A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 83 The Cruelty of The Gods - Part 8

"Not going to make me pay in advance this time?" Greeves said, glancing at the sack, but not rushing to open it.

Beam just shrugged. "As you can see... I'm not quite at my best. If you have a scheme in the works, then there's nothing I can do about it. But, I expect a businessman of your abilities wouldn't be so quick to cut off such a source of money as myself, would you? The gains would be minimal."

"Mm," Greeves considered it, tapping a finger against his chin. "You tempt me, boy, you really do. There's nothing to stop me from taking these Goblin heads of yours and getting Judas to give you a little bop on the head with his trudgeon. People will assume you died of your wounds - it would be so easy!"

"Well, there you go," Beam said tiredly. "You've got your options. I'm barely staying conscious here, so if you're not going to kill me, I'd appreciate it if you hurried up."

Greeves drummed his fingers on the desk with a smile, before finally looking inside the bag. "Hoh... Seven this time. No wonder you're looking so wounded - is this your limit, I wonder?"

But Beam shook his head, knowing the only thing that was keeping him alive was the worth that Greeves saw in him. He knew what his master had said earlier, about keeping the appearance of the Hobgoblin a secret - but Beam thought he knew the intent behind that, so he dared to make a gamble.

"A Hobgoblin," he said.

"What was that?" Greeves asked calmly, his fingers stopping.

"It was a Hobgoblin that gave me these wounds - I wouldn't fall to a normal Goblin," Beam said, summoning up his last bit of energy to add some seriousness to his eyes. Greeves stared at him without breaking eye contact.

"Hmm..." he said. Judas returned with a drink and handed it to Beam,

Beam took a quick swig then spluttered when he found out it was ale. He'd hardly drunk any alcohol at all in his short life.

The two men laughed heartily at his reaction. "Heh heh, still just a kid then, aren't ya boy?" Judas said with a grin.

"Well, what do you think, Judas? The boy claims he got these wounds from a Hobgoblin," Greeves said, cutting through the laughter to bring them back to the point in question.

Judas, hearing that, suddenly went serious. "Mm... Surviving an attack from a Hobgoblin? That's tough to believe," he said.

"I know that much," Greeves said irritably. "But is it possible? If so, what is the significance of it?"

"Aye, I suppose it's possible," Judas said, stroking his chin as he looked Beam up and

down. "If you were quick on your feet, you'd be able to get away from it. But if it's close enough to deal those kinda wounds, I'm less likely to believe it."

Beam just shrugged. "It snuck up on me. I didn't see it till the last moment. Not that I even expected to find Goblins in the first place. I was out cutting wood before I heard them screaming off in the distance."

"And you went to hunt them, did you?" Greeves pressed. "That's rather brave of you, is it not? Considering you hadn't even taken a request for them."

In his eyes, Beam could see the slightest hint of suspicion, as though the merchant knew there was more to this story than he was letting on. But Beam stuck to his story.

"Well, I knew you'd buy them. And I had my knife on me, anyway. It saved me the job of tracking them. I figured I'd take them out before they knew I was there," Beam said with a shrug,

"Seven Goblins, though? That seems... A stretch," Greeves said carefully, tapping his fingers on the desk as he poured himself a drink from a dark bottle of wine.

"Goblins are weak," Beam said. "It would be embarrassing to fall to them. As long as you don't let them surround you, individually, they're just violent children."

"Hoh..." Greeves looked to Judas to gauge his reaction. The big man had a doubtful frown on his face, but he still muttered in support.

"He isn't wrong... The only reason I struggle with the little fuckers is the speed. They can get you surrounded before you know it - if the boy is as fast as them, or even faster, I can't see why he couldn't manage it," Judas said.

Greeves nodded his understanding as he drank from his glass, appearing pleased. "Now, back to the business of the Hobgoblin. What happened there? How did you manage to escape one?"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Goblins can't swim," Beam said, stating a fact rather than telling an outright lie. "I lured them to the river and held them off at a crossing. It got my leg because I let my guard down after seeing it slip and fall into the river."

"Hmm..." Greeves didn't believe him, Beam could tell. But it wasn't important that he believed him entirely. Merely believing he had survived an encounter with a Hobgoblin would be enough to rekindle the merchant's interest in him. "So. Is this Hobgoblin dead?"

"I didn't stick around to find out," Beam said, "but I'd guess even a river would struggle to finish one off, even if it couldn't swim. They're vicious creatures.

"Mm. So might be that we have a Hobgoblin running about as well. That's not on the quests that Ferdinand gave us though - so it isn't our problem, I suppose. Where were these Goblins? To the east again? Near the middle of the forest?"

Beam nodded, that matched where he'd found them.

"Well, I suppose we can consider this quest here done then," Greeves said, eyeing a slip

of paper and making a note on it. "I suppose I owe you 5 coppers then... And I'd like to take these heads off your hands, too. What do you want for them?"