The Goblin Wars Part One

  The Goblin Wars

  Part One: Siege of Talonrend

  Copyright © 2013, 2016 by Stuart Thaman

  Cover design by Will Olthouse

  www.unsilentwill.com

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN-13:

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  For Darling, my muse

  ***

  Title Page

  Map of Talonrend

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  ***

  IN THE SHADOWY depths at the center of Kanebullar Mountain, Lady Scrapple writhed with excitement. She was queen of the goblin race, Mistress of the Mountain, and had worked for centuries to bring her greatest plan to fruition.

  Utilizing the hive mind she had magically constructed among her kin, she peered through the eyes of a goblin several miles from her mountain lair. The goblin was nameless, an expendable drone created specifically by Lady Scrapple to serve a singular purpose as one of her many scouts.

  The goblin crouched low on a rooftop in the center of a village which the humans called Cobblestreet. It watched, its eyes only moving when Lady Scrapple commanded them. The humans moved about their lives in complete ignorance.

  Even if her scout was seen, it would not matter. Surely, the humans would kill any goblin on sight, but the Mistress of the Mountain was not concerned. Hundreds of new goblins were born every week, growing from huge tentacles that spread out through the ground from Lady Scrapple’s massive body.

  Each goblin began as a tiny bud, an outgrowth of flesh from the queen’s own body, and rose up through the bedrock of Kanebullar Mountain like some sort of grotesque flower. After only a few weeks of gestation, the budding goblin cocoon would split open, revealing a fully formed offspring ready to serve the hive.

  Though her mind was vast, Lady Scrapple did not possess the strength or will to directly control every action of every goblin in her mountain. Instead, she created a semblance of free will to occupy their minds, and that imitation of autonomy had led to the development of society within the mountain.

  Lady Scrapple turned her attention back to her scout in Cobblestreet. They don’t suspect a thing, she mused. For nothing but her own amusement, she made the goblin jump down from the rooftop to reveal itself.

  Humans shrieked and ran into their buildings out of fear, but not all of them. Only the women and children feared a single goblin enough to run. Several nearby human males rushed at the goblin. One of them had a sword, but the others only balled their fists. She could have commanded her scout to run or to fight back, but Lady Scrapple’s concern for a single individual was nonexistent.

  In a moment, the humans had knocked her goblin to the ground and slit its throat. Fearfully, they remained on their guard and searched the nearby buildings for other goblins. Lady Scrapple relished their response. The humans considered goblins to be so easy to kill that they would not even alert their city guard. She knew she could send an entire score of goblins to the village without humanity understanding the severity of the actual threat against them.

  That disrespect fueled her plan.

  When the real war began, humanity would not be ready. They would see goblins moving on the horizon, but they would not prepare their army. They would send soldiers to kill the goblins, but they would never send enough.

  Humanity would not be ready.

  ***

  GRAVLOX MADE HIS way slowly through the tight quarters of a dark mineshaft. His goblin eyes were well-adjusted to the lightless bowels of the mountain, but he still had trouble identifying the goblin standing before him.

  “Have you found the vein?” the miner asked. Even by goblin standards, his voice was thin and high-pitched. Gravlox recognized him as Blabar, one of the other foremen.

  Gravlox rubbed his calloused hands together. “Not yet,” he replied. “Perhaps we will find it tomorrow.”

  “I heard a rumor that might interest you,” Blabar continued, lowering his voice despite the two of them being alone.

  “Oh?” Gravlox prompted. He had never particularly enjoyed the deception and treachery so loved by his kin, but he understood the value of secrets.

  Blabar snickered. “One of the miners in the eastern tunnel found a pool of mercury this morning. You know what that means,” he let his voice trail off, allowing Gravlox to make his own conclusion.

  “Where there is mercury, there is gold,” Gravlox finished. Though the maxim did not always hold true, Gravlox was becoming desperate. The section of tunnels he oversaw had not struck a gold vein in months.

  “I know the name of the goblin who found the mercury,” Blabar whispered, a sinister smile plastered to his pale face.

  Gravlox let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said. “It shouldn’t have to come to that.”

  Blabar ran a dirty hand through his already greasy, dust-filled hair. “I’ve also heard he hasn’t reported the location of the vein to his foreman. He might be waiting to entertain offers. Let me kill him before he gets the chance.”

  Gravlox mulled the idea over in his head. In all his years as a foreman, he had never taken another goblin life with his own hands, though he had ordered several assassinations to be carried out. “You know what it means if the miner’s death is tied to our coterie?”

  “Of course, Gravlox,” Blabar reassured him. “We can use a different poison, one that will point to a different mine.”

  “Misdirection?” Gravlox wondered aloud. “It could work. If we only had the resources to buy him off and take the vein for ourselves,” he murmured to himself. “Killing is risky.”

  “But you have me,” Blabar cooed. “And I have never been caught.”

  Gravlox knew he was right, but the notion didn’t bring hi
m any comfort. How easy would it be for Blabar to remove him and take control of the mining operation himself? Perhaps it was that very fear which made him acquiesce.

  “So,” Gravlox replied with a nod. “Which poison do you have in mind?”

  “The north tunnel already has a reputation for using Heart-Stopper, but the ingredients are extremely rare. We could use something more mundane, but the risk would be higher.” Blabar knew how Gravlox would respond.

  “We will use the Heart-Stopper,” he said at once. “We do it perfectly or we don’t do it at all.”

  Blabar nodded his head in excitement. “Once we poison him, we can send our own miners into his tunnel to find the mercury for ourselves.”

  “Of course,” Gravlox said. He was filled with trepidation, but didn’t see any other choice before him. If he appeared weak to a subordinate, especially one so apt in the art of murder, he would not survive long. On the other hand, if his mine continued to fail, he would be replaced by his own superiors before long.

  Blabar handed him a rolled piece of paper which Gravlox quickly deposited in one of his many pockets. “Bring me the ingredients when you can,” he said.

  Gravlox shook the goblin’s hand and departed, ready to begin work on his new task before he could change his mind.

  An hour or so later, Gravlox arrived in the cave he called home.

  “If only I had magic,” he lamented, looking over the ingredients list. The goblin race was not known to frequently possess magic, but powerful shaman were occasionally born who could bend the elements to their will. Such power would make a poisoning like the one Gravlox planned obsolete.

  “Yes, this poison will be very hard to acquire,” Gravlox said.

  Pulling a small clump of cave moss from a jar to eat as he went, Gravlox left his cave and started back toward the center of the mountain.

  The center of Kanebullar Mountain contained a system of storehouses and businesses cut into the stone, a vast area full of goblins going about their day. Gravlox ducked into one of the first cave openings, a general store he frequented often.

  Behind the counter, a female goblin waved to Gravlox as he entered. “Hi, Grav,” she said with a smile.

  “Hello, Vorst,” Gravlox responded. She was smaller than him, if only by a couple inches, and she possessed a melodious voice full of life which Gravlox found intoxicating.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, moving from behind the counter to stand next to him.

  “Pretty well,” Gravlox responded, smiling. “I only need a few things,” he said, not wanting to give away his intention. He drew the list out of his pocket and slowly unfolded it, treating the object like some revered artifact. “Do you have any spotted lizards?” he asked, looking around the cluttered shop.

  “I think so, what do you need them for?” Vorst responded, pointing to a small cage filled with lizards at the back of the cave.

  “Oh, just a new recipe I want to try,” he lied. He felt bad deceiving his friend, but he couldn’t be too careful. “What kind of lizards do you sell?” As much as he tried, he couldn’t keep the nervousness from his voice.

  “We have the ones with yellow spots and the ones with orange spots. Here, let me get you a bag.” Vorst grabbed a burlap sack from behind the counter and moved to the cage, reaching in to grab a few lizards. “What kind of recipe is this for? Most people don’t like the taste of lizard.”

  “I need the ones with orange spots, two of them, please,” Gravlox said, trying hard to think of a recipe that might call for lizards. He was never known as a good cook and he didn’t know many recipes off the top of his head. “I’m making… a soup. Yes, of course, it’s a new recipe that one of the miner’s wives taught me today. Soup with bits of ground up lizard, among other things.”

  “You know that the lizards with the orange spots are poisonous, right?” she questioned. “You can only eat their eyes and heads. Their bellies will make you sick.” Gravlox panicked in his mind, thinking that his plot was discovered.

  “Yes, well…” The foreman stumbled over his words, trying to avoid Vorst’s gaze. “If you prepare them right and heat them high enough, it should boil the toxins out, so the recipe says.” It was a pretty convincing lie, Gravlox told himself. Luckily, it seemed to work.

  “Oh, that sounds pretty interesting, Grav, you’ll have to let me come over and try it when it’s done,” Vorst said with a warm smile. Gravlox hated it when she called him Grav. It felt so personal. It wasn’t that Gravlox didn’t want Vorst to think of him that way, he just wasn’t used to it.

  “Sure thing,” he replied casually, picking a few other things off of the shelves in the store and taking them to the counter. He was able to find almost everything for his poison in her shop and also bought himself a leg of mutton to eat that night.

  “I should have asked her to come eat dinner at my cave tonight,” Gravlox mumbled to himself as he exited the store. He had never found the courage to ask Vorst to do anything with him. He always did all of his shopping in her store, but that was about as far as the relationship went.

  Gravlox’s cave felt lonely that night. He spread out the ingredients for his poison on the small wooden table in the center of the damp cavern. He had two lizards with orange spots, a bushel of hibiscus leaves, some odd looking cave mushrooms, and little pouch containing a fine brown powder that supposedly came from bats that had been ground between rocks.

  He sat on a three-legged stool and looked over the ingredients. “Only one thing left,” he whispered over his shaking hands.

  He contemplated his decision for a long moment, questioning his bravery and resolve. Gravlox was startled out of his sullen thoughts by a quick knock on the door. Panicking, he looked around the small hovel for something to use to cover the ingredients on his table. Frantically searching for a solution, Gravlox knocked over a jar of mead from a shelf and sent it shattering to the floor.

  The door to his cave opened behind the scrambling goblin which set his heart to racing. Gravlox feared that his chest would explode from the adrenaline in his veins.

  “Hey Grav!” came the beautiful voice from the doorway. Gravlox slowly stood, turned around, and tried to hide his embarrassment.

  “Hey Vorst, what are you doing here?” he sputtered, trying hard to use his body to block the table of poison ingredients. “I mean, it’s nice to see you here…” Gravlox managed to say. His eyes intently scanned the floor.

  “Is everything alright?” Vorst asked with concern in her voice. “I heard something shatter, what is going on in here?” She peered behind Gravlox to the table and inspected the mess on the floor. “What are you doing, Grav?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Gravlox said past a growing lump in his throat. “Just getting ready to test out that recipe, you know.” Even as he said it, he knew he wasn’t very convincing.

  “Um, Gravlox, I hate to pry, but who are you planning on killing? I work at a shop that sells reagents for poisons, you know. I can tell a would-be assassin when I see one.” She grinned from ear to ear, moving around the stunned goblin to look closer at the table. “I hope it isn’t me,” she whispered to Gravlox jokingly.

  “How do you even know where I live?” the foreman sputtered, confused and taken aback. The cool demeanor with which Vorst spoke about his plan was unnerving.

  “I followed you, silly. After you left my shop, I just walked behind you. You were so nervous, you never saw me. I’m curious; tell me who you plan on killing!” Gravlox was so entranced by Vorst’s beautiful voice that he barely understood the words she spoke.

  Gravlox unrolled the paper Blabar had given him and showed it to her.

  Vorst took a moment to go over the list and found all the ingredients except for one already assembled on the table. “This poison is pretty intricate,” she said, looking Gravlox in the eyes as she spoke. “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”

  Slowly, Gravlox began to nod. “Yes. It needs to be done. If the mine is to survive, we must take things in
to our own hands. I’m ready.” It was as confident as the foreman had ever sounded in his life, and his own words terrified him.

  “Well then,” Vorst said, putting a hand on the male goblin’s shoulder, “let’s go get that last ingredient together. What is it…” her finger traced down the list, looking for the final item. “Necrotic dust? I’m not even sure what that means!” The look of surprise on Vorst’s face was almost as profound as that of Gravlox.

  “I think we have to get that from a necromancer,” Gravlox replied, not sure what to say.

  “Let’s go find ourselves a necromancer and get some dust. We leave in the morning. I’ll meet you here.” With that, Vorst bounded from the cave and left Gravlox standing in front of his table with a baffled expression plastered to his face.

  “What have I done?” he questioned. His plan had been revealed so easily. He trusted Vorst not to sell him out, but where would they find the dust they needed? In all his years, he had never even left Kanebullar Mountain.

  ***

  YOU WILL NEVER be king. You will never sit upon your brother’s throne. Your fate is not in this kingdom. Your destiny has been written elsewhere. You will never be king. The dreams were always the same. He shifted and rolled in the oversized bed, always restless, with the voice of his god echoing in his skull. Herod Firesbane had endured the same dream for nearly thirty years, every single night. You will never be king. You will never sit upon your brother’s throne. Your fate is not in this kingdom. Your destiny has been written elsewhere. You will never be king.

  When Herod was born, he was taken to the Oracle of Vrysinoch to have his destiny foretold. Like his older brother before him, Herod had received a favorable prophecy. The wrinkled and decrepit oracle told his parents that Herod would grow to be tall, strong, handsome, intelligent, and brave, just like his brother. The Oracle of Vrysinoch proclaimed that Herod would one day inherit his brother’s kingdom. King Lucius Firesbane, Herod’s older brother, had been destined to die in combat before producing any heirs, according to the oracle.