“Leave?” She hurried behind, that worried lilt to her voice, Skoob and the larger goblin on her heels. “But they need help.”
“With adragon. Oneyoujust asked me not to go near again. Which, by the way, they could just choose to stay away from as well.”
She should have been glad he was so keen to follow her orders, but she only slapped her forehead and groaned, “Oh, I know I did, but it’s definitely the reason their den is collapsing in places, andjust look at them.”
As they entered the main cavern, the waiting goblins all fell supplicant except the youngest ones.
“I am,” he mumbled. “They reproduce almost as quickly as they get eaten. They’ll be fine.”
She huffed and pulled him up a ramp and back to the throne chamber, Skoob and the battalion leader following. They would,apparently, neither be leaving nor going back to what they’d been doing, much to his disappointment.
Once they were shut inside, she brought Damien to the far side of the room to give them privacy. Amma pressed her hands to her chest. “Damien, listen, I know this whole thing has been very silly. Well, up until the last few moments, at least, but I…I just love them.”
“Youlovethegoblins?” He could scarcely believe thatthiswas how he was destined to hearthatword from Amma’s lips. “Some of them eat humans, you know. The ones in Aszath Koth would have made a whole holiday out of you.”
“Well, sure, but they’re a lot bigger, and everyone has to eat. That’s what you said about the draekins, and the goblins are just like them, aren’t they? I know they have their problems, and they’re a little messy, and maybe they’re not the brightest…” She glanced over at where the remaining ones had gathered with a few concubines, all of them pathetic-looking, really. “But they’re just trying to get by, and I wouldn’t feel right leaving them like this. Can’t we take them with us or something?”
“Take them with us? Do you hear yourself?” Damien ran his hands down his face, but he did consider, briefly, how useful it could be to have a thousand-strong meat shield, then quickly squashed the distasteful thought.
Just keeping Amma alive had been difficult enough, but a whole clan of goblins? That would be impossible, and though he wanted to give in to Amma’s every whim, the depression she would fall into as the goblins picked themselves off every day by accidentally getting impaled on tree roots and falling off of cliffs and poisoning themselves with the wrong mushrooms would ensure she would never have another whim for him to give into.
“Amma,” he began again, quietly and carefully as he took her hands into his own, “I appreciate your newfound admiration of this tribe, but I cannot imagine a future where allowing these…thesesimple, little creatures to accompany us would truly be charitable. They barely have a sense of self-preservation, not to mention how incredibly easy it was for you to kill off theirking. Think about the kind of trouble we get into. I know you don’t want to watch them keel over left and right, do you?”
His words were working, he could tell by the way she chewed on her lip and furrowed her brow, and it was likely because they were true. “But they’re sort of keeling over left and right here too. Isn’t there anything we can do?”
He could feel it as he looked on her, a quiet acceptance that she would have to abandon the goblins working its way into her heart even as she asked. It wasn’t a whim, her desire to help the stupid, defenseless creatures, it was simply what was inside her, what made up the very best parts of her, the parts that drew him to her. And that was worth protecting. “Perhaps there is something we can do.”
“Majesty?” Skoob was standing just beside them, fingers pressed together. “Moghart say Big Spicy wake again in thirteen hours.”
“Oh, geez, that’s a lot sooner than what you were saying before.”
Moghart came forward, clearing her throat. “He on cycle, wake period smaller each time til begin again. Is always same though. Concubines keep best track.”
Damien groaned, the inconsistency in the creatures’ knowledge perhaps more frustrating than their general lack thereof. “Why do these ones know, but the ones who are supposed to fight it don’t?”
Amma patted his arm. “Women are just better at keeping track of time.” When he squinted at her, not understanding, she leaned a little closer. “You know thatthingyou were about to do back before the, uh, world started rocking?”
Damien grinned.
“Yeah, so, I know you’re a blood mage and all, but I’d prefer you not make another attempt at that for another day or so, okay?”
“I don’t see—oh.” He swore under his breath. “Well, I suppose we’ll have to pass the time some other way. Perhaps discussing how we might save your ridiculous subjects from being eaten into extinction.”
Amma gasped. “Really? We’re going to help them?”
“Well, of bloody course we are, Amma.” Damien rubbed his face and groaned. “Now will someone please give me back my pants?”
CHAPTER 15
ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY
It was only a small dragon, at least that’s what Damien told himself once he was clothed again. Still formidable, still almost impossible to banish, still capable of injury that even a blood mage would not come back from, but it could have been a lot bigger.
Except it was still quite big. So big that it needed to eat about two dozen goblins every few days. Or it just wanted to—some dragons were like that, vindictive for the fun of it. They were unlike wyverns in that way, more clever, their thoughts much more advanced and capable of communication when they felt like it.
This one was infernal, able to make itself one with the shadows and breathe Abyssal fire. Every plane had its dragons, and once, long ago, the great creatures came in all sorts of magical flavors, but the world had grown small around them in Eiren and the rest of Damien’s home plane, and while one would expect a thing so big would lord over its domain, it turned out they were just easier to spot, and the Holy Knights of Osurehm had spent many years and many lives chasing them out. As such, they were infrequent nowadays.
Damien’s great, great grandmother, Valgormoth the Blind Fury who walked the plane when it was icy, would never have run from a dragon. She would have subjugated it into her army of beasts. But she was a demon who had existed before The Expulsion, and things were different then, at least that’s what he told himself. He imagined what it was like to be frozen in one blast from a frost dragon’s gullet—probably better than beingburnt into nothingness, but both deaths would likely be quick.
