Cricket

1

A Chance Meeting

Runt arranged the weathered swords on the weapon rack with extra care, placing Deets's sword closest to the entrance. The tiny goblin adjusted all three until he believed they were perfectly straight. He placed his own sharpened stick against the wall nearby.

There would be no punishments this time. Runt swallowed hard at the thought, and moved his stick a bit further away from the others. He grinned nervously, trying to force a calm and nodded to himself reassuringly—no punishments!

The goblin twitched as the rattlings' laughed raucously from the next room, followed by the rattle of bone dice on the table.

Runt waddled back to the hallway on his stubby legs and saw his forgotten mop bucket. He ran breathless over the uneven hallway, intent on resuming his chores, when Fat Deets roared.

Instinctively, the goblin cringed, throwing his arms protectively over his head. But the shouts were not directed at him. Rather, the obese ratling had drawn a knife in response to one of the twins disputing his roll.

Runt peered around the corner in time to see a smaller, mangy ratling take a slash to the chest before it withdrew, squealing into the corner.

Runt shook his head, wondering why anyone would dare to defy the monstrous Deets.

"You gut me!" Deets hissed, raising his forearm in the dim torchlight to examine a small scratch. "He gut my arm open!" Deets wailed at a third ratling.

Runt's nostrils flared as a waft of fermented parsnips poured through the doorway.

"I'll have your tooth!" Despite his size, the ratling leapt over the table. He dropped his knife and wrapped his plump fingers around one of his victim's lower teeth.

Runt hung his head and proceeded toward his bucket, ignoring the screams of pain. The goblin sighed, relieved that the fight would tire his fat master. He retrieved a dingy wad of bat fur and dunked it in the murky water, muttering nonsense to himself as he scrubbed the pumice floor.

In only a matter of weeks, the thrice-daily scrubbings of the crumbly stone had visibly lowered the tunnel floors. Runt's ears no longer scraped the ceiling in the crawl space.

The goblin frowned. That only meant that Deets would fit soon. Currently, it was the only place Runt could hide out of reach of the ratling's grubby hands. Oh, Deets could scream and spit and throw tankards at him. But his master's laziness always got the better of him, and he'd eventually waddle off for more accessible prey.

The sounds of the quarrel retreated down the opposite hallway and Runt enjoyed only a moment of respite before the shouts actually grew in volume. Deets's screams of anger turned to screams of panic, which horrified the tiny goblin.

The green hairs on the tips of his ears stood on end.

A quick clacking reverberated from the stone and a flash of white passed into the armory. The older twin—distinguishable by his peg leg—snatched a sword, knocking over the other two in the process. Seeing the goblin peon, the ratling cried "Black Death!" before it darted back the way it came.

Runt squealed and began to hyperventilate. He rushed toward the fallen weapons to straighten his master's sword before the mess could be seen.

The younger twin darted into the room next. He paused, sniffing the air as he looked back over his shoulder. Blood trickled from a gaping hole in his lower jaw. His white fur shivered as he weighed his options. Hearing a clash of blades, the cowardly ratling abandoned his brother, fleeing empty-handed toward the rear exit.

Something monstrous roared. Something more monstrous than Fat Deets!

Runt trembled so violently that he fell to the ground. He forced himself to crawl toward his sharpened stick and gripped the unimpressive spear with pale fingers.

The clashing sounds of metal retreated. Runt wished to help his master. He whispered a plea to Vandal, the demi-god of luck—misspronouncing the simple name—but long minutes passed before he found the strength to walk.

Runt dashed down the eerily-quiet hallway in short bursts, pausing to wipe the tears from his eyes when his vision grew too blurry.

He passed two guards with slit throats, then the mangled form of the older twin—identifiable only by his peg leg.

Before him, a hulking black demon lifted a guard into the air with one of its four, clawed arms. It held the ratling warrior's maw closed as it bashed its skull repeatedly against the rock. The demon's tail writhed, breaking chunks of stone from the wall behind it.

It turned to face Runt, discarding the broken ratling with a flick of its wrist. The demon's horns rose in curved spires above its head until they nearly touched, its skin so dark it appeared as a stain of blackness, like a shadow thrown upon the wall.

Runt's neck refused to hold his head steady. It twitched, pulling his gaze to the left, repeatedly and mechanically. The goblin bit his tongue involuntarily, so deep that he felt blood welling up in his cheeks.

Distantly, he heard his master's wincing, whimpering breath.

The demon's muscles tensed and rippled as it turned toward the sound. Then it bounded away.

Runt let out a pitiful sound. He wiped his eyes again and took a shuddering step after the demon, more fearful of his master's unpredictable cruelty than a quick death. He passed body after body. He knew most of the ratlings, though he only recalled one of the guard's names–Gutters.

His boot clanked against Gutters' dented helm as he stepped over the still body. A ghastly, snickering laughter filled the halls, echoing impossibly long down the rock tunnels.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

When it faded, a panting pricked his ears—breaths somehow louder and more hurried than his own, and he smelled again the heavy, cloying scent of fermented parsnips.

There, crumpled against the rock, an obese ratling, twice the girth of the others, wheezed in quick spurts. Deets stared off into nothing, not registering the tiny goblin.

Suddenly, his master looked small.

A shadow beyond it moved, and Runt studied the black stain, expecting glowing eyes. But the demon's black eyes blended with its silhouette.

A magical darkness enveloped the goblin and he cowered as the demon approached. The wind from the demon's lashing tail chilled his flesh.

* * *

"So there I was", Bax thought to the others, "LITERALLY dancing for my life!" The gnome beamed and threw his arms out wide, though only Cricket saw the gesture.

The gnome looked over at the insect expectantly. "Well?"

"Well what?" Cricket scratched his chin as he stared down at a tiny runt of a goblin groveling, too scared to plead for its life.

"Hmph!" the gnome cried out loud, and in a vindictive spat released the illusion on Cricket. The facade of the demon vanished instantly, replacing his horns with antennae. Cricket's tail disappeared entirely, along with the illusory cracks it had gouged in the wall.

He waited for the insect to complain, but grew impatient. "Have anything to say?"

Cricket offered him only a glance. "Oh, thanks. I didn't want to scare him."

The goblin buried its face in the mud.

Bax stomped his foot. "I mean about the story! I don't think you were listening!"

Oydd sighed, still speaking telepathically, his voice quiet and distant. "Well, that's not what literally means."

"I'm asking the bug!"

"Hmm?" Cricket took a deep breath. "Yeah, it wasn't literally for your life."

"I didn't say it was!" Bax folded his arms, pouting. "I said I was literally dancing." He paused and muffled the rest, "for my figurative life."

"No" The rudra thought, succinctly. "And I offered this link so we could communicate silently. Not so you could hold us hostage with your stories."

Trembling, the tiny goblin finally managed to position its spear toward Cricket.

Without a thought, Bax released another phantasmal laugh that echoed in the narrow corridor with such ferocity it rippled the goblin's tunic.

"Stop!" Cricket shielded the goblin. "He's terrified."

"Oh…" Bax suddenly knit his brows in concern.

The insect crouched and patted the goblin on the back. "There. It's okay. We're friends."

The goblin only dared open one eye to peek. No longer seeing a demon, some color returned to his face until it was a hardy green.

Bax forced a grin, and the goblin flinched. The scratched his nose, thinking, then reached into his pouch for a piece of bat jerky and extended the offering to the petrified goblin.

After an exchange of encouraging looks, the goblin dropped his spear, grabbing the food with both hands. He crammed the whole piece in his mouth, which was far more than he could chew, then tensed, used to eating his scraps on the run from Deets.

"Bax," the gnome said, extending his grubby hand.

"Me too," the runt replied in scratchy common, more out of nervousness than dishonestly. He reached out to shake with his own grimy paw.

Bax shook vigorously, then placed his hands on his waist. "Ah, powerful name! Pleased to meet another Bax. All of us are."

Runt's eyes widened and he shook his head, spraying bits of mud and grey saliva mixed with blood and bat jerky. "No, no, no…" He pointed to himself. "Runt."

"Oh, well, it's an impressive name, even if you are a runt," Bax amended.

Cricket agreed. "It's also impressive that you're smaller than our Bax. We'll call you Runt Bax."

The insect patted the goblin on the head and Runt smiled, for the first time in his life.

Bax—the gnome—groaned. "Can we just call him Bax, and call me Big Bax?"

"I don't want to commit to Big Bax until we find a third Bax and see his relative size," Cricket reasoned.

The gnome raised a finger. "What if the next one's even smaller? Then runt will seem prema-toor."

"That's unlikely," Cricket reasoned. "And don't pronounce it that way." Cricket sensed Oydd nodding in agreement from miles away. He turned back to the runt. "You can come with us, if you want." He glanced over his shoulder. "I think everyone else here is dead."

The goblin nodded excitedly before panicking and shaking his head instead. "No, no, no… not all dead," he squeaked anddarted down a side tunnel.

"He's not leading us into an ambush, is he?" Cricket whispered out of Bax's earshot, not wanting to distress the gnome.

"I think not," Oydd replied. "Look at the floor."

"What about it?" Cricket said out loud, drawing the gnome's attention.

"It's wet. If anyone passed this way recently, there would be more footprints."

Cricket pursed his mandibles. "Smart." He started after the goblin, but froze. "How did you notice something I didn't notice?"

"I can see through your eyes now."

"Well that's—" Cricket raised an antenna in alarm. "New." He sighed, deciding not to object and chased after the goblin.

Bax huffed after him.

By the time Cricket caught up to him, the goblin had ducked into a side room and returned with a dented brass key. Runt wiped the mud from it, then polished it on the wax of his floppy ear, before leading the others to a narrow stairwell that descended a hundred yards into the dark.

Runt took the stairs at a run, but Cricket followed cautiously, noting specks of dried yellow blood on the wall. By the time he arrived at the bottom, the goblin had retrieved a mostly burnt beeswax torch, and attempted to light it on the cold embers of a brazier.

Cricket placed a hand on his shoulder, reassuringly. "I can see a little."

Runt whimpered, having seen the ratlings successfully light a torch many times on a lit brazier, but not understanding his failure.

Bax arrived at the insect's side. "Oh, barf!" He pointed at the ground in a panic.

Confused, Cricket looked down, finding insectoid footprints—larger than his own—in the dried mud at his feet. The tracks led to a dark cell across the chamber.

"He's bigger than you!" Bax hollered, indelicately.

Cricket opened his mouth to counter, but before he could speak, a black lump rose from the shadows on the far side of the cell. It stood nearly seven feet tall if you counted its antennae.

Cricket cleaned his eyes to get a better look. He absently began to clean his feelers, as well, while he peered into the dark.

Numerous wounds marred the stranger's dull, black shell—some of them looked years old, by Cricket's estimation. The huge insectoid carried himself like a warrior. One of his lower arms had been hacked off near the elbow, and Cricket detected a foul, gangrenous stench coming from the appendage. The insectoid cradled the wounded limb in his other lower arm.

As Cricket approached the cell, he saw a second insectoid—a woman, a bit smaller and younger than Jade, despite their similarities. She huddled in the corner, weak with hunger. Though their exoskeletons prevented a gaunt look, Cricket noticed the tell-tale signs of starvation among his kind.

Cricket's eyes widened beyond belief as the color drained from his face. "Well, fuck…"