Slave of the Goblin
Vashti Valant
Chapter One
Concealed in a cocoon of silence on a bosky prominence overlooking the human village, Laya cocked her bow and awaited her prey. To her goblin enemies, the elf woman was known as Nemesis—or sometimes, even more crudely, as Cock Kicker, because of her habit of taking out goblin warriors while they attempted to rape their battle captives.
This time she stalked the most audacious target of all. Akraz the Terrible, the Goblin General himself.
Once their pants are down, they’re all the same, Laya dismissed the slight frisson of fear she felt. I’ll take him out while he’s fucking, as I did with all the other rutting goblin beasts. She slung her bow and quiver over her shoulder. Just so long as Hunter can marshal these human farmers to fight long enough to keep the rest of his army off my back.
With the exception of her friend Hunter, Laya did not place much confidence in humans. Even now, she could hear their rustlings and whisperings from the other hill. Of course, her elven hearing was superb, but goblins too had excellent hearing.
“Why do they not come?” growled one of the human men. Clovis, she recalled, the leader of the village. He was a farmer trying to be a fighter.
“Quiet. Patience.” That terse command came from Hunter. A human orphan raised by elves, Hunter knew as well as any elf how to be still, even if the other humans did not.
The human village in the valley below them looked peaceful enough in the gentle glow of moonlight. As the minutes built into another hour, even Laya began to fear that Akraz the Terrible was too cagey to fall into her trap. Though he was a brute of a goblin, Laya had learned the hard way not to underestimate his cunning. When it came to war, he knew his business.
Laya mulled over her failure to ignite passion with Hunter. It was not indifference, but fear that made her freeze. Or was it because she did not fear Hunter that she felt nothing in his arms? She gripped her bow all the more tightly. The Seeress had been right. Only by confronting her fear could Laya overcome it. Tonight I will do it, Laya promised herself. Tonight, after I spring my trap, I will make one of the goblin brutes suffer what Taniya suffered all those years ago. That will free me from the fear—and the fascination—of them.
Clouds drifted across the moon, darkening the valley. The goblins at last made their move.
On the other hill, Clovis gasped. He’s never seen real goblins before, Laya reminded herself. To him, they are but stories told by his grandmother on Harvest Eve.
“I thought they would be smaller,” Clovis nearly whimpered. “Little, twisted creatures, with teeth like raccoons. But these—these look just like real men!”
Some humans made the same mistake about elves, thinking that elves were diminutive, cutesy creatures like bunny rabbits, instead of the tall, slender race of demi-human they were. If Clovis harbored any such misconceptions, however, his first glimpse of Laya had cured him of it. She stood taller than Clovis himself, though her build was much more delicate and shapely. Like many elves of her tribe, her long, pale gold hair held a touch of green, while her jade green eyes sparkled with specks of gold.
Hunter must have taken pity on the farmer. Instead of shushing Clovis, he replied softly and grimly, “Look more closely. They have the size of men, but they are more than men.”