The Last Witchking Read online

  He stared at the arrow still sticking out of his arm, wondering what to do about it. Then he winced and tried to pull away as someone grabbed his arm with both hands.

  “Let’s have a look at that.”

  Bextor stiffened as he recognized his brother’s voice. “You got the little ones away?” He kept his voice low and didn’t look at Wiltor.

  “Cattail knows a place deep in the fens. The orcs will never find them there.”

  “You sure?” He looked up at his brother’s face, wondering if he’d misheard the note of amusement he detected in Wiltor’s voice.

  Wiltor winked. “Just wait, you’ll see.”

  An orc shouted that he’d seen something moving behind a tree out in the swamp. Then a second orc claimed to see an old goblin with white hair walking deeper into the swamp, as did a third.

  Alarmed, Bextor glanced at Wiltor. His brother smiled faintly and shook his head, very slightly. Even so, Bextor held his breath as he watched two galvebels order the nearest galkors into the swamp. The orcs obeyed reluctantly. Being bigger and heavier than the goblins and totally unfamiliar with the fens, they knew a simple misstep could easily become a death sentence. It wasn’t long before there was a soupy splash and a fearful cry for help. The grun-kor had to order four kors to rescue the shrieking galkor and bring him back, covered in stinking yellow-green muck, to the safety of solid ground.

  “Me sees him!” a galkor shouted. “Right over—”

  Everyone, orc and goblin alike, jumped at the booming sound of detonation, which was followed by an ominous red-purple cloud rising over the fens. The explosion was echoed by terrible screams of agony and the muffled footfalls of frightened galkors fleeing the swamp. About ten had gone in, but only six were returning.

  “What da stinking hells was dat?” the grun-kor shouted at the nearest goblins. Even Bextor drew back. The big orc looked ready to murder them all.

  “Swamp gas, sir,” Wiltor lied calmly. “It builds up here and there. The fens are riddled with pockets of them. Very dangerous, sir.”

  “And nobody say nuttin?”

  “We assumed you knew about it, Grun-Kor,” Bextor said. “But if the dirty kob-lover ran into the swamps, you can be certain he won’t last long.”

  Skullsplitter glared at them then turned towards the swamp. His fleshy, tusked face was the very image of fury and frustration as he listened to the pathetic sobbing of a badly wounded galkor who’d been left behind. He shook his head, observably bewildered, as he turned around and took in Bonecracker’s body, beside which there now lay five fallen orcs.

  “How in da name of Gor-Gor’s giant vank we losing ten against eight stinking kobs?” The orc commander looked at Bextor and gestured towards the swamp. “Take a squad of your gobs and get me kors out of dere. At least one still being alive.”

  “Yes, sir. But first I need to do something about this, sir.” He held out his arm.

  “Get me damn kors now, Drun Fenwick!” the giant orc roared.

  “Yessir,” Bextor saluted awkwardly, as he tried to avoid poking out an eye with the arrow sticking out of his arm. But the grun-kor didn’t return the salute, he was already stalking away, furiously barking orders at the vergalvebels.

  There was a darkly morbid air about the grun-kor when Bextor reported to him the next morning. For a moment, Bextor feared Skullsplitter was about to announce the long-rumored wave of executions, but the pensive look on the orc’s heavy face when he saluted helped dispel his concerns.

  “At ease, Drun.” The grun-kor waved Bextor to a seat. “Me should say, Galdrun.”

  “Sir?”

  “You be promoted. Now you be outranking Gurfang, and me already send de scrolls south, so don’t be letting him round you damn flanks.”

  “Thank you, Grun-Kor. I shall certainly do my best to prove myself worthy—”

  “How de arm?” Skullsplitter gestured toward Bextor’s bandaged forearm.

  “Not too bad.” Bextor was surprised that the orc had asked. “A scar is better than ten medals—isn’t that what you Slayers say, Grun-Kor?”

  “Yar, we say it.” The orc captain smiled wearily. “Be sitting please, Drun Fenwick. Me thinking dat despite me being orc and you being gob, we being friends, Bextor. Me allus say if you be orc, you be one damn good Slayer. So, me sorry saying me not bringing you gobbos when we march tomorrow.”

  Bextor was glad to be seated in Morswot’s temple, because he was sure the great frog god could hear the unvoiced praises of thanksgiving resounding through his head. Despite what he’d overheard the day before, he’d been convinced that Skullsplitter would change his mind and decide that a lousy troop of archers was better than none.

  “We still got no healers, so me taking twelve studiers from de college here. Dey need a guard too, so maybe ten gobbos from your militia be good. Me happy having you captain the guard, but you being the best kor in the town, me say it better if you stay and take hold of Fensboro. Anyhow, dat arrow you take yesterday keep you from representing right.”

  Bextor did his best to look disappointed. “I understand, sir. But Grun-Kor, without the presence of your kors to support it, how will we keep up the martial law?”

  “Do what you like, Galdrun. War law or no war law, you got Fensboro now. Call yourself mayor, general, or great high queen, what you want. Still, maybe be best be sending everyone in jail south wid de next taxer.”

  Bextor nodded, feigning acquiescence. He leaned forward and for the first time since the Slayer had come to Wiccam Fensboro, dared to directly meet the big orc’s eyes.

  “Grun-Kor, do you really think you can win? Your kors are as ready as they’ll ever be, and I know how well you’ve prepared them, but can two hundred Slayers really make that much of a difference?”

  Or one hundred ninety, as the case may be.

  Sangrul Skullsplitter leaned back and sighed heavily. He looked out the window toward something in the distance. What did he see? The mountains of Zoth Ommog, perhaps? Then he turned back to Bextor and shook his head.

  “Bextor, Slayers making no difference at all. Mulguth be too strong. Maybe dat why me leaving you gobbos here. We got orders, so we going to represent and we going to die, but no reason why you got to die wid us.”

  Despite himself, despite all that he knew about this violent, murderous orc and his innumerable evil deeds, Bextor was deeply touched by the orc's unexpected concern for him and the town militia. He felt oddly conflicted as he rose from his chair. And to his surprise, he found that he actually meant what he said next. “Grun-Kor Skullsplitter, it was an education and an honor serving with you, sir. May I shake your hand?”

  The giant orc smiled wryly.

  “Don’t see why not, Galdrun Fenwick.”

  The orc’s clawed hand engulfed his hand for a moment, then Bextor saluted, bowed respectfully, and turned to go. But before he departed a thought occurred to him, and he stopped at the edge of the room.

  “Grun-Kor, about that guard you mentioned. For the healers. May I suggest a list of my best soldiers?”

  “Sure.” The orc captain reached for a stylus as Bextor thoughtfully tapped the brand on his unbandaged arm.

  “Let’s start with Merfdel Stickswath and Curdweed Pizenberry….”

  As the red-golden rays of dawn spilled across the swamp, Bextor stood at attention next to Bill Muckwoggle. Behind them was the entire armed militia of Wiccam Fensboro, minus ten of the most inveterate hoblet haters, all watching with barely concealed joy as the Red Claw Slayers marched away from their town. Bextor thought he had never heard music so sweet as the sound of the galvebels calling out the cadence.

  “Me know a troll say her name were Bone.”

  “Me know a troll say her name were Bone!”

  “Sun cotch her out and she turnda stone.”

  “Sun cotch her out and she turnda stone!”

  Bextor looked over at Bill.

  “Do trolls really turn to stone in the sun?”

  “Can’t say as th
ey do. I never seen one. Make it kind’o hard to fight during the day, you’d think.”

  “Hmm….”

  The two goblins stood together in silence until the last orc marched around the corner and disappeared from view.

  Only then did Bill clear his throat and glance awkwardly at Bextor.

  “Don’t mean to criticize, Bex, but considering who they took with them, I’m guessing it was you what told them who to take.”

  “What makes you say that?” Bextor said innocently.

  “I just happen to notice that you’re the only one with that claw thing on your arm who ain’t going with them.”

  Bextor nodded. Three moons ago, he could never have sent goblins to certain death with equanimity. But that was a long time ago, and he was a different goblin now. He felt hardened, as if his heart had grown a rind. Perhaps he had done the wrong thing. Probably he had. And yet, someone had to go, and the ten he had named for the grun-kor were the most likely to put Wiccam Fensboro at risk when the hoblets resurfaced.

  “I’ll tell you something, Bill. We’re going on a march of our own, as soon as I can see to the preparations. Those orcs are going to lose, and they know it. I don’t know how trolls feel about hoblets, I mean, they can’t hate them any more than the orcs do, but I’ve decided there won’t be a hoblet in the town by the time Mulguth gets here with his army.”

  Bill shrugged. “I hear a troll sees a snack with what makes lunch for an orc.”

  “Well, I just hope they don’t like goblin flesh. Anyhow, we’re for the Reeve. We’ll need about thirty, maybe forty goblins all told, to handle supplies and act like guards. We’ll rope up the hoblets to make them look like prisoners, and we’ll march them south, then head west as soon as we cross the river. They’ll be safe there, in their own lands. I couldn’t afford to risk Curdie and the others hearing about that, you understand.”

  “Yep.” Bill nodded. “I guess you’ll be needing my help, won’t you?”

  “It’s a long walk, Bill. We might not make it back, and even if we do, who knows what the trolls will get up to here while we’re gone.”

  The other goblin shrugged.

  “That’s as may be. I say we let the mayor out the jail and let him take care o’ the town. Somebody’s gotta help those nasty little buggers, and if the likes of you and me don’t do it, I can’t see who will.”

  Bextor didn’t answer, he simply clapped his loyal sergeant on the shoulder, and together they watched the sun as it climbed into the sky over Wiccam Fensboro. It was going to be a long walk, it was, but no matter. Bill had the right of it. Some things you just had to do because if you didn’t, no one would.

  FINIS

  Author's Note

  “The Hoblets of Wiccam Fensboro” does not fit well within the Selenoth canon in terms of geography, style, or goblin society. This is because it was written six years before Summa Elvetica and ten years before A Throne of Bones; the outlines of Selenoth were merely beginning to take form and the thought of writing an epic fantasy series had not even crossed my mind. The story should, therefore, be viewed as less than entirely canonical. While most readers will recognize it for a Holocaust parable, it is more than a thinly disguised story about the lethal Juden hassen of the National Socialists in the middle of the 20th century, as it primarily concerns the rather less-known story of the Italians who were forced to deal with the consequences of their military occupation by the Third Reich.

  It is common to conflate Italian Fascism with National Socialism, but in fact, beyond a predilection for strong centralized government and snappy uniforms, the two political ideologies had as little in common with each other as either of them had with Soviet Communism. Even the alliance between Italy and Nazi Germany was more a matter of happenstance and poor judgment on the part of Great Britain than ideological solidarity; in 1935, the Italians joined with France and Great Britain in the Stresa Front, a military alliance against Nazi Germany. But when Great Britain betrayed its two allies by signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement only two months later, the Italian Duce, Benito Mussolini, gravitated towards Hitler and the German camp.

  Italy was never more than an unreliable and unenthusiastic military ally to the Third Reich in World War II, which culminated in the German occupation of northern and central Italy following the Armistice of Cassibile of 1943. And one facet of the German occupation was the very hostile attitude of the occupiers to the 50,000 Jews living in Italy.

  The idea for the story occurred to me when I was visiting Florence and happened to see a stone monument outside the Tempo Maggiore, the Great Synagogue of Florence, which was dedicated to the memory of the 284 Jews who were deported to Germany during the year-long occupation. It struck me that the large size of the synagogue belied the relatively small number of Jews deported, and indeed, a little research showed that less than one-tenth of the Jews of Florence were turned over to the Nazi occupiers.

  Since I was living among Italians at the time and was already familiar with what occasionally passes for “cooperation” in Italy, it occurred to me that I probably had a pretty good idea of how the Florentines had gone about “assisting” their German occupiers in their attempts to locate and deport the Jews of Florence.

  So, you see, this story is a tribute to the quietly stubborn people of Italy. The Italians have no particular love for the Jews. But neither do they harbor any hatred for them, and because they are an intrinsically decent and good-natured race, it should come as no surprise that of all the Nazi-occupied nations of Europe, the country where the largest percentage of Jews survived the war was Italy.

  The Holocaust Encyclopedia states: “The Germans deported 8,564 Jews from Italy, Italian-occupied France, and the islands of Rhodes and Kos, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1,009 returned. In addition, the Germans shot 196 Jews in Italy proper, nearly half of these at the Ardeatine Caves in March 1944. Another approximately 100 died in the police transit camps or in prisons or police custody through Italy. More than 40,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in Italy.”

  Opera Vita Aeterna

  853 Anno Salutis Humanae

  The cold autumn day was slowly drawing to a close. The pallid sun was descending, its ineffective rays no longer sufficient to hold it up in the sky or to penetrate the northern winds that gathered strength with the whispering promise of the incipient dark. The first of the two moons was already visible high above the mountains. Soon Arbhadis, Night’s Mistress, would unveil herself as well.

  The brother standing on watch duty at the abbey gate drew his cloak more closely about his shoulders, waiting for the bell that would summon him to Vespers and the warmth of the catholicon. While he was armed with a wooden staff, his only armor was the thick brown wool of the cloak. But this close to the inhuman lands, so near the elvenwood and the Waste of Kurs-magog, there were few brigands and thieves to trouble the stone walls that guarded the brotherhood of St. Dioscurus. One of the lesser orders, given formal recognition by the Sanctified Father only thirty years ago, the Dioscurines were not a mendicant order, but neither did they possess the wealth of the larger, more established brotherhoods.

  Movement caught the monk’s eye, and he saw a solitary figure appear around the bend of the dirt roadway that passed by the monastery’s walls and led the occasional traveler to the nearby village of Mulvico. He was surprised. There were few who came this far north, here in the northeast corner of Sablema, but even fewer who were traveling in a southerly direction. There was little trade with the elves and none at all with the tribes of orcs and goblins that inhabited the Waste.

  The traveler was no merchant, that was clear enough even at a distance. He lacked a mule or other beast of burden, and was walking too easily to be encumbered by any goods worth mentioning. Nor, as he came closer, did he appear to be a robber, since he wore no sword at his belt and there was no bow slung around his back. The brother already knew the traveler could not be a fellow Dioscurine, at least not one from the monastery. Except for him, keeping hi
s lonely watch outside, all sixty of the order’s monks were already inside the walls, having recently eaten the second of their two daily meals permitted by the Rule of their founder.

  The traveler came closer with each long stride. He was very tall, wearing a dark green cloak over a hooded robe, and he bore on his back a large leather pack that appeared to be half-empty. He carried nothing but a long, black walking stick that looked knotted, but turned out to be carved in an extravagantly ornate manner. His grey robe was brown from the knees down with the dust of the road, but it was woven from the sort of wool the monk would have expected to see a very rich man wearing.

  The brother’s eyes narrowed and his hands tightened on his staff. But he did not step out from the gates he manned, nor did he call for assistance. Even if his suspicions about the tall traveler were correct, there was no reason to assume he intended any harm, or indeed harbored any desires beyond simply passing by.

  And his suspicions were correct, he thought to himself as the traveler turned off the roadway in the direction of the monastery. But what was a solitary elf doing here on the road to Bithnya with winter fast approaching? And what could such an unexpected visitor possibly want with the brothers of St. Dioscurus?

  He shrugged. It was rapidly becoming apparent that he would find out soon enough as the elf drew near to the gate.

  “Peace be with you,” he bowed and greeted the elf in the humble manner he had been taught to show king or beggar. “Be welcome in our house, in the name of Our Immaculate and Ascended Lord.”