Goblin Quest (2 page)

Had Jig been in a better mood, he would have reminded his captor that wiping would only spread the muck around. A louder howl told him the goblin had figured that out for himself.

The laughter of the others had only grown at this display. Jig glanced around for the easiest escape route, but before he could flee, Porak lunged forward.

“Not so fast, cousin.” He dropped the panicked rat into the muck pot. “Meet us for duty in two hours. Don’t make me come find you.”

The rat clawed toward the edge of the pot. Half its body was trapped in the muck, and its squeals grew higher as the muck burned through the fur. Jig couldn’t have saved it if he wanted to. Even if the pain-crazed rat escaped, all it took was one open flame and Jig would have a frantic, flaming rat on his hands.

“Sorry about this.” He put the spatula into the pot and grabbed his weapon, an old kitchen knife with a loose blade. Not much, but enough to put the rat out of its misery.

He cleaned off the blade, being extra careful to make sure no muck remained, then tucked it back into the sheath on his rope belt.

Well, at least he wasn’t on muck duty anymore. This was what he wanted, right? He was going on patrol. A clear step up in the world. So why wasn’t he happier? Goblins spent years waiting for the day they could go from lighting fire bowls to helping protect the lair from adventurers.

Maybe that was it. Odds were, if you spent long enough looking for adventurers, sooner or later you were going to find some. Adventurers didn’t fight fair. They brought magic swords and rings, wizards and spells, and warriors who cut through goblin patrols as quickly as Golaka’s spicy rat dumplings passed through the old chief.

Which reminded him, he still had a rat to dispose of. He headed for the kitchens.

Golaka herself was gone, but one of her helpers was there, chopping up an unidentifiable animal who had made the mistake of snooping around in the tunnels. Jig tossed the muck-soaked rat onto a nearby table.

“What are you doing with that slimy thing?”

Jig projected innocence as hard as he could. With a shrug, he said, “One of the others stole it from the kitchen. They wanted me to give it back before you noticed, so they wouldn’t get in trouble.”

The goblin poked at the greasy, shiny rat with a fork. “That’s muck! We can’t eat that.” His eyes narrowed. “Who was snooping around the kitchen, anyway?”

Jig shook his head. “Porak said he’d kill me if I told.” He covered his mouth and tried to look stupid. “Oops.”

“Porak, was it? Golaka will want to get her hands on that one.”

“Can I go now?” Jig slipped out of the kitchen without waiting for an answer. As he crossed the main cavern, he allowed himself to smile.

Surface-dwellers had an expression about the wrath of the gods. Since goblins didn’t really care for gods, they had an alternate expression—they called it the wrath of the chef.

“ ‘Rat or the runt’ indeed,” Jig said with satisfaction.

 

Jig stopped by the privies on his way to meet Porak and the others. Waiting until nobody was looking, he knelt and grabbed a red-spotted spider the size of his hand. The spider crawled up his arm and onto his head. It gave one of Jig’s ears a sharp nip before settling into his hair.

“Ow.” Jig rubbed his ear. “Stupid fire-spider.”

Smudge, the stupid fire-spider in question, ignored Jig’s complaint. He was probably upset that Jig had neglected him all day. But since taking Smudge along on muck duty would have been unwise, Jig refused to feel guilty. The last thing he had needed was a spider who grew hot when he sensed danger. If Smudge had been around when that goblin surprised Jig from behind, they all could have gone up in flames.

Jig met the others near the cavern exit. Of the twelve goblins, Jig was easily the smallest, and he tried to avoid the worst of the shoulder-punching and mock fighting.

“Ah, Jig, there you are.” Porak grinned. “Jig’s going to be joining us tonight.”

Unfriendly laughter spread through the group, and Jig forced himself not to cringe. Everything was going to be fine. He just had to prove himself. He could do this.

“Should we grab something to eat first?” someone asked.

“No.” Porak’s smile slipped, and Jig kept his face still to hide his amusement. “I think we’ll avoid the kitchens tonight.”

Jig wondered if anyone else guessed the origin of Porak’s black eye. Not that he was going to tell them.

“Let’s go,” Porak ordered, cutting off any protests.

They passed through a long tunnel until they reached an old glass statue of a goblin, the marker that defined the edge of goblin territory. It had stood there for generations, and was probably as old as the mountain itself. Nobody knew who had carved the statue. Being goblins, nobody particularly cared, either. A big rock would have marked the spot equally well.

Two large goblins stood guard, if boasting about their latest sexual conquests could be considered standing guard.

Jig shivered as they passed into neutral territory. He hoped nobody had seen, but he couldn’t help it. The underground inhabitants divided these tunnels among themselves. The goblins held the southern warrens. The larger hobgoblins took the warmer caverns to the west, farther from the entrance. Past the hobgoblins was the cold lake of the lizard-fish.

The lizard-fish were the worst, and goblins avoided them if they could. When food grew scarce, the chief would occasionally send goblins to the lake to hunt. This served two purposes. While the white-eyed creatures weren’t pretty to look at, they
were
edible, and food was food. Since several of the hunting party usually managed to prick themselves on the lizard-fish’s poisonous spines, these hunting parties also resulted in fewer mouths to feed.

Fortunately, the lizard-fish couldn’t leave the lake, and an uneasy truce kept the hobgoblins out of goblin territory. Simple fear kept the goblins from trespassing in hobgoblin territory.

Jig glanced back at the statue.
That
was a true goblin warrior, one who had supposedly killed no less than three humans before an angry mage turned him into a green stain on the wall. Made of molded, and in many places chipped, black glass, he was as tall as most humans, with huge fangs that nearly touched his eyes. The nose was round like a lakestone, and his single eye was narrow and mean. A glass rag covered the other eye, which stories said had been lost to a human’s sling stone. His ears were perked and wide, alert to the slightest sound. He was a
real
goblin, and even Porak paled in comparison.

Jig barely came to the statue’s shoulder. His only scar was a torn ear, and that “battle” had been with another goblin who wanted to rip off Smudge’s legs for fun. Jig’s arms and legs were like thin sticks, and his constant squint was nothing like the mean glare most goblins wore. On top of that, his voice was too high, and he had some sort of fungus growing on his toenails.

“Torches,” Porak ordered.

“This is dumb,” Jig grumbled as one of the others handed out torches. “Why not run ahead to warn any intruders that we’re coming? Maybe we should sing, too, in case they’re blind.”

Yellow nails closed on the blue-green skin of Jig’s shoulder, and he yelped. Smudge grew warm and scampered to Jig’s other shoulder.

“Because, young Jig, we’re going to send a scout ahead to make sure everything is clear.” Porak wasn’t smiling. “That’s called tactics.” He raised his voice so the others could hear.

“You have to be smart to stay alive down here. Look at our cousin Jig, talking to himself and so distracted that I walked right up without him noticing. If I were a human, I could have killed our scout while he babbled. Then where would we be?”

Jig cringed as the others laughed and nodded. So much for proving himself.

“We have to be alert. We have to be strong. We have to be tough.” With each pronouncement, Porak’s grip tightened, so that by the end, Jig squirmed to get away.

“You hear me?” Porak glared at Jig. “You have to be tough.” He shoved Jig into the wall.

With a harsh laugh, he added, “But even the weak have their uses. This one’s going to run ahead to flush out any game. Our own little hunting dog.”

Porak pulled out a set of dice, which brought cheers from the others. “We’ll stay here, to protect the lair. If you find anything, we’ll be along to do the fighting. All you have to do is stay alive long enough for us to rescue you. Go get ’em, dog.”

The other goblins quickly picked up the chant, some barking while others punched and kicked at him. Jig covered his head and ran, Porak’s loud voice following after.

“If you see anyone, make sure you scream before they kill you.”

Jig’s bare feet slapped against the tunnel floor. His ears burned as he put distance between himself and the others, but their jeers seemed to follow on his heels.

“Do we really want to send a runt to do a dog’s job?”

“Scrawny bitch, isn’t it?”

At least now Jig understood what was going on. He knew why he had been chosen to go with the patrol tonight. They wanted him to check the tunnels so they could play their games. This way they could carouse through the night without, technically, ignoring their duty.

Actually it wasn’t a bad idea, which made Jig suspect someone other than Porak had come up with it. Porak was tough and mean, but he would lose a battle of wits with his own shadow.

Jig reached up to make sure Smudge was still there. He scratched one of the spider’s legs as he walked. “Too bad I can’t teach you to burn on command. I’d love to slip you into Porak’s trousers one of these nights.”

He reconsidered. Some things were too evil even for a goblin. He couldn’t do that to poor Smudge.

“If Porak were smart, he would have brought me in on his plan. How does he know I won’t tell the chief what he’s up to?” Jig stopped to rest for a minute. “No, even Porak isn’t that stupid. If he gets in trouble, he’ll know who told. Next time he’ll put
me
into the muck pot.”

He extinguished his torch on the floor and started walking again, taking a left at the first fork, then two rights. He let his ears and his memory guide him through the dark tunnels.

“Maybe I could blackmail him instead. Threaten to tell the chief if Porak doesn’t do what I want.” He grinned. Porak was big and important. If Jig could get Porak on his side, life would get a lot nicer. No more sleeping by the entrance, where the draft froze his feet every night. No more waiting at the end of the food line so that his meal was nothing but bones, gristle, and the occasional lump of fat.

“No more getting sent ahead on patrol while the others gamble.”

Maybe he’d even get a real sword instead of the stupid kitchen knife he carried now. He pulled the knife out of his belt and swung at an imaginary foe. He could almost hear the hiss of the broadsword. He ducked, thrust, and attacked again.

“Help me,” Porak would say as two adventurers backed him into a corner. Jig grinned and crossed the tunnel to rescue his captain. He took one adventurer from behind. The other was meaner. He put up quite a fight before Jig’s sword caught him in the chest. Jig raised his weapon in triumph as the adventurer gasped and died. Back in the lair, everyone would talk about his heroic battle. They would ask him to lead patrols of his own, and say things like—

“Be patient, lad. You’ve gone and made me lose count. I’ll have to start again.”

Jig jumped. The reality of his small kitchen knife replaced his daydreams of battle and luxury. He pressed himself against the wall and swiveled his ears forward to better hear the voices ahead.

“By all the gods, do not allow me to interfere, oh wise one. Perhaps you’d like to wait while I summon a calligrapher to assist you. And you’ll want an artist to paint another scene of old Earthmaker.”

“Enough. We’re not going anywhere until I finish my map, and I’ll not be able to do that until you get out of my way.”

Jig clutched his knife in both hands. Two voices. The first one sounded old and gravelly. The second was definitely human.

So what should he do? Screaming was out of the question, despite Porak’s orders. Sure, it would alert the others about the intruders. It would also alert the intruders about Jig. That was a problem. Humans had longer legs, and therefore longer strides, so Jig’s chances of making it back to the other goblins were slim.

He knew how long he would last against real warriors. About as long as the average fly lasted once Smudge trapped it in his web.

Speaking of Smudge, Jig didn’t know if the fire-spider could sense Jig’s own anxiety, or if he had heard the intruders down the tunnel, but the top of Jig’s head was growing uncomfortably warm.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry.” Jig backed away from the voices as quietly as he could. His free hand went up to pet the spider.

That turned out to be a mistake. Smudge apparently didn’t see Jig’s hand coming, and when his fingers touched the spider’s fuzzy thorax, Smudge curled into a frightened ball. With an audible whoosh, Jig’s hair lit up like oil-soaked rags.

The knife clattered to the floor. Smudge leaped away. Jig yelped and tried to beat out the flames. Crazy shadows danced on the walls and floor, and he spotted Smudge racing toward the opposite wall. “Stupid spider,” he shouted. He wasn’t worried about the intruders anymore. Not with his hair ablaze. If they caught him, maybe they’d at least extinguish his head before they killed him.

“Ow, ow, ow.” He smacked at the flames, trying not to burn his hands. The fire had died down when Smudge fled, and Jig soon managed to put himself out. Unfortunately the blaze had taken most of his hair with it. His scalp was tender and blistered, but he didn’t seem to be bleeding.

Jig leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain. “What’s the matter with you?” he whispered in Smudge’s general direction. “You have eight eyes. Eight! How could you not see my hand? I’m the blind one. What were you doing up there, daydreaming? I should let Golaka make a pot pie out of you.”