What The Tide Brought Back

Gruzb hefted the body of an adventurer onto the ship, the black water glistening under the light of the bioluminescent mushrooms.

He looked at the rest of his kin, all collecting the dead surface dwellers and loading them onto the ship. All in preparation for the Big Splash. It should be most pleased.

Gruzb climbed aboard, helping push the boat away from the rock shore, and Gruzb tasted something metallic, which slightly burned his throat.

The sound of feet pattering along, Gruzb’s head lifted, seeing little Degzb running.

“RUN!” Degzb shouted as he leaped, slamming into the side of the ship. Gruzb grabbed onto Degzb’s pinkish-green skin and hauled him aboard.

“What's going—” Gruzb started to ask, when he heard it, his blood freezing and his body locking in place. The sound of chimes was particular. One he’d heard once before, heard before that only in tales told by the priests. It meant only one thing.

His head slowly turned toward the mouth of the cave, blue light illuminating it; the mushrooms’ light above flickered and died.

Gruzb’s mouth started to form the words, but nothing would come out. Another goblin screamed, answering the call that Gruzb’s own voice failed.

“The Soul Eater!”

The ship’s crew erupted, pushing hard against the bank with poles. The paddles slapping hard against the water, trying to start the ship forward.

Gruzb, finally making his frozen body move, grabbed a spear and readied himself. The ship moved faster and faster, and the light from the Soul Eater’s lantern reflected all around.

Gruzb looked back at the armored figure, the flaming blue lantern on its hip, the heavy executioner’s blade held in a single hand, and sky fire arcing along it.

It stopped standing at the shoreline, staring at the goblin ship. After a moment, cheers erupted, and even Gruzb joined in. They had escaped the Soul Eater.

Several minutes later, the shore vanished behind stone walls, and the goblins started working their way down into the hold.

Watching as his kin celebrate with games of Horrigan’s folly, and pin the tail on the Chimera. Gruzb smiled. They had escap— The ship suddenly listed, the air stank of storms, and the cry of chimes sang.

That infernal blue light found them.

…

Lowzb observed the priests preparing the cove, for the arrival of the Big Splash. Singing songs, not meant for the tongues of goblin kind.

While others prepared piles of fallen surface dwellers as an offering to their god. A few survivors had been found, some slain, the rest added to the brood pits.

Yet the wait on Gruzb’s raiders weighed on Lowzb’s mind. His brother had never been late. Not once, yet today he was behind schedule.

How odd.

The docks creaked as the waters slapped against them, as Lowzb’s people worked. He watched his people, as any good ruler should. Watched them prepare not just for the ritual, but also for the next raids.

The smithy’s grey-green flames, bellowing smoke, as the smith hammered away on a piece of surface dweller steel.

Other ship workers slide crates, loaded with corpses, down wooden ramps, before belaying up new crates filled with supplies.

Yes, all was well.

Except for Gruzb’s tardiness. Without another haul, they wouldn’t have enough to satiate the Big Splash—Lowzb cut that line of thought; he couldn’t think like that.

A horn rang out, a warning that a ship was coming.

A goblin-made ship slowly moved into view from the tunnels. Slowly worked towards the cove. None of its crew was visible, not a single paddle moved.

“Must all be below deck, playing games again,” Lowzb thought.

The priest's chanting rose in volume, echoing through the caves. A large wave in the water started towards the cove, buffeting the port.

“The great Big Splash comes!” the arch priest Kilzb shouts from his pool, his assistants drawing golden runes into the water.

The wave stopped just before the dock. Water slowly settled down before the black water began to bubble and foam.

A black tentacle with a thousand eyes lifted from the water, looking about the goblins before it. It slapped down on a pile of surface dweller corpses, dragging them into the water. The black water slowly gaining a red hue.

Lowzb watched his body rigid and blood cold, hoping that with Gruzb’s arriving ship, enough bodies would be here.

Otherwise, goblins—

Would be the final meal.

Something wet and mushy slapped against Lowzb’s head, the lights above slowly fading and dying. Lowzb wiped away the mush as another tentacle rose and dragged more bodies into the water.

The sound of bodies splashing suddenly gave way to the sound of mushrooms slamming into the rocks and goblins screaming in surprise.

The air tasted wrong; it burned Lowzb’s throat, and from his peripheral vision, blue light shone.

Lowzb froze in place as the sound of singing chimes cried out the song of death. The song that ended the last goblin empire.

He was here—

The Soul Eater had come.

Lowzb slowly looked at Gruzb’s boat. Standing atop it was an armored man; the blue flame of his lantern roared silently.

He dropped from the boat’s edge. Two guards charged, spears high. Lowzb blinked—two arcs of blood, arms severed in midair.

Wails of agony cried from the two as the Soul Eater stepped onto the dock before stopping and turning its head.

“Kill him, oh great Big Splash!” Kilzb shouted, golden runes forming in the splashing water around him.

The thousand eyes of one tentacle locked onto the Soul Eater, who slowly looked back. Then he spoke, not in the common of the above worlders. Not in the great tongue of goblins. But in the tongue that only the priests knew, that only the great Big Splash spoke fully.

The Soul Eater uttered, but one sound, and the Big Splash’s eyes narrowed as if truly looking the man over for the first time. Then the writhing tentacle froze in place, its eyes one by one widening as if in recognition.

“Kill him!” Kilzb ordered again.

Then an answering roar, the cave shook as the tentacle smashed back into the water, and a rolling tide pushed it away.

Lowzb felt his heart stop as he watched the all-mighty Big Splash flee, the hated Soul Eater.

The priests' chanting stopped as the waters quieted once more, the entire cove going silent. Except for the chimes of the Soul Eater.

Screams of rage, hate, and even fear suddenly echoed. Guards charged, others fled, Lowzb felt the weight of his kind pressing down upon him.

Lowzb watched as the guards and warriors never landed a solid blow against the Soul Eater’s armored hide.

The priests chanted from their pool. Kilzb shouted in the Big Splash’s language, golden runes forming together to create a spell.

Then a blinding flash, a deafening BOOM— followed shortly by the wretched stink of cooking goblin.

Lowzb blinked his eyes, trying to get the image of sky fire from his eyes. It would never quite go away, a streak forever burned into his sight.

Looking to his priest’s pool, looking for his help. Lowzb saw it.

The pool was no more; steam rose from it. The priesthood, along with the arch-priest, lay there unmoving and scorched.

Lowzb looked up at the Soul Eater as it walked towards the brood pits, the blue flame growing with each step.

Lowzb grabbed a spear, a dismembered hand still gripping the back, and charged screaming. Spear aimed at the back of the Soul Eater’s head.

He would save his people, he would save the next generation, and keep those they took for brood mothers.

The spear missed by a bare dragon’s hair.

Lowzb’s eyes went wide as a blade flashed.

The chimes continued on, the flame still growing.