Kidnapping (3)
If a Goblin King had shown up in this forest, it made perfect sense that the goblins had banded together and attacked humans. A horde organized under a Goblin King's command was nothing one could afford to dismiss, and anyone with sense would have called the situation dangerous.
The fairy village was a natural fortress, so there was little to fear for it, but a human village might well be wiped out entirely. That, of course, was none of Lou's concern. Whatever became of the humans, she didn't particularly care.
What she wanted to know was why she herself had been shut inside a glass bottle and left in a place like this. And, more important than anything else—
"Where could Big Sis be?"
Ariel's whereabouts. Fretting over it didn't seem likely to produce an answer, though. In the end, she would have to move.
Lou decided to follow the goblins' tracks. She had no interest in the humans who had been attacked, but Ariel might have been dragged off by the horde as well. It was hard to imagine Ariel falling to the likes of goblins... and yet there was always a what if. Ariel was still a young elf. It wouldn't be strange if she had stumbled into a trap, and once caught in one, even Ariel could be in danger.
Worried sick, Lou shot off at once.
"Big Sis, wait for me! Lou's coming!"
She flew wherever the goblin tracks led.
"We really shouldn't have left the village..."
Tom muttered, wretched.
The village elders had said it until they were sick of saying it: beyond the palisade, every kind of danger lay in wait. Jack had written it off as nonsense, but in the end the elders had been right. Beyond the palisade was dangerous, and that was how they had ended up like this.
Jack's crew, having kidnapped an elf and a fairy and set out for the city, had been ambushed by goblins in the forest. One or two might have been manageable. The goblins that came at them numbered in the dozens.
Jack had always bragged that even dozens of worthless monsters like goblins wouldn't so much as make him blink. When the moment actually arrived, he couldn't do a thing. Pinned under the goblins and soaked in blood, he only screamed, horrible and raw.
Susan burst into tears and tried to run, only to be caught. Tom simply stayed seated in the carriage, the sleeping Ariel gathered in his arms.
The goblin horde did not kill them. It dragged them instead to the cave it had made its den and shut them in a cell. The prison looked to be built of solid wood, and it was anything but crude—so precise and so sturdy that it was hard to believe goblins had made it.
"Hic..."
Tom curled his big body into a ball and sniffled, still cradling the sleeping Ariel.
"This is divine punishment for kidnapping an elf and a fairy..."
On any other day Susan would have snapped at him to shut up. She had no room for that now. Earlier, trying to flee the carriage, she had taken a deep gash across one cheek from a goblin's dagger. The blade was dull and rusted, and the wound was already festering. Even if it healed, it would leave an ugly scar. A scar on a woman's face—the thought alone was horrifying. There was no chance of charming a nobleman with a ruined face, and even here, even now, that was what Susan was worrying about.
In truth, she had brought it on herself. Had she sat quietly in the carriage the way Tom had, she wouldn't have been hurt at all. The selfish urge to abandon Jack and Tom and save only herself had called disaster down on her. The horde hadn't attacked Tom, after all. He had shown no will to fight or to flee.
"Ugh... ughh..."
From a corner of the cell, Jack let out a sick groan. Crushed beneath the goblins earlier, his body torn to rags, he was barely conscious—only just breathing. He had lost so much blood that he didn't look likely to last the night.
"Worthless bastard."
Susan shot him a glare. If she could have had her way, she would have beaten him senseless.
"And why did you stop the carriage? We could've just ignored them and kept going."
Even a horde of goblins couldn't have halted a carriage at a run. If Jack had simply driven on all the way to the city, they might never have ended up here. The trouble was that he had looked down on them, assuming there was only one. Not that picking it apart now would change anything.
"Kerrrk."
Two goblins came into the cell. Tom flinched and clutched Ariel tight. Susan flattened herself against the wall. Jack just lay there. Blades ugly in their hands, the pair shuffled toward Susan.
"D-don't—don't come any closer!"
She shouted, shaking. The goblins reached to drag the terrified woman off.
"Aaah! Don't touch me! Lay a hand on me and the people from my village won't let it go! They'll kill every last one of you!"
She thrashed as she said it, but goblins had no way of understanding human speech. Even if they had, they wouldn't have been afraid. One of them simply set a blade against the throat of the woman who kept fighting.
"Eek!"
Susan's eyes flew wide, and she went still. Move even a little, and the edge would bite into her neck.
"Kerk."
Satisfied to see her gone quiet, the goblin nodded and hauled her out. Only Tom, Jack, and Ariel were left in the cell.
"Hic..."
Tom hunched in on himself, tears running. No matter how he turned it over, leaving the village had been a mistake. They never should have kidnapped an elf and a fairy. This was divine punishment.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."
He apologized to the sleeping Ariel. She wouldn't get out of this place safely either. She had been sacrificed for nothing but their greed.
While he sniffled, something glittering shot into the cell with a sharp whoosh.
"What do you think you're doing, you fat human!"
The thing that had flown in was none other than Lou.
"How dare you touch our Big Sis! Get those filthy hands off her this instant!"
She used the momentum of her flight and kicked Tom square in the face. It didn't hurt, but it startled him. He gaped, too stunned to get a word out.
Lou swept a look around the cell. Jack lay collapsed in a corner, covered in blood. Tom was crying in streams. And Ariel slept in his arms, breathing soft and even.
She spoke to him in a grave voice.
"Explain yourself, human."
Tom told her everything: the plan to kidnap Ariel and Lou, the sleeping drug they had fed Ariel, the flight by carriage, and the goblin ambush. He confessed it all without holding back.
Lou clicked her tongue and shook her head.
"Tsk, tsk. This is exactly why I hate humans. Selfish and greedy to the bone, the whole lot of you. We went and saved Patricia, and you repay a kindness with spite?"
"I'm really sorry..."
Tom bowed his head. He meant it. If he could, he would have turned time back, and if that had been possible he would have stopped Jack's plan no matter what it took.
"Hah. Nothing else for it."
So saying, Lou flew to Jack where he lay in the corner. His crew was infuriating, but she wasn't cold enough to leave a dying human as he was. She dusted him with healing powder, and when that didn't seem like enough, she fed him some as well. The powder worked well scattered over the body, but eaten it was far more potent—enough that it didn't lose out even to a priest's healing magic.
Jack's body began to shimmer. The bleeding stopped, and the wounds knit closed. Before long he would come to and get up.
"That takes care of this one..."
Lou looked worn out. Before she had used the healing powder on Jack, she had scattered sleep powder on her way into the cell and put several of the goblins on watch to sleep. Otherwise she might never have gotten in. A glittering fairy would have set the goblins squawking. Either way, she had no strength left to scatter any more powder.
"Now then, shall I wake Big Sis?"
She fluttered over to Ariel. The elf's hands and feet were bound tight with rope. The sight sent anger surging through her, but she set to untying the knots first.
"She won't wake up..."
Tom mumbled.
"She ate a huge amount of sleeping drug... Susan said she wouldn't get up until tomorrow morning."
"A sleeping drug?"
Lou let out a short laugh. Ariel had been perfectly fine even after being drenched head to toe in Patricia's deadliest poison. A mere sleeping drug had no chance of working on her. In truth, Ariel was simply asleep from a food coma. It had nothing to do with the drug at all.
"Big Sis~ Time to get up~"
Lou spoke gently and patted her cheeks, and Ariel's eyes slowly opened.
"There we go~ Did you sleep well~?"
Blank-faced, Ariel blinked a few times, stretched long and hard, and sat up. Then she looked around and tilted her head. She was certain she had fallen asleep in the inn's dining room after cream buns and milk, and yet she had opened her eyes somewhere she had never seen in her life.
Lou explained the situation to the bewildered Ariel, just as she had heard it from Tom. And just as that explanation was nearly finished, a sharp scream rang from outside the cell.
"Kyaaah!"
It was Susan's scream—the woman the goblins had dragged away.