Chapter 3

The walls pressed clase on either side. Another step and my shoulders were brushing against stone. I ducked instinctively, then I had to duck lower, until my knees hit the ground and my claws scraped stone floor. As I moved forward I could feel the air change, it grew cooler, damper, carrying smells I didn't recognize. Maybe Earth and rot? then there was something else. Something that made my mouth water even though I had no idea what it was.

Food. Had to be food. My stomach knows these things!

I moved faster. My knees scrapping on the stone started to bleed. My shoulders slammed into the sides of the wall, but I kept going. The passage twisted. Branched. I followed my nose.

Hunger makes you stupid.

I didn't know yet that other things lived in the dark. Didn't know they hunted. Didn't know that a two-month-old goblin who'd never left the cave was walking straight into territory where he was the smallest, easiest prey. Looking back now, I can see how obvious it should have been. But I was too young and too desperate to see anything except to follow my stomach and nose.

My stomach was screaming and my head was empty and all I could think about was meat.

Meat. Fresh meat. Close.

I rounded a corner and the passage opened into a wider chamber. Moonlight filtered down through cracks in the ceiling—thin silver lines cutting through the black. And there, in the center of the chamber, was a dead rabbit.

Just lying there. Untouched.

My legs carried me forward. I didn't think. Didn't question why a rabbit would be down here, alone, perfectly placed in a pool of moonlight like an offering.

I reached for it.

Light exploded around me.

Not moonlight. This was different—blue and cold and wrong. It wrapped around my body like rope, tightening, burning where it touched my skin. I screamed and tried to pull away but the light held me. Lifted me. My feet left the ground and I thrashed, clawing at nothing, at air, at the light itself.

"A goblin? And a young one at that."

The voice came from the shadows. Calm. Curious. Not goblin.

A figure stepped into the moonlight—tall, impossibly tall, wrapped in dark robes that dragged across the stone floor. His face was pale. Smooth. His eyes caught the blue light and threw it back at me.

Human.

The word hit me like a second trap. Weeks ago, they'd come to the cave—humans with fire and metal and that same blue light. The strong ones had fought them. Some didn't come back. The tribe had huddled in the deeper dark, and the word had passed through us like poison: human. Danger. Death. Run.

I'd never seen one before. Only heard the fear in Gor's voice when he spoke of them. Only felt the tribe's terror when they sealed off the upper passages.

Now one stood in front of me.

I couldn't run. Couldn't even move.

The human walked closer. He tilted his head, studying me the way I'd watched the others fight over food. Like I was meat. Something to satisfy him.

"So young," he muttered, more to himself than to me. "Core barely developed. It might take better this way—less established pattern to fight against." He reached up and touched the light binding me. It pulsed brighter, and I screamed again. "Yes. You'll do nicely."

He made a gesture with his hand, and the world lurched sideways. The chamber spun. My vision blurred—moonlight and blue light and darkness all mixing together until I couldn't tell which way was up.

Then everything went black.

When I woke, I was in a cage.