Chapter 22: Goglina's counter plot

Goglina looked at the three goblins before her. A part of her still felt sorrow over Bas, her sickly baby brother. She had always taken care of him. Now, she had to live with the guilt of having killed him.

By the tribe's laws, Bas should have been killed the moment his madness showed. That had happened in their youth. For her brother had been talking to himself ever since some adventurers scared him when he was but two years old.

Yet, Goglina's father had been chieftain, back then. He did not want for his only son to be killed. He had been softhearted, one of his many flaws.

For, when the chieftain that Goglina had stabbed five whole times had come, her father had simply given up the throne instead of fighting his cousin.

Goglina had gone from being a princess to being a nobody in an instant. The only thing she had left being her brother, and she had kept him close. Saying that he was peculiar, not insane, to anyone who would listen.

Yet, she knew that Bas was fickle. He would have ratted her out. It was her life or his. In the end, a goblin's most precious thing was themselves.

Goglina glared harshly at the other three goblins. She had cheated, so had they. There was no other explanation as to how Bas had drawn the shortest straw.

She was going to make them pay for that. They needed her brains, her decisiveness, and, above all else, her tenacity with which she pursued everything.

"Bas is dead, but not forgotten," she began. It was the dead of night, and they were in the dumping site. Hidden from view by darkness and rubble.

"What do we do now, Goglina? The giant won't side with us. The dungeon core went to him and came back unharmed and with a giant's bone as a gift," Bob asked her, his head bowed.

Had he had more wrinkles on his brain, Bob would have advised Goglina to come clean and hope for the best. But Bob was as ambitious as he was stupid.

"We don't need the giant. What we need are the other goblins to rise in an open rebellion. It is just the dungeon core and the vampire that we need to deal with. The chieftain," Goglina spat out the last word, showing what she thought of the human. "Will not be a problem for long."

"The goblins have it better with the dungeon core than they ever had it with the former two chieftains," Gaz was ready to give up. Not because he saw the folly in their actions, but because he was always the first to fold under pressure.

"I will be chieftain," Goglina told them sternly. "I was born to rule."

"Bas was born to rule, and he is dead now," Gog told her in that irritating way of his. Goglina glared at the goblin, who loved to state the obvious.

"He was a needed sacrifice. He would have told the dungeon core about our plots. Do you know what dungeon cores do with traitors?" Goglina sneered down at the three goblins, as they paled.

"This dungeon core is different," Gaz told her. He did not want to believe that Chavu would lay a hand on them. "Let us just give up, Goglina. We don't have to admit to anything. Let us just stop this madness."

"Madness?" Goglina spat, pointing a finger at Gaz. "Madness is for goblins to be ruled by a human and a Naga! Madness is for free goblins to turn into dungeon slaves! What is the difference between what is happening to us now, and all the time an adventuring party would kidnap some of us to either work in their mines or fields until we drop?"

Before Goglina could build up speed, Gog raised his hand.

"The difference is that we are hardly overworked. The goblins don't care who rules them. Just that they have full bellies and are respected. You know that better than most, Goglina," for once, Goglina couldn't call Gog stupid, for he had spoken the truth.

"The desire for freedom will…" she began again, but Bob shook his head.

"It is over," the goblin told her simply. "We will keep quiet, but we will nominate your exclusion from the council. You shouldn't have killed Bas, Goglina. He was your baby brother."

"He would have done the same to me, if our positions were reversed," Goglina argued. If she lost those three, her power base would go down like a tower made of cards. And, with it, her dreams of becoming a chieftain.

"No, he wouldn't have," Gaz disagreed. He turned his back to the female goblin. "The next move you make against the dungeon core will be your last."

"I will expose you for the traitors that you are," Goglina hissed, mindful of her voice not to carry out of the dumping site.

"If you dig a pit for us, you will be the first one to fall inside it," Gaz told her, and the two other goblins turned their backs to her.

"You will regret this," Goglina yelled. Her temper getting the better of her.

"Who is down there?" A goblin asked. No one was supposed to be in the dumping site this late at night.

"It is just us, the council. Some of our valuables got dumped with the trash. We are searching for them," Gog yelled. The goblin above them snorted.

"In the dark? Get out of there before you cut yourselves on rusty nails. The last thing the dungeon core needs is another death," the light of the torch the goblin was carrying became fainter until it disappeared.

Another death.

Those words swam in Goglina's mind. Just another death to upset the dungeon core. Another death to make him look incompetent.

Just one more death.

Her dark eyes zeroed in on Gaz's head.

 So small, so easily bashed.

 Bas's face flashed before Goglina's eyes, and she became sick to her stomach. Another death, yes, but not done with her hands.

Her small, shaking, hands.