My Big Goblin Space Program

Chapter 6 - Sticky Stone Pokies

I stopped, looking around the clearing. Most of the goblins were busy with small projects, hammering rocks to make tools or straightening poles or winding cord.

The hunting party.

I looked off in the direction they’d charged hours before. I’d had 34 members in the morning when we’d all piled out of the mound. What had I been thinking, sending them off to hunt wildlife with knives. And only six of them. My desire to multitask for efficiency had just cost the lives of four of my tribesmen, and the fates of the remaining two were unknown.

If I was going to be their king, I couldn’t be the kind of king who just took advantage of his people. This was going to need a rescue party, and I was going to be on it. And we weren’t going in with simple stone stabbies. I took the poles, the knives, and the cords that the idle goblins had been working at and made my first advanced weapon by splitting the pole and wedging the knife in, before binding the whole thing with sappy bark.

Within a few minutes, we had 15 of the simple spears, so I split the remaining tribe in half and took 14 members while leaving the rest to gather more raw materials. I would carry the final spear. But, looking down, I wasn’t sure of my ability to fight on these legs. They were a far cry from my bladed athletic prosthetics of my former life. They still needed a lot of improvement before I could do anything remotely athletic in this one. I pulled 2 more goblins to act as the litter carriers, and I would be moral support and shout orders from the back. That was kingly, too, right?

This time I brought extra cord and tied it around the litter. I had wanted to improve this, today. But now it was an emergency and there was no time.

“Onward!” I ordered, pointing my spear in the direction the hunting party had left. It wasn’t difficult to follow their progress. Hell, the National Park Service could have used a batch of these guys in every forest in North America to keep the trails clear. We charged out, following the hunting party’s trail (and expanding it with our passing). What I hadn’t realized was that while goblins are great at climbing up cliffs, they don’t even bother to climb down. Our charge carried us directly over the cliff face in a perfect parabolic arc. And this time, I was screaming right along with the goblins.

Shut up, HAL!

We crashed down into a valley, landing head-first to break our falls. Once we were upright again, we retrieved the litter from the tree where it had stuck. Then we pulled the spears out of the ground (OSHA would have had a fit) and we were back on course. We turned right and twisted around for a bit before settling on a path vaguely in the direction of the moon. This part of the woods was so crisscrossed with goblin trails that I never would have found the right one. I just had to trust that my goblin friends knew where they were going.

We passed by a small, startled pack of some sort of creatures that looked like a cross between a boar and a skunk, and then shocked a flock of large birds to flee. I noted where some of the feathers fell for later, but we were past in a flash.

This time, when we reached our destination, I managed to hold on to the litter. We stumbled over a creek and into a clearing where I spotted our two surviving goblins up a tree, squawking what I had to assume were the goblin equivalent of profanities down at… well, I’d never seen a creature like that. It had claws and facial markings that reminded me of a three-toed sloth in that they were long and hooked, but that’s where the similarities ended. It had a squat face with sharp teeth in a protruding snout, and what looked like an armored hide covered in a stoney material that covered from the top of its head down to its wide, stubby tail. It snarled up at the stranded hunters and scrabbled half-way up the tree before falling down and rolling back to its feet.

“System? What do you know about this thing?”

Never!

It dwarfed us, but in reality it was probably the size of a great dane, or maybe a small black bear. Of our fallen brothers, there was no sign except for some blood and tufts of blue fur on the foliage. Besides, we were armed.

I waved my spear forward. “Attack!” I shouted. “Spears forward, stay together!”

I had pictured the goblins marching in rank, stone spearheads leveled as they closed in on their foes. I don’t know why I thought that, given the evidence. As one, our company lurched forward, spears waving overhead as they screamed.

The stone-hide sloth thing turned at our war cry, locked eyes with me, and snarled before charging in. Up on my litter, it must have thought I was the biggest threat (or the most delicious meal). Suddenly this seemed like less of a rescue party and more of a suicide mission.

It was faster than its size and bulk (and slothy features) would have suggested, and before I knew what was happening, the first wave of spears were airborne, knocked aside by those long forearms. The second wave at least got their spears down, and one even had the brilliant idea to throw his. But stone met stone, and the spears bounced off as the diminutive goblins didn’t have the strength to penetrate the thick hide. Still, the stone-sloth came on. Shoot. Maybe the system had been right!

“Plant the butts of your spears!” I said.

The last row of goblins stuck their spears in the ground, squawking as the stone-sloth leapt at them. My litter-bearers panicked and dropped the litter in favor of hiding behind their own stone knives, and I toppled to the ground.

I rolled over and pushed myself upright. The sloth had thrown itself over the last rank, not understanding or not caring about the spears. Which, to be fair, did not seem up to the task of penetrating even the underbelly. But its weight had bowed the spears in almost double. Even as it struggled to reach the last rank of goblins with its claws, its hind toes left the brush. Almost as one, the spears straightened, snapping back to their original position.

Unfortunately, physics dictates that an object in motion retains its trajectory. The stone-sloth’s rebound had sent it straight over the heads of my company and it was headed straight for me at an alarming speed. Its arms windmilled through the air and it opened its mouth in a surprised howl.

I’m sure I screamed myself. I fumbled for the spear and hoisted it upright, turning my face away and clenching up just as the stone-sloth fell. By God’s grace or sheer luck, the spear was at just the right angle to wedge itself in the stone-sloth’s open mouth and the creature’s bulk did the rest of the heavy lifting. Blood splattered across my face, and then the entire weight of the creature fell on me.

Had I not been a goblin king, that impact would have killed me. But while passing fatal damage might keep me alive (at the cost of another member of the tribe), my Head of the Snake skill did not transfer pain. I wheezed as the bulk of the thing crushed me, flattening my head against the forest floor in a most unpleasant way. Every bone in my body felt pulverized, and I heard multiple snaps. Which, I realized thankfully, were just my prosthetics. Small mercies. Well, not for the poor unfortunate who took my fatal hit. With the tribe down to 29 members, thus far I’d been a net negative on their well-being.

My rescue squad wasted no time rolling the stone-sloth off of me and helping me back to a sitting position. I couldn’t stand without prosthetics, but I was content to watch as the goblins celebrated, hooting and hollering at the sloth. They kicked and punched at it, cheering, and then hoisted me up. Even by sheer accident, I’d dealt the killing blow.

“Hell yeah! Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys!” I raised my arms up to cheer with the rest of the rescue squad but winced. I was still a bit tender from my near-death squashing. “Let’s take this thing back to the village.”

A rustling in the tree the stone-sloth had been trying to climb took my attention, and I saw the face of a badger poke down from the foliage. I stared at it, and it stared at me. Did badgers typically climb trees? It seemed odd to me.

“How did you get up there?” I asked.

It stared at me a moment in shock. “Holy Rava! A talking goblin!” he replied, clearly startled.

“Holy hells, a talking badger!”

The badger disappeared back into the tree, and then a pair of squat, wide legs in leather trousers dangled down. Apparently, the thing was only badger from the waist up. Below that it was… I hesitated to say human, because the thing was only half-again as tall as I was, and several times wider. But it dropped down holding a large, leather satchel, which it slung around its shoulder.

Some of the other goblins approached, to which the badger-man flinched away, but I gestured them back. “Be good. I don’t want you biting our new friend. He’s not food.”

The badger really surprised me then by pulling out a pair of small brass spectacles and peering through them at me. So, someone in this world had metal-working and crystal grinding. That was important to know.

“Oh dear. You really are a goblin! And no mask at all.” he said. He reached in his satchel again and withdrew a small, bound journal, licking his finger and thumbing through the pages. “You would not happen to be a goblin king, would you?”

“Who wants to know?" I asked.

The badger shut the book and bowed deeply at the waist. “I’m terribly sorry! How rude of me! I’m called Rufus, level 20 scholar, free-trader, and fey-touched. May I have your name? Do you have a name?” he raised his snout, suddenly excited. “I could give you one for free, if you’d like.”

I opened my mouth to say Chris. But was I still Chris? Chris had died on that rocket, reaching toward an unattainable goal—an opportunity only made possible by the untimely appearance of a billionaire’s genitals. Nah. Chris was dead, and this time we really were going to the moon. And we’d do it without NuEarth, and with goblins. I needed a name befitting a pioneer.

“Apollo,” I said. Classic. Smooth. “Of tribe… um… Apollo…”

Not so smooth.

“And yes, I am a goblin king. Though I haven’t been one very long.” I thought for a minute. I hadn’t heard another human’s—well, you know—voice in almost two days. I didn’t realize how much I missed it. “Would you like to come to the village for dinner? I promise you won’t be harmed.”

Rufus pushed his spectacles up his snout. “I daresay I’d not be much a scholar should I refuse! Besides, the stoney devil tried to eat me! It only seems fair I should return the favor.”

I grinned.