They didn’t make it out of the lair. A loud snarl announced the arrival of a group of armed hobgoblins. Two tunnel cats strained to break free of braided leather harnesses, nearly pulling their hobgoblin keeper off his feet. “Where is Jig Dragonslayer?” shouted the largest of the hobgoblins.
And that brought the attention right back to Jig. He didn’t get the chance to speak before the hobgoblins were making their way toward him, tunnel cats snapping at anyone who failed to get out of the way.
“Our chief wants a word with you, goblin.”
Another of the hobgoblins stared. “Hey, Charak. What are you doing with these rat-eaters?”
Charak? They were looking at Slash. From the look of things, he had been trying to disappear into the shadows.
“Chief’s going to want to see you, too,” said the hobgoblin holding the tunnel cats. “He’s going to be real happy when he finds out you’re still alive. Now where’s Kralk? He told us to bring back the goblin chief, too.”
Maybe I should have just stayed in the garbage pit.
Jig raised his hand. “I’m the chief.” The words sounded strange, like someone else had spoken.
A tunnel cat swatted a goblin who had gotten too close, sending her to the ground with four gouges bleeding down her arm. “Makes our job easier, I guess,” said a hobgoblin. “Come with us, rat-eater.”
“You can’t come in here and give Jig orders,” Braf shouted. “He’s the chief. You’re lucky he doesn’t slay every last one of you hobgoblins.”
“Braf?” Jig asked.
“What?”
“I’m chief now, right?”
Braf nodded.
“So you have to do what I say?”
Braf nodded again.
“Good. Shut up.” Jig studied the hobgoblins. Two tunnel cats and five warriors to escort a few goblins. The hobgoblin chief was serious. Still, if the whole lair attacked together, they would overwhelm the hobgoblins. Judging from the nasty smiles beginning to spread through the crowd, the goblins had figured that out too.
What they hadn’t figured out was what the rest of the hobgoblins would do in reprisal. The last thing Jig needed was to have hobgoblins screaming through the layer on a vengeance raid when he was trying to worry about pixies. He could only manage one war at a time.
Actually, he doubted he could manage even one.
“Braf and Grell, I want you to come with us to the hobgoblin lair,” Jig said loudly. “The rest of you, keep the muck pits filled and burning, and could somebody please make sure we get a guard at the entrance?”
“Why us?” asked Grell.
Because Grell and Braf had both been under orders to kill him, and neither one had done so. Jig hoped that trend of not killing him would continue. “Because I’m chief and I said so.”
Jig tried to look on the bright side as he followed his escort out of the lair. If the hobgoblins killed him, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about the pixies.
The lead hobgoblin took one of the tunnel cats, who sniffed the air and the ground as they walked. Another cat followed behind, straining at its leash. That one actually drooled as it watched Jig, barely even blinking.
Hobgoblin lanterns painted the tunnel the color of goblin blood. Jig glanced at Slash, trying to guess whether he was a captor or a prisoner. The other hobgoblins hadn’t given him a weapon, but they weren’t jabbing him in the back of the legs with their spears either. Lucky hobgoblin.
Jig jumped and walked faster, trying to avoid another poke as he studied his escort. A large, ugly bruise covered one side of the lead hobgoblin’s face. Recent, from the looks of it. They didn’t say much, but they didn’t have to. Three lanterns were overkill for such a small group. They kept peering into the shadows and letting the tunnel cat peek around bends and turns. They were afraid.
“Have the pixies attacked already?” Jig asked.
That earned him another jab, this one in the thigh. From then on, Jig kept his guesses to himself.
When they reached the hobgoblin lair, Jig saw that the number of guards had doubled. Four hobgoblins stood in a rough square at the junction of the tunnels. Lanterns hung from both ears of the glass statue. Several of the guards growled softly as they saw the goblins approaching.
Braf puffed his chest and opened his mouth. Jig smacked him with his sheathed sword. Whatever Braf had intended to say came out a startled, “Hey!”
“No weapons,” said one of the hobgoblins, catching Jig’s wrist. Jig’s arm was so numb he could barely feel the fingers digging into his skin. The hobgoblin grabbed the crossguard and gave a quick yank that nearly dislocated Jig’s shoulder.
“Try cutting it off,” suggested the hobgoblin who had yanked Braf’s hook-tooth away.
“I already did,” said Jig. “The leather is enchanted. Cursed, really. It’s too strong to cut.”
The hobgoblin grinned. “I didn’t mean the cord.” He drew a short, flat-tipped sword from his belt. The blade was only sharp on one side, an obvious chopping weapon.
“Go on, cut it off,” Grell said, leaning against the wall. “Course, then you’ll have to explain why your guest bled to death before he could talk to your chief.”
The hobgoblin’s smile melted away. The thought crossed Jig’s mind that nobody had actually specified whether they wanted Jig alive or dead. Though if they wanted him dead, they probably would have killed him by now.
The hobgoblin shoved Jig’s arm away. “Draw steel, and you’ll wish I’d killed you, goblin.” He pushed Jig for good measure, knocking him to the ground next to the glass statue. Blue light reflected from the chipped glass. The hobgoblin warrior stood so tall his head nearly touched the top of the tunnel. Aside from a helmet, he wore only a loincloth, no doubt to emphasize the muscles covering his body.
Lying on the floor, Jig wondered if anyone else had ever bothered to examine the statue from this angle. He also wondered why the sculptor had made the hobgoblin anatomically correct.
“Get up.” Strong hands hauled Jig to his feet, then dragged him through the open archway. They pushed Slash after him, saying, “Make sure he doesn’t step in anything.” Grell and Braf followed, probably assuming they were safer with Jig than out here with cranky hobgoblin guards.
One of the tunnel cats stayed behind. A guard tied the leash around the legs of the statue. The statue would keep the cat from running off, but all the guard had to do to loose the cat on an enemy was cut the leash. Whatever had happened, the hobgoblins were taking no chances.
A few paces into the tunnel, the hobgoblins pressed themselves to the walls as they walked.
“Pit trap,” said Slash, shoving Jig against a wall hard enough to bang his head. Grell did the same to Braf who, despite Slash’s warning, had almost walked right into the trap. “Fall in there, and the goblins will have to find someone else to play chief.”
“What’s down there?” Jig asked, keeping his body as close to the wall as he could.
“Used to be a pair of giant carrion-worms.” Slash shook his head glumly. “A group of adventurers fell into the pit and slaughtered them. Do you have any idea how long it takes to breed and raise giant worms? The chief decided rusty spikes at the bottom would be faster and easier. Not as much fun though.”
“Oh. I see.” Jig fought to keep his face neutral, though he couldn’t quite stop a shiver at the memory of those worms.
A few paces later, Slash pushed him again. “See that stain on the ground?”
Jig stared. The ground was dusty rock, the same as the rest of the tunnels. Squinting, he could just make out a faint discoloration in the dirt where Slash was pointing.
“We spread a mix of blood, rock serpent venom, and diluted honey there. The venom keeps the blood from clotting, and the honey makes it stick to whoever steps in it.” Slash licked his lips. “Tunnel cats love the stuff. Step inside the lair wearing that scent, and they’ll be on you before you can draw your sword.” Indeed, even as Slash explained, the tunnel cat tugged its leash, trying to reach the dried stain. The hobgoblin kicked the cat in the side, earning a loud hiss, but the cat didn’t attack. That was a well-trained animal. Jig wondered if the hobgoblins would be willing to train the goblin guards.
Before Jig could say anything, Slash hauled him to one side. This time it was a scattering of tiny metal spikes resting on the ground.
“They’re so small,” Braf said.
“And they’re coated in lizard-fish toxin,” Slash said.
Oh. Jig stared at the hobgoblins with newfound respect. If he tried to set such traps to protect the goblin lair, half the goblins would be dead within a week.
“Watch your step,” said Slash.
Jig stopped, fully expecting to be shot, poisoned, crushed, or maybe all three at the same time. “What is it now?”
Slash pointed to a pile of brown, slimy goo in the center of the tunnel. “Hairball.”
Eventually the tunnel opened into a broad cavern, similar in size to the goblins’ lair. But the hobgoblins had carved out a very different home for themselves. For one thing, instead of using muck pits in the floor, the hobgoblins hung wide metal muck bowls from large tripods, so the light came from overhead. Every time Jig took a step, three shadows followed him along the floor. As if he wasn’t jumpy enough already!
Even stranger, there were hobgoblin
children
running about. Jig stared at a girl whose head barely came past his waist. She had a knife tucked through her belt, and was swinging a club at a larger, similarly armed hobgoblin boy. As Jig watched, the boy knocked her club away, then kicked her in the stomach. The girl crawled away to retrieve the club. To Jig’s amazement, the boy stood there, waiting as she attacked again.
“What’s she doing?” Jig asked.
Slash glanced over. “Practicing.”
Jig could see other children working throughout the cavern. A few near the entrance scraped lichen from the walls by one of the lanterns, while a boy farther in helped butcher a pile of lizard-fish. Jig even saw a baby hobgoblin slung to the back of a female. He grimaced. The baby had wrinkly yellow skin, green toothless gums, and a misshapen skull.
“Hobgoblin babies are ugly,” said Braf.
Grell snorted. “You weren’t exactly pleasant to look at yourself.”
The female with the baby noticed them staring and bared her teeth in a scowl before ducking behind a large, painted screen mounted on a wooden frame.
Similar screens were set throughout the cavern, partitioning the space into smaller chambers. Crude paintings decorated most of the screens. They seemed to tell stories of hobgoblin triumphs, whether it was a single hobgoblin leading a troll into an ambush, or a group tossing goblins into a pit full of tunnel cats.
The guards led Jig and the others toward the rear of the cave. Several hobgoblins spat as Jig passed. He heard two others making a wager over how Jig would be killed. He held his sword close to his leg, trying to appear unthreatening. So many hobgoblins. Men and women, young and old, armed and . . . well, they were all armed. And they all looked angry.
“What happened?” Jig asked.
One of the guards shoved him forward. “That’s for the chief to explain.”
“No,” said another. “That’s for him to explain to the chief.”
The chief was an older hobgoblin, sitting on a much-abused cushion near the back of the cavern. A half-eaten skewer of lizard-fish meat sat on the ground beside him. Screens to either side created a smaller artificial cave. Another frame stood in front, but the screen had been rolled up and tied overhead, opening the small chamber to the rest of the cavern.
The hobgoblin chief rose, ducking past the wooden frame to stand in front of Jig and the others. He slipped a bit of greasy lizard-fish to the tunnel cat, then wiped his hands on his quilted, brass-studded jacket. A long wavy sword hung on his hip. The cast bronze head of a hobgoblin warrior capped the hilt, and the crosspiece was a pair of long barbed spikes. Jig had seen the sword once before, when he and the chief had negotiated the truce between goblins and hobgoblins. According to hobgoblin law, whoever held that sword commanded all hobgoblins.
“Hello, Jig,” said the chief. His thinning hair was bound into a dirty white braid. He glared at the other hobgoblins. “I said I wanted to speak to the goblin chief too.”
“That’s me,” Jig said.
“I see.” He studied Jig, his expression never changing. His cool appraisal was far more worrisome than the gruff threats of the other hobgoblins. At least with them, Jig knew what to expect. Not so with this hobgoblin. He might offer Jig a bit of lizard-fish or cut the head from his body with that huge sword, and he would do both with the same stone expression. Finally he grunted and said, “About time someone killed that overbearing coward Kralk.”
He turned to Slash. “Ah, Charak. The others tell me you let a goblin outwit you. A fat female, one who claimed to be a wizard of some sort. They say she humiliated you and led you away, slinking like a cat who’s been beaten once too often.”
Jig took a small step away from Slash. Charak. Whoever.
“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Slash said. “The stupid rat-eater went and got herself enchanted by pixies.”
“Pixies?” the chief asked. “What are you talking about?”
As fast as he could, Jig stepped forward to explain about the pixies and their conquest of the ogres. He told the chief how they had fled to the Necromancer’s pit and how the steel of his blade seemed to have broken the spell on Slash. “Ask them,” he added, pointing to Braf and Grell. “They’ve all seen the pixies and what they can do.”
The chief was shaking his head. “So, Charak. Not only does a mere goblin get the best of you, but then you let yourself fall prey to a fairy spell? I should probably kill you now and save us all the trouble.”
The threat was uttered in an easy, casual tone, but Jig saw several hobgoblins reach for their weapons.
“Falling in battle against an invading army I could forgive,” the chief continued. “But letting a goblin get the better of you?”