The Goblin's Crown

Chapter Eight: Caged

He never answered me. Knut and my guards vanished into clouds of smoke and at the very same moment, Jasper knocked the door open with his shoulder. Behind him, a crowd had gathered, lured by the sound of the man's screams. They stood, staring at me with paled faces and bulging eyes, taking in the sight of the half-naked girl bathed in blood.

"Murderer!" I heard one of the women cry.

"She gutted him like a fish!" One of the patrons hissed through rotting teeth.

"I-I didn't." I stuttered through metallic flavored lips. I tripped over the dagger Knut had killed the man with falling into the thick puddle of blood surrounding his mutilated corpse. "I didn't do this." Pitifully, I looked to my brother for aid. "Help me." I pleaded, tears blurring my vision.

Jasper's dark eyes went from horrified to bitterly cold. He threw up the hood of his cloak and slipped back through the crowd. Abandoning me. If my soul was not already twisted with hatred, it would have withered then and there. "Come back!" I screamed. "You did this! You! Judas! Betrayer!" I lunged for him, to grab him by the throat and strangle the life from him, to pluck out his eyes, to rip out his windpipe with my teeth. The men in the crowd grabbed me. Dozens of hands touched me at once, pinning my arms behind my back and yanking back my hair, pulling till I bled. "I'll see you burn!" I raged at my kin before turning my venom on everyone else around me. The entire human race. "I'll see you all burn!" They began to drag me down the staircase. I bucked and flailed and tried to bite the hands that wandered too close to my face.

"Someone shut her up!" Someone shouted. The next thing I knew, someone struck me with a musket, and I went out like a candle in a storm.

"Miss Bride, wakey, wakey eggs and bakey." Tiny, clawed hands patting my cheek stirred me awake.

I screamed at the sight of the Pig-nosed goblin's demonic face, so close it could have kissed me, and scrambled into the far corner of the tiny stone lined pit. My frightened eyes strained to see through the murky darkness. The only light came from a pair of red orbs that hung over each of the goblins' heads. They did little but cast the dungeon cell in a disturbing bloody haze. A dungeon. That is where I am, isn't it? I thought. My stomach twisted violently, and I spilled what little I had in my stomach onto the filthy ground. I had barely finished retching before rats descended on it.

The Rat-tailed goblin grabbed one and began ripping the flesh and meat off of the rat's bones with its teeth. The rat screamed in agony, still alive. I grimaced at the sound and the sight of the rat's blood oozing through Rat-tailed's small, sharp teeth. It seemed horrifically cannibalistic to me. I tried to vomit again, but my stomach had nothing to give up.

"Stay away from me," I growled, pulling my knees up to my chest, trying to get further away from them. To no avail. The room was too small, and they were here for a reason.

Pig-nosed settled beside me. A child sitting by his mother. Its feet, bony and ending with toes baring claws, rolled from side to side, knocking into each other in a very childlike way. I noticed, now that I was used enough to it that I wasn't staring at its face, that it wore what appeared to be a uniform. Its coat was striped with silver and black, its ugly face ringed with a small frill, and the silver buttons that ran down the front, as well as a broach that kept its cloak fastened around its shoulders, bore a strange symbol that almost looked like a tree with a golden flame at the heart of its trunk. Though it was hard to tell exactly what it was supposed to be, what with the darkness and tear blurry eyes and all. Rat-tailed wore only the cloak part. No other clothes. Its body was covered in greasy dark fur. If it weren't for the fact that Rat-tailed seemed the smarter of the two, I'd think that perhaps Pig-nosed was the guard and Rat-tailed was simply some sort of guard dog.