Fate Deals the Cards Temperance

  Chapter 20 Trix Are For Kids

  Looking down on the camp from a sand dune covered with pampas grass, I was invisible… and disgusted. I smelled them clearly, all the sickening stenches that roiled in the breeze spoke of suffering, misery and despair… and someone was crying out in pain and fear. That got human me boiling mad, and goblin me eager to spill blood.

  I counted three human guards, six horses and five guard dogs that looked like trouble with teeth and fur. At least one more human was in the pavilion they’d erected by the sea, which was also where someone was in trouble.

  I wanted to swing in like a badass and save the day, honest… but I’m a goblin. Four feet of muscle, bone and claws, with animal cunning and a vicious streak a mile wide. That made me, as a lone, naked goblin, about as dangerous to a human as a large, vicious animal.

  If they’d relied on goblin slave guards, I would have been in and out like the wind; but my ‘neutral, average and forgettable goblin’ smell was just plain old goblin smell to dogs.

  I could stroll past humans and gobbs unnoticed, but any keen nose would pick me out. That made horses unreliable too, they could spook if they smelled me, even if the last ones hadn’t. Which was also weird, but I saved that for later.

  The slaves were a sad lot, a random mix of beast-folk with a general smell of misery, filth, unwashed bodies and illness. How many, I couldn’t say. Counting wasn’t a strong area for me, even before becoming a gobbo.

  Now, my ability to focus on things had a lot to do with whether it was friend, foe, food or fuckable. Don’t look at me like that! For most goblins there’s only two categories of interest; food and fuckables. I’m a renaissance gobb!

  /

  Purdue drew the short straw after dinner, so he had mid-watch, while Haberman came up lucky with first. That stuck Kirk with last watch and morning chores. Slopping the slaves and setting out the guard dogs was way better than supervising the chain-up in the morning!

  Camping on the shore meant they didn’t have to worry about the sea side at all, so it was a great night. The fog came in, as always, shrouding the world in mist.

  When he hit the sack, the boss was busy plowing his current toy and terrorizing the cat; otherwise, it was quiet, just the sounds of the slaves, the shore birds and the soft lapping of the waves.

  /

  I love foggy nights, I did when I was human, still do; especially since my eyes pierced the mist even with just starlight… Polarized maybe? I shook that interesting thought away and focused up, I was working!

  The stars lit the fogbank above us, diffusing into a sourceless, distorted and tricky thing, filled with drifting shadows and half seen movements… some of which I began to suspect were actual ghosts, now that Sarafina had tipped me off. I felt no fear of ghosts at all, if anything the soft, half heard and plaintive cries in the night breezes moved me; I wanted to help them find whatever they were looking for, somewhere out there.

  To the humans around their fire, it would be a curtain of tricksy shadows and illusions, as the fire danced in the mist and stirred it with its hot breath. In that outer circle of chaotic half light, I was in my element and playing dirty tricks.

  /

  Hagerty sighed with pleasure as the cat fed him, slowly and with trembling hands. If she spilled anything on him, he would take so much pleasure in beating her where the bruises wouldn’t show, the soles of her feet had been his last project. She still walked with difficulty, after her morning punishment. She’d emerged from his bedroll without her cat ears and tail on; the temerity! She had improved, however; she no longer had the will to flinch from his touch at all.

  “Are you ready kitten?” He asked the trembling human girl wearing nothing but a cat-ear headband and a chain belt with a cat tail. A tail butt-plug would have been perfect, but the client wanted her wholly untouched, even her mouth!

  She was a special project, to be delivered pure and unspoiled, but broken in spirit and mind… This client was his favorite kind of connoisseur! Gaining the patronage of a full cardinal of the Light was worth the work, especially since he loved his art.

  She watched, her ankles hobbled, from her litter box cage every night as he enjoyed a slave or two, always in ways that made them squirm and beg; and always with the promise that her turn would come soon, before dragging her into his bed for the night.

  He clapped once and a slim, well muscled rabbit boy reluctantly entered the tent, his collar cinched so tight, his breath rasped in his throat. The boy kneeled obediently and waited, like a well trained pet should.

  “The cat is my special toy, Reggie.” He whispered merrily in the animal’s drooping ears. “She was not to have any water or food today, yet you shared with her when you thought I wouldn’t see… bad, bad rabbit.”

  Hagerty grabbed the fluffy cotton tail and tugged, bringing his bunny’s pucker in line for a charge.

  “Don’t you dare look away, kitten.” He whispered fondly, as the rabbit boy squealed and begged for mercy. “You’ll be tasting your little rabbit friend’s ass on my cock, soon!”

  /

  I circled around to the water side and entered that way, bypassing most of their watchers and guard dogs. The first dog fell without a whimper, darted with the skeeter venom I’d perfected by compounding it with cone-snail toxins harvested from the deep water pools. It wasn’t great against insects, or larger creatures, but small mammals… Good night Gracie.

  My blowpipe whispered again, dropping another mutt into dreams of humping legs that never kicked back and squirrels too fat to run. I slowly picked them off, one by one from the mist, silently. The first dart left them woozy and confused, the second put their lights out within a few heartbeats.

  The human guard was watching the fire, which I’d found to be typical of the breed. They just couldn’t resist the call of the dancing flames and crackling logs.

  When I tickled him in the back of the head with my flint edged war club, he never even knew what killed him. I eased him down into a slumped heap under his cloak by the fire and stepped very wide around the horses, staying out of sight and clear of the wind, as I crept to the first bedroll under a tarp, by a dune.

  I dropped the tarp over what I left behind, after wiping my warclub off in the scrubby dune-grasses and slowly crept over to my next visit, near a pair of wagons filled with boxes and crates.

  I stopped cold, when I realized that this bedroll was empty and still warm. Sounds of struggle and cries continued from the pavilion, which lent urgency to the matter; but I had an active human, moving about somewhere in the camp.

  It took a little work to find his trail, with so many scents and so much activity, but I soon found a warm patch of wet sand; and damp footprints headed in a roundabout way, toward the chained slaves. Footprints that smelled like fresh piss. He’d failed to even manage the basics…. These guys were beyond lame! I’d pity them, if they weren’t also super chill about whatever was going on in that pavilion.

  My prey circled wide, avoiding both the guard dogs and the fire, on his furtive mission; which was just what I’d come to expect from these guys…

  I tracked him to the muffled sobs and softly clattering chains of the slaves, out on the edge of the firelight.

  He had a sobbing, naked woman pulled out to the end of her chain and was fumbling at his britches, while the rest of the unfortunates either watched, covered their eyes or sobbed quietly.

  When he vanished into the fog under a silent drift of swift moving, darker shadow, the woman staggered back into the arms of the others and sobbed a little more quietly, thanking the stars that the bastard had gotten spooked and run off, for now.

  I finished spooking him in the dunes, with Hessen’s obsidian blade. It was super keen and almost five inches long! Fun tip: human kidneys are only under around two inches of muscle skin and fat, not even any bones in the way! We goblins keep ours down in our pelvis, where it’s safer; don’t ask how I know.

  Anyway, I left him lying on a dune watching the fog drift by as his life leaked out into the sand; I had more work to do. I circled around to the pavilion, where things were starting to quiet down…

  A late rescue is better than none and I doubted my sudden appearance was going to make whoever was getting railed in there, feel any better.

  /

  He pulled himself out of the weeping rabbit boy and smiled at the cat so sweetly, still tugging on those soft, velvety ears while he waited for the cat to crawl out of her box and wash him like a good kitty. Any fool could beat and brand a slave into complete subservience, only a true artist could…

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  /

  I took in the scene at a glance and stepped in, swinging my war club for the man’s throat with a quick and aggressive lunge… and it was just an awful mess.

  I felt really bad for the guy with the bunny ears and a messed up asshole; but the guy holding his ears in a painful grip didn’t get to enjoy the afterglow for long.

  Whoever he was, wasn’t going to be anyone for much longer, with most of his jaw torn out and his neck laid open to the bone. He gurgled and spat on the rich carpets of his pavilion, watching me with fading, hate-filled eyes, as I decided to not end him right away.

  The bunny guy was a legit bunny, those ears were real and when his eyes focused on a goblin covered in blood holding a super nasty looking weapon, he flew.

  Sand sprayed in my face as his feet dug in and hurled him out of that tent, through the side wall and out into the dunes like a leaping gazelle.

  I spent a little more time with my special new friend. He watched me search through his stuff, while he bled out on his own fine rugs and gurgled a lot.

  “Yub-yub. Is end for you. Sucks, when people can just hurt you. Is lesson there?” I patted him on the shoulder and gave him my most charming smile as he died.

  He was naked, so I didn’t need to bother searching him, but I didn’t have an answer for the chained slaves either…

  Leaving them shackled on the dunes would be a dick move, but I wasn’t exactly going to inspire any confidence or cooperation from them if I just rolled up. Frankly, if they even suspected I was around they would probably…

  A very quiet panic started out by the chained slaves, sparked by the bunny kid, quietly trying to help his friends escape. I could hear them whispering and struggling to get free.

  The kid had balls… He fucking came back for his friends, after seeing me, with his poor butt-hole in that state! I made up my mind then and there to do what I could to help…

  There were no more threats nearby and the slaves were not going anywhere anytime soon, so I started rooting around in the tent more vigorously; which took an embarrassingly long time. I was trying really hard to focus on something I needed, but the scent of blood, fear and what that asshole had been up to helped my inner gobbo get a little feisty.

  That made everything around me hard to focus on, unless it was one of the four big F’s. Foes were out of the picture, my friends were all safe at home, I wasn’t hungry after that disgusting sight and there was nothing I wanted to fuck within at least a mile.

  Finally I found it, after picking it up and dropping it at least three times. I could have kicked myself. Keyring, a ring of big, crude, chunky iron keys. I had a ton of trouble focusing on them, but without my rampaging libido fogging my brain, I managed it.

  From way beyond the line of fog, I pitched that big ring of keys into the panicked slaves, tied to a long length of white sheeting torn from the dead guy’s bed. A satisfying jingle and rattle sounded soon after, loud to my ears, but stealthy by human standards.

  Those beast-folk unshackled themselves and dipped out so fast and quiet, I was impressed. They took their chance and legged it with the kind of commitment borne of true desperation.

  While they did that, I went around the edge of the camp, taking care of the dogs. They were chained out to heavy stakes driven deep into the earth, but their collars were leather and cut super easily under my blade. They would wake in seven or eight hours feeling like shit, but would recover. I like dogs and horses, so sue me.

  The horsies were my next port of call, and once more, they had no fear of me at all. That was super weird, horses hate goblins on principle and can smell us a mile off. In the slave towns, only the trained warhorses of the knights could keep their shit together around any-gobb, even little gobblings. These horsies trotted into the night, headed south, tails high and snuffling happily…

  The wagons held food and supplies, the dead guy’s personal goods and a bunch of junk that was useless to me. Several bags of beans, flour, sugar and salt vanished into my shadow, along with all the textiles and the crates too. It was shitty lumber, but I wasn’t picky at this point.

  I finished congratulating myself on a job well done and went back to the tent, determined to finish filching all the finest textiles and garments, the shiniest rocks and the best leather and wooden goods… I was gonna rob that dead butt-bandit blind and leave him for the crabs with his friends.

  Huge bright blue eyes stared at me in abject terror from a big wooden box in the corner of the dead asshole’s tent, when I popped my head in for a lookie and a lootie.

  The girl wore nothing but leather hobbles at her ankles, closed with tiny padlocks, a cat-ear head band and a thin chain around her waist, holding a fake cat tail… and she was staring at me like I was the worst nightmare of her worst nightmare’s bogeyman.

  Which was pretty fair, I suppose. That human girl was so freaked out she couldn’t even panic properly, she just sat there, catatonic. No doubt, she had been there the whole time, while I murdered the jerk and robbed him… I just wasn’t equipped to perceive her presence until I cooled down.

  When a terrifying blood spattered goblin man loomed over her with a black, jagged knife, she passed out completely and collapsed.

  I cut her hobbles off carefully; if she woke in the night and fled into the woods, I would be stuck chasing her; which neither of us wanted, but those things offended me.

  I put my knife away and bundled the child in that dirtbag’s blankets, tied up with strips of his tent into a cocoon that kept her entirely covered and secure, since leaving her there alone was not an option.

  I hoisted her on my back, once she was snug and started hiking back home, leaving corpses, two plundered wagons, empty chains and a perplexing mystery behind for whoever came down that road next.

  I crept through the grassy, rolling hills and into the wooded and rugged places beyond the shore and vanished among the trees, moving slowly under my burden. A mile of rough country carrying an unconscious girl is a real workout and I was exhausted by the time I could smell the hot-spring in the fog. I stepped into a small clearing and stopped, when I heard a twig break off to my right.

  From the trees, that bunny kid stepped out; naked, eyes wide with terror, his ears pinned back, holding a tree limb in both hands and glaring at me. Only the mist and fog had kept me from smelling his approach… He really had balls! I took my bundle off my shoulder and set her down gently.

  “Want girl? Take.” I grunted, holding my hands out and slowly backing away.

  I edged back several steps before the bunny moved even a single step forward, but I was liking this kid.

  When he fell over face first with Emmie’s cudgel ringing off the back of his head, I really felt bad for him he deserved better.

  “Emmie! Nub! Bad-bad!” I dashed forward, while my mate dropped out of a tree, her short club dangling from her wrist on a thong.

  “Nub dead… I think. Nub hit him that hard.” She mumbled and dug her taloned toes in the grass like a scolded child, when I yelled at her. “He had a stick… wanted to hurt chief!”

  The poor kid wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t doing well either… “Go! Get Sara and more girls. Help carry.” The rabbit’s eyes were half open and he kept twitching now and then, which looked bad.

  I had salves and ointments for bites, scratches and scrapes, poultices, splints and bandages, but for a cracked dome, I had nothing.

  Home was close by, so the girls swarmed down quickly, eager to see what the chief had hunted and got pretty upset when it wasn’t meat. At least, not the eating kind. They did pitch right in and help with the bunny kid, when Emmie made my orders clear.

  “What’s this I smell? Blood? Human blood?” Sara grumbled and complained when she showed up a few seconds later.

  “Yub… did a little murder.” I answered, feeling strangely guilty for sneaking out, rather than butchering those men. “Have girl.”

  “Bah, worry about your babystick later! Killing humans always-always draws more humans! Also, we have this poor rabbit man! Why did you hunt him down?” Her rapid fire scolding left me unable to answer, so I just picked up my bundle and motioned for the girls to carry the bunny guy home.

  /

  Reggie woke with a cat woman leaning over him, dripping water into his mouth from a damp cloth. “Peace, young man, you are safe here. I am Thera.” Her steel linked slave collar failed to ease his mind, but he wasn’t dead, so there was that.

  “Where? How?” He gasped weakly and faded out before he could get an answer.

  “Hi, I’m Saphie. Princess of this castle.” The tiny marsh goblin girl chirped, when Reggie opened his eyes, finally.

  He closed them again, certain he was hallucinating, until a tiny, taloned hand patted his cheek very gently. “Mother Sara says your head’s not broken, just sore. It’s okie, brave bunny-man.”

  “Still sleepy.” Saphie sighed, as the long eared boy slumped back down in the blankets the chief had stolen.

  /

  “Are you awake, child?” A warm, soft and motherly voice called to her, when she stirred in the warm blankets, in a stone walled room, somewhere warm and quiet.

  “This is a place of safety, no matter what you may see, my child. No one will hurt you here. Not in any way.”

  The unseen woman sighed when she didn’t answer or move. “You are outside the lands of men, where the cult and slavers have no power.”

  The woman spoke more loudly, calling out to someone outside. “Thera, please come help our guest to the bath...”

  A lanky, gray furred cat-woman in a steel slave collar dragging four feet of chain skulked into the room, sniffing warily and peering around, her tail bristling and thrashing. “It is safe, for both of you.” The woman in the shadows grumbled.

  “Yes, mother Sarafina.” The cat-woman sighed, her tail relaxing into a sleek band of soft, gray fur. “Come, child, we bathe you and find you clothing.”

  Cat scrabbled in the bedding until she found her ear headband and donned it with a gasp of relief. “What’s this? False ears and a tail?” Thera asked a little sharply.

  “Mm… Master beats me when I don’t wear them!” She gasped in terror, clutching desperately at the stupid things. “I have to!”

  “You have a new mistress, child… Be brave like your big sister, Thera.” The hidden voice whispered as the girl followed the cat-woman out to the baths and into a world of wonders.

  “Mistress has promised we will be undisturbed. You need not fear.” Thera muttered as she led the girl into a steamy hot-spring and helped her bathe with smashed wads of herbs that smelled marvelous and left her skin clean and smooth for the first time in so long.

  A soft towel in gentle hands dried her and helped her into clean, soft cotton underthings and actual clothes of linen and wool. They fit and smelled wonderfully, sending the girl’s head spinning.

  “Do you wish to wear this thing?” The woman asked gently, holding the battered cat-ear headband out to her.

  “N… no! I hate it!” She gasped finally, collapsing against the lean, furry breast of the feline. “They called me cat and kitten, made me wear these things and nothing else!” She sobbed against the warm, soft woman. “They made me watch them do… things…”

  “Shhh… cry all you wish, child. No one in this place will make you do things. I am only just coming to grips with that fact myself. What is your name?” The woman asked softly as the brass chain around the child’s waist came uncoupled under her claws taking that awful tail with it.

  “I’m Mary… Mary Hevener, of Caledon town!” She gasped, sobbing even more fiercely as she collapsed against the woman’s soft, warm fur.

  “Come Mary, the mistress has had food prepared and a place for you to rest. I will be near, should you have need. The mistress commands it.” Mary followed the cat-woman back down into the stone-walled room, under that strange high house in the mist.

  Stone and wooden tools and objects were everywhere, all neatly organized, as were bins of hides, stones, sticks, logs, bones, teeth and claws.

  Baskets of clay, bundles of herbs and leaves, twigs, bark feathers and all manner of things lined the room. Rather than crowded or frightening, the place felt… comfortable, lived in and warm. It smelled of clean animal, the herbs and plants all around, wax and strange spices from unknown places. Thera sat on a nest of leaves, boughs and furs by a simple clay kiln that seeped a slow, steady warmth into the room, watching her as she looked around and even got up to poke at a few things.

  “You are free to do as you wish in this chamber but please, remain quiet. Your rabbit friend still sleeps.” Thera whispered.

  In the corner, behind a woven rattan screen, a familiar form lay among blankets stolen from the master, his long white ears flung out wide as he slept, his nose wriggling in his restless dreams.

  /

  “She was taken in a slave raid and brought here from elsewhere.” Thera said quietly, seated with the chief’s witch and his two favorite wives. “Even she cannot say where she came from. Slave traders care not which domain a child might be captured from, out in the endless worlds.”

  “The rabbit?” Ghnash asked from the far side of the room, since his underground workshop lair was now occupied by guests who wouldn’t respond well to a visit.

  “He will wake, perhaps soon.” Mother Sarafina sighed. “The question is, what shall we do with them?”

  A planner, I am not. I had a firm grasp of the essentials of murder, but I had nothing useful to suggest at this point, so I shrugged again.

  “Thera, you will continue to care for them. Do not reveal that they are in a goblin village. I know, my dear, we are asking too much of you.”

  “Mistress commands me to obey.” The cat murmured warmly, as she bowed to the old witch.

  /