When I looked over the shard, I found it to be fairly strong. The glass was thick and seemed tempered. It was unlikely that it would break easily — It must have taken a really hard hit to form the shard. Whatever had happened, I now had myself a sharp weapon that became even more useful when I wrapped a strip of my handkerchief around it to serve as a handle.
And today my beauty had tasted the blood of the beast.
What emotions was I feeling after my triple murder?
Not many. My mind was stable, but I was having troubling thoughts about flaws in my technique
I had another practical idea — I would bandage my right knee as tight as I could before doing anything like that again. Today it had almost snapped in two at the most crucial moment.
We sat on the warm bench for twenty minutes, occasionally exchanging glances, then slipping back into idle thoughts. Suddenly, we heard shouting from the hallway we had come from. A minute later, a breathless goblin missing his right arm ran out into the intersection, whirled in a strange semblance of a shamanic dance, and shouted again:
“Murder! Murder!”
More than fifty voices flooded him with questions. The questions were all slightly different, but in essence could be reduced to just a few:
“Who?”
“How?”
“Where?”
“Who did it?”
The one-armed goblin, still dancing, spun around especially fast and blurted out:
“Johnny the Lion! Thoma the Pretty! Zanha the Ugly! All of them murdered, just a few paths over from here. Throats slit. It was a bloodbath! One of Mother’s eyes is on it already. They gave out eight interment jobs, so it’s someone’s lucky day today! Of course it would take that many to drag Johnny’s body away...”
“They’ll come after us.” Yorka whispered. “Investigators. Detectives.”
What was she talking about? Although she had mentioned something about someone coming after us. But we had to leave that for later — we didn’t get the chance to talk. As soon as the mouthy goblin stopped shouting, everyone gathered at the intersection started turning their heads towards the two of us sitting humbly on the wall ledge. Towards numbers Eleven and Ninety-One.
News reached intersection 17 rapidly. People here had been hearing about the two goblins who taunted the rabid fat orc known as Johnny the Lion. They knew he had planned to punish the two who had mocked them — really punish them. And now Johnny the Lion, Thoma the Pretty, and Zanha the Ugly were dead, face-down in their own blood.
So many eyes focused on us that I couldn’t stand it anymore. I raised my head, smiled broadly and asked the people around me the simplest of questions:
“Can I help you, fellow goblins?”
Most of the curious eyes looked down when I spoke. I turned to the one-armed herald still standing in the middle of the hallway and said:
“Go on, spread the news. Where did it happen? How exactly were they killed? Give us more! We want all the bloody details!”
“Yes, Mr. Goblin, sir!” Mumbled the herald. “I mean… Mr. Eleven!”
“I am a goblin. Elb the Goblin. And this is my good friend, Yorka the goblin. Do you get it?”
“I do! Elb the goblin and Yorka the goblin!”
I had no idea why I was still calling myself a goblin, but it just seemed right. It wasn’t time to turn my back on the mud that gave birth to me yet. I was a child of the Outskirts, the birthplace of worms, zombies, goblins, and orcs.
“More details, minstrel. Come on!”
“Hmm…” The goblin’s long face made it clear he had run out of news. He had said everything he knew all at once. All he had left to say were the numbers of the ones who had threatened to kill, then killed Johnny. But how could he say them out loud when everybody knew what he was going to say? When the people he wanted to name were sitting right in front of him with an expression of creepy, bone-chilling friendliness…
“That’s all the news I have,” the herald said, studying the floor. “I’m sorry…”
He vanished, and the intersection returned to its normal buzz of activity.
It was a fortunate turn of events. We just had to sit and wait for the employers or the investigators Yorka had mentioned before.
There were some kind of law enforcement officers in this world, and it looked like we were going to meet them soon.
Chapter 7
AT FIRST, WE HAD NO LUCK finding work. The Solar Flame Brigade offered us hauling again, which we weren’t interested in at all. When Yorka heard the caped halfling Morris calling out, she went towards him, pulling me along. I pulled her back. When she sat back down, I explained:
“We’re not going to work our fingers to the bone for a couple t-shirts and handkerchiefs. Never again!”
