High gloom, p.4
High Gloom, page 4
part #6 of The Bad Guys Series
Up the stairs and onto the wall. I stepped onto the wide pathway and looked through the crenellations at the forest beyond. Past the cleared area, the forest seemed wild and primeval. Foreboding and terrifying at the same time.
I looped the rope around the blocky crenellation, and then dropped it over the edge.
“What are you up to then?” A cracking voice asked.
I looked over and saw a heavily-armored dwarf ambling along the battlements toward me, twirling a mace in one hand.
“Just taking a midnight stroll,” I said.
“Ah,” he said, tapping the rope with his mace. “Leaving our little fort then?”
“At least for a short while.”
“You think you’ll come back?”
“That’s the hope, isn’t it?”
“Oh, could be, could be. Not sure I understand what it is you aim to do.”
“Got a little quest to go and play with some night goblins.”
The dwarf’s mouth cracked into a wide smile under his dark beard, and his eyes glinted.
“Now ain’t that a fun idea for passin’ the night?” He asked, giving his mace another twirl. “Don’t supposin’ you’d be looking for a little company on that stroll, eh?”
“Not allowed,” I said. “Sorry.”
The dwarf went up on his tiptoes a little and spit over the wall. “Quince, eh? He does have his peccadillos.”
“You’re trying to get down too?”
“Aye, that I am. Got to do guard duty for two months afore I can ask again.”
“Not sure I’d mind that, compared to what I’m about to do,” I said, giving the dwarf a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Keep a look out for me, if you don’t mind.”
“Aye, I will. You wantin’ your rope with you?”
“That’d be great,” I said.
“You give it two tugs when you’re down. I’ll untie and drop it to you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He gave me a slap on the back. “Enocha’s luck with you.”
I hopped over the edge and slid down the rope, landing in the mud on the ground below. I gave the rope two tugs, and then it dropped down. I made quick work of coiling it, and tucked it into my pack.
A few deep breaths while I adjusted my hood, and then I journeyed off into the darkness.
8
It was hard not to get spooked by all the noises coming from the woods around me. I figured most of them were just the normal night sounds — nocturnal animals living their lives, wind blowing the branches around, leaves rustling, probably something hunting me.
I switched into darkvision and things got much easier. I could see everything around me, the trees and the branches, the bushes and the shrubs. I didn’t trip over anything, so it was a bit like a walk in the park. A park that hadn’t been kept up in ages, but there was just an air of a stroll about moving through those woods.
The other thing that helped was bonesight. Pretty hard to sneak up on someone when they can see your bones moving. Not that anything was trying to sneak up on me, but a quick glimpse into that part of the universe gave me a little more confidence that I wasn’t about to have trouble from the denizens of the night.
I walked along quickly, doing what I could to remain quiet and stay in a relatively straight line. After about twenty minutes, I climbed a tree and popped my head through the canopy. Looking west, I could see Raim, and I was slightly south of where I wanted to be. Once on the ground, I walked north a bit, then returned heading east.
On and on, I hiked through the woods, pushing through shrubs and getting thoroughly soaked. My cloak was doing its best, I guess, but it was more for keeping me out of sight than for keeping me dry. Which was basically the story for all my gear.
When I got tired, I knelt down and pulled a bit of food out of my pouch. I had to chew the dried meat for a surprisingly long time before I was able to swallow the stuff. I flipped into magesight, just to take a peek around on the off chance I’d see something interesting.
Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing nothing, but nothing beyond the average motes of magic that seemed to just exist in Vuldranni. Evidence, I suppose, of the base magic in the world. And how I managed to get more mana in my system by just existing.
Break over, I got back on my feet and kept moving.
It was hard to keep track of time. The combination of the night and the rain, mixed with the forest that didn’t seem to change at all as I moved through it made me feel like I was trapped in a different slice of the universe. A timeless world of wet. All the bushes looked the same. I couldn’t tell the trees apart, and I started to wonder if I was even moving at all. If I’d learned anything about bushcraft, which I hadn’t really, I knew it was very likely I’d end up going in circles.
But I did have a little something in my corner — Denitza’s necklace. I took it out, and as soon as it touched the air, I could see a little symbol in my vision, a slight arrow pointing to the right. Turning right, the arrow continued to point right until it became a red dot showing exactly where Denitza was standing.
I climbed a tree, poked my head through the canopy, and peered back west. Sure enough, the red dot lined up with the mild illumination coming from Raim. And once again, I had drifted south.
Dropping back to the ground, I did some corrections. As I did, I caught new sounds coming through the trees. I couldn’t quite tell the direction, however. Noises moved about the forest in odd ways.
I moved slower, taking my time to make sure that I was as hidden as I could be, given everything.
After ten more minutes, give or take, I saw the first signs of the night goblins. Small trails had been cut through the trees, tramped down by hundreds of tiny feet going to and from numerous, decaying piles of dung. I’d managed to come into the night goblin camp via their latrine. It was not a pretty picture, even in the dark. Goblins smelled bad. Especially their poop. And that’s coming from someone who’s spent plenty of time in the notoriously and accurately stinky pits of Glaton.
Still, I figured, it had to be a benefit, since no one expected visitors to come through the toilet.
I saw the first night goblin tottering down the path, clearly intoxicated as the little creature had difficulty navigating a straight path. It clutched at branches as it passed them, and missed a turn, tumbling into the shrubs with a loud crash.
The creature started laughing uproariously, and called out something in a gruff and guttural tongue.
Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Night Goblin.
Some calls of laughter echoed through the forest. Nothing funnier than someone falling on the way to the toilet.
I crouched there in the bushes and watched the drunk goblin pick itself up. Maybe three feet tall at the outside, more likely shorter. Its head seemed too large for its body, and it had a prominent nose and intense, yellow eyes. Pale, almost purplish skin covered its body, with tufts of yellowish-white hair on its head and brow. It had armor on, but it looked to have been made out of larger bits cut down and reformed together. The rings on its chainmail were definitely sized more for humans. And it had very large boots on its stubby little legs. But even then, those boots struggled to contain the goblin’s toes, because I could see where one of the pinkies had worn through and stuck out of the aged leather. There was a wicked looking sword on the thing’s belt, not looking sharp so much as having lots of pointy bits. Kind of like a rudimentary version of a saw blade. Regardless, not something I would enjoy being stuck with.
The goblin stumbled along until it found a spot it liked, and then there was a vile moment of release, involving plenty of sound effects that I would, unfortunately, retain with me until the end of my days.
I left the goblin to its pooping, and moved around the latrine area, stepping very carefully around the piles of poop until I found clean ground. Following the sound of the hooting goblins, I eventually moved through enough trees that I caught just a bit of light peeking in between the seemingly infinite trunks. Slowly, I slipped between the trees to see what was happening in the clearing ahead.
“Balls,” I said softly.
It was far worse than I’d imagined.
9
It made sense that something called a night goblin would be fairly active at night. Kind of right there in the name, after all. These little assholes were busy having a party. A huge fire burned in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by dancing night goblins. To the far side was a cooking fire, over which were several hunks of meat being turned by small creatures who looked a lot like miniature goblins. Except with no armor, slightly longer arms and more pudgy torsos. A regular-size goblin supervised the little spit-turners, occasionally barking out an order or hitting one of the little guys upside the head when something went wrong.
The trees around the edge of the clearing were astonishing in their size, with wide trunks and branches that seemed to extend impossibly far, essentially keeping the entire clearing under the canopy. It meant there was no way to see even the bonfire from any distance above.
I noticed staircases built into the trees, as well as a few buildings. The more I looked up, the more treehouses I saw. They were everywhere. But they weren’t built by the goblins. Not to imply that goblins can’t build nice treehouses, but I doubt they would’ve built them to human (or elf) scale. The doorways were the right size for me, not for creatures half my size. Plus, I didn’t see any evidence of the treehouses being used. The night goblins were clearly not into cleaning up after themselves — there were piles of garbage all over the place. But nothing at all in the treehouses above. Maybe it was too hard for the little goblins to climb the stairs.
But it wasn’t difficult for me to climb trees.
I followed the line of treehouses back away from the clearing until I found an easy-looking tree well into the darkness. Then up I went.
I pulled myself over the railing of a walkway leading to a treehouse and set my feet down gently. There was a slight creak, and I held still for a moment. No change in the party below. I crept along to the house and peeked inside.
Nothing there. It looked like whoever had used it left quite some time ago. There was some furniture inside, things that had been built in place mainly. I stepped through the open window, and noticed no dust on the floors. The wind blew through gently, which might do some good at keeping it clean. Then I noticed that there weren’t any joints in the floor. It was one solid piece of wood... that also didn’t have any joint with the tree itself. I ran my hands along the spot where there should’ve been nails or something, but it was perfectly smooth. Almost like everything had been grown in place instead of built. I stepped carefully through the empty house, exploring the three rooms. It was the same everywhere. No nails, no joints, no planks, nothing. It was all solid living wood.
“Weird,” I said softly, making a mental note to talk to Nox about this. See if he knew anything about who would create homes like this. My first thought went to elves. In the old world there were lots of ties between elves and trees, so it made sense that it could be the case on Vuldranni as well. However, many times I’d seen that things in Vuldranni did not work the way I expected. Better to find out for sure.
I moved quietly back through the home — no more creaks. There was nothing inside, so I politely left through the window I’d come in. I followed the walkways around, peeking in a few more homes that all told the same story as the first, until I got to a point overlooking the clearing.
Seeing the feast from above made it far worse than on ground level, because now I could see what the bonfire had been blocking. There were crude tents everywhere on the far side of the blaze, disappearing in every direction under the trees. And I spotted at least two more bonfires, with more goblins dancing around them. Also, there were goblins beating large drums that were mostly in time with each other.
The treehouses continued all along the clearing, making me think that, at one point, this had been some kind of city. Or at least a village. But nonetheless, there were plenty of empty homes above, none of which seemed to be in use by the goblins, which made me very curious.
But more pressing was the large metal cage standing right outside a wide stone staircase leading into the ground. It was full of people.
I moved quickly through the treehouses, feeling reasonably confident I wouldn’t be seen since none of the goblins were bothering to look up. Or look around at all — I hadn’t seen a single lookout. But given how comfortable the people of Raim seemed to be living within their walls, I wasn’t surprised. Why bother? Besides, it didn’t seem like there was any shortage of goblins. It was just a swarm down below.
The other bonfires were much better attended than the one near the latrine. I mean, obviously the party near the potty wasn’t going to be the big one. Most of the goblins were near the cage. You know, the one holding the people I’d come to rescue.
Balls.
As I got closer, I noticed a wagon near the cage, one with rather nervous-looking horses attached to it. A large human sat in it, busy talking to a small goblin in a purple cloak. I saw a heavy pouch go from the goblin to the man. The man peered inside, nodded, then tied the pouch to his belt.
The purpled-robed goblin hopped off the wagon and onto the stone staircase. He disappeared below ground.
With a sharp crack, the wagon started moving, heading out along something that looked an awful lot like a road.
I had to know more, so I sprinted through the trees, finding the right pathways until I got above the road, somehow managing to get in front of the wagon.
Quickly, I scampered down the tree and leaned against the trunk with my cloak rapped around my body, just my eyes peeking out.
The wagon came on, moving slowly through the muddy tracks. The driver sang a song softly, and as the horses got closer, I saw that they weren't, in fact, horses. Similar size, but more like large deer without antlers. One of them looked over in my direction, and gave a sniff, but just kept walking along. As the wagon passed by, I grabbed ahold and pulled myself up onto the seat next to the driver.
Purely luck, I did it as the man took a deep pull from a wine sack. I could hear the gulps as he poured it down his throat.
He stopped, burped loudly, and then went back for another round.
"Soothing your conscience?" I asked.
He choked on the wine, spitting some out and coughing hoarsely.
I leaned over and pounded his back, while also feeling along his belt and snatching away the dagger.
"Who are you?" he finally spat out between coughs.
"Just your friendly neighborhood—” I started, but then I shook my head. "I really need to come up with something better there."
"What?"
"Never mind. I'm here to ask you a few questions. You know, if you don't mind."
"What—”
"Me, I'm asking questions. You are answering them."
"I don't understand."
"Kind of makes two f us. What do you know about the night goblins?"
“I- what do you mean, know?"
"Who are they? What are they doing here? What—”
"They are night goblins, and they live here?"
"I suppose that's my fault for poor questions. What did you deliver?"
"I, uh," he stammered.
I already knew I was not going to like the answer, but a peek over my shoulder into his wagon made things easier to understand. There were a lot of chains there. And a lot of manacles. Made it pretty clear this asshole was the reason there were people in that cage.
"You're providing the slaves," I said.
He coughed again, and pointedly did not look at me. He was, however, quite obviously working up some courage for an attack of some kind.
With a quick motion, he reached at his side, and then brought his hand around.
I didn't bother blocking the blow. He just hit my chest with his fist.
"Forget this?" I asked, and stabbed his dagger into his leg, pinning the man to the wooden seat below.
He screamed, but I already had my hand over his mouth, and his hot yell disappeared into my soggy cloak. The deer pulling the wagon didn't seem to care — they just plodded on.
"How—” he started, but I was growing tired of his questions, so I slapped him.
"Where do the slaves come from?" I asked as tears leaked out of his eyes.
"Obergton," he got out.
"Where is that?"
"Day and a half south."
"Big town?"
"No, just a river port. I live there with—”
"Not interested. How many people have you sold?"
"Just this one time, I—”
I put my hand on the dagger's hilt, and he stopped, thinking I was about to twist it. Which I was really thinking about doing, but I let his imagination do the damage instead of me.
"Honesty now," I said.
"I don't know," he finally admitted. "A few times a month."
"A few times a month? How many people was this?"
"Twelve."
"Twelve people each time? So we're at, what, twenty to forty a month?"
"Something like that, I guess. Are you, I mean, are you trying to take a cut? Because I think we can probably come to an agreement. We just need to talk to Johan."
"There's a whole damn operation here."
"Very secure way to make money, uh, sir. Night goblins need sacrifices, and—”
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"Sacrifices. They need sacrifices on a regular basis, and they pay very well."
“So you're providing sacrifices, not slaves?"
"Much safer," he said. “No escapees to deal with. It's very simple, and—”
I was having real trouble holding my temper in check. I could feel my face flush with anger, and my heart pounding for justice. Or vengeance. Magic coursed around as I instinctually got ready for immense violence. But there was more that I could learn from the jackass.
"Where do they get the money?" I asked.
"Who?" he replied, face a bit pale from blood loss.
