Goblin War Chief by Gerhard Gehrke

Author:Gerhard Gehrke [Gehrke, Gerhard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lucas Ross Publishing
Published: 2019-11-08T22:00:00+00:00

They hiked until evening. It took that long for her to unravel her thoughts about the morning’s events. She had never dealt with anyone like Chief Gelid. While Noe could be intimidating, Gelid was something else entirely. He had a ruthlessness that was frightening.

She knew of no raid ten years prior, but she didn’t believe he was lying. With Gelid’s attitude about sages, this raid wouldn’t have been recorded. He’d said it had been his warriors who had been involved. That meant Gelid’s raid had come down from Athra, the purpose unknown.

Thistle overheard Arens request a fire, but Noe passed the word along that there would be none that night. She piled the blankets on her patient as she tucked him in and propped up his litter to act as a barrier from the wind.

One Stone and the others who had pursued the tribesmen had caught up with the warband. Thistle wasn’t close enough to overhear their report. She made a quick count. They hadn’t lost anyone. And she didn’t smell fresh blood.

Wren was hunkered down with his cloak pulled over his face. His breath was a silver line of mist.

She settled in next to him. “This keeps up, it’ll get chilly tonight.” She nudged him. He didn’t respond. “What’s wrong?”

“The goblin with the neck wound died.”

“Oh no. What was his name?”

He offered a vague shrug. “Is that all that matters? At the end of the day, who died?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it. We need to find a way to care for those who can’t continue.”

“That’s what I tried to do. Carrying them with us is hard and will only get harder the colder and weaker we get. And if there’s more wounded, we won’t have a choice but to set up a hospital.”

One Stone and the new arrivals were scraping the ground to clear a spot to bed down. A few passed out grubs, nuts, and any other bits of forage they had gathered.

Wren peered out from under his hood. “You should know I was the one who suggested you go to help set up a camp with the wounded.”

She locked eyes with him. “Why me? There’s others who know more about caring for the sick.”

“That’s not the reason I suggested you. I don’t think you should be here. This is only going to get worse. But you’re the only one who keeps fighting Noe on how to proceed.”

“Because sometimes she’s wrong,” she hissed.

“Maybe, maybe not. But you keep finding ways to tell her that to her face when others can hear. You did it again this morning.”

“You heard?”

“Goblins talk.”

“It’s not like she makes herself available to me.”

He let out a sharp sigh. “She doesn’t need to. You had a choice to be part of this or go home. Look, I’m not saying this to hurt your feelings. But every time you square off with her, it’s poison.”

She let his words soak in. Then she got up and collected her blanket.

“Where are you going?”

“Away from you.”

She didn’t have a plan or a destination.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.