Chương 94: Chapter 72: MVP (Most Valuable Prisoner)

By dusk, the cavern had settled into the softer rhythm of evening. The fires had been fed again, their light spreading warmly across the stone as the last tasks of the day wound down. Hunters processed the remaining meat from that days hunt, the Medics set aside dirty bowls and prepared fresh resin cloth for the next day, and Warriors drifted back inside from training with weapons over their shoulders.

Near one hearth, two Duskroot sat with a Medic, listening intently as he explained something about the Frostvein steeping in a clay cup between them. Closer to the entrance, the wolves sprawled across the stone with full bellies while their Riders cleaned weapons, repaired harnesses, or simply leaned against warm fur and talked. Grub passed the hearth where the twelve pregnant goblins rested. They'd stopped arranging themselves by tribe somewhere during the past week.

Bowls and cups lay scattered between them, one Ironfang was speaking while two Duskroot listened, while another had fallen asleep sitting upright against the goblin beside her. Her unwilling pillow looked deeply annoyed but had made no effort to push her away. Grub smiled faintly and continued toward the cages. The healthy enclosure had begun filling again as the Duskroot finished whatever work had occupied them during the day, though several had yet to return.

The few prisoners still sick enough to remain confined rested in the smallest cage. Only one goblin remained in the wounded enclosure now. Hask. Grub stopped outside the bars. The former Chief sat with his back against the rear wall and both legs stretched in front of him. He looked considerably better than he had when they first brought him inside. The exhaustion had faded from his face, and he no longer guarded every breath as though drawing too deeply might set something burning inside his ribs.

Grub opened the cage and stepped inside.

"How's the breathing?" Hask drew in a slow breath until his chest expanded fully, then released it.

"Good."

"No pain?"

"Only when I twist." Grub considered that, then nodded.

"Then don't twist." Hask gave him a flat look. Grub grinned as he crouched beside him and loosened the wrapping around his shoulder. The wound beneath had closed cleanly. The swelling had nearly disappeared, and the angry heat that had worried the Medics earlier in the week was gone. His thigh looked much the same when Grub checked that next.

"You're moving tomorrow." Hask glanced at him.

"To the healthy cage?"

"For however long you still need a cage." Hask's eyes lingered on him for a moment, but Grub pretended not to notice. He retied the bandage, packed the remaining resin cloth back into his pack, then stepped outside and pulled the cage shut again. He should have kept walking. Instead, he looked at Hask through the bars, then lowered himself onto the floor beside the cage. Hask raised an eyebrow as Grub settled cross-legged opposite him, the wooden bars now the only thing separating them.

"What?" Grub rested his forearms across his knees.

"The Nettleroot." Hask's eyes narrowed slightly.

"You said your tribe used it in traps."

"We did."

"I want to know how." Hask studied him for several seconds before answering.

"No." Grub blinked.

"What?"

"I won't tell you." The answer was calm, without any challenge behind it. Grub stared at him through the bars for a moment, but Hask simply waited.

"Why?"

"You knew its name when you found it in my den," Hask said.

"You knew it was poisonous. But you still had to ask what we used it for." Grub's eyes narrowed slightly.

"So you knew I didn't know how to use it."

"I knew the Ironfang didn't." That made Grub lean back. Hask's attention drifted across the cavern, past the Duskroot working beside Ironfang near the storage hall, a Medic carrying fresh water between the cages, and one of the Riders asleep with his back pressed against the side of a direwolf.

"You defeated me," he said eventually.

"I surrendered to your Chief, and my tribe followed. Now I'm inside his cavern, surrounded by his Warriors, with no weapon and no tribe that can free me." His hand rested loosely against his wounded thigh.

"And I'm still alive."

"You sound surprised."

"I am." There was no humor in the answer. Hask leaned his head back against the bars.

"Chiefs who lose their tribes rarely live long afterward. Usually they die in the fighting. If they survive that, any conquering Chief with sense kills them before they can become a problem." Grub thought back to the conversation on the granite shelf. Throk had suggested exactly that, and Dravak had considered it.

"I don't know what Dravak intends to do with me once I heal," Hask continued.

"I don't know what you intend either." Grub looked at him for another moment, then glanced toward the pack beside his feet.

"You think knowing how to use the Nettleroot keeps us from killing you?" Hask shrugged.

"I think it gives you one more reason not to." The logic was unsettlingly familiar. Months earlier, Grub had sat in this same cavern with almost nothing to offer the Ironfang except what he could do for them. He'd tended wounds, cleaned, worked, and kept finding new ways to make himself useful because usefulness had been one of the few protections he possessed. Hask had simply found his own version of the same thing. Grub gave a slow nod.

"That's smart." Hask's brow furrowed slightly.

"You're not angry?"

"I didn't say I was happy about it." A faint amused grunt escaped Hask.

"It's frustrating. But I understand it." Grub turned slightly and rested his back against the bars.

"I know what that's like. When I first came here, being useful was about the only reason I could give anyone to keep me around." Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Hask watched him more carefully. Grub let that sit for a moment. Then he made a decision. He turned his head to look at Hask.

"You're wrong about one thing though." Hask's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"You're not alive because of the Nettleroot or because we haven't decided whether killing you is worth it." Grub glanced toward the main cavern before looking back through the bars.

"Your tribe was supposed to survive. You weren't." For the first time in several minutes, Hask's expression went completely still. Hask watched him for a moment before his eyes shifted toward the Duskroot scattered throughout the cavern.

"So that was the point of the duel."

"Yes."

"One death instead of fighting through the hollow." Grub nodded.

"That was the idea. Kill you, make the rest surrender, and avoid turning the whole place into a pile of bodies."

"Because you needed us."

"We still do. Hunters. Warriors. Scouts. Goblins who can help keep the Ironfang alive." Grub shrugged.

"Killing half of you before dragging the other half home would've been stupid." Hask's gaze remained on his former tribe.

"And instead you missed." Grub's mouth twisted.

"Twice." Hask glanced toward his healing shoulder.

"The second one did hit me."

"Not where I was aiming."

"I had wondered." A faint trace of amusement crossed Hask's face. Grub continued.

"Once you were wounded, I had another option, and thankfully you took it."

"After you showed me what would happen to the stone in my shoulder if I didn't." Grub smiled faintly.

"Did it help?" Hask grunted.

"It was quite persuasive." His attention drifted across the cavern again, passing over the healthy Duskroot returning from their work, the sick being tended near the far cage, and the hearth where the pregnant goblins rested together.

"So this wasn't something you decided after we surrendered."

"No."

"The food. The furs. Bringing the wounded back." Grub chuckled.

"We weren't going to keep your tribe alive through the fight and then start losing goblins afterward." Hask was quiet for several seconds.

"You wanted to conquer us without destroying us."

"I wanted to keep as many of you alive as I could." His gaze returned to Grub.

"Except me."

"Originally." Hask studied him for a moment.

"I nearly killed you." Grub glanced down at his shoulder. The wound was little more than a dull ache now beneath the fresh wrappings, a far cry from what it had been a week ago.

"I noticed."

"And you still let me live." Grub shrugged slightly.

"You surrendered."

"That doesn't usually matter."

"No." Grub glanced toward the Duskroot scattered through the cavern.

"But once you surrendered, killing you wouldn't have changed anything." Hask went quiet again, his eyes lingering on Grub a little longer this time. Then he asked, "Why tell me this?" Grub considered the question.

"Because I understand why you won't tell me about the Nettleroot." Hask frowned slightly.

"You're sitting inside another tribe's cavern with almost nothing left that belongs only to you, and you found one thing we want that you can still keep." Grub nodded toward him.

"I can respect that." Hask regarded him for a long moment before looking out across the cavern again. His former tribe moved among the Ironfang, some finishing their work while others drifted back toward the cages for the night.

"So everything except me went more or less the way you wanted."

"More or less."

"And now you want the Nettleroot."

"I do."

"The answer is still no." Grub stared at him. Hask stared back. Then Grub laughed.

"Alright." That seemed to surprise him.

"Alright?"

"I still don't like the answer." Grub shrugged.

"But I'd probably do the same thing in your position." Hask studied him as though he wasn't quite sure whether Grub was serious.

"Then why not ask someone else?"

"Someone else?" Hask nodded toward the Duskroot scattered through the cavern.

"You have twenty-seven of my goblins here. Do you think I'm the only one who ever worked with Nettleroot?" Grub glanced toward them.

"Probably not."

"Then ask one of them."

"I could." Hask waited. Grub scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"But that would feel like cheating." Hask stared at him.

"Cheating."

"A little."

"I'm your prisoner."

"I noticed."

"I refused to give you something you want."

"Yes. Very annoying." Hask chuckled and shook his head in disbelief.

"And now you're worried about being fair?"

"Not fair." Grub frowned, trying to find the distinction.

"You figured out that the knowledge gives you leverage. I just told you I respected that. Going around you the moment you say no would make that respect pretty worthless." Grub leaned back against the bars.

"Besides, I want you to tell me." That caught Hask's interest.

"Why?"

"Because if you give it to me someday, it means you decided you didn't need to keep it anymore." Hask watched him for several seconds.

"That matters to you." Grub grinned sheepishly.

"Yeah. A little."

"Why?" Grub gave him a flat look.

"You ask a lot of questions for someone refusing to answer mine." Hask chuckled. They fell quiet for a while, listening to the low murmur of the cavern around them. Then Hask said, "I thought you might understand." Grub glanced toward him.

"Understand what?"

"Why I kept it."

"You already explained why."

"I explained why I need it." Hask shook his head slightly.

"I meant why I thought of keeping it in the first place." Grub frowned.

"Why?"

"Because you're always looking for what something is worth." Grub's brow furrowed.

"Not what it's worth right now," Hask continued.

"What you can make of it." He nodded toward the cavern.

"You could have fought through my hollow and killed half my tribe. Instead, you saw Hunters, Warriors, and Scouts the Ironfang could use." His gaze shifted toward the hearth.

"Those twelve could haul water or carry wood today. You'd rather feed them more and make them rest because you're thinking about the children they'll have later." Grub opened his mouth, then stopped.

"And when you found Nettleroot in my den, you didn't know how we used it. You still remembered it."

"That seems reasonable."

"It is." Hask looked at him.

"That's my point." Grub regarded him for a moment.

"That sounded dangerously close to a compliment."

"It wasn't."

"Good. I was getting worried." Hask chuckled, shook his head, and settled back against the bars. A few moments passed before he spoke again.

"When I first came here, I thought the Ironfang were simply strange." Grub glanced toward him.

"Only at first?" He shrugged.

"I've had several days to watch."

"That sounds ominous." Hask ignored him.

"I'd never seen a Medic before. I didn't know a goblin could become something besides Warrior, Hunter, or Scout." His gaze moved toward the far side of the cavern.

"The Builders were the same. I knew goblins could stack stone, brace a roof, or make a wall if they had to. I'd never seen goblins who could look at a brace and know it was wrong before the roof fell." His attention shifted toward the wolves. One lifted its head at some distant sound before settling again.

"And I'd certainly never seen goblins riding direwolves."

"Most haven't."

"At first, I thought the Ironfang were lucky," Hask continued.

"Strange designations. Direwolves that don't eat you. A strong Chief." He looked back at Grub.

"Then I started watching more closely." Grub's expression flattened.

"That sounds even more ominous."

"You move through this cavern all day." Hask nodded toward the Medics.

"They know wounds better than you do, but they still listen when you have something to say. The Builders know stone and timber better than you, but that room exists because you wanted it, and when they find stone they can't move, they wait for you." His gaze traveled toward the hearth where the twelve pregnant goblins rested together, then toward the cages that now stood mostly empty during the day.

"That came from you too." Grub stayed quiet. Hask glanced toward the wolves.

"I don't know how the Riders began."

"Good."

"But Rika watches you. The black wolf follows you. I've seen enough to know you're somewhere in the middle of that too." Grub's mouth twitched.

"Observant."

"I was a Chief." Hask leaned back against the wall.

"I know what it looks like when goblins obey because they're afraid. I know what it looks like when they listen because someone has rank." His yellow eyes settled on Grub.

"That isn't what I see here. They argue with you. They tell you when they think you're wrong. Then they take whatever works and keep doing it after you walk away." That caught Grub off guard. Hask caught the faint smile on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't nothing." Grub shook his head.

"I underestimated you." Hask's expression shifted slightly.

"I knew you were strong, and I knew you weren't stupid."

"Generous."

"I didn't realize you were paying this much attention." Hask shrugged.

"I've been locked in a cage. I have little else to do." Grub chuckled. For a while, they listened to the cavern around them before he glanced toward the hearths again.

"So?" Hask raised an eyebrow.

"You've had almost a week to watch. You thought the Ironfang were strange when you got here." Grub looked back at him.

"What do you think now?" Hask took his time answering. His gaze passed over the Medics, the finished storage hall, the mostly empty cages, the pregnant goblins gathered near the hearth, and finally the wolves resting among their Riders.

"I still think the tribe is strange." Grub smiled faintly.

"Insightful." Hask ignored him.

"But I think I know where most of it started." Grub's smile faded.

"Where?" Hask held his gaze.

"You." Grub stared at him for a moment. He'd expected Hask to notice Dravak. Any former Chief would. Somehow, from behind a cage, Hask had looked past the Chief and followed enough of the smaller changes back to Grub. He pushed himself to his feet.

"That's a dangerous amount of thinking for someone who spent the week lying on furs." A faint grunt came from behind the bars.

"Then perhaps you should've put me to work sooner." Grub laughed softly as he slung the pack over his shoulder.

"Tomorrow." Hask gave a small nod.

"I know." Grub turned to leave. Behind him, Hask spoke again.

"Strange goblin." Grub glanced back over his shoulder, smiling faintly.

"You have no idea."