>>5800666>>5800680>>5800728>>5800759>>5800842>>5800896You nodded, helpless to speak in that moment. Yok-Brot didn’t back off, though, but reached up to grab a handful of your hair, pulling your head down and locking it under his arm while his knife remained pressed just below your heart, pricking your sternum. He looked past you—keeping a wary eye on your father, no doubt. You yourself met eyes with Muffins—well, with the lion-head—and shook your head slightly before the powerful chimera could lunge and kill.
Not now. Not yet.
Yok-Brot slowly backed up, dragging you along with him step by step as a half-human shield. You staggered awkwardly after the shorter goblin, until finally he was far enough away from your allies that he felt secure to release you. You quickly took a few steps back, drawing shuddering breaths of free, fresh air. Yok-Brot looked at you for a moment, appeared even as if he might want to say something,… But then instead spat on the ground.
“Go home,” he said. “Wastes are no place for someone like you, kid.”
You resented being called ‘kid’ by someone half your age, but you had been in no state to fire back a retort, and a moment later Yok-Brot was sprinting away. You watched him go, as your father hurried to your side. You waved him off, though you gave Muffins’ furrier head a bit of a ruffle as he slid up alongside you and nuzzled your midsection concernedly.
“I’m fine,” you told them.
You regrouped with Pearce and, with your father’s aid, helped to rouse him and to limp him back to the carriage. Terzo and the horses were still there, though Terzo was shocked to see the state of you all. The discovery of the Ashurati Nemenmo, the battle, the healing efforts and negotiations, it had all seemed to take forever… But in truth, by the time you returned, you’d been gone scarcely three hours.
Needless to say but, after all that excitement and with the setting of the sun pulling you down to slumber, you rested first while the humans took watch.
The next day, you woke rested, as did Pearce. You found him already channeling Life Magic to help speed his body’s natural recovery process, and you helped as well, laying hands upon his own, pressed to his wound. He didn’t flinch or complain, simply regarding you silently. Muffins eventually came to join you both, flopping down beside the two of you and resting his goat head upon Pearce’s lap.
“So,” he said, “what’s the plan, Tips?”
The goblins still had information you needed—you knew that much now, for certain. There was SOMEONE out in the Goblin Wastes who could tell you about the events in Hawksong twenty years ago, about the Henzler’s scheming… But as you regarded your best friend’s clammy face, you couldn’t help wondering if it really MATTERED.
