The pig goblin sat slumped before me, back braced against a tangle of gnarled roots jutting from the earth like the fingers of some ancient titan. Its breath came ragged and thin, eyelids fluttering shut beneath the pale drizzle of sunlight that leaked through the leafy canopy overhead. I kept my distance, close enough to strike, far enough to dodge trouble, knuckles white around the baseball bat Erin had conjured earlier.
I rolled the bat in my hand, once, twice, thrice, savoring its heft, gauging how much force I'd need if this thing tried anything funny.
"Come on, up," I hissed, each word colder than the mountain wind, a low growl slicing through the hush.
His eyelids snapped open, revealing irises pale as polished moonstone, sharp, lucid, disarmingly sane. Not an ounce of madness, not a glint of the savage hunger I'd come to expect.
"Wait—wait, what do you want? Don't hurt me!" The words spilled out, harsh and breathless, oddly precise, nothing like the wild, broken bellow of a monster..
Gone was the brutality I'd braced for; in its place bloomed a trembling, near-human anxiety. For a heartbeat, this creature felt far too familiar, too close to 'us.' Damnable, how easily fear slips its mask and starts to look like something you recognize.
"You… can talk?" I managed, voice raw and cotton-dry, suspicion wrestling curiosity on my tongue.
He shot back with a crooked grin, all bravado, "What, did you think my mouth was just for eating?"
Fair enough. The quip twitched on my lips but never made it past my throat.
I let my words twist sharp as wire. "Don't play innocent. The ones after me last night, they were your kind, weren't they? Pig goblins. You expect me to believe you're nothing like them?"
The pig goblin shrugged, a quick intelligence glinting behind the mask of nerves. "Sorry right back. I'm not like them. I'm smarter."
If anything, he was making this too easy. I drew closer, letting my intent show as clear as thunder.
My hand shot out, fingers wrapping tight around his thick neck, not enough to crush but more than enough to make my point. The bat quivered, hungry for violence, with every heartbeat within reach.
"Where's my friend?" My words came slow, venomous, each syllable razor-sharp.
He choked, voice cracking. "I… I don't know—"
Every part of me screamed to rip the truth from his throat, but I bit back rage, letting cold calculation slither in. "Aren't you supposed to be brighter than the rest? Then you ought to know something." My tone was a thin dagger, cutting clean through the brittle silence.
I closed the gap between us, the stink of wet meat crawling up my nose, stoking the embers of anger still broiling in my chest. My grip tightened, his hide was rough, leathery, bitter under my palm.
The pig goblin bit his lower lip, fear rippling through his gaze, but deep in those strange eyes flickered a spark of understanding, a reluctant bud of confession.
Color leaked from his cheeks, his skin paling beneath that thick hide as if the air had been sucked straight from his lungs. My fingers lingered, knuckles digging for one breath, two, before I let go, giving him a heartbeat, just a sliver of time to gasp, to tremble, to find his voice… or lose it to terror.
I let the silence stretch between us, heavy as fog that wouldn't lift, pressing at the edges of breath and thought.
"Your breath's coming fast. Why?" My voice split the stillness, quiet but knife-sharp. Across from me, the pig goblin stayed mute, his eyes darting away, fixing on the dirt at his feet as if he might tunnel straight through it and vanish.
"I hid in that cave last night. With my partner. Not far from here. We got chased… no choice but to bar ourselves in. I saw that heap of bones in there…"
I exhaled slow, the weight of exhaustion pressing every word. "A dumping ground, right? No one in their right mind would sleep there. I knew something was off the moment I saw all those bones stacked like warnings. But that storm last night, Hell, we'd have drowned on the open ground. We took what shelter we could get."
The goblin nodded, sluggish, shoulders hunched under the pale weight of morning. In the hesitant dawn he looked frail, the wildness drained out.
"I know you were there," I said, my voice tightening, "but answer me this, why take only my friend? Why not both of us?" I flexed the bat in my grip, letting the question hang, a threat humming just below the surface.
He swallowed, throat bobbing.
"After what happened yesterday, you should be running with your pack, shouldn't you? But I caught you on your own, shadowing me, hunting solo. Why? What do you gain from splitting off when the herd's at your heels?"
Something bitter flashed in his gaze, an old wound, half-hidden, then the hush between us deepened, broken only by the ragged scraping of his breath.
"You're outcast, aren't you?" I pressed, peeling back the layers he tried to wear as armor.
I could spend all day tearing apart this forest, root to treetop, I'd hunt down everything he was hiding. Slowly, I raised the bat, the obsidian tip hovering inches from his face, dancing in the stale morning air, sharp and expectant, eager to finish what had started here.
He closed his eyes for a beat, the defeat plain in his posture. "You've got time," he rasped. "But your girl doesn't."
The words dropped like ice into the hush, edges jagged, each syllable freezing the world one breath colder. I met his gaze, eyes locked, heat and fury swirling between us, then in one swift motion I brought the bat down, hard, not on him but a hair's breadth wide, slamming into the rough bark of the tree behind. The crack whistled through the clearing, snapping the silence.
A slow, ugly smile tugged at my mouth. "Funny," I said, voice low with menace, "I never told you my partner was a woman."
But his lips stayed clamped tight, even as his teeth began to chatter, those little tusks clicking together along the edge of his quivering mouth. I jabbed the black bat an inch from his nose, tip hovering with intent.
"Where's my friend?" I spat, thunder coiling beneath every word.
"I… I don't know!" he squeaked, voice brittle as cracked glass, but his eyes veered sideways, betraying his lying tongue.
This time, I wasn't playing games. The bat swung down, wild and merciless, splitting the air with a tremor that rattled the marrow in my bones. The impact sent a shudder through the lattice of roots pinning him down; ancient trees trembled, their branches bowing in the wake. Through it all, the pig goblin trembled but held, no blood, not a drop, but his heart hammered like a war drum gone mad.
"I know! Please, I know!" he shrieked, pain and panic twisting his words to shredded cloth. I spun the bat lazily in my grip, savoring the power, drawing out his fear, letting the silence drag razor-thin.
"Your friend… they—they want her for breeding," he stammered at last, the words tumbling out in broken gasps. Panic flickered in his wide, wild eyes, his voice a torn whisper riding crackling thunder.
Confusion gnawed at the edges of my mind, scraping holes in the last of my reason. Was this truth, or just another slippery lie from a cornered beast? I watched him squirm, knowing desperation doesn't always tell the straight of things.
"Our kind…" he pressed on, "we mate with other creatures, sometimes with the forest deer… sometimes with smarter things. Humans. Your kind."
He swallowed, or tried to, his throat working, but nothing going down.
"Humans who wander in… always sent as vessels, for the bloodline. For stronger children," he muttered, voice shrinking further. "Countless have come before—always, always taken for the next generation… bearing children to feed the tribe's future."
His confession slammed into me, reality twisting as if the heavens themselves had upended, pouring ice and bile through my chest.
"All for the bloodline," he finished weakly, "to birth children clever enough to survive. Like me, children who can speak, who can…" He didn't finish.
Rage ignited behind my ribcage, fire crawling through my veins. Without mercy, I brought the bat down, aiming straight between his legs, the blow punching a dent into the earth. His scream shot skyward, splitting the silence, pleading for deliverance. Sweat coated his face, gleaming with salt and terror and something like shame.
I seized a fistful of his coarse hair, yanking his head up so our breaths collided, hot and ragged. My eyes burned through him, sharp as shattered glass.
"You'd better start talking," I hissed, my voice barely more than a blade drawn between us, "if you want to keep your skin. Where—is—my—friend?"