The Goblin Husbandry Project Pt. 10

Palla ran, tearing through the brush with the baying of hounds behind her. It had felt so freeing when she smashed through the window and over the wall, but the reality of a death as a chew toy was quickly approaching and all she could think to do was keep her short, goblin legs moving beneath her, keep her face forward since there was nothing to be gained looking back. The forest floor was littered with traps for a goblin who had never before walked on a surface other than floor, roots that stuck out to trap an unwary foot, branches that smacked her in the face, tangles that threatened to immobilize her entirely and allow the hounds to tear her apart as soon as she was found. The outside world was so green, so beautiful, if only the joy of her first time seeing it weren't covered up by the panic of incipient doom, she knew that this world would have been so much better to grow up in than the hole she was offered.

Sometimes, her customers would talk to her, and they didn't really think that she could understand them. Some of them she didn't even bite, they seemed like they only wanted to see someone who had things worse than they did, someone to burden with their secret worries. Some said that when you died, you got to come back again as something else. Palla hoped for anything else.

Maybe a barnacle. They mentioned the possibility like it was a fate worse than death, but she'd never seen the sea, so being stuck to the side of a ship didn't sound like such a bad deal. Apparently they were just goop in a shell or something. That would be better, nobody cared enough about goop to hurt it.

She came to a road through the forest and quickened her pace, pounding her bare feet on the dirt, taking as much of a headstart as she could while her pursuers were still rustling through the brush. She barely saw the leg until she'd already run headfirst into it. And Palla reared up, ready to skitter up the armored man and claw at whatever she could reach... and she stopped in her tracks.

The dogs and the men chasing her came to a stop, hounds held at bay, baying for her green flesh. One man called out as he approached, "Pelk! Why, it's not end of the month yet but aren't I glad to see you. Go ahead and grab that one, the master's got plans for her."

Pelk, the knight who had spent tearful days with Palla underground, slowly went to his knee and put a gauntleted hand softly on her shoulder. He felt so different, conviction hardening his features and his gaze firm. He said, so quietly only Palla's pointed ear could hear, "You're hurt. I'm sorry it's taken this long, but I'm here." Then he reached back and drew his cape from his back, draping it like a long dress over Palla's shaking form, blood weeping from many thin, stinging glass cuts. "Go farther up the road, we'll have somebody patch you up. And I'd rather you didn't see the rest of this."

"Hey? Pelk, she doesn't need clothes, just hand her over." One of the pursuers reached out to take hold of her.

-

Pelk pushed the trembling goblin girl out of the way and lopped her attacker's arm off at the shoulder with a flash of blessed steel. "Go now!" he cried and squared off against the remainder of those set against him, smiling when he heard the scuff of little footsteps behind him. The rest of the party would see to her safety; he had insisted on being the point of their attack.

The confusion of his one-time comrades made him grin, how he'd hated their guts during the entire term of his assignment. The one who'd lost his right arm shrieked, delicious bafflement on his face as he groped for the dagger on his right hip with his left hand. He wouldn't have long to wonder what was happening, the angels would certainly inform him of his demise after his head finished falling to the ground.

Pelk flicked the blood from the tip of his blade and glowered at the remaining three men, the two dogs barking with bared teeth and spittle flying. He didn't much care for the killing of dogs; they were only being used as tools of the wicked, not culpable for the horrors their masters inflicted on others. Yet still, he strode forth with vengeance in his heart and the hope that the dogs would forgive him in the afterlife, once the innocent were sifted from the guilty to be processed today.

They were loosed by their handlers, and they were defeated in two wide swings as they lunged for Pelk's neck. He had no time to feel guilt as the masters came at him themselves in the wake of their dogs' attacks, short blades drawn to hopefully deal the final blow to a supposedly immobilized opponent. These two wore no armor, brought no real weapons; they had intended to go out and make sport of a small woman. Pelk would have no guilt to feel after chopping halfway through one's guts, leaving him to bleed out in the dirt, and spearing the other through the chest.

The last man fled. An arrow sailed from behind, shearing the air beside Pelk's ear, and pierced him through the neck. He made it two extra steps on the strength of balance and inertia before crumpling to the ground, either dead or paralyzed, soon to die.

"Can't let them warn the main house, can we?" Almine passed by, going to the most recently killed man to retrieve her arrow.

Pelk craned his head back a touch to hear the reassuring rhythmic thud of twenty dwarfs marching. "At this point, I doubt there is anything they could do to stop this if they did know we were on our way."

"Hostages?" Almine asked. "Anyway, you know these guys. Anybody you don't want dead, while we have the chance to talk?"

They began walking down the road, slowing their pace so that they would eventually allow the dwarfs to catch up. "Try not to kill the servants who don't fight back, most of them have their minds messed with so they won't reveal what's going on out here. And if you see anyone in church garments, I want them for myself, understand?"

The half-elf nodded gravely, drawing her hood over her pretty face. "Wouldn't dream of taking that from you, boy. Don't forget, you're not the only one going out for vengeance at this point."

The dwarfs were coming into sight as he waited to respond. "The church has had me protecting this fat bastard for years... don't I know that vengeance is coming my way, too. It will have to wait until I'm the last one in line."

-

Lappy heard the hounds loosed outside the walls from inside the harem building. The rest of the so-called wives had to have heard it too, or else why were they all averting their guilty eyes? That was the problem right there, that they were all powerless to affect any kind of change in the outside world, so what happened out there might as well happen; there was no use in getting riled up when your whole life was reduced to waiting for death with short interludes of 'pleasure'. The few of them in the room with any monstrous ability to break free and go on a rampage had been mentally neutered with hypnotism the same way as Palla had!

Plans raced through Lappy's mind, stopped each time by the second or third step when she predicted capture or death. The servants included for the harem's enjoyment were harmless but valueless; the master would no doubt allow all of the eunuchs to be killed before allowing the harem to escape with hostages in tow. She thought she could blunt her claws trying to get through the wall and run herself, but then there were the hounds... the same hounds that were now running down poor Palla, who-

Wait, Palla had been hypnotized, so how was it that she was fleeing at all? Thinking back, they had pushed her past her previous misgivings about sex, had her pair with Lappy herself and Betsy the cow-girl... so how was it now that they had to chase her?

The vampire, Ophelia, unfolded from her restful state, yawned, and strode to Lappy's side, reaching up to a vent and waving the scent of the outside down to her face. And, with glistening fangs showing, she smiled wide. "Isn't that interesting?" she said. "A large force of dwarfs approach. Girl, be ready to scatter."

"What?"

Lappy looked up into red, slit eyes and felt an unnerving, unnatural sense of relaxation wash over her.

The vampire laughed cooly to herself and the sensation faded away. Had it really come from her very gaze? "This really has been an interesting way to spend a few decades," Ophelia said. "Food, wine, young men. Less enjoyable for those who did not choose it themselves, but then who does get to choose their own life? What is more hilarious, I think, is that they thought a simple trick like that would work for more than a day on someone who had learned the original technique." And she called out into the room, "Anyone who wants their free will repaired, come here and let me do so."

-

Heading the charge was Radhat, along with nineteen good ol' boys and all woodcutting axes switched out for the day with their more dangerous cousins. As for charging, there was only so fast one could expect a four-and-change foot tall cohort to move along the road with a couple tons of lumber hoisted upon their broad shoulders. And to think that all it had taken to gather the manpower, to get these hard-working dwarfs to set out from the lumber camp, was telling them the whole story with the glower of Leigh behind his back, peering over his head. Not to say that the boys took all that much convincing; Radhat would tell later on that it might be hard to convince a single dwarf of anything, but the rest of them knew the same fact so it might only take one for the rest of them to fall in line, assuming the first had taken enough convincing, so what use was repeating the process with however many more of them?

Oh, he'd be wearing the moniker of 'goblin-fucker' for some time to come, but a number of diverted gazes while telling his story gave him all the surety he needed that he wasn't the only one who'd done it, and he wasn't the only one who regretted abusing the poor things. The little thing had been trembling in his lap, bore the pain of losing her virginity with him of all people; a stranger who'd told her stories earlier that very day of killing her kind without remorse. At least Lappy had been able the choose him...

Radhat stared down the way as the gate of the manor finally came into view, feeling his axe hooked into his belt with his free hand to ensure it would come out with ease. The news of their arrival traveled through their line and there was much clinking as the dwarfs checked their own equipment; the chainmail of their fathers and forefathers rustling over leather, unused until now in their generation. Axes gleamed eagerly as their first uses came closer. And a blunt focus came upon Radhat, brow furrowing and heart rising to a steady beat, readied for combat more honorable than the barfights he'd subjected his body to up to this point. If he knew it had all been practice for this day, he'd have thrown himself against those other drunkards with inflamed vigor.

He brought his palm to the log and beat a rhythm, comducting his mates into a run, their combined footfalls shaking the ground with a huge weight, becoming like a single immense creature rushing the gate. The rumble was joined by war cries tearing themselves from twenty short throats, unused to violence but drawn up through the generations, borrowed from conquering ancestry for the purpose of boiling their blood and shaking the nerves of their adversaries. The man on the other side of the gate, curious of the rumbling and the shouting, barely got out a squeak himself as the full force of the log smashed against the gate's lock, tearing through wrought-iron with a terrible screech and throwing the gate open.

"Now boys, give 'em hell!" Radhat shouted, pulling his axe from his belt and bearing down on the enemy before him, defenseless after being run down. Just for this man, he said beneath the roar of his mates swarming through the compound, "Don't beg, this ain't a killin', it's an extermination."

-

Pelk ran through the gates along with the dwarf loggers, passing through and swatting away some unskilled attempts to strike at him. He barely saw Almine set herself atop the wall, throwing down a guard from a tower and helping with rangedd support the dwarfs who had clearly never been in a serious fight but made up for inexperience with enthusiasm. He wished he could stay and help, but there was a part he had to play himself and a protracted battle wouldn't go as well as his allies thought it would.

He ran up to the front door and kicked, splintering the wooden bar meant to protect from this very kind of attack; no man may stay god's warriors about their business. He cut down a man who had borne down on him with a spear, the resultant smoldering pieces of which clattered to the feet of the servants hiding in the corner of the entry hall.

"Master knight!" one maid cried, two others clinging to her for their lives, kept from panicking only by her reassuring back rubs. "Thank god you've come! Please, what is happening?"

"Yes, master Pelk," Stewart said, calmly approaching from the other side of the hall with a small dagger in hand, "what do you think you're doing? Surely you understand your place here. A momentary lapse in judgement, perhaps, may be forgiven if you were to turn against the barbarians at our gate."

Pelk came in past the maidservants to the middle of the hall. Already the eyes of Heaven were upon him and the holy words engraved on his sword dimmed to the mere steel below. "Save your pleading, demon, pure steel will defeat you as surely as it were imbued with the will of an evil god. Neither will I turn and give you a more appealing target."

The indentured demon felt no need to keep up appearances, his long, barbed tail slipping out and coiling in the air behind him, black twin horns jutting out from his forehead. Those maids, god alone knew what they knew of their masters for their degree of mental manipulation, screamed in the corner. On Stewart's face was a snide grin, lengthening as a canine muzzle, a forked tongue flicking across blackening lips.

He said, "The boy comes to soothe his conscience by coming against his own god in the semblance of righteous fury and thunderous force. I have seen it behind your professional detachment: the delicious shame at serving a master who tramples, so you once thought, on the words of your own god. Now, do you understand mine own torture at the same hands?" He laughed, his chest puffing out with muscle as more of his true self was revealed, tearing through his fine clothing at the seams. "My one-time brother, you might have turned to me in your time of need; I would have gladly changed your mind for you, taken this needless purity off your hands. How burdensome that must have been, but do you feel better even now?"

"No," Pelk said, keeping his blade up and slowly circling the demon. It had been a long time since fighting without god on his side, but he hadn't been promoted to his former station for slacking. Nervous, he recalled decades of once-proud service to the church and its allies, and he felt strength fill his limbs. "Demon, You are not the one I am here for. Leave now and I will not pursue you."

Stewart raised a long, clawed fingertip to gesture at the glowing symbol of magical imprisonment on his forehead. "You know that really isn't an option for us anymore."

"Yes."

-

Almine plugged arrow after arrow into the fight, keeping the dwarfs from death like plugging up holes in a leaking barrel. It seemed like every man she downed, there would be another one to take his place. And why, when a mansion of this size shouldn't have more than a hundred or so servants, did it seem like every one of them had been outfitted for this eventuality? Either way, it was a deadlock after some time and Almine had run out not only of her own arrows but the ones that the dead guard below her had in the tower. She had more to do, and from her place up in the guard tower she'd seen some interesting buildings.

-

Grog hooked up his head to the sound of the male shack's heavy locks being undone. The door was wrenched open by smaller hands than usual, piercing the cthonian darkness where the male monsters were kept chained to the walls and allowed the sounds of battle outside to filter in. There, silhouetted against the outside world, was a delightfully slender figure with cute points poking past its hood.

The elf came inside and pinched her nose against the smell; the master didn't especially care that his studs be clean unless in use, if then. More often he felt the sluts should get a nose-full.

"Is something happening?" Grog asked. To his surprise, the elf didn't look down at him with disdain, kneeling by him and starting already to work on his chains. "Are you sure about letting me free?"

The elf rolled her eyes. "It's a rescue, dumbass," she said and then louder, "How would you guys like to burn the place down!?"

She was answered with sounds of agreement from every phylum.

Grog said, "Most of them will just run, in fact."

"Good, that works."

"Aren't you afraid of us, of me?"

She scoffed. "I've seen monsters. Turns out they can be pretty pretty, who knew."

The shackles fell to the ground, defeated by the elf's skillful fingers, and Grog stood to his full height. He went to the shack door and punched it off its hinges.

-

After only minutes of fighting, Radhat's muscles screamed for relief. His axe was stained with several men's blood and his mail had turned away several eviscerations in progress. He couldn't bear to look around and count his fallen lads, pushing the guilt of bringing them here to the back where it would have to be dragged out under heavy drink later. They had spread out, tearing into the satellite houses and throwing weeping servants to the ground, tying wrists and ankles and leaving them in the dirt.

The elf wasn't around anymore, but she wasn't supposed to be. It was up to Radhat and his boys to push back the line of defenders, to hold them back while the important pieces were moved into place. He kept attacking, avoiding death, he thought, by sheer dumb luck. His voice was hoarse and painful already, becoming another part of the weave of aches he steadfastly ignored.

And then, from behind the fighting front, the dwarfs were joined by a group of large, nude, monsters. A birdman's shrieking battle cry tore through the air as a minotaur waded into the defenders' undefended backsides, incidentally goring men on his horns as he went. Barehanded, the newcomers matched the dwarfs' efforts in their initial rush, tearing weapons from the defending force's hands like toys before rending their flesh with natural weaponry: claws and horns turning aside light armor and flinging the wearers to the side where they were trampled underfoot by the continuing battle.

So a smile passed over Radhat's face, he waved for his boys to step back lest they be mistaken for the enemy. As much as he wanted to believe in the kindness of strangers, he believed much more in the fact that most of these monsters had longer legs than his people, so it would be tactically advisable to stand back and let things play out with plenty of head-start saved up.

-

Stewart swung a fist of black scales the size of a man's torso, crashing into Pelk's braced sword, tossing him back into a pillar. He followed the attack with a crack of his whiplike tail, its tip of steely, black scales piercing the marble with ease as Pelk ducked to the side.

Pelk didn't bother trying to slash through the demon's vulnerable tail; the mundane blade he now held wasn't up to the task. He rushed the looming threat, coming close enough that Stewart wouldn't be able to affect a suitable response without backing up. That was the weakness of huge creatures, Pelk knew from his days in the sun as an adventurer: from a pikeman to a dragon, choke up on their swing arc and they had few enough options besides, the difference being that the pikeman might also be holding a dagger. He put his body behind his blade and lunged at the demon's soft undercarriage, parting the sparsest section of scales and drawing a spurt of black blood which steamed as it hit the tile.