Chapter 45: Ch. 045 – (Then) Gobblers

“Gobblers” Erkom said, making Jonathan practically jump out of his skin and he turned abruptly to face the new threat. It wasn’t goblins though. At least not living goblins anyway. The dwarf was nudging the desiccated corpse of a goblin that was still stuck in the ruined spiderweb. 

“Where there’s one there’s likely to be twenty more,” Jonathan said quietly to himself. The dwarves nodded along to that bit of wisdom that he’d gotten from Boriv on his first hunt. It was their equivalent of ‘one bad apple spoils the bunch,’ but more terrifying. A bad apple wouldn’t rip out your throat if it snuck up on you. The stone men might see elves behind every plot, but they saw goblins in every shadow. Now that they had a reason to look, they began to carefully search the room, looking for evidence that there might be more just waiting to ambush them. 

It was a methodical process given how many stalagmites and niches that made for perfect hiding places though. As they advanced through the room they found nothing of interest. Not until they’d worked their way around the pool and were close to the ragged shaft that went up into the darkness. The dwarves had a brief unintelligible conversation, and then Erkom turned to Jonathan and said, “He thinks that this crevice probably goes all the way to the surface. It would be three or four hundred feet, but if that’s the only way we can get out of this, maybe ye should…” 

“I should, what?” Jonathan asked. “Escape? Just run away and hope the dwarven kingdom never finds me?” It honestly wasn’t the worst idea, Jonathan thought, but trying to climb even half that far was madness. He’d barely managed twenty feet earlier today, and if it weren’t for this water he doubted he could manage another forty. 

“Well if you did, it’s not like it would be my job to stop you.” Erkom said defensively. “I mean I’d have to tell them that you did it but—” Erkom didn’t get the chance to finish his statement because the dwarven guard that was with them suddenly fired a shot upward into the darkness. Jonathan thought for sure he’d hit a goblin, because one immediately fell down the shaft towards the dwarf. Only at the last moment did he realize in horror that it wasn’t a limp corpse falling from a fatal blow - it was a goblin jumping spear down on top of the guard. 

It all happened in slow motion, but by the time Erkom had whirled around and leveled his brand at the threat the third member of their group was collapsing on the ground choking on his own blood. In the light of his weapon on the ground Jonathan saw two more land before disappearing into the shifting shadows. That made at least three left in the room somewhere. He slowly backed away while Erkom drew a bead on the first one and then fired a shot that saw its head practically explode. The weapons they were using were meant to hunt hobgoblins and trolls, not goblins, the oversized flash at least let Jonathan see where a second one of the creatures skulking towards him. Jonathan reached out to it, and pulling fire from the fallen dwarf’s powder flask, he launched a jet of flame at it that lit the disgusting creature on fire. 

Its scream was horrific, but at least its body provided a little light as it collapsed into a smoldering heap. “Stay close to me, boy,” Erkom bellowed as he stepped back and started to reload, but Jonathan was sure that would take too long. He was proved right a moment later when the third goblin jumped at them from the shadows with a rusted dagger held over it’s head. Time stood still as he realized that this was eerily similar to his last fight with a goblin, but in reverse. Last time he was standing behind Boriv and he held the weapon, but this time it was the goblin who was armed. Even with that disadvantage Jonathan didn’t hesitate. He reached out and grabbed the creature by the arm, feeling it’s weapon slice deep into the flesh of his arm for his trouble, but that didn’t break his death grip on the goblin’s scrawny arm as he spun around, using it’s momentum to dash it against the cave wall hard enough to hear the thing’s bones break. 

When Jonathan let it go it tried to rise before it collapsed again. After that it just twitched briefly and then it was still. Jonathan looked at his arm. It had small green flecks of goblin blood spattered across it, but from his forearm down it was covered in red. The wound that the goblin inflicted hadn’t just been painful - it had been deep. Jonathan felt woozy just looking at it, and after a moment had to lean on Erkom just to stay upright. “Easy lad - easy,” the dwarf said soothingly, not letting any of the worry from his watchful expression leak into his voice as he tried to keep the man calm. 

“That’s a pretty bad one, but we should be able to take care of it. Let me just see what we have.” The dwarf eased him against the wall as he spoke, and Jonathan picked up the rusted dagger in his left had to give him some sense of security. Suddenly he felt alone even if he wasn’t really. He felt alone, and afraid. Everything else they’d done today and he’d gotten through without a scratch - but this - he was going to bleed out from a damned goblin? It seemed unbelievable. 

Erkom came back moments later with fabric torn from the guard’s uniform, but Jonathan bled right through it. “I don’t think that’s going to cut it Erkom,” Jonathan said quietly. “Maybe you should just go on without me. You shouldn’t even be here. You should just—” The dwarf slapped him hard enough across the face to sting. 

“Nonsense. There’ll be none of that. We’re leaving this pit. Together,” the dwarf said gruffly. “If we just had a fire and some metal I could cauterize the wound and that would be enough to see ye back to the prison doctor.” 

“Cauterize?” Jonathan asked. He’d heard the word but he didn’t know what it meant. 

“To burn a wound close.” Erkom answered impatiently. “Like ye did with the troll, but to heal, not to hurt.” 

Jonathan nodded, holding out the goblin’s blade by the pommel. “Then do what you need to do.” As soon as the dwarf told him it made sense - but there was no way he could pull enough fire into himself to burn the wound shut and still maintain the concentration to burn as little of his body as possible. While he might not be able to light himself on fire though he could pull the fire from the walls around him and the last of the dwarven guard’s powder flask and make the tip of the dagger glow first red, then orange as he forced all that fire into a single point. 

The dwarf nodded briefly, understanding, and then laid the flat of the blade on the wound. Jonathan held back the scream that was trying to tear its way out of his throat for a few moments while the metal sizzled audibly against his skin, but it quickly became too much to bear. He screamed as he struggled to pull away from the pain with all his might but the dwarf held him immobile in a vice like grip while he did what needed to be done. After several seconds of this, Jonathan blacked out from the pain. 

He woke up some time later, and the agony had been replaced with a dull throb. He looked to his wound to see how bad it was, but this time it was covered in a new fresh bandage that was only just barely spotted with blood. “I guess that means I’m going to make it,” Jonathan said to himself. 

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He almost jumped out of his own skin with Erkom’s voice came from seemingly nowhere. “Aye lad - ye will, as long as we can find a way out at least. Now let’s get moving before more gobblers come looking for the source of your scream.” 

The idea of having to fight any more of those things put the fear in Jonathan and he rose as quickly as he could. “Lead on,” he said, picking up the goblin’s knife. It had almost killed him and then saved his life, so it seemed a shame to leave it behind, even if it was a battered and rusted weapon that barely qualified as a blade anymore. 

They went on like they had before the violence, checking dead ends and looking for a path might finally lead them to freedom. The first few showed some cracks in the barrier walls that had been erected decades ago, which was promising, but in the end it led nowhere, and after a couple hours of checking they paused at the entrance to a tunnel they hadn’t checked yet for a quick break. “It’s going the wrong way to connect with the rest of the mine Erkom explained, but at this point, it’s this or climb and try again.” 

“Where do you think it goes. What’s your stone sense tell you?” Jonathan asked while he drew in the dust with his dagger trying to make a map in his head of the places they’d been so far. 

Erkom shrugged and put his finger in the dirt to correct Jonathan’s map. “Well if this is the entrance, and this is us, then this tunnel leads directly away from the prison”

“But where does it lead to,” Jonathan asked again. “Would dwarves really dig a shaft through hundreds of feet of stone for no reason at all?”

“Not on yer life, boy.” Erkom said, as he stood up. “Every inch of stone that’s chiseled free is because the ore was valuable or because they wanted to clear a path. Ain’t no profit in it any other way.” Jonathan agreed with that logic. Every inch of stone that was carved out had to be done by someone, and then someone else had to cart away the rubble. Jonathan had yet to meet a dwarf to do that for free, so unless this was the remains of a prison escape plan or the warden had run out of things to do with his captive labor, it had to go somewhere - and they were about to find out where that somewhere was. 

The tunnel was long and straight, and after half an hour of hiking through it they found the end of the tunnel. Unlike the other dead ends they’d found though - this one was a badly damaged brick wall rather than the stones of the rest of the mine. “Ah, I see,” Erkom said, “Look there - see the glint of metal? That’s a rail. This was a train line. Maybe they got it into their head to build themselves a second loading depot before they shuttered this part of the mine.” 

Jonathan nodded but didn’t interrupt. That made sense at least. “If only I had a pick I could tear this thing apart in ten minutes, but with the buff of this brand…” the dwarf paused, sounding doubtful. “We might be here all day.” 

“Can I have your powder flask?” Jonathan asked.

“What da ye need it for?” Even as he spoke, Erkom handed it over, but he was hesitant. 

“Don’t you remember teaching me about how a dwarven steam engine works? Pressure? Expansion?” As Jonathan spoke he wedged the small brass container into the gap. “I'm going to light your powder on fire and see if we can blow a hole in this thing just like the steam engine blew a hole in that weak spot in the steel.” 

“Well let it never be said that for all yer stupid ideas about elements and magic ye aren’t capable of learning a thing or two Jon me boy!” The dwarf clapped him on the back, obviously excited enough to think his plan had a chance of success. “We should step back though. Just in case the whole thing caves in.” 

Jonathan didn’t think about that possibility until Erkom mentioned it. He just wanted to make an explosion big enough to bring the wall down. Now that it had been said though, he couldn’t think of much else as he prepared to ignite the powder. Should he stop? Maybe empty it part way first? How was he supposed to know how much energy would be released in an explosion like this? In the end Joanthan decided to try it anyway, because they didn’t have any other good options. He stood there a moment and whispered a silent prayer to Arvoz and then willed a spark of fire into the flask. 

The result was immediate and loud. Even from fifty feet down the tunnel, the result was still as deafening as any report from a brand. When the smoke cleared there was no cave in at least, but as they got closer they could see that the wall still stood. At least most of it still stood. When they got close enough they could see that the small crack they’d started with had become a dwarf sized hole in the base, and with a little effort and a lot of damage to the butt of his brand they turned the hole into a Jonathan sized one. Only a few minutes after the detonation they finally emerged from the salt mines and into a rail tunnel. They were finally free.

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