Chapter 26 - Gorn in Sixty Seconds
I tried everything I could think of to get loose, even gnawing on the chain. Goblin teeth were tough, but not chomp-through-iron tough.
Even with the imperative of escape looming over , there was nothing I’d be able to do if I couldn’t get free.
The sun dropped well and truly behind the horizon, opening Raphina’s eye over the camp. I heard rustling in the brush and froze. The nocturnal predators of Lanclova were many, and I wasn’t safe at the top of a fenced bluff.
The rustling grew louder. Could it be one of those photo-sensitive lizards had followed ? Maybe the night haunt the rutters had frightened off had co back for his stolen snack. I clenched up.
A goblin tumbled out of the brush, he ca to a sitting position, slightly dazed, stared at , and then pointed and opened his mouth to shout. A pair of thick hands reached out of the brush behind him and clapped over his mouth.
The hands were thick and knobby, with large, furry knuckles. The hobgoblin they belonged to was also thick and knobby. Whereas Chuck and his Wranglers were lean and wiry, this one was built for power. His fur was darker, too. Closer to navy blue than the electric blue of the rest of the tribe. He had a hide cowl wrapped around his face, and a pair of flint cleavers tucked into a corded belt. He was level 5, which was higher level than the wranglers.
“Quiet!” he hissed. “You tryin’ to rouse the porkbellies?”
The smaller goblin got the ssage and when the hobgoblin removed his hands, the smaller one clamped his own in their place. With a glance at the hide tents, the hobgoblin dropped to the ground and low-crawled to my tree. Past him, I could see the moonlight glinting off two other sets of eyes in the bush.
Since I hadn’t acquired any new tribe mbers, I had to assu these were the four survivors I’d flown over.
“You still wiv’ us, king?” asked the hobgoblin, who must have been my very first scrapper. He sounded like he spoke around a mouth full of gravel. The scrapper motioned for one of the other goblins, who crept out of the bush holding my missing prosthetic above his head.
I nodded and held the chains out of the way as the scrapper slipped the socket over my stump and started to lace up the clamps. A regular prince charming, this one. The tal clinked slightly as I shifted. “Can you get
out of these?”
“Inna pinch.” The scrapper licked his lips and carefully began to pull the chain loops. But the sound of tal grinding against tal was too noisy.
“Stop!” I whispered, looking at the hide tents for any sign of movent. I heard sothing shift inside one of them, and the scrapper ducked low. The movent stopped, and he issued a low growl. “Even if we do get these off, they’ll co after us in the morning. And they’re faster.”
“Bad news, that.” The scrapper cracked his knuckles quietly. “I could take one of ‘em if I got the jump. But four’s aft o’ too many,” he said. “We need sothin’ to even them odds up. Got any more o’ your contraptions like what popped in our heads?”
I thought. A few of the rock slingers would have evened the odds a little. Or so of the bomb fruits. But there was no way the four of them would be able to craft slingers without first crafting a set of tools, and that would take too long—hours to navigate through dangerous terrain and retrieve bomb fruit just to most likely blow themselves up on the return trip when they stumbled over a root in the dark. Projectiles or other distance weapons would be ideal. But the javaline didn’t carry bows or crossbows that we could steal, and their spears were much too heavy for myself or the other small goblins. Sha we didn’t have the slingers, because there were plenty of small, smooth stones on the banks of the hot springs.
One of the other goblins wrinkled his nose and waved his hands in front of it, sniffing.
The scrapper noticed and shushed them. “Rutters like to camp wiv the springs ‘cause they’re the only things wot stink more’n they do.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“That’d be the sulfur,” I said. “Slls like rotten eggs where the—”
I stopped. Sulfur. I looked at the softly-glowing coals of the dying rutter fire. Charcoal.
Hmm…
I had no idea if the chemical reactions of this world bore any resemblance to that of Earth in my ho universe. It stood to reason the periodic table would have differences in a world where magic and rule-enforcing omniscient Systems existed. But chemistry had never been my forte anyway. I hoped a little Goblin Tech Tree grease would smooth over the gaps.
Everyone’s got an episode of a TV show that was always on whenever they were channel surfing. For , it was a certain episode of Star-Trek where the captain got stranded on the planet with the weird, diamond-eyed lizard. Now, I know what you’re going to say, he’s an astronaut, of course he’s a Trekkie nerd. But the truth is, I was always more of a Battlestar guy. I’ve barely even watched Trek. Except for that one episode, which seed to always be on, and has lived rent-free in my head for 15 years.
If it was the sa episode for you, then you probably already figured out where this was going.
I motioned the goblins closer. “We’re going to need a few things,” I said. I looked at the first goblin. “By the springs there should be so yellow, stinky mineral. I need powder from it. Can you scrape so off and bring it to ?”
The goblin pulled her knife and lifted it overhead, keeping one hand over her mouth to stifle her own excitent. She vanished back into the brush.
I pointed to the dying fire. “I need so of the charred wood from that fire. Make sure you don’t grab anything glowing!”
The second goblin nodded enthusiastically and dropped to a low-crawl, serpentining his way into the rutter camp. I looked at the remaining small one. “Sorry to do this to you. But I need so of the javaline scat from their latrines.”
I pointed, and the goblin wilted, looking at
with an expression of pure betrayal. But he stomped off into the forest. It wasn’t hard to tell where the latrine was. It was the only thing slling worse than the sulfur.
“Wot of , king?” asked the scrapper.
“The rutters had hollow poles holding up their cookpot. I need those poles.”
The scrapper looked at
skeptically until I explained to him what they were going to do with them. Then the hobgoblin grinned. “Oy, sounds like a proppa’ lark.” He turned as if to leave, then hesitated. “This na fing, boss. I fink I want one.”
The first na that ca to mind, looking at his muscled fra, was, of course, Armstrong. But I’d already nad one of the goblins Neil. Ah, so what? I feel like the first man to walk on the moon deserved a two-fer. Besides, the goblins all had single nas anyway. Like Cher, or Zendaya.
“Armstrong,” I whispered.
Armstrong flexed his ample biceps and grinned. Arms like that would have been right at ho on the rowing team. I watched as he dropped to his belly and snaked into the camp. The tubes had been stowed with the rest of the cookware on the far side of the clearing after the camp keeper had cleaned them. He went slow, taking his ti and staying as quiet as possible. He was oddly stealthy for a goblin. I pulled up his info in my tribe as I watched.
Reviews
All reviews (0)