Sci Fi & Fantasy / Stygmarsh Chapter 11. The Whistling Gorge

Chapter 11. The Whistling Gorge

“Looks like the sign they was waitin’ for,” Manon called to the company. The young marshman had been keeping a watch on the lizards all evening since they’d stopped, mainly out of personal curiosity.
“Ere we go again,” Jim sighed heavily, “Wish they’d sort it out.”
Kharoon gave sharp orders to the lizards, who began to pack the camp again and ready for marching. The company quickly refolded their own tents, their hands by now experienced at the task. As they began forward the head shaman came forward purposely, motioning them to stay in line behind the lizards.
“No eat. No drink. No touch,” he warned them, bobbing his head furiously, “All bad. All Kappu.”
Shouldering the Chosen’s cage the great lizards began moving up the canyon in single file. The canyon walls gathered closer and closer over the traveler’s heads until the place became a cavernous gorge. The squeaks from bat colonies overhead, of creatures scuttling amid the boulders, of water dripping and rocks falling merged with the strange unmelodious whistling far ahead. Great beetles, the size of fists, scattered from their path as they tramped. They startled Brother Michael and caused the Squire to peer at them curiously.
“I’m certainly not tempted to eat that!” Isambard joked, though the others did not laugh out loud.
Kharoon ordered the great lizard Orlokk further ahead to clear the way for the main group labouring with the Chosen’s cage. Jim’s nature was not one to be led in his native marshland however strange it might seem, so he edged his way past the shaman lizards and the Chosen and went ahead with the lizard captain. Manon went with him, not for this reason but because he was troubled. Since the incident with the Big Bird, Manon had noticed the Goblin had stayed at the back, withdrawn. Manon fancied the Goblin avoided Tricky especially. It might be that Tarn was still hurt from his fall, but Manon was uncomfortable thinking about what Tricky had done that night and the Goblin’s reaction to it. He couldn’t decide if he should say something to Jim about it. Maybe it would cause more trouble in the group because he knew the ranger didn’t trust Goblins. Maybe nobody would listen to him anyway and then he’d make an enemy of Tricky. He sighed and followed the ranger.
Every so often, in the dank places between the rocks, Jim caught sight of a strange plant that intrigued him, a plant that the ranger had never seen the like of before. Small it was, with leaves that glistened with a green-silvery sheen and remained tightly rolled near the light green stem. But the most curious part was its flower. It consisted of a single, fleshy petal, a vivid red colour shaped like a heart with a short sticky black pod poking out of the middle.
“Looks like a tongue!” Jim said, and before Manon thought to stop him, he took his knife and cut down several of the plants and placed them in his haversack.
“Kharoon said don’t touch,” Manon reminded him, glancing back to the lizards uneasily. They were too far off to notice.
“Pah!” Jim said, unconcerned. “I’m going to keep ‘em. Maybe it has a use someone can tell me about. Lots of strange stuff in this part of the marsh.”
After a mile or so Kharoon, consulting the map, called ahead to Orlokk. In response the great lizard captain altered course and steered them towards the canyon’s southern wall, towards what first seemed to Brother Michael to be a series of dirty chalk piles. To Michael’s disgust, these hills were in fact great mounds of bat droppings, scores of feet high, piled against the walls under a slight overhang. Worse, these stinking mountains were alive with all manner of insects and worms of the scale of the huge beetles. When Kharoon indicated they must ascend a crumbling scree-fall to a ledge above the seething mounds, the Priest felt physically sick. He clutched his holy book, trying not to think of tumbling down onto the living cess-pit of creepy crawlies below. The company laboured up the sliding rocks, Michael praising the Angels loudly when he reached the top. The broad ledge ran east to where it entered a vast split in the rock, a tunnel of sorts, but hundreds of feet wide. The last grey dusklight quickly faded away as the cliffs arched and sealed overhead and the lizards paused to distribute their wicker lanterns. But the fire-bugs within were dying and the light they gave was dim. Michael huddled closer to the Squire, who kept his monogrammed kerchief permanently to his nose. The Priest was about to ask Isambard whether it was wise to pray for the Gracelight of the Angels, when he realised the Squire was staring upwards. Stranger than that, the gorge seemed to be getting lighter about them. He followed the Squire’s gaze overhead, and there, higher than a bowshot, the cavern was awash with punctate spots of light. Initially Michael thought these were the stars seen above the canyon top. Yet they were not stars he realised, for suddenly one flashed and another moved against the darkness, and then a few came down and whispered about the lanterns, for they were fire-bugs too.
Slightly ahead, Manon and Jim had noticed them as well, and saw the great lizard Orlokk suddenly snatch one up and devour it.
“No eat!” Manon scolded, clicking his tongue trying to sound like Kharoon. He and Jim laughed. The lizard stopped chewing, gave them an unreadable sidelong glance, and swallowed.

After a half-mile or so, the three scouts disturbed a huge scorpion, fully four feet long, that was lying atop a rock in front of them. The marshmen froze in surprise as it arched its sting toward them, pincers clacking. Orlokk recovered its senses first as the beast lunged forward. In a blink of an eye the lizard’s axe was swinging in an undercutting arc, caught the monster below its armoured carapace and flipped it over. Without hesitation Jim drew his sword and followed up. Before the scorpion could scuttle upright, he slashed deeply across the soft belly of the beast, and as it spasmed trying to flip itself upright his second strike cut it in two. The parts of the creature writhed and twitched for a time before lying still. Orlokk hacked off a pincer and offered it to Jim, but the ranger declined, more out of surprise of the lizards action than anything. As the others approached the spot Orlokk and Kharoon croaked in conversation together.
“Angels look at the size of that!” Brother Michael exclaimed when he saw the body.
“Jim ‘acked it in two!” Manon said with a grin. Jim cleaning his sword in a muddy pool, looked up with a hint of smile back.
“Yes. Curious,” Isambard said, thoughtfully. “It seems that there are many creatures that have attained a great size in these parts.”
Later that evening, Brother Michael tiring and lagging behind with Tricky, disturbed a huge black snake. Its body lresembled a log until Michael accidentally tripped over it. Tricky shouted and ran off, but the Priest was not so fortunate or so fast. Before he could get up, the log had turned into a huge serpent that had its coils about him, squeezing him ever tighter. It might have gone very badly had not Grune charged up and punctured the serpent’s tail with its spear, whereupon the snake relinquished its grip and made off between the narrow cracks in the boulders. Michael was very shaken and after that he took to poking the stones ahead of him noisily with his sword.
They came to a widening of the canyon and the black ceiling overhead subltly changed into the black-blue of a night sky. Small wiry bushes began to appear growing between the rocks. The walls spread further and further until they walked on some sort of rocky plain whose roof was now a grey smear of stars through the clouds. Kharoon recalled Orlokk to assist carrying the Chosen. Jim noticed the big lizards were panting and had stopped to rest. They seemed tired.
“Shall we camp here?” Jim asked Kharoon.
“No rest,” Kharoon said, “you go, you go,” motioning Jim onwards quite insistantly.
“Sure,” Jim shrugged. With the ranger leading the human company and the lizards now at the rear, they plodded doggedly onward into the dark rocky plain. Michael fervently hoped the gorge had ended. Yet, after a half-hours trekking, he was disappointed to see the walls returning together, narrowing and the gorge continuing on.

Micheal was over-tired and on the point of going back to remonstrate with Kharoon for a halt, when a voice called out loudly from ahead.
“Halt! Who is in ye Gorge?”
Tarn whipped his head about, for the voice was speaking the tongue he best recognised.
“Tis Goblish!” Jim shouted to them as he sought the cover of a small boulder. Thirty yards ahead a bright beam of light abruptly appeared, shining up to the sky. A moment later an ugly, miss-shapen face with a hooked and broken nose loomed into the beam. It seemed to be disembodied, floating in the air eight feet off the ground and was most definitely Goblin. Michael squeaked and rushed back to join Isambard. Tricky covered the bug-lantern, not wanting to be a target and Manon followed suit. Further back down the way, the great lizards reflexively formed a screen about the Chosen’s cage, their back-plates bristling with alarm.
“There be more in the rocks!” Jim bellowed, catching the chink of stones to left and right, “Keep yer weapons handy!”
Again the voice called out in Goblin.
“Whaddya want?” Jim replied loudly but received no reply. They waited tensely, staring at the ghastly face hanging in the beam of light.
“Tarn. Find out what it wants,” Isambard commanded. “Go on!”
Tarn shrugged and stood slowly up, paused and raised his hands, palm upward. He walked forward until the hideous head shouted to him to stop, ten yards from the rock. Tarn saw the other Goblin was in fact crouched up on the top of a big round boulder and had a large wooden shield in front of him, completely covering his body. The source of light was hidden behind the shield, but cast its rays upward, illuminating the disfugured head peeking over the shield rim. On the shield was nailed a hide that bore a device painted in black depicting two manacled Goblin hands breaking the chain linking them. It was topped with a strange symbol, like double lightning, picked out in silver. None of this Tarn recognised.
“A Kobelyn!” the goblin voice said in wonder. “Yer name? And whither thine clan and kin?” it demanded in a dialect that was strange and unfamiliar to Tarn.
“I am Tarn Utha of the Kapelcap Hills and a Hanbodling,” Tarn said undaunted. The last word, Hanbodling, is a title in the Goblin tongue. It indicates a high-ranking status amongst Goblinkind. It means Chieftain of a Hall and more; if that Hall is the biggest in the region, it may mean Chieftain of a Tribe.
There was some whispering at that from about the boulder. Then the fat head and shoulders of another Goblin appeared to the right of the stone, and in quick succession, several more peered from clefts and gullies that scarred the valley. Tough-looking creatures they were to Tarn’s eyes, with long sallow faces, skin of a bluish-black tint and hooked noses. They were gripping bows and spears but not yet aiming them.
Now to a Kobelyn’s eyes the colour of the skin is an important sign. It is a sign of location rather than lineage, of where you were born not who bore you. For Kobelyns it is a natural thing to have skin tones that vary, even within a family. These things are known to Kobelyns. They are aware that they can be changeable through families, tribes and generations. More; a Kobelyn’s skin might even change in his lifetime. The legends Tarn believed explained this easily enough, for the Goddess Methonway had made the Kobelyn tribes from many-coloured clays. Even so, the blue-black skin of these strangers, not grey or green or red as the tribes Tarn knew of, looked very strange to Tarn and he could not place them.
Several of them called out to Tarn excitedly, barraging him with questions in accents too quick to catch, until the squat Goblin on the rock snatched up a spear and banged it to quieten them.
“What dost thou with the Smaetterlings?” the leader demanded. What?, Tarn puzzled, Smaetterlings? That being a very old name for humankind.
“I am their.. guide,” Tarn replied, thinking fast. “What is your Clan?” he added boldly.
“I be Kurnelius, of the Black Chain, watcher for Liog-Eror. What dost thou here?”
“We ask passage.” Tarn answered. Liog-Eror.? Didn’t that mean..
“Passage of ye whistling gorge will cost gold!” Kurnelius threw back. There was a wave of chuckles about the others Black Chain goblins.
“Gold we have,” Tarn said loudly. It was unwise to begin with a disagreement with a Kobelyn on his home ground.
At the rocks behind, the company was growing restless. Tricky growled that Tarn wasn’t to be trusted to the others. He shouted ahead to the Goblin.
“Tarn! Vat’s it saying?”
“They want a toll to pass them by,” Tarn called over his shoulder, in Kingdoms speech.
“You speaketh Smaetterling?” Kurnelius snapped to Tarn, its eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“I told you, I’m their guide,” Tarn parried, keeping to his story.
“Who be the Smaetterling King?” Kurnelius demanded suddenly.
“Er…. Brannigan,” Tarn said, snatching the name from his head, though in truth, he had no idea.
“Sounds like he’s selling you out!” Tricky hissed to the Squire, gleefully. Isambard clutched his bow and looked back toward the lizards. They had halted many yards back and though the great lizards were clustered about the Chosen, the shaman appeared to be doing nothing. What are they doing?, Isambard wondered crossly, why aren’t they defending us? Kharoon is just chatting to Dannu as if they are at a nest-gathering. They’re paying the Goblins no interest at all!
“We need coins!” Tarn called back in Kingdoms. “Quickly!”
“Why should we pay?” Jim snarled, yew bow ready. “Thievin’ burgers!”
“Better surely than fighting needlessly?” Manon whispered, not feeling brave.
“Much!” Tricky agreed.
“Tarn!” Isambard shouted, sizing the situation up. “Ask it what coin is required.”
Tarn turned and tried a smile on Kurnelius, but this only made the Kobelyn band grip their bows the tighter. They won’t trust me taking orders from humans, Tarn thought.
“They say they only have silver. That do?” he asked the Kobelyn, still playing it calm.
Kurnelius considered the offer. “Two each Smaetterling,” it raised on its fingers. Another Kobelyn with a fatter face and a great quantity of grimy chainlink-mail sewn in loops onto its shoulders, began to complain, but the leader shouted him down. Tarn nodded to the leader and called the price of two silvers back.

“That surely we could afford?” Brother Michael said, with a somewhat hopeful air.
“I be good for it,” Manon agreed.
“And I,” Tricky added.
“Well I ain’t paying!” Jim said flatly, muttering something angrily afterwards they couldn’t catch.
“Couldn’t you pay for ‘im, Squire?” Manon said to Isambard. There was a tone in Manon’s tone that tickled the Squire’s pride. Indeed he could afford it. Easily.
“Very well,” Isambard said loftily. “As the only one of any substance here, I suppose I shall have to.”
Michael fished out a tin cup to take the collection up in and Manon put two ducats in. The Squire produced coins from his wallet and tipped in the rest. In the end the Squire paid for the Nasturian and Brother Michael in addition to Jim.
“Heavens!” the worthy Brother exclaimed. “I didn’t think to bring a purse.”
“You take it to them,” Isambard said to Michael, a little peeved with him.
“Me! But..”
“Just go do it!” Tricky hissed menacingly. Brother Michael gulped but scurried forward and left the cup on a rock behind Tarn before dashing back. Kurnelius grinned when he received the cup from Tarn. The Black Chain Goblin shook it and then took the coins, cup and all. With a last grin he shuttered the lantern at his feet. As if a signal had been given, the Goblins melted away, rapidly dodging between the rocks toward the gorge ahead. Without even a backward glance, their dark shapes assembled and trotted off in single file up the valley and into the shadows.
When they were gone, Kharoon came forward, looked about and up at the sky. He sniffed.
“Camp, plis,” he told them. The lizard seemed wholly unconcerned with the entire incident. Isambard was going to say something to the lizard but just shook his head. It wasn’t worth it.
The lizards selected a campsite and cleared it carefully of large insects. The Chosen, in its cage and ringed by the great lizards, was fed the herb gruel. Jim watched the shaman prepare it, first roasting some leaves to ash, then making a paste by adding water. He wondered what it was. Jim set up their own camp a little apart, beside a massive boulder that sported a ledge where the stone had once split. He got a fire going and set about preparing tea and a bean soup, using the ledge as a sort of table.
“Must think we’re stupid,” the ranger groused, “paying good money to a bunch of beggars like that. Toll indeed. Bluddy waste! Might as well throw my money away!”
Jim grumbled on until the Squire, in his tent trying to concentrate on sketching the Goblin shield design, called over rather pointedly.
“May I remind you Jim, that you didn’t pay anything!”
Jim cooked the last of his emergency beans, which had got damp during their journey, to make a poor soup. It would have been much worse but for a small bulb of garlic he added from his herb pouch. The hot meal did wonders for their morale and, although the Priest looked at it with distain, he managed three bowls after his troubles with the snake that day and immediately fell into a loud, snoring sleep.
“Probably dreaming of taters,” Jim said somewhat sourly.
“Or roasted parsnip,” Manon scratched his whispy youthful chin fuzz thoughtfully. He grinned.
“Or a fine zmoked cheese,” Tricky said. They all chuckled.
“Oh!. er.. yes, I’d like a fine bottle of Ghandian wine for myself,” the Squire suddenly interrupted, looking up absently from his penwork. He clearly didn’t have a clue and they all laughed again, this time at the Squire.
About the dying fire Manon thanked Tarn for his help and asked him about what the Goblins had said. Manon knew a very little Goblish but had caught the name Liog Eror. He was curious about it.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Tarn told him, thinking it best not to reveal anything he didn’t have to. “But it means ‘One-who-waits-from-the-dark’ in our old tongue.” He added, only relenting because the young human had saved his life at the Gonts steading and had been the only one who thought to thank him about the buying off the Kobelyns.
Jim, Manon and Tricky sorted out watches between them and the camps went to asleep.

The Goblins of the gorge returned just before dawn. A wave of bats awoke Tricky, supposedly on watch in the human camp. He shivered and drew his old blanket tighter about him. Without warning two arrow shafts clattered around the great lizard Reebokk, on watch for the lizards, one grazing its thigh. A second later, fifty or so yards away in the grey-darkness, a brushwood fire crackled into life. Immediately the leaping forms of a half-dozen Goblins were silhouetted against it, whooping and yelling.
Both camps sounded the alarm and became a blur of bodies struggling out of bedding and rushing for cover or to shield the Chosen’s cage. The sound of steel being drawn mixed with the croaks of lizards, the shrieks of Goblins and the hum of arrows. Three of the great lizards led by Orlokk, spears and axes drawn, began to edge cautiously through the rocks towards the Goblin fire, ducking away from poorly-aimed arrows. The fat Goblin, whom Tarn had noticed earlier, came toward the lizards swinging a huge axe in unmistakable challenge, and Orlokk went to take it up. The other two great lizards, Grinn and Grune, sought to engage the other Goblins together. These Goblins started tracking back now, still shouting and banging blade against shield, but avoiding the slower lizards and drawing them beyond their bonfire.
Back at the campsite of the humans, which was the furthest from the attack, Jim and Isambard, their bows out, were peering through the gloom towards the action. They didn’t see the second group of Goblins, led by Kurnelius, padding out of the darkness far behind them. Manon saw them first as he straightened up from loading his large crossbow, but the Goblins were already on top of him. As two of the stinking creatures grabbed him, he shouted and loosed the bolt hastily. One Goblin tore the crossbow from his hands while the other pulled Manon’s legs away from underneath him. Then they hoisted the trickster into the air together. Manon struggled in vain against their powerful grip, as the Goblins bore him away on their backs into the darkness.

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