Page 30 of Dishonor Among Thieves
He shook his head, his fiery eyes and thick brows boring into me. “Where is Haeloc? Was he here!”
There was a weak groan from the goblin, so I squatted as low as I could and reached for his tiny hand. His claw-like grip was so, so weak. My pulse danced a frantic beat in my wrists as I summoned my courage. This being was dying. Suffering greatly. If we couldn’t get Odile here, or get him back to Odile, we could at least make his final moments less horrific.
Elgit groaned, using his remaining strength to look at me. The corners of his mouth curved a bit, and I knew he was thankful for the cloak. I wrapped both my hands around one of his, the flesh clammy and cold. The touch of the nearly dead. I wanted to reach beneath my tunic, find my charm, and stroke it for comfort. I wouldn’t, though. I dared not release the fading goblin’s hands.
My warmth seeped into his flesh, and he seemed better able to speak, his fingers jerking as if he was clinging to every bit of warmth from me. I would not deprive him of that small comfort, and as he groaned a whisper, I pressed his hand.
“Came…for Haeloc…”
“Who?” Neo demanded. “Someone came looking for Haeloc here? Why? What do you know? Tell me, man, and I will avenge your brothers, your guildmaster, and every beast that’s been slaughtered in this sanctum!”
I wanted to tell Neo to calm down, that exciting the goblin might only lead to his deterioration, but the small being seemed to regain a bit of purpose, a bit of spirit.
“Vlareq… Fangs…”
That seemed to tell Neo everything he needed to know. He clenched his hands together and roared, a soul-rending sound that startled me into a full-body shiver. The goblin on the ground didn’t react. Didn’t move. His dry-looking tongue lolled between his slack lips.
“Stay with him,” Neo demanded. “I’ll make sure there are no other survivors.”
I nodded, but I was fairly certain there was no one else left. I had little experience with the dead, but the absence of breath or sound, the absence of tears in this mess of misery suggested to me that none but this poor, wrecked Elgit had escaped fatal injury.
Neo wandered every inch of the sanctum, inspecting the walls, opening drawers of desks that had been overturned. It looked as though this had been a workspace for trades of all sorts. The goblins whose bodies littered the floor were all dressed for craft. Aprons covered their clothes. Many wore gloves that reached their bent elbows and hats that held back their hair. Money sacks had been emptied and discarded. Mugs of ale and buckets of water crushed as though stomped under the boots of giants. Which, compared to the goblins, even an average-sized man was.
Elgit gurgled, the word sounding like it was being spoken through water.
“Neo!” I called through the sanctum, fearful this creature was dying.
But even my panicked cry could not distract Neo from whatever he had found. He stood over an upended wooden workbench, holding a mask in his hands. The impression of a woman’s face was still visible, despite the goblin dagger that pierced the space between the eyes.
“This…This was our business here tonight.” His voice was bitter, the glint in his red eyes hard. He sheathed his sword and took the mask between both hands, slowly pulling the dagger from between the eyes of the girl.
“That mask?” I asked.
Neo nodded. “The goblins make death masks for the living. Their mud is infused with a serum only they can create. It’s unlike anything the common folk have. Allows them to create a perfect seal over the nostrils and eyes. I’ve seen no other creature craft such a perfect death mask on a living person, not even using enchantment.”
I stroked the back of Elgit’s hand, noting that his temperature seemed to be improving. He was warmer, even if all I felt was my own transferred heat. Holding his small hands in mine felt less like holding the fingers of a corpse, which made the task feel that much easier. “Why would a living person want a death mask?”
“Such a mask would be convincing proof if one sought to fake their own death,” he said simply.
The sadness in his voice clutched my already aching heart. “Why would someone fake their death?” I asked. Of course, I could imagine many, many reasons. Had I the means or the opportunity, I might have sought one myself before escaping the foundling home way that I did. How much sooner might I have found my freedom with an object such as this?
As my eyes traveled the features of the mask, I could not believe the mask was not alive. The curve of the lips and the perfect detail of her eyes and lashes gave the impression that any moment the mask would open its eyes and speak.
“My client was a girl,” Neo said bitterly. “Destined for an unwanted marriage because she has means and land. I brokered the deal with the goblins. Brought her here in Flynn’s cart, her eyes and head covered so she would not know the way or the means by which the mask was being made. Vlareq’s craftsmen charged her an unreasonably high price for this. I was to collect my own high price from the girl after picking it up and delivering it to her.”
While I tucked away that bit of information about how my husband made his money, my heart went out to the girl whose problems were the opposite of mine but no less difficult. And the solution she’d sought was now useless.
“What will she do now?” I asked. “Can the mask be repaired?”
He held the damaged item in his hands and spoke to it as though he were addressing the girl herself. “I will find a way. There are other goblin camps. Vlareq and I have a long history of trust, though.” He sighed. “Had.It seems those I may truly trust grow fewer day by day.”
While Neo walked past bodies, looking for clues or evidence or what, I did not know, I whispered to my charge.
“Would you like some water?”
No matter what Neo thought, there was a chance this creature would live, and I would do anything within my reach to help him.
The goblin did not respond, his breathing heavy and his eyes closed.
