This post has chapters three and four of my not-previously-published epic fantasy novel Broken Rule. I'm serializing the first few chapters here on Steemit to see if there's an audience for serializing the complete story here.

From the beginning: Chapter 1
Previous chapter: Chapter 2

---

Chapter 3

Bishop Vasili, head of the cathedral in Kubara, capital of Tarkannan, was not a young man, or a fit one. Today was his day to petition the king, but as he tried to get out of the cathedral the flustered young Learned Corwin had stopped him. Corwin was supposed to be preparing for the Day of Saint Rudolphus prayers, but he was clearly overwhelmed. Vasili knew he needed to get to the royal court, but his heart wouldn't let him abandon his young charge. He settled the young man's nerves and showed him which robes to wear and which passages in the Blessed Book would be appropriate. He was nearly a half hour late by the time he got things settled. He longed for the day when Learned Marek would return from his pilgrimage and could take care of situations like this. Corwin was clearly a pious man, but Vasili worried that he'd never be able to organize things well enough to tend to the people without supervision.

---

Once Vasili made it out the door he hurried through the streets as fast as he could, being mindful not to undermine the dignity of the vestments he wore. He was, after all, someone that the people respected. He made his way past many market stalls, selling all manner of goods. Kubara was the richest city in Tarkannan, as well as the capital. It sat on the banks of the Redwater River, as far north as you could go before it was no longer navigable. The Redwater was the central artery through the most productive farmland in Tarkannan and led out to the sea beyond. Kubara was also the western end of the Spice Road, the path the Desert Traders took through the mountain passes that led to their homeland. The caravans of the Desert Traders brought in silks, spices, and other rare goods from the east. Kubara had grown over hundreds of years where these two trade routes met. Indeed, growth seemed to be the only constant that Kubara knew, as it repeatedly overflowed the walls and fortifications that the early kings had tried to build. The gates and walls were quaint reminders of days gone by now, little more than curiosities that occasionally created bottlenecks in the traffic on the streets. Normally Vasili would have stopped to chat with some merchants in their stalls as he passed, but he was in a hurry.

The royal palace was in the western section of the city, just outside the obsolete innermost wall. The king who had first built it had wanted to avoid disrupting the markets and warehouses that served the riverboats and the caravan masters and had begun the city's expansion to the west. With its concentration of wealthy nobles, the palace had become a source of revenue to rival the river and caravans, and a savvy new class of merchants had expanded the new city around it.

Vasili was puffing and sweating by the time he got to the royal palace, and terribly late. He hoped this wouldn't upset the king. The king was unlikely to give him what he needed on the best of days, but if the king was in a foul mood then there would be no hope. He made his way into the throne room and took in the scene. Vasili breathed a sigh of relief. He was late for his appointment, but the court was running even later. King Radoslav, Fourth of the name, King of Tarkannan, sat slumped on the throne. He looked every one of his sixty five years as he heard from the petitioner before him. Vasili recognized the man as Baron Toma, widely regarded as naught but a puppet, whose strings were pulled by Duke Gavril. Vasili knew little about the man, other than that he was seldom seen at prayers.

“Majesty,” Toma said, “I intend no insult against Duke Benedek, he has served the realm long as Lord Marshal and the years have not been kind to his health. None in the realm are more honorable, but his heart has not the strength left to crush the goblins in the Wolf's Teeth Mountains. Let him retire to the orchards that he loves so well and ask Duke Gavril to take up the banner as Lord Marshal. We all know that Gavril is a master strategist. He'll make short work of the goblins, and we won't have to support an army in the field much longer.”

“Strategist!” scoffed Count Evgeny, the Lord Treasurer. “More like schemer and plotter. Perhaps we wouldn't have an army in the field because he would march it on the palace. Benedek has served the realm long as Lord Marshal, as did his father, and his father before him. Should we strip him of this position because some jumped up country brute has too great an appetite for glory?” Evgeny was of an age with the king, but still fit and active despite his gray hair and well known for having a quick wit and a sharp tongue.

“Brute?” Toma replied. “The battle at White Ford...”

“Ah, yes, White Ford,” said Evgeny, cutting him off. “The victory that grows with each retelling. I thought that was the sort of thing that only happened to the boar that Sir Grigori slew on his name day.” A muscular man with big, bushy sideburns blushed bright red at the joke, and some chuckles broke out from the assembled nobles.

Toma was openly angry now. “Yes, White Ford, where the entire barbarian army was routed and we lost only a hundred men. It turned the tide of the war!”

The king's voice rumbled to life. “Both Gavril and Benedek are loyal men and true, and both are fine commanders in the field. Benedek has served us well as Lord Marshal for many years and will continue to do so.”

Baron Toma had to take a moment to get his anger under control, lest he turn it on the king. “Of course, Majesty, your wisdom as always lights the way.” He bowed and withdrew.

The king's attendant announced, “The next petitioner is His Excellency Bishop Vasili.” Vasili bustled his way up to the king, and bowed down on his creaky knees, where he stayed to deliver his request.

---

“Majesty, you well know that tending to the souls of your people is the mission given to me by the Most Holy. It is a mission that I undertake without complaint, but though the commitment of my soul hasn't wavered, matters more earthly hinder my steps. The coffers of the cathedral run low, and I come to beg a gift of gold from your most generous and pious heart.”

The king's face grew troubled, for he was a pious man and had always supported the church. “Did we not donate most generously at...”

“Saint Alwin's Day, Majesty,” supplied his minister.

“The treasury is not bottomless. Were we not generous as always at Saint Alwin's Day?”

“Majesty, indeed the gift was most generous, but there are many calls on the temple coffers. The Poor Kitchen...”

“The Poor Kitchen” grumbled Count Evgeny. “Indeed, it must be expensive to drown the city in thieves, beggars, and disease-ridden wretches.”

The Poor Kitchen had been Learned Marek's idea. Bishop Vasili had been skeptical at first, but couldn't deny the holy purpose of feeding the poor. At first it had gone well. Learned Marek was blessed with an ordered and disciplined mind and had run it so well that the good which was done was well worth the small cost. But Marek had received the holy call to pilgrimage. He had set out several months ago with nine of the most devout men and women in the congregation. Since then the Poor Kitchen seemed to be crumbling under its own weight. Since he had no one else, Vasili sent Learned Corwin to buy the food, but the young man had a generous and trusting nature, and was routinely swindled by the merchants. The only way it could be worse was if Vasili had tried to do the bargaining and haggling himself. Costs had nearly tripled, and more and more people were coming for meals every day. Evgeny wasn't wrong about attracting the poor from the nearby towns and villages. But how could Vasili turn them away? Their bodies and souls needed attention just as much as the city beggars who had first shown the need for the Poor Kitchen.

“Majesty, it's true that many come to the Poor Kitchen. It is a sad fact that some who don't have the blessing of wealth allow their souls to be tempted to sin or allow their bodies to fall into disease. But the Poor Kitchen allows us to minister to them! Many of these men, women, and children think not of the nourishment of their souls when their bodies go hungry. By giving them food we also give them a chance to rededicate themselves to the Most Holy.”

The king responded, “Bishop Vasili, you know that we have a duty to all of our people, from the high to the low. And it troubles us that many go hungry. But those few are not our only concern. Duke Benedek fights in the Wolf's Teeth to defend our people from the goblins. Should we call him home and let the goblins murder our people in their beds so that we can feed some beggars here?”

“No, Majesty, but surely there are other funds...”

Evgeny interrupted again. “Surely there are other ways for you to minister. Perhaps if you paid more attention to curing sin and less to filling bellies, we wouldn't need so many men in the city watch.”

“Evgeny, don't be so hard on the man,” the king said. “He has a holy calling, and who among us can accomplish all the things that the Most Holy asks of us? We are sorry, Vasili, but we cannot help you. Gold does not fall from the heavens into our treasury any more than it does into yours. Perhaps Evgeny has the right of it, and you should close your Kitchen.”

Vasili closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “Thank you, Majesty, for hearing my plea. I shall pray to the Most Holy for guidance, and for your health, and Duke Benedek's, and for the victory of our brave men over the goblins.” The king grunted in approval as the bishop stood and made way for the next petitioner.

As Vasili made his way out of the throne room, a man touched his arm and said, “Holy one, wait.” Vasili looked at the man. He was tall, six and a half feet at least, and had the shaved head and long mustache common among the Desert Traders. He held out a small pouch. “For your kitchen.”

Vasili accepted the pouch. “Thank you, but I thought that your people didn't worship the Most Holy.”

“We do not, holy one, but Korrina also tells us to share our blessings with the poor. The spices from my caravan sold well, and I am much blessed with wealth. So I give to you, holy one, so that you may give to those who need.”

Vasili gave his thanks. As he thought about his problems with the Kitchen, he remembered that the desert traders were infamous for their shrewd bargaining. The bishop wondered for a minute if this man, who didn't even revere the Most Holy, could do more for his people than he could.

---

Chapter 4

Sir Radek's eyes darted back and forth as he rode, scanning the terrain ahead for potential ambush but also trying to keep an eye on the two young knights under his command. Radek was still a young man himself, but he had served in the War in the South and that made him a grizzled veteran compared to Sir Konstantin and Sir Gaspar, who were barely past their name days. Radek had been tasked with this scouting mission by Duke Benedek himself, and he knew how important it was. Ambush had been the biggest problem for Duke Benedek's expedition into the Wolf's Teeth, and scouting ahead to see if the passes were clear was vitally important. Goblins were crafty devils, and marching the troops through the mountains blind would be as good as marching them to their deaths. Radek tried to convince himself that riding ahead as a scouting party was a different matter, but he wasn't completely successful. He knew the goblins were out there ahead of him somewhere, and that thought chilled him to the bone.

For a long time, the horrors that Radek had seen during the War in the South would visit him in his nightmares, but not anymore. The horrors perpetrated by goblins had taken their place. Radek had never seen a goblin before joining Duke Benedek's expedition, but had heard the stories: ugly, savage little creatures. That didn't begin to cover it. Goblins were ugly, yes, but not in any conventional way. There was no rhyme or reason to how they were built, no hand of the divine visible behind their structure.

The first goblin Radek had ever seen stood two feet tall, although it might have gotten up to two and a half had its back not been stooped and hunched. Its left arm was long and emaciated, its elbow almost reaching to the ground. The fingers on the hand were similarly long and thin, but with thick bulbous joints. It had claws like six inch knives on the ends of the fingers, which it wiggled back and forth like the opening and closing of shears. The goblin's right arm was short, bulging with muscles, its hand twisted into a permanent fist, the claws on the fingers stabbing through the flesh of its hand and out the back. The right leg was freakishly long, but the creature kept it permanently bent to match the left, which seemed to end at the knee, in a stolen boot that the goblin had lashed to the stump. Around its waist it wore a checkered sash, no doubt stolen from some knight out of the dairy lands. It seemed to fancy the checkerboard pattern, because it bore scars all over the flesh of its torso where it had continued the lines, perhaps with its own vicious claws. The left side of its face appeared scarred as well, or else the blank gruesome expanse where its left eye and nose should have been were natural features. The right eye was red, and it had a small round ear behind it, swollen shut as if it had been repeatedly beaten there. Its left ear was long and pointed, like a cat's, although it stuck out to the side rather than the top. Its jaw was misaligned, sticking far to the right so that it could never properly close its mouth; its tiny pointed teeth were always visible, and it always seemed to have a line of drool streaming somewhere. It was hairless and had wrinkly skin the color of an overcast sky.

Radek had been too taken aback by its appearance to strike when he first saw it, and then felt what it was like to have its mouth clamped onto his leg as he rode, the wicked claws slashing his horse's belly while the fist brutally pounded his back. While Radek stood transfixed by his revulsion his fellows moved forward and drove their spears into the creature. Radek nearly died in that encounter, and would have if his fellow knights had not been more alert than he was. Even so, Radek still had a bright red rash around the bite wound that never seemed to properly heal, no matter what herbs and poultices he tried. It was still difficult for Radek to overcome that moment of hesitation when he saw a goblin, that unwelcome fascination with each new, unique monstrosity that confronted him. He wondered how many more of those moments it would take for the goblins to finally take him.

As ugly as the goblins were, what made them truly frightening was their savagery and deadly cunning. Goblins would fight like mad beasts, latching on and never letting go, or slashing with wild fury without a thought for their own safety. But they also built traps that could baffle the wiliest woodsman and planned ambushes that caught the most cautious souls. They could sneak in the night like nothing Radek had ever known, and it was common to be woken up by screams when a goblin had made its way into a tent in camp.

Radek shook his head to chase away his daydreams. He couldn't afford to get lost in the past when he needed to concentrate on the present. He crested the rise that marked the high point of the pass; it would all be downhill from here. Small scraggly pine trees were the only living vegetation, and clumps of dead, dry grass poked up here and there out of the otherwise bare ground. Konstantin and Gaspar rode up to flank him on either side. Gaspar turned and was about to say something when his horse reared up with a frenzied scream and threw him off. A moment later Radek's own horse bolted forward, and he had to hold on to the reins for dear life. Konstantin's horse followed a second later with its own scream. Radek looked back and saw that the goblins had somehow lashed the handles of three knives together to form a deadly star that they had thrown, sinking one of the blades deep into his horse's flank. He wondered for a moment how you could grip such a device to throw it without cutting your own hand, but the blood on one of the other blades reminded him that goblins didn't think that way. A rope sprung up across the path in front of the horses, and they both went down with broken legs. Konstantin was crushed between them, but Radek was thrown clear.

As Radek tried to get back up he saw a group of screaming goblins dismembering Gaspar's corpse. As he watched the carnage, another gang took him from behind. Each goblin weighed less than a small child, but with so many he had no hope. The goblins rolled him onto his back, and used their claws to rip through the leather straps that held his breastplate in place. One of them slashed the tunic he wore underneath the armor with a wicked looking knife, and grasping little hands from either side pulled it apart, leaving his chest bare to the sky. He expected the knife through his heart next, or perhaps their teeth at his throat, but they didn't kill him.

Instead, a single female goblin climbed up and stood on his chest. She had broad shoulders and long, powerful arms, and one large distended breast that hung down like a sack. The entire right side of her body was covered with oozing, pus-filled sores. Her left leg was covered in bulging blue veins, and it twitched and throbbed constantly. She wore a mask made from a hollowed-out human skull over her face, with her red, feverish eyes looking out through the sockets. At her neck she had a necklace of teeth and feathers, with matching bands at her wrists and ankles. She had a staff made from a human femur, adorned with more teeth and feathers. Her right hand held some piece of gore dripping with blood, probably taken from Gaspar. She reached down and used the blood to draw some sort of symbol on Radek's chest.

The other goblins started a rhythmic chant with their scratchy, shrieking voices. The shaman started shaking her staff and the teeth made a rattling sound against the bone. She waved the staff in a circle over the bloody symbol she had drawn, and Radek felt pain beyond anything he'd ever felt before, as if a horse had kicked him square in the chest. He struggled to get his breath again. Before he could, the chanting got louder and the shaman waved the staff again, this time left to right across the symbol. The pain came again, worse than before, and Radek struggled to get breath back into his lungs. The chanting got louder still, and the shaman waved her staff again, from bottom to top, and ended with the staff pointed at Radek's throat, rattling furiously. The pain came, and it was worse than anything Radek thought he could endure. He felt as though something was ripped away from him, something vital and necessary, and the chanting grew louder still.

Suddenly Radek realized that he could understand the chant. It wasn't the garbled shrieking he thought it was. No, they were saying, over and over again, “Kill, kill, kill.” The pain seemed to have disappeared. And then a new realization came to him. The sound he heard wasn't the goblins chanting, it was the beating of his own heart. Kill, kill, kill. He had thought his life was over when the goblins had taken him down, but now he was filled with glorious life, his heart beating with a wonderful kill, kill, kill. The shaman scrambled off him, and the rest of the goblins released the hold they had on him. He stood, and picked up the sword that had been ripped away from him during the attack. He set off toward the duke's camp, kill, kill, kill. The goblins watched him go, some overwhelmed by their own shrieking laughter.