The stranger stepped into the light. He appeared a bit shorter than a man or an elf. Macreedy was the tallest person there. But then this person did not look like a man or an elf. He had red eyes, almost no ears at all, and little horns on his head; what could be seen of them through the thick black hair. He also had a forked tongue, like a snake, with which he presently licked his lips.

“A goblin,” Sandra said. She buried her face into Glen’s chest so she would not have to look at it.

“A hobgoblin.” Macreedy corrected her. He still fingered the hilt of his knife but he left it where it sat for the present.

“Ignatius Patterwig, son of Coriander.” The hobgoblin bowed, graciously.

“Coriander Patterwig?” Macreedy knew something.

“The same,” Ignatius said. “But since my father did not survive the uprising, I have had to find other employment.”

“Who?” Sandra asked.

Ellean answered. “The self-proclaimed king of the hobgobs.”

“Hobgoblins are an independent lot. They don’t take kindly to kings,” Glen explained for Sandra.

“Very perceptive for one made of blood and mud,” Ignatius said. “How…” He had to think of the right word. “How impossible.”

“Never mind that,” Sandra interrupted. “Can you show us the way to go?”

Ignatius paused and a smile turned up his lips—a smile that was too big to be human, though it never showed any teeth. That was fine. Sandra did not want to see the teeth. “I assume you are following the mother and the baby.”

“I’m the mother!” Sandra shouted. “That was my mother and my baby.”

“Do you know where they are?” Ellean asked. Panic started building up in Sandra’s voice, so Ellean verbalized for her.

Ignatius looked like he was about to say one thing, but when he looked again at Glen, he changed his mind. “I know which way they went,” he said.

“Show us,” Glen said.

“And for me?” The hobgoblin could not resist the bargain.

“Anything,” Sandra said, but everyone ignored her, and Macreedy interrupted her.

“Your life.” Macreedy got blunt.

“Your life.” Ellean agreed and she held her bow steady with the arrow aimed right at the hobgoblin.

“And what does the warrior say?” The hobgoblin asked.

“You will have the satisfaction of knowing you have done a good deed,” Glen said, and everyone looked at him like he had a loose screw, except Macreedy who got that suspicious look once more. “Now, show us.” Glen put some command in that voice.

“I will,” the hobgoblin said, but then he paused and wrinkled his brow. “But only because I am a sucker for a mother’s love.” He figured a way to justify his agreement. “This way,” he said, but as he began to walk, he turned his head, and a bit too much as far as Sandra was concerned. “Anything?” he asked.

“Too late,” Glen said. “The bargain is with me and made. Walk on.”

Ignatius grunted. “I don’t normally argue with weapons,” he admitted, still rationalizing his choice.

“And I am dressed like a true warrior,” Glen said, speaking a half-truth, like a true elf. Ellean looked impressed. Macreedy just smiled a bit and nodded.

The glow-balls took up their positions and the company walked for a long way, turning this way and that, but always keeping to what appeared to be a main tunnel. After a moment of hope, to think this creature might know where her mother and baby were, Sandra sank into despair. She kept it to herself, but had worry written all over her, and the spiritual creatures were sensitive to pick up on the feeling. Ellean kept reaching forward to touch Sandra on the shoulder and she kept speaking soothing words. That touch would have felt creepy to Sandra a day earlier, but now it helped.

“How far?” Glen finally asked. Ignatius did not answer immediately. He stooped down first and picked up a seed. Sandra stifled her shout. Then the hobgoblin spoke.

“Not much further,” he said, and not much further on, he stepped around a corner and disappeared. They stood in another cavern of sorts, but not as big as the first one and with only two ways to go. Macreedy ran past Glen and into the cavern. He looked all around as he spun on his heels.

“I knew we could not trust a hobgoblin,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Especially the bastard son of Coriander Patterwig.”

“Where did he go?’ Sandra started to ask but changed her mind. “Where are we?”

“No idea,” Ellean said, and Macreedy nodded in agreement.

“Well.” Glen wanted to be practical. “There are only two choices. I say we explore down one carefully and quietly to see where it takes us.”

“Not a good idea,” Macreedy said. “Let me remind you. These are the caves of Cormac.”

“I remember,” Glen said, and whether by accident or fate, he began down the left-hand corridor. Macreedy dimmed the glow-balls and set them in place where they would just show the way ahead and no more. They came to a wall, or what they thought was a wall.

“Wait.” Sandra noticed something, and it may have been because she was looking down in search of seeds. They all whispered, of course, because it did not take much to be heard underground, and it would not have been wise to speak loud in a cave in any case for fear that the roof might collapse. Here, though, Sandra sounded a bit sharp with her words. “Move the lights back. I want to have a look.” She knelt and put her eye to the wall and then the others saw that she had found a crack, or maybe a keyhole, and there appeared to be a dim light on the other side of the door, if it was a door.

Sandra put her eye to the hole and took a moment to focus and make sense of what she saw. It looked like a deer, laid out on a table, and it looked like a fire burned in a fireplace on the other side of the room. She looked at a bad angle. Since the firelight came right at her, rather than being off to the side, she only saw the deer and the table as a shadow against the light. She just figured this out and started wondering if anything might happen, when she saw a large, bony, clawed hand reach out and tear a whole leg off the deer, like a man might tear off a hunk of bread from a loaf. She held her breath as a face came into view, with a long dripping nose and a great tusk that rose-up beside the nose. It sniffed the air, and it turned toward her. Despite the fact that she should have only seen a shadow of the head, she saw two great yellow eyes stare back at her. It seemed as if those eyes were lit by some internal flame and would be seen, even in the absolute darkness of the cave. Sandra screamed. She could not help it. Without hesitation, everyone else yelled a single word. “Run!”

Glen grabbed Sandra’s hand and dragged her back to the big room where they turned to rush down the second tunnel. They all wondered how they could possibly get away from a creature that could move faster through the dark than they could possibly move by the light of the glow-balls.

“Wait.” Macreedy, out front, shouted, and held them back. “It has got out into the passageway.” He said it, just before they all heard it. They turned to run back to the big room, but that was no good, either. The goblins had arrived and blocked the last way out, which was the way they had come in. Sandra screamed, and again she could not help it. She buried her face in Glen’s chest so she would not have to look at the creatures.

Ignatius stood out in front of a dozen or more goblins who came armed with a variety of clubs, swords and spears. When the lumbering beast came up behind the four travelers, it stopped in the doorway, not afraid, but wary of so many intruders in its antechamber. Macreedy and Ellean both had their bows out and ready, and Glen pulled his sword from the sheath on his back. He found it not too heavy, so he could hold it up, but he could only hope he looked like someone who knew what he was doing. If it came to it, he honestly wondered if he could do anything with it at all. He could not remember ever having held a sword before and he felt afraid he might only cut himself or cut the wrong person by accident and make matters worse.

“Cormac.” Ignatius spoke over the group toward the lumbering beast that blocked the exit. “I bring you the goblin sacrifice as agreed. Accept these elves and humans and leave the dark elves in peace for a season.”

Cormac looked like he might bargain and maybe claim that the sacrifice was not enough, but from the way his lips began to drool, it felt hard to believe he might be thinking of anything but supper.

************************

MONDAY

Sandra and Glen may need some extra help getting past Cormac the ever-hungry troll. Until next time, Happy Reading

*