The caves of the Stonedeep Tribe were cut from solid rock by forces Tzrg couldn't begin to fathom. Goblins moved into the tunnels a long time ago, but the caves were ancient even then. It was as close to a perfect environment as any goblin could ask for, but it was not without its idiosyncrasies—even dangers. The caves held many surprises for anyone who wasn't careful where he stepped, even if he could see in the dark.
Only steps from the ksr pit was one of the cave's most dangerous places: a sheer drop-off as tall as ten goblins. It was as if the floor of the cave just fell away.
A stairway of piled stones had been constructed along one wall so the goblins could move from the ksr pit and the higher caves down into the deeper chambers where the tribe made its nests and kept its females and young. The stairway was just wide enough for two goblins to climb it side by side. The cliff stretched the whole way across the width of the cave—lots more than eighteen feet across.
Rezrex had ordered a number of torches to be lit. They were held by Stonedeep warriors, stuck in cracks on the floor and walls, and propped between stones on the stairway. Hive spiders scurried in and out of the flickering shadows, the tap-tap-tap of their feet mingling with the echoes of goblin voices that filled the chamber. The ceiling was so high that Tzrg had never actually seen it, though he knew it was up there, in the reassuring darkness.
The captured goblins were brought out in groups of five tied to each other by thick queen spidersilk. The whole of Stonedeep Tribe—even the females and young—was gathered around them, with Rezrex watching the whole thing from the top of the tall ledge. Behind the hobgoblin was the ksr pit, in front of him, the cliff. The Stonedeep goblins gathered at the foot of the dropoff, most of them staring up at the hobgoblin with frightened reverence.
Rezrex's hobgoblin cronies and a few of the Stonedeep goblins hurried the prisoners along, pushing and prodding at them with hands and the sharp points of javelins until they were lined up, more than eighteen of them in all, along the edge. Most of the captive goblins looked scared, and Tzrg couldn't help thinking that those were the smart ones. He watched Rezrex pacing back and forth behind them, huge arms crossed in front of him, the extraordinary mace swinging from a strap at his back. He held his chin up high in a way that Tzrg had never seen before. There was something about the way the hobgoblin carried himself, not just his size, that commanded obedience.
"You left your females behind," the hobgoblin said, his voice so loud in the high-ceilinged chamber Tzrg wanted to put his hands over his ears.
The Cavemouth goblins looked down at the floor, most of them purposefully avoiding looking over the edge of the tall drop-off. Tzrg scanned the line of prisoners, ignoring the hive spiders that scuttled across the wall under them, confused by the gathering.
One of the Cavemouth prisoners wasn't looking down. Tzrg recognized him—his name was Glnk. He'd seen the other prisoners defer to him. Was Glnk their chief, then? Tzrg thought the Cavemouth Tribe's chief was Klnk—a much older goblin than this Glnk. If Glnk was their chief now, his defiance made Tzrg feel weak enough, if he wasn't the chief, he made Tzrg feel even weaker. It looked like Glnk was going to stand up to the hobgoblin, which was something Tzrg—the Stonedeep Tribe's legitimate chief—couldn't do.
"There is no more Cavemouth Tribe!" Rezrex roared.
His hobgoblin henchmen laughed, nodding and sneering at the prisoners. A murmur spread through the Stonedeep goblins, and some faces turned toward Tzrg. He winced and looked down at the floor, then realized that he should get them to look at Rezrex. Rezrex was the chief and would always be the chief. They needed to stop looking to him for anything. Tzrg was just a goblin, just a warrior, just a servant of the hobgoblin invader—just like everyone else.
Tzrg turned his chin up to look at Rezrex. The hobgoblin was pacing behind the Cavemouth prisoners, towering over them, looking down at them with that uncanny self-assurance that Tzrg was sure he'd never have himself, even if he was twice as big.
The hobgoblin caught Tzrg's eye and lifted one eyebrow. Tzrg's blood ran cold, but he twisted his face into a toothy smile and pumped both fists in the air. His arms felt as heavy as flowstone, but when he saw the corner of Rezrex's mouth curl up and the hobgoblin looked away, he knew Rezrex had fallen for it.
The hobgoblin turned his attention back to the prisoners, and Tzrg let his hands fall back down to his side. He watched Glnk, who was in the middle of a group of five prisoners with two tied to each side of him. Glnk kept his chin held high, while his tribemates were trying desperately not to meet the hobgoblin's gaze. One of the prisoners tied to Glnk glanced at the defiant goblin, then forced his chin up. The second goblin tied directly to Glnk swallowed hard, then did the same. The three goblins, two of them emboldened by Gink's courage, gazed directly at Rezrex as if challenging the hobgoblin to notice them.
But Rezrex didn't notice them, at least not at first. The hobgoblin was too busy scanning the reactions of the Stonedeep Tribe.
"There is only one tribe now," Rezrex announced. The hobgoblin was beginning to master the sign and body language that made Goblin a more expressive language. "There is only one tribe, and I am your chief."
A cheer rose up from the Stonedeep Tribe, and Rezrex grinned, soaking it in. He continued to pace back and forth behind the prisoners, his arms still folded in front of his chest. The goblins he passed behind flinched when he came close. They were afraid of being pushed off the edge. Tzrg had fallen farther into the water, but there was no water under these goblins, just a hard death on even harder stone.
"Bring your females down here," Rezrex commanded. "Join the one tribe and march with me to unite all goblin tribes. All of them! Everywhere!"
Another cheer went up, and Tzrg cringed again. How could anyone imagine such a thing?
A few of the Cavemouth prisoners looked up but kept their heads down. The lines on their faces softened, and they looked less frightened, almost relieved. More than one head turned slowly but deliberately to their leader.
This, Rezrex noticed. Tzrg watched Rezrex follow the prisoners' gazes to Glnk, who stood between two of his tribemates, heads held high, looking up to make eye contact with the huge hobgoblin.
Rezrex smiled and said, "You have something to say?"
"Cavemouth fights," the defiant prisoner said.
Tzrg sighed. He had to respect this goblin who had more guts than sense. Rezrex would kill him—maybe quickly by pushing him off the cliff, maybe slowly in the ksr pit. It was the certainty of that fate that had compelled Tzrg to surrender his own tribe, weeks before.
Any thought that the Cavemouth chief would follow Tzrg's example faded when Glnk said, "Hobgoblin dies."
One of the two goblins standing next to the foolish chief smiled and actually had the audacity to laugh. Rezrex laughed with him, his huge, deep, hearty guffaw drowning out the goblin's defiant cackle.
The hobgoblin strolled over to the laughing goblin, who stood tied to Glnk and three more of his tribemates. Glnk started to laugh as well. Other goblins, among both tribes, glanced nervously at their neighbors and began forcing smiles, ready to laugh along with them.
Rezrex still seemed too far away to reach the laughing goblins, but his foot shot out and pushed Glnk off the edge. Any trace of laughter echoed away and there was only silence for the half a heartbeat it took for the spidersilk ropes to tighten. The Cavemouth chief swung back into the face of the stone cliff and smashed against it with enough force to drive the air from his lungs in a resounding grunt.
The two goblins on each side of him grunted as well, and grabbed for the ropes that tied them to the fallen goblin and that kept him from falling to his death. They both had to take at least a step closer to the edge. The goblin on the left grimaced, and Tzrg could see the muscles in his arms bulge so that veins traced meandering paths under his dull orange skin. The goblin on the right took another step closer to the edge, obviously not as strong as his tribemate.
One of Rezrex's hobgoblin cronies stepped forward, grinning, and was going to push the weaker goblin over the edge. Rezrex put out a hand to stop his henchman. They exchanged words in their complex language, and Rezrex reached to the hobgoblin's side. He wrapped his hand around the pommel of the hobgoblin's sword and drew the rusted steel weapon from its scabbard.
The shrill sound echoed, startling the struggling, weaker goblin just enough to send him over the edge. He swung a bit farther out, and while he was still in the air, swinging down and back in on a collision course with Glnk, Rezrex brought the sword down in a hard chop that severed the web between the falling goblin and the one next to him, who was still on his feet at the top of the drop-off. There was a loud, collective gasp from all the goblins, Cavemouth and Stonedeep alike, when Rezrex brought the sword across and out to his right.
The blade bit through the web rope that secured the already dangling chief to his falling friend. The goblin screamed on the way down. His scream was joined by a dozen or more others, mostly from the Stonedeep females. When he hit the cave floor blood splashed onto the first row of Stonedeep goblins, sending them pushing backward into their tribemates. Tzrg, standing closer to the back, only barely felt the wave push into him as the crowd withdrew from the bloody sight.
Glnk, still dangling off the edge of the drop-off, shouted a name Tzrg presumed belonged to the bloody mess at the bottom of the cliff.
Rezrex reached down and grabbed the rope. He pulled up, leaning back a little, and dragged Glnk back onto the top of the cliff.
"Will you bring your females?" Rezrex demanded of the dazed, angry, grief-stricken goblin.
Glnk didn't answer at first, so Rezrex rolled his bodyguard's sword through his fingers and set the point under the still shaken goblin's chin.
"Females," the hobgoblin repeated, his brows turning down over his nose, his eyes burning in the torchlight.
The goblin met Rezrex's cold stare and said, "No."
Tzrg recognized the word. It was a hobgoblin word that Rezrex used a lot.
"No," the hobgoblin snorted, pulling Glnk to his feet. "You know what a ksr is, Glnk?"
There were noises behind them—at least Jozan thought the noises were behind them. In the confines of the cave, however deep underground they were, every little sound bounced off unseen walls and seemed to come from every direction at once.
It was hard to see any details as they ran. There were signs of goblin habitation all around them, but he didn't pause long enough to soak it in. They made tools from wood they obviously collected from the surface, as well as the stone and parts of dead spiders they had all around them in the caves.
The stalagmites thinned out considerably, and it was easier to run. Jozan was surprised at his own speed. The cool air rushed past his ears. Lidda was a blur next to him.
"Are they chasing us?" she asked, her voice blowing past him like wind.
Jozan stumbled trying to stop, but only managed to slow down a little. He was running downhill and hadn't even realized it. They'd been going deeper for a while, blindly fleeing the spiders that might not even be chasing them after all. His face flushed, and he would have felt foolish if he wasn't so busy feeling like such a coward.
"Stop," he said, as much to himself as to Lidda.
He finally skidded to a halt. The halfling was already standing still, waiting for him. Her lantern swung at her side, but the light seemed dimmer.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
He was panting like a dog, and she was barely breathing at all. He resisted the temptation to remind her that he was wearing armor, and that—
"Jozie?" she asked, eyes wide. "You all right?"
He cleared his throat, wiping his forehead with a metal-gauntleted hand.
"I'm fine," he said. "We have to stop, though. We're going deeper."
"I know," she said, "but the spiders..."
"The spiders might not even be following us," Jozan said, turning to peer into the darkness from which they'd come. He slid the mace off his back and held it ready in case the spiders were coming. "We should find a way back up, and...what did you call me?"
The halfling didn't answer. He turned to look at her and saw her carefully filling her lamp from a flask of oil. The light grew slowly brighter.
"Lidda," he said, "did you hear me?"
She looked up at him and said, "What, now?"
"What did you call me just then?"
"What?"
"I'm not Regdar," the priest said. "I'm not to be trifled with, child."
Lidda's eyes narrowed, and she looked at him as if she wasn't sure what language he was speaking.
"Sorry," she said, as insincerely as Jozan had ever heard anyone say anything.
He turned and looked back into the darkness behind them again. Still no spiders.
"They kept the spiders like cattle or something," she said. "Another tribe of goblins came and did something bad—I'm not sure what—that made the spiders turn on them."
Jozan turned back to her and said, "I beg your pardon?"
"The old goblin, Klnk," she said with a shrug. "He tried to tell me what was going on, but I didn't catch all of it. He said his son went after them but never came back."
Jozan sighed and reached up to take off his helm. If he had taken it off a second before, he might have been knocked out when the rock hit him in the head.
There was a loud clang, and he saw Lidda's eyes widen in surprise. He blinked a couple times, and his head hurt. There was a strange sound echoing through the cave, a loud, shrill, ululating sound that only made his head hurt more. He turned, ignoring a series of loud grumbling grunts from the halfling behind him.
The shadows moved, and as Jozan's head cleared, he brought his mace up. There was a group of squat little humanoids—goblins, but different somehow—and they were making the strange noise. One of them threw a rock, but it flew wide of its intended target, which was Jozan's head.
Lidda brushed past him. As she did, the light from her lantern fell on the goblins, and Jozan realized they were female. Dressed in tatters of cast-off clothing, some of them clutching squirming yellow infants to their breasts, they hopped up and down, brandishing rocks and making that strange noise.
"Oh, for Pelor's sake," Jozan murmured.
Lidda held her hands in front of her, showing her empty palms to the crowd of female goblins. They scuttled back to avoid her even as she grunted at them in what Jozan had come to recognize as their primitive language.
"Tell them we mean them no harm," he said.
Another rock launched out of the crowd at him, and he batted it away with his mace just in time to avoid it smashing his face in.
"And tell them to stop throwing rocks at me!"
Lidda was trying to say something to them, but Jozan could tell by the way they kept up their high-pitched chant and bent to pick up more rocks that they weren't listening.