"Very well. You can leave the bare minimum of staff to care for all this splendor."
"You really like it?" Lurch asked timidly.
"Of course I do. But for future reference, all expenses over a hundred gold have to clear my desk. This is official, effective immediately."
"Yes, Sir!"
I heard what sounded like the chirruping of hundreds of sparrows coming from the direction of the mosaic paths. Then a screech of metal. This felt like some sick déjà vu.
I turned my head and my blood turned to ice. Squalling and quipping, a dozen goblins were dragging across the paving stones the enormous egg of a 500K GP bomb, its stabilizing fins bent.
Chapter Eighteen
"All freeze!" I squeaked, watching the metal spark against the stone. "Where d'you think you're taking that?"
Apparently relieved, the goblins let go of the bomb which thumped to one side, crumpling its fragile fins. I shut my eyes and shrunk my head into my shoulders. A second passed. Nothing. Phew. I could live without this sort of surprises.
One of the cleaners—no idea where he'd got hold of his grubby bandana—wiped his sweaty forehead. "Well, eh... You said eggs, didn't you? We're taking this thing over there," he nodded at some designer art in the shape of a hill two stories high covered in flowers and veined with blue streams.
I stared at the hill's rounded sides. Then one of the flower beds stirred, letting out the shabbily clad skinny backside of a goblin crawling out from under the amber moss. The creature cast a furtive glance around and began studying his stolen trophies. Raising his left hand to his nose, he sniffed what on closer scrutiny turned out to be another grenade. With a screech of metal against metal, he tried to bite a bit of it off, snorted his disappointment and cast the inedible thingy aside. The grenade thumped up and down on the uneven ground, rolling toward us.
By then I was quite used to the sight of ordnance being dropped. Stepping on the dirty-green sphere, I stopped its chaotic journey. The same as the one I'd taken from the dwarf, only the markings this time were a sickly glittering acid green. Good thing, anyway. Waste not, want not.
In the meantime, the goblin was already appraising another trophy. This time he was in luck. An enormous egg the size of that of an ostrich—at least—promised him a hearty meal. The goblin sniffed it greedily, bit the top off, then began swallowing the contents. I, however, was studying the handmade hill with a different eye, recognizing the familiar shapes of various ammunition in its bumps and mounds. If the whole thing detonated, holy mother of God...
As if answering my thoughts, a dull explosion echoed not far from us. The earth shook quite tangibly.
"That's nine," Lurch commented.
I peered at the cloud of smoke rising over the castle walls. "A sapper only gets to make one mistake. And that's when he chooses his profession."
Only then I noticed the goblins' foreman. He was running past us, his stick shredded, one eye twitching.
"Harlequin? Where do you think you're going?"
"Eh? What?" he looked about him. Finally noticing us, he ran right toward me. "Master! Forgive me, Master, but we need more hands!"
"Really? What have you done with the old ones, then?" I upped the sarcasm in my voice.
He hung his head. "It's that damn nest. Once I told those idiots we were looking for eggs, they keep tasting everything they find. Also, sometimes the shells break when they drag them. Then we had this big boom..."
"Casualties?" I grew serious. It was all right laughing at it, but every blown-up goblin was costing me.
Harlequin made a helpless gesture. "I can't be everywhere at once, Master. These are their clans' castoffs, they have no brains, only instincts. If I could have some warriors or craftsmen, or even free artisans... Those guys over there are junk. All they're capable of thinking of is food, sex and the fear of punishment."
Oh well. Hint taken. Penny wise and pound foolish. But how was I supposed to know you needed brains to collect junk and sieve through stone debris? True, I'd accepted the cheapest offer available... and a cheapskate always pays twice. "What are our losses, exactly?"
"One mighty big egg, three medium ones and lots of small ones. They just swallow them whole, the bastards..."
Illustrating his words, a new Boom! assaulted our ears, much more powerful than the previous one. The earth tried to shake us off. A gray cloud of dust rose to the sky over the outer wall.
"That's four medium ones," the foreman corrected himself.
"Actually, I meant workers. And how about this egg, does it count as 'mighty big'?" I looked at the bomb which by now was gradually integrating into the garden's design. The flowers' tendrils climbed its rough sides, generous touches of colored moss streaking the sad metal. Quick job. Better not to drop anything of value here: before you could bend down to pick it up, the lost gold piece would be forever buried inside the trunk of an ancient oak tree. No joke: it looked like the gardeners had overdone it on the growth promoter.
"That one? That's a medium one," the goblin snickered at the bomb. "The real mighty big one, that was a different story. I was a hundred paces away and my eye is still twitching. So I'm afraid we don't have many workers left, Master! A dozen-plus at most. You've got to hire a few new ones."
Holy cow. I dreaded to think what it was that they'd detonated over there. No, I couldn't leave it like that. These little goblin rats were certain to blow us all to hell and back. Besides, it was a shame wasting our supplies so pointlessly. Every explosion made my inner greedy pig sob as he mourned, crossing it off his list, every bit of the loot we could have taken off the great dragon Nagafen had we used all that ammo to blow him to smithereens.
"Lurch? Do we have somewhere where we can store hazardous artifacts? Someplace well protected, preferably underground?"
"We do indeed," he answered. "The lowest level of the basement, Alchemy Laboratory #2. Before, it was occupied by some spider-like monster and now it's Hell Hounds living there. Master," he hurried to complain, "the hounds disturb the walls' integrity! They're digging two tunnels, one of which is coming out behind the exterior wall!"
I glanced at the hound next to me. I had little doubt that her mental magic skills were more than enough to listen into our conversations, so openly she sneered and wiped her feet on the grass as if removing the non-existing cobwebs. Actually, I wouldn't want to be the spy who used the tunnel to walk right into the Hell Hounds' lair. Besides, I had indeed promised I'd let them choose any room they wanted so it wasn't quite kosher to backpedal now, not to mention the harm it could do to my reputation. Head tilted to one side, the hound followed my thinking process with some interest. Jeez. I really didn't need another cloak-and-dagger specialist to haunt me.
"No, Lurch, I don't think we need this kind of time bomb right under our backsides," I told him. "If something goes wrong, God forbid, the First Temple will be blown to kingdom come. At least my friends and I can go back to our respawn points, but the NPCs have no such luck. You'll be reduced to nothing. Hound?" I halted, not knowing how to address her. It really was time I got her a name. "Excuse me, Hound, if you find it too personal, but actually—are you male or female?"
The pooch glared at me, tensing up. Her mental message hit me like a slap in the face—literally, judging by the Divine Immunity prompt that popped up. I ignored the attack. Sorry pup, I didn't mean it.
"Female," she mumbled, indignant. "Males are incapable of mental speak. They can't lead the pack," she snorted, bathing me in another mental wave of indignation that sent the squeaking goblins scampering away. She was one powerful bitch.