Goblin Corps, The

  “Okay,” Cræosh said finally, “he's not going anywhere, but he's still alive. Now what?”

  Gork grinned his nastiest grin. “Belrotha!”

  “Me kind of busy right now!”

  In fact, the ogre stood ankle deep in the tide of worms. All about her, huge slabs lay where they'd fallen, puddles of spreading goo serving as testament to the effectiveness of Belrotha's plan. Nevertheless, she'd been unable to stem the tide. Blood trickled from her ankles and calves to vanish beneath the writhing creatures. Cræosh could only assume that she'd already drunk one of her own elixirs, considering that she wasn't in the throes of an agonizing death. She held another large rock over her head and was repeatedly smashing at the worms around her feet.

  “Belrotha!” Gork shouted again. “We need you over here!”

  “Me busy!” she repeated. “You come back after me kill all worms!”

  Cræosh tapped Katim on the shoulder and whispered. She nodded, and the hulking pair moved toward Sabryen's broken body.

  “Belrotha, you can't kill all the worms!” Gork shouted in frustration. “There's too many!”

  “That okay! Me not counting!”

  Gork gurgled in rage. Fortunately, before he could do anything stupid, the orc and the troll reappeared, carrying the writhing Sabryen between them. He was actually remarkably light; Cræosh supposed that missing one's legs and portions of one's internal organs would do that.

  “Belrotha!” Cræosh shouted.

  “What?”

  Cræosh and Katim heaved, and Sabryen landed amid a splatter of worms at the ogre's feet. The creatures recoiled from the body of their king, perhaps sensing the poisons coursing within.

  In an abnormal rush of awareness—perhaps her brain remained warmed up from the novel experience of having a plan—Belrotha offered the orc a crooked grin. “Him say something about mother?”

  “Twice,” Cræosh confirmed with a chuckle.

  Belrotha allowed her latest rock to tumble into the horde of worms, killing several hundred with a loud bang. Then she lifted King Sabryen off the ground with one hand; with the other, she reached inside his gaping torso and began ripping out anything and everything she could grasp. The sudden stench nearly brought the goblins to their knees, gagging on centuries worth of rot, and the slow tearing sounds would haunt their dreams for years to come.

  There wasn't enough left in him even to scream. Sabryen twitched a final time and fell limp. The maggots that had filled his sockets poured from his skull in a dreadful stream, putrefying before they hit the ground.

  The sea of worms simply…stopped. Hundreds of thousands died on the spot, while others returned to their natural state, wriggling aimlessly or dashing for the nearest crevice. In less than a minute the swarm had dispersed, leaving behind only the dying and the dead.

  “Has anyone else found these past few weeks just entirely too disgusting?” Gimmol asked.

  Cræosh nodded. “I'll admit to a certain amount of revulsion.”

  Katim actually laughed aloud. “You are one of a hand-selected…group of soldiers who directly serves…a dead king with insects…crawling across his body and skittering…from his orifices on a regular…basis. I believe you may have to…redefine your entire concept…of disgust.”

  “Troll's got a point,” Gork said.

  Cræosh chose not to answer to that.

  “Jhurpess has idea,” the bugbear said.

  “Well,” Cræosh said, “I hate to admit it, Nature-boy, but your last idea was a pretty damn good one. Let's hear it.”

  “Jhurpess thinks squad should get the hell out of canyon.”

  “Ah,” Gork said. “An even better one. Jhurpess, you're a genius.”

  The bugbear grinned happily. Then, a look of sudden concern on his face, he stepped over to stand before the troll.

  “Katim not worry too much about being an idiot,” he said in his most comforting tone. “Cræosh not very smart either, but Jhurpess still Cræosh's friend.”

  Cræosh, in the face of the entire squad's laughter, merely squared his shoulders and moved toward the exit.

  “They actually did it, my lord,” Havarren said to Morthûl's back. His normally bored tone was tinged with just a hint of incredulity. He paced rapidly, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor, as though looking for an angle from which the news would be easier to believe.

  “So you've said,” the Charnel King replied dully without turning away from the table. “Repeatedly. Don't let the fact that I have only one ear fool you, Havarren. I heard you quite clearly the first dozen times.”

  “My apologies,”the gaunt wizard said, his voice completely unapologetic. “I'm just rather shocked. I thought—”

  “You thought?” Morthûl finally turned. Was there just the slightest tightening in his cracking, half-expression? “You thought that I'd begun to lose it. You thought that I'd chosen a gaggle of incompetent half-wits as my champions. You thought that it was nothing shy of miracle that they'd lived this long, and that sending them after Sabryen was a death sentence. Is that what you thought?”

  “I…Perhaps something along those lines, yes.”

  Morthûl advanced, and even Havarren couldn't help but gag at the vague suggestion of slow rot that perfumed the air around him. He tried to meet the Charnel King's gaze but found himself distracted by the constant wanderings of Morthûl's various multilegged inhabitants.

  “So many years, Havarren, and you still haven't figured it out.” Morthûl spat each word, a rancid morsel accompanied by an explosion of putrid breath and, in a few cases, dust. “How long will it take you to realize that I do not make such mistakes? Another century? Two? A millennium? An endless life does not inherently encompass endless patience, and I grow tired of your constant questioning.

  “For all their rough edges, for all their lack of anything approaching subtlety, this Demon Squad may be one of the best we've ever fielded.” For just a moment, his clenched jaw softened. “Whatever else I might think of her actions, I owe my queen my thanks. The ogre has worked out admirably. And Anne's foolish quest has done a far better job of tempering them into a cohesive unit than any of our training missions could have.”

  “And if Queen Anne's efforts, or the fight against Sabryen, had killed them, Your Majesty? You'd have nobody left to accomplish…” Havarren let his voice trail away, since even he hadn't been told precisely what Morthûl intended for the squad to accomplish.

  The Charnel King stepped away from the table without answering, hands clasped behind his back, apparently lost in thought. For the first time, Havarren could see just what the master of the Iron Keep had been working on. Sitting atop the table, lying in the midst of a rather haphazardly strewn pile of sundry components, was Morthûl's own tarnished silver crown.

  Havarren frowned. Amid a few dozen items of lesser power lay the heart of an unborn faerie; over there, what had to be a jar of phantom's tears; and he thought he recognized, over the Charnel King's own pungent scent, the bitter aroma of the pagaera blossom. A flower even Queen Anne's late and lamented garden had lacked, pagaera sprouted only in soil fertilized with the urine of a Prince of Hell. The wizard wondered briefly where Morthûl could possibly have obtained such a flower and then decided he was probably better for not knowing.

  No spell Havarren knew, none he'd ever heard of in his long millennia of sorcery, required the precise combination of components arrayed before him. He couldn't even begin to fathom what Morthûl was doing, but enough power radiated from that simple silver crown to tell Havarren two things.

  One, this was the spell for which the Charnel King had been conserving his power for the past months.

  And two, it scared the hell out of him.

  “It will be some weeks before it's completed, Havarren.”

  The mage spun to face his lord, not having realized that his observations were themselves being observed.

  “It's an interesting ritual, Your Majesty, from what I can see of it.”

  ??
?It is indeed. Would you care to know what it does?”

  To his shame, Havarren actually found himself hesitating. “Yes, I would.”

  Morthûl grinned. “Perhaps I'll tell you some day.”

  Havarren fought to keep the scowl (and the relief, a mutinous portion of his mind whispered at him) off his face.

  Slowly, his own smirk fading, the master of the Iron Keep drifted to the nearest wall. It was constructed of solid stone, overlaid with wrought iron, and located in the center of the keep's uppermost floor. Despite all this, Morthûl reached his fingers into the filigreed designs and pulled open a window that hadn't previously existed. Beyond stretched many miles of the isle of Dendrakis.

  “What do you see, Havarren?”

  The wizard glanced disdainfully out at the impossible view. “I see a few mountain peaks covered in ice and snow. I see the road. I see a barren expanse of land. Same thing I always see when I look through the keep's more, ah, traditional windows.”

  “There are, though it batters the ego to admit it, some forces that none of us, however powerful we become, may ever hope to control.”

  “As you say,” Havarren agreed, his voice neutral.

  “And now you patronize me. But it is true nonetheless. There are such forces, and the most aggravating is time.

  “We may make ourselves immortal. We may reach into the past, in an attempt to change what has been. But no man, no wizard, no god controls the process itself. And our time, Havarren, has run out.”

  A bony gesture encompassed the view beyond the casement. “You cannot see it here. Dendrakis is too far north; the isle will no sooner grow warm than the Steppes would. But were you to cast your gaze to the south, you would see different. You would see the snow starting to melt on the lower peaks of the Brimstone Mountains. Plants and flowers beginning to bloom again in the forests, crops to grow in the fields. The birds are preparing for their long flight back home, and the bear stirs in his cave.”

  This isn't good. Havarren carefully kept his face locked in a bored expression, but inside he cringed. This wasn't like Morthûl at all; it was too poetic, too overblown.

  “Spring comes, Havarren. And with it, Dororam's army.”

  “True, my lord, but it's scarcely of any consequence. We—”

  “Are not ready.”

  Havarren blinked. “What?”

  “We are not ready. Had we another year to prepare, we still would not be ready.”

  “I don't understand.”

  Morthûl silently closed the window. It vanished completely, once more nothing but another stretch of wall.

  “We lost too many of our soldiers last autumn, to duMark and his wretched allies. Dororam has assembled the largest army this continent has seen in recorded history. I wonder, for all your experience, if you are truly capable of understanding what that means. You think of humans, elves, and dwarves as little more than annoyances.”

  “It's what they are,” Havarren said dismissively.

  “To you or me, yes. In certain numbers, yes. But they face our armies, Havarren, not you and me. And they come not by the dozens or the hundreds, but the hundreds of thousands! Were our armies at the peak of their strength, as numerous as they'd ever been, we would be hard-pressed to hold our borders. As things stand now, all we can do is delay.”

  “Surely you're not giving up?” Havarren couldn't believe what he was hearing. Is that what he'd sensed in Morthûl's odd speech? Despair?

  “Giving up?” The Dark Lord sounded truly shocked. “Don't be a jackass, Havarren! I didn't come this far, turn myself into what you see before you, so I could give up!”

  “Then…What are you going to do?”

  “Why, Havarren, I’m going to cheat.

  “Summon my ‘inept’ Demon Squad. It's time for their real task.”

  It was a testament to King Dororam's powers of self-control that he merely scowled, holding his temper in check until the nervous messenger had bowed and scraped his way out of the war room. Only when the door had shut and latched did the King of Shauntille allow some semblance of his true feelings to show.

  “Gods damn it all to bloody hell!” The scroll case he'd held when the messenger came knocking, a priceless antique ivory relic of kings past, shattered into fragments against the wall. DuMark didn't even flinch, of course; a casual wave of his hand, and the shifting dust that rained from above cascaded away from him and drifted slowly to the floor.

  “Any closer,” the half-elven wizard said coldly, “and I might have thought you were aiming at me.”

  “Maybe I should have,” Dororam growled, stalking across the room and slamming his fists on the stone table. The various maps of Kirol Syrreth leapt and danced. “That's the third one in two weeks, duMark.”

  The mage shrugged. “Scouting parties get caught, Dororam. It's a risk of the job.”

  “Not this often. We'd gone weeks without a single unit running into trouble. Now…”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  Dororam sighed quietly. “Your precious informant is either incompetent or playing you for a fool—that's what I’m suggesting.”

  DuMark bristled. “How many times must we dance to this particular tune before you're satisfied? I've told you over and over, my sources—”

  “Are reliable. Yes, you've told me. Over and over, just as you say.” Dororam spun away from the table. Before it could even occur to the half-elf what was happening, he'd crossed the room and dragged the wizard from his chair by his collar. “So why the hell am I losing my men? What are you here for, duMark?”

  The wizard's face went vampire-pale. “You will never touch me!” He smacked the king's hands away from his throat, his fingers twitching, perhaps in readiness to cast a spell. “I will not be treated like—”

  Dororam's advancing years hadn't stripped from him the skills ingrained by a warrior's life. DuMark's tirade ended in a pained gasp and a rush of breath as the king literally lifted him off his feet and slammed him hard into the stone wall behind his chair.

  Dororam knelt beside the wheezing wizard. His own cloak of office draped over them, forming a canopy to isolate them from the outside world.

  “It is just about time,” Dororam whispered, his voice quivering angrily, “to clarify a few matters, duMark. You are the greatest mage in the Allied Kingdoms. You are our greatest hope against that abomination who rules the Iron Keep.

  “But I am king! I! And I am tired of you remembering that fact only when it suits you! There will be no more of this wasteful debate, no further argument from you. I am your king, and you will either do as I say—exactly as I say, when I say it!—or you will forswear yourself here and now and go your own way!”

  “You…” The half-elf drew a deep, shuddering breath. “You cannot defeat the Charnel King without my help.”

  “Perhaps not. But I'll give it my all. I will have no more of this foolishness. Either you are with me, with all that entails, including obedience, or you are not. I'll not stop you from leaving, if that is your decision. I'll even wish you the best of luck in your travels, and I'll mean it. But I will have your answer, and I'll have it now.”

  Smoothly, wobbling only a little—damn these old knees!—Dororam stood, allowing duMark sufficient room to do the same.

  “You make,” the wizard said, one hand gingerly rubbing the back of his skull, “a forceful case.”

  “Your answer, duMark.”

  The half-elf sighed. “I am with you of course…Your Majesty.”

  Dororam smiled. “I’m glad. It would, as you say, have been difficult without you.”

  DuMark tried to match the king's expression, but it came out as more of a sickly grin. “And now that this is settled, what would you have me do?”

  The king took the gesture for what it was and pretended he couldn't hear the wizard's teeth grating behind his lips. “Quite simply, duMark, I am not convinced of the reliability of your source.”

  “I believe I'd actually picked up on that.”
r />   “I’m afraid that your assurances are no longer sufficient. I'll not risk any more of my men on untrustworthy information, especially since the main body of the Allied Armies begin their march in a matter of days. I need you to obtain confirmation, either that the spy can be trusted, or that he cannot.”

  DuMark shook his head. “I still feel this is a waste of time, Your Majesty.”

  Dororam's eyes narrowed dangerously.

  “But I will, of course, do as you wish.”

  “I’m delighted to hear it.”

  Just as the mage was reaching for the heavy latch with trembling fingers, the king called out from behind him. “DuMark?”

  The mage's jaw twitched. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  Dororam waved idly at the pile of dust and debris that had once been an antique ivory scroll case. “Fix that before you go, would you?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Cræosh grumbled sarcastically, profound exasperation writ large across his face. “Join the army, fight for the glory of Kirol Syrreth and the all-powerful Charnel King. See exciting places, kill exciting people.” He looked once more over the empty, unadorned grass that surrounded them on all sides, now painted a burnt umber by the last rays of the setting sun. “I’m just not sure I can take any more of this kind of ‘excitement.’ It's so thrilling, I could just snore.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Gork groused from his sleeping blanket. “After the last couple of months, I could do with a few days of quiet.”

  Cræosh shook his head. “I just don't like the idea that there's a war going on out there, and we ain't invited.”

  “I'd hardly call this uninvited,” Gimmol said from the other side of the small encampment. “I'd say we're more like the guests of honor.”

  Cræosh grumbled some more.

  The squad had enjoyed a few days of rest and recuperation after their sojourn in the Demias Gap, and then it was “up and at ‘em” once more. General Rhannik had again been the one to instruct them, although that meeting had at least taken place in an honest briefing chamber, rather than a rapidly swept-out supply room.