Goblin Hero (7 page)

“You’re being attacked by trees?” Braf asked.

Walland set Grell on the ground. She immediately walked over to slap Braf’s head. To Jig, it wasn’t a completely stupid question. This whole place had been created by magic. Who knew what was or wasn’t possible? Though he doubted a sentient tree would have taken the time to tie the ogre’s arms and legs to its trunk. Nor would it make much sense for the tree to lie there while the ogre struggled.

“My sister Sashi,” said Walland, resting one hand on the broken tree. A rough hood was tied over the ogre’s head. The muffled sounds coming from within suggested she was gagged. She appeared almost as large and muscular as Walland himself.

Grell limped closer, studying the knots. “That’s good technique, tying her joints to the tree so she doesn’t have the leverage to break free. There are a few kids I would have liked to use that with.” She glared at Braf as she said this, but he didn’t appear to notice.

“I told you we were being enslaved,” Walland said. He held his club in both hands, twitching nervously every time the trees creaked in the wind or a bit of ice fell to the ground. “I led my family away from the others, hoping we could hide in safety. Sashi here disagreed. She wanted to go to Straum’s cave and face this enemy head-on. She’s always been the impulsive one in our family.”

“What happened?” Jig asked.

Walland shrugged. “She found the cave. She returned a day later and nearly killed me.”

“So you hit her with a tree?” Braf asked.

“Not right away. I pretended to lose consciousness. She didn’t seem to want me dead. She started to tie me up, and I managed to get an arm around her throat.” He rubbed his forearm, and Jig noticed dark scabs near the elbow. “Sashi always did fight mean,” he muttered. “I tied her up and brought her here. That’s when I went looking for Jig Dragonslayer.”

“I thought you wanted us to help your people fight, to battle alongside ogre warriors . . .” Braf’s voice trailed off as Walland gave him an incredulous look.

Jig looked at the bound ogre, then at Walland. He had an unpleasant feeling in his stomach that he knew where this was going.

Walland shook his head. “First you save my sister. Whatever spell they’ve put on her, I need you to break it.”

“Whatever spell
who
put on her?” Grell asked.

“I don’t know. Anyone who’s gone to face them has either died or turned against us. We see lights in the sky sometimes, but never close enough to make out the shape of our tormentors. Ogres aren’t what you’d call sneaky.”

Sashi’s muffled shouts had grown louder at the sound of Walland’s voice. The tree shivered and creaked as she struggled to break free. She actually managed to lift the entire tree off the ground before collapsing again.

“Don’t worry,” said Walland. “I kept her blindfolded when I brought her here. Even if her masters are watching through her eyes, they won’t know where we are.”

This was why Shadowstar had sent him with Walland? Jig didn’t have the slightest idea how to start. This wasn’t a matter of broken bones or a pierced nostril. Jig took a tentative step toward Sashi, who had stopped moving. The roughspun bag over her head tilted to one side, as though she were listening to his approach.

Tymalous Shadowstar didn’t answer.

Hello? A little help would be nice.
Still nothing. It figured. There was never a god around when you needed one. Jig circled the tree, studying the ogre and stalling for time. She wore the same rough deerskins as her brother, though hers were damp and filthy. Her nails were broken, and several of her fingers bled where she had struggled to claw through the ropes. From the gouges in the wood, she had also tried to scrape the tree itself apart.

“Go on,” said Grell. “Fix her up and let’s get out of here. This place is cold enough to freeze snot.”

“You can help her, right?” Walland said, giving his club an ominous twirl.

Jig nodded and stepped closer to the tree. “Um . . . I can’t really get to her with all those branches in the way. Can you turn the tree over?” No doubt she had taken some scrapes and bruises in her fight with Walland. Maybe Jig could start with those while he tried to figure out what to do next. Though if Shadowstar had truly abandoned him, he wouldn’t be able to heal so much as a hangnail.

Walland stomped over to the base of the tree, setting his club on the ground and gripping the trunk with both hands. Jig glanced around, trying to gauge his chances of escape if he started running now. He guessed he’d make it four, maybe five paces before Walland crushed his skull. Six if the ogre stopped to kill Grell and Braf first.

Walland grunted as he hoisted the end of the tree onto his shoulders, suspending his sister with her head toward the ground. More branches snapped as he gripped it with both hands and twisted, turning Sashi faceup on the tree, still secured by the ropes around her hands and legs.

That was the moment Sashi arched her body and slammed her back into the tree. At first Jig wasn’t sure whether the horrible cracking sound had come from the tree or Sashi’s spine. Then she was flexing again, using her legs to swing the lower half of the tree upward. This time the crack came from Walland’s jaw as the broken tree smashed his face. He staggered back, blood dripping down his face. Sashi squirmed, twisting and flailing to free herself. She rolled away, dragging her wrists down past her ankles, then bringing them to her mouth. She tore the sack from her head, yanked the gag from her mouth, and bit through the rope. She glanced at the goblins. With an amused snort, she turned to her brother.

Walland had his club out and was circling around Sashi. She scooped up the lower half of the tree and flung it at him. He dove back, but it gave her time to loosen the ropes around her ankles.

“What now?” Braf asked. He had his hook-tooth out, and appeared perfectly willing to leap into the fight. How had he survived this long?

“We run,” Jig said.

Grell was already hurrying through the trees as fast as she could. Jig passed her in the time it took Braf to say, “Does that mean you’re not going to help Sashi?”

Glancing back, two thoughts crossed Jig’s mind. The first was that there would be no way Grell could move fast enough to escape. No matter which ogre won, they would overtake her with ease. The second thought was that the time it would take the ogre to kill Grell was more time for Jig to get away.

He waited for the inevitable chastising from Tymalous Shadowstar, but the inside of his skull was silent. Shadowstar had such peculiar ideas about leaving one’s companions to die. Even when those companions had orders to kill you.

Jig looked back again, trying to decide what to do, and ran straight into a tree. Ice and snow sprinkled down on him as he landed on his back, staring up at the dull gray sky. Hot blood trickled from his right nostril. He saw Braf and Grell running toward him. With her canes, Grell looked like a withered, four-legged bug. Jig scooped a handful of ice and snow and pressed it against his nose as he climbed to his feet. He could still see Walland and Sashi fighting in the distance. Walland was the larger and stronger of the two, but Sashi appeared to be winning. Maybe it was because Walland was still using his club, while Sashi was swinging half a tree.

Sashi’s attacks were slow, but Walland didn’t seem willing to kill her. Several times Jig saw openings where Walland could have smashed Sashi’s skull while she recovered her balance, but he kept going after her hands and arms, trying to knock the tree away.

Walland tried again, and Sashi kicked him in the knee. Walland howled in pain. By the time the sound stopped, Jig and the others were fleeing again.

“We should fight,” said Braf. “There are three of us.”

Jig glanced at Grell. Sashi had snapped a tree in half. She would do the same to the old goblin without breaking stride. As for himself, he couldn’t even run away without being knocked down by a tree. Braf was the closest thing they had to a warrior, and he was waving a weapon he had never used before.

“You killed the dragon,” Braf said. “Why are you so afraid of a stupid ogre?”

The reasons would take far too long to list, so Jig didn’t answer. Grell was watching him, waiting for his decision. They both were. What did they expect him to do, pull a dragon out of his pouch and turn it loose on the ogre?

Not that running away was doing much good. Already Sashi was closing the distance between them.

“Spread out,” Jig said. His breath puffed from his mouth in silver clouds. He removed his spectacles and wiped the worst of the snow from the lenses.

Braf had his hook-tooth ready, though he kept changing his grip, first aiming the hook at the oncoming ogre, then the point. Grell leaned her canes against a tree and pulled a short curved knife from somewhere inside the blankets bundled around her.

Jig reached into one of his belt pouches and scooped Smudge free. The spotted fire-spider was already hot to the touch, and Jig swiftly set him on the ground. The ice began to melt, sending up clouds of steam as Smudge crawled toward the closest tree. As he climbed, he stopped several times to shake drops of water from his legs.

“Sorry about that,” Jig said. “Trust me, you’re better off there than with me.” With that, he set his lantern on the ground, drew his sword, and turned to face the ogre.

A scream of rage startled him so badly he nearly dropped his sword. Weapon raised, Braf charged the ogre. As Jig stared in dumbfounded amazement, Braf thrust the sharp end of his hook-tooth toward Sashi’s chest.

She dropped her tree as she twisted out of the way, then backhanded Braf to the ground. She glanced at Grell, raising one eyebrow as if daring her to attack. Grell shrugged, put her knife away, and stepped aside.

That left Jig. He raised his sword, holding the blade across his body in the guard position he had seen adventurers use. Sashi hadn’t even bothered to retrieve her tree. She strode toward Jig, giving him his first good look at Walland’s sister.

Her time tied to the tree had left her hair wet and tangled, like limp seaweed stuck to her skull. Dirt and bits of bark clung to her clothes. An enormous green bruise covered the upper part of her right arm. Apparently Walland had landed at least one good blow. She held that arm close to her body, but Jig had little doubt she could finish off a few goblins one-handed.

“So you’re Jig Dragonslayer,” she said.

Jig wiped more blood from his nose. If he ever learned who had come up with “The Song of Jig,” he was going to push them into a fire-spider nest.

“Is it true what my brother said?” Sashi asked. “Can you use the magic of this world?”

Jig studied Sashi’s face, trying to guess which answer would keep him alive the longest. If she thought magic was a threat, the truth would give her more incentive to kill him. On the other hand, what were the odds of an ogre seeing a goblin as a threat?

“Yes?” It was the wrong answer. Sashi lunged, her good arm outstretched to grab him by the face. Jig ducked, jabbing the point of his sword into her wrist. She howled and staggered away as blood the color of pine needles dripped onto the ice and snow. Braf tried to stab her with the tip of his hook-tooth, but it skidded off of her thick skin. Braf stared at his weapon, probably double-checking to make sure he had used the right end.

Sashi reached up and twisted a thick branch from the closest tree. Smaller branches rained ice as she swung at Braf. She attacked again, then yelped. Grell’s little knife protruded from the side of her thigh.

They had gotten a few lucky shots, but it wouldn’t be enough to kill an ogre. Jig knelt beside the cold lantern, jabbing the end of his sword through the panes and scooping as much muck onto the blade as he could. The muck was cold, and he had nothing to produce a spark. Well, almost nothing. He steadied the blade with his other hand as he brought it to the tree where Smudge was cowering.

One of the greatest challenges of Jig’s life had been training Smudge to ignore muck. To fire-spiders, the caustic goo was like candy. When Jig was younger, a fire-spider had managed to sneak into the distillery, with disastrous results. Goblins passing by had never fully recovered their hearing, and Jig had been one of the unfortunate few assigned to clean what remained of the muckworkers inside.

He tried not to think about that as he brought the sword to Smudge. The fire-spider watched Jig closely as he took one step, then another. Jig had used Smudge’s hatred of water to train him away from the muck. The only time fire-spiders went near water was to breed. He could tell Smudge fully expected to be spat upon the instant he went after the muck.

“Come on, you stupid spider,” Jig said. Sashi was chasing Braf around a tree. Grell had produced another knife and held it ready to throw, but she didn’t seem able to get a clear shot.

Smudge’s training held. He turned around and began crawling away. Jig gritted his teeth, grabbed the spider, and dropped him onto the sword. Smudge was already terrified, as the burns on Jig’s fingers proved. The muck burst into flames. Finally realizing Jig wasn’t going to punish him, Smudge began scooping muck to his mouth with his forelegs.

It figured. Now that Jig needed his sword back, Smudge refused to leave. Jig stuck the tip of the sword back into the lantern and shook it until Smudge tumbled free. Leaving Smudge to gorge himself in the green flames, Jig turned back to Sashi. She had ended the ridiculous pursuit around the tree by ripping the tree from the ground. Now she stepped toward Braf, arms wide.

Jig rested his blade on his shoulder, grabbing the handle with both hands. Before his spectacles, he wouldn’t have been able to aim well enough to do this. He swung the sword forward. Muck flew through the air like tiny green fireballs, splattering Sashi’s back.