Duel At Grimwood Creek (Book 2) (29 page)

"Broketoof Gang?" Bossyou peered closer at the Goblin, who instead of looking afraid of the Longrunners, kept looking out into the darkness. "Where Broketoof Leader?
Ripneck
cut his neck. Ear to ear."
 

"He dead," Rummage said.

"Other Broketoof?
Ripneck
cut their necks, too."
 

"Dead," Rummage said. "It got 'em."

"What it?" Bossyou asked. The nagging thought which had tugged at his mind came suspiciously close to being realised. He shook his head to drive it away. Couldn't be thinking now. There wasn't time.

"It! Big it! Hugest it!"

"You full of shit," Fistguts said. "You all alone. No big chasers. We woulda seen."

"Fistguts got big eyes," Bossyou said. "Biggest eyes in Fnordic Lands. Ask Eventide. He knows."

"Okay," Rummage said. "I ask Eventide. But big it coming! Was coming."

"Where it?"

Rummage scratched at his head. "Don't know. Was there."

"Where there?"

"
There
there," Rummage said, pointing into the dark from where he'd come.
 

"We go," Spitblood said. "We go see it. We kill it."

"It big," Rummage warned with a shudder.

"We the Greatest," Flyrunner grinned. "Eventide said so."

"Really?" Rummage asked. "Bosslots said
we
was Greatest. Said Eventide said so."
 

"Who Bosslots?" Bossyou growled, looking around. "Where he?
Ripneck
cut his neck."
 

"Bosslots dead."

"Can't have been Greatest, then," Fistguts said.

"Wise," Flyrunner agreed.

"What we do?" Onespud asked. "We go find it?"

"How big it?" Flyrunner asked Rummage.

"Big!"

"Big," Flyrunner repeated. "Maybe we not go that way. Go this way."

"Which way?" Bossyou asked.

"We Greatest!" Spitblood said. "You said so. Eventide said so. Bossyou said so. We kill it."

"We Greatest at many things," Fistguts said. "Even running."

"Wise," Flyrunner said.

"What we do with him?" Onespud asked, jerking a green thumb at the prisoner.

"
Ripneck
cut his neck," Bossyou shrugged.
 

"Wait!" Rummage said.

"What for?" Bossyou asked.

"For me think."

"Thinking is for Elfs. You Elf?"

"I'm no Elf!" snarled the little Goblin. He tore his Goblinknife free of his belt and held it up. "You say again,
Bellyrip
cut you open!"
 

"
Bellyrip
good name for a knife," Bossyou said reluctantly. His boys nodded their heads in agreement. "But you Broketoof. We Longrunner. We enemies."
 

"Not Broketoof no more! Bosslots dead."

"Wanna be Longrunner?" Spitblood asked.

"Or be dead?" Bossyou growled, holding up his Goblinknife.

"Longrunner!"

"Then you show way to big it. We kill it," Bossyou said.

"I show," Rummage said reluctantly.

"Wait!" Fistguts cried.

"What for?" Bossyou asked with a bewildered look.

"He Rummage. That Broketoof name."

"Stupid name," Spitblood said.

"Fucked up," Flyrunner agreed.

"Didn't like it anyway," Rummage said. "Me get new one?"

"Sure," Bossyou said, twisting his face up as he tried to think of a name. "You Blackeye."

"Why Blackeye?" Rummage asked.

"You point Goblinknife at me," he said, nodding to the other's weapon. Rummage looked down and seemed shocked to see the knife in his hands. He began to tuck it away even as Bossyou's fist smashed hard into the Goblin's head. Bossyou watched with a satisfied grin as the little Goblin rolled around on the ground groaning and clutching his face. "Now you Blackeye."

Minutes later, the Goblin Gang was jogging once more through the mushroom forest, this time in search of the it.

Finally they found a small hill and Blackeye paused at the bottom of it. He scratched his head and chewed his bottom lip. "It there," he said. "Over hill."

"We go see," Bossyou said.

"Wait," Spitblood said.

"What now wait for?" Bossyou groaned.

"Broketoof all dead?"

"He said so," Bossyou said, nodding to Blackeye.

"Then we all go, we all die, maybe."

"Maybe," Bossyou said reluctantly. Dying was never part of any of his plans.

"Then one go. One go look. Come back and say what's what," Fistguts said.

"What what?"

"When they see what, we know what."

"Oh. Good idea. We do that."

"Wise," Flyrunner said.

"Who goes, then?" Spitblood asked.

"Who goes might die," Fistguts said.

"Loused job," Onespud said. "I not want it."

"I neither," Blackeye said with a shudder. "Me seen it."

"We do it fair," Bossyou said. He held out a fist. The other Goblins held out their fists, too.

Bossyou raised one fist and slammed it down on Onespud's, who stood next to him. "One potato," he said, and knocked down on the next Goblin with "Two potato," and so forth until finally Onespud was
it
.
 

"It decided," Bossyou said. "Onespud goes."

Onespud looked down at his fist in a forlorn manner. "I always one potato," he said. "I always go."

"You Onespud," Fistguts explained, clapping the Goblin on the shoulder.

Onespud sighed and headed up the hill without further argument.

The others gathered around as he disappeared into the gloom.

"What we do while wait?" Fistguts asked.

"You got anything to eat?" Blackeye asked.

"Hobgoblin ear."

"Swap? I have bits of bat."

"I like bats," Fistguts said. He nodded with a grin. "Swap."

The two Goblins started to dig into their pouches.

Bossyou frowned. The thought which had been nagging him. Yes. That's right. The wounded Hobgoblin they'd killed. The one who wouldn't stop talking. They'd found him just outside of the Forest of Decay. He'd been fighting some Trolls. Something he said as
Ripneck
let his blood out.
 

A shrill scream pierced his thoughts and he shook his head before it filled up with thoughts and stopped him from knowing what to do.

"That Onespud," Spitblood said.

"He dead?" Bossyou asked.

"Nah. He running," Fistguts said. "Fast."

"Which way?"

"This way."

"What we do?" Flyrunner asked.

Bossyou cocked his head as the annoying thought tickled his mind again.

It didn't want to go away.

He nodded slowly, though, as everything became clear. He'd wondered what the wounded Hobgoblin had been on about at the time. How he'd kept on and on about why they shouldn't kill him. That what he was doing was important. Emperor this. Emperor that. Something about a dangerous thing somewhere.

It hadn't seemed important at the time.

They'd told the Hobgoblin, just before they finished him off, that they were passing through the Forest of Decay to see what it was like up north. Maybe go as far as Doom's Reach.

They'd asked him the way to Crachen.

Hope the Ogre gets you
, he'd said.
 

"I know it," Bossyou said with satisfaction. He tapped his head where his smarts were hidden deep within. "It not big it. It Ogre."

"OGRE!" screamed Onespud as he crested the hill. "It fucking Ogre!"

"See?" Bossyou said with a big grin which showed off his razorsharp teeth.

"You always right," Spitblood said grudgingly.

"We fight?" Fistguts asked.

Spitblood chewed his lip and looked thoughtfully up at the hill to where Onespud was rolling down so fast it was as if the rising sun was on his tail.

The massive shape behind him roared and waved a club roughly the size of all six Goblins put together.

"We got tactics," Fistguts said. "Bossyou, he think of some."

Bossyou sighed hard and nodded. Times like this tested his patience. Tactics. Think of something. What did they think he was? An Elf?

"We could split up," Spitblood suggested. "Come at him from behind? Rip his back open?"

"Fuck," Fistguts said. "He big."

Onespud kept screaming as the Ogre lashed out with his club. Only narrowly missed splatting the squealing goblin.

"Nah," Bossyou said. "We fucked."

"Run?" Fistguts asked.

"Run," Bossyou nodded.

"Wise," Flyrunner said.

And they legged it.

Because that's what Longrunners do best.

Just ask Eventide.