"No hurt! No hurt!" the goblin shouted in broken, heavily accented Common, interrupting Taen's musings. "Yurz not meaning any harm to gr
… great lords," it stammered out.
"What are you doing here?" Taen asked harshly.
"Elfling call off monster wolf," Yurz cried in a piteous tone, "then I tell all." The creature cowered further against the uneven stone wall of the cave but stopped as Cavan growled deeply at his movement.
Taen frowned and looked at Roberc. The halfling cursed softly then barked a command at Cavan. Instantly, the war-dog released the goblin's cloak.
"Don't even try and run," Roberc said and spoke once more in the creature's tongue.
When he finished, he pointed at Borovazk. The hulking ranger had drawn his bow and now aimed a sharp-tipped arrow at Yurz.
The goblin gulped audibly and nodded his misshapen head.
"Now," Taen said, "tell us what you are doing here."
Yurz whined softly before answering. "Big Chief tell Yurz to bring dragons food." He answered finally. "Yurz gather other goblins and we come here with offering. Goblins hear dragons roar and hear the sound of fighting. They get scared and run off. Not Yurz," he explained. "He more scared of Big Chief."
"Other goblins," Marissa broke in with her question. "How many of these goblins are there?"
Yurz gazed at the half-elf for a moment, and Taen found himself growing uneasy at the look of sly calculation that passed over the goblin's face. He would have said something to the druid, but Yurz finally answered.
"Many goblins. Big army," he said, nearly cackling. "Big Chief run tribe in the man-castle. Partner with Ugly One," this last he uttered in a hissing whisper.
Whoever this Ugly One was, thought Taen, it clearly frightened the hapless goblin. "Where is this man-castle?" the half-elf asked, casting a knowing gaze at his companions. If they were close to the citadel, then perhaps Yurz could prove much more valuable to their quest than he had originally thought.
Yurz shook his head violently. "Yurz not tell," he said in an almost defiant tone, the rough orange skin of his sloped forehead wrinkling as he squinted his eyes. "Big Chief get mad. Hurt Yurz."
Roberc stepped forward and launched into a string of words in the goblin's tongue. Taen watched as the color drained from Yurz's face, but the creature stood firm.
"No!" he shouted in common. "Even if great lords kill Yurz, it still better than what Big Chief and Ugly One do!"
Taen sighed and was about to call his companions together to discuss this further when Marissa stepped forward. "Let me try," she whispered to Taen.
The half-elf nodded and accepted the druid's staff as she presented it to him with a smile and a wink. She began to chant softly before moving toward the defiant goblin, and as Taen heard the whispered prayer, he understood immediately what the druid was up to.
He watched as Marissa knelt before the goblin and saw Yurz's clear expression of distrust and fear begin to melt away at the druid's presence, replaced by a wide-eyed, almost worshipful stare.
"Yurz," Marissa said, "you know that we would never hurt you, don't you?"
The goblin nodded. "N… no," Yurz replied. "Pretty elfling not hurt Yurz."
"Good," the druid said, reaching out a thin hand to stroke the creature's bulging head. "We're your friends, Yurz, and friends help each other, right?"
"Oh yes," the goblin said. "Friends help each other."
"Do you want to help me and my friends, Yurz?" Marissa asked.
The bespelled goblin nodded once again.
"Good," the druid acknowledged. "Then will you take us to the man-castle to meet the Big Chief?"
Yurz gazed at the druid then out at the companions. Taen could see that the creature's former calculating stare had been replaced by a wide-mouthed smile, and the half-elf began to relax.
"Yes, Yurz take Pretty Elfling and friends to meet Big Chief. You like Big Chief and maybe he like you," the goblin said.
The druid stroked the goblin's head once more. "Thank you, Yurz," she said, and stood back up. "Well," she turned and said to her stunned companions. "It appears we've found our guide into the citadel."
Chapter 18
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
Shadows shifted in the curving passageway. Marissa blinked hard to help her eyes adjust as she and her companions followed Yurz through the twisting bowels of the mountain. She watched the goblin's bulbous head bob quickly up and down as he walked, experiencing a rush of guilt whenever he turned and cast an adoring gaze her way. Though she knew Yurz, like all of his kind, was cruel, cunning, and evil by nature, the druid always disliked overpowering the will of another creature-no matter how depraved it might be. Still, Rashemen's need beat like a war drum within her, swift and steady, its deep-noted call resonating through bone and tissue, replacing even the measured pulse of her own heart. Marissa knew that she would sacrifice far more than her own moral comfort to slake the land's need-and the thought frightened her.
Thankfully, her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden shift in the tunnel. Borovazk, Taenaran, and Roberc stood around Yurz, who sniffed the air carefully. From her vantage point, the druid could see that the trail they followed turned sharply to the left, revealing a ragged break in the tunnel wall before them. She could see an uneven passage sloping upward beyond the break, but it soon moved outside the range of her elf vision. A chill breeze blew down from the newly revealed passage.
"Passage must lead to surface," Borovazk exclaimed as he, too, inhaled the fresh airflow. "Borovazk smell snow and ice."
Yurz nodded quickly. "Oh yes," he hissed, "man-thing speak truth. This passage run out to mountain trail, then into village by man-castle."
"Then let's not delay," Roberc spoke up, his hand resting upon Cavan's broad back. "The sooner we get to the citadel, the sooner we can finish up this gods-blasted mission." He turned to Marissa and cast her a look of undisguised longing. "I haven't found myself on the tail end of a drunken binge in quite some time."
"No, no, no," Yurz replied. "We no follow mountain trail. Village empty except for goblin spies. See us coming. They not understand why Pretty Lady and friends need to see Big Chief." The goblin stamped his foot, a sight so like that of a little child that Marissa found herself stifling a laugh, despite the seriousness of their situation. "We follow this path," Yurz continued, pointing to the left, where the trail they had been following turned sharply. "Soon we get to underlevels of the man-castle. Yurz take you to see Big Chief. There be big feast. We all eat until we fall asleep."
The thought of spending an evening feasting with a tribe of goblins did little for Marissa's appetite, and she could see by the looks on her companions' faces that they felt similarly.
"I still think we should chance the mountain trail," Roberc said. "It seems far safer to me than traipsing through the warrens of a goblin tribe." Led by a goblin. Marissa could hear the halfling's unspoken reproach.
"It is a matter of trust," Taenaran said in Elvish, which he so rarely spoke.
Marissa nodded once to acknowledge the half-elf's words, but she said nothing. So much had happened to her since coming to Rashemen, events that had changed her in ways she was still discovering. For so long, her relationship with Taenaran had been based on mutual need, a desire to drown out the hurts of the heart with each other's presence. Now she needed-no, wanted- something else besides comfort.
Marissa knew Taenaran understood that on some level he was barely aware of, knew that he experienced it as a distance between them-for she felt it as well. Their current situation had provided them with little time to explore this new dynamic, so the druid chose her words carefully, for she did not want to drive a deeper wedge between them than already existed.