Bhelg the Bifurcator and the Quest for the Wedding Hat, Chapter 1

(Slightly NSFW)

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            For an Amazon warrior whose idea of resisting tyranny was slaying it, flaying it, and making its skin into a hat, it is perhaps unsurprising that Bhelg the Bifurcator began her career disregarding the second rule of safe adventuring: don’t mess with Ankyria. With the aid of Brodcrum the Bloody and the goblins of the Tyyagilg Clan, Bhelg infiltrated Vunderbort, the capital of the Ankyrian Empire, and attempted a raid on the Ramborlus A. Bornk Museum of Natural History, which she mistakenly believed held the legendary lich-killing blade, Reductor.

            It went poorly. Bhelg and Brodcrum’s survival was so unlikely that I would be tempted to attribute it to divine intervention, if any god ever would have dirtied their hands with two souls so free and, consequently, so damned.

            But escape they did, without so much as a new hat to show for it. Bhelg never bragged about this adventure. Dismissing the whole thing as a foolish risk and fruitless waste of time, she would come to regard it as emblematic of her romantic relationship with Brodcrum, which grew increasingly toxic over the years, eventually ending as ferociously as it began. For years afterward she wandered, aimless by her own account, until she met the woman who would eventually become known to the world as Lunria, Witch of the Silken Tower.

            Lunria, then known by her Barbarian name, Brightshard the Bitter, was what my people still prefer to call a “temple maiden.” This evasive and constraining term seems especially ridiculous in this case, as Lunria was emphatically not a maiden, and far more likely to burn temples than serve in them. She was, plainly, a transgender woman, one who had not attempted gender confirmation sorcery by the time she met Bhelg, but who sought the Silken Tower, the last place on the Earthshard where she could seek treatment without becoming a nun for Quat. After a brief period of mutually suspicious enmity, Bhelg decided to join Lunria on her quest, not because she herself required such treatment, but because she was quickly becoming the best of friends with the woman she’d eventually take as her war-wife.

-        Kneewound the Knowing, Chronicle of the Four Millennials


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            Bhelg, alone, wanders the Silken Tower, its deep pits and gray-shadowed tunnels, its soaring silver halls and galleries that flash rainbow where the sunlight catches the webbing just right. The threads of the tower are not sticky, and there is no give underfoot, their weaving industrially tight--except Bhelg would deny that’s the right word. She has seen the soulless structures raised by Ankyrian industry and she can tell, by comparison, that every inch of this palatial tower was crafted lovingly, by foreleg if not technically by hand. Bhelg’s a muscular, hairy-bellied monolith of a woman, with the shoulders of a bull and thighs that can pulp skulls with ease. Scars adorn her overwhelming body, revealed by her only clothes: a raggedy leather loincloth and strophium that struggle to contain what they cover. Her face--brown, dark-eyed, made for scowling but surprisingly sweet on the rare occasions she’s moved to smile--is wistful now as she steps out onto a mid-level balcony raised a hundred feet above the ground.

            Bhelg leans against the soft but steel-strong railing, gazing out over the swamp that the Great Spiders call home. A soft and misty landscape of sandy brown marsh grass, pools of deep steel gray, and lush green where the land is dry enough for shrubbery and short twisted trees, Bhelg finds it a beautiful place. She knows many would disagree, and she would happily fight them over that, but even she would agree there is one imperfection in the swamp’s quiet beauty.

            The distant line of harsh white light that appears on the horizon every evening, and remains until morning. Ankyrian suburban sprawl, menacingly close, kept oblivious to the Silken Tower and its wild environs by the Great Spiders’ spellcraft.

            She remains at the railing as twilight falls, trying to take in the swamp’s nocturnal loveliness but finding her eyes drawn to that thin line of light, and this is how she is when Perditagathys finds her.

            The Great Spiders do not have queens, their social structure being some sort of hierarchy-averse collective whose intricacies Bhelg cannot quite fathom, but she reckons if they chose a queen, it would be Perditagathys. A bird-eating spider large enough to have hunted condors before Ankyria drove them extinct, Perditagathys is also the biggest damn hero Bhelg has ever heard of, with the sole and obvious exception of Butterbar herself. Thousands of years old, this ancient warrior had spent her youth leading her people against the vicious wasp empire who had kept them as livestock since time immemorial, using their living bodies as food for their young. Perditagathys had destroyed her foes with such thoroughness that Bhelg had never even heard of the Great Wasps before seeing the contents of the Silken Tower’s trophy hall, its floor paved with shattered chains. There hung burned and tattered battle flags, immense tapestries woven with impossibly detailed battle scenes, and--most inspiring in Bhelg’s opinion--the dismembered but otherwise preserved corpses of many royals of the Paper Citadel. Wasps the size of a large man, these monsters had decorated their carapaces with intricate golden filigree, their stingers and ovipositors--invariably ripped out at the root and displayed beside the rest of the corpse--with glittering jewels of every color.

            Now a witch of great power and wisdom, Perditagathys is the very same Great Spider who had taken a liking to Lunria and granted her plea to weave her a metamorphic cocoon, and in all ways besides being a giant spider, has the demeanor of a doting grandmother.

            “What’s wrong, love?” Perditagathys asks--she’s got a freaky human-looking mouth, just for talking, between her feeding mandibles. Her many turquoise eyes are a head below eye level with Bhelg, which means the hairy brown arches of her legs tower beside her.

            “Nothing,” Bhelg says hollowly. “Lunria is in her cocoon, and doing well last you told me. We are safe here. We are at peace.”

            “And yet you are in pain,” Perditagathys observes. “Do you fear she will not love you the way you love her?”

            Bhelg startles. She had never spoken of her feelings for Lunria. “How do you know of this?”

            “You are not the first humans I have sheltered in my web. It is as obvious to me as it would be to you that a dog is hungry--no offense.”

            “I have never understood why ‘dog’ is an insult, for dogs are wonderful,” Bhelg says, and shivers at the thought of laying her head against Lunria’s thigh, held close by a collar round her neck. Thinking deeply these last few weeks, Bhelg has come to the conclusion that her regular conquering of her ex in bed had been a thing of pride, not desire. Her sparring with that horrible stupid worthless man had been too much a part of their sex life, and Bhelg had been unwilling to indulge in her unacknowledged love of submission without putting up a fight.

            “I cannot confirm things that are Lunria’s to confess,” Perditagathys says. “But it is as plain as the pain in her eyes that you are extremely dear to her. I suspect she simply cannot bear to open her heart to you while still stuck in the body the gods cursed her with. I believe her silence has been a thing of anguish for her.”

            Bhelg’s heart aches even as it’s soothed with reassurance, from someone so wise, that her own deepest feelings and desires are likely reciprocated. “She has nothing to apologize for. Ever has my heart been… slow, and she has given it time to catch up with her.”

            For a long moment there’s a comfortable silence between Bhelg and the Great Spider–until, very suddenly, it’s not comfortable. Perditagathys realizes it as Bhelg struggles to articulate.

            “Still. There is something wrong.”

            “There is,” Bhelg agrees. “Leave me to ponder it… May we speak again, when Earthshard Prime is high in the sky?”

            “Of course,” says Perditagathys, and heads back inside upon her eight surprisingly silent feet. Bhelg watches the darkness below, smiling grimly at the blue flashes of some of the swamp’s more interestingly bioluminescent critters, until the hours pass and the glittering mass of Earthshard Prime rises high in the sky, blotting out the light of the surrounding stars. By then Bhelg has collected her thoughts like the shards of something broken, carefully cradling them close to her heart as she goes searching for glue--or, in this case, a very large, wise, scary, and surprisingly friendly spidersilk dispenser. She finds Perditagathys near the top of the tower, in a homey parlor with a thoroughly cushioned pit ringing a basin Perditagathys has filled with deep red wine.

            “I love Lunria with all my heart,” Bhelg tells the Great Spider, dipping her sponge in the basin. The Silken Tower’s lack of cups had seemed strange at first, but Bhelg has found she enjoys the tactility of having something to gnaw on while she gets drunk. “But my heart has been wrong before. Once I loved a worthless man I only found impressive because I was young, stupid, and had met no one better--think not that I make any comparison to Lunria, who is perfect! I compare only the imperfection of myself. I could only love that man, I believe now, because I lost myself in our quest. A quest to avenge my worthless father, and my ex’s worthless father--I let myself be defined, for years, by the men in my life. I swore I’d never do any such thing again, and then did it immediately when I joined the Amazons. I bowed to their laws, to their expectations. I was a mighty warrior who should have been carving out her own queendom among their ranks, but I could admit to none of my deeds for fear of being shunned for fighting alongside a man. Thus was the mighty Bhelg the Bifurcator made meek! Weak! So weak that I… the vile and turferous things the Amazons say about women like the one I love… I had been to Aeyilwurt, where such folk are honored as sacred temple keepers, so I knew my so-called sisters spoke only lies, but I knew no temple keepers. Loved no temple keepers. So I repeated the lies--me! The slayer of Mazarath the Multiplicitous, made a mindless thing by the weakness of my own…”

            Bhelg lets out a long breath. “Lunria knows this. Knows that to love an Amazon is to love a pox-scarred heart. The point is… I want Lunria more than anything, but I also fear that want. All my thoughts for the future revolve around her. What if I am making the same mistake all over again? Even if she truly is perfect, can I even be the kind of woman she deserves, if I am still like this?”

            Perditagathys’s terrifying clawed foreleg reaches round to comfortingly rub the back of Bhelg’s neck. “That you are capable of such reflection shows you are worthy of her love. Do not fear your weakness. You have left it behind, along with your ex and the Amazons who tried to drag you down to their level.”

            “Easy to hear,” Bhelg says, and snarls against the impulse to cry. “Not terribly hard to know it in my head. Harder than anything to know it in my heart.”

            Perditagathys soaks her sponge and takes a long sip through her fangs. She’s still at it when she says, “Lunria will be in her cocoon for months before she’s ready to emerge. Use that time. Go do something that’s just for yourself. Prove to yourself, with your own deeds, that you can stand alone.”

            “Hmm,” Bhelg says, then falls silent, thinking.

            Tipsy and armed with a freshly loaded sponge, Bhelg says goodnight to Perditagathys and wanders off to the roof of the Silken Tower. Up here she’d hoped to stargaze, but between Earthshard Prime being high in the sky and the lights of the Ankyrian sprawl on the horizon, there are only a few stars to be seen. She finds herself glaring up at Earthshard Prime’s twinkling nightside, deciding that a place so covered in harsh galvanic lights must be a crappy place indeed.

            “Earthshard Piss, more like,” she mutters, gaze drifting to the equally gaudy horizon. Gnawing on her wine sponge, it’s suddenly clear to her that her animosity toward Ankyria is something all her own.

            “But is it any more true to define myself by my enemies?” she asks. Wine, in her experience, makes her both philosophical and loud.

            “Fuck unto that,” she answers herself. “I must fight someone--it is my entire life, besides making hats! My passion for hats and my vocation to fight… for something.” She feels almost weightless, in a bad way, like she might float away from this tower and be forever lost in a night sky poor in stars. She’s never had a worthwhile purpose, has she?

            “I am enough of a cause,” she reminds herself, thinking of Perditagathys’ words. “What do I want?”

            It feels like peering into a magic well she fought long and hard to reach, actually asking herself this question. And what bubbles up from deep within herself--it’s so obvious, in retrospect, that she laughs.

            She wants a hat.

            And not just any hat. The grandest hat she has ever heard of. 

            A plan unfurls within her mind. An incredibly stupid, pointless plan, dangerous as can be, with a reward that matters only to Bhelg. The kind of plan, in other words, that you can only carry out single.

            “My only chance!” she grins, and lies down flat on the roof of the tower to get some sleep. She always slept best under the night sky.

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            “I won’t tell you not to go,” Perditagathys says the next morning as Bhelg stuffs her rucksack with that delicious oil-black jerky made from the prehistorically large flies that buzz about the dankest regions of this swamp. “I’ll just offer advice on how to come back alive, which may differ significantly from how you’re planning to do this.”

            “I’m listening,” Bhelg says defensively. She doesn’t know why everyone, giant spiders included, assumes she won’t listen to reason. She does, after all, know reason better than everyone she’s ever met.

            “It’s a miracle you survived your first trip to Vunderbort and back,” Perditagathys says. “Still more miraculous you were able to venture back into Ankyria long enough to survive the trek from the edgelands to here. You are still wanted for the murder of Saint Bombolius--”

            “Was that his name?” Bhelg asks, silently vowing to forget it as soon as possible because it sounds stupid, and makes her own deeds sound more stupid by association.

            “--and if you try to return to Vunderbort, you will be caught and killed on the spot,” Perditagathys says. “I know you’d take many of them with you first, but the fact is that if you go where you’re planning to go, Lunria will awake only to silence, absence, and a grief that will never leave her.”

            “That sounds like telling me not to go,” Bhelg says, less defiantly than she intended. She may be more confident in herself than this giant spider, but the thought of hurting Lunria so badly makes even her dauntless heart hesitate.

            Perditagathys makes a yes and no motion with her forelegs. “Lucky for you, I have gotten word from some allies of mine that your target intends to leave Vunderbort very soon, on a propaganda tour that will take him close to this very swamp. My allies intend to make an attempt on his life. I believe you will all have a much higher chance of both success and survival if you work together.”

            Bhelg hesitates, weighing whether having help on this quest would make it any less her own. She decides that so long as they did not keep her from her prize, a handful of adventuring companions would be a small compromise to prevent making Lunria sad. 

            “Very well,” says Bhelg. “Who are these warriors who also want to kill the pope?”

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            The entrance hall of the Silken Tower is a soaring space, arched in webbing so intricate and delicate that the ceiling seems held up by weavings as light as air. Many of the Great Spiders have gathered round the edges, with Bhelg standing with Perditagathys and a small group of other important spiders on a low, throneless dais at the center of the room. The great front doors creak open just enough to admit a single slender and diminutive warrior armed with a spear, an axe, and many knives. Clad in armor that’s all leather and scrap metal, the warrior’s hair is undercut and pulled back in a braid, their ears long, tufted, and angled low as their big yellow eyes scan the room for danger--and light up when they catch sight of Bhelg.

            “Oh no,” Bhelg says, clutching Perditagathys’s foreleg. “Not them.”

            “Bhelg?” the goblin warrior beams, a yellow grin splitting their dun green face as their ears perk up. “Bombolius’s Bane in the flesh? By the Dead Gods, we all thought you were dead!”

            Tall for a goblin, Vrika Tyyagilg only comes up to Bhelg’s solar plexus, but they end their sprint toward her by leaping into a hug with arms and legs both. Bhelg hugs them back stiffly, mortifying memories rushing through her as she feels the surprising strength in those slender limbs.

            “I didn’t know you knew each other!” Perditagathys says, delightedly clasping her forelegs.

            “Bhelg and her mate killed some piggies that were harassing my siblings,” Vrika explains, climbing down off Bhelg’s chest. It had been the deed that earned Bhelg and Brodcrum the hospitality of Vrika’s clan while they infiltrated the Ankyrian capital in search of a magic sword hoard. Now Bhelg doesn’t know what’s contributing more to the deafening ringing in her ears: hearing herself described as Bombolius’s Bane, Brodcrum as her mate, or the visceral memories of losing a drunken wrestling match to this tiny warrior in front of their entire tribe. “And that was before they carved their way into my clan’s legends by slaughtering the shit out of one of Aman’s own chosen! What happened to Brodcrum anyway? Is he here too?”

            “He’s--dead!” Bhelg stammers.

            Vrika’s face falls. “Oh Bhelg, I’m so sorry. The whole tribe will mourn with you, once this is known.”

            “That would be…” Bhelg, in a panic, feels relief flood her as she stumbles onto the perfect excuse. “Bad for morale! Do not speak of this thing, the mission must come first!”

            Vrika nods seriously. “You’re right.” They clasp Bhelg’s forearms, which look more massive than ever in their tiny, rough-callused hands. “But it is very good to see you again. When Perditagathys promised the aid of an ‘Amazon champion’ we were skeptical but…” Struggling for words and seeming to remember more important things are afoot, Vrika turns and calls, “We’re among friends! Bring her in!”

            At Vrika’s call the doors open again, and in stride two dozen goblin warriors, tiny but whipcord lean. They flank a palanquin borne by a half-dozen goblin men, shorter than the warriors and burly in a slow, draft horse kind of way, and goosebumps ripple up Bhelg’s arms as she realizes who must be inside. Even as honored guests of the Tyyagilg Clan, she and Brodcrum had, on pain of death, been forbidden from entering the abandoned boiler room used as royal chambers.

            Some hundred or so other goblins--a loose gaggle of warriors, men, and distinctly feral-looking children of indeterminate gender--follow the palanquin inside as its bearers set it down before the dais. The palanquin’s curtains part, and out steps the only goblin woman Bhelg’s ever seen. Though barely hip-high on Bhelg, this goblin has a well-endowed human woman’s worth of curves. Proportioned like an ancient fertility idol, breasts stacked atop belly atop hips and thighs, all swathed in loose, soft white cloth, the matriarch of the Tyyagilg Clan looks like she would have been slow and awkward in her movements even if she wasn’t pregnant. But there’s also an instant air of charisma about her, a queenly bearing that makes her slow movements regal and portentous as she steps down from the palanquin. She glitters in the eerie green light of the Silken Tower, adorned all over with jewelry that seems half precious metals and jewels, half especially shiny trash.

            “Great One,” says the goblin matriarch, inclining her head to Perditagathys--she seems neither inclined to nor physically capable of bowing. “Damnation of the Wasps, we thank you for your hospitality. Our road has been long, and it’s a relief to know my next litter will open their eyes somewhere safe.”

            “It is our pleasure to offer what protection we may, Matriarch Cylusmi,” Perditagathys replies, though Bhelg knows, from the mutterings in the Tower the last few days, that this is far from a unanimous opinion. The Great Spiders had agreed to shelter the Tyyagilg Clan by majority consensus, but there was also a significant minority that thought taking in refugees was too big a risk to their fragile secrecy. “We would shelter you longer, if you asked.”

            “We will stay no longer than is strictly necessary,” Cylusmi replies, polite but firm. “Our old home may be lost to us, but our search for a new one will not end until we find a place where our independence is complete. I will bear a daughter within my next few litters, and she must have husbands of fresh blood to keep the clan strong. We hope to find some small fertile patch of land near the world’s edge, where other goblin clans still survive.”

            “It will be a hard journey, and you may not find what you seek, for much of the world’s edge is barren, and those places that aren’t are places of violence,” Perditagathys warns. “But that is all I will say on the matter. It is not my place to question your leadership.”

            “It is not,” Cylusmi agrees. She turns, making her slow way over to Bhelg and looking her up and down. The matriarch’s hair is long and thick, her face round and beautiful, and her gaze piercing.  “So you are the one who will help us get our revenge. Hear me well, human. For decades my clan lived in Vunderbort’s sewers and undercity, for they were the only part of our ancestral land where we could live without being hunted. But even that, in the end, was taken from us.” Fury lights the matriarch’s eyes, and though her husbands are weeping quietly now, her voice remains steady, and burning with hatred. “Before my last litter of children had even opened their eyes, the Ankyrians slaughtered them with poison gas that made them die convulsing in their fathers’ arms even as they tried to carry them to safety. My babies slain, the rest of us driven from our home--and for what? So the scum could dig the foundation of a new cathedral, all under the direct orders of Solegard Frompis, Lord High Poperiarch of the Church of Aman. For this he will die and all who love him will weep. Tell me, human warrior, what wound has my children’s killer wrought upon your heart, that drives your desire to carve his end?”

            Bhelg has always hated being put on the spot, pressure winding tighter and tighter the more eyes are on her--it’s why she lost to Vrika, obviously!--and she also hates bullshit, so out comes the simple truth: “He has a great hat.”

            Matriarch Cylusmi blinks up at her, certain she’s misheard. “You… want his hat?”

            “It is a grand hat!” Bhelg declares, pressure driving her to ramble, “Made of white dragonhide and studded all over with jewels--and like twenty feet tall, so big that he can only wear it in cathedral halls where it can be suspended from wires, but I know I’m strong enough to carry it, and my balance is such that I might even wear it, at least for a few seconds. Also I always wanted to kill a poper--the Ankyrians hate when you abbreviate ‘poperiarch’ and I can never decide if pope or poper is funnier--because Aman’s a shitty god and I know I’m going to Hell anyway and… uh… I have a thing for hats,” she finishes with an attempt at dignity.

            Cylusmi turns back to Perditagathys. “Your champion is mad.”

            Bhelg’s cheeks flush with embarrassment, but before she can decide whether she’s offended or not, Vrika steps forward. “Mad’s exactly what we need, Mother! She proved it by slaying Saint Bombolius. Nobody dared raise a hand against one of Aman’s chosen, and that fear was their armor and their greatest weapon. The deed itself was not difficult for one whom fear could not touch!”

            Cylusmi gives Bhelg a long look. “Fine. But know that I’m not sending all my warriors with you. There will be many others to take vengeance on you, if your hat lust gets everyone killed.”

            Bhelg glowers. She’s aware that even the smallest aggressive motion toward the matriarch would turn the other goblins against her, and also betray Vrika’s trust in her, so she restrains her indignation and says coldly, “It is a hat passion. There is a difference.”

            “For now, I invite you all to rest! There is food and wine sponges aplenty,” Perditagathys interjects cheerily, interrupting the weird standoff as Bhelg and Cylusmi glare at each other.

            The matriarch nods her agreement, calling to her people, “As she said! Let us celebrate this chance to rest--but with minimal drinking. Our vengeance begins tomorrow at first light.”

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            The Great Spiders hold a welcoming feast for their guests, and Bhelg spends most of it hiding from Vrika. The goblin warrior clearly wants to catch up, but Bhelg cannot bear the memory of her embarrassment, and so she wanders the tower with a wine sponge in hand. After a few hours of this, she understands that she is being a fool. She and Vrika will need to work together if this vile poper is to be slain, and Vrika is a great warrior despite their size. There’s no real shame in losing to them, no matter how other Amazons might howl in laughter if they heard the tale.

            But the feast is over by the time Bhelg returns to it and, seeking Vrika, she finds they and the other warriors have already retired to an improvised barracks of spidersilk hammocks. Standing in the doorway, Bhelg sees just one goblin still up and about: their matriarch, moving slowly from hammock to hammock, doing what Bhelg might call a ritual benediction for her warriors, but what is also clearly a mother kissing her children goodnight.

            “Need something?” Cylusmi asks in a low murmur when she emerges to find Bhelg standing there. She doesn’t sound hostile anymore, just tired, and now Bhelg sees the aching grief in her eyes. Though she had offered no insult, Bhelg suddenly regrets being angry with the matriarch, who has lost so much.

            “I would hear the names of the children you lost,” Bhelg blurts, giving voice to a sudden idea. “I would carve their names into the pope’s still-living body--I mean, I cannot read, but if someone writes them down for me, I can imitate the word-shapes. I possess a delicate touch with the flensing knife!”

            Cylusmi’s mouth has fallen open with astonishment. Then she smiles sadly. “That is a remarkable combination of kindness and brutality. I can see why Vrika likes you.”

            “They are mighty,” Bhelg says, just to have something positive to say.

            “Carry me somewhere comfortable,” Cylusmi says suddenly. “We must speak, but by the Dead Gods my feet hurt.”

            “You are not afraid to be carried by a madwoman?” Bhelg asks, but doesn’t hesitate to scoop her up in a princess carry. Be it in friendship, love, or war, she loves lifting people.

            “I am trusting you with my children,” the matriarch replies. “It is only right I take the same risk myself.”

            “Perhaps I am mad, I have never thought about it,” Bhelg says thoughtfully. “But if I am, I do not think it is in a way that hurts those I do not wish to hurt. Only those I do, they hurt a lot.”

            “So I’ve heard,” says Cylusmi. “I’m sorry for being short with you. It has been a long journey.”

            Bhelg has to work hard to avoid laughing at a woman of Cylusmi’s stature describing herself as being short with her. A moment later she finds one of the Great Spiders’ peculiar parlors, furnished with a circular pit full of cushions. Bhelg sets Cylusmi down and the matriarch learns back, adjusting her robes and proving she can somehow make lounging look regal.

            “You must be wondering if my warriors are all my literal, biological children,” Cylusmi says.

            “The thought crossed my mind,” Bhelg admits, sitting down beside her. “But it seemed like asking would be an insult.”

            “It would have been,” the matriarch says lightly, and sighs. “I suppose I wanted to head it off. The only human I ever talked to before today was an anthropologist from Aeyilwurt. Horrible old man. Spent months earning my clan’s trust, and the moment I finally let him in to see me, he asked me that. I might have forgiven him his ignorance, if he was not so…” She bares her teeth, which are quite sharp. “...untowardly fascinated with the details of my biology.”

            “He sounds very splatterable,” Bhelg says sympathetically.

            “He was.”

            “Good.”

            “The truth is,” Cylusmi says with a deep breath. “They are all mine. Goblin queens do not live as long as your kind, but the lives of the warrior sex are even shorter. Vrika is the last survivor of my first litter, and they have only a couple years left before they reach the age where they put down their weapons to help take care of their littlest siblings--gods it seems just yesterday they were holding their first spear. I know they don’t look it, but our kind do not age as visibly as yours. They will die beautiful, their heart giving out before their face is any more creased than yours or mine, and it will fall to their mother to plan their funeral.”

            “I’m so sorry,” Bhelg says, the tragically composed, understated sadness in the matriarch’s voice striking her deeper than tears would have. She only belatedly thinks to ask, “Why are you telling me this?”

            “Because I need you to know who I’m putting in your hands,” Cylusmi says. “My children--the fact that I have more than a hundred alive and still more dead does not keep me from loving each and every one of them.”

            Bhelg hesitates. What she wants to say might conflict with what she wanted out of this quest, that this all be for her and her alone, but it’s also what her honor demands, so she finds herself promising, “I will do all I can to bring them back to you. If the choice is between protecting them or killing our target, I will protect them.”

            “Thank you,” Cylusmi says quietly. “You are not repulsed by me, sending even more of my children to die to avenge their little siblings?”

            “It is their revenge too,” Bhelg says with a shrug. “I did not think any of them looked unwilling.”

            “You may have some trouble keeping them alive, and through no fault of your own,” Cylusmi warns. “The briefness of their lives makes them all too willing to spend them honorably.”

            “If any of them fall, I shall carve their names too,” Bhelg promises. “Assuming there is someone there who can show me how to spell.”

            That, for some reason, is what finally makes the matriarch cry. Bhelg stares, half in confusion, half in awe, because Cylusmi’s tears do not strike a single iota of her regality from her. Bhelg understands when the matriarch says, quietly but clearly, “Carve no names, I have none to give. We do not name our children until they open their eyes. It was not… not always so. I wish we lived in a world where there was no question about my clan’s future. I wish we lived in a world that took care of us, providing everything we needed to raise our children, as the Earth did in the age when my people’s gods still lived. We do not live in that world.” Now her words distort with burning hatred: “Aman and his chosen lords have stolen it from us.”

            Bhelg’s throat aches with the threat of tears. It’s not just the matriarch’s plight that has caught her heart, though it resonates there. There was never a place for Bhelg in this world either. Not with her father, not with Brodcrum, not even with the Amazons. Just Bhelg and Lunria--Cylusmi and her clan--against the world. They’re all lucky they found the Great Spiders. The last faded remnant of a power that might once have challenged Ankyria, now at least capable of helping them strike a single blow.

            Bhelg flashes back to her time in Vunderbort. Its vile luxury, opulence swarming to devour everything it could reach. She wishes she could seize those glittering towers in her hands and shake them till they collapse, stomp her feet until all the Earthshard shakes and all Ankyria has built on stolen land comes crashing to the ground.

            She cannot. Perhaps no one can. But she can kill one evil man. Maybe nothing will change. Maybe his death will be a wound to make Ankyria hem and haw for a week, then go back to its usual imperial activities. But it will be justice, and that is better than nothing. Some men are so vile that their destruction is a good in itself.

            Something has shifted inside Bhelg. What she’d conceived as a lark has become a holy war. Cylusmi, watching her, must be able to sense it because she dries her tears, breaking the silence by commanding, “Bring me his blood to drink.”

            Bhelg grins ferociously. “Only if I don’t drink it all first.”

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            Bhelg rises early the next morning, ready and eager for violence, a frustrated emotion because she knows the trek out of the swamp will take at least a day, and beyond that the plan is for a careful infiltration. She leaves her Tower chambers with both axes on her belt, but leaving her mighty dragon-hunting bow behind. It’s too big and cumbersome for a nitty gritty stealth mission, and it’s rarely a good idea to use it against Ankyrian wands which, while less accurate, have a much greater destructive power and rate of fire.

            Vrika smiles when they see Bhelg, and it’s a smile that punches Bhelg in the heart. It’s not beautiful by ordinary standards--yellow-fanged and lopsided, with the malicious gleam of a dirty fighter in the eye--but Bhelg likes Vrika, and knowing they don’t have many years left makes their happiness a thing of heartbreaking loveliness. Makes Bhelg regret avoiding Vrika at the feast last night.

            “Time to meet the crew!” Vrika says, taking Bhelg by the arm and leading her out onto the Silken Tower’s gently sloping front ramp, where waits a squad of a dozen heavily armed but extremely tiny goblin warriors. “Usually I’d introduce them to you one at a time so it doesn’t get overwhelming but it’s time to go and that’s what you miss not feasting with us! Those’re Roogs and Irgit, our best kneecap marauders. Tib and Cricko and Jub, who can climb and takedown a cop faster than you can say ham sandwich. Grag’s the best thief in general but Grorg’s the best at stealing Ankyrian military equipment specifically. Filri can read, Sobic can write, and both of them are geniuses with glyph magic and improvised weapons. Surm and Bigigi steal children, but always let them go after teaching them about mutual aid, labor-based theories of value, and all the swear words they know. And that’s Birgli.” Vrika’s mouth forms a thin line as they narrowly eye the very smallest of the goblins, who looks like nothing so much as a green volleyball with arms, legs, and a head that’s half ears. They lie sprawled on the front steps, completely still, mouth hanging open. “Birgli’s an impulsive idiot who’ll get us all killed one day, but they’re also our best fighter, so unfortunately we can’t leave them behind.”

            “Uh,” Bhelg says, staring at Birgli as she confirms they’re definitely not breathing. “I think your best fighter is dead.”

            “They’re just practicing possuming,” Vrika says, and explains to Bhelg’s confused stare, “Some of us can do that, take a real deep breath and turn off our breathing, our heartbeat, even go cold for a few minutes. Makes particularly stupid big things leave us alone.”

            “A useful technique,” Bhelg says, impressed, as Birgli suddenly sucks in a breath and sits up.

            “Vrika slanders Birgli!” they squeak furiously, brandishing their spear. “Birgli is the death of the unrighteous!”

            “Sure are,” Vrika sighs with reluctant affection.

            “An honor to meet you all,” Bhelg says as the goblins gaze up at her, some in wide-eyed awe at her size, others in squinting distrust or skepticism. “It shall be an honor to slaughter a theocrat at your side.”

            “The word’s poperiarch,” Jub says.

            “Idiot,” Bigigi says, smacking them on the back of the head.

            “Yeah, learn to read, Jub,” Filri says, adjusting the spectacles they seem to wear for fashion alone, because they’re just crumpled rims without any lenses.

            “You can both suck my cooch,” Jub snaps back.

            “Right, time to shut up and move,” Vrika says with a preemptively tired air of cat-herding authority.

            “Aye, we ride--err, march!” Bhelg agrees. We ride! is a phrase that comes out of Bhelg’s mouth surprisingly often, considering she hasn’t ridden a horse since she was a girl, and has only occasionally ridden upon Ankyrian artificial steeds. She’s noticed the same from other Amazons, and also some Barbarians, though they too are rarely rich enough to afford steeds. “I mean, if anyone gets tired of marching, they can ride upon my back.”

            An earnest offer that several of the goblins take as an insult to their endurance. Vrika defuses the situation by declaring, “I’ll ride her first! Take turns, it’ll save our energy for later!”

            So they set out, Vrika clinging to Bhelg’s broad back, into a grayly beautiful morning. Fine mist drifts down from an overcast sky, rendering the swamp around them indistinct in a way that makes an already magical and mysterious place feel moreso, distant objects made into vague blurs by the trillion tiny jewels of water in the air. The air is bitingly cold, but carrying Vrika is like wearing a brazier as a backpack, and before long walking is enough to keep her warm.

            It’s a quiet march, and one that takes all day. Goblins do not, as a rule, talk while on the move. They’re too used to needing to hide at a moment’s notice. But in place of marching songs they click at each other, a complex rhythm set by juxtaposing the clicking of teeth and clicking at the back of the throat. There’s a clear call and response pattern, and from the intermittent breath-quiet laughter, it’s clearly a complex enough code language to include jokes. Bhelg wishes she knew the code so she could join in on the fun, but attempting to imitate the clicking makes her throat hurt and gets all the goblins snickering at her, imitating her butchery of their language. She shrugs off this mockery. Might as well laugh loud and at everything, when your lives are so brief, and the cautious quietness of the goblins’ laughter makes her sad.

            They make good progress that day, Bhelg’s long strides balanced by the goblins’ natural talent for quickly traversing marshy ground. By the time twilight turns gray day into a black night, they’re drawing close to the edge of the swamp. Beyond that, Ankyria--specifically, the mysterious region called, “Suburbia.”

            They settle in a relatively dry clearing and the goblins manage to scrounge enough dry wood to make a fire. Bhelg produces two sacks she’d carried all day, one small and one very large.

            “We must all wear these when we leave the swamp tomorrow,” Bhelg tells the goblins, opening the small sack and passing out amulets, little knobs of something hard and warm cocooned in spider silk. Perditagathys had also given her detailed instructions, which Bhelg had memorized. Her illiterate need to rely on her memory has given her a mind like a steel trap--except when her mind is being like a stringy pile of mush, but that is only about things she doesn’t consider important, so she’s fine now. “They will let us infiltrate Ankyria without arousing suspicion.”

            “It’s not working, I can still see them!” Grag says as Grorg slips on their amulet.

            “They do not make us invisible, or even unnoticeable,” Bhelg says. She’d needed this explained to her twice, so she feels wise now that she understands it. “It is a modulated form of the power that makes Ankyrians disinterested in this swamp. They will react to us not by what we look like, but by what we’re doing. That is the limit of this power--do anything too out of the ordinary and they’ll realize I’m an Amazon and you’re all goblins. That means no bloodletting until we’ve finished scouting, made a plan, and are perfectly in position to slay the poper and his guards.”

            “Yeah, and no swiping shinies until after the target’s dead,” Vrika adds to much grumbling.

            “Under this spell the Ankyrians will fail to notice your green skin, sharp teeth, or beautiful ears, and assume you’re all children,” Bhelg says. “I shall be playing the part of your schoolmistress, as human women do not brood as yours do, and so pretending to be your mother would make no sense. This means I must pretend to be your leader, but I understand Vrika is the true leader here.”

            That sets off a chorus of, “Like hell they are!” but this seems a perfunctory display of pride, considering Bhelg’s seen them do nothing but obey their elder sibling all day.

            “To that end,” Bhelg continues, opening the large sack and passing out school uniforms. “The Great Spiders have woven us disguises, as Ankyrians have very specific ideas about what kind of clothes women and children should be wearing at all times.” Her heart drops into her stomach as she pulls out an enormous garment that is clearly her own disguise. She has not worn a dress since her father died, and this one looks even more stifling than the ones she wore as a girl, thick and floofy and covering from lace-ruffled chin to wrist to ankle. That it’s a silvery spider silk color helps maybe one iota, but that’s outweighed by the matching hat, which is an insult to hats everywhere. The lacy abomination is as wide as Bhelg’s shoulders, piled high with ruffles and flowers, secured under the chin with a ribbon that stretches from brim to brim.

            “Why’re there two different versions of our disguises?” Cricko asks, holding up a pair of trousers and a skirt.

            “One’s for little boys, the other for little girls,” Bhelg says.

            “We’re not boys or girls!” Surm objects. “We’re warriors!”

            “You know even better than I that Ankyrians don’t understand goblin warriors,” Bhelg says. “If their people have anything similar, they repress it like everything else. Those of you who are worse at not acting on your mischief thoughts should wear the trousers. They care less if boys misbehave, and will be less likely to notice.”

            Roogs gives Irgit a shove. “Guess we know which gender you are, dumbass.”

            “I’ll carve out your liver with a rusty spoon, Roogs,” Irgit replies.

            Bigigi holds a skirt at arm’s length, grimacing with disgust. “Why do they make their kids wear clothes with easy access to the horny bits?”

            “I do not want to know,” Bhelg replies. She’s heard rumors about the Amanite Church.

            “Guess we know which gender you are, skank,” Irgit says, throwing a skirt at Roogs.

            “I’ll give you easy access to your guts, Irgit.”

            Nobody wants a skirt--or, if they do, they hide it after seeing their siblings’ disgust. Vrika has to take charge, making the skirts into badges of honor by passing them out to the goblins they trust most. The goblins try on their disguises, pulling them on over their leather and scrap metal armor, gruesomely but good naturedly talking shit about how silly they all look. Insults and idle threats, Bhelg observes, seem to be the bread and butter of goblin warrior friendship.

            After that the night takes on a cozy feel, the lot of them gathered round the fire, eating supper and going round the circle taking turns doing their stealthy clicky alternative to singing. Vrika sits out, whispering a translation for Bhelg, which gets her howling. The “songs” are very funny, and surprisingly full of dirty puns considering none of these people can reproduce.

            Or rather, it’s surprising until after supper when all the clothes come off and the whole squad lies together in a big pile, rubbing on each other every which way. Clearly their sensitive parts work, even if their uteruses don’t. Bhelg watches with idle curiosity, undisturbed even though it does flash through her head that they’re all siblings. Technically. They’re not just a different people, they’re a different species, and it’s not like any of them are likely to meet goblins from other clans, not since Ankyria wiped out most of them and left the others scattered.

            Bhelg’s disinterested comfort with a bunch of goblins rutting right next to her does not survive Vrika asking, “Wanna join in?”

            Bhelg glowers. Vrika, stripped out of their armor but not their loincloth, is thankfully too wirily muscled, too harsh of face and hairy under the armpits to be mistaken for a child, but still the offer makes Bhelg want nothing more than to just leave.

            “No,” she says in a tone that brooks no argument.

            But Vrika doesn’t seem insulted, and they don’t press either. Sitting companionably next to Bhelg they whisper, “Between you and me, I don’t care for it either. Like I guess it’s fine when I’m feeling…. I dunno, really close with these shitheads, but I’d just as soon stick to cuddling and not wear out my arms with all the crevice diggin’. If you want someone to keep you warm, like literally, nothing else to it, I’m game.”

            Bhelg considers. Away from the Tower the night is damp and chilly, and now that she’s over her decade-old embarrassment, Bhelg feels a warm glow of affection for this goblin warrior, a flame fed by the knowledge that Vrika should have all the warmth they can get before they have to go into the dark. She says, “Come here.”

            Bhelg lies down with her back to the fire and the writhing mass of horny goblins. Vrika snuggles close, their back warm against Bhelg’s chest. Bhelg puts an arm around them, then realizes how uncomfortable her strophium has gotten with its leather between them. With a breath of relief she takes it off. She’d go topless much more often if Barbarians and Amazons alike didn’t stare so openly, and she’s noticed goblin warriors, not having any, don’t seem to sexualize tits. Maybe the males go wild for them, but for the warrior sex the only breasts around belong to their mom.

            “That’s comfier,” is Vrika’s only comment. Then, after a pause, “Would you mind stroking my ears?”

            “Is it a sex thing?” Bhelg asks.

            “No, just soothing,” Vrika says and Bhelg obliges, running her fingers gently along the outside of one of Vrika’s lovely ears. It’s covered in a very fine, peachy fuzz, which grows out into a dark tuft at the tip. Vrika lets out a contented sigh. “Thanks.”

            “Think nothing of it,” Bhelg says. She’s finding the experience pleasant, a bit like petting a friendly cat, though she’s not sure if Vrika would be offended by the comparison.

            “I’m really glad I got to see you again,” Vrika says, only the tiniest edge of tragedy to their voice, a thing Bhelg would not have noticed if Cylusmi hadn’t told her about their short lifespan. “Still more that I’ll get to fight alongside you. I never got the chance to tell you… how much hope it gave us, when you slew Saint Bombolius. The Ankyrians were always taking and taking and taking… and we never had a chance to fuck ’em back in a way that mattered. Then you and Brodcrum came, and you showed us it could be done.”

            Bhelg doesn’t know what to say. Or rather, she has plenty of things to say that she knows will make Vrika unhappy. That she and Brodcrum had stumbled onto Bombolius by accident, that he’d begged them to kill him because he was a whiny little heaven boy who couldn’t stand being on the Earthshard another moment. Bhelg and Brodcrum hadn’t been heroes. They’d been stupid kids on a stupid quest. That they’ve since become symbols of resistance seems the most ludicrous and perverse lie Bhelg can imagine.

            “Oh no,” Vrika says as Bhelg, to her horror, realizes she’s crying. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned Brodcrum.”

            “He’s not dead!” Bhelg admits, drying her tears. “I just… well, we broke up.”

            Vrika rolls over to stare at her. “You what?”

            Bhelg blinks. It had not occurred to her that breaking up might be an alien concept to a goblin warrior with a very different set of tight-knit social bonds. “Well… it’s what humans do when they have spent a long time loving someone, only to eventually realize that their love has blinded them and their beloved is actually horrible stupid arrogant scum who was never that good at fighting anyway.”

            Vrika doesn’t look more heartbroken than when they thought Brodcrum was dead, but they do look more horrified, thousand-yard-staring over Bhelg’s shoulder as if suddenly fearful their own love might be deceiving them in this way.

            Bhelg, scrambling for something reassuring to say, blurts, “Your mom seems nice!”

            Vrika snaps back to themself with a little shake. “She is. Kind as she is fuckin’ ruthless, as are all the best moms. My love for her is unshakable. It’s just… sorry. I am used to thinking of love as stronger than fuckin’ anything. A… how would Filri put it… a universal absolute to fight everything that’s evil in the world.”

             “Maybe it is,” Bhelg says, thinking of Lunria. “Maybe what Brodcrum and I had was not love and I was just a fool. I was often a fool back then.”

            “That must be it,” Vrika says, though it sounds like they’re trying to convince themself.

            “Maybe it does not matter whether or not love is a universal thing,” Bhelg says. “Maybe it is more precious if it is rare. Maybe we are all the more lucky to feel it so deeply, in our own hearts and from the hearts of others.”

            Vrika is silent for a long moment before hugging Bhelg tight. “You’re good at comforting for someone who’s so good at killing.”

            “I think all the best people must be thus,” Bhelg says.

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End of Chapter 1. Onward, to Chapter 2!