45
There were thousands of them, sprawled across the rocky ground like toys in a spoilt child’s playroom. Goblins, sleeping in the warm shade of the cavern. Their numbers were so many that there was more grey skin than ground, their limbs splayed out on top of each other as if they had fallen dead where they stood.
Above, the light filtered through openings in great beams, cutting through the darkness like solid blocks of ice. It did not appear that there were any guards, which was just as well. Rufus was on the move.
‘Bloody lunatic,’ Mason muttered, watching as the young noble picked his way through the sleeping goblins. ‘He’s lucky they get blind drunk on fermented coconut during the festival.’
Fletcher followed Rufus’s direction and found his target. It was a bamboo cage, abandoned against the wall of the chamber like an afterthought. Within, Fletcher could make out a bedraggled figure, hunched over in the corner.
Something else caught Fletcher’s eye. There were a dozen young men dozing on the other side of the cavern, as well as a handful of gremlins. The boys wore no more than loincloths, as did the gremlins, and they were all tied together by cruel leather straps.
‘Your friends?’ Fletcher asked, nodding at the group.
Mason shuddered as he saw them, his face losing its colour.
‘Three years I spent there,’ he said, his voice quavering. His hands trembled as he unslung his crossbow and quiver, laying them on the ground.
‘I’ll get them,’ he muttered. He stood up and swayed unsteadily, his breathing reduced to short sharp pants. The boy was having a panic attack.
‘No, I’ll go,’ Fletcher said, removing his weapons belt. If Mason stumbled just once … they would all fall.
‘I’ll cover you,’ Mason said, the relief clear on his face.
Fletcher tugged off his boots and socks, to better navigate the maze of tangled bodies ahead. He also left his bow, pistols, quiver and scabbard, taking only his sword to cut the prisoners free.
Rufus was making slow progress, his way blocked by a particularly thick patch of slumbering goblins. Fletcher watched as he was forced to turn back and take a more indirect path.
Hoping not to make the same mistake, Fletcher tried to work out the best route around the sleeping goblins.
Then he was walking among them, slotting his feet between the crooks of elbows and knees, holding his khopesh low and straight for balance. A goblin beneath him snorted in its sleep, so close that he felt the rush of air against his ankle. Fletcher froze, his heart in his mouth. For a moment the goblin’s nose rested against his bare skin, wet and cold like a dead fish. He could feel the mucus bubbling on his shin with every breath.
After what felt like an eternity, the goblin swallowed and rolled over, its elbow briefly knocking his leg. The slumbering goblin barely noticed. In fact, it was now splayed over the body of another. Both remained dead to the world.
Emboldened, Fletcher increased his speed, skipping from bare rock to bare rock with careful but swift steps. He knew that it would take just one to open its eyes and see him – then all hell would break loose. He had to get through them quickly.
As Fletcher looked up to check his progress, he saw one of the boys was awake. He was skinny to the point of skeletal, with skin as dark as Electra’s and a wild tangle of tight black curls on his scalp. He watched Fletcher make the last few leaps through half-closed eyes, too tired to react to the figure approaching him. Perhaps he thought Fletcher was a dream.
It was only when Fletcher cut through the straps holding him to the wall that he moved, staring up at Fletcher in awe.
‘Wh-wh … ?’ was all he managed. Fletcher silenced him with a finger to his lips, then moved on to the next prisoner. It was not long before they had all been freed, many of them scrambling away from him as if he was some kind of ghost. The gremlins barely moved. There was no life in their eyes, and many of them had crooked arms and legs, the result of broken bones, poorly set. Fletcher plucked one of them from the ground and pressed it into the tangle-haired boy’s hands. He motioned at the others, until all the gremlins were safely ensconced in a slave boy’s embrace.
A scraping sound came from across the room. Fletcher looked up to see Rufus sawing at the cage, his short sword making swift work of the ancient bamboo. There was no door on the structure. Disturbingly, the orcs had built it around the noblewoman, with no intention of ever letting her out.
Mason waved the boys over, and they began the dangerous journey to the tunnel entrance. Fletcher remained where he was, watching Rufus’s progress. The young noble had managed to cut two bars from the cage, enough for his mother to crawl through. But she remained hunched in the corner.
Gritting his teeth with frustration, Fletcher picked his way across the cave. The light from outside was dimmer, tinged with orange from the sunset. Their time was measured in seconds now, and every second was another that could be spent destroying eggs. In his overlay, the image shifted as Ebony flew back and forth outside the pyramid, exacerbating his struggle to place his feet in the darkness. He winced with each step. It did not help that the mana pulses from Ignatius were becoming more frequent.
There was a moment of pure panic as a goblin stood by the entrance. It staggered into the light of the outside, clutching its belly and crooning. Fletcher stood frozen, still as a statue. He held his breath, gritting his teeth. Then, the goblin was gone.
Soaked in a cold sweat, Fletcher continued on, moving his feet as quickly as he dared. By the time he made it to the cage, Rufus had resorted to frantic whispering, his arm outstretched to the huddled figure within.
‘Mother – Mother, it’s me. Take my hand. Take it, damn you!’
He was sobbing, tears streaking his grimy face. His shoulders shuddered violently with each breath and his hands trembled as they grasped for her.
But the woman refused to move. She simply stared through him with vacant eyes. Blue had not been lying when he’d said her mind was gone.
‘I’ll get her, Rufus. You go on back. You’re no good to her like this.’ Fletcher laid a calming hand on Rufus’s shoulder.
The young noble gulped and stood aside, but shook his head when Fletcher pushed him gently back towards the tunnel.
There was no time to argue, so Fletcher squeezed himself into the cage, the sharp ends of the broken bamboo scraping harshly across his abdomen as he wriggled through the hole. Inside, it appeared even smaller.
It was half the size of his old cell – he would only be able to lie down diagonally with his head touching one corner and his feet touching the other.
The woman remained unmoved, even when he crawled towards her. There were old signs of her former comprehension. Notches made on the post above her, more than a dozen. A rough comb made from a tortoise-shell, clutched in her hands. Even her threadbare clothing had been neatly stitched and patched – a whittled bone, sinews and dried animal skin acting as needle, thread and cloth, piled in the opposite corner.
The encrusted blood staining her mouth and the boards beneath him confirmed what the piles of bones and offal suggested. They had never bothered to cook her food, or even clean out her surroundings. He covered his nose with his sleeve at the smell, stronger somehow within the confines of the cage. The stench was like that of a rotten goblin egg, and his stomach lurched with both pity and revulsion.
The lady wore a uniform Fletcher could not recognise, though little remained of the original fabric. It might have been white once, but now it was a sullied yellow. Her hair and face were filthy beyond recognition. Only the eyes stood out from the dirt, the whites clear, the irises a pale blue. They suddenly flicked to his face.
Fletcher started and stifled a gasp. She stared at him, then held out a hand, palm up like a beggar asking for alms. He took it gently, for the wrist was so skinny he felt like he might break it with the slightest pressure. She struggled to her feet, forced to stoop beneath the roof of the cage. Fletcher saw her knees give way just in time, and he caught her as she fell. It was like holding a bundle of bones, her body insubstantial and weightless.
‘Give her to me,’ Rufus said. His voice was too loud, but it was clear he was beyond the point of caring. Fletcher passed the woman through the hole, her head lolling against his shoulder. She was so emaciated that he could lift her like a rag doll.
Rufus snatched her from his arms and left without a word. He rushed through the slumbering bodies without looking down, taking great strides and leaps in his haste, his mother clasped to his chest like a long-limbed baby. It was a miracle no goblins were woken in his mad rush to the tunnel.
Ahead of him, the slaves had gone, sent on earlier to the main cavern. Only Mason remained, scanning the room for signs of movement. Rufus barely gave the boy a glance as he stumbled past with his burden.
As soon as the two were clear, Fletcher followed in Rufus’s footsteps, carefully darting between the goblins, his heart hammering in his chest with every pace. Still the goblins slept on, dead to the world in their drunken stupor.
It was when he was halfway across that he saw it. Mason. Taking careful aim with his crossbow, the point firmly centred at Fletcher’s head.
Fletcher stopped, dead in his tracks. He whipped up his hand to make a shield, but nothing came out. His blood chilled as realisation dawned on him – there was no mana left. Ignatius had taken it all.
Mason squinted down the stock of the crossbow, his tongue poking out between his lips. Fletcher could do nothing but stand there, waiting for the end. He would not jeopardise the mission by leaping aside, even if it meant his own death. How stupid he had been, to trust the boy. Once a Forsyth Fury, always a Forsyth Fury.
The dull thrum of the release hit his ears as the bolt whipped by him. Behind him, a thud and a squeal.
Fletcher turned in time to see a goblin collapse to the ground, the quarrel skewered through its neck. It spasmed and flapped at its throat, but the only sounds it made were quiet gurgles.
‘Get on with it,’ Mason hissed, waving him on. ‘Before another one wakes up!’