King of the Goblins 2—Chapter 10

The soldiers quickly formed into a half circle in front of me, and I explained our mission.

“As some of you know, I can understand any language, due to magic. Well, I spoke with a captured gnoll this morning and he gave me some dire news. I’m sure some of you have heard already, but trolls are on their way to attack us.”

“Trolls?” one soldier asked.

“They’ll break their teeth trying to get through our tunnel,” another said.

“General Rolf notified everyone just before we left,” said a third.

“I’m hoping we can learn more out here today,” I said. “Right now all we know is that a dozen trolls will be here in two or three days. We expect them to attack us and the elves.” 

“Oh, great,” Taranath said. “Way to ruin my day.”

“At least you’re up in the trees,” one of the soldiers said. 

“True,” Taranath muttered. “And they can’t really fit on the stairs.”

“Yeah, but trees are made of wood, and wood burns,” I said. “So you’re not fully safe. But my main point is that we don’t know exactly what they’ll be doing or how they’ll be attacking. We’re assuming they’ll try to make it through the tunnel into our city, seeing as that’s the only entrance. A heavily armored troll would stand a decent chance of making it through there, unless I can kill him with magic.”

“Ugh, that sounds awful,” Zia said.

“War always is,” I said. Not that I had much first-hand knowledge. “Anyways, so today we’re going to head east and look for any signs of more gnolls. If we come across any harpies I want to try to talk to them as well. Yes, I know about their magic. That’s why Queen Zia is here with us.”

“Do you think you can get much more information from them?” one of the soldiers asked.

“I damn sure hope so,” I said. “At this point, any additional information can potentially be a big help to us. Us and the elves.”

“Thanks for not forgetting me,” Taranath said.

“We were thinking your archers could rain arrows down on the trolls when they show up,” I said.

Taranath nodded. “Sounds rather effective. I’ll pass word to our fletchers when we get back.”

“Oh, General Rolf already sent a messenger to Althidon and the king,” I said. “So they’re probably doing that as we speak.”

“Well, I feel useless,” Taranath said, throwing up his hands.

“We just keep you around for the good company,” Zia said, giving him a laugh and a smile.

“Alright, men, let’s move out,” I said. 

We started walking east, and I motioned for them to spread out. “Ten feet between each of you,” I called out to them. “Just make sure you can always see the man to your left and right. Speak up if you see anything.”

And with that, we were off. We covered a lot of ground with that many people spread out. It greatly increased our chances of finding anything.

I walked with Zia on my right side and Taranath on my left. I had no clue what to look for, so I left that to them.

“How quickly can you dig through stone?” I asked Zia as we walked.

“Not that fast, but certainly much more so than a man with a pickaxe,” she said. “Tressi is faster. Even Silvy is faster. Leena isn’t that great with stone, but she’s amazing with wood and water.”

“Several of you working together. How long would it take you to make that tunnel spiraling up to Caelora?”

“Oh, that idea of yours?” she said. “That would be a big tunnel, and long, since it has to go up so high. Sometimes we can move the stone around like clay, reshape it. For something like that we have to actually remove it in chunks, then workers take the rubble and move it out of the way.”

“So, how long?” I asked.

She frowned as she thought. “If we had a few women working together all day and night, with enough men to haul away the stone…. I don’t know. I think we could rough it out in about a week.”

“Damn,” I said.

“What?”

“I had been hoping we could rush that and make our connection with the elves. It would come in handy during an attack. Of course, then the elves would have to grow the great trees to meet up with our bridge. And that bridge would have to be built.” I shook my head. “Yeah, I thought it was simple. Just a tunnel, right? But that’ll take a lot of work.”

“As soon as we get back, I can have some women start on it,” Zia said. “Another group can start taking the rubble and forming it into the base for the bridge.”

I nodded. “Anything to get a head start. We can probably use some of the stone to build some form of defensive position around the mouth of the tunnel as well. Although to be honest, the tunnel itself is hard to improve on. Any troll that goes in there is going to die.”

Zia shivered. She was never comfortable when I talked like that.

We walked in silence for a bit after that. On several occasions the soldiers found tracks, but they were always from animals or goblin shoes. I tried not to get discouraged; realistically speaking, we needed to walk a solid mile or two from the mouth of the tunnel before we got to the area where the sightings had been.

“I’m tempted to ask you for a song,” I said to Taranath, only half seriously.

“Are you that bored?” he asked, then cleared his throat. “Let’s see—”

“No, no, we don’t want to announce our presence if we come across anyone,” I said. “Best we stay quiet and keep our eyes open.”

Taranath shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

We continued walking for what felt like forever, but I knew it was probably only an hour or so. I was about to call out for us to stop and rest for a bit when one of the soldiers saw something.

“Tracks, Your Majesty,” the soldier closest to me said, relaying the message from three soldiers away. “He says they’re gnoll tracks.”

“Alright, let’s keep our spread, but turn to follow those tracks,” I said.

We all turned and started moving slightly north from that point, all following the soldier tracking the footsteps. Several times he had to pause and search for them again, but he kept us on the trail.

“How do we know these aren’t three days old?” I asked.

“Cross your fingers,” Taranath said. 

“I don’t think crossing your fingers will be enough,” Zia said.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

She pointed ahead. “Harpy.”

I turned and was just able to make it out, a speck in the distance. I was hoping to avoid any harpies, but I would take what I could get.

“Alright, Zia has spotted a harpy,” I called out, pointing towards it. “Remember, don’t look her in the eyes, and try to ignore the song.”

“Should I sing instead?” Taranath asked.

“That’s actually not the worst idea,” Zia said. “Unless he falls under the spell, of course.”

“Well, at least I’ll be useful,” Taranath muttered.

“Zia, up here with me,” I said. “I’m the only one that can talk to the harpy, and you can make sure I don’t fall under her spell. However it works.”

“You’ll find out, soon enough,” she said.

We started walking in the direction of the harpy. Some of the soldiers made nervous comments, for which I didn’t blame them.

I tried not to focus directly on the harpy in front of me. Even though she was still quite far away, I didn’t want to take any chances. As we walked towards her, she grew from a speck, to a tiny figure, to something strange and horrifying.

Fortunately, her back was to us. I found myself staring at her, oddly fascinated. It looked like a tall, lithe woman with large wings instead of arms. She was scantily clad, only a few scraps of cloth covering her ass. Long brown hair fell halfway down her back. 

As we came closer, she turned to face us, and then things got really weird. The front half of her body was also similar to that of a human, with nice long legs and surprisingly large breasts. Of course the whole wings-instead-of-arms thing was a big turnoff, but not as bad as her face.

Her face was like that of a beautiful woman’s, but with a beak right where her nose and mouth should be. Somehow it seemed to fit well and look appropriate, but it was still awful to look at. It was like something out of a Cronenberg movie.

“Don’t look her in the eyes!” Zia called out. I felt her draw magic into herself.

“Can I stare at her boobs?” I asked.

“Actually, that might work,” she said. “Just don’t look her in the eyes while she sings.”

And then she started to sing.

Calling it singing was a stretch. It was a strange, melodious noise that came from her, something utterly unnatural and at the same time beautiful, like violins playing together and harmonizing with too much reverb. I felt it tug at my heart, at my brain. I focused on her rack, admiring her breasts. They were quite nice, as long as I avoided the murderous bird-woman attached to them.

“Ahh, I can feel her in my head!” one of the soldiers said.

“Fight it!” Zia shouted.

Fortunately, Taranath saved the day. He sang in a loud, clear voice:

“And here we walk through the trees

With branches scraping against our knees

Ahead of us is certain death

At least she has some great breasts.”

I laughed at the silliness of his song, and heard soldiers laugh as well. Good. “I feel like I should complain, but you’re probably keeping us alive,” I said. The harpy flapped her wings and drew closer to us. “Keep it up, Taranath.”

“Ah, let me think of something,” he said. 

“Anything,” I said.

“You can’t rush genius!” he said as he tried to put something together on the spot. “Uh, um—”

“Sing!” I shouted.

“Okay, let me see,” he began.

“The harpy’s wings are oh so lush

And those legs will make you blush

She flies with such impressive grace

To make up for her wreck of a face.”

“Keep singing!” I said. The harpy’s song continued to tug at me, but Taranath’s ridiculous verses kept me from focusing on her face. Plus, you know. Tits. I noticed she was glaring at the elf. Although after a moment I realized that was just how she looked at everything.

“The sky is blue, the flower is red

This harpy woman wants me dead—”

The harpy screeched, pointedly meaning it for Taranath.

“She can’t understand him, can she?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Zia said. “I think she just finds him annoying.”

“Some people have no appreciation for the finer things in life,” Taranath said.

Once she was close enough, I reached out with blood magic and slowed the harpy’s heart to a crawl. Her magical song stopped almost immediately and she dropped to the ground, barely able to stand.

“I want to talk to you,” I called out.

“What?” her voice creaked, sounding incredulous. I briefly wondered what she sounded like to the others. To me, she sounded slightly nasal.

“Here we go,” I said, and stepped forward.