Izzy Chapter 30: Not Enough Breath-Stealing In The World (Patreon)

“Quick, now! Stay low, stay quiet, and stay together!” Izzy commanded. Then she led her scrum up the small bank, out of the bushes, and across the cleared ground that surrounded the pens. And the scrum thankfully, miraculously, obeyed. None of them took off in another direction. They didn’t tussle, or scuffle, or even bicker. They were all focused, and they stayed quiet and on-task. Until they reached the first pen, that was.

The pens were simple, more a statement or a deterrent than a real means of imprisonment. They were made of poles, roughly debranched, sunk into the ground, and held together near the top with thick twine or thin rope. With the right tools, they should be easy to breach. In and out, quick job, and none the wiser, that's what should have happened.

But that would have been too easy. And so, as soon as they reached the closest pen, the goblins were all pressed close to the poles and trying to see through. “Gnaw!” Howl whispered with all the subtlety of a dying rabbit. “Are you in there, Gnaw?”

“Rosehip!” “Vixen!” “Trout!” “Acorn!” The goblins started babbling names of tribes-mates, whether they’d seen them around the camp or not, and soon there was a minor commotion inside the pen. All the while, Izzy hissed, “Shut up! Shut up and dig, you idiots! You’ll alert the guards!”

But it was no use. The goblins were too excited about seeing their lost friends and family again, and they weren’t listening. Not until Stick applied drastic measures.

He stole their breath.

Now, he didn't go all out. Izzy figured he must have put very little mana into the spell for each casting. But it was undeniably effective, as one by one, with no air to speak with, the rest of the scrum fell silent.

“Sorry!” Stick whispered, exhaling heavily. “Very sorry! But you really need to listen to the boss.”

The others stopped gasping and slowly got their breaths back. They glared at Stick, but no one jabbered after that. Instead they brought out whatever improvised digging tools they had — axheads, flat rocks, a stout stick in Buttercup’s case — and got to digging around the bases of the poles.

Of course, their previous noise hadn’t gone unnoticed. On the other side of the poles, drawn, tired faces pressed up, trying to see what was going on. “Goblins?” a voice whispered curiously. Izzy didn't know what language it was speaking, but it wasn't Goblin or Human, so probably Gnomish “Why are there goblins? What are you doing? How did you get out? Why didn't you run?”

“Shhh!” Izzy hissed in the same language — being able to speak and understand anything was so useful! “Getting you out! Are the other goblins with you?”

“Some, not most. How don't you know? Aren't you prisoners? Oh, are you here to rescue us?!”

“Rescue?” other voices babbled. “Rescue us? Get us out? Goblins here to free us? Why?”

“Be quiet!” Izzy snapped a little louder. “If the gnolls hear you, nobody is getting out!”

“Oh! That makes sense, doesn't it?” the voices babbled for a bit before going silent.

As fast as they could, the goblins dug out the base of first one pole, then another, and another, and more until they could lift up enough of them for a goblin to squeeze through… or a gnome. And squeeze through, they did! An almost solid wall of gnomes had gathered on the other side of the fence, and as soon as they understood what was going on they began silently helping, digging out dirt with their fingers and lifting and tilting the poles until, one by one, ten or a dozen total, they could press through the gap. They gathered in an orderly group a few lengths away.

And behind them came goblins. Three goblins, two of whom launched themselves at Stick, and one, Acorn, who did the same to Twitch.

Izzy had to apply her staff liberally to keep the volume down. She was starting to wonder if she should have listened to Mash. “Shut up!” she hissed, wishing for a moment that she might have been bound into a gnome instead. They at least kept their voices down while celebrating their unexpected freedom. “Gnolls will hear us, you worms-for-brains! Acorn!”

“Shaman Mash?” the gal said, as though she’d seen Izzy for the first time. “Shaman Mash! You made it!”

Izzy bonked her on the head. “Keep it down! Acorn, Stick, take our new tribesmates and the gnomes and lead them to the water, then into the forest. Don’t let White drown anyone! Then come back! The rest of you lot, to the next pen!”

Furiously nodding their understanding, the scrum took off toward the next pen, still hidden from the gnolls by the third. As Izzy made to follow them, though, she saw the loose poles move again. She watched curiously as they lifted, and then she was eye to eye with a human, too wide to fit through the opening. An older female, she thought.

Izzy did the first thing that occurred to her: she thrust her staff at the human. The human scrambled back, the staff clattering off the poles as she said, “Wait! Wait, please! Gods, can you even understand us? Don’t leave us!”

“I understand you,” Izzy spat. “I understand you just fine. Stay back! I won’t let you kill any more of my people!”

“Shaman Mash?” Acorn said. Izzy looked at her. Stick was leading his two tribesmates and the gnomes away, but Acorn was still standing there, looking nervous and hopeful.

“What?” Izzy asked, jabbing with her staff as the human lifted the poles again.

“That’s Nana, Shaman Mash. She and the humans… they’re not so bad. Pretty okay, really.”

“Acorn?” the human asked. Then she shocked Izzy by continuing, in halting goblin, “That you, Acorn? Tell! Please!”

“It’s me, Nana. I’m trying! See, Shaman Mash, they've been with the hills goblins for ages. Been learning Goblin and everything! They’re different! Friendly!”

“There’s only four of them,” Mash commented, probably having looked through the fence. “Low levels, too. Not much of a threat.”

“Friendly? They’re your friends?” Izzy said incredulously.

“Eh, more like friends with Goat and Heather and the rest. But no trouble with goblins!”

Izzy had a wide, flat rock of her own. She looked at it, considering. These particular humans must have come with the gnolls from wherever. They hadn’t done anything against her tribe. And Acorn was… well, she wasn’t the cleverest gal in the tribe, but she’d never been an idiot, at least.

“Dammit,” she muttered, then turned to the human, who was peeking out from between the poles. “Nana?” Izzy asked. Then she held out the digging rock and continued in Human, “Here. Dig sideways. I’ll tell the scrum to help if you’re not out when we’re done. Don’t go in the water without me or Stick — the skinny guy. The naiad’ll probably drown you if you do.”

“Thank! Thank!” the human Nana said, taking the rock from Izzy’s hand. Holding the poles up, she gave the rock to a younger male and told him, “You heard her! Get digging!”

It didn’t take long before goblins — none of them Izzy’s — and gnomes came trickling out of the second pen, and Izzy went to join her scrum. That left only the final pen. 

That was where most of Mash’s surviving tribe were being held. A dozen, out of… nobody actually knew how many, but a dozen wasn’t all that many. They already knew that from watching the camp, but it was still a painful reminder.

Rosehip was there. Neither Gnaw, Vixen, or Trout were, but Acorn’s mother, Oakleaf, was. So were Knuckle and Blueberry and Twist and a whole bunch more, all of them quick, stealthy, or clever enough to have escaped the camp when the humans attacked. Just not enough to avoid being captured by the gnolls, or to avoid making an almighty ruckus when they realized who was coming to save them.

There wasn’t enough breath-stealing in the world to silence them. Izzy slapped her palm across her own face just as Mash told her, “The gnolls are coming to see what’s going on!”

They only had one pole dug out enough to move. Oh, well. They hadn’t expected it to be easy.

“Stall them!” Izzy hissed to the goblins inside the pen. Then she asked Mash, “Are they coming around?”

“No, there’s only two of them coming to check.”

Izzy turned to Caj. “Feeling brave?” she asked.

“Feck kinda question is that?” the fairy said indignantly, flitting around her. “You know I’m brave! Don’t got to prove anything, do I?”

“Good! Go piss off the biggest one and get her to chase you, but don’t let the two that are coming see you! We need a little time.”

“Eh…” Caj said with a lot less bluster. Then he got right up in Izzy’s face, grabbing onto her eyebrows and saying, “Ye better make it feckin’ worth it, aye?” Then he was off around the side of the pen.

“The rest of you, with me!” Izzy told the scrum, and led them around the other side.

From the front of the pen, angry gnoll voices speaking truly awful Goblin alternately told the goblins to shut up, and to tell them what all the noise was about. The goblins inside all started babbling at once, all of them speaking quickly and making themselves utterly impossible to understand.

The gnolls got angry and started making various horrible threats in Gnoll pretty quickly, but Izzy didn’t have time to worry about that. All she cared about was the noise from the far side of the camp, gnolls cursing and howling about “damn bug-men” and “scabrous flying bald bastards.” Caj, beyond any doubt, had their attention.

The noise from Hrika and her nearest minions got slightly less loud. Izzy hoped desperately that meant that they were following Caj away from the pens — ideally into the forest — and led her scrum around the side of the pen.

The two gnolls didn’t have the pen open. They stood crowded beside each other on a rickety ladder, leaned against the poles and shouting down over the top of the fence. And they were too distracted by their anger to even know that the scrum was on them until Izzy sunk her Spiderfang into the side of the first one she reached.

It wasn’t a fight. The scrum finished the two surprised gnolls off while Izzy cut the ropes holding the gate closed, and the goblins inside came hobbling out. Every one of them had a barely or poorly healed ankle, just like everyone else, and Izzy saw a lot of healing in her future. But first there had to be a future, because a hue and cry had gone up from where Hrika and the others had been lounging.

When Izzy looked over, there was Hrika. She was one of the biggest gnolls Izzy had ever seen, she had an axe in her hand, and she was screaming, “They’re getting away! Get the little bastards!”

The gnolls hadn’t bothered chasing Caj far, and now they were back. They were pissed, and they were coming.