Goblin Corps, The

  Gork's world was very methodically crashing in around him. Demon Squad?! He was a dead kobold, pure and simple. “Great honor” his rough stony ass!

  “Hrark…Boss. Couldn't you find someone else? I mean, battle isn't really my thing….”

  “Nonsense, my boy. You'll do fine.”

  “But they say that no one's ever survived a full tour of duty in a Demon Squad!”

  The patriarch's eyes gleamed in the fading afternoon light. “That,” he told Gork, his voice suddenly frigid, “is an added benefit.

  “Pack your stuff and say good-bye to everyone. I think an hour ought to be sufficient, don't you?”

  Finally, finally, Timas Khoreth hove into sight, a darker spot against the gleaming snows of the Steppes that began some leagues beyond the city. Cræosh was not, by nature, a sentimental orc. Hell, there weren't any sentimental orcs. But after weeks with the damn bugbear as his only companion, he felt an overwhelming urge to dash on ahead and kiss the very walls in thanks.

  For his own part, Jhurpess squinted quizzically at the sprawling shape. “That it?”

  As much as he hated the idea of a human city, Cræosh couldn't quite keep the grin from his voice as he answered, “Yeah, Nature-boy, that's it. Timas Khoreth.”

  “Oh. What ‘Timas Khoreth’ mean?”

  The orc looked daggers at him. “It means the Khoreth of Timas. How the fuck do I know what it means?”

  “Jhurpess just asking.”

  “And Cræosh just answering. Can we get moving already? It's been a long walk, and I need a drink.”

  The bugbear immediately started to reach for his pack.

  “I mean something a hell of a lot stronger than water,” Cræosh told him.

  “Oh. Jhurpess understand. Cræosh want to celebrate arrival at city.”

  A brief pause. “Sure, something like that.” The orc headed toward the towering city walls, his pace newly quickened.

  After a moment's hesitation, the bugbear loped up beside him, moving on all fours. “Jhurpess enjoy last few weeks. Cræosh and Jhurpess going to be good friends in Demon Squad.”

  My other option was death, the orc reminded himself silently. I can deal with a lot if it means I don't get dead.

  “Jhurpess not even care that Cræosh not very bright. Jhurpess a tolerant bugbear.”

  On the other hand, death has its perks.…

  Jhurpess's tolerance was clearly a trait not shared by the black-armored humans standing post at the gates. “That's a first,” one of them remarked loudly as the traveling companions approached. “A pig and an ape loose in the wilderness. Wonder how that happened?”

  Cræosh reluctantly suppressed his temper. It wasn't worth getting into trouble in an alien city—and besides, his nose wasn't that piggish. Instead, he took a moment to examine the fortifications themselves, rising steeply behind the annoying soldiers.

  This, despite its great size, was clearly a city designed with defense foremost in mind. The surrounding wall was close to twenty feet high, with large crenellations and dozens of murder-holes halfway to the top. The gates, flanked by a pair of watchtowers, consisted of massive oaken doors reinforced by a bar thicker around than Cræosh himself and supplemented by an iron portcullis. Cræosh was certain that the guards had ballistae, cauldrons of oil, and other such weapons close at hand. Even with an army of orcs, he'd hate to have to take Timas Khoreth by force.

  Fortunately, he didn't have to lay siege to the damn place—and as for a particular trio of irksome guards, well, them he could deal with. He decided to be diplomatic about the whole thing, and rather than draw a weapon or even offer any retort, he simply continued on ahead, ignoring the fools entirely.

  Orcs, it's worth noting, have a broader definition of diplomacy than humans do. It more or less amounts to “Anything other than killing you.”

  The guard who'd spoken, however, a bald fellow with just a few days’ worth of beard, was clearly intent on making a scene. “Hey!” he shouted, stepping in front of the large orc. “Obviously, you didn't get the hint. Not surprising, really.”

  Cræosh glared.

  “In words of one syllable, then,” the human continued. “We—don't—want—your—kind—here. Is that sufficiently clear to you?”

  “‘Sufficiently’ has more than one syllable, you leprous, brain-damaged goat-fucker.”

  The guard retreated a step, startled, but still determined to block their path.

  “Look, I don't care if you can speak a civilized tongue. Timas Khoreth is a human city. That means humans live here. You people cause us nothing but trouble, and we've had it up to—”

  “Jhurpess tired of this,” the bugbear declared. Before Cræosh could even think about stopping him, the simian creature loped forward and backhanded the bald guard solidly across the face. The soldier's feet actually left the ground, and he spun for two full revolutions before crashing to the earth in a cloud of dust.

  Had Cræosh hit the man like that, he'd have caved in the side of his skull and shattered the jaw completely. Bugbears aren't quite as strong as orcs, on average, so Jhurpess's blow merely snapped his neck.

  The end result was pretty much the same, though.

  Cræosh yanked his sword from its scabbard, cursing under his breath as the humans did the same. This, he figured, was probably not the most auspicious start to his new assignment. Briefly, he glanced at his irritating ally. He wasn't sure whether or not Jhurpess understood why they were about to be attacked by the entire watch, but the bugbear was smart enough to recognize the situation for what it was. One long hand snaked up over his shoulder, lifting the cudgel from its makeshift sling. Jhurpess pounded it once into the earth, launching a second dust cloud easily the equal of the first, and dropped into a simian slouch.

  One of the other humans rose from where he had knelt to check on his fallen companion, his face a mask of rage. “You bastards! You killed—”

  “What in the name of the blackest hell is going on here?”

  Orc, bugbear, and human examined the late arrival. Another human—older than the others, to judge from the gray streaks in his chestnut-brown beard—approached from within the walls. He sat atop a gargantuan black warhorse, and his armor, similarly hued, was steel rather than leather. The symbol embossed in the man's breastplate, the silver crown of Morthûl, instantly marked him as an officer.

  “Captain!” one of the soldiers called to him. “These—these creatures attacked us! They—”

  The officer raised a gauntlet-covered hand, silencing the guard. Then, turning to face the heavily muscled orc, he asked, “Is this true?”

  Cræosh shrugged his massive shoulders. “They didn't want to let us pass.” He didn't point out that, technically, only the bugbear had committed any violence. He'd save that for later, if necessary….

  The captain turned back to the soldiers.

  “He's an orc.” The same soldier answered the unspoken question, as though it explained everything. “And he's got a bugbear with him!”

  The captain nodded. “I’m not blind yet, soldier. Last I checked, we were all soldiers of Kirol Syrreth. Was I asleep when they changed the rules?”

  “No, sir, but—”

  “And didn't I specifically mention at last week's assembly that we were expecting a few, ah, foreigners because the general was assembling a Demon Squad?”

  The guard snapped his mouth shut, unwilling to admit that he didn't know—because he'd been recovering from an unauthorized night on the town, and suffering from an equally unauthorized hangover, on the morning in question. The dead man lying on the ground, had he been able, might have admitted to a similar condition.

  The captain shook his head. “You,” he said, pointing to a passing soldier, one who'd been uninvolved in the altercation. “Show these two to the barracks.” The soldier had been on his way to the mess hall for a much-needed lunch, but clearly knew better than to protest with the captain in this sort of mood. Glumly, he nodded, then gestured for the travelers to fo
llow. The captain was still haranguing his men fiercely when they finally passed out of earshot.

  And then Cræosh happened to glance over at his companion. The furry creature was staring back the way they had come, his mouth quirked dejectedly downward.

  “What's your problem?” the orc asked.

  “Guards take dead human away. What guards do with body?”

  Cræosh thought for a moment. It'd been a while since his lessons on human culture, but…

  “Bury him, I think. Why?”

  “Because,” the bugbear wailed, “Jhurpess hungry!”

  Cræosh threw up his hands and moved to catch up with their guide.

  It quickly became apparent, however, that even here, at the end of their journey, nothing was going to be simple. The orc had taken perhaps a dozen more steps when he and the human were both jerked to a sudden halt by the plaintive screech from behind.

  Cræosh spun, one hand already grasping at his sword, to see Jhurpess crouched in the center of the road, arms wrapped over his head as though shielding his skull from a sudden hail.

  Torn between outright exasperation and a certain reluctant sense of obligation, Cræosh stomped to the bugbear's side. He completely ignored the staring crowds that surrounded them, except for a single murderous snarl he directed at the humans nearest his odd companion. “What's the problem now?”

  “Jhurpess not like city,” the creature whined, refusing to uncover his head. “Too many! Too many!”

  “Too…What's he blithering about?” the soldier asked over the orc's left shoulder.

  “He's a forest-dweller,” Cræosh snapped in sudden understanding. “He's not used to this many people.” Then, in a much lower voice, he spoke directly into the bugbear's ear.

  “Listen up, Jhurpess. You don't like crowds. That's fine, I can understand that. We all have our problems. I, for one, just happen to hate sparrows. Can't stand the little fuckers. Pathetic feathery little bodies, those—anyway, point is, you don't see me goin’ around and throwing a conniption any time I see one. If you're gonna react this way every time the humans get a little ample, we're gonna have a serious problem, ‘cause they're sort of common around here. Thicker than flies on a shit pie, really. You won't be much good to me, or the rest of the squad, like this.”

  “Jhurpess not want to be good to squad. Jhurpess want to go home, where it quiet.”

  All right, fuck this. I tried it the friendly way! The bugbear wailed yet again, this time in reaction to the orc's fingers digging harshly into the fur on the back of his skull and yanking his head back.

  “I ought to kill you right here, you pathetic little weasel!” Cræosh snapped at him. “You're not a bugbear! You're a teddy bear!”

  A growl sounded deep in the simian's throat, and Cræosh noted a single hand reflexively grasping at the handle of the massive club. Good.

  “But if I did that, I might get King Morthûl kind of pissed at me—and whatever else you might have heard, I never met anybody that stupid.” He lowered his own face, bringing it within inches of Jhurpess's own. The bugbear's breath spread over him in a noxious caress, and he forced back the urge to gag through sheer willpower alone. Obviously, there were still tiny bits of orc decaying between the creature's teeth.

  “Just like he'd be angry at you,” Cræosh concluded, “if you tried to back out of this now. You want that, Jhurpess? You want the Charnel King angry with your monkey ass?”

  Eyes wide as bucklers, the bugbear shook his head as fiercely as the orc's grip permitted.

  “Well, you know how to avoid that?”

  Jhurpess blinked.

  “By standing the fuck up, that's how! Take a good look around you! It's crowded, it's loud, it's smelly, it's annoying! See it, feel it, and then deal the hell with it and move on! You got it?”

  The bugbear rose to his feet, head twisting this way and that as he tried to take in the entire scene at once.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” the orc added more gently, “think of them with plates under their asses and gravy on their heads.”

  Jhurpess stopped twitching. Slowly, a big grin settled over his features, and he actually licked his lips.

  “Finally,” Cræosh muttered, and turned his attention back to the guide. “Now, can we get to the damn barracks already?” Before anything else goes wrong! This was looking to be a very long assignment….

  Unless, he realized, they died fairly early on, like most Demon Squads he'd heard about. Considerably cheered, Cræosh lightened his step as the mismatched trio marched toward the barracks.

  Gork watched, whiskers twitching in contemplation, as the hulking duo followed their reluctant guide through the market's heart. For a moment, it looked as though the bugbear was about to have a relapse of the fit he'd suffered on the way in. But before his orcish companion could say anything, the simian critter had abruptly straightened himself up. With a bellow that, from Gork's distance, sounded like “Get out of way!” he plunged through the mob, pushing, shoving, and—in a few cases—bodily tossing people from his path. Obviously, Gork realized with a sense of foreboding, the bugbear was too stupid to do anything in half-measures. Terrified or hostile—there didn't seem to be anything in between.

  And these, unless he was very much mistaken, were his new teammates. Dragonshit.

  Still, there was one distinct advantage to having so volatile an ally. It meant that, more often than not, everyone's attention would be on the bugbear and not on his far smaller, less conspicuous companion.

  Much as it was now, for example.

  Once more silent as a ghost, the kobold drifted into the crowd, alert for any opportunities that might—there! One man, knocked aside by the bugbear's passage, had just now clambered back to his feet, glaring and shouting along with the others. He seemed mostly uninjured, although his immaculately coifed black hair was now dangling in all directions and his soft green tunic was ripped along one sleeve. Even more important, though, was that his coin purse had been knocked loose when he fell. It hung now from the back of his belt, dangling by a single cord. A cutpurse far less talented than Gork could have performed the operation with no chance of discovery.

  Or, to be more accurate, no chance of discovery by the victim. Gork's grasping fingers were perhaps half an inch from the pouch when a hand dropped down from the side and fastened on his wrist.

  I’m slipping. That's two bystanders in two days who've spotted me. A high-pitched growl building in his throat, the kobold swiveled his head, scowling at the man who'd grabbed him.

  Well, at least it wasn't one of the watch this time—or, if it was, he wasn't on duty. This human wore a typical peasant tunic, gray in hue, and brown breeches. Dull, sandy-blond hair topped his head, and duller brown orbs peered out from beneath it.

  “You shouldn't be doing that,” he informed the kobold, as though educating an ignorant child.

  Gork, for his part, wasn't in the mood to be educated. “Get your hand off me before I eat it.”

  The human just cocked his head to the side as though puzzled.

  Great. Not only was I spotted, it was the village idiot who got me. How embarrassing! Time to go.

  He couldn't, due to the angle, quite get his mouth around a finger this time, so he settled for taking a small chunk from the edge of the man's palm. The ripping noise was satisfying to hear, as always, though the absence of any cry of pain was somewhat mystifying. Still, the man let go, and Gork began to back away….

  Aagh! Oh Stars, what was that?! Gaaahh! Snout twisted in revulsion, the kobold spit out the flesh on which he chewed, gagging to the point of dry heaves. It was a testament to the anger of the crowd that they stayed focused on the departing bugbear, rather than devoting any attention to the retching kobold in their midst.

  Finally, as his stomach ceased trying to climb up his throat and his tongue ceased trying to climb down his throat, Gork saw just what it was he'd been trying to swallow.

  Lying on the cobblestones beside him was a puddled m
ass of…Well, Gork wasn't sure what it was. A substance, fleshy but not quite flesh, quivered beneath the tiniest layer of a hard, thin material. Chitin, Gork realized abruptly. And the entire thing was coated with some off-yellow ichor that had the color and consistency—but most clearly not the taste—of custard.

  “What the fu—?” Gork began to ask nervously of the man beside him. Only, even as he watched, the figure ceased to be a man at all. Over the span of perhaps twenty seconds, the stranger's head sank to the level of the kobold's own, the skin wrinkling horrendously as the body beneath it shriveled. The man's—no, the thing's—nose flattened and stretched, becoming nothing less than a snout! The skin retracted, tightening up so that it once again matched the size of the form that wore it, but it began also to harden, to shift in hue from an ugly human pink to a much more natural and attractive stony gray. Even the clothes twisted and writhed, altering size and shape to remain consistent with the being that wore them. Finally, Gork watched the creature's eyes fold inward, as though turning themselves inside out, and then pop open into reflective orbs that were the mirror image of Gork's own. Only the short sword the creature wore, which the kobold hadn't even noticed strapped to the human's side, failed to change shape.

  Gork blinked in amazement at the kobold who now stood before him. The image was absolutely perfect—and it was blatantly obvious, now, exactly what the creature must be. “I know what you are,” Gork told it.

  The “kobold” nodded his recently acquired snout. “And does this bother you?”

  The kobold shrugged. “I don't really give a damn what you are. What bothers me is that you soured my score.”

  “A pouch, no matter how subtly taken, will be missed the moment the former owner chooses to purchase something.”

  “So?”

  The shapeshifter grinned, a strange, open-mouthed affair that didn't at all resemble the expression of a true kobold. “A more patient approach. You follow the man. Sooner or later, he will go somewhere unseen by others. A slit throat gets you the money as easily as a slit purse-string—and a body, despite its size, can be hidden for a lot longer than a missing…”