It was only a second, but we plummeted toward the raging river for what felt like an eternity of my cursing, the goblin’s snorts, and the wind rushing past my ears. The goblin had my arms pinned tight, so there was no way I could reach out for something to grab, even if something were on the cliff to grab. Hell, even if I could’ve caught something, I would’ve ripped my arm out of its socket from the goblin’s weight alone. All I could do was prepare myself for plunging into the icy river and praying that the river was deep enough that we wouldn’t splatter on any rocks. I closed my eyes and waited for impact.

What did happen next wasn’t in my mental filing cabinet under “Goblins.” Instead of plunging into the icy, frothing water, we stopped just above it. I opened my eyes.

The goblin's face was inches from mine, but its yellow, slitted eyes were focused on the ground. With the wind still rushing past my ears, I looked past the goblin’s ugly face and saw a pair of outstretched, leathery wings.

That’s right. In The Tomb, goblins fly.

My back was to the ground, but from what I could hear, we glided along the course of the churning river about ten or twenty feet below us. The goblin’s wings gave several powerful flaps that drove us higher, and then they outstretched again for a glide. If I weren’t so terrified to be in the arms of a rank-smelling, monstrously oversized goblin, the whole flying experience would’ve been fun. At least for pre-divorce Chris Able.

But for the me of that moment, this was the exact opposite of fun. This monster was taking me somewhere to enslave me, torture me, kill me, or worse. As my mind raced through my options, the goblin’s wings flapped violently as if it were hitting the breaks in midair, then it flung me forward. I sailed through the air, my arms and legs flailing to gain purchase. I flew through a caged door and landed on my back. I rolled over and over along the hard ground until I collided with a stone wall. The impact knocked the breath out of me. I gasped for air as I stood on shaky legs, readying myself for the goblin’s inevitable attack with my fists.

When I turned back toward the cage door, Stephen flew into me and again knocked me into the stone wall. My head slammed into the wall with a reverberating crunch, and I slumped to the ground. My vision became a blur. I tried standing again, but there was no way I could stay on my feet from the sudden vertigo, and I dropped to my knees. I vaguely felt Sonja land somewhere to my right. My ears were ringing, but I heard her grunts and curses

Someone put their hands on my head, and then a surge of warmth entered my body, clearing my vision and taking away the blinding pain in the back of my head.

When I regained my wits, I looked up at the owner of those hands. Constantine grinned down at me.

“I’d say I was glad to see you, brother, but…”

I was way more angry at the goblins than glad to see Constantine at the moment. I jumped to my feet and charged toward the open door. I only got a few steps before one of the goblins slammed it shut and slapped a massive padlock on it. I still ran into the cage and shot my hands through the slats to reach for a throat. The goblin who shut the door turned his back on me, no more worried than if I were a kitten he’d just tossed in. The other goblins behind him grunted and snorted, which I assumed was their laughter.

The goblins went to a fire pit that, even from this distance, smelled like burning dung. The underground river gurgled a few dozen paces past them and was much calmer than it was by the waterfall, which I could still hear about a quarter-mile away. They sat down, and then one goblin produced a leather bag and dumped out our weapons, armor, and even our backpacks. The goblins rummaged through our stuff and tossed things into different piles. Our weapons and armor went into one pile, the food in another, and our backpack supplies in another.

A goblin found one of our eternal torches, removed the hood, and snarled when the flame lit up their entire campsite. The other goblins shied away from the bright light and gave him annoyed roars. He slapped the hood back on and threw it into what I assumed was the garbage pile. A few seconds later, a different goblin found the other eternal torch, unhooded it, and also suffered the curses and snarls of his light-sensitive cohorts. He also slapped the hood back down and threw it into the same pile as the first one.

At least they were as stupid as Sonja and Stephen had claimed.

One goblin sniffed Stephen’s component belt, opened a bag, and started eating the contents. It looked like the aberration’s eyeballs.

“Son of a bitch,” Stephen said behind me. He placed his face against the cage and shouted, “You know how much those are worth, you ugly shit?”

The goblins ignored him and continued grunting and growling and snarling while they searched our stuff.

“That’s nice that they brought our stuff with them,” I said, staring at my Ancestral Longsword and armor.

“Yeah, so they can eat it!” Stephen said, more shouting at the goblins than responding to me.

Sonja stood next to me, staring at her ax Mourner in the loot pile. “That was nice of them. Now we just need to get out of here to get it back.”

“Good luck with that,” Constantine said from behind us. “Oh, I’m fine, by the way, thanks for asking.”

Sonja went over to him and gave him a big hug. “I’m glad you’re okay. You gave us a scare, Priest.”

By the light of the dung fire outside the cave, I could see Constantine’s bearded cheeks begin to turn red. “Thank you, lass. Got quite the scare myself.”

“How did they take you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Stephen said, “one second you were behind me, and the next you were gone. Even a flying goblin couldn’t move that fast or quietly.”

“Wasn’t one o’ them beasts,” Constantine said, his eyes serious. “The goblins have themselves a mage. Bastard opened a portal right behind me in that worm room and yanked me through like a rag doll. I never even had a chance to cry out. They beat me to a pulp and then stripped me of my weapons and armor. I only just had the strength to heal my wounds about an hour ago. So good timing with your concussion there, Mace.”

“How did they even know you were in that room?” Stephen asked.

Constantine shrugged. “That’s your domain. However they did it, that goblin mage is bad news. He can speak English well, or Common, I supposed we’d call it here. Anyway,” Constantine lowered his voice, “he knows we’re from Earth.”

“Does his name happen to be Trox?” I asked.

Constantine thought for a moment. “He didn’t give me his name, but now that you mention it, some of his lackeys said what sounded like ‘Trox’ when they talked about him. I don’t speak goblin, so I can’t be sure. Why?”

I gave Constantine the short story of our encounter in the urn room with Aryam and Angelus. He released a long, slow sigh and said, “Well, then. Can’t wait to get to Level Three.”

“What does this Trox want from us?” I asked. “Besides the usual enslavement, torture, and whatever else these things enjoy.”

“He never asked,” Constantine said. “Just threw me in here and said I’d have company soon. Then he jumped through another portal. I haven’t seen him since. That was, what, ten hours or so ago, I think. I haven’t seen anyone besides these goblins until you showed up to ‘rescue’ me.”

“This is different from before,” Sonja said, scanning our cage and the small goblin camp outside.

“Which part?” I asked.

“Everything. It was like a small village before, with maybe ten goblins. This just looks like a scouting camp. Besides this cage, I don’t see any permanent structures or evidence that they’re here for the long haul. And we definitely never saw a goblin mage.”

“He could’ve been busy or hiding,” Stephen said while glaring at the goblins eating his spell components. “And he’d probably roast these idiots if he knew what they were eating. Oh, come on, not the giant spider eggs!”

“I don’t remember seeing him the first time either,” Constantine said, “but he’s definitely in charge now and orders of magnitude more intelligent this lot.”

I frowned at the goblins outside. “Yeah, well, ‘this lot’ kicked our asses. I don’t want to wait until this goblin mage shows up, especially if he’s as smart as you say.” I lowered my voice, looked at Stephen and Constantine, and said, “You guys know any spells that will unlock this door?”

“Sure,” Stephen said, “and Tweedledum over there just ate the roach wings I needed to cast it.”

“Unless you need something blessed or healed,” Constantine said, “I’m pretty useless. Maybe if I had my mace...”

“If I had Mourner I’d make short work of this cage,” Sonja growled.

“Well, guys,” I said, “we don’t have our weapons or spell components. Look, we’ll never have all the tools we want to fight any battle. Never mind defeating something like Angelus. All we have is what we have. And each other.”

“All right, General Mace,” Stephen said, “what’s your brilliant tactical plan to get us out of here with only our bare hands and some light magic?”

I looked at Stephen. “So you can cast spells without components?”

“Sure. I can make some pretty lights, maybe throw our voices.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe we can use those as a diversion,” he admitted. “But say I throw your voice and create some fireworks. How will we get them to unlock the door for us?”

“I’ll insult them,” Sonja said with a grin. She held up her Comprehend Languages bracelet.

Mace thought that was a brilliant idea, but my instinct to protect Melony kicked in. “No way. You said they go bonkers if they’re insulted. Give me the bracelet, and I’ll insult them.”

Sonja gave me a level look. “One, I can’t just give you the bracelet. It won’t come off until I die, remember? And two, I should kick your ass up and down this cage for thinking your Strength stat is higher than mine. You’re what, an eight or nine?”

I glanced at my forearm and sighed. “Seven, actually.”

She patted my head. “That’s cute, big guy. I’m a twelve.”

Stephen snickered for the first time since he saw all his valuable components go down the goblin gullets, while Constantine pursed his lips to keep from smiling. I licked my lips and said, “Fine. You do it. Now let’s plan this out.”

We spent the next few minutes whispering amongst ourselves to finalize everyone’s role in our breakout plan. The goblins didn’t pay any attention to us; they just kept eating Stephen’s components and picking through our items.

Two goblins suddenly came to blows over Sonja’s ax while the other four snarled and roared their approval.

Sonja whispered, “Oh, this is perfect!” She hurried over to the cage to watch and the rest of us joined her.

The fight was brutal. Both goblins punched each other with the force of sledgehammers. Each blow came with the sound of crunching bone and slapping meat. Noses were broken, ribs were fractured, and one goblin seemed to have broken every bone in his two fists but kept punching anyway. The fight made a Rocky movie seem like an exercise in conflict resolution on Sesame Street.

One goblin suddenly connected an uppercut to the other’s jaw; the recipient crumpled to the ground unconscious. The goblin who won picked up Mourner, swung it high, and buried it into the defeated goblin’s skull. The others roared and cheered on the victor, who continued hacking at the dead goblin’s head until it was a pulpy mass of green brains and bones.

“Jesus,” I breathed. I looked at Sonja. “You sure about this?”

Sonja grinned that feral barbarian grin. “We can take ‘em.”

Before I could stop her, Sonja activated her Comprehend Languages bracelet and grunted something in goblin at the fight's victor.

The victor slowly turned his head to Sonja, a snarl twisting his gruesomely bloody face. His eyes were puffy, and his nose was twisted almost entirely to the right. Blood streamed down his lips from the cuts he’d sustained. He snorted once, and droplets of blood flew off his lips like spittle. The other goblins stared at Sonja, then started hooting at the victor.

You gonna take that from a little human? I could almost hear them saying.

“I think I have his attention,” Sonja muttered.

“What did you tell him?” I whispered.

“I told him his challenger was too weak and that if he let me out, I’d take Mourner from him and ram it up his… well, you get the idea.”

The goblin victor released an angry roar that in no way matched his roar when the other goblin had challenged him. This was the roar of a supremely pissed-off monster that wanted to cleave Sonja in half with her own ax.

He raised Mourner in one hand and charged toward the cage.