"I... gods damn it, I want to kill you!" Rakust raged, balling his free fist. "I want this to be over! But you're right. You're right, you twisted bitch, I need to know." Nguslu visibly sighed in relief, then adopted a satisfied smirk.
"There, see?" she crooned. "It's alright to hate. It's the goblin way. Bring me Mirthfulpass' head and the land and respect are yours."
Rakust gnashed his sharp, pointed teeth together and stormed away, Daywalker following close behind. A chill breeze flooded the air, turning rain to snow that settled on the dark fortress like an ivory blanket.
"This isn't right," said Daywalker as they put Hushedpoison behind them. "Turning on an employer."
"You don't have to follow," muttered Rakust, limping onward. Daywalker stopped.
"No," he said. "No, you're right. I don't." Rakust paused and glanced back.
"So is this where we part ways once again, Daywalker?" he asked.
"I won't be a part of this," said the dwarf. "Before it was all about slaying monsters, even now it was about killing an evil despot. But this? This is just hatred. Pure and simple hatred and spite."
"Then leave! Go back to your hole in the ground! I can do this alone, if you haven't the stomach for it."
"Fine!" Daywalker yelled. "I will!" But the dwarf made no move. He trembled with inner conflict until at last it burst forth in a scream of frustration.
"Aaaargh! Damn you, Wardedhawks! Damn you for having me on this damned quest with you!" Daywalker stormed on ahead, eyes set on the horizon and Mothnuts. Rakust watched him walk until he was a small figure in the distance.
"Thank you, friend," he whispered, then hobbled on in pursuit.
Mothnuts, 11th Felsite, 367
The air was unnaturally still as Rakust and Daywalker entered the glade. Woodland creatures sat in the trees or stood motionless on the ground, staring at the pair with myriad eyes.
"You hear that?" Rakust whispered, his voice as clear as daylight.
"Hear what?" whispered Daywalker back. "I don't hear anything."
"Exactly. No birdsong, no movement. Not even the breeze. Something's wrong." Rakust clutched the burlap sack he held in place of his spear. The sack contained a rock he had judged to be about the right size for a goblin's head, and had smeared it with wolfblood to complete the deception. He just hoped it would last long enough to get them to the druid.
Suddenly, a pack of wolves leapt from hiding! They leapt upon Daywalker, latching onto his limbs and tearing at them as the gunslinger swung blindly with his pistol, smacking them as hard as he could. Rakust launched himself into the fray with his good leg, wrapping his arms around the wolves' necks and breaking them. The whole affair was over in less than half a minute, but muted as the noise had been it was sure to attract attention. The pair moved quickly away, Daywalker limping from the wolves' savaging of his legs.
Rakust stopped as he nearly tripped over something. He frowned and knelt to the floor, digging away at the dirt. There, still half-buried into the ground was the copper carving knife he had escaped with from the Ruthless Scourge, the one he had lost in the first winter storm. Rakust considered taking it, but instead left it where it was, a sole marker of his betrayal and exile.
"So here we are," he whispered softly. "It ends where it began." Rakust stood up and carried on. As he moved away rain began to fall, replacing the silence of the forest with a steady roll of falling drops.
The sight of the first of the elves was almost a relief in comparison to the silence. It was a ranger, bow and arrow in hand, rain falling freely down the sides of his hooded heather cloak. The elf seemed as aware of the disturbance as Rakust. As the goblin and dwarf approached, the elf drew his bow.
"Halt!" he called out. "What business have you here, dwarf?"
"Um, we're here..." said Daywalker, stumbling for an answer.
"We have a delivery for Mithfulpass," said Rakust. "He's expecting us." The ranger nodded.
"Alright. Sorry, we're all a bit on edge. The druid told us this morning that the Force had sensed a great and terrible evil coming this way." Rakust and Daywalker exchanged glances. "Here, let me take you to him."
The elf led them through the grove toward the druid's pool when a high-pitched, alien scream was heard. The ranger drew his bow and ran ahead toward the source of the sound, leaving Rakust and Daywalker to desperately hobble after.
The trees were strewn with blood and gore, elven body parts scattered along the forest floor. More screams, elven and alien, ushered forth from the forest ahead, muted only slightly by the heavy drumming of the rain. Rakust stumbled through the brush. He pulled away a set of branches and laid eyes on the beast that had caused such commotion.
It resembled a sheep with beautiful cream-coloured wool, strangely enough. If a sheep had been twisted into human form and its sternum had exploded so that its ribs all jutted out like deadly spikes. More than half a dozen elves were clinging to the beast, stabbing it with spears or even just hitting it with their fists. One of the elves bore some sort of hickory wand in his hand, topped with a lazuli gem. As he waved it, roots burst from the ground and wrapped themselves around the demon's feet. The sheep devil swung its fist and shattered the elf's legs in response.
By the time Rakust had reached the devil, the elves had scored countless wounds upon its hide, but the devil seemed not to care in the slightest. Several of the elves already bore broken bones and some seemed close to death.
"What manner of beast are you?" cried Rakust, shouting to be heard over the sounds of battle and storm. The cream-coloured devil turned, dislodging the elves clinging to his hide with a mighty shrug.
"They call me Roastconfuses, the Spurt of Murdering!" the devil roared. "What manner of beast are you, little thing?"
"My name is Rakust Wardedhawks," said Rakust, "and I am a goblin."
"Then I shall feast upon goblin and elf flesh alike!" declared Roastconfuses and slashed at Rakust with his hoof. Rakust brought up his shield in time to deflect the blow and entered into battle with his spear.
Outnumbered as Roastconfuses may have been, he possessed the clear advantage of strength. Every punch of his hooves rent flesh and shattered bones, while the strikes of the elves at best bruised the beast. He seemed to feel no pain, to care not for the thick grey goo he spilled in every direction. Frustrated by the rootshaper's bindings, Roastconfuses pinned him down with two hooves and shattered both of his hands, one by one. The wand fell from the elf's hands at the roots around Roastconfuses' lower legs slackened.
Daywalker hobbled onto the scene and raised his pistol, aiming for one of the beast's eyes. He fired, the shot missing and instead glancing across the devil's temple. Roastconfuses turned from what he was doing and flung the rootshaper to one side like a wet rag. Ignoring the blows around him, he strode right up to the dwarf, put his hoof on Daywalker's pistol hand and - against all possible biology - twisted the muscles in the hoof to crush his hand into his gun. Daywalker wailed in pain. Cackling, Roastconfuses repeated the performance with the dwarf's other hand.
His point made, Roastconfuses seemed to forget about the gunslinger and instead turned back to striking at an elven spearman who seemed alongside Rakust to have made the most progress in trying to wound him. The spearman - who was in fact a woman - dodged numbly from side to side, buying her ally time to shoot arrows into Roastconfuses' side. The devil, having little patience for this, repeated the same trick he had pulled with Daywalker - except with the bowman's head.
The battle pressed on, elves falling one by one from exhaustion or the devil's designs. In his moments of clarity amidst the sea of pain, Daywalker kicked feebly at the devil's back. With a cry of desperation, his hands shattered beyond use, the dwarf leapt at the devil and bit him in the back, lacking on as firmly as he could with his teeth. The ragged rootshaper followed suit, biting at the demon's leg. Roastconfuses brushed the pair of them off and, picking up the rootshaper, flung him at the spearman who had bothered him so. Once trapped under the weight of his friend, Roastconfuses crushed his head as he had with the archer. Remembering the dwarf, he picked Daywalker up as well and flung him against a tree.
Daywalker fell into unconsciousness for the last time.
More reinforcements came, eventually, just as the old ones died away. The battle pressed on from morning to afternoon until only Rakust remained. By then, so many wounds had been scored upon the beast that Roastconfuses dragged himself across the ground even more slowly than Rakust, his sheep's flesh growing pale from the loss of so much life-sustaining goop. Rakust moved as he fought, dragging the battle all across the grove until the time came when the duel reached Imimi's own grove.
Imimi himself stood ready, a mask of grim acceptance on his face. A weak, skinny elf stood beside him, dressed in a pale blue sailor's use dress and clutching a lignum vitae wand in her hand. Roastconfuses let out a ragged yet still terrifying roar, raising for a faltering moment onto his hind hooves before collapsing to the ground again.
"Why do you soil these grounds with your presence, beast?" the druid demanded.
"Imimi Mirthfulpass!" the sheep devil declared. "I come to slay you! I come to tear your flesh from your bones and feast upon it! I come to burn down your grove and drink the blood of your precious Force!" The devil grinned and glanced back to Rakust. "And I am not the only one..."
Before Imimi could question this, the elf with the wand had had enough. She swung it in a circle and vines shot out from the undergrowth, wrapping around Roastconfuses' legs. Rakust locked eyes with the druid and in that moment the druid realised the true reason he had come. To his credit, Imimi did not run, but his sole guardian had departed.
The chance was there. All it would take would be to approach the druid, put his hands around his neck, and squeeze.
So why he did what he did next, Rakust didn't know.
Rakust leapt, one-legged, upon the sheep beast's back and took careful aim. With a single, well-placed blow, he pierced the base of Roastconfuses' skull and skewered the devil's brain. The sheep devil stood up on both its shattered legs and let out one final scream of defiance before it tumbled to the ground and light left its eyes.
Rakust withdrew the spear, covered in grey devil goo. He planted it firmly in the ground and used it to step back onto terra firma.
"Were you here to kill me?" Imimi asked, still as peaceful and unarmed as ever.
"I was asked to," said Rakust, looking back at the sheep devil's body, "but it seems my employer didn't have the faith in me she professed."
"Will you?"
"I don't know. Maybe. There's barely anyone left to defend you." The female elf stiffened and raised her wand, but Imimi gestured to her to be at peace.
"Yet you still have doubts. Why did you choose to turn on me?"
"The land, in part," confessed Rakust. "Nguslu made me the same offer as you. But more than that, she offered fame, respect, the name of the one who betrayed me. Vengeance was the key motive there, I suppose."
"Is it worth basing a life on?" Imimi asked. "Or taking one?"
Rakust did not answer.
"I am unarmed," said Imimi, spreading his hands to show that this was so. "My people are dead, slain by Nguslu's beast. There is nothing to stop you killing me, except yourself. The land is yours regardless, I have no forces left to stop you settling there. But before you kill me, ask yourself some questions.
"You were offered fame. Yes, you will have it, but it will be the fame of a tyrant and a butcher. You will be known as the one who slew a defenceless old elf and all of his people. In centuries to come, long after you are dead, you will exist only as a fairy tale, a monster told to scare children into behaving.
"You were offered respect. Yes, there is respect amongst goblin-kind. But were you not betrayed by that very same kind? Was it not your kind who, respectul though they may have been, threw you out into the cold? I remember when you arrived, though you might not think it. We did not cast you out, we allowed you to rest and become whole again. Will your people treat you the same way?
"You were offered vengeance. What will this gain you? You have already slain a demon, you are clearly one to be reckoned with. What deterrent would this serve? And, should you achieve your victory, what will it mean besides another body broken?
"I do not offer you any of these things, goblin. I offer you the chance to rise above hatred and pain. It is humble, yes. You may never know glory for your deeds, but you may be fulfilled by them.
"Make your choice."
Poll
16 (22.5%)
Author
Topic: Goblin Manor (Fortress) - Wardedhawks, The Home of Heroes (Read 17902 times)