(POV: Seris Vale)
They took the men first.
Seris learned that quickly—not that it helped. There had originally been 8 women in this unholy toothpick of a cage. When they ran out of human males they used the women. It didn't matter because there was little she could do regardless. She had no weapons and no strength. Her guards had been killed long ago. She wondered if she was actually lucky this was a ritualistic goblin tribe and not a regular one, at least she may die before they take her. She did not want to give birth to such a vile thing. They had not visited lately aside from food and water deliveries, a reprieve. Well what constitutes as food she guessed.
The cave they were kept in was wide and low, not to mention damp and dreary, its ceiling blackened by old blood the green heathens never bothered to clean. Not to mention older and much fouler substances scattered here and there. If she hadn't already lost her sense of smell she would stop retching. Fortune smiled on her as her nose no longer seemed to be in order.
Crude rough bars made of sharpened bone and bound wood separated them from the rest of the cavern. It was in short a prison built to contain them.
Five humans.
Four women.
One man.
The man was screaming.
They dragged him past the bars by his arms, feet scraping uselessly against stone as he resisted with all his might. He was a merchant—Seris knew that much. He'd spoken endlessly on the road about spice tariffs and river tolls, about how this journey would make him rich enough to retire early. She could only grimace, her stomach dropping.
Now his voice broke into raw, animal sounds as goblins swarmed him beating him senseless with blunt weapons until he was either dead or near death before dragging him outside the cage and to the center of the cave outside the small cell.
Seris turned away before it happened.
She didn't need to see it again. She didn't need to see them cut his wrists and drain him of every last drop of blood. She knew that they would then drag the body out of sight.
The goblins didn't hide what they were doing. They never did. They wanted the women to understand. But Seris would not watch she closed her eyes and covered her ears the whole time.
Blood fed their god.
Blood—to them—was power. Worshipping a dark God was not uncommon amongst monsters still she couldn't believe how unlucky she was to have run into such a thing. So stupid! She should have hired more guards! She could only cry about it now.
Seris pressed her forehead against the cold stone and forced herself to breathe slowly, evenly. Panic would get her nowhere. Panic never did.
She was Seris Vale, embassy courier of Thalenor, sworn to carry sealed words between rulers who smiled while sharpening knives behind their backs. She had survived court politics, border disputes, and an attempted poisoning by her own uncle.
She would survive goblins too. She had to.
The other women huddled close together behind her, shaking. One was a farmer's daughter, barely old enough to travel alone. Another had been escorting wagons north. The third—quiet, hollow-eyed—hadn't spoken since they were taken.
They were alive for a reason.
And Seris hated that she understood what that reason was. Two of the women already had bulging bellies.
Goblins didn't have women. They didn't need them. They bred through others. Any species would do.The result was always the same. Another goblin.
That knowledge sat like a weight in Seris's stomach, heavier than fear.
Hours passed. Maybe longer. Time behaved strangely in the cave, stretched thin by torchlight and dread.
Then the goblins brought someone new. They dragged him in roughly, but not carelessly. A boy.
Barely more than that, really. Pale. Blood-soaked. Unconscious. His side was slick with red, the wound deep enough that Seris could see the way his breathing stuttered around it.
Not a merchant. Not a soldier.Not from any land she recognized. He looked strange but not in a bad way. He also had no cloths to speak of. Perhaps the goblins had taken them mistaking the young boy for a woman before realizing. It seemed plausible to her. He looked pretty enough even covered in wounds and blood.
The goblins were excited. They chattered faster, sharper, crowding around him as they laid him on the stone floor near the ritual markings. Seris watched through the bars, every muscle locked tight, but again she refused to watch.
The goblins cut his wrist. Blood filled the bowl. The symbol on the floor glowed brighter than Seris had ever seen it.
The goblins howled in jubilance.
She clenched her jaw until it hurt, forcing herself to once again look away. If she survived this, she didn't want to remember anything. Every sound. Every face. Every pattern. She wanted to forget it all.
The boy didn't wake. When the chanting stopped, they left him there.
Alone.
Still.
Hours later—when the fire burned low and the goblins grew restless again—they returned. This time, they didn't carry him carefully. They dragged his body by the arms, his head lolling uselessly to the side. Blood no longer flowed from his wound. His skin had turned even paler somehow his body gone slack. Dead.
A wave of bitter relief rippled through the women.
It wasn't them. Not tonight. While the goblins needed women to reproduce they needed their Gods approval even more so. If they ran out of men they would use the women and if they ran out of women they would use other goblins.
Vile creatures all of them.
Seris hated herself for the thought even as it passed through her. This meant they would be okay for at least a few more days. Two sacrifices in a since day? It was plenty. Their God should be satiated.
The goblins hauled the corpse deeper into the cave, toward a passage the women had never been taken near. One of them smeared a final symbol across the boy's chest with bloody fingers before disappearing into the dark.
The cave went quiet again.
Seris sank down against the bars, shaking now that she could no longer hold it back.
"Do you think they will find others soon?" The farmer's daughter whispered, probably to herself.
"Yes," Seris said softly. She didn't know but wanted to comfort the girl younger than herself.
They would all die anyway it was the least she could do.