I don't own this story, nor do I know where it came from. However, it gave me chills, so I wanted to share.
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Silast was tired.
The army had been on the march for almost a week now, and while the terrain had been easy enough to start, it was now painfully difficult; the forests becoming so dense they had to dismount their beak dogs and lead them tentatively onward on foot.
Their destination was Omengate. It was an ancient ruin of a stronghold carved deep into a mountain, until a few years ago when a group of dwarven pioneers moved in and started it up again as a settlement. They knew almost nothing about its recent activity; every single scout or ambush they sent to observe it had simply disappeared. Their warlord, a fearsome goblin named Gugathrash, had sent only a couple at first - last spring - but when they failed to return he sent more experienced rangers. When a week passed since they left and no word had reached the dark fortress Gugathrash raged, bellowing curses and threats for hours in his tower. It was that same goblin that was sat atop his gigantic beak dog now, marching along in the middle of the 300 strong column.
Gods, thought Silast as he looked at the angry warlord glaring into the distance, I would not want to be in that fort when Gugathrash gets there.
It was dusk of the next day when the column was finally called to a halt. They had stopped just short of the clearing that denoted the beginning of the fortress' site, past them were tree stumps for a couple hundred yards then a sheer cliff face which made the thin goblin shiver. In its edifice was carved a maw - a gaping, impossibly black hole 30 feet high that bristled with stone "teeth" at the top and bottom. It was dark so little could be made out of the rest of the entrance, merely shadows that seemed to twist and morph as he looked at them. Silast shook his head to clear it and moved into formation. The army was large, one of the largest fielded in recent years, and it spread out along the woodline, hidden from the ghostly obelisk of the fortress by a few twigs and leaves. Silast could feel a presence emanating from it, like a silence that hung heavy in the air, and he gasped, realising he had been holding his breath.
A long, low horn sounded from the middle of the formation.
It was time to advance.
By the time they reached the fort's entrance, Silast was thoroughly unnerved. They had seen absolutely nothing. Around the entrance were a collection of pastured animals, which they slaughtered obviously, and some farming tools; but otherwise no signs of the inhabitants. The soft soil gave way to a hard pavement about 10 yards from the huge entrance, and the first ranks formed up on it: trolls, hardened by life with the goblins stood by. As the rest of the goblin invaders joined them on the hard standing they wondered why they had stopped; the order was to march in. But the trolls stood, unwilling to enter, as if an invisible threat loomed inches from them, rendering them lame and reluctant.
"Get moving!" snarled Gugathrash, spraying spittle at them in his anger, "We don't have time to wait for you sucklings!". He struck the largest troll in the back of the head with the pommel of his sword, drawing blood on the creature. It turned to look at the leader on his mount, and Silast could see the look in the troll's eyes: it was pure fear, but not of the warlord; the troll was utterly terrified of the entrance. This did nothing to help allay Silast's own fears, and he could see it in the other soldiers, they had never seen a troll be this disobedient. The troll looked slowly from the warlord back the entrance, exhaled and marched stoically into darkness. The rest of the horde followed suit.
Silast would regret following that beast for the rest of his life.
The inside of the stronghold was lined with the same paving they had seen outside, on the walls, floor and ceiling, and it continued into shadow too deep for their torches and eyes to see, dead straight. This passageway was easily large enough to fit the trolls, and the goblins could fit almost 5 abreast marching down it. Silast began looking at the walls as they walked further in, straining eyes and ears for any signs of dwarves, and as he looked he began to see shapes, until he realised every inch of this tunnel was covered in engravings. My god, thought Silast, this level of detail and volume must have taken decades! And it was detailed, carvings of dwarves, humans, goblins, elves and all manner of beasts and horrors covered this place, some depicting things too terrifying to unsee.
Unfortunately his fascination in the walls was cut short, along with approximately eight of his comrades around him, although the latter were cut short by a single metal blade that had unhinged from some dark recess and swung length-ways down the corridor, slicing their upper bodies horizontally just below the shoulders. It took about 2 seconds for this action to complete, and before Silast had time to even think, another trap - this time a enormous spike - swung down from above and impaled the entire right-hand file of the squad, skewering about four goblins and a troll before stopping.
For an impossibly long second everything was dead silent, then came the screams. Most of the soldiers impaled could still talk, the spike was doing wonders at stemming the bleeding from the wound it had just made, and they used what little time they had left on this world to scream in agony. That is, they screamed in agony until Gugathrash came and brutally decapitated them one by one. When he had wiped the last of their blood from his blade he turned to the new front of the army, and his eyes said enough. Without a sound the new front formed and marched on into the abyss.
After an eternity in that godforsaken tunnel, forever anticipating a trap that never sprung, something changed. Silast had been straining his ears for any sound at all, and he finally picked up on one. It was the kind of deep, rhythmic sound that lingered on the edge of perception, as if baiting the listener to just try a little harder that he might understand it. As the army tramped down the corridor, the sound began to materialise.
It was the dwarves.
It was definitely voices, shouting some ancient chant, endless and in perfect time. They only heard it properly when they reached the room. The tunnel turned sharply to the right and opened up almost immediately into a titanic hall. It was easily two hundred feet high, and as the army spilled haphazardly into it, the chanting increased in intensity, rising to a volume that filled Silast's whole head until he could barely think. And then they all saw the source: a line of dwarves on the far end of the great hall, clad in rusty, multicoloured armour which looked likely to fall apart; wielding wooden, old and blunt weapons. They were standing in front of a blank wall in a line, with no apparent strategy to them.
This excited Gugathrash, still angry from his fruitless encounter earlier and the weeks leading to this moment. He raised his weapon in a threatening pose atop his mount, and let loose an almost unintelligible scream:
"CHAAAAAARGE!"
This inspired the rest of the army enough, along with the sight of the ragged dwarves, to break into a run - battle line already uneven and broken - towards the dwarven soldiers. They reached halfway through the hall when all of a sudden the dwarves stopped chanting and disappeared down hatches below them, quickly retreating and leaving the goblin leader more frustrated than ever.
"FACE ME, COWARDS!", screamed Gugathrash, now sent into such a fit of rage that he could barely contain it; his eyes were wide and bloodshot, his veins were bulging and his breath was heavy already.
Then something extremely odd happened. In the vast, now-immutable silence of the hall there came a voice, one which seemed to echo all around, lacking a source yet feeling like it was inside Silast's head. In a calm, measured tone it said:
"Very well."
And a split second later a huge crash brought the entrance they had come through into the hall crashing down, an avalanche of rocks now almost entirely blocking the only exit, leaving a tiny hole maybe just big enough for a goblin to crawl through. Approximately twelve soldiers didn't see this however, as they were filled with a new hole half a foot wide in various body areas, courtesy of a set of huge ballistas set into the tops of the walls, hitherto unnoticed. These soldiers also didn't notice the new threat: the dwarf soldiers hadn't been the ones they had seen earlier, they had merely been a distraction, a bait. The real soldiers came from doors which seemed to materialise from the walls, enclosing the goblin force on all sides except the rear, leaving the retreat through the tiny entrance hole tantalisingly available. They were perhaps fifty strong, with about fifteen on each side. And these foes were no militia, they were clad head-to-toe in gleaming steel, shining and thick, plate visors covering their faces and shields of varying size and shape covering large parts of their bodies.
Silast wiped the sweat from his newly-beaded forehead and gripped his flail tightly, understanding it was do or die now, and he didn't want to think about the odds of each.
The dwarves all put one foot forwards in eerie unison with a metallic crunch, smashed their weapons against their shields in time, and with one fell cry descended upon the invaders:
"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!"
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Erith's arm pumped back and forth, gouging a deeper and wider hole in the troll's chest. Its organs were spilling all over the dwarf as he thrust his sword into him, and it was feebly trying to swat away the smaller assailant, growing weaker by the second. After a few moments Erith was drenched in its blood, but he didn't care; he was angry.
How fucking dare these disgusting goblins come into their home and try to steal their goods, hard-won and hand-crafted, and slaughter their livestock? He pushed the disemboweled troll to the floor and moved into range of a goblin leering at him from behind a iron-tipped spear. He was still enraged and pulled the shaft of the spear, yanking the invader off-balance and sending him tumbling towards him. The goblin's fall was stopped shortly after starting by Erith's sword entering his left eye socket and swiftly exiting the back of his skull. Ripping his blade from the goblin's lifeless head, he immediately went into a charge toward another invader, smashing his buckler into the creature's wooden version, shattering it and sending the goblin reeling and stumbling backwards a couple of yards.
He took a breather for a second, surveying the hall, the battle had been raging for all of a minute so far, and it was obvious where it was going: the dwarves were making short work of the invaders. Their will was breaking, he observed with a smile, and soon they would be rid of the scum.
Silast was terrified.
The army he had marched with was half in tatters and they had only been fighting for 5 minutes, although it felt like a lifetime. A lifetime of watching a sea of steel swarm their larger force; a lifetime of seeing his friends and comrades brutally butchered by these monsters; a lifetime of hoping it would all just end now.
And his spark of hope was briefly ignited when Gugathrash bellowed at the top of his lungs, far louder than any noise in the cavernous hall:
"FALL BACK"
Silast looked in bewilderment at his fellow invaders, and for one surreal moment it was as if both sides had paused to try to understand what had just happened, weapons were lowered briefly and the fighting stopped for a few precious seconds. And in those few seconds Silast and his comrades wasted precisely no time in retreating to where Gugathrash was running: the cave-in at the entrance they had entered through. And the dwarves let them go, looking on in puzzlement before quickly regaining their senses and forming up into a stout column in the middle of the hall, shields facing the attackers.
All eyes were now on Gugathrash as he confidently strode to the front of the decimated goblin ranks into full view of the defenders and spoke:
"How about we end this petty fighting right now, once and for all?" He was speaking directly at the column of impassive steel in front of him, standing with arms held out on a supplicant gesture.
No one spoke for a few excruciating moments so he carried on.
"I say we can end this bloodshed with a single fight, your best versus me right now", he continued, "and if we win you let us leave unscathed". He paused, "and we'll all have a set of that shiny armour you got there", he let the proposition hang in the air for a few seconds, then leered before saying: "if you have any honour that is", almost spitting out the word.
This caused great consternation among the dwarven ranks, they began to mutter and shuffle around, obviously riled. Gugathrash smirked, he had got a reaction.
After a few moments of this agitation one dwarf stepped forward. He was taller than all his comrades, nearly measuring up to the warlord in stature, and he carried himself with an unassuming confidence only earned in battle. His steel visor was up, revealing a short, light brown beard half-covering a face etched in stone, currently carved with thinly veiled disgust directed at the goblin leader. He was stood as Gugathrash was; five or so steps in front of his force, a mirror of him in more ways than this. Where the warlord shifted and shuffled, he stood unmoving; where the goblin was ragged and unkempt, he was clean and sharp. He spoke.
"I am Erith, and I will fight. I wish no more dwarven lives to be lost today" He said sternly. "But if I triumph, your force is to lay down all arms and armour, and is to leave and never return here while there is breath in your foul lungs".
Gugathrash sniggered "Oh don't you worry about that, little dwarf, I won't lose".
"Very well" came the reply, and with that the two forces spread out into a rough circle, not quite touching but encircling the new combatants nonetheless, and the arena was ready.
Silast had been watching these last few minutes with incredulity, he had never felt so tense and now his fate lay in trusting the honour of the people they had been planning to kill and loot the homes of just a few hours ago. He focused on the two fighters now, trying to stay alert and not dwell on his potential, untimely death. The dwarf Erith's armour was breathtaking, it was ornately carved with a multitude of patterns, swirls and inlays of various other metals, and it seemed to be a part of him. His weapon was a short steel sword, wide enough to carry some punch but short enough to be mobile. His shield was the centrepiece however, it was a narrow, triangular buckler made of what looked like bone, but it covered his arm from elbow to hand, and from the front end protruded three foot-long talons of wicked points. He was truly a menacing sight.
The fighter in whose hands lay the fates of the invaders was a stark contrast. He was taller and wider than Erith, barrel-chested and was dressed in a mismatch of metal pauldrons, studded leather gauntlets and a chain mail shirt and leggings, wielding a very thick bronze shield in his left hand. And his weapon of choice was an ugly metal sword, broad and long, dull in shine but sharp enough to sing through the air as he roughly swung it in a few practice arcs.
Silast gulped nervously. It was time.
The two gladiators slowly approached each other, waiting for the other to make the first strike.
It was Gugathrash, inevitably, and he opened with a straight sweeping strike of his blade, right to left, putting all his strength into the movement. Erith saw this coming easily and brought his buckler up to his left side and looked to dodge into his attacker's reach, negating the momentum of the sword arm and getting a surprise stab into his torso. Much to Erith's surprise, he was met with the dense bronze shield smashing into his body, numbing his right shoulder and feeling like it broke a rib or two. He swiftly dodged backwards to avoid the follow-up lunge at his throat and caught his breath. The goblin was much better than he had expected, he shouldn't have been so disrespectful with that strike, next time it could cost him more than a numb shoulder.
Instead Erith circled him slowly, darting forward and back, feinting and ducking. He spotted an opening when the goblin took a wild swing at him; first Erith ducked the blow aimed at his head, then he stepped close and brought his sword up into the larger creature's right shoulder, hard and fast. The sword lodged firmly in the wound but he quickly gained possession again by stabbing his three-pronged buckler into Gugathrash's left side, making the warlord bellow in pain. Erith then pushed hard on the buckler, not letting up until he could feel the spikes push through ribs and muscle. But he didn't push his luck, spinning back and out, assessing the damage he had done.
Silast's hopes had all but extinguished when the dwarf struck a thundering double strike to Gugathrash's shoulder and side. He was too quick for the warlord and it was showing; his leader was bleeding from the side and was even slower, trailing blood in a small circle where the fight was unfolding. But when it seemed hopeless, Gugathrash spoke:
"I said no one else! Send your men back and fight me with honour!" He pointed behind the dwarf, arm half raised in a feeble gesture. The dwarf turned around in anger quickly, apparently outraged his soldiers would disobey, only to find the same perfect horseshoe of steel and shine that had remained impassive throughout the combat.
He realised his mistake too late, and by the time he turned back, raising his buckler, Gugathrash was stood over him, sneering as he roughly thrust his blade between Erith's shoulder and breastplates. "Pathetic", he spat at the smaller fighter. Silast could see the dwarf look in incredulity at what had happened, turning his glassy eyes from his wound to the goblin before falling to his knees and slumping over the sword still impaling him, revealing the squat tip of the weapon protruding from his back plate, stained with streaks of blood.
Silast's heart leapt as Gugathrash turned to face his horde in triumph, arms raised above his head. We were getting out alive! He silently rejoiced.
Erith's world was dark, he felt like he was swimming in a black sea, it was cold and unknown. He was desperately clawing to the surface trying to stay afloat, trying to swim up to where he just was in that hall, trying not to slip into the abyss. He grew tired quickly and eventually figured he would just stop, giving in seemed the only option and he let the waves of this foreign ocean carry him insistently down into its depths.
The light of the surface from the hall was all but faded, he was still sinking down, growing colder and darker with each second when he heard something. It was deep and guttural, a primal sound that stirred his mind awake. He felt his body slowly rise, as if this sound was lifting him back out of this sea, back towards that hall with his friends and family. And him. He felt a strong feeling at the thought of the goblin's leader, and it took a second in his state to realise it was rage. He was coming back up, and he was angry.
He came to in the hall, still slumped and in a tremendous amount of pain, but he had something to finish. He could hear the noise behind him, his comrades singing the ancient chant: "Strike the Earth!" in between bashes of their shields, their voices rising and intertwining in the underground air. Erith felt his blood stir, he could feel an ancient rage grow within him, his entire body began to burn with it, a boundless energy urging him rise and strike, to rip and tear.
Strike the Earth
He got up.
Strike the Earth
Gugathrash was still facing his horde, basking in his victory cheers.
Strike the Earth
Erith took a step forward, the goblin's ugly blade still embedded in his torso.
Strike the Earth
Gugathrash still didn't notice, although some of his army had stopped cheering and stared wordlessly at their revived foe.
Strike the Earth
Erith kept walking, each step agony, but he could ignore it, he channelled that pain into rage and energy until he was with arm's reach of his nemesis.
Strike the Earth
Gugathrash finally turned around, the noise of the dwarves was cacophonous and he was trying to gloat. Less cacophonous was the high-pitched noise he made in his throat when he realised he was facing the dwarf he had struck down.
Empowered by the sound of his people, Erith reached out and gripped Gugathrash by the throat, closing his fingers with inexorable power. The goblin was choking, unable to breathe through his closed throat, and his weak attempts to get Erith to release his grip glanced off ineffectually.
Erith could feel his fist tightening as bone buckled and broke and arteries tore under his gauntlet, and he relished it.
A few moments later the invader's champion was a dead crumpled heap on the warm stone floor of the hall.
Unable to breathe, Silast watched his leader in a similar state as he squirmed and struggled under the grasp of the impossibly strong dwarf. Then he watched Gugathrash's lifeless corpse fall unceremoniously to the floor.
Then Erith turned to look at them. His eyes seems to glow beneath his visor, and the defenders marched towards the horde in frightening unison. They had the goblins backed into the rear of the hall and were almost upon them when Silast turned to the almost-blocked entrance to see a weedy goblin frantically crawl through to the other side. Then he felt a steel-clad hand on his shoulder, the last thing he ever felt.
Well, that and pain.
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Topic: Repost: A goblin's perspective (Read 919 times)