herself for seeing something good in the man.

“On?”

“Who was winning,” she said blandly. “On who I needed most at the time. Maybe on who was closest. Does it really matter, Eli?”

Fury slid from his grasp quickly as he recognised the practicality of her position. “I understand, my friend. And you are right. I do not like to admit such things, and I will kill you if you tell him, but he is a good leader in a fight. So long as he stays for it.”

“He'll stay,” she said, and knew it to be true. Sharpe was a man who'd been pushed into a corner he couldn't get out of. He was too old to go somewhere else. This was his final chance. That, and she recognised the stubborn streak in him as being almost as bad as Talek's.

It was the kind of stubborn that would lead him to stand in front of a Caspiellan mage and to use himself as shield against the spellslinger's fireballs. All to protect a king who hid like a coward behind his own throne.

“I wouldn't bet on it,” he growled.

“I would,” she said, allowing her lip to curl into a crooked smile. “After all. You're both after the same thing.”

“What's that?”

“Dethrone.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The morning chill gnawed deep into her bones.

She headed toward a small gathering of townsfolk squeezed around a small fire. An old woman squatted beside the fire, stirring a large pot, while a young boy handed out bowls of steaming stew. She noticed Tonks, sitting beside him.

The young guard was staring in mute horror at a small litter on which Dog lay almost motionless. They'd had to cut off what remained of his ruined arm, but he still clung to life with a burning rage evident in his grunted curses.

The elf shuddered as she heard him let out a crippled whine, realising it wasn't pity which made her heart want to break.

Rather, it was the shame of knowing she felt nothing for him and only felt grateful it wasn't her lying there.

“Eat up, Long-ear,” the old lady said in a brittle voice, breaking her thoughts. Her wrinkled face squinted up at the elf as she pointed the ladel toward where the boy was holding a steaming bowl. “Might be yer last meal. Did me best to make it a good 'un.”

Nysta nodded her thanks as she took the wooden bowl from the boy. Scrubbed his hair with one hand before moving away to sit on a small barrel.

Eli also took one of the bowls and sat beside her, eyes on the gate. He had a bandage around his wrist, but otherwise looked fine.

“Is that Pryke?”

She followed his gaze and saw the young man sitting in the shadows of the gate, glowering at them. Beside him, the guard called Bill was chatting amiably though Pryke appeared to ignore him.

Grunting, the elf shovelled stew into her mouth. Looked down at the knife on his hip and scratched the scar on her cheek. “Looks like it,” she said between chews. “Had hoped he'd crawled away to die.”

“You did not stab him hard enough, I am thinking.”

“I'll fix that later.”

“Strange, isn't it?”

“What is, Eli?”

“How our kind always seems to have unfinished business with someone.”

She shrugged. Studied the stew heaped on her spoon. Dropping her other hand, she toyed with one of her pouches as she wondered what meat was floating in the sauce.

She didn't ordinarily eat meat. Most elfs didn't. But the aching hunger in her belly wasn't allowing her to be picky with her food.

“Keeps us from being bored, I guess.”

The mercenary chuckled, looking up as Pad lumbered over.

“Ah, lass,” the guard called in a voice almost as big as he was. “I see you're out and about. You look a lot better than the time I last saw you, for sure. Had it in my mind you wouldn't see the morning. And here you are, looking ready to take on the world at a pinch. Which you might have to soon enough, I be hearing.”

“Didn't see you on the wall earlier,” she said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

“True that,” he confirmed. “I was getting a few more surprises ready for the fine young gentlemen outside.” He waved a hand to the barrels some of the guards were lifting up onto the walls. “In a former life, I was a blacksmith at a fort not unlike this one. It weren't uncommon for a few young ogres to get it into their thick skulls to try and take down the walls. We used to throw some of that on their heads and they'd soon go away. Didn't do much to an ogre except sting them a little, but on us little humans? Well, it burns like fuck is all I'm saying. We're lucky the mountains have some of the same stone.”

She eyed the barrels curiously. “What is it?”

“Quicklime, lass. We take the limestone from them there mountains, and we burn it in the forge. Then crush it down into powder.”

“Powdered rock?”

“That's it,” he said cheerfully. “Powdered burnt rock. Doesn't sound like much, but you wait until you see what happens when we drop it on them. Failing that, I have a few other surprises to land on their heads.”

The elf glanced at Eli, who shrugged. “Do not look at me, my friend. I have not heard of such a thing.”

“Trust me,” Pad said with a grin twice as big as Eli's. He looked at their bowls with undisguised relish. “Is it edible, do you think? I've a hunger you could drive a wagon through.”

Eli lifted the bowl slightly. “It is very good. If I die today, I will tell everyone in the Shadowed Halls how fine the food was.”

“Sounds good to me, then,” the big man said. Then touched his forelock in salute. “I'll be seeing you around then, lass. And you, Eli. Even if his Lordship don't like you, I'm sure you're a fine fellow on your own. So best of luck to you both today. I hope at the end of it, we can sit together in the old inn and complain about how terribly Josef waters his beer.”

They watched him go, chewing quietly for a few moments. Feeling the icy wind creep across their faces.

“A good man there,” Eli said eventually, pointing his spoon at Pad's back. “I might have to kill him to get to Sharpe, of course. And that would make me very sad. Very sad indeed. Because I like him, Nysta. He does not deserve to die for that bastard.”

She sighed, realising she'd finished her stew and was still hungry. But the way the old lady scraped to fill Pad's bowl made her think she wasn't about to get seconds.

“Eli,” she said, voice tinged with resignation, turning slightly to face him. “Why is it you ain't dead yet? You seem to want to fight everyone. Surely someone should have gotten lucky and put their fucking sword in your gullet.”

“And you do not?” He waved the spoon at the sky. “If the Dark Lord were still alive, my friend, he would take you for his Herald. I have been to many towns after you. I have heard the tales of the elf with the very bad temper. I have seen the bodies, my friend. Many, many bodies. And the ones you leave alive would run all the way to Icereach if they heard you were coming.”

“Fuck you, Eli,” she said without heat.

And wondered why she was letting him stay close.

True, her mind was still feeling blurry. Her thoughts still a little slippery in her head. And the maddening ache between her temples was still present. But that shouldn't have made her feel so calm right now. By rights, she should be tearing her hair out. Frustrated at the pain and the absence of focus.

Instead, all she felt was an empty kind of curiosity. As though she was watching herself from just outside her head. Like her eyes weren't her own.

And her feelings were being held behind a shield.

Rolling her shoulders, she set the bowl down between them. Almost dropped it, and had to fumble to catch it before it fell. Cursing softly, she dusted her hands.

Winced as the nerve up her arm twitched. The pain shot into the crook of her neck and disappeared.

“Are you alright, my friend?”

The elf flushed guiltily. But kept her voice even. “I'll be fine, Eli. Just waiting for the fighting, is all.”

The lie sounded unconvincing to her ears, but he shrugged and let it pass.

Her gaze slid upward from the ground in front of her and across the gate. Over Pryke, who hurriedly looked away. Up toward Sharpe, who was directing Boe and a few other men to where the barrels of Quicklime should be placed.

Above the gate.

She saw Ffloyd was also one of them, his fat face bright red with exertion as he struggled with a barrel on his own.

Count Steel stood deliberately aside, affecting a disinterested air as he stared out at the Grey Jackets over the wall. He ran his fingers through his hair and the elf felt an irrational need to plant a knife between his arrogant shoulders.

“He said your name was Nysta,” a small voice said from her left, dragging her attention away.

Turning, the elf saw the young girl from the wall. “Who told you that?”

“Pad.” The girl's fingers balled into fists and she stared hard at the elf. An air of frustration hung around her expression. “I needed to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“You saved my life. On the wall, yesterday.”

“No sweat, girl.”

“My name is Flin.” She practically bristled. “Not girl.”

“Flin.”

“I owe you for what you did,” the young fighter insisted. “I gotta repay you.”

“You don't owe me shit,” Nysta said. “If I saved your life, it was to save my own.”

“I don't understand. He wasn't attacking you. He was trying to kill me.”

Eli wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She means she cannot fight the Grey Jackets on her own,” he supplied. “Not that Nysta would not like to. She would love nothing better, I am thinking, than to jump off the wall and rush out there to kill them all. But she is not stupid. Well. Not too stupid.”

Nysta watched Flin's eyes, which never softened as they drilled into her own. It wasn't hate which burned there, though. It was instead the frustration of feeling there was a debt to be paid.

And, thinking of the past few days, the elf knew that frustration well.

“If that's how you feel, then stay close,” the elf said softly. “Because I reckon you'll get a chance to pay me back a whole lot sooner than you think.”

Flin chewed at the inside of her cheek before giving a sharp nod. She sat down, cross-legged in front of the elf, and placed her spear across her lap with a stubborn growl. “Then I'll be at your side today. I'll save your life, and then we'll be square.”

Eli chuckled at the girl's seriousness. “It is a wonderful thing to be so young.”

“I'm not young,” the girl scowled. “I'm sixteen. You only have to be fifteen to get into the Imperial Guard.”

“Sixteen, is it? Then I'm a Deathpriest,” Eli returned. “No, don't look at me that way, my new friend. I do not mean to say you are not able to look after yourself. That you lived through yesterday's fight on the wall is good enough for Eli. No, it is that you expect to survive today that makes me feel the years have stripped me of even the smallest grain of hope. That I have seen too many bad things to expect a good thing. A miracle. You see, I fully expect to die today. I am simply jealous of your belief.”

“I don't know what to think,” Flin said, looking down at her spear. “I just fight. I won't hide behind the guards like all the others in this town. I'll fight. This is my home.”

And with those words, the elf's mood soured. It'd been years since she'd felt the need to truly defend anything. Maybe even longer than that.

Maybe she'd never felt that desire to defend something.

For her, it had always been the murky desire to survive. A desire which held with it no chance of a moral cause.

But here, this girl who'd barely touched fifteen summers, was filled with the determination to defend her home.

Home.

Maybe that was it, the elf allowed.

She'd never felt she'd ever had a home. Not even the crude cabin she'd built in a valley far to the south. That hadn't been home, either. Just a place to rest her head. Too many years on the street had made her think of a roof as just a place she might rest her head for a few hours.