Goblin Subjugation (3)
A cold, hollow sensation in my lower body jolted me awake.
Something was there, between my spread legs.
"What the hell…"
It was Crane.
Shameless and utterly without decency, he lay sprawled between my thighs, staring straight at that place. His mouth hung open, his face blank, pupils gleaming.
"You disgusting bastard."
I lifted my foot and kicked him square in the face.
—Thud! Thud-thud!!
I gritted my teeth and kept kicking.
"You fucking piece of shit!"
"Ugh…"
The foot I'd used was, of all things, the right one — the one the arrow had pierced.
"Aaaagh…"
The pain was so fierce the world went white. Clutching my right calf, I began to thrash and roll across the ground. A woman tumbling through the grass with her crotch bare — the humiliation was so complete I couldn't lift my face.
"I gave you chance after chance. How could you do this? I even let you touch my chest!"
Tears were streaming from the pain.
"I'm sorry, Miss Blair. I've committed an unforgivable sin."
His voice cracked with tears. He fell silent for a moment, as if choking on them, then scrubbed at his eyes with his uniform sleeve. Apparently he really was crying.
If I'd woken even a little later, he would have done it. That much was certain.
"I can't travel with you anymore. Get out of my sight. Now!"
The rage rising from deep in my gut was impossible to swallow.
Crane looked startled. His still-damp eyes went round, and he hesitated before speaking.
"In a place this dangerous, with your leg injured… will you really be all right alone?"
"I'll manage. Just get the hell out of here! You piece of trash. After everything I did for you, this is how you repay me?"
I turned my face away with those words.
I had misjudged him — badly. Even so, I never thought he would treat me like this.
My leg wouldn't take any weight. I needed to stand.
"I'll carry you on my back."
Hesitantly, Crane started toward me again.
"You're still here? Leave!"
I snatched a stone from the ground and threw it at him. The feeble toss arced through the air and landed at his feet.
His head dropped. Then, step by dragging step, he vanished into the forest.
"Hic… hhk… hic."
My body shook. I wanted to scrape this wretched feeling off me by any means possible. Escaping this place demanded focus, but the emotions bursting out of me refused to obey.
I used a sturdy branch as a cane and forced myself upright. Then I began to limp in the opposite direction from where Crane had disappeared.
A heavy silence had settled over the forest — a cold, absolute stillness. Sunset was still some time off, but in woods and mountains the light died fast. If I didn't find shelter before dark, the danger would be obvious.
A faint rustle broke the quiet.
My fingers and toes went rigid with tension. Holding my breath, I slipped behind a tree and began to watch the source of the sound.
A green creature, humanoid but smaller. Rags that barely passed for clothing hung from its frame. In its hand was a crude black blade that looked, even at a glance, roughly forged.
A goblin. And not as small as I'd expected — shoulder-height on me, with yellow eyes that seemed ready to gleam even in deep darkness. Its body moved with a grotesque, lurching gait, and from its mouth came a stream of unintelligible muttering.
This one was almost certainly not alone.
The realization brushed through my mind, and my heart began to pound again. Tension pulled every muscle taut. I drew the worn sword at my hip — a dull, somewhat battered practice blade. I still hadn't acquired a sword of my own. All I'd brought from the Nam family was a single dagger. This one had been left in the training hall by some senior who'd gotten a new blade and told the rest of us to use the old one for practice. More than ten such discarded swords sat neglected there. I'd picked the best of the lot, carefully refurbished it, and used it ever since. It couldn't compare to a newly forged weapon, but against a goblin it would do.
The green goblin tilted its head and sniffed the air.
Had it caught my scent?
The snuffling drew closer. My heart hammered as if it would burst. I steeled myself and stepped out. A stabbing pain shot through my calf, but I clenched my teeth and endured it.
Snap — a dry twig broke underfoot.
The goblin's yellow eyes found me and it shrieked something at once. Too late.
Thud — blood sprayed. The force of the swing drove the blade straight into the goblin's chest. A perfect strike. I had clearly severed the ribs.
With a guttural howl it thrashed, convulsing in waves, then tried to come at me again.
— Shunk!
The cold steel punched through its throat. The light in those yellow eyes guttered out. Only after the body went still did I flick the blood from the blade and sheath it.
I was hungry and parched. I opened my canteen and drained every last swallow, but it was nowhere near enough. I shook it — a few drops. If I'd known, I never would have given any to Crane earlier.
With trembling hands I recapped the canteen. I searched the goblin's body, but found nothing useful.
"I'm screwed."
Its comrades would have heard the scream. If several of them came at once, I couldn't win. And with my leg already injured, fleeing the forest wasn't an option either.
"Is this where it ends?"
I'd been a fool. If Crane had still been with me, I wouldn't die like this. The highest-probability move left to me was to hide somewhere and wait for rescue. If Crane made it out safely, he could tell the professor where I was.
I curled up in a patch of undergrowth well away from the corpse and hid.
Only a short time passed. Within a few dozen seconds of concealing myself, a single goblin came ambling into view. It wouldn't be alone. Already I could see several more approaching — six in total. Goblins were pack beasts. One I could handle. Two or more, and victory was no longer certain.
The shock of the first fight hadn't even faded, and already new enemies had appeared. My heart started racing again. I had to kill the one in front of me before the others joined it.
It sniffed the air — my scent, probably — and began edging toward my hiding place.
"Kiiik…"
It approached its comrade's corpse, scanned the surroundings warily, examined the body, then started toward me again.
I gripped the hilt hard and drove the blade at its heart — a thrust like lightning. My injured right leg kept me from putting my full weight behind it, but it was more than enough to pierce a goblin's chest.
"Ukekekeeeek!"
A piercing scream rang through the entire forest. I gritted my teeth, twisted the blade, and wrenched it free. Blood sprayed. The reek of it stabbed my nose.
That was when rough hands seized me from a direction I hadn't watched.
"Kyaaah!"
The scream tore out of me before I could stop it. I swung the sword desperately, but the blade cut only empty air. At the same instant, the wound in my right calf seemed to split open, and agony flooded through me. The bleeding had started again.
The weight of the creature clinging to me threw me off balance, and my body collapsed helplessly to the ground. I let out a deep, ragged breath. My body no longer obeyed; strength wouldn't come. The goblin astride me seemed to bark orders at the ones surrounding us.
After a fierce struggle, they wrenched the sword from my hand.
Is this how I die?
Pinned beneath them, gasping, I thought it. Claiming I had no attachment to life would have been a lie. Yellow eyes full of hostility glared down at me. Wet mud clung to my hair. Their crude blades pointed at my throat.
"Just kill me already, you filthy monster bastards!"
I squeezed out what strength remained and shouted. But the limit was closing in. My body shook and grew cold. The end was coming. Still — I'd killed two of them. All that training hadn't been for nothing.
"…"
"What? What are you doing? Why aren't you doing anything?"
Their behavior was strange. I waited and waited, but they neither struck nor stabbed me. Instead they pressed their noses to my body and began to sniff.
"N-no… stop…"
Why were goblins groping my chest?
They kneaded and fondled, slowly beginning to strip my clothes. In that moment I remembered Professor Anton's lecture: goblins killed men on the spot, but women they violated and raped, then dragged back to their nests to bear their young.
"Stop it! I said stop!"
I trembled violently as I screamed.