Page 44 of The Goblin and The Dancer
He was their friend. He was someone who had spent his life making sure that people like Grik and Rosanna were safe. He was willing to die to save them.
And neither Grik nor Rosanna had any intention of letting him do it.
They scrambled to the crevice’s opening, but then they hesitated and flinched back as one of the kraken’s tentacles shot past Paul and flew towards Grik and Rosanna’s hiding place.
It struck the side of the cavern, right above the fissure’s entrance.
“Watch out!” Grik yelled, shielding Rosanna as a shower of rubble rained down on the entrance, blocking their way out and leaving only a sliver of an opening to let in any light at all.
“No, no, no!” Rosanna cried, clutching at Grik’s arm.
“It’s all right!” said Grik. “We can dig our way out!”
He began using his oversized hands like paddles to shift the rocks away from the entrance as rapidly as he could. The rocks were far too heavy for Rosanna to move, and she could do little to help, though she did her best to shove the rubble behind her as Grik dug.
His progress felt painfully slow, although his heart felt as if it might burst from the effort. As he dug and Rosanna shifted, their eyes remained on the narrow opening, where the battle in the cavern was playing out.
Paul had drawn his sword and was hacking savagely at first one tentacle and then another. His blade was a blur as he spun and dove at the kraken, always moving one beat faster than the monster. He seemed bigger somehow, faster, stronger, pulling from some deep inner reserve of training and determination to defend those in his care—to the death.
Rosanna slipped her spare hand into Grik’s as they both stared through the narrow space, watching the steadfast figure of the soldier.
Despite his efforts, Paul was backed into a corner and was jumping back and forth to avoid the slimy tentacles that reached for him. He staggered and nearly fell into the pool, and Grik could see that he was tired. At any moment, the soldier’s strength would fail him.
“Hurry,” Grik mumbled, talking to himself, and he worked even more frantically. With a groan, he rolled away a particularly big rock. There was now just enough room for a goblin to scoot through.
Grik popped through the hole and turned around to begin widening the entrance for Rosanna.“Maybe you should stay in here,” he suggested, even as he dug.
Rosanna glared at him through the slit. “Don’t even say it! I am sticking with you and Paul, and if you leave me in here, you’re going to be in big trouble!”
“We’re already in big trouble!” Grik protested, but he kept digging, spurred on by the warning look in her eyes.
“Grik.” Rosanna’s voice suddenly fell to a whisper, and as Grik looked up from the boulder he was wrestling with, he saw that she had gone even paler. “I think the trouble just got bigger,” Rosanna said faintly.
Grik whipped around to where she was pointing, to the tunnel where they had first come through. He blinked in disbelief, and then his stomach wrapped itself into knots.
Figures rushed into the cavern, led by a spindly apparition in trailing robes.
It was Ratiga, leading a group of goblins and elves.
Grik closed his eyes, half-expecting the gang to be gone when he opened them again—a figment of a terrified and overwrought imagination. But they were still there when he looked again, pouring into the cavern like bats.
Grik clutched at his head. “This cannot possibly be happening!”
As if they didn’t have enough troubles right now! How had Ratiga and her men found them? Perhaps they had stumbled, unwittingly, across one of the outlets used by the underworld gang. It didn’t matter; what did matter was that the odds of dying had dramatically increased.
“There they are!” Ratiga bellowed triumphantly. “Shoot them, you fools!”
Ratiga’s men raised their weapons to fire at Grik and Rosanna, but two of the kraken’s tentacles struck them from the side and slammed them into the wall. This finally caught their attention, and they turned to defend themselves from the monster.
The kraken roared as bullets burrowed into its thick flesh and its tentacles writhed and slapped the water in a fervor of pain and rage. Displaced water exploded from the pool like suddenly rising turrets, tumbling apart a moment later and sending crashing waves in all directions that threatened to wash the intruders from the rock shelf and into the water.
Grik breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps Ratiga’s arrival had been a blessing after all. At the very least, it had divided the kraken’s attention.
But they weren’t out of danger yet. One of the more daring elves was running across the cave ledge, racing straight towards Grik and Rosanna. For one terrible instant, Grik froze again, hesitating between digging out Rosanna, so they could make a run for it, or turning to try to fend off the approaching elf.
It was Paul who saved them. Grik heard the soldier call their names, heard the determination in Paul’s voice, and then saw a small silver blade flash through the air, thrown perfectly, despite the distance, to burrow into the shoulder of their would-be attacker.
The elf cried out and dropped his pistol and then retreated rapidly as a tentacle came shooting towards him.
