Chương 73: Chapter 55: The Trolley Problem

They moved out as the sun began to show on the horizon. Those that remained behind in the cave watched them go in silence, firelight still flickering behind the wall as the warband filed into the gray-blue morning. Dravak led from the front. Throk set the pace just behind him, hard enough to keep them moving, not so hard that anyone would burn themselves out before they even reached the fight.

Kesh and her Scouts ranged ahead in a loose pattern, never so far that they vanished completely, but far enough that the main body could trust the ground in front of them had been seen first by sharper eyes. The wolves padded along with little complaint, the weight of their burdens sitting well on their broad backs.

They had taken to carrying weight with a natural ease, and now they had bundles of dried meat, spare spears, coils of rope, wrapped medical supplies, and travel gear tied down in neat loads that shifted only slightly with each step. Sable moved easily beneath Grub, her gait smooth, her shoulders rolling with steady confidence. Ashpaw led the mounted pack like he had been born for exactly this, black fur dark against the light of dawn, gray paws crushing old snow and slush into the earth below.

The line moved steadily into the forest. For the first stretch of the march, Grub kept his thoughts busy with simple things. The rhythm of Sable's stride. The sound of feet on the thawing ground. The weight of the pouch of stones at his belt. The feel of the shortened spear across his back, its stone head wrapped and secured. He didn't want to think too far ahead, but the farther they got from the cave, the tighter something wound inside him.

For the last two weeks he'd successfully managed to keep it at a distance. There had always been something to do. Spar with Throk and Kesh. Practice his magic until his Mana ran thin and his fingers ached. Help the Builders. Check the cages. Watch the Fangs of Winter improve. Work. Prepare. Move. Never stop long enough to think. But there was no hiding from it now. They were marching toward the Duskroot den, and toward the duel.

Toward the moment when Grub would willingly step in front of another goblin and try to kill him before that goblin could kill him first. Willingly. That was the part his thoughts kept circling back to. He'd killed before. The first had been the Warrior Throk forced him to fight before he was captured and dragged into the Ironfang cavern, when killing had been the only alternative to dying himself.

Later, when the two slaves had tried to murder him inside the cage, Grub had killed them because, once again, the only alternative was dying. There was the blood of three goblins on his hands already. Perhaps more than that, if he counted the female Warrior who'd challenged Dravak over the changes Grub was bringing into the tribe. Grub hadn't killed her, and he hadn't asked Dravak to kill her either.

But the challenge had happened because of him, at least in part, and pretending otherwise had always felt a little too convenient. None of those deaths had been something Grub chose beforehand. This one was. He'd proposed the duel. He'd spent two weeks training for it. He'd evolved Pebble Toss specifically into something capable of punching through another goblin's body, then tested whether he could make the stone explode once it was inside. There was no pretending necessity had cornered him once again this time.

Grub had looked at the problem, considered the alternatives, and decided that killing one goblin was the best way to save everyone else. The realization settled heavily beneath his ribs. It frightened him. The fear he felt wasn't like the shallow nerves he'd once felt before a test or an awkward conversation back on Earth, but something deeper, heavy enough that he could feel it sitting inside his chest with every breath. On Earth, he'd been thin and scrawny.

Weak in ways that had nothing to do with Stats or Classes and everything to do with the quiet manner in which he'd moved through life. He'd avoided conflict when he could. Intellectualized everything. Stayed back, stayed safe, and let stronger, louder people like Max set the tone while he told himself he was simply being reasonable. He hadn't been a coward, exactly, but he'd been close enough that the distinction hadn't always mattered.

Now he rode through a forest with a tribe of goblins beside him, preparing to bait another living being into a duel because he'd decided one deliberate death was preferable to twenty accidental ones. A trolley problem with blood and mud and a face attached to it. Kill one goblin to save twenty, maybe more. Keep Ironfang blood out of the snow. Preserve enough of the Duskroot that they might one day become part of the tribe instead of corpses scattered around their den.

Back on Earth, the answer would've been easy when it existed only as a question on a piece of paper: Pull the lever, and save the greater number of lives. It felt different when Grub was the lever. When he had to look the one marked for death in the eyes and kill him himself. The logic was still almost painfully clean. That disturbed him most of all. Grub stared ahead between Sable's ears as the trees slipped past. Had this world changed him? Of course it had.

Months ago, he'd have said his name was Gideon without hesitation. Now, when he thought of himself, Grub came first. Gideon was still there, but buried beneath memories that belonged to this body, this forest, and this tribe. He'd accepted being a goblin. Accepted the Ironfang. Accepted the strange life that had grown around him until it no longer felt strange every waking moment. He knew how Dravak weighed risk now.

He understood the blunt arithmetic behind Throk's ideas of strength, and why Kesh distrusted anything she hadn't tested herself. He knew how the Medics stored herbs, how the Builders pressed a hand against a brace and somehow knew something about it was wrong, and what it meant when Sable's ears suddenly lifted and her whole body went still. He knew how to think like a goblin. That realization sat strangely beside the memories of who he'd once been. Would Max still recognize him? Would his parents?

Would they understand any of this? Would they understand a son who'd helped plan an attack on another tribe, who intended to take prisoners and manipulate their pride until they chose to join his own, and who was now riding toward a stranger he'd already decided needed to die? Grub didn't know, and somehow, that uncertainty frightened him almost as much as the duel. Because he could justify every part of it. He could justify the raid. He could justify the captives.

He could trace the logic behind the duel from beginning to end and still not know what making those choices said about the person he'd become. Was this simply what survival required? Or had months spent living as a goblin among goblins changed something more fundamental in him? He had no answer he trusted. Grub drew another slow breath and looked around him. The line continued deeper into the forest. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Whatever he'd been on Earth, whatever he was becoming here, the march wasn't going to stop while he figured it out. By midafternoon they crossed the shallow markers that, to an outsider, would have meant nothing. To the Ironfangs, it was obvious enough. A scar on a pine where a patrol blade had marked bark months ago. A certain pile of stones left undisturbed near a split in the deer path. A low ridge that served as the rough edge of where Ironfang hunters usually turned back.

Past that, the forest no longer felt like theirs. No one said it aloud, but the line tightened instinctively anyway. They had left Ironfang territory. Kesh and the Scouts spread farther ahead now, moving low and quick through the trees. Meanwhile, the main body of the warband still made no attempt to hide itself. Their makeshift boots sounded on wet ground. Wolves moved openly. Weapons glinted when light slipped through the branches. This wasn't a stealthy or careful approach.

It was an intrusion, deliberate and visible. Exactly as planned. Kesh returned from the front long enough to report that she had already found and disabled two trap lines and a shallow pit masked with brush and melt-slick leaves. The Duskroot were watching them. That became clearer as the day wore on. A flicker of movement between the trees. A branch settling too slowly after someone ducked away. The distant flash of a goblin face vanishing into brush.

Once, Sable's ears pricked hard to the left and Grub turned in time to catch the shape of a lean figure sprinting through the undergrowth before it disappeared over a low rise. The march continued. Kesh and her Scouts continued to cut trap cords, marked hidden pits, and kicked aside brush bundles meant to guide feet into bad ground. Behind them, the main line walked openly through Duskroot territory with a slow and steady confidence, as if daring the world to tell them they didn't belong.

By early afternoon, the forest had changed around them. The pines thickened first, then gave way in stretches to lower ground where gullies twisted between old roots and moss-dark stone. Here and there the earth showed the signs of poorer upkeep: half-masked traps, narrow runs through brush, old cut branches stacked in places where someone meant to use them later and never had. The Duskroot had taken a hard winter. That much was visible even without seeing the tribe itself.

Grub did the math in his head again, because numbers were easier to deal with than nerves. The Duskroot were twenty to twenty-five strong according to the Scouts, perhaps thirty at most if they'd missed a few. The Ironfang raiding force was smaller than the full tribe, but still dangerous in a way the numbers alone didn't show. Even in the worst case, even if every Duskroot fought at full strength in open ground without traps or tricks, Grub knew that the Ironfang tribe held an edge.

And that was before even counting the wolves. Eleven full-grown direwolves. A single direwolf was terror enough for most goblins. Eleven changed the course of a battle entirely. A line of spears might hold against Warriors. It wouldn't hold the same way if the massive wolves hit it at the same time. He was counting on that to help sway the enemy Chief to accept the challenge. They made camp before dusk on a low rise overlooking the surrounding forest. Dravak had chosen the ground carefully.

The trees thinned near the top, giving them clear sight down the slope in every direction, while the rise itself left little chance for anyone to approach unseen. Several fires were lit before darkness settled, their smoke rising openly through the branches. Wolves rested where they could be seen between the trees, weapons stayed close at hand, and the whole camp carried the same deliberate confidence as the march itself.

If the Duskroot had anyone watching from the forest, Dravak seemed perfectly content to let them count every flame. He was considerably less willing to let them creep close enough to do anything about it. Kesh divided the Scouts into watches around the slope, with Hunters filling the gaps between them. The Fangs of Winter took their own turns farther out, pairs of Riders circling the camp on wolfback before returning to trade places with the next pair.

Between sharp goblin eyes, eleven direwolves, and the open ground surrounding the rise, surprising the Ironfang during the night would be difficult. That was apparently as close to caution as Dravak intended to come. Grub lay beside Sable after eating, one hand resting against her flank as her breathing moved slow and steady beneath his palm. He counted the rhythm for a while, trying to keep his thoughts from wandering toward the next morning. Eventually, they wandered somewhere else instead. Stone Spear.

He'd practiced it every chance he could since evolving Pebble Toss, but every cast still mattered. The Spell was new, and tomorrow he might only get one clean opportunity to use it. Grub slipped away from the fires to a nearby tree, far enough that an unlucky cast wouldn't put anyone at risk but still well within sight of the camp. He drew a stone from his pouch. Mana gathered through his palm, and the rock lengthened, narrowing rapidly into a vicious point before tearing free.

Stone Spear struck the trunk with a heavy crack and buried itself deep. Grub drew another stone almost immediately. The second spear flew straighter. A brief flicker of ember-light danced across his knuckles as the Spell left his hand, vanishing almost before he noticed it. Grub barely reacted. The occasional sparks had long since ceased being unusual. Same went for the little gusts of wind, the occasional curl of smoke, or the strange dampness that sometimes coated his hands after a cast.

He'd seen each of those often enough that they barely registered anymore. He cast again. The third spear landed only a few inches from where he'd aimed. Grub drew the fourth and final stone. The Spell formed cleanly, and the spear struck the tree beside the others. Then something gritty brushed against his fingertips. Grub stopped and looked at his hand. Fine gray grains clung to the pads of several fingers, already beginning to slip free.

He quickly cupped his other hand beneath them and caught the residue before it disappeared into the leaves on the forest floor. He'd seen this before, but only a handful of times, and he had never been fast enough to catch the tiny residue before it slipped away and disappeared onto the cavern floor. Grub brought his hand closer to his face. The grains were dark gray and faintly reflective when they caught the firelight behind him. There wasn't much, barely enough to cover part of his palm, but it looked metallic.

Iron, maybe. That was his best guess. He took a small pinch and carefully rubbed it between his fingertips. It didn't burn. It didn't cut him. Nothing else happened. Grub frowned. The common effects of his Miscast were strange enough, but familiar. This one still wasn't. He had no idea why his magic occasionally left what looked like metal behind, or what the hell that was supposed to mean. As long as it remained harmless, he wasn't going to spend the night worrying about it.

Grub brushed the grit from his hands, and checked his Mana. Mana: 22/100 (+9/10min) Enough for one more cast, if he really needed it. He decided to leave it for now. Four Stone Spears protruded from the tree in a rough cluster, each one close enough to where he'd aimed that tomorrow's duel felt slightly less impossible than it had a few minutes earlier. Grub returned to the camp and settled down beside Sable again. Her head lifted briefly as he lay down, then lowered back across her paws.

Grub rested one hand against her side and closed his eyes. Tomorrow, the target wouldn't be a tree. He tried not to think too hard about that. He woke before dawn and practiced some more. By the time the line moved again, the motion was more familiar. The second day of marching passed more quickly. They found a creek and followed it east. The creek stayed to their left for most of the morning, its swollen waters moving clear and cold through thawing banks.

Then the ground rose and opened, the forest loosening into the folds of the valley the Scout had described back in the cave. Grub rode Sable near the front now. Her shoulder was a steady warmth under his thighs, and while riding calmed his hands, it did nothing for the knot that had settled behind his ribs. The thought of the duel sat there like cold stone. He checked the pouch at his belt more often than he needed to. Touched the leather wrappings of his short spear.

Ran through the breath and motion of Stone Spear again and again, until the sequence felt as ingrained as any footwork drill Kesh had forced into him. This wouldn't be sparring. Not Throk's blunted sword. Not Kesh's wrapped daggers. Not a clean tap and a cheerfully muttered "dead again." This would be a real fight against a Chief whose pride, life, and tribe all sat on the same moment. If the Chief accepted, Grub would need speed and a clean strike.

If he refused, then none of this would matter because the lines would crash together and blood would decide their fate the old way. Either way, by the end of tomorrow, he would've crossed a line he could never uncross. Grub breathed deeply and steadily, trying to calm his rising nerves. By midafternoon, one of the Scouts slipped ahead to the edge of a low ridge and vanished from sight. When he returned, his voice was low.

"The Duskroot are there. Hollow near the bend. Fires small but steady. Sentries on the rim. Traps in the gullies." He gave a short, humorless smirk.

"Poorly kept ones. Easy to disable or destroy." Dravak gathered the tribe where the pines thinned and the earth gave a broad view over the final stretch of valley. From there, they could see smoke rising thinly through the trees. The shape of a hollow under a massive tree, half-hidden by ancient roots and rough shelves of earth. Movement along the rim. A den. A tribe. A target. Dravak looked around at the warband before he spoke. His voice was calm and steady.

"We come loud at daybreak," he said.

"Hold your lines tight." His eyes settled on Grub.

"You stay hidden, but ready to step forward and call the challenge. Do not move before their Chief answers." Grub nodded.

"I'll be ready."

"We attack at dawn." They withdrew a little from the ridge and made camp in deeper cover, close enough to strike at dawn, far enough not to announce themselves with careless noise in the dark. The wolves settled restlessly. The Riders kept their voices low. Warriors checked straps and spear bindings by firelight that was more ember than flame. Beyond the ridge, the Duskroot den smoldered in the fading light. Grub looked at it until a single moving figure appeared on the rim, no more than a shadow against the dusk.

His breath left him slowly. Tomorrow.