Fate Deals the Cards Temperance

  Chapter 23 Follow My Nose! It Always Knows!

  Many years later, on a world in a domain far from GoblinHome, after time soothed the burning sting of embarrassment and his shame cooled to amused recollection, Wheel of Fortune told the tale to a few close friends, over tea and cakes.

  “Probability is a queer thing… No, not like that, Weirdo! It’s a balancing act between what should occur, what may happen and what could, in the most unlikely of cases, just possibly go down.” He said with a smile, as he sweetened his tea with exotic, eldritch bee honey.

  “The odds of an ancient and formidable entity, such as myself, finding himself beset by Lilliputian goblin girls, armed with pretty spears decorated with beads and flowers, led by the first princess of the goblin kingdom were very low.” He spoke in the low tones of an elder imparting hard won wisdom to his students, forcing them to listen with care.

  “The likelihood of a lucky jab taking that potent entity down and rendering him immobile, long enough for that team of miniscule monsters to work their master plan would be perilously near to zero; save for one vital element…” He leaned close, with the air of a man about to impart a deep secret that could alter the course of great events.

  “It was hilarious.” He whispered tensely. “The mighty and terrible Wheel of Fortune, felled by a toy spear, wielded by a child less than a year old and then staked to the floor of their mad castle, with his spear decorated ass pointed to the sky.” He sighed, thinking of the imponderable enigmas of creation.

  “Comedy is the secret, my friends. The universe loves having a laugh at those who grow too confident.”

  /

  “Who’s this clown?” Sarafina asked, when the hubbub settled and the goblin knights backed away from their ‘prey’ to allow her to approach. “Speak man. You invade our home and frighten our guests!”

  “Whoah… a real goblin witch.” He whispered softly. “You aren’t demon touched at all… Natural magic and a hint of the outside… Isekai?”

  “I am asking the questions, oddity.” Sara snapped. “You have no chance of escape and his majesty will be wroth that you frightened his guests! Answer for yourself!”

  “Uh, I’m the Wheel of Fortune, a famous bard and Adventurer, come to rescue the helpless prisoners from your wicked clutches, miss goblin.” He remarked casually. “My plan is still evolving, while my bold and daring rescue is in progress. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  “Gods and spirits fuck my ass… you’re one of the damned Tarots.” Sarafina sighed after a long moment, then turned to the poor, unfortunate prisoners. “The Tarots, my young friends, are the most bizarre, inexplicable and just plain weird assortment of oddities across several planes of existence. I can’t believe they’re still around after so long, I’ve been trapped here for centuries...”

  “Oh! We’re goblin famous! How fun!” The man chirped, seeming actually delighted, despite the tiny spear still stuck in his ass-cheek and his face being in the dirt.

  “Is he… mad?” Mary asked softly.

  “Quite mad, actually… I have a certificate here somewhere to prove it, in case I get out of hand.” He almost sang, sounding like he was really enjoying himself. “Would you mind terribly setting me free and looking away, while I rescue your prisoners with style and daring? You’d really be helping me out.”

  Sarafina laughed at the silly clod, until she realized that the runties were busily untying him… and she was helping them. “Oh, you’re a tricky one!” She scoffed at the man. “Runties, stop; in the princess’ name.”

  The little gobbs shook off his confounding charm like champs, with just a mundane command from the witch. Those kids were remarkable… “These children have been cultivating… and comprehensively too; body, soul and mind! Is this your work, miss goblin?” He purred excitedly. “They’re training like little Adventurers!”

  “Should we kill him?” Alba asked meekly from over by the nest. “He’s not scary, but he knows things!”

  “No, child. Never kill a Tarot, unless you wish to see death on dead wings fly down on everything you know and love.” Sarafina muttered. “Likewise, they should be avoided when possible and treated with some courtesy when they can’t be avoided, I suppose.”

  “How enlightened, miss goblin; who has yet to offer her name, despite my previous mentions that I am the Wheel of Fortune, Adventurer and bard.” He said, sounding a little snippy, especially for a bound man with a spear in his rump. “Now about my daring rescue in progress…”

  The kids all nodded and rose to begin untying him, again; until Sara chided them for foolishness and falling for the same trick twice. The kids had the good taste to not mention that she too had been heading over to untie him…

  “We should probably kill him dead.” Alba sighed quietly from the nest. “Fern, get auntie Alba a hammer.”

  “Now, now… Ladies… let’s talk about this like rational beings, without hammers.” Wheel muttered.

  /

  It was the damndest thing… I found signs of two hunters trailing… something through the woods and doing just a comically bad job of it.

  I followed their trail from a lightly armored woodsman, dead at the bottom of a steep gully, smushed under a boulder like Wile E. Coyote. Nearby, I found signs of another being savaged by a trapdoor spider, before being rescued by his comrades and hauled away, back whence they’d come. The… whatever they were trailing smelled like… nothing. I couldn’t detect any scent at all, except my own. That was odd, but non threatening. It smelled distinctly… unserious, a non threat.

  The backtrail smelled exactly like I’d come to expect of the humans roaming around my new homeworld. Nasty, selfish, cruel and vile, they reeked of other people’s pain and misery. It hung around them in a drifting pall, just as it did over the towns and habitations of men.

  Haunts and shades followed them in the mist, tattered remnants of men, women and children, clawing at the veil and begging for vengeance, unseen by living eyes.

  At the spot we’d encamped a few days before, I found traces of four more men, dead, slain by the local ‘pedes in some kind of farcical misadventure. I couldn’t figure it out by scent, since the bodies had been removed and buried, but these guys were having a rough time.

  The path they took with the spider bitten guy led back to a cold, dark and makeshift camp in a tangled woodlot, wedged between two hills.

  It was well hidden from humans and held no fire, but the wildlife was super upset; which revealed their location almost as obviously as a campfire would.

  They had no horses and only one tent set up… I stayed too far back to get a good look, since there were several humans active in the shitty little clearing.

  Two men were dead, over by a ruined ritual circle that was very familiar. They hadn’t had their living hearts cut out, they seemed to have died to a frenzied, rampaging boar, if my ever reliable nose was correct… And a squirrel? Crazy!

  The living men milled and bustled about wildly as the sun went down, bringing pitch darkness to the human world. Someone was in that tent, but I couldn’t be sure among all the human stinks and the warm smell of horses; which was fading slowly, leaving only human stenches behind.

  With around a half-dozen human warriors active, I drifted away in the night, unseen, after calling a few of the local insect pests to enjoy the buffet laid out for them. My witch’s aura felt more developed after the tribulations of the last few days, spreading farther and wider, without getting any stronger.

  I became an all pervasive cloud of general warm blooded tastyness, laying around the local area, waiting for a hungry nibbler or blood sucker to take a taste.

  Woodland skeeters were much smaller than the marsh varieties; humming bird, rather than chicken sized… but they were fast, sneaky and impervious to fear.

  If chased away too many times, they would fly up, then dive bomb; leading with their long needles in a kamikaze attack that almost always resulted in the stupid critter’s death… and a successful sting. They were absolutely relentless, once on the trail of warm mammalian blood, which was fun.

  I paused to look back, just in time to notice a flickering, drifting patch of darker darkness, lingering around that canvas shelter, where my vermin were not going. The men in the camp at large were swatting, complaining and having a miserable time, but something kept the critters away from the tent and its occupant.

  That roused my curiosity, since I hadn’t seen a human who could repel the bugs the way I did. The witches of the conclave could, but only around their immediate area and even the strongest could only repel them. Perhaps that was because when I suggested the idea, they looked at me like I was six pounds of stupid in a two pound bag. The thought was alien and incredibly dumb, in their eyes and nothing was changing that view.

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

  Curious now, I crept closer, while the humans were busy trying to start a campfire; surrendering any attempt at stealth in favor of keeping the bugs away. These clowns were hunting with the same kind of ritual circle as my last human guests. In all likelihood, that meant they were tracking me, and most likely, my home… since the four keystone slavers died stupidly, right by my abandoned campsite. I’d seen no sign of an ‘Ookie-Spookie man’ just faint traces of the passage of… something unthreatening.

  These guys did have bad intentions and seemed determined, even with so many of their boys contributing to the local wildlife already.

  If it were just me, I’d dance these guys through the wilderness and laugh all the way, but I had family, kids and guests a few miles off. It was time to heat up the scene.

  I pulled back and released my insect call, trusting the gathering swarm to draw more in naturally. They built a nice, big fire and stood close to it, seeking protection from the creepy creatures of the night that flew, crawled and scuttled all around. Once things were going well for my new friends, I added my own contributions to their firewood stack, from just beyond the light and smoke.

  Pitchpine trees are unknown in the lowlands, but they washed down from the mountains sometimes in the spring floods. The stuff looked like ideal firewood, but would smoulder, sputter and stink, when green.

  My dried pitchpine logs stank horribly as they burned, after violently bursting with a loud bang that threw coals and wads of burning pitch and splinters into the clearing.

  The screams and panicked running was a pleasure, but the real fun came when their fire sputtered to a feeble glow and all but went out. The skeeters swarmed back in, hundreds of them, poking, buzzing, dive bombing and generally being miserable.

  The wretched bugs weren’t an actual danger; aside from skeeter fever, swamp pox, the gasps and a few other diseases they carried. Unless they dive bombed and hit an eye, that was not any fun at all… for the guy screaming even louder, by the tent. I was having a fine time.

  “It’s out there, you fools!” The voice came from the tent, and it was familiar. It was that human I’d let escape in exchange for Thera. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.

  “Form up, put your gods damned armor on and close your visors.” The hidden officer commanded, dragging his men into some semblance of order, while a few still scrambled to retrieve cast off helmets and gauntlets in the dark.

  “You will not escape me this time, creature.”

  I pulled back farther, well beyond where any human had a hope of hearing my movements and crept in a wide circle to get a better view of the tent, but the occupant did not emerge. The humans built their fire back up and remained alert, watching the darkness, not the blaze. Which was super inconvenient for me.

  They humped their firewood closer to the light and checked it over as well, so I couldn’t goof on them that way again. Only a raw greenhorn would burn pitchpine’s distinctive black wood, twice… and they seemed confident that none of them were dumb enough to have gathered that particular specimen from the forest.

  The humans gave every indication of waiting for dawn, then hunting me down on easy mode. The sun was still far off and I was still just one gobbo in a wide, empty forest so a wild gobb would just dust it and never be found again. These guys knew I was no wild gobb and were not gonna let me slip away into the woods.

  How much they knew, was what I needed to find out and that was going to be risky... and costly.

  I’d been looking for the stuff forever and finally hit the motherload, only to have to use it here… I fished a fair sized wooden box out of my shadow and rooted around until I found it, a waxed paper tube, capped on each end and filled with a rare and precious substance.

  Ground chili pepper! Super spicy too. I’d nearly died when I took a sniff of it, while looting the foodstores on the wagons. I had two of the six ounce waxed paper tubes and they were both gonna go bye-bye.

  With so many bugs, bats, owls and other spooked flyers zipping by and the general darkness of the spot, no one noticed my new addition to their far more sensibly sized campfire… Since they were looking out at the dark woods like smart guys. When the tubes caught fire and spilled their contents onto the coals, the smoke cloud was just magnificent. Totally worth it.

  I’d already picked my victim… one eye guy was having trouble already, when the smoke cloud rolled over him, he staggered blindly, coughing, puking and generally serving himself up.

  My venom darts work for small critters, but anything that gets near adult human size, say over one hundred pounds or so and they get unreliable. Larger blood volume and such.

  Two successful hits in a prime target like the neck or groin would make a human man woozy and feeble, but likely still a threat and able to cry out. Unless he were already choking on noxious fumes and all jacked up already. That changed the whole risk versus reward calculus. Or something, I was really struggling with abstract thought when upset.

  Anyway, one eye guy took four darts in his unprotected face and neck, before he collapsed in the woods; well beyond the line of firelight. His friends seemed unwilling to venture out and retrieve him, as well. That left around five men in the camp, singed, exhausted, filthy, bug bitten, probably hungry and certainly not enjoying themselves… And my old friend in the tent.

  The men were in closely fitted leather armor, so I had little chance of getting them with my blowpipe, even if I had all the darts and venom in the world.

  They weren’t gonna fall for any more fire pranks and I was out of ideas there anyway. In pure frustration, I gave one-eye two more darts, to make sure that he wouldn’t wake up, in this lifetime. These guys were not going to put any players back in the game if I could help it.

  I would have stuck around hoping for a chance at a lucky shot or two…

  “Burn the forest, men.” The voice from the tent ordered calmly.

  “My lord… we are currently in the forest, with all due respect to your rank and office.” One of the men answered, which made a lot of sense to me.

  “Axelrod… I warned you to never question my orders again.” The calm and collected voice drifted lazily from the tent, followed by a dark mass of something that engulfed the man, leaving him a screaming pillar of blackness in the flickering firelight for a long moment.

  Three heartbeats or so later, the screaming silenced as a puddle of bloody armor and bones tumbled to the ground beside the fire.

  “Troopers, your services will no longer be required. Return to the city.” The lord said casually, as he stepped out of his tent, a vast, spiderlike shadow drifting behind him in the mist and flickering light.

  /

  “So, I will give you all these shiny rocks, all this nice cloth and lots of sweets from the human lands, for these three people and then we just leave.” Wheel offered with a smile.

  “Can take shiny rocks from you after hammer work is done.” Alba countered, her long handled stone sledge in hand. “These people nub for tradsies. Belong to princess, why you try so hard to take?”

  “You either work hard, or you might as well quit.” He said, as though that were a well known proverb in whatever mad place this fool came from. “Yo, sound the bell, school's in, sucker!”

  “Stop. Hammer-time.” Alba began stretching her shoulders out, preparing to get busy. “Hold on. Pump a little bit and let 'em know it's going on…” She muttered while warming up.

  “You Can’t Touch This!” Wheel cried piteously. “I can’t go out on an Mc Hammer joke!”

  “Nub smash silly man, auntie Alba.” Saphie finally announced, just before the breakdown. The tiny goblin hunkered down next to his face and peered at him, with first one eye, then the other.

  “He reminds me of King-papa. Stupids, but in a smart way.” She patted the fallen man and smiled. “We let you go. Nub can has my retainers, though.” At her nod, the runties cut the man free, while she retrieved her spear.

  “Oww! Well thank you, noble princess.” He stood up, so incredibly tall, towering even over Reggie, if the bunny were able to stand.

  “Unfortunately, I must insist.” He said very reasonably, pointing at Reggie, who was still kinda dazed after bonking his head again. “That young man is my client’s grandson. He needs to go home, as do these other two...” His hand swept over to encompass Thera and Mary.

  “Home?” Mary asked weakly. “Really?”

  “Yes, we’ll do our best for you both as well, once I unhex that miserable collar and chain...” With a snap of his fingers, the metal links parted and the thing fell to the floor.

  “Shoddy work, that. Shall we?” He held his hand out to the two girls, while helping the injured rabbit to the door. “This is that dashing and daring rescue we were discussing.”

  “Should we stop them?” Alba asked, leaning on her hammer.

  “Best not, my dear. Never get involved with the Tarots. Half of them are harmlessly mad like that one; the other half are walking nightmares and engines of destruction.” Sarafina sighed and shook her head. “Tell the king nothing of that man. They must not meet.”

  “Nub-nub. Miss Magpie says that papa is busy fighting.” Saphie announced with a smile for the black and white bird on the porch rail. “Spookyman is headed for the lost people.”

  /

  For days the escaped slaves wandered the woodlands, too frightened to choose a direction and too lost to dare anyway.

  They nearly bolted for the woods, when a man in brown robes stumbled into their hidden warren of burrows in a canebrake, with Reggie and the girl they called ‘cat’ in tow.

  The stranger staggered along with a sleek and well fed looking cat woman with a dazed look in her eyes as well.

  “Oh! Well, lookie lookie! The escaped slaves! How fortunate!” He cheered himself with a round of gleeful applause, as clothes, sandals, blankets, waterskins and food parcels fell from his sleeves.

  “One can never be too prepared for the misfortunes of the road!” He declared soberly. “I have magical potions, if anyone is ill… Step right up, a single turning of the wheel can change your whole perspective! Take a chance!”

  /

  “Thera, Reggie and Mary were given to a human rescue party and taken home safely. That is all we will say, when we see him next.” Sarafina instructed the tribe, as they marched through the night; headed east as instructed by the king before he left. “He may be angry, but will not pursue them, I think.”

  “I miss Thera…” Saphie muttered softly. “Glad she’s not collared nub more though.”

  “Thera will find her own path now, my dear. As will we, should your father fall.” She patted the child and smiled. “I have confidence in him.”

  “Yeah… Miss Magpie says Raven says the human he’s fightin’ is already sick. The demon is trouble, though.” Saphie sighed.

  /

  While the man was slow and clumsy through the woods at night; the thing hiding in his shadow was not slow, clumsy or bothered by the darkness... It needed to stay close to him, though. It also desperately wanted to devour my sweet goblin ass.

  I used that to draw him farther and farther from the fleeing men and away from the hills to the east, where my family should be headed. The men could get lost and I hoped they did, but I only wanted one thing to worry about.

  The human wore light platemail, more suited to riding than walking, had a sword and at least one dagger… and a demon spider lurking in his shadow dragging him ever farther into the woods behind a goblin witch-doctor.

  I don’t know what his exit strategy was, but I suspected he would be cast off like a molted carapace, once that thing ate enough people. No matter how things went, that dude was fucked.

  My prospects were grim as well, since daylight would screw me over pretty thoroughly for sure. How the… spider whatever, would handle daylight was a question for later. I couldn’t get close to him, but the thing couldn’t reach me more than five or six yards out; it was a little nebulous. His armor left me few good options, while my agility and general slipperyness gave him zero opportunities to close the distance.

  There seemed to be a vigorous debate as to who was in charge on the other side, which was good for me! I make it seem like scampering through the goblin haunted woods at night is just a thing to do. In truth…

  “Gods and demons pox you, goblin!” The man shouted in apoplectic rage, when he stumbled into a thick bog filled with crawdaddies the size of rabbits. The crawdaddies weren’t a threat, even before his nasty shadow ate them up.

  Metal armor must be pretty awesome… Until it gets all full of cold, itchy mud and the crawling things that dwell there. I reflected Idly, as the shadow spider lunged for me again, dragging its host farther into my woodland home.

  Trapjaw ants were basically aggressive snapdragons or sweet-pea flowers with an appetite for small animals on the forest floor. Harmless, but they posed a tripping hazard in the woods, since they were grabby and their vines were notoriously tough. “Curse you!”

  ‘Nice try, noob!’ I thought, but didn’t say, cause I has smarts! I also had a plan!

  The knight gasped with relief, when the trees parted and we emerged on a wide plain cut by a many forked and meandering river that split and rejoined itself constantly in a bed of rounded, algae-covered river-stones and big, precarious boulders.

  I leapt and scampered across the stones and vaulted the creeks that split and divided the clattery, rattly and treacherous ground.

  “You has horseman’s ankles, human.” I called into the noisy mess of sliding stones and wet, cursing knight. I started whistling improvisations on the theme to ‘White Rabbit’ to lure him on and to infuriate them both… The spider hated my jolly whistling antics, it seemed.

  I slipped up the far side, slithering through animal trails and out into… a gathering of people, sitting around eating, drinking and preparing to sleep in burrows all around the canebrake.

  They began to panic, as they realized a goblin man was among them and whistling a sweet, classic rock standard. I was more concerned with the noisy, demon haunted cunt chasing me, drawing closer in the stoney gully below.

  “Aww… fuck.”

  /