Goblin Bound: The First of Many

Chapter 6: Weapon Pile

“Smell…it?” Rya asked slowly, a deadpan expression on her face.

“Yeahhh…well, something like that” He muttered. “I can smell my blood leading back to where I got dragged from, like a trail for me to follow. I might not be able to find the entrance exactly but I assume I’d be close enough.”

Rya squinted her eyes at him, her eyeballs scanning the entirety of his face for some sign. “You’re probably burning up from the poison and starting to spout nonsense”

Kenny’s lip twitched and was about to retort but was quickly cut short by her rapid blasts of questions.

“Why do you assume you’d be closer to the entrance? How do you expect to move freely in a stronghold swarming with goblins? How do you plan to deal with the ones you encounter? How do you even plan to move and fight when you can barely stand?” She fired one after the other, her face flushed red in frustration. “Hundreds! Hundreds of women have tried to escape this place and all…all without exception died and form the pile behind you!”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed heavily. His legs trembled unsteadily as he tried to steady himself with one hand on the bone pile. Sweat dripped from his forehead from the exertion .

“How…exactly do you expect to move with stealth in this state” She sighed. “I understand…why…what you want to do…but it’s suicide. There’s no maybe to it.” She gazed at him deeply, locking eyes without breaking contact.

His eyes trembled from her stare, the depth to it sent chills down his spine. Those were the eyes of someone who’d survived inhumane torture to psyche and unable to seek the sweet release of death so chose to simply persevere through sheer force of will.

He couldn’t match that kind of willpower, it felt suffocating. He could see a few more girls huddled in a corner looking listless and empty. The few ladies around him were those whose will were sharper than the others and despite the vile treatment gritted their teeth in unrelenting rage and unwillingness to simply fade away.

He gritted his teeth, forcefully steadying himself as strength and blood slowly returned to his limbs. He gazed right back at her, unflinching and growing in resolve. He couldn’t quite place where it was coming from, but he could feel it caressing his soul and strengthening him.

“I probably don’t understand exactly how risky it is, maybe that’s why I don’t feel as much fear but…” He paused, his hand feeling the mound of bones. “…I still want to try. Even if there’s only a slim chance. Like them I want to try ”

Rya gazed silently at him, her arms crossed and her eyes deep and complex.

Silence reigned between them as they held each others gaze for seconds that stretched into minutes. The few ladies behind her gazed at him with various emotions but they all agreed it was basically suicide to attempt an escape.

The silence was abruptly broken by a tiny voice that echoed clearly in the quiet cave.

“And like them you’ll die.”

His lip twitched from the ominous comment and his eyes couldn’t help but roam the cell to locate the owner of the voice. After several attempts he had to give up as he failed to pinpoint where the voice came from despite his heightening senses.

The voice didn’t make any other utterances and he had to push it out of his mind as he had more important things to think about.

“She’s not wrong you know,” Rya spoke at this point, her face a mask of cold indifference. “There have been far stronger people than you in here and they all lay as bones now.”

“That is indeed true,” Kenny stated as a matter of fact. “And like them I’d probably die but I’d also like to die like them…trying.” He finished with a resolute expression, his body steadying from sheer will power.

Rya stared at him with a complex emotion, pity at the forefront. She knew far better than him what his actions entailed, suicide didn’t even cut it. It was almost certain he wouldn’t make it past the next two cells before encountering resistance

“Please think about…”

“I have. You think I haven’t? What would happen to me if I didn’t resist? How long till they notice I’m not dead and finally finish the job? How much longer can I last with goblin poison coursing through my veins? How much longer could you possibly hide me and continuously fool them?”

His barrage of questions left her momentarily speechless and wide-eyed as she began to consider a huge factor she missed. Regardless of what approach he took it was assured he’d die eventually, the only difference was when and how. Unlike them he was male, and males only served as nuisances with hardly any reason to be kept alive.

A single moment of discovery was all it’d take for him to end up as goblin food…why they didn’t simply kill him and went through all the trouble of dropping him here was still a mystery.

“You see it too now don’t you?” His eyes held a calm undertone for someone in his situation. He had either accepted death or was unwilling to accept it. “Regardless of what choice I make, it’d most likely result in death so why not make one with a meagre chance of survival?”

Rya found herself short of words. She couldn’t argue against his logic and she would be lying if she said she didn’t want to feel some hope but a couple weeks here made it extremely hard for hope to blossom. It had been crushed so many times.

“Wouldn’t it…wouldn’t it be better to die peacefully?” Tears pooled in her eyes as she spoke, her body trembling slightly. “You don’t seem to understand. They won’t simply kill you. They’ll rip you apart. Peel the flesh from your bone. Eat you while blood still pumps and your screams of pain delightful music to their ears ”

Her words sent a chill down his spine but did little to dissuade him. He knew better than to simply wait things out, his several experiences growing up and of recent had taught him that.

“Then I can only hope to take a few down with me. A few less to be a pain in your ass.” He stated resolutely. “Uhmm…I didn’t mean that literally.” He quickly added seeing the weird looks a couple girls shot him.

Rya and the other girls gazed at him speechlessly, taken aback by his foolish optimism but yet unable to shake off the warm feeling it gave them.

Rya let out a sigh of resignation. “Well since I can’t convince you, and I’m not so hypocritical to simply knock you out and bind you, then I can only choose to help you.”

Her last words caused his lips to twitch. She said it with such a straight face he didn’t doubt she’d have chosen to knock him out if it were a more pleasing scenario.

“You won’t last long…rather you won’t last at all without a weapon of sort. Come with me.” She said, already making her way to a dark corner of the cell.

Her words broke his chain of thought and he awoke to find her already moving away. Taking a moment to orient himself, he slowly trailed after her. His body was quickly adjusting to movement rather noticeably, to his surprise. It was quickly getting easier to move and by the time he reached her, he could walk without trembling.

Before him in the darkness, a darkness that his eyes was quickly adjusting to, lay a bunch of crude and rusty weapons. Short swords, long swords, daggers carved from stone, rusty steel knives, torn and ragged pieces of leather armour, bucklers, a couple broken shields and a few helmets bunched together to form a small pile. The pile was half as tall as the earlier bone pile and he didn’t need to be a genius to know how it formed…he was simply surprised the goblins didn’t rid their captives of weapons. They were either incredibly cocky, stupid or reasonably confident.

“Well these are the best you’d get, some are rusty and cracked beyond measure though so choose wisely.” She strode away from him as she spoke, the girls moving together in psychic unison to create a human shield despite the darkness. “Oh and if it makes you feel any better, most of the rust is actually dried blood.”

“Uhh what?” His eyes widened at her words. He squinted his eyes at the weapon pile and sure enough he was able to make out the rusty covering on most was actually dried blood. A shiver passed through him as he was reminded the grim fate of the previous owners that made up the weapons pile.

Straightening out his thoughts, he crouched to analyze the weapons before him. Briefly examining his clothes, he decided he didn’t need a change of armour - not like wearing the clothes of the dead was a pleasing thought. He switched to checking out a few weapons. Long swords, short swords, knives, daggers, small axes, and arrows lay haphazardly on one another.

Being an avid fan of fantasy novels with sword-wielding main characters, he was more biased towards swords, especially long swords. Randomly grabbing the hilt of a sword, he exerted a bit of strength and slowly pulled it out of the pile. His caution wasn’t without merit as the sword cleanly came out with only a slight keening sound to accompany its release.

Weighing it in his right hand, he found it not too heavy nor light. It fit almost perfectly with him and he couldn’t help muttering inwardly at his luck. Chuckling contentedly to himself, he resumed his scavenging to dig out a fitting scabbard. He didn’t look long before finding a scabbard that fit almost well with the sword, complete with a strap that went round the waist.

Satisfied with his find, he slowly shifted away from the weapon pile. He squinted his eyes at the sword, finding it to only possess a bit of dried crusted blood. The rest of it was fairly clean, looked sharp and was merely covered with dust and dirt.

“Not a bad pick. Looks usable,” Rya commented, seeing his choice of weaponry. “I really hope you know how to use that.”

“Hmm thanks” He nodded, further emboldened by her words. Of course he consciously ignored her question, because to him how hard could it be to use a sword? Just s***h, pierce and parry. Easy peasy.

Sheathing the sword in its scabbard, he swiftly wound the strap around his waist noting his trousers already had mini-hoops for it to fit into. Grabbing onto the hilt, a feeling surged through his hand and into his body. A feeling of strength, pride and purpose. He felt a confidence unexplained, a will comprising of more than just him.

Drawing a deep breath, he noted, to his surprise, his body’s swiftly recovering state. ‘It might have been more of a paralyzing toxin than poison.’ He thought. Strength returned to his limbs and he guessed moving around would be much easier.

“Alright them, think I’m ready to go now.” Kenny said in a strong tone, his mental state inexplicably placid.

Rya gazed at him with a complicated expression on her face, her mouth moved several times as if to speak but she only shook her head exasperatedly. She figured he was beyond convincing now. She’d seen that earnest and sharp look before, it was a look inherent in all adventurers. The look that emboldened them to embark on dangerous and unreasonable quests. The look of defiance and unyielding will.

“Don’t die…please” She said in a soft tone, almost inaudible, tears shimmering at the edges of her eyes.

His sharpened senses and the nature of the cave didn’t allow him miss her soft words.

“I won’t. I promise.”