Beleg looked over at the others, trying to avoid Kre’s eyes but found no help from his colleagues. “Ah,” he muttered, “I’m a Tehynshin too you know. I heard the same stories growing up.”
“What do you mean when they start to stink?!” Kre jibed back. “I was close enough to know that there isn’t a worse smell already.”
“That’s what you think laddie,” came the gruff voice of Gnore. “Goblin corpses rot faster’n Druckner can down a tankard, moreso’n the sun.” He waved a hand to the early afternoon sun and nodded, as if acknowledging a colleague.
“We cannot even burn the bodies,” explained Talimar. “Doing so releases something toxic in their blood that would kill most of the plant and wildlife in this area. We just have to let them rot away in the light. It should not take more than a few days before nothing is left but hollowed bones that will eventually crumble to dust.”
At the thought of toxic blood, Kre looked down at the weapon still in his hand, stained with the already stinking blood of the goblin he slew.
“You will want to be cleaning that off,” Kersath murmured, his voice eerily close as if he were whispering into Kre’s ear. “It tends to stain if left for too long… but I am thinking that perhaps your blade won’t have a problem with that.”
Kre nodded and accepted a small, wet piece of rough burlap from Beleg, who had torn it from his own cleaning cloth. Kre noticed all of the others furiously scrubbing at their weapons and it dawned on him just how incredibly efficient this company was at murder.
He passed the rag over his blade and was happy to see a clean streak of metal revealed. In a manner of about ten seconds, his entire tyrfang had been cleaned and he sheathed it, much to the annoyance of a few of the others who were still working to clean their own instruments of death and destruction.
Instead of enjoying his free time, however, Kre elected to take one of the arrows Kersath had tucked in the crook of his arm and started to clean it for the taller, darker skinned Ylveryan. Although the act clearly surprised Kersath, the two didn’t speak of it. They simply followed the others out of the clearing and back into the wood towards where their horses were tethered.
“Never seen a goblin before,” Kre said to no one in particular once they started to mount up. “I really only heard of them in fanciful stories in the tavern. Always thought they were some made up creature.”
A few members of the company, notably Talimar, Dain, and Beleg, exchanged side glances at each other.
Kre let the exchange hang in the air for a moment as they started to circle up the horses. “You know, I’ve gotten to get very good at reading side glances over the last couple of weeks. That one was a big one.” He pulled his horse, Maple, around to face Beleg. He figured the big man was the likeliest one to talk. “So, what am I missing?”