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[Lazybones]

Chapter 26


Irontooth stormed through the passage, still limping slightly on his injured foot. Each painful step stoked the fires of his rage. He’d bested dozens of foes, and to be challenged so by a pair of halflings!

He reached the mouth of the passage and found Kurgus waiting there, with a dragonshield beside him. The wyrmpriest’s eyes widened just a fraction as he took in the goblin’s current condition. “Are you well, Lord Irontooth?”

The goblin, however, ignored him as he looked around. “You have remained here the whole time? None came out this way?”

“No, great lord. Both exits are being watched, and the waterfall as well. Per your orders, I remained here too...”

Irontooth turned and stepped back into the passage. There was an alcove just off the entrance, its corners deep in shadow. He spotted the blood drops on the floor, gathered in a small splatter in one of those corners. He looked up, at the spot where the walls met the ceiling, a compact niche just barely big enough to fit a pair of halflings...

“Watch the exits!” Irontooth growled back at the priest. “If so much as a cockroach slips past you, I will have your head!”

With that, he headed back into the complex, moving more slowly now, following the trail of blood back into the cave.

Even as Irontooth was discovering his mistake, Beetle and Jaron were creeping back into the kobold common room. The roar of the waterfall covered the noise of their steps, but neither halfling made more than a whisper’s disturbance anyway.

Jaron rubbed his shoulders. Beetle was fast and good at evading notice, but he wasn’t much of a climber. Thank the gods that the walls of the cave had been rough enough for them to scramble up into the impromptu hiding place before Irontooth had arrived. He’d felt like his arms were going to pop out of their sockets as he’d held onto his cousin, the two of them jammed into the spot where the corner walls met the ceiling, Jaron’s legs jammed against the walls of the alcove for support. All it would have taken was for the goblin to look up, and they would have been finished. Even with the later afternoon sunlight coming straight into the goblin’s face, it would have been hard for him to miss them had he paused to look.

Jaron started across the room toward the far side of the room, where Jaron had detected another exit earlier. It seemed like he’d first entered the cave hours ago. But Beetle stopped him.

“Hid here, before,” he said, indicating the waterfall. “Can get out.”

Jaron looked at the wall of rushing water dubiously. He could see the light of the day through it, but it looked like a lot of water, and it was moving fast.

“I don’t know...”

But the decision was made for them as Irontooth stepped back into the room. The goblin and the halflings saw each other at the same instant, and then Beetle was pushing Jaron, and both went flying into the raging rush of water.