Realms of Infamy - James Lowder [148]
"We must get out of here," I said flatly. "We have no time to delay."
Zeth turned away again. He was still talking to himself. Or to someone I couldn't see. "He does not understand," he whispered. "He cannot see where they are weak. It is the same place we are weak."
He was motionless for a time, then got unsteadily to his feet.
"Lead us on," said the blind half-breed. "South. We must hurry to our next teaching."
* * * * *
The following night, about twelve miles south of the halfling village, we attacked an isolated farm. Two of our number were wounded but stayed on their feet. We left the farm a few hours later, after Zeth spoke again about the maggots we came from and the gods who watched us. The dozen humans of the family that had lived there now hung by their feet from the ceiling rafters in the dining hall, butchered like deer.
Those who had been my warriors took some of the meat with them.
"Do you see more clearly, Captain?"
I did not look away from the dark horizon as I marched. "No."
Zeth hummed tunelessly to himself. "It is just as it was with me," he said at last. "They would ask, 'Do you see more clearly now?' And I would cry and say, 'No! Give them back to me!' But that was not possible. They had thrown them out already. They were given back."
"Your eyes," I said after a pause.
"My mother said she would put them back, but she had no hands. My father had cut her hands off after he had attacked her and planted the seed for me. He had cut off her hands and left her to die. He was a human, but it was not a human thing to do. He was a hunter, she said, a hunter who had chosen her as his prey. She went out for water and he caught her. He tried to be a goblin. Surely, now, you see it."
I licked my lips. I had lost my warriors and did not care what happened to me anymore. "No."
Zeth sighed heavily. "The insult," he said slowly, as to a child.
I didn't bother to answer.
The next day, a scout shot a rider from his horse as the latter passed our camp at full gallop. It was a remarkable shot, given that the sun was full and we could barely see. The rider tried to crawl away but was found. Zeth did not even need to make a speech. The goblins knew what to do.
The rider was a human soldier from Durpar. Our doings had been discovered. Someone had sent for help against us.
"We can't go farther south," I told Zeth. "The danger is great. We've got to head back, or at least go west where they won't look for us right away."
"You do not understand," said Zeth.
We went on south. We caught a farmer on a hay wagon, then two field hands, one human and one halfling. We surrounded a cottage on the edge of a woodlot, but there was only an old woman inside.
"We are cowards," I said, looking at the old woman's body as it swung in the breeze. I did not say it loudly, as goblins were all around. I no longer felt like one of them. They had betrayed me. Death was better than this.
"We are goblins," said Zeth. He stood with his back to the tree from which the old woman hung. He looked high into the branches. "We have been like humans for too long. We did not understand what the gods wanted of us. We forgot their lessons. We forgot the maggots."
"I've been listening to you talk about teachings and lessons and forgotten things, and I am sick of it," I said. "Tell me what the lesson is, or I will kill you."
The talking among the goblins stopped. Those who had been my warriors were now motionless, holding drinking flasks and cups and jugs pilfered from the old woman's cottage. The goblins were all around me, watching me.
"We have been like humans for too long," said Zeth. His voice was calm and peaceful. "We forgot that the gods made us from the lowest of all life, then gave us the burning inside to become the highest. They gave us the will to gain supremacy at all costs. Yet humans challenge us at every turn. Humans think they are better than we in every way. All know this-goblins, orcs, giants, elves, dragons-all know this is true.