Nine Goblins(17)

About two-thirds of the Whinin’ Niners had come through the hole in the air with her. Algol, Murray, Blanchett, Thumper, the recruits—gods, the recruits—plus Gloober, who always had a finger in some orifice or other, and Weasel, who was tiny and slender and of completely indeterminate gender, and who stuttered when you tried to talk to—for lack of a better word—her. (Nessilka was pretty sure she was a girl, but if Weasel wasn’t going to say anything about it, neither was she.) Everybody else was back at the battlefield.

“And we found the wizard, too,” said Algol.

“Oh, dear.”

The wizard was in a lot worse shape than any of them. He was still unconscious, his breathing was shallow, and his skin was grey. This would have been normal in a goblin, but he was one of the pinkish humans, so it probably wasn’t a good sign. He had a thin, worried face, and badly bitten fingernails. He didn’t look like a lunatic killing machine, but then, who did?

There didn’t seem to be any marks on him, and Nessilka was pretty sure she hadn’t run into him that hard.

“It’s probably the magic,” said Murray. “I bet he was trying to cut and run—that thing in the air was an escape route. Maybe it takes energy to go through it, and when we all fell through it, it knocked him out.”

“What do we do…”

“…with him now?” asked the recruits meekly.

The Nineteenth all looked at each other, while carefully not meeting each other’s eyes, which is a pretty neat trick.

Nessilka sighed.

They ought to kill him. They all knew they ought to kill him. He was the Enemy, and he was a wizard, and he’d probably killed a lot of goblins shooting that blue stuff out of his mouth. He’d kill them all if he had a chance.

The problem was that it’s one thing to kill somebody when they’re charging at you with a sword, or shooting blue things, but it’s an entirely different thing to kill somebody who’s lying unconscious on the ground. The one is just war. Wars are like that.

This, though….This felt like murder.

Goblins are nasty and smelly and grumpy and have bad attitudes, but they’re not inherently bad. They’re pretty much like anybody else. They don’t kill people for fun, regardless of what the propaganda posters say. And this guy was a wizard, and wizards were scary, but you had to feel a little sorry for them, too. They probably hadn’t wanted to wake up one day with the power to unmake the world.

Nessilka shook her head. “We’re not going to kill him.”

Everybody relaxed imperceptibly.

“We can’t tie him up, though,” Murray pointed out. “When he wakes up, if he gets his hands or his mouth free, he could magic us.”

“So we’d better be a long way off when he wakes up,” said Nessilka. “Everybody, get ready to move out. Thumper, cut a crutch for Blanchett. Gloober, get your finger out of there. Algol, do we have any blankets?”

“No, Sarge. We don’t have much. Nobody took their full kit into the battle. Murray’s got some mechanical stuff in his pack, and I’ve got a rope, but beyond that, it’s basically whatever we’ve got on our backs, and our field kits.”

The standard issue goblin field kit is a pocket knife, two bandages of dubious cleanliness, a rubber band, a stump of candle, some dried fruit and a book of matches. It fits into the standard issue tin cup, which then fits into a small pouch. It was better than nothing, but not by much.

“If I cannibalize a coupla things—” Murray patted his pack, which caused everyone to brace briefly for an explosion, “—I can probably rig another travel stove. We’ll be able to cook, anyway.”

“Does anybody have a bow and arrow?”

Nobody did. Archers were another unit entirely. The Nineteenth was strictly hand-to-hand.

Weasel put up a hand shyly.

“Yes, private?”

“I c-c-c….” Weasel turned bright red.

Nessilka put an arm around the small goblin’s shoulders and turned her around so that the eyes of the troop weren’t on her. “In your own time, private.”

“I c-can use a s-s-sling, s-s-sarge.”

“Good. We might actually eat after all.”

“We’re almost ready, Sarge,” said Algol. Blanchett was experimenting with his crutch, under the watchful eye of the teddy-bear.

Nessilka looked down at the wizard. No blankets. She sighed.

She was going to miss it tonight, but she pulled her cloak off and laid it over the wizard. Poor sod was probably in shock, and if he didn’t stay warm, it was as good as having killed him. Besides, he was a wizard, and they had a hard time fending for themselves. “Algol, see if you can get a little water into him before we go. I’d rather not leave a trail of dead bodies behind us.”