He swatted the cleaver in her direction again.
Green Eyes was retreating, trying to get into a position where she could pounce, but the hairy one I’d stabbed and the hairy one she’d bitten in the throat were giving chase. She couldn’t stop for a second without letting them get close enough to hurt her.
Fatty saw me edging in Green Eyes’ general direction, and hurled a cleaver.
I barely registered it, but instinct won over. My left arm came up to shield my face, and the cleaver bit deep enough to hit bone. I was surprised to see blood. My grip on the Hyena slackened.
At my throat too.
Great. They were fighting among one another, and I was still losing.
Bigger goblins weren’t slouches in a fight, it seemed.
He was reaching into a pocket. I started to back away, ready to dodge, and the tongue caught me.
He hurled a snowball, with surprising strength, right for my face.
My hand caught it.
Bits of broken glass and gravel fell to the ground as the ice and snow crumbled. He’d thrown it hard enough that two of the nails in the midst of the snowball had stuck into the wood of my hand. Not even a little. I’d have to pull them out, and my other hand already had the Hyena stuck in it, and a cleaver in the arm.
Man, fuck goblins.
I couldn’t even reach up to grab the cleaver with the nails in the way. I brought my hand up to my mouth, gripped the nails with my teeth, and-
He hurled the snowball from the other pocket.
I twisted my body and face away, but it still struck me in the temple. I kept moving, walking away, but I was staggering a bit, and the snow and glass in my eye was making it hard to stay focused on the pair.
I didn’t even see Tongue before she’d cleared the distance between us. She was airborne, spear in both hands, and thrust it, right for my chest.
I thought of Evan. He wasn’t here, as far as I knew, but he would have been really helpful to have around. It was a moment’s inspiration, but I moved as I might if he were present, pushing me.
I twisted around, turning almost three hundred and sixty degrees. The spear slid past me.
Barely looking, she took a step back, and used the butt end of the spear to catch one of the chains that extended around Fatty’s head, and ripped it away from his nose. “Mahn! Mah gob! Mah kill ya!?”
I finished turning, stumbling as I faced her again. I tugged the cleaver from my forearm.
Fatty, bleeding profusely from a ruined nose, pointed at me, as if reminding her she was still fighting.
Tongue stabbed. My eyes weren’t on the spear. I watched her face-
Saw the wrappings part. I started moving before I even saw the tongue.
The Hyena cut it.
“Ahhhhn! Gahhrk!”
She stabbed, but this time I had the advantage. I caught the pole with both of my weapons crossed into an ‘x’ of sorts, and pushed it down and away. I managed to step close enough that I wasn’t in danger of being stabbed with the spear’s point, and uncrossed the weapons, cutting her forearms.
She backed away before I could hit anything more vital.
I backed away as well.
I saw Fatty moving in the corner of my eye. I ducked the thrown cleaver. It hit a more distant window, across the street.
“Blake!”
After so much guttural non-speech from a goblin who had far too much tongue in her mouth, the very clear voice was almost disorienting.
I turned to see that the one I’d stabbed several times had the bottle in hand.
He’d turned it into a molotov. Cloth sticking out the top, already lit. The cloth wasn’t well soaked, it seemed, and it wasn’t burning all that well.
Still, a molotov.
His hairy buddy was keeping Green Eyes at bay, keeping her from interfering.
I threw the cleaver at the bottle.
No years of practice at butchery here. I missed.
The goblin, though, backed away a step. A bit too much.
He raised his hand to his wounded side, in reaction to some pain the movement had elicited.
I turned on the spot, bull-rushing him.
Because…
I didn’t have a great idea of why I was charging the guy with fire, when I was mostly made up of dry wood.
But it put Tongue Spear and Fatty McCleaver behind me.
I kicked the hand with the bottle. It was on the far side of me, and the end result saw the bottle falling free, a couple of feet away.
The resulting fire was far, far less impressive than I’d anticipated. The pool was barely two feet across.
He’d probably already drank the rest.
The other side effect of my attack was that I’d practically collided with the goblin, my chest touching his chest.
I reached over and dug my hand into the wound I’d carved out with the Hyena. He flinched, and I used the opening to stab his throat.
He still didn’t go down.
I saw his eyes widen.
Looking over my shoulder.
I moved, and Tongue’s spear impaled him, right through the middle. Now he went down.
She backed away, tugging the spear free before I could attack her.
The ones who remained were scared, now. I could feel it, clarifying me. Mending me.
Was this how the monsters in the movies got the energy to keep going, just when you thought they were down?
Green Eyes moved to my side. Her hairy goblin’s throat now fully torn out.
“I’m in a good mood,” she said. “You do not want to get in the way of that.”
I saw Tongue Spear and Fatty McCleaver exchange looks.
Fatty wiped the blood away from the side of his face.
Then, very deliberately, gave us a very bloody middle finger. Because just flipping the bird normally wasn’t emphatic enough.
The remainder of the fight took less than a minute. Tongue Spear didn’t have a full-length tongue anymore, and Fatty didn’t have any more cleavers or snowballs. They were scared, even if they’d decided to fight to the end, and that only helped us.
In the end, we had them broken and bleeding, lying on the ground. Green Eyes had Fatty pinned, and I had Tongue at bladepoint.
“I’ll let you live, but I need concessions,” I said.
“Gkkk, hrrgle,” Tongue gurgled. She snorted, looked for an instant like she was going to spit in my face, then twisted her head around and spat a mouthful of mucus and blood on the side of Fatty’s face instead. “Mak krggle,”
Even less intelligible with a length of her tongue lopped off.
I wished I could sigh.
“You,” I said, to Fatty.
“What want?”
“See any gatherings of young practitioners around?” I asked.
“Wut?”
“Kids?”
“No.”
I frowned.
“Who sent you? Who brought you here?”
“Goblin King Hal Spikedick.”
“Is his wife blonde?”
“Fuckably,” Fatty sneered.
Green Eyes gave me a sidelong look.
“I need a promise you’re going to never attack or hurt another-”
I could see his expression change before I was even done speaking.
“Nevermind,” I said. “Does the binding Mr. Spikedick arranged keep you from doing that whole ‘turn into a weapon’ thing? Binding yourself?”
He shook his head.
“Because the third option, after pacifism and you doing the weapon thing, is me putting you down right now.”
It took him only a second. His skin peeled like old paint, and the rest of him crumbled.
What didn’t crumble congealed.