Chapter 11. Greed
Sael stood on the railroad tracks, staring down at the fat leather bag in his hands.
One hundred Dracos.
One gold ingot, actually. Worth one hundred Dracos. Stamped with a lowercase "d" bisected by a single vertical line, the official mark of the draco. The guard captain had apologized about not having a dimensional bag at the station, said this leather pouch was the most practical solution for transporting a single ingot.
Sael hefted it. It was satisfyingly heavy. Real wealth. The sort that could buy a house, or fund a small business, or keep a family comfortable for four to five years.
Greed, it appeared, was thankfully still present in him.
Since he seldom felt any excitement these days, perhaps he should cling to this greed. Nurture it. Let it grow into something properly obsessive.
Then again, maybe that's exactly how dragons became so hard to bear with. Started with one satisfying piece of gold and ended up sleeping on hoards, burning villages that looked at their treasure funny.
Sael had always been warned about that by his mother. She'd been very firm on the subject. Wanting more than you need invites unnecessary complications, she'd say while skinning whatever monster Sael had killed that morning. Value knowledge. Value strength. Possessions are replaceable.
Sensible advice from a woman who'd raised him alone on the continent of Hel, where the monsters were mean and the landscape was meaner.
He'd heed it.
But in this case—standing here with a bag of gold he’d earned by stopping a murderer—he was relieved that even without needing most human comforts anymore, he still liked money.
A silly thing to cling to, perhaps, but it grounded him.
Then he looked up.
And became suddenly, uncomfortably aware of his surroundings.
The railroad stretched in both directions, cutting through what had once been forest and was now... not quite forest anymore. The trees had been pushed back to make room for the tracks, leaving a wide corridor of cleared land. Stumps dotted the edges. Brush had started to reclaim some of it, but not much. The soil was dry. Packed. The sort of ground that had been walked on by construction crews and hadn't recovered.
No buildings in sight. No people. Just the rails, the sky, and the distant tree line on either side.
Sael turned in a slow circle.
Nothing.
Which was fine. He'd teleported here on purpose. Picked a spot far enough ahead of the train that he could intercept it. The isolation was intentional.
Still.
Monsters generally avoided populated areas. Cities, towns, anywhere with enough foot traffic to make hunting inconvenient. But places like this—transitional zones, edges of civilization, corridors carved through wilderness—these were exactly the sort of spots where things with teeth and hunger liked to lurk.
Not as much as before, probably. This used to be deeper forest. Now it was a railroad. The construction would have driven most creatures away. The regular passage of trains would keep them cautious.
But still.
Sael's eyes moved along the tree line. Checked the shadows between the trunks. Force of habit.
Nothing moved.
He looked down at the bag of gold again.
When would the train arrive? He'd calculated the timing, but calculations were approximations. Could be ten minutes. Could be twenty. Could be five.
He should have asked for a more precise schedule.
Or he could buy a watch.
The thought surfaced unexpectedly. A watch. An expensive one. He'd been thinking about that for—what, ten years now? Ever since watches became more sophisticated. There was this brand out of the northern territories that had started incorporating minor enchantments. Time-keeping was accurate to the second. The faces were beautiful. Crystal and silver and tiny etched runes that glowed faintly at night.
He'd seen one in a shop window in Verath. Hadn't bought it because he told himself he didn't need it.
But with a hundred Dracos in his hand—
A sound.
Behind him.
Sael's head turned.
It wasn't a loud sound, or even a close one. But his hearing had been enhanced decades ago, and distance meant less than it used to. What reached his ears was... voices.
Not human ones.
High-pitched. Guttural. The consonants were wrong, the vowels stretched in unfamiliar ways. Goblin speech. He recognized the cadence even before he recognized the words.
And from the increasingly frustrated shouts, the rising pitch of what sounded like anger—
They were fighting.
Sael turned fully.
The tree line was maybe sixty meters away. There was movement in the underbrush. Shapes. Small ones. Green-gray skin visible through gaps in the foliage.
He counted. One, two, three... five. Five goblins.
One of them was larger than the others. Not by much—still small by human standards, barely chest-height on an average man—but noticeably bigger than its companions. More muscular. It had its hands wrapped around the throat of a smaller goblin and was shaking the creature violently while the other three tried to pry them apart.
The smaller goblin's legs kicked uselessly. Its hands clawed at the larger one's wrists.
The three in the middle were shouting. Pulling. Accomplishing nothing.
Sael watched.
The struggle continued for another few seconds. Then one of the three gave up on pulling and bit the larger goblin's arm instead.
That worked.
The larger goblin released its grip with a yelp, spinning to cuff the biter across the head. The strangled goblin collapsed to the ground, gasping. The other two scrambled backward.
And then one of them looked up.
Saw Sael.
Froze.
The others followed its gaze.
Five pairs of yellow eyes fixed on him.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then the largest goblin hissed.
It was a sharp, aggressive sound. A warning.
The others joined in. A chorus of hisses, rising in pitch, overlapping. Threat displays. Territorial aggression.
"Hmm."
This was a hmm of mild displeasure. Sael had been having a reasonably pleasant moment of introspection. The greed. The memories of his mother. The contemplation of buying a nice watch. And now this.
How rude of them.
The goblins seemed to take his lack of reaction as an invitation. Or perhaps a sign of weakness. They emerged from the underbrush in a loose group, the larger one in front. They were armed. Crude knives, mostly. One had a sharpened stick. Another had what looked like a broken bottle tied to a length of cord.
They approached in a way that was probably meant to be intimidating. Spread out. Low to the ground. Making themselves look bigger than they were.
The largest one stopped about ten meters away.
It pointed a knife at Sael.
"Give," it said.
Sael blinked.
The goblin's voice was rough. Gravelly. The word came out mangled, the "v" more of a "b," the whole thing compressed into a single harsh syllable. But it was, unmistakably, a word.
A human word.
"Give," the goblin repeated, jabbing the knife toward the bag in Sael's hand. "Gold. Give."
Sael stared at it.
"You can talk?" he said.
The goblins looked at each other.
Then back at Sael.
The largest one's expression shifted. Its brow furrowed. The hissing stopped.
"Talk?" it said. The word was incredulous. Offended, even. "Yes talk. Why not talk?"
"We talk," one of the smaller ones added, its voice higher and faster. "We talk good. You think we stupid?"
"We not stupid," another one said.
"Stupid human," the first small one muttered.
"Think we animals," the one with the broken bottle said bitterly. "Think we no words."
"Rude," said the strangled one, who had apparently recovered enough to join the conversation. Its voice was hoarse. "Very rude."
Sael raised a hand.
"I apologize," he said. "That was not my intention. It's just—goblins generally do not live around humans long enough to learn their language. That's why I was surprised. I meant no offense."
The goblins processed this.
There was a brief silence.
The largest one lowered its knife slightly. Its expression was still suspicious, but the raw hostility had faded into something more like wariness.
"Humans kill us," it said. "Chase us. Burn homes. Not live near. Not choice."
"Fair point," Sael said.
More silence.
The goblin with the hoarse voice rubbed its throat and glared at the larger one, who ignored it.
Sael looked at the group. The knives. The aggressive postures that hadn't quite relaxed. The bag of gold still visible in his hand.
"Are you trying to rob me?" he asked.
The goblins exchanged glances again.
"Yes," the largest one said.
"...Why?"