The Winter That Follows

Chapter Two: A Conspicuous Lack of Goblins

Chapter Two: A Conspicuous Lack of GoblinsCharlie heaved the barrel up through the trap door and lumped it down beside the other two. It was unusually quiet this morning. The Law Temple nine-hour bell had rung long since, and yet there was no noise in the street. He wiped his forehead and hands with his apron and went to the door of the Tavern.

Charlie was used to goblins, some of his best customers were goblins. In fairness he didn't have many customers that weren't goblins - which is what happens if you open a bar called 'The Startling Toad'. Today, however, was suffering from a conspicuous lack of goblins. The sound of no goblins always made Charlie nervous. It usually meant they were up to something. Mind you, goblins were up to something whether you could hear them or not, but if you couldn't hear them it meant they were up to something organised. Charlie was still recovering from the chicken rustling plot of 1099ac, he couldn't live through that again – screaming militia, chortling goblins and flying chicken feathers everywhere and he was still finding grain in places he could have sworn he had cleaned.

He tried to rack his brains, what had he heard? One of them had been muttering about the Temple District he thought, and another couple had been mumbling about the Adventurers Guild. He hoped it was the Temple District. It was already a pile of rubble and therefore there wasn't much more damage they could really do to it. If it was the Adventurers Guild then things were not likely to go so well. The combination of a bunch of self-obsessed hero types and a load of piss-head goblin dock-hands was not something that Charlie wanted to contemplate at this hour of the day.

On opening the door, it was much as he feared – the street was empty. There weren't even the usual pile of drunks sleeping off the night before. Not even those crazy bastards Chelios and Trasg, lying in a stinking heap grinning and twitching in their sleep and cuddling their explosives. Charlie couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the street empty. There was nothing out there apart from effluent and seagulls. He was beginning to wonder if he was dreaming, until he caught a whiff of something wafting by and decided that if his subconscious could manufacture a smell like that then he didn't want to know about it. He shrugged, there was nothing to be done except his job, so he stumped back into the bar and started to wipe tables wondering to himself if there was really any point. It was then that he noticed it. A scrap of paper, perhaps twice the size of a hand that was pinned to the wall by a rusting dagger. It had clearly been dropped in more than one puddle and bore the terrifying legend 'bak sooon, we'ze joynd the arm-ee lov Chelios'.

“Blimey,” thought Charlie, “I didn't realise the army were that hard up.”

“Front and centre,” bellowed the captain, “Come on you bunch of idle scrotes.” A small handful of scraggly looking men jogged up and fell into an uneasy line in front of the captain. They were all looking slightly sheepish and were trying not to meet the captains rheumy eye even more so than usual. “I said front and centre or you'll feel my whip,” screamed the captain again, spittle flying as she let a whip-crack echo through the air. Nothing. No one else appeared, and the few who were shuffling in front of her stared at their feet with more concentration than they had ever paid their work. The captain rounded on them like with a fury like the storm-bound sea.

“Where are Chelios and Trasg? Slacking? I'll have their hides if they're too drunk to unload.” This met with an uncomfortable silence. “Or are they still in the alehouse? Is that what it is?” The crew dared not breathe. The wrath of the captain was bad enough without interrupting the flow. “Well?” she demanded, “One of you speak to me,” then she shot a hand out and grabbed the first collar within reach and yanked. A scrawny man with a fearsome beard found himself nose to nose with the red-face harpy that was his captain.

“Mordichai,” she roared, “where are the goblins?” The man, Mordichai, looked the captain in the eye and with the fatal air of one whose day cannot get worse without a sudden invasion of demons said calmly,

“They've gone.”

“GONE?” screamed the captain, “What do you mean gone?” Mordichai had nothing to lose. He wasn't sure he wanted to stay on the crew if the goblins had left anyway. He took a deep breath and in the slow manner one explains simple things to an infant or an imbecile, said

“They've gone, as in they are no longer here. They have left, they have departed and removed themselves to another geographical location. Apparently, there's a war on. Or there will be.” At this point the captain let out one last guttural roar and hot spittle hit Mordichai in the face just before she threw him to the floor. Lying on the deck looking up at the sky, Mordichai was cross about one thing. Wherever they had gone, those green bastards could have taken him with them.

The muffled explosion was the first thing the guard knew of what was to become known as 'the goblin incident' even though a significant proportion of the participants were in fact orcs or trolls. He had been in a lolling daze-state when the blast had occurred, three seconds later he was more awake than he had been during the last three years of his guarding career. Perhaps that was the sound of the falling masonry had been the worst thing or it might have been the raucous cackling and howling that had followed. He had honestly never heard a sound like it. It was enveloping and pervasive, it crept over his spine and into his ears and hair. It was frightening and taunting, it wormed its way into his head and his dreams and it stayed there. The look on his boss's face whilst he was making his report made a similar impression, resulting in a horrifying tableaux that greeted him whenever he closed his eyes to sleep. It took several days to decipher exactly what had happened, by which point it had also become abundantly clear why it had happened. Rumours of a vast greenskin army massing on the borderlands of Aberddu State were spreading like clap through a brothel and if the more esoteric stories were to be believed there was more blowing in the winds than the foul smell of a thousand pairs of unwashed feet. If that was indeed the case, then the jail break was a very logical move.

Clearwater was a well-known Albion jail. Well-known for two things – firstly it had started life as an insane asylum and then some time during the reign of King Leopold it had been cleaned out and turned into a prison for vagrants and petty criminals. No one asked too many questions about what had been done with the previous inmates as slowly the jail began to fill with the more unpleasant elements that got underfoot in Royal Albion. The second thing was that by 1102ac the jail was renowned for having a vast population of green-skin inmates on such a wide array of charges that the senior jail clerk had had to buy a new ledger. In the case of a greenskin uprising, it was like the proverbial goldmine. The guard had, at one point, wondered why no-one had thought of that before but he knew full well what the answer to that question was. The greenskins in Albion, and in fact everywhere else, were so far down trodden that no one had expected there to be a greenskin uprising.

“Well,” thought the guard as he left his bosses office with his ears burning for the third time in as many days, “more fool them.”

Greery rolled his eyes. Don't worry they said, everything'll be back to normal they said. His captain had reassured him that his job would return to its previous glorious monotony, so had his wife. Apparently they were both wrong. At least this lot were heading in the right direction he thought, as he cranked open the gate and let the gaggle of greenskins amble out of the city. He had no idea what they were playing at but this lot were the sixth, or possibly the seventh, group to leave the city through this gate in the last two days. The Tartars and pilgrims had been bad enough, but green-skins were something else. Not only were the bad-mannered and broke they also smelt unbelievable - particularly when they were over-excited. Another man would have been diverted by the sight of near on a hundred green-skins leaving the city - each one a unique harbinger of chaos and lunacy. Little ones with monolithic noses poking out from beneath massive helmets some of which, on closer inspection, were made from a range of cooking utensils including pans, kettles and colanders. There were big ones with crooked teeth and dozens of knives, alchemical grenades and other weapons criss-crossing their bare torsos in bandoleers. Orcs with back banners, front banners, side banners, strange leather masks, hand-bells, knee-bells and multicoloured top hats. Trolls with wheelbarrows or armed with tiny trebuchets and a goblin waving a feathered tricorn from a sedan chair being carried by two bewildered children. One entire batch were lavishly adorned with all sorts of spoons and singing. Greery didn't care, he just counted the heads and opened the gate.

Grumpily, he watched as this latest crowd moved off, the smell of lamp oil and sweat lingering as they passed. Then he cranked the gate shut and went back to the office. He had just finished scribbling the words 'another dozen or so greenskins' in the ledger when his attention was caught by a movement. A pack of tiny, squeaky-type goblins that were hopping from foot to foot and pointing at the gate had materialised from somewhere. He cursed loudly, gazed longingly at his cold stewed tea and he went out to see to the bastards.