CHAPTER 1.18 - THE GOBLIN CAVE: I
Anuk watches the big man belly-crawling to her right. He’s moving along the ragged trees lining the flat stretch of scrubby ground between their position and the cliff face. Before she dropped, she’d spotted a narrow stream cutting across the clearing. Trying to evaluate its path, she thinks she can make out the point where it emerges from the base of the wall. She reckons it’s some fifty feet or so to the right of where Hugo and Thae are now mimicking Rian’s slow crawl.
Again, she thinks how much she hates this. She spent enough on these clothes, worn as they may now be, that she resents dragging them across the ground. Still, the big man steered them right before. As she convinces herself to crawl after them, Anuk’s inner voice betrays that trust – so unwillingly given – with an uncomfortable reminder. Before, he was following some magic monocle. The traitorous thought, seemingly unsatisfied, poisons the experience further. A magic monocle that the ‘prince of the gnomes’ declared isn’t working correctly? Perfect.
She’s pulled from her thoughts as her companions freeze again. She’s about to swear, demand they stop fucking around, when Rian points out something between them and the stream’s source. Still irritated, she scans the clump of spiky bushes. And freezes, flattening her chest to the ground as she realises the drying foliage obscures a low cave mouth. And, having seen that, her vision parses movements within the brush.
She feels foolish as her new perspective identifies a couple of goblins poorly secreting themselves in the bushes at the near edge of the cave mouth. The unhealthy organic tones of their flesh and their primitive hide and fur clothing blend seamlessly with the dirt and brush cover. The effect is, however, betrayed by their lack of discipline. They don’t seem naturally gifted guards, as for a moment she thinks the two are going to erupt in violence at one another. Before things can escalate, they calm down and the ugly creatures return to crouching in silence.
-x-
Rian remains at the edge of the sparse treeline, staring at the cave mouth. Hugo and Thae have pulled back a little, the cleric wincing as chainmail links rattle and scrape with any movement. Thae’s mostly listening as Hugo tries to formulate a stealthy path across the open ground to get the jump on the watchgoblins. Thae’s light voice, brimming with concern: “I am never going to make it there undetected, Hugo.” Anuk suppresses a bitter laugh; the holy warrior isn’t wrong. As if the chain links weren’t enough of a giveaway, Thae’s tabard is bright white with gold trim. Even with the staining it has picked up lately it draws the eye. Might as well have they sky open and a shaft of divine light pour down on them while a choir sings an alarum.
Hugo, ever the main character in his own melodrama, appraises his friend’s point and makes a show of trying to adjust the plan. Anuk doubts there’s enough cover for even the most accomplished sneak to cross the ground, never mind jump the stream. And yet the little man’s focus is somehow on what sort of signal he should give to command Thae’s charge.
“Hey, idiots.” Anuk whispers. The pair’s heads swing to her. Thae’s eyes are questioning, whereas she could SWEAR Hugo’s planning to admonish her for interrupting his train of thought. She points past them, is rewarded with Hugo’s whispered “Oh, fuck!” as the conspirators watch Rian rise to his feet and stride out of the tree cover.
Thae looks to Hugo in bafflement, the half-elf ready to spring up and follow the big man. Hugo shakes his head quickly, motioning for them to stay hidden. Anuk sees the halfling’s eyes focus on her hand, realises she has unconsciously prepared to blast one of the guards. She’s ready for a confrontation, or to tell the little man to mind his own business, but he nods approvingly, begins to ready his crossbow as stealthily as possible. She watches him take aim on the oblivious goblins.
Rian has covered around a third of the distance to the cave mouth before one of the guards spots him. The ugly creature expels a strangled noise of surprise which would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous for them. Anuk’s heart sinks, although she’s pleased to see Hugo’s look of horrified surprise. In addition to the sentries they had seen, two other goblins they hadn't spring up to stare at the giant man. One of them, skin an unwholesome yellow, sets off at a sprint into the cave. Bidden by her frustration, Anuk feels the power surging through her – like a shiver running down her arm, intensifying to a pleasant heat focusing in, then beyond, her rigid fingertips. She allows the power, if not the anger, to die as she sees Rian raise his free hand. The man’s obviously signalling for calm, she guesses both to the goblins and to his comrades. She sees Hugo’s finger relax on the trigger of the crossbow, then jerks her attention back to Rian as she fears the worst. The man suddenly sounds like he’s vomiting, maybe choking on blood…
The purple bead forms again over her fingers and she almost lets fly before she realises Rian’s still standing tall. His retching has rhythm, modulation. Hugo, the little shit, seems oblivious to her but his shoulders are shaking. He obviously figured out what was happening before she did. Rian’s ‘sickness’ clears up, and after a pause, she hears the horrible sound of the three remaining goblins laughing in response to whatever he had said. Apparently in their native tongue. One of the guards – all of whom now look quite bemused – gives out a short, coughing, sentence which is rewarded with a low snort from Rian. The goblin’s hardly lighting up the skies with his humour, but its revolting face beams at the woodsman’s small recognition. It reaches out and shakes its partner’s arm, repeating the phrase. This repetition DOES seem like comedy gold, however, as the other two bounce it back and forth with increasing hilarity.
As with everything about goblins, their amusement is crude and sounds disgusting. Noisy too. Anuk feels like they could move with little risk, even Thae, if only there were some cover between their position and Rian’s. The big man looks relaxed, however, towering over his potential captors. His pike seems forgotten by the small creatures around him, although his casual posture is belied by the tight grip he’s keeping on the weapon.
The guards’ exuberance diminishes, and they return to dumb contemplation of the huge man in front of them. Anuk watches uneasily as the guard whose partner dashed off becomes restful, then seems to startle, possibly by his hand brushing his ignored weapon. She watches stupid suspicion creep onto his face, then a verge of panic as he seems to take in the sheer, wall-like solidity of the human. At this point, the antsy guard’s distracted by Rian perking up, looking deeper into the gloom of the cave mouth at something invisible to her. The guard follows Rian’s eyes, then performs the laziest smartening up of his pose she’s ever seen. He unslumps marginally, standing to inattention. It seems like someone important’s approaching, a sentiment she hears whispered to Thae by Hugo. The half-elf seems frozen in place, perhaps worried than any movement might result in their discovery. Thae twitches a micro-nod, watches as Hugo hunkers deeper down, aiming along the length of the crossbow to cover Rian.
She really hopes the big guy knows what he’s doing.
There’s a little back and forth between the goblins and the unseen, approaching authority figure. Rian responds a couple of times, his deep voice replicating the inhuman sounds of the goblin tongue surprisingly well. Maybe not perfectly, though: at one point he says something, all three goblins ‘guarding’ him falling about laughing before Rian corrects whatever he said. Two of the goblins seem satisfied, but the third, a particularly loathsome looking fellow with mottles of fungus growing on yellowish brown skin, gives him the (literal) stink-eye. His colouring reminds Anuk of a bout of food poisoning she once had. It makes her want to detonate the little…shit…then and there.
She’s pulled from her violent reverie when the ‘authority figure’ shows up. It’s the oldest goblin she has ever seen, skin the archetypal snot green of a monster from a child’s book. The old male is wearing only a loincloth, although a dirty satchel bag is hung over his rounded belly. His skin’s nearly covered in a sweeping pattern of greyish, powdery mold, although his face is clear of the stuff.
The new arrival walks with a gnarled piece of what looks like driftwood as a cane, posture weaving slightly as he looks the huge man up and down. Anuk realises she’s holding her breath when the old goblin’s bestial face breaks into a grin that shows altogether too many sharp teeth for comfort. Sizing him up like a racehorse, she thinks, the unpleasant thought of the old goblin opening Rian’s mouth with its filthy hand to check his teeth.
The runner returns as the old goblin makes his inspection, takes a moment to take in the guy towering over his…boss? Grandad? It seems he was too busy fulfilling his duty to do so before. His belated appraisal of Rian seems as impressed as his elder’s.
The senior goblin comes out with a quick rattle of words in Goblin and just keeps going. It doesn’t sound like a complex language, but this one seems to be using it more proficiently than the rank-and-file. She’s concerned to read some confusion from Rian. Nothing exaggerated, merely the man twisting his head as if to hear the tirade better. The old goblin seems sharp, however, slowing his speech in response. The language sounds obscene at best; she wonders if that’s making his tone sound sarcastic, or whether the little creature is patronising the shit out of their guide.
The shrivelled old guy seems to finish, and silence hangs in the air for a few moments. The guard-goblins look at one another uncomfortably, tension making their movements a little staccato. Robbed of any context, Anuk can’t guess the source of their discomfort, but the old goblin’s gazing up at Rian’s face placidly. Slightly woozily, but not aggressively.
Rian begins to speak, haltingly at first. The man seems to be choosing his words carefully or struggling to accurately frame his response. Then again, it’s probably more words than she’s heard from him in one go since they met. His rumbling monologue comes to a finish, and the old goblin continues to stare up at him, complex emotions playing across his ugly face. The four guards look shocked, and two of them begin babbling at the same time. One of the remaining pair looks as though he’s trying to solve a mathematical problem in his head, but Anuk focuses on the runner. The little guy has a look of dumb horror on his face, fear writ large. She doesn’t like that one bit. In her experience, anger makes clever people stupid, and these fuckers didn’t look like geniuses to begin with.
The old goblin holds up a clawed hand in a calming gesture, and the babbling stops. The elder speaks slowly, exaggerated soothing in his voice. Just from his intonation he’s calling for reason, consideration, and suddenly it seems that his dialogue might have been inflammatory. She hates this, this feeling of helplessness. Doubly so, as she can see Rian wants to look around, betray their position. Thankfully, the ancient goblin seems to have succeeded. The two guards who looked ready to draw weapons on each other are nodding. Concern is still written over their expressive faces, but they and the ponderer seem to be in accord with the Elder. Even the terrified goblin seems to be buckling to peer pressure, eyes darting between his colleagues and the old one.
The elderly goblin looks up to Rian, asks a quiet question. Rian inhales deeply, looks from goblin to goblin then back into the Elder’s face. He gives what must be an affirmative answer given the cunning grin suffusing through the elder’s expression. The runner looks like he’s about to be sick.
Then, Anuk’s blood turning to ice, Rian turns in their direction, still speaking in Goblin to the group assembled behind him.
You bastard, she thinks, don’t you dare!
