Shadowstar laughed. “Fair enough. Now, let us discuss the terms of our partnership.”
Partnership.
Awestruck, Jig watched as Tymalous Shadowstar walked toward him.
Him,
Jig the goblin. The runt who hid in corners and cringed when it came time to choose guards for patrol duty. This goblin was about to partner up with a god.
What
had
the universe come to?
Smudge jumped in shock when Jig turned his head. He had been peering into Jig’s mouth, presumably seeking signs of life.
A good thing the spider had moved, because Jig bit his lip so hard he expected the fangs to pierce his cheeks. Shadowstar hadn’t warned him how much this would
hurt!
As he surveyed the damage, he couldn’t believe this was his body. This body had too many joints in the legs, and the chest was bumpier than it should have been. He didn’t know how his skeleton worked, but he knew he shouldn’t bend this way. To make matters worse, he was upside down, propped against the wall like a discarded doll. And why couldn’t he feel anything from the chest down?
I told you, you’re paralyzed.
Right. That was probably a blessing, all things considered. He had enough pain in the parts he could feel. Even moving his head made him want to vomit. Flopping onto his side was torture, and he had to lay there for over a minute before he could move again. His vision was worse than usual, too. Outlines wavered and shifted, and he thought he saw two dragons arguing with two Bariuses. That couldn’t be right. Unless he had angered Shadowstar somehow and this was his punishment.
Relax. That’s the bump to your brain, remember? You’re going to feel a bit strange, even when we start to heal you. Especially when we start to heal you. I can give you the magic, but you have to use it. We’ll begin as soon as you’re ready.
Jig tried to relax. The tips of his fingers grew warm, as if he had dipped them into a bucket of water. Was this magic? He could feel the sensation move through his wrists and into his arms. He pulled back involuntarily when it reached his neck. This was too much like drowning.
Trust me.
Back to trust again. Was Jig gullible, or simply dumb as dung? Probably a bit of both, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Shadowstar wouldn’t help him out only to drown him. He tried to relax, but he couldn’t get enough air. His chest felt tight, and he breathed faster, struggling to inhale. Why couldn’t he breathe? He heard himself panting like an animal, but the sound was growing distant. He was dying again.
You’re hyperventilating. Stop it. Think about . . . whatever it is goblins do to relax. Killing and eating, or something like that.
Jig tried to concentrate on what was happening on the other side of Straum’s lair. He forced himself to inhale and hold it for a few seconds, breaking up the frantic rhythm of his breathing. He exhaled slowly, turned his head, and tried to put Shadowstar out of his mind.
Very little time had passed since Straum flung Jig into the wall. His conversation with the god must not have taken as long as he thought. Barius and the others still stood in front of the dragon, apparently stunned by the attack on Jig.
Jig twitched an ear, which didn’t hurt as badly as the rest of him, and tried to listen.
“You shouldn’t have gone and killed him, not after he found your precious rod.” That was Darnak. His protests were feeble, though. Did he expect an apology from the dragon?
“There are things you have to learn if you’re going to live to see your five-thousandth birthday. One of the first is that when someone betrays you, you kill him. Preferably in a way that teaches a lesson to his friends.”
That was a warning, to make sure the rest of the group cooperated. Jig wondered if Barius had noticed it. Not that he would change his plans if he had. In his own way, Barius was as loyal as Darnak. He might hate his brother, but he would still die for the chance to avenge Ryslind’s destruction.
Jig had no problem with Barius dying. Indeed, he would have been far happier if Straum had chosen to break Barius against the wall instead of him. Barius could die happy and alone, knowing his had been an honorable end, while the rest of them crept quietly out of the lair and back to somewhere safe.
Instead he expected Barius to get them all killed when he tried to attack Straum. Unless he managed to win. Was it possible? He was a prince and an experienced adventurer. He had the Rod of Creation.
But Straum was an experienced dragon, and he had really big claws and a tail, as well as one of his children to guard him. Not to mention Ryslind himself, standing over there with those glowing eyes and all of Straum’s magic at his command. At one time those eyes had frightened Jig. After seeing Shadowstar, he found them an annoyance, no more. He wanted to run over and pull tiny curtains over Ryslind’s face.
“The rock overhead is almost a quarter of a mile thick.” Straum’s wings flapped in a quick, small movement. A nervous twitch? The sound reminded Jig of rugs being shaken clean.
“I’ll need enough room to flap my wings. At least thirty paces wide. Once I’m free, you may help yourselves to anything you like from these walls.” He shifted his weight from one pair of legs to the other. “Begin.”
Are you ready?
“Yes.” The voice in his head had startled him into answering aloud. Luckily everyone’s eyes were on Barius. Nobody noticed the discarded goblin in the corner.
I feel bloated,
Jig complained. The magic had filled his body while he watched the others.
All stuffed up and constipated.
Please stop.
Shadowstar sounded disgusted.
You’ll get used to it. For now, what you want to do is place your hands over the worst injury. That would be the place where your spine takes a right-angle turn, right below the sternum.
I know,
Jig thought, annoyed. He touched the part of his chest that bulged worst. As long as he didn’t think of it as a part of his body, he could keep from throwing up.
You’ll have to push the bones down as the magic works.
Gross. Why does healing have to be so disgusting?
Why do goblins have to be so fragile? Next time you’ll know better than to stand in the way of a dragon’s tail. Now when you press down, imagine the magic inside of you flowing through your hands and into the spine. You need to visualize the flow.
The only thing flowing out of Jig’s hands was sweat. So he used that. He imagined the magic seeping through his sweat and oozing into his chest.
Strange, but it’ll do,
was Shadowstar’s reaction.
Overhead, illuminated by the blue glow of the walls, a circular hole began to recede into the ceiling while the displaced stone formed a ring along the outside. Barius clutched the rod in both hands. His entire body had gone rigid with concentration. Everyone watched as the hole began to grow.
That was good, because it meant they still hadn’t noticed Jig’s struggle to put his bones back into place. The pain really wasn’t too bad. True, Jig had never
felt
anything this excruciating, but he was sure there had to be something that could hurt more. He simply couldn’t imagine what it might be.
Worse than the pain was the grinding sensation in his chest, like rocks scraping against one another. Sometimes he had to push with all of his strength, and then something would pop into place, and he felt a surge of magic seep through his skin to bind the bones together again. “Next time I’m going to stay dead.”
Next time, you should try to duck. You think it’s easy for me, trying to find all those bits of rib and put them back together?
Jig scowled and pushed another chunk of backbone into place. His toes had begun to tingle, which he took to be a good sign. He could even wiggle his feet again.
A heady rush of power distracted him from the pain. He was fixing himself! The same as Darnak had done. Jig the goblin was doing magic.
Concentrate, fang-face.
Jig snorted indignantly. But he paid more attention to the magic. Most of the bones were back in place, though he could still feel things shifting and moving inside his body. A bizarre sensation, really. He wondered if this was anything like being pregnant. Goblin women generally gave birth to anywhere from two to five babies at a time. And Jig could feel at least three distinct places where his guts were rearranging themselves.
True, but pregnancy lasts eight months for you goblins. And you don’t have to squeeze the kids out of your—
“I’m trying to concentrate,” Jig interrupted quickly.
At the center of the room, Barius had deepened the hole. Darkness hid the inside, so Jig couldn’t tell how high it extended. Presumably he would know when Barius broke through to the surface. Jig expected a dramatic beam of sunlight if nothing else. So far there was nothing but blackness.
Straum peered into the growing hole, his tail shivering with excitement. “Yes,” he growled. “So close. To fly through real clouds again, to hunt real food. Faster, human.”
Barius’s attack came in silence. A huge spike of rock shot down from the black tunnel. He had used the rod to shape an enormous spear, one that he could release to impale Straum’s skull. The interior of the hole was dark, and Straum shouldn’t have seen the spear coming in time to protect himself.
Jig’s eyes had reverted to their nearsighted state when he left Shadowstar’s temple, so he saw nothing but a black streak heading toward the dragon’s enormous skull. Halfway there, it broke into a cloud of dust and gravel. He twisted his face away as pebbles showered his body.
Barius lay on his back, clutching his head while his face twisted with pain. Ryslind bent down and plucked the rod from his brother’s hands.
“You know, brother, if you had done as you were asked, we might have allowed you to live.” Ryslind cradled the rod like an infant. “Naturally we both expected you to betray us. You never were the smart one, were you?”
“Keep the bloody rod,” Darnak said. His hair and beard had turned gray from the dust. “You’ve got your freedom. Let me take his highness home, and we’ll not be bothering you again.”
“Ah, Darnak. Do you really think it’s so simple? My brother would insist on hunting us down. You know it as well as I. He couldn’t live with this humiliation and defeat. We’d have to kill him sooner or later. Isn’t it more efficient to finish him now and be done with it?”
Straum hadn’t yet spoken. He seemed content to let Ryslind do the talking. Or maybe he was speaking
through
Ryslind, Jig wasn’t sure.
Jig pressed against the wall and pushed himself to his feet. His legs felt like water, and he didn’t know if he’d fall down as soon as he took a step, but this was a far cry better than he had been a few minutes ago. Even as he waited to see Straum’s legendary temper reduce Barius to ash, a part of Jig’s mind couldn’t let go of his awe at the magic he had used to heal himself.
“A pity the rod can’t be used to slay you outright,” Ryslind said. “One of its few weaknesses. Though I suppose I could transform you into one of Straum’s children. That might be a fitting end, to serve the one you tried to murder. Not forever, of course. Only for a few centuries. Or less, if you found the strength to rebel against him. You saw what happens to those who try.”
Jig looked past them, toward the exit. If they focused on Ryslind, he could probably sneak past without being noticed. Even Straum’s dragonchild appeared distracted by Ryslind’s last comment.
After escaping from Straum’s lair, it would be a simple march through the tunnels, across the forest, and back up to his own home. Assuming his legs lasted more than two steps, he’d still have to face ogres, hobgoblins, and who knew what manner of creatures, but what did that matter? He had survived all of these things before.
He managed one shaky step before someone spotted him. Riana wasn’t as enthralled by Ryslind’s cat-and-mouse game as the rest. Her eyes constantly scanned the cave, probably waiting for the best moment to flee, just as Jig was. She jumped when she saw Jig alive and moving.
So much for that. Jig waited for her to cry out. The smartest thing would be for her to use Jig as a distraction to cover her own escape. He sighed. At least
someone
would make it out of here. She’d probably have a better chance at making it through the forest anyway.
The expected shout never came. Instead she watched the others to make sure they hadn’t noticed, then began to nod at him.
Not at
you,
dummy,
came the weary voice of Tymalous Shadowstar.
Jig looked over his shoulder. Nothing there but shelves bearing Straum’s assorted junk. Some nice belt buckles, folded tabards in various stages of decay . . . oh. Jig stared at her. She couldn’t mean for him to. . . .
But she nodded harder, both at Jig’s comprehension and at the row of javelins lined up behind him.
Was she forgetting that Jig was a goblin? A half-blind one at that. He had never thrown a spear or javelin in his life.
Had he been a true adventurer, things might have been different. He could have leaped up, shouted a defiant battle cry, seized a javelin—probably that silver-tipped one with the finlike flanges—and hurled it at Straum with all his might. A true adventurer might even have wounded the dragon, assuming he managed to pierce those scales.
But Jig was a goblin, and goblins had a different approach to big, dangerous monsters. They ran away. If they were fortunate, someone else would take care of the heroism. That would either finish off the monster, or at least create enough of a commotion for the goblin to escape unscathed.
Wait a minute.
Jig gave himself a mental shake.
The one thing adventurers and goblins share is their ability to get into deeper trouble. Forget about what goblins would do. Forget about what an adventurer would do. I need to figure out what
Jig
should do.