Goblore Pt. 03

Thank you for your patience in between installments. Almost 20k words but we finally get some breeding!

There are likely some errors in the technical information. I have never taken apart a car before. Everything about goblins when they get creampied is accurate, however.

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The council reconvened an hour later. Unlike the previous meeting, the room was full to bursting with agitated voices. What had once been an item of passing interest, the overall management of their little colony, had turned into a life or death decision-making process. Nell, doing her best to be the leader, struggled to maintain order. Some conversations were losing the pretense of 'intellectual debate' and were sounding more like panic. Jesse felt a little self-conscious about being in the room with frightened Kith himself, given what happened last time. He stood near the back, letting the voices around him speak their piece.

"You saw them," Kalvis said, his bitter voice cutting through the din. "Those were the ones who attacked us. Those...Wolven monsters. They butchered my friends, Nell. We can't trust them!"

The head of the community grimaced. Other conversations died out as heads turned to her. She visibly squared her shoulders, feeling the weight of expectation upon her. "I hear you, Kalvis. I hate them too for what they did to the others. And no, I don't trust them. But we have to be realistic. There's less than a hundred of us. You saw their numbers. Not just the Wolven, but the archers, the armour...Gods above, even if the matter of arms was even, they could overwhelm us with brute strength. Not all of us are as strong or quick as Huntress," she said, motioning to the taciturn woman near the door. Jesse had last seen her traipsing off, presumably to tail the army and see that they weren't lying in ambush. He hadn't heard her enter, but he never heard her do anything, so that wasn't surprising.

"The moment we go on those ships, we're done. We'll be clapped in irons and sold, or worse." Kalvis spat.

"I don't understand why they didn't attack. It's what I would have done. Why give us the time to 'think it over'?" Huntress asked.

"Misplaced magnanimity?" Vee offered.

"I don't think so," Nell said, running her hand through her hair, "Either they don't think we're enough of a threat to warrant wasting resources on, or they have something more pressing that requires their attention."

"Krosen," Huntress supplied, to nods around the table.

Jesse bent over to whisper with the little alchemist who shared his bed. "I've heard you mention them before. Who are they?"

"The original owners of this area," Vee explained, her cadence that of the teacher she'd been most of her life, "Hundreds of years before it collapsed, the Empire subsumed their territory, integrating some and pushed the rest to the edge of the continent. And by integrating I mean...not exactly treating them well."

"Are they a potential ally, then?" he asked.

"Only in so much as they are the enemy to our enemy," Vee continued, "We might be related, distantly, but Kith and Krosen never got along before the Empire fell and those resentments remain. The Folk used us for our brains and hands, rather than our ability to haul materials or fight in their wars. Krosen see us as soft, spoiled, the favoured children of our shared abusive parent. We've made some overtures but they're mostly uninterested in us. There's no telling how they'd react if we asked for their help fighting off an attack or, Gods forbid, were forced to flee into their territory over the Wile River."

Their eyes returned to the table. The conversation had continued without them, with Nell's unwavering voice taking precedence. "Our focus needs to be on the facts, not fear or conjecture. Like it or not, our options are limited. Either we take the Folk at their word...or else we take our chances on splitting up and trying to get us all back to Voxus piecemeal."

"We could defend ourselves," Glora said. The table offered a mixture of groans and scoffing in response. All save the small cadre that had clustered around her, who nodded in silent agreement.

"We're academics, not soldiers!" Vee said.

"In our histories there have been many times our people have been forced to protect ourselves, with violence if necessary. When Voxus originally broke away from the thrall of the Empire, when the Silithin raided our outer villages we chased them off with our superior weapons! Some of you may have forgotten our roots, but I haven't."

More grumbling, with Glora's crew of faithful staring daggers at those that raised objection. Jesse felt a twinge in his gut at the clear signs that factions were forming, and an even worse feeling when he realized that he agreed, at least in principle, with Glora. You didn't win by giving a bully what they wanted.

"It only took half a dozen Wolven to do terrible things to the sailors on the beach," Zixie added, hugging herself in the process, "I don't want to see that happen to anyone else, on either side..."

Kalvis hammered his fist on the table. "We can't let these Folk bastards get away with what they did!"

"This isn't about getting revenge, Kalvis. Do you want us all to die?" Vee asked.

"We don't have to kill them all. We can just...survive. Fight defensively. If they are reluctant to just strike out of the blue, then maybe we can make it too costly for them."

Vee threw up her hands. "And what grand fortification do you think the few of us could erect? None of us are masons. It took us weeks to make the cold storage shed that we're using as a jail, and that was just mud bricks. Even if we had the tools, the sheer labour needed to quarry stone would make us doing anything else, including feeding ourselves, impossible!"

"It doesn't need to be a stone wall."

The goblins turned to Jesse, and at that moment he realized that he'd been the one who'd previously spoke. His throat suddenly felt dry. He hated public speaking.

"It doesn't?" Vee asked. "Wouldn't a wooden wall be easily burned?"

Whelp, he was into it now. He stepped closer to the table and tried to keep his voice steady. "Hypothetically, you could dig a trench around the parts of the village you wanted to protect, then mound the earth on the closer side. Forming both a vantage point from which to see and fire down into while effectively doubling the size of the berm your enemy had to get across."

"What about the Wolven?" Kalvis asked. "They can leap pretty high."

"Stakes, I guess. Roman forts used to have pointed stakes to keep back cavalry. You could place them at angle to make the jump either dangerous or impossible. There're ways to coat them in something inflammable too."

Murmuring between the various members of the informal council. Jesse didn't know if he had overstepped his position as an unofficial member. He retreated behind Vee, who turned around in her seat to face him.

"Hold on. You're not seriously suggesting we fight them, are you?"

"I was just thinking out loud," Jesse admitted. He wasn't going to suggest these people stick around to get themselves killed because of some things he remembered from history class or video games. "I don't have any experience at this kind of thing myself, but my phone has a bunch of overviews of the conflicts my people engaged in. The tactics, the weapons, that kind of thing. It's all very general, but it might help offer paths that this world hasn't gone down yet. Stand on the shoulders of giants." He paused, realized the phrasing and his audience, and added, "Metaphorically."

"But you have no personal experience? Your knowledge is based on the factoids pulled from the ether on that device." Vee's voice again, a little more cutting than he thought it needed to be. But she had a point.

"You're right. I'm just...Listen, I'm not an expert. Fighting is awful, and people are probably going to get hurt, maybe even killed. I'm not gonna say that this is a sure-fire way to stay alive and together. But if you can visibly make yourself a harder target, they might not be as willing to spend resources trying to dig you out. This is just another option. Can't hurt to have a plan C for if A and B don't work out."

The discussion drifted down other avenues after that. First believing the Folk and their offer, then looking for a ship they could charter at the nearby neutral port town of Swifttail. The final scenario, deemed a long shot, would be to either rebuild the Looking Glass or construct an entirely new vessel to sail back to Voxus.

"Keela's raft is one thing," Kalvis explained, his weary tone implying this idea had been brought up a number of times before this, "But an oceangoing vessel, especially something that can get through the dangerous waters we need to go through, is another thing entirely. We had a chance when the Looking Glass was just beached, but I was there when it ripped apart. It sank in pieces, surrounded by the razorreefs that tore it asunder. It's gone. We might be able to dive for some more sundries than the stuff we already pulled off, but making a new ship on our own in two weeks is madness!" He took a breath, folding his hands on the table in front of him. "I'm sorry. I lost friends when it sank the first time, I lost even more when it sank again. I want nothing to do with that damn boat anymore."

Nell nodded. "Then we now have three choices, none of them particularly appetizing: believe the Folk and their suspiciously generous offer, find a way to make the meagre valuables we have worth passage for all our people on a ship someone else owns, or staying here and potentially fighting a well trained and equipped army for the right to stay exiled from our homes." She hesitated before continuing. "I think...I think we'd all benefit from some time to think this over. We'll reconvene tonight after sundown. Go about the rest of your day as normally as you can. We may be leaving this village soon, but there still work that needs doing."

The crowd filed out of the town hall building slowly. Conversations continued all the way out the door. Jesse waited for Vee to collect her notes.

"Jesse," Nell said above the din, "Could you stay behind for a few moments?"

The formerly cacophonous room was deathly silent. Nell's gaze bored into Jesse, who sat across the giant table in the nearly empty meeting hall. He didn't try to meet her eyes.

"We didn't get off on the right foot, exactly. You have every right to resent us for that. But my people have lost so much. Our home, our friends, our hope. We...I, I can't lose any more. When you say that you have ideas on how to defend us. I need to know we can trust you," she said. He felt there was a veiled threat behind her words, like if he proved untrustworthy he'd be thrown to the Wolven. But there was also desperation and fatigue. Leadership was exhausting.

"I don't harbour any ill will about the attempted murder, if that's what you mean," he replied. After a beat, he shrugged and amended that statement, "Okay, I still do. Y'all were pretty quick to resort to immolation for a bunch of academics."

She scowled at that. Jesse knew he might be skating on thin ice, but if they couldn't be honest with one another, the distrust would linger.

"How much do you know about us? About our village, I mean?"

"Just the basics. You were on a survey and exploration mission, there was an accident, ship broke apart and stranded you here."

She nodded. "You can't imagine how scary those first few days were. Captain Trasik and I feuded over leadership of the survivors. We outnumbered the sailors, you see. In our society, males are generally deferred to when brute strength is needed over careful thought, but I wouldn't have it. They refused to see me as leader, keeping with Trasik instead. So, in the end, they built a separate camp closer to the shipwreck site. This village was defenseless, at least for a while. We slept in perpetual fear of a Wolven or a Krosen or a clicker attacking us in our beds. Over time, we mended fences, brought some of the males back. But they were always itching to go off on their own. To leave us, the weak academics, behind."

"That's awful," Jesse said.

"Yes. Yes it was. And it happened, eventually. Some perished when the refloated Looking Glass sank for a second, final time. Others died at the male's camp, ransacked and destroyed by the Folk's Wolven servants. The rest, save for Kalvis, went off into the forest and have yet to return. Their skills, their strength, gone for good. You see my problem."

Jesse wasn't a super smart bookworm but he could add two and two together. "You think because I'm a male I might flake out on you, or go do something stupid."

She gave a light shrug of her tired shoulders. "Your gender's track record is not good. You're not Kith, for all I know your species handles gender disparities in completely different ways. I can commit my people to your ideas, at least in lieu of something better, but I need to know if it'll be wasted effort. Can I trust you, Jesse, to stay here and help us for at least the duration of the current crisis?"

He chose his next words carefully. Jesse was fully cognisant that his position in this little village was tenuous, and that he remained here entirely on the say-so of Nell.

"I understand that you have been burned before. But I'm not like those others. Until I can find a way to get back to my world, I am stuck here. I have nowhere I can go in the first place. And if our plans clash, I will defer to your leadership."

"And if the Folk insult you? Humiliate you? Denigrate your manhood and demand you fight in single combat?"

"Then," he said with a feigned sign, "I guess I'll tell him to go fuck himself. But I won't run in, guns...ah...sword a swinging. I'm not that brave."

"Huntress told me otherwise. And while we rarely see eye to eye, I trust her opinions on character."

That Huntress chose to talk him up in her report to Nell surprised him. "It was me and Huntress out there, alone. All I did was run for it. She shot all the arrows and chased the Wolven off."

"Bravery is not a vice, Jesse. But understand that there is no room for cocksure, madcap solo adventuring in my village. We either move together, or not at all. Is that understood?" She waited for his nod before finishing her thought. "Good. Now, what exactly did you mean when you said 'earthwork'?"

He went into further detail. He found a piece of scrap paper, flipped it on its back, and started sketching out some basic diagrams. "It'll be a lot of work. But if everyone we can manage to free up gets to digging, and with the proper tools, we could get it done in time..."

***

After another two hours discussing his ideas for making their little village more defensible, he'd stopped by the kitchen for another bowl of that stew stuff. Miri was there and kind enough to hook him up.

"You Humans sure do eat a lot!" she said. When he stammered out an apology, she waved him off. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that! I'm glad someone properly appreciates my cooking! Plus you were kind enough to listen to me wax poetic about tuber growth, which is worth more than your share."

His long discussion had got him thinking of all the things they'd need to hold off a sustained siege, not in the least of which would be a readily available food supply. "Do you think we could go over the crops you have later this afternoon?"

She beamed. "Absolutely!"

He'd just finished the bowl and handed it back to Miri when they both caught the pitter-patter footsteps of a running Kith approaching. Jesse didn't recognise her, and she addressed her comment to the woman behind him.

"Keela's back!"

Miri set the bowl down and dashed out, not even bothering to remove her apron. Jesse watched half a dozen others run in the same direction. Their faces were visibly cheerier than they had been at the meeting, the pall that had hung over the village shifting just a bit. He jogged behind them, easily keeping pace with the dashing figures, until he spotted Vee peeking out of her house to see what the commotion was.

"Apparently someone named Keela is back. Nell mentioned her at the meeting. She has a raft, right?" Jesse asked.

Vee nodded. "She's our link to the outside world. She takes it between here and the nearest actual town, a place called Spitetail."

"Why don't you live closer to them?"

Vee made a face. "Because we didn't know about it. By the time Keela started exploring with the raft, we'd already had most of the buildings up. Most of us aren't tough customers, the kind that make it in a smuggler town like that. Plus, y'know, Kith go for a hefty price on the open market..." She soured further, and Jesse put up a hand.

"Alright, forget I asked. I know you all are smart cookies and would have thought of stuff like this. I'm just kinda lost. This is so far beyond my life experience."

"I hope you don't hold what I said in the meeting against me," Vee said.

In truth, a part of him wanted to. She shot him down pretty hard. But he saw the truth in her words, and having different perspectives and ideas would help them a lot more than sycophantic praise in the long run.

"I don't. You want what's best for your people. I was just making suggestions."

They walked toward the river, letting others speed past. Jesse took time to notice the placement of things in the village. Seeing them on the map Nell had drawn was one thing, but applying them to how things looked in reality was another.

Temporary, the pseudo-ironic name the Kith had given their little village, was founded close to a bend in the river Wile, forming an easy source of water and serving as an access point to the sea. Aside from that and the thick treeline out in the distance from the village, there were no real barriers to keep someone from just waltzing in. There was a night watch, two women at either end of the village looking for dangerous animals more than enemy armies. That would be the first thing they'd have to change.

The only building close to the river was a large house built in a different style to the others. Huge logs of some sturdy-looking tree with dark red bark lifted it several feet off the ground. Below it, between the stilts, a long, U-shaped wooden platform floated at water level but lashed with rope to the stilts in such a way that it could be raised or lowered to adjust for the river's height. Ingenious, or overdesigned, he couldn't tell. Gently sloped ramps lead from the boathouse up the river's wide bank to the structure on top of it. Within sat a dozen or more wooden crates with the word LOOKING GLASS stencilled into the sides.

"The Wile's banks flood intermittently, and the change in water height is beyond anything I've seen in rivers back home. Our first two docks floated away. Inconvenient things for docks to do, I should note."

The crowd shuffled around the dock, looking to the south. It took some peering but Jesse caught sight of it just as the murmuring picked up. The raft itself wasn't complicated. Two layers of oppositely stacked logs, of same colour but thinner than the ones used for stilts, held together with long sinewy brown rope knots. Atop this, a shack made in the same style as their huts sat at the back like a pilot house. The front was filled with crates, baskets, and a smattering of heavier objects spaced out in such a way to balance the load. Two figures used oars to propel the raft forward. One another Kith lady, and the other...not.

"Is that..." Jesse began, surreptitiously pointing toward the tall figure on the starboard oar.

"Vulperi? Yeah. Do they have those where you come from?" Vee asked.

He laughed. "Sorta."

It was difficult to tell because of the distance, but she had to be at least as tall as him, maybe taller. Especially with the pair of pointed, fuzzy ears that protruded from her head. The fuzz matched the ruddy colour of her hair, tied up in a pony tail that bobbed up and down with the motion of her rowing. Her complexion was much darker than the Folk, even more than Jesse in fact, much of it on display thanks to a skimpy cutoff top. Her pants were purely utilitarian, but they did nothing to conceal the swishing, fluffy tail that twisted behind her back.