Tarah Woodblade (20 page)

The gorc was quite surprised when Tarah’s staff darted out from behind a tree. She struck it in the shins, sending it sprawling into the leaves. It recovered quickly, jumping to its feet and spinning to face her, its sword already unsheathed.

Tarah’s staff struck its hand, knocking the sword from its grip, then she swung back around with the other end, striking the gorc’s temple.  It crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

She stood over it, glowering. The gorc was an ugly thing. It had yellow skin mottled with brown spots. Large bushy eyebrows hung over its red eyes and its face was riddled with various piercings. A tattoo of a moonrat eye emblazoned on its forehead.

Tarah soon heard Djeri churning through the forest behind her. The dwarf plowed through the tangled briars, their wicked thorns doing little more than scratching the paint on his armor. By the time he caught up to her, Tarah had the creature bound.

“Blast you were fast! I didn’t think I’d catch up to-.” Djeri stood there for a moment, breathing heavy and staring at her captive. “You used the Pross technique for binding goblinoids,” he said in surprise.

Its two feet were bound together, pulled behind its back and tied to its left arm, but she left its right arm free. It was an old academy trick her father had taught her. Goblinoids had a terrible command of the common tongue and in order to be understood, they used a lot of gestures.

“Yeah, I hope it gestures good, because I’m really tempted to simply kill it and move on,” Tarah said.

“Hold on. Save your threats until the thing’s awake,” Djeri said. “Tell me, how do you know this technique?”

“Papa taught me,” she said quietly, staring at its clothing. Its pants were cobbled together from animal skins, but its shirt was made of fine silk and fastened together in the front with silver buttons. Tarah’s lips curled up into a snarl. “It’s been to my house.”

“How can you tell?” Djeri asked

“My house is less than a mile from here,” she said and pointed. “See that shirt it’s wearing? That belonged to my grampa.”

Djeri’s expression turned dark. “Right. Wake it up.”

Tarah placed her boot in its belly.

The gorc awoke with a spray of vomit. It coughed and grimaced and spat, then jerked its free arm about in alarm. “My armss! My legs!” It reached back and seemed relieved to find that its limbs were intact. It turned its panicked gaze on them. “Curse you, beasts! Lets Ursus go!”

Tarah poked its chest with her staff. “What have you been doing in my house?” 

The gorc snarled at her and then its eyes widened in surprise. Its lips twisted into a grin. “You’re-! You’re Woodblade!”

“You’ve heard of me?” she asked.

“You wears the misstress’ children. You wields a staff of bloood. It’s as foretold! You’re Woodblade. You’ve come!”

“Did you say mistress?” Djeri asked. “You follow the witch?”

It ignored him, its eyes on Tarah. “Youu are marked for death!”

Tarah felt a jolt of fear. “Not any longer. The moonrat mother is dead.”

“She can’tss die.” Ursus sneered. “The misstress is eternal!”

Djeri gave Tarah a curious look, then backhanded the gorc, splitting its lip. He grabbed its face with one powerful hand and turned its attention to him. “She’s right, gorc. Your mistress is dead. She was killed months ago, her dark forest destroyed. The war is over.”

“No!” it cried, its eyes wide in denial. “No. She lives still! Clobber tells us the misstress’ words.” It raised a shaking hand and pointed to Tarah. “Clobber tells us of Woodblade’s coming! Tells us of the rewards.”

“Who is this ‘Clobber’?” Djeri asked.

“He is the mistress’ speaker. He has her great eye of command. He is the finders of the great sword, ‘Killer’, and he tells us of your coming!” It smiled at Tarah, revealing a mouth full of crooked and jagged teeth.

Tarah pushed away the fear. “Tell me about this sword,” she demanded. “What does it look like?”

“Killer is Clobber’s treasure. It shines! It glows in the sun. It cuts and burns!” it said fervently. “It was made to kills you, Woodblade.”

Tarah’s face paled. She felt light headed with sorrow. “Where . . . did he find this sword?”

“The misstress telled him where to finds it,” Ursus said, its eyes feverish. “She telled him it is his glory!”

Tarah’s hand rose to her mouth.

“How many of you are there?” Djeri said, turning its face back towards him.

The gorc refused to look at him, its eyes focused on Tarah. “We have been waiting for your return, Woodblade. Waiting for such a looong time!”

“Well I’m back!” Tarah snarled and thrust out with her staff, crushing its windpipe.

The gorc gurgled, clutching at its throat. Djeri shoved at its chest, trying to help it breathe, but his efforts were useless. Its eyes rolled up into its head and its movements ceased.

Djeri glared at her. “Why did you do that? We could have gotten more information out of it!”

“We don’t need his information,” Tarah said, glaring back at him.

“He could have told us how many of them there are and where they’re staying,” Djeri insisted. “He could have warned us of traps!”

Tarah raised one eyebrow at him, her jaw set firm. “You worry about how many of them there are? Traps?” She stabbed the butt of her staff into the ground. “This is my forest and I have their tracks.”

Chapter Ten

“Hold on just a minute, Tarah,” Djeri said, standing beside the gorc’s corpse. “What’s going on here? What are we getting into?”

“You heard it,” she said, glaring at the gorc, her face twisted with rage. “The mother of the moonrats sent a bunch of goblinoids to my house and they’ve been waiting for me to come home.”

“I heard that, but why?” Djeri asked. “Because of Pinewood?”

“Maybe. Partly.” She ran a hand through her hair and began pacing. “To tell you the truth, I was probably a thorn in her side for a long time before that night. I’ve been killing moonrats my whole life. Disgusting things. I’ve led folks through her territory a few times, maybe helped the elves a time or two . . . I don’t know.”

“It said you were marked for death,” Djeri said.

“Yeah, the moonrat mother told me that once. The night of the attack on Pinewood.” She stopped, her eyes staring into the trees. “I heard her voice in my head promising I’d die. Happened just before I killed an orange-eyed rat.”

She opened her mouth to say more, but she stopped herself. What was she about to say? It scared her so bad she ran away? Did she trust this dwarf enough to start blurting out all her secrets? Airing her shames?

Don’t tell folks everything you know
, said her grampa and papa in unison.

Her eyes locked onto Djeri’s. The dwarf was watching her closely, gauging something. She could almost see a set of scales being weighed in his mind. 

“How did you know?” he asked.

“What?”

“This morning. How did you know there was something happening at your house?” he asked. “You’ve been worried about it all day.”

“Does it matter?” she said. “We’re here now. We have proof that they’re in my house, wrecking my stuff, stealing my things!”

“I want to know,” he said.

“Why?” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration. “Look, if you don’t want to help, that’s fine. You’re not working for me. I’ll clean these things out on my own and come find you when I’m done.”

She started to storm away, but Djeri grabbed her arm.

“Let go of me!” Tarah said, jerking out of his grip

Neddy picked that moment to appear, walking around the edge of the thicket. The mule saw their expressions and gave them a reproachful look. He sniffed at the dead gorc, then snorted and kicked dirt on it.

“I’m going,” Tarah said.

“Just listen to me for one minute, woman!” Djeri commanded. He fixed her with a focused gaze. There wasn’t any anger in his eyes, just frustration and determination and . . . maybe a little of something else? Worry? Tarah wasn’t sure. “I am going to help you whether you tell me what’s going on or not. I’m not completely sure why. But I am. Just please, as a favor to me . . . give me something, because two and two aren’t coming together here.”

Tarah wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but she found herself nodding. “I had a dream last night. I-I can’t explain it, but I had a dream that monsters were in my house and I when I woke up . . . I just knew that it was true.”

“Oh,” Djeri said, all doubt fading from his eyes. He gave her a relieved chuckle. “Why didn’t you just say that this morning? I mean, good grief, I’ve been feeling led about by the nose all day.”

“I don’t get you,” Tarah said in confusion.

“I knew from the moment you asked me that you weren’t being straight with me about why you wanted to go home. But you tried to be convincing and I decided to trust that you had your reasons,” he said. “But the farther we’ve walked away from our mission goal, the more its been bothering me.”

“But I couldn’t explain that to you,” Tarah said. “It was a dream.”

“Why not? I would have understood. Dreams are important. My father dreamt of my mother a week before he met her for the first time,” he said earnestly. “He taught me that dreams are fate’s way of communicating with us.”

Tarah cocked her head at him. “But my dreams have never meant anything before.”

“They did today,” He said, kicking at the dead gorc for emphasis. “So what’s your plan now? Did your dream tell you what to do next?”

“Well . . .” She tried to think of any clue in her dream; something that could help. “Not really. Just stay away from giants, I guess.”

“Giants?” Djeri said. “Are there giants at your house?”

“I don’t think so, but we’ll find out soon. First, though.” She knelt down and began undoing the buttons on her grampa’s shirt. “I’m taking my stuff back from this gorc.”

The gorc didn’t have much else on him. Tarah found one of her spoons in its pockets, but that was it. When she was done searching it, they tossed the corpse deep into the thickets where it wouldn’t be easily found if one of its friends arrived. Then Tarah convinced Djeri to wait with Neddy while she scouted ahead.

She headed on towards her house and saw signs of the intruders right away. She found more of Ursus’ tracks, criss-crossed with tracks from several other goblinoids. She inspected the tracks and with each one she touched, more of the situation became clear. She returned to Djeri within the hour, her anger stoked.

“So what did you find?” the dwarf asked.

“There’s ten of ‘em. All are goblinoids. Two orcs, four gorcs, and three goblins. They’ve been staying in my house for six months waiting for me to return,” she said, her lips twisted in rage. “Six months! Nature knows what they’ve done to it in that time!” She raised a hand to her eyes, tears flowing.
Oh papa! Grampa. I’m sorry
!

“That’s okay,” Djeri said, patting her back. “If you can fight like the people of Pinewood say, we can handle that many.”

Her hand creaked on her staff. “Tarah Woodblade can fight,” she promised.

“Another thing. You said there were ten of them,” Djeri pointed out. “But you counted off nine just now.”

“There’s nine I know of for sure. Then there’s their leader. The one with the sword.” Oh how she hoped she was wrong about the sword. “I didn’t see any of his tracks, so I’m not sure what he is. All I could tell was that the others fear him.” There had been a lot of fear in the tracks, but only brief flashes of their commander, barely enough to tell that he was ugly and muscular. “I think he’s big, though. Probably an orc.”

“You know that much even though you didn’t see his tracks?” Djeri asked.

Tarah shrugged. “I told you I’m good.” It wasn’t a very good answer, but the dwarf didn’t push her on it.

“Okay, so three orcs.” Djeri rolled his shoulders. “This could be a good fight, then. Do you know how they’re set up?” he asked as he walked to the mule and removed his half-helm.

“I didn’t get close enough to see their formation, but their tracks did give me a good idea of their movements.” She thought for a moment, trying to decide how much she could tell him. “The three remaining gorcs and two of the goblins are archers. They take turns staying in hidden places around the house for much of the day in case I show up, but they spend the rest of their time wandering around. Hunting mostly.”

Djeri nodded as she talked, untying his full-helm from its saddle and tying his half-helm in its place. He turned to face her, his helmet stuck under his arm. “Archers put us at a disadvantage. Do you think you can kill one and take its bow? I’d like to have you on the perimeter, taking out as many of them as you can from afar.”

Tarah’s nose twitched at the thought of using a goblinoid bow, but she said, “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Good, then here’s the plan,” he said. “You head out. Get a bow. Kill their scouts and archers as quietly as you can. I’ll give you a half hour.”

“Then what are you going to do?” she asked.

He reached back and grabbed the head of his enormous mace and pulled it from the straps on his back. It was a wicked thing, almost as long as he was tall and the head was a spiky octagon. He grasped the handle with one hand and rested the weapon on his shoulder. “I’m going to walk up to the front door.”

Tarah smiled despite herself. “You can handle that?”

Djeri chuckled. “I know you’ve never had the chance to see me fight, so I’ll let that remark slide.”

“It does seem like a rather incomplete plan, though,” she said. “What if we get there and find more trouble than I thought?”

He raised an eyebrow, “Could the great Tarah Woodblade be wrong?”

“No,” she said automatically. “But the plan still seems a little bare bones.”

“I like to improvise,” Djeri explained.

“And what do we do about Neddy?”

“We leave him here and come back for him later,” he said. “We’ll tie him of course, so he doesn’t get lost.”

The mule snorted in disdain at the idea.

“I don’t think we’ll need to tie him,” Tarah said. She walked over to the mule and placed a hand on his forehead. “You’ll wait for us, won’t you, Neddy?” Neddy snorted and pawed the ground. She nodded. “He’ll wait.”