CHAPTER 1.22 - THE GOBLIN CAVE: V
Graasht the bugbear looks terrifying. His giant head bears exaggerated, ugly goblinoid features, covered in thick fur. While Anuk might have thought the covering would help, smoothe some of the creature’s grotesqueness, the fur actually makes him more alien, more monstrous. Rian’s charging, accelerating across the long room, but Graasht seems delighted. As though the rewards of ruling are a distant pleasure removed from the simple joy of crushing others underfoot.
She realises that the term ‘crushing’ is apt. Graasht grabs a giant club leaning against the throne and throws his arms wide, issuing his own animal bellow over Rian’s scream. This frozen moment throws more horror on top of the roomful she’s already trying to process. The bugbear’s right pectoral and shoulder muscles have been flayed, and this appears to extend down his back. It looks disgusting, uncanny. The creature’s tendons are moist, shifting and flexing as he moves. His left side and legs are armoured, cured leathers and pieces of metal, but most of his chest is naked. She presumes it would be brutally painful to wear anything over the skinless area.
Anuk realises that where Rian’s battlecry is a formless roar of rage, Graasht’s seems more like a chant. Words in the grotesque goblinoid language repeated over and over. The difference concerns her. Rian’s blinkered, focusing as he charges towards their clash. The fact that the bugbear has space in his mind for…do goblins have poems? For something more structured makes her scared. And the brute looks to be built for fighting.
She shudders, scrambling back to her own troubles. She sights down her fingers at one of the guards scrambling to organise themselves around the children. To her side, Hugo’s puffing, sprinting to keep up and trying to strum and sing as he goes.
Immediately, things begin to slide into disaster. As she summons and flicks the bead of light towards the guard, Hugo plays an emphatic chord on his lute. She watches the children and two of the closest goblins start to crumple to the floor as they’re suddenly rendered unconscious. Dammit, that’s a neat trick for trying to protect the kids. Had they co-ordinated, however, she might have targeted the final waking goblin. Instead, she watches as one of the slumberers is spun by her spell detonating by his arm. It would have hit him square in his chest, but his sudden boneless drop saved him. And the sudden shock has woken him, fury and pain distorting his grimace. At least the kids aren’t seeing this. She flicks her head to see Rian, whose pike was already shifting to aim at the flayed muscle, surprised by the bugbear. She sees malice, victory in Graasht’s face as he shifts from a decent impression of cringing from the pike to a lightning-fast shift of posture accompanied by a sickening swing of the club.
Rian was fully committed to impaling the major threat, instead is thrown off his feet as the giant club crashes across his ribs. She’s too far away to hear bones cracking but is certain some must have. The hobgoblin has some of his battle lust muted by his helmet, but still his glee’s obvious as he raises his shield, moving to flank the downed man. Heart sinking, knowing their odds are poor, Anuk leaps to one side as she dodges a gout of flame from her periphery. The ‘magic goblin’ of whom Glorp spoke emits a high-pitched cackle. On one knobbly finger a gold ring with a red gem points the course of the sorcerous flame. The pair of goblins who were attending him have dropped whatever they were squabbling over and are grabbing for their discarded weapons. No sign of Thae.
She’s relieved that Rian isn’t out for the count, but he is struggling to get back to his feet, harried as he is by two attackers. Every goblinoid in the room seems focused on them, having decided the woodsman’s dead. Hugo seems to be out of clever ideas, swinging the crossbow into his hands. The little man’s sweating freely and she worries that his rushed movements will fumble the bolt he’s trying to load. She aims another shot at the wounded goblin, at least trying to reduce their opposition by one, but at the last moment her aim’s thrown off as she feels rather than sees another rosy glow from – Fruk, was it? Her shot goes wide and it seems the goblin honours the ‘once blasted, twice shy’ rule. She watches as its colleague kicks their sleeping comrade, who jerks awake and muzzily grabs for its weapon. FuckfuckFUCK!
Rian’s being toyed with; he has his pike held like a defensive quarterstaff, just managing to deflect another huge blow from Graasht’s club. He seems to have turned it some, as the pike surprisingly remains in one piece. As Anuk counts this homeopathically dilute drop of luck, she watches the hobgoblin flick its blade over and under the struggling human’s guard. Even in the unlikely event this isn’t penetrating Rian’s armour, he can’t take much more of this punishment. Hugo manages to shoot the wounded goblin in the stomach, but its friends have organised and are charging him with their mismatched weapons. She can hear similar battle shouts from the goblins behind her, but these are drowned out by the bugbear. He’s still roaring the same thing over and over, intoning rhythmically with swings down at Rian. Who is now silent, his earlier battlecry dropped in the fight for his life. Or winded from him with the bugbear’s first assault.
She screams, feels her flesh sizzle as one of the goblin mage’s flamestreaks catches her in the side; again throwing off her own shot. She hears herself just chanting swearwords as the closing goblins encircle and tighten around her and the halfling.
And then…
…like an avenging angel, Thae enters at a flat, jingling sprint. She hears the cleric intone something featuring “Athena” as its crescendo, a flash of golden light suffusing the half-elf’s hand and linking to Rian’s torso. Immediately, the big man’s less beleaguered, sweeping his pike’s point around in a blur. Both of his combatants dodge easily, but as they regroup Rian makes it back onto his feet. Thae remains at a sprint, warhammer beginning a slow swing. The hobgoblin immediately breaks off from harrying the woodsman, squares up scimitar and shield to meet the half-elf’s charge. The thing doesn’t look scared, but Anuk can see the odds in his head settling into something more like a fair fight. She hopes the bastard hates it.
The goblins, however, ARE scared. They’re a bit too close for her to aim well, but Fruk seems to have been shaken by Thae’s entrance. Momentarily unhindered by the threat of fire, Anuk manages to blow one of the goblins’ heads fully apart. This buys them another frantic second, time Hugo uses to drop the crossbow and slash at one of the goblins with the dark blade he received from Thaesurala. They still have too many enemies on their plate, but at least they’re more hesitant. More scared.
Over the next few seconds, Anuk’s optimism falters again. Optimism, hope. Never trust those lying bastards of emotions. The hobgoblin and Thae are circling, testing one another. The latter’s shield is an advantage, though. The goblinoid’s leery of the arcing head of the hammer, but already he’s slipping in closer on the half-elf’s backswings, keeping Thae on the back foot.
Rian’s using the length of his weapon, but the bugbear has arms like an orangutan’s, and his club’s almost as long as the pike. For a moment, she is grateful for Hugo. The little man’s moving gracefully, corralling the goblins to keep her free. He can’t achieve much, fending off three of the bastards, but at least she can aim. She blasts another in the thigh, ugly little monster collapsing but continuing to swing at Hugo in its agony. She has to dodge, then, as she sees the glow starting up from Fruk’s direction. Another gout of flame narrowly misses her, and she feels something snap inside her. This must end, or it’ll be theirs.
She leaves Hugo to his fate, swings round to point at Fruk. The little shit yelps audibly, fully drops to the floor, but Anuk continues her pirouette. Thae’s sorely pressed, but the hobgoblin has his back to her. She lets loose, is rewarded with the sight of the chain links at the centre of the monster’s back exploding. Not nearly enough to kill him, but the warrior almost falls onto his face. Thae swings viciously at the thing’s calves, Anuk grimaces at the crunch of the impact. The hobgoblin topples but still has presence of mind to keep shield up. She hears Hugo screaming, spins back to see the damage. She did what she could.
She’s shocked as she summons a glowing bead to avenge Hugo. The little man’s pulling his dagger out of one of the goblin’s armpits, screaming at its comrades. She can’t help but smile at the terror in the goblins’ faces, hastily aims a shot at Fruk, who is trying to return the favour. Both miss. She sees Fruk looking past her, horrified, hears a terrible crunch. Everything goes into slow motion as every eye in the room shifts to Thae, having batted away the hobgoblin’s shield, driving a double-handed blow into the creature’s chest. The hobgoblin doesn’t scream, but coughs a wet, bloodied sigh.
A frozen moment, before Anuk realises not everyone was distracted. Rian gives out a cry, more of effort than anger, finally rams the business end of his pike into the bugbear’s chest. Graasht, it seems, was paying more attention to his ally than his opponent in the moment. Anuk can’t tell if the blade has pierced his heart, lungs, or both, but the creature remains terrifying. Its inhumanly long arms stretch towards Rian’s head or throat but can’t quite reach. She watches, horrified, as Graasht pulls itself further onto the blade, trying to kill Rian with what must be his final act. The woodsman’s straining, trying to turn and angle the wicked blade to put an end to the monster’s bloody crawl.
She spots movement from over her shoulder. Her blood freezes as she worries Fruk is using the lull to take revenge on…well…any of them. Instead, the goblin has yelled something and is skittering impossibly quickly towards the doors. Some fucking coward wizard spell, she reckons. She lets loose a blast just before the sorcerer skids into the tunnel, but she doesn’t lead him sufficiently and punishes a piece of cave wall. She turns to Hugo, menacing his opponents. The goblins have seen the way the wind’s blowing, are dropping their weapons and raising their hands. Thae finishes off the hobgoblin with a grim expression. Meanwhile, Graasht has pulled the blade through his own back as his movements become weaker, more spastic. Rian’s still fighting, the bugbear’s huge claws millimetres from his face. Even in the bugbear’s weakened state the struggle taking all of the big man’s strength.
Thae turns, readying to charge to Rian’s aid, but something shifts. Graasht’s weight, presumably. There’s a burst of blood, ribs cracking as the pike blade fully exits the beast’s back. Rian cranes his head back as the beast’s claws touch his face, but slackening, losing force as the thing dies. The man grunts, twists, trying to ensure the bugbear doesn’t crush him or snap the pike. He collapses to the floor with the body. She can see that Hugo’s shaking with relief and exhaustion, reaches down to pat him on the shoulder as she strides past the cringing goblins towards the child-cage.
-x-
The four look at one another in a frozen moment. She can see that none of them expected to win. Hugo looks like he might pass out, as the adrenaline suddenly drops from him.
A second later, the room begins to fill with goblins. Glorp and Fart are preceded by the battered, emphatically dead body of Fruk being thrown through the open doors. The magical goblin was very obviously the victim of their mob justice. Anuk can barely look at the battered, bloodied corpse. The crowd looks half-terrified, half-berserk, ultimately half-disappointed as they see that their hated tyrants have been slain.
She shivers slightly as she sees the tribe’s attention turning to the pair of guards. An unsettling happiness, all sharp edges magnified by those expressive features, begins to settle onto the mob.
