Fodder Squad- Chapters 3 and 4

Fantasy/Warrior Wednesdays

"I'm not going to be able to see nothin' from here," Ralphie complained as he swiveled about, his field of view ahead a milling sea of legs in trousers, chain mail leggings and skirt ruffs. Steve the rat, perched on his left shoulder, ground his teeth.

Not going to see anything, you little shmuck,he thought glibly. Double negatives, I swear you don't pay any attention in that frickin' school. The rat arched his head up to look to Samuel, who fair towered over most of the folks around them. He paused, looking down at his son, his wife, and the rodent.

"There might be a better vantage spot down there, but I mislike where it be fronting," said the blacksmith. Martha stepped out to the street, returning a moment later.

"There's only the two people sitting there. What's the problem," she asked.

"That be the Rusty Tankard," said Samuel. "T'is a tavern, and no place for our boy to be near."

"It's not like we're going inside for a pint," said Martha, taking Ralphie by the hand and guiding him through the townsfolk around them. They pressed out beyond the crowd to the intersection nearby, the mostly cleared sidewalk fronting the tavern ahead. Steve felt a bolt of trepidation, spotting a goblin in a dingy red peasant's shirt and black trousers seated there in a flimsy folding chair, a travel mug standing by the right of the chair for quick access. Beside the goblin stood a plainish human woman in a dark blue dress and stained white apron, clearly a serving girl of the bar.

Steve knew that goblins ate rats if they got hungry enough, though not out of habit. This one looked about twenty pounds underweight, and wore a semi-permanent scowl, if the frown lines on his face were any kind of indicator. Let him try to eat me, I'll give him reason to frown. As the Olafson's situated themselves, Martha tried to make small talk, which was her habit.

"Beautiful day for the parade, isn't it," she asked politely. The goblin grunted in reply, while the serving girl just nodded. "I'm Martha, this is my husband Samuel, and our son, Ralphie," she said. The goblin turned his head only a half an inch toward the hume, clearly not one for flapping his gums. His yellowish eyes swiveled over and met those of the rat, and for a moment, narrowed on the wiry black rodent. 

"Azira," said the goblin evenly, his voice even more gravelly than Ralphie had ever imagined a goblin's being. "Of the fallen clan Batang." The goblin turned his face away, looking down the street, where the forward-most entertainers could now be seen making a turn a quarter mile away.

"What does that mean, father," Ralphie asked. "'Fallen clan'?" The father grimaced, Steve saw, and rubbed at the back of his head awkwardly.

"It means there's not many of them left, son", Samuel replied after a few moments.

"What your dad means is these pricks you people are celebrating are actually a bunch of murdering psychos," Azira quipped, not budging to see the effect his words had. Steve could feel the boy flinch back beneath his paws, but this didn't have his whole attention; no, the goblin had that. It spoke as if possessing intimate knowledge of these Saviors of Graneck.

"Do not say such things to my boy," Samuel Olafson snarled at the back of the goblin's head, hands clenching into fists. Steve saw Martha reach out gently to hook her hand into the crook or his elbow to hold him in place.

"Look, Ralphie, jugglers," the mother proclaimed loudly. The parade entertainers were now plainly visible, and Ralphie clapped his hands excitedly as they wound their way along, tossing and gyrating and dancing. Musicians, peppered throughout the assemblage, filled the air with wonderful, upbeat song, wordless but all the more pleasant for it. Steve scrabbled down the boy's back to the sidewalk, unsure of his balance up on the boy's shoulder now that he was bopping around to the tune. Risking a quick glance up, the rat saw that his 'owner' was paying him no mind, so he inched his way over toward the goblin and serving girl.

"It isn't noon yet," the girl was saying over the music to Azira, the goblin. "Diana says I'm not to serve you until then at the earliest." Steve situated himself right on the edge of the curb, angling so he could get a better look up at the goblin and serving girl. 

"Diana's being a meddlesome bitch," Azira grumbled. "Is she even here yet?"

"She's in the back in the kitchen, making food. Do you want me to go grab you something, Az?" The goblin's face stretched in a rictus-like grin.

"Yeah, an ale," he said.

"You know what I mean," said the girl with a snort. 

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said. "I wouldn't turn down a ham sandwich." The server girl ducked inside through a pair of batwing doors, and the goblin took up his travel mug, unscrewing it. Steve recognized the scent of cheap coffee, laced with more than a little cream and sweetener. The goblin took a swig, pausing as he went to set the mug back down to look the rat in the eyes. "Always wondered if you things could understand people," he said.

Sensing an opportunity, one not to be missed, Steve nodded. The goblin blinked rapidly at him, casting a glance back and forth. With the parade carrying on in front of everybody, of course, nobody was paying them any mind. He leaned down a little, his hooked, bulbous nose like the mast of some misshapen ship bearing down on Steve.

"Do you know the words I'm saying," Azira asked in the common tongue. Steve bobbed his head up and down. The goblin then unleashed another set of sounds from his mouth, with roughly the same inflection. Steve had never heard its like before, so he just shrugged. "No goblin, but the common tongue." The goblin suddenly sat up straight, looking away from Steve, hands gripping the arms of his chair tightly.

Steve caught a whiff, quite faint at first but notable, of horseflesh drawing near. Sprinting back over to Ralphie, the rat scaled his owner's clothes and hair until he sat perched like a bird atop the boy's skull, which elicited an amused chuckle from the kid and his parents. Coming up the town's main street was a long, luxurious open-top carriage of highly polished black wood, with plush, elevated seats in the back of it. The crowd closest to the wagon had begun shouting and cheering louder than before, practically losing their minds by Steve the rat's estimation. Why are they so excited, he wondered.

Moments later, he guessed why; the Saviors of the kingdom were in the luxury wagon. But where the crowds were elated, Steve's fight-or-flight instincts kicked into motion, and the shrieking harpy of panic unleashed a hellish roar in his tiny skull.

That's him, he thought, staring at a young human man in the rear of the wagon, seated right behind the driver. I know that scent, I know that FACE! He killed my family! Governed largely by instinct, Steve the rat had survived by always listening to the tiny voice inside. It always counseled caution, hiding, sneaking away from conflict. Even now, the tiny voice was yelling at him to scurry down to the sidewalk and hide behind Ralphie's leg. 

But there was another voice, one that roared louder than the Panic Banshee and the Teeny Tiny Terrified Tone, and it demanded he ATTACK! ATTACK NOW!

And it was to this voice that he listened.

**

Azira knew what was going to happen before it actually happened. Rising from the rickety folding chair, seeing the world around him moving in slow motion, he felt a ghoulish smile spreading across his face. One moment, the rat was trembling atop the kid's head, coiling itself up tight as the luxury wagon bearing the Saviors drew nearer. The next moment, the rodent was blasting through the air, a coiled spring that has been unleashed from some holding latch, queer, angry squeaking noises coming from its mouth as it hurtled forth, claws outstretched and slobbering mouth wide open as it took flight at one of the humes in the wagon.

There were cries of alarm from the nearby onlookers, the kid shouting "Professor Von Whiskers, no!" The hume was flailing around in the wagon, trying to grapple with the mad scrabbling, hissing, sinewy creature as it swiped and snapped at him. The wagon came to a halt, and the hume finally managed to get hold of the rat and fling it away toward the tavern. It hit the wall beside a window with a 'thump', and Azira whipped around his chair toward it, beaten there by a few steps by the kid and his hulking father, the blacksmith.

The rat looked stunned, but otherwise unharmed. The kid scooped it up and stroked its fur, fawning over it, and behind them, the goblin felt the approach of unspent fury. He and the smithy turned, and found themselves only a foot away from an incensed Jack Ressling, one of the Saviors of Graneck.

"That rat belongs to you, boy," the young man snapped, panting with anger. 

"My son did no wrong here, m'lordship," the huge smithy said, shuffling half a step to his left, putting himself between his son and the Savior. "Know this, please. I have already told to him my feelings on keeping such a thing as a pet."

"It drew blood, sir," said the smaller hume, holding up his hand, which had been scratched up pretty good. "It must be destroyed." The boy behind him gasped, but this gave Azira an idea. He stepped up closer to Ressling and put one finger up under his chin to draw the young man's attention.

"You know, I haven't had lunch, and the tavern here will cook up whatever a customer brings in," he whispered to the hume.  "The boy needn't know what's happening, and everyone walks away happy. Just tell the kid goblins are good at keeping rats as pets, he's a kid, he'll buy it." Ressling raised an eyebrow at him, then looked past the huge smithy to the boy. Finally, he nodded.

"Boy, this goblin has no pet of his own, and they are known for their affinity for such animals," Ressling lied smoothly. "He informs me that it likely smelled something in the oil I use for my hair, something most folks wouldn't know if they weren't as familiar with rats as his people are. Give him the rat for keeping, and I shall be satisfied." 

Azira turned to face the boy and his father, a man who looked like he could easily crush both his and Ressling's heads at once, one to each massive hand. But he seemed to slump and crouched before the boy, hands on his shoulders. "This is for best, my boy," he said gently, moving his son toward the goblin. Azira reached out, softly took the rat into his arms like a cat, and let the boy pat it one last time.

"Goodbye, Professor Squeaky Von Whiskers," the boy said, choking back tears. Azira, meanwhile, thought, Yeah, this kid's either going to get beat up a lot in school, or he'll grow like his father and start smushing faces. Either way, not my problem. Azira nodded to the father, and made his way swiftly into the Rusty Tankard Tavern.

It was just the start of what would turn out to be a fascinating day for the goblin skirmisher.

Chapter Four

"Surely you understand why I have to make certain assumptions," Bruce said, his hands locked into position. Despite his age and history of injuries, Constable Swinton was still capable enough of utilizing force when necessary, as Azira could loudly attest if his face were not at that moment being pressed down against a table in the back corner of the pub. One of Bruce's hands grasped the goblin's wrist, the other pressed down on his shoulder, giving the constable leverage. He eased off slowly and stepped back from Azira, the rat chittering angrily on the table at the officer. 

"I understand racial profiling against greenskins," said Melissa, arms folded over her apron. "I'm telling you, the rat belonged to some human kid, and Az here took over to keep everyone from getting upset. It was actually rather impressive." Bruce planted his hands on his hips, looking Azira up and down.

"What's impressive is that you didn't take a swing at Jack Ressling when you had him right in front of you," said the constable to Azira, who was rubbing his wrist. "I must've heard you cursing the Saviors at least three nights a week since I started carrying you out of here a couple of years ago."

"Yeah, well, our furry friend here took some much-deserved swipes at him," the goblin replied. Bruce looked at the rat, which appeared to be nodding in support of Azira's observation. "Kind of wish he could talk, tell me how it felt to take a piece of that cocky little psychopath." Melissa nodded as well, but kept her eyes downcast, as if she had her own reasons to agree with the goblin, but wished to keep them private. But Bruce had no time to dig in on that; he had a duty to complete for the day.

"Keep out of trouble," Bruce said, jabbing a finger at Azira, then at the rat. "I suppose that goes for you too. Melissa, cut him off early if you have to," he added, making his way out of the Rusty Tankard. When he was gone, Azira slipped into the booth and eased back, arms draped over the padded backing. 

"The usual," Melissa asked, pulling out her paper pad and pen almost needlessly.

"No, not today," said Azira. "For me, a light ale and that ham sandwich I mentioned before. And for my friend here," he said, inclining his nose toward Steve the rat. "Some water in a saucer and apple slices."

"No cheese," Melissa asked mockingly.

"You're thinking mice, and even they usually prefer fruits and grains," Azira said. She jotted down the goblin's order, and took a moment to bend down, looking eye-to-eye with the rat.

"I'm assuming you don't need silverware, right," she asked it. In response, the rat shook its head, sat up on its haunches, and clapped its clawed forepaws at her. Melissa's expression fell into a blank stare, held in place as she crept away from the booth. 

**

"I'm off duty, Diana," Bruce grumbled as he tried passing by the tavern on his way home to his flat. The red tribe werewolf woman swooped around thr burly constable, now dressed only in his armor and a dark green, open-sided coverlet and matching leggings over his civilian boots. "Whatever he's up to in there, you'll need someone else to deal with him."

"That's just it, though," she said, putting her hands up to stay him. "Az isn't soused." Bruce raised an eyebrow at her, sniffing to see if there were any hint of hooch on her breath this time. "He's in there talking to Melissa and that rat of his."

"Must be absolutely scintillating conversation, then," Bruce said. "Why would this be of any concern to me?" Diana looked around at the mostly empty, benighted street, and leaned in closer to the broad-shouldered constable.

"I remember when you first came here," she said, looking him in the eyes. He kept from flinching with an effort; civilized as most lycanthropes in Tamalaria were, it never eluded him that they were all capable of horrendous acts of savagery, if prompted. He liked Diana well enough, but he had seen her on the verge of a fury, and he would never want to be her target in a hostile situation. "Before the town guard took you on, when you were coming here every day and drowning your sorrows."

"I recall, though not clearly," Bruce admitted, looking aside to a lit street lamp. 

"You said something, a few times as I remember, and it reminds me now of Az in there. You used to say the Saviors were no real heroes. And now Melissa's in there, and I think she may know something of her own along those lines." Bruce looked up at her, saw the truth in her eyes and the slight pull of her lupine lips. Great warriors, werewolves made, but he'd never met one that was much of a liar. He shoveled one hand toward the batwing doors of the tavern, a 'Lead on' gesture, which she took up.

Once inside, Diana just pointed him back toward the same table he'd rammed Azira's face into just six hours earlier. "Has he been here the whole time?"

"No, he went home for a little bit, came back armed and with that duffel on the floor," Diana whispered. 

"Armed?" Bruce squinted through the gloomy lighting in the bar and the wafting drifts of smoke from pipes and cigarettes. Seated with his back to the rear wall, Azira's lower half was hidden by the shadows under his table. Bruce started making his way over, and a few feet away, he could see the leather sheathes of the goblin's hooked blades peeking out over the edge of his table. Melissa Chandi, the serving girl, sat with her back to the constable, mid-sentence as he drew near, and situated in the middle of the table sat the wiry black rat that had, apparently, caused quite the stir during the parade.

"Azira, Melissa," he rumbled. "Do you mind if I join you?" The goblin slouched back a little, one eyebrow raised at the constable. There was an ale pitcher, only half drained, on the table beside the rat, which appeared to be napping with its snout laid out on the backs of its forepaws. Melissa craned her neck back to look up at him, and she scooted her chair over a foot or so to allow Bruce space to drag a free chair over from nearby. 

"I wouldn't expect we'd be your usual crowd, constable," Azira said evenly, eyes half-lidded with dry and evident suspicion. "Although, that begs the question of whether or not you even have a usual crowd." Bruce eased himself down into the chair he'd snagged with a long sigh, shaking his head.

"That's unimportant, for now," the constable replied after a minute. "It occurs to me that you and I actually have something in common, aside from our residing in this town."

"Oh? And what, pray tell, would that be, Constable Swinton," Azira asked, recalling finally the middle-aged lawman's name. 

"A willingness to admit, if only to ourselves, that the Saviors of Graneck aren't perhaps all they're cracked up to be," Bruce said, which elicited a flicker of the rat's tail, one beady black eye cracking open. Bruce tilted his head to one side at it.

"Yes, he understands us," Azira said, pouring himself half a glass of the ale and then one for Bruce. The constable took the offered glass, lifted it slightly in a 'salut', and took a sip. The drink was simultaneously sweet and bitter, causing his mouth to pucker. "Graff," said Azira. "Sweet but strong apple beer. Blame the gnomes, if you need to."

"I assume Sir Squeaks here doesn't actually talk himself," Bruce quipped. 

"No, but he does do 'yes or no' questions," Melissa put in. "It took a while, but we've parsed out that he's got a grudge against Jack Ressling, same as me." Bruce took a much smaller sip of the graff, which he assumed was the right amount to imbibe at a time. Even the goblin, a drunk if Bruce had ever known one, only took small pulls on his. 

"I didn't know you had a history with one of the Saviors," Bruce said. He tried to keep his voice down, taking a moment to peer around the tavern. There were only a few other customers scattered about the bar, and none seemed interested in their bizarre little cadre. 

"Jack and I grew up together, down in Sothun," Melissa said, pushing her long black bangs out of her smooth but plainish face. Bruce might have once considered her a handsome woman, were he a good thirty years younger than he was. "We were friends all through our school years. We played all sorts of games with some other friends, shared everything as we got older. Jack and I grew, close," she said demurely.

"You loved him," Bruce said. "But not like a sister or friend." Melissa, cheeks flooding scarlet, looked up and nodded at him. 

"When we finished our schooling, Jack came to me one day and said he was going to start training to be an adventurer, told me he'd joined the Freelancers' Guild out of Darsa, northwest of Sothun, due west of us here in Bronze Pot. He said he'd already accepted his first task, a kind of traditional test of his readiness. Well, shortly after that job was done, Pel Droma's people started causing trouble around the kingdom, including in Sothun. Jack rushed home to check on his mother and father, and I'd hoped at the time he would check on me too, seeing as most times it was just mother and I at home."

"Were you harmed during those days," Bruce asked gently.

"Thankfully, no. Before Jack even got back into town, there was this traveling warrior, a lizardman, who'd been staying in the village. He fought a lot of Droma's greenskins and illeck by himself at first, until Jack, I don't know, I guess he partnered up with him at some point."

"You're talking about Jarek Ko," Azira snarled, thinking about the hulking lizardman brute who had become one of the Saviors by fighting against Pel Droma. The goblin's disdain, laced with a trace of fear, was not lost on the veteran constable. Melissa snapped her fingers.

"That's his name, right," she said. "I remember people around town talking a little about him, that he'd just won some kind of melee tournament in the city-state of Ja-Wen, way out east. Not a surprise, really; the guy's a beast." She flapped her hands and shook her head. "Anyway, by the time they had beaten and driven off all of Droma's people, that elven mage friend of theirs, Toka Mano, had joined them as well, and I left the house when I hadn't heard any fighting for a while. I found them coming out of the town stables, getting ready to mount up and give chase to Droma's people who had fled.

"I begged Jack not to leave, broke down and told him I loved him," Melissa said softly, looking off at nothing, into Memory, a single tear welling up to begin its descent down one cheek. "And he, he hugged me, real tight, you know? And he just held me there for a minute. And when he pulled away, he told me he'd come back for me," she said, sniffling loudly and wiping her nose and eye. "I thought for sure he was riding off to die."

There fell on the group a heavy silence then, broken finally by Azira. "So, what happened, then? When he came back?"

"Well," Melissa began with a flap of her hands. "It had been two weeks since they'd beaten Pel Droma and his forces had disbanded, everybody knew and was celebrating. And Jack comes back to Sothun with the other Saviors, including that woman, Talya Jacobson, and I was so excited. But what does he do, first thing?" Melissa snatched the pitcher, poured herself a measure of graff, and slammed it down with a snort. "He goes running off to that slut Tina Dupree's place, fucks her silly for like a week, and then takes off with his buddies for a ceremony in the capital in their honor!"

Azira grimaced at this, shaking his head in commiseration. "That's pretty rough," he said. "And personal. As for me, well, they butchered just about every member of my clan," he said. "The real bitch of it all? A handful of us had thrown down our weapons, just trying to escape the battle outside of Allish, and that reptile psycho comes after us from behind, just pushes that spear of his through us one at a time."

"How did you survive," Bruce asked.

"Partly luck, partly quick thinking," Azira said. He reached into the pouch he kept strapped around the front of his waist, taking out a half-empty packet of cigarettes and lighting one for himself. He held the first inhale for a long moment, finally releasing it in a slow, steady stream from the nostrils on his bulbous, hooked green nose. "As he was pulling his spear out of the fellow just behind me, Ko's spear shaft snapped in half. I heard the break behind me, and instinct took over; I was slicing and stabbing as soon as I could wheel back on him. But that reptile, he must've been born with a weapon in his hand, because I only managed to land a few glancing blows before he had his own long knife in hand. He nearly killed me, probably thought he had 'cause of this," the goblin said, pulling the collar of his tunic shirt down to expose a scar just to the side of his throat, along the collarbone. Bruce let out an appreciative whistle.

"How bad was it overall," the constable asked.

"I was wandering around for a few days out in the wilds, bloody and out of sorts. Finally got picked up by some Wayfarers, their healer patched me up," said Azira. He pointed at the rat between them on the table then. "I really wish we could find out exactly what this little guy's story is, though." Bruce considered the rodent for a minute, then smiled. 

"We can," he said.