Goblin Hero (34 page)

Several pixies were already streaking toward them. Jig hurried to the next bubble. He could see where some of the goblins had cut their way into the hive. The punctured cells sagged and wiggled as the goblins moved about. Farther on the pixies had added a second layer of bubbles, thickening the hive. If Jig could reach that point, the extra layer might help to conceal him.

On the far side of the pit, a goblin poked his head out of a damaged bubble and threw his knife at an unsuspecting worker pixie. The pixie fell. The goblin’s gleeful expression vanished as pixies and ogres swarmed toward him.

Jig drew one of his two remaining arrows and threw it at the closest pixie. The pixie veered away, and Jig hopped to the next bubble, landing beside the smashed body of one of his goblins. Peeling the goblin from the bubble, Jig flung him onto the head of an unsuspecting pixie below.

The goblins who had gone first all appeared to have followed Jig’s instructions, spreading out and taking cover in the hive. They were doing quite well for goblins, which meant they weren’t all dead yet. From what Jig could see, almost half were still alive and fighting.

One of the goblins crouched within a broken bubble, fighting a pixie. As Jig watched, the pixie flew away, and an ogre soared in to take its place. Instead of trying to escape, the goblin actually tried something heroic. He raised his sword and swung for the ogre’s head.

The ogre took the blow on the shoulder without slowing. His body smashed the goblin against the rock. That was what happened to goblins who tried to be heroes.

So what am I doing here?
The ogre dove away from the gruesome remains of the goblin, then swooped up again, apparently unaffected by the collision. He was coming directly at Jig. Jig drew his remaining arrow and waited. The ogre drew closer . . . closer. . . .

Jig feinted with the arrow, then leaped to the next bubble. The ogre hit the rock headfirst and fell back, clutching his scalp. The impact didn’t seem to have stopped him, reinforcing Jig’s private theory that ogre skulls were stone all the way through.

It did make the ogre an easy target, though. Grop threw one of his arrows. The point lodged in the ogre’s wing, and he screamed and moved away, flapping his other wing harder to keep from falling.

Jig jumped one more time, and he was there. This part of the hive was firmer, supported by the second layer of bubbles. Praying this would work, he reversed his grip on the arrow and shoved the head into the silver surface.

Sour air rushed from the puncture. The walls were thicker than they looked. He could probably push his thumb into the hole, and his claw would just reach the other side. The wall sizzled and smoked where the arrowhead touched. Moving as fast and as carefully as he could, Jig carved an opening wide enough for him to squeeze inside.

This was too much for Smudge. The fire-spider raced down over Jig’s chest, smoke rising with each step, and stopped near his pouch. He turned, all eight eyes pleading for Jig to open his hiding place. Jig loosened the laces with one finger to let Smudge scurry inside.

Sweat dripped down his face as Jig crouched within the bubble. These chambers might be quite cozy for a pixie, but Jig barely fit. He jabbed his arrow into the floor, punching through to the next one. The air was warm and damp, like the breath of a dragon with an infected tooth.

Purging that image from his mind, Jig prepared to cut through to the next cell. He bent down, and the end of his sword pierced the side of the bubble.

Jig grabbed his sheath, pulling the blade back, but the damage was done. A long, smoking gash opened into the next bubble, where a bleary-eyed yellow pixie was stirring. Apparently when pixies slept, they slept hard. The pixie blinked, horror replacing weariness as he spotted Jig. Jig drew back the arrow to throw, just as the pixie’s light flared. The wooden shaft crumbled, and the feathers of the fletching twined together and tried to fly away.

Jig squeezed through the opening and punched the pixie in the face. The pixie bounced off of the far side of the chamber. Jig grabbed him by the wings and threw him against the flattened part of the bubble, the side that clung to the rock. As the pixie collapsed, Jig realized he was grinning. He liked being bigger than the enemy for once.

The nest muffled sound well enough he could barely hear the battle outside. No wonder this one hadn’t woken up. He wondered how many more sleeping pixies they would encounter.

The bubble shook slightly as Grop dropped into the one behind him.

“Are the others still coming?” Jig asked.

“Var got pixie charmed and tried to stab me in the back, but Noroka tossed her into the pit.” He scowled. “Or maybe she wasn’t pixie charmed. Var never did like me that much.”

Jig shook his head. If he was remembering right, they had a long way to go before they reached the thickest part of the nest, where he hoped to find the queen. He looked at his lone remaining arrow, then at his sword. The arrowhead was small enough to control, but the sword was faster.

He was a goblin. Caution was for those who actually expected to survive a battle. Jig returned the arrow to his quiver and climbed back into Grop’s chamber. Squeezing past the other goblin, he drew his sword and slashed a hole in the far side. He lost his balance and fell. His sword opened a huge hole in the floor. The chamber below held another two-winged pixie, but Jig impaled him as he plunged downward.

Jig grinned. Sure he was down to three goblins against the pixie queen and all her guards, but in the meantime, this was how goblins should fight. Sneaking around, pouncing by surprise, and stopping only for a very quick snack.

 

One problem with cutting through the inside of a pixie nest was that you had no way to know when you reached the bottom.

No, that wasn’t true. There was one way.

Jig rolled away from the gash in the floor, pressing his body against the rock and gasping so hard he nearly passed out. He rested his sword across his chest, making sure the steel came nowhere near the walls of the bubble. His shook so hard he could barely hold on. From below, the wind of the bottomless pit fluttered the edges of the gash.

He tried to tell himself he wouldn’t have fallen through. The hole might be big enough for his leg, but not his whole body. “Don’t come down!” he whispered to Grop and Noroka.

Grop poked his head down from the chamber overhead. Jig could see Noroka settling in above him. “Now what?”

Now he had to figure out where they were. He pulled out his remaining arrow and poked a tiny hole in the wall of the bubble, widening it just enough to see. He pressed his eye to the wall.

Only a handful of goblins still fought. Jig saw an orange pixie swoop in to cast a spell, then tumble to the side. Jig hadn’t seen the rock that hit him, but he was relieved to know Braf had survived so far.

The queen was easy enough to find: a point of brilliant white light, orbited by pixies of every color. The white light perched in the center of a cluster of bubbles, a rounded area of smaller bubbles that bulged from the rest of the hive. Jig closed his eyes, hoping that one brief glimpse wouldn’t be enough to enchant him. He didn’t
feel
particularly loving.

“The pixies say all who look upon their queen will love her, so don’t wait,” Jig said, turning back to Grop and Noroka. “We’re going to cut our way through the hive until we’re close enough to attack. If we’re lucky, we’ll have one chance before she enchants us.”

“And if we’re not lucky?” asked Noroka.

One of the surviving goblins from the fighting above chose that moment to go tumbling past, screaming.

“Any other questions?” Jig stood up and began cutting a path to the next bubble. He used his arrow, unwilling to risk a mistake.

Noroka and Grop both had several arrows left. Grop had already proven his aim with that dart. A thrown arrow didn’t have the force to penetrate deeply, but as they had seen with the flying ogre, even a weak hit was enough. As long as the steel lodged in the queen’s flesh, they might actually succeed.

A few bubbles over, Jig poked another hole to gauge their progress. He tried not to look directly at the queen, judging her location from the shadows and the other pixies. It looked like the pixies had taken over a small cave to use as the queen’s chamber. An ogre stood at the edge, two warrior pixies perched on her shoulders. Other pixies sat on the bubbles above the cave, like tiny, glowing gargoyles.

“How much closer do we need to get?” Grop asked.

“A few more chambers,” Jig guessed without looking back. “We should try to attack from the side. Noroka, you distract the guards long enough for Grop and me to cut through.”

This could work! What would Tymalous Shadowstar say if he could see Jig now?

That was when something punched him hard in the back. Jig twisted his head to see Grop’s arrow sticking out from beneath his rib cage. There was no pain, just blue blood dripping down the shaft.

No, wait.
There
was the pain.

Jig dropped to his knees. Grop pulled out another arrow. “That was a good plan,” he said to Noroka, who was staring from the next chamber. “The two of us will attack together. Help me toss Jig’s body out for a distraction.”

He tried to reach around, but the effort made the arrowhead move inside him, and he squealed in pain. Maybe he would just hold still.

Shadowstar?
Of course. The god couldn’t hear him down here. Jig had no way to heal himself. He was alone.

At least Grop and Noroka might still reach the queen. Not that it would do Jig much good.

Then he saw Noroka contemplating her own arrow, looking from the tip to Grop’s exposed back. Jig wanted to weep. They were so close! “Noroka, don’t—”

Grop spun as Noroka leaped. She landed on top of Grop and stabbed her arrow into his hip. The arrow broke, leaving a splintered shaft in her hand. With a shrug she stabbed the broken end into Grop’s side.

Grop screamed and elbowed her in the head. There was no room to fight, and both goblins kept stepping on Jig. Claws and fangs ripped flesh. Jig moaned and tried to curl his body into a ball, keeping his wounded back away from the fight.

The bottom of the bubble began to glow with golden flames. A hole opened in the floor beneath Noroka. Jig would have warned them, but he was too busy bleeding and cowering.

An ogre grabbed Noroka by the ankles and yanked her out. Grop followed, his fangs still locked in Noroka’s arm. Another ogre caught Grop by the neck and squeezed until he let go. Jig grimaced. Goblin jaws were stronger than any other muscle in their bodies, and the ogre had plucked Grop off Noroka like he was a rat.

Jig yelled as another ogre pulled him down, bumping the end of the arrow against the nest. Hanging upside down by one leg, Jig closed his eyes and concentrated on not blacking out.

The beating of the ogres’ wings was almost as loud as the pounding in Jig’s head. As they flew toward the queen’s chamber, he found himself feeling jealous of Veka. Wherever she had gone, at least she hadn’t been stupid enough to rely on goblins to help her.

 

The ogres dumped them on rough stone. Jig raised his arms and tucked his head as he landed, trying to protect Smudge and keep from bumping the arrow in his back at the same time. He managed to avoid squishing Smudge at least.

Unlike the pit and the tunnel above, the air was warmer here, and there was no frost. Now that he was here, Jig realized this was the same tunnel that the ogres had dug from Straum’s cavern. The back had been narrowed, with two-winged pixies constantly squeezing in and out, carrying small fruits or clearing bits of stone from the cave. Hardly a single speck of rubble littered the ground. Sparkling blue and green crystals covered the rock. They felt like sand, scraping Jig’s skin when he moved.

He rolled onto his side, grimacing. The entire right side of his body hurt with every breath. His sword and arrow were both missing. The ogre must have taken them, or else they had fallen into the pit. Jig hadn’t even noticed.

He touched Smudge’s pouch and felt the fire-spider moving about inside. He loosened the ties. Hopefully Smudge would have a chance to escape.

Grop and Noroka lay bleeding beside him. Jig pushed himself up just enough to give Grop a quick kick in the stomach, a move that probably caused Jig more pain than it did Grop. Jig kicked him again anyway.

“I hate this place.”

Jig still hadn’t looked up, nor did he intend to. Faint shadows spun around his body as the pixies circled behind and overhead, but the white light shining from the queen overpowered them all.

“Everyone promised me we’d be safe. That you’d build me a nest even bigger than my mother’s. You never said we’d be underground, in this hot, dark, horrible place. What if these goblins had gotten through? They could have killed me!”

Her voice jumped and dipped like music. Other pixies swarmed and buzzed overhead, drowning each other out with their hasty apologies.

Jig saw bare feet moving toward him and the other goblins. They were larger than he had expected. The queen must be almost as large as a goblin. Either that, or she was simply a normal pixie with grotesquely oversize feet.

Sweat dripped onto one of his lenses. Jig flinched and closed his eyes. How much of the queen did he have to look upon to be enchanted? Were feet enough? He didn’t feel overcome with love or worship yet. He raised his hand to block her from view as he glanced at the others.

Grop was doing the same thing, shielding one eye. The other was bruised and swollen shut. Noroka had gotten in some good blows.