That night the wretch did indeed sleep warily. Around midnight a strange sound startled her awake—an eerie click-click-click carried on the wind. When she rolled over and sat up, she found that the bumpkin who had been sleeping beside her was gone, and panic seized her heart at once, as though out on this wilderness the only safe place in the world was at that bumpkin's side.
But a moment later she spotted Xia Ya.
He was crouched at the river's edge facing the far bank. Hearing her sit up, he turned his head, made a gesture telling her not to shout, then lowered his voice and grinned: "Something fun's going on. Come have a look."
The wretch crawled over to Xia Ya, sat down on the ground, and simply leaned her body against him, gazing where his finger pointed across the river.
On the far bank lay the slaughtered goblin tribe. In the curtain of night, all that could be made out was the broken outline of the earthen walls.
Under the scattered starlight, gazing from this side of the river, one could vaguely see tall shadows around the tribe, gathering toward it one by one as if walking upright like men; and inside the earthen walls, dark shapes had already gathered. Who knew what those things were—they walked with their bodies straight, but their movements were very slow, and from a distance they seemed to have long upper bodies and short lower ones.
Some had already knelt or lain flat on the ground, clutching something or other, bodies hunched and heaving…
"Bears?" The wretch was puzzled.
"Corpse-Eaters." Xia Ya turned his head and bared his teeth at her in a grin, deliberately making it a horrifying one. The wretch shuddered as expected and nearly cried out. Xia Ya clapped a hand over her mouth and whispered, "Don't disturb the others at their dinner."
Corpse-Eaters…
At that name, the wretch needed no explanation to know what those things across the river were doing!
The crunch-crunch-crunch of chewing came on the wind, so clear it made a person picture teeth scraping back and forth over bone. The wretch felt her chest tighten and heaved, retching again and again.
Xia Ya, though, watched with keen enjoyment, and even sighed. "Ahh, I'd never once seen a live Corpse-Eater before. Today I've finally seen the real thing."
From the distant wilderness came the occasional howl of wolves, two or three at a time—wolf packs or jackals roaming the plain. They had clearly come for the goblin corpses in that tribe as well; it was just that the powerful Corpse-Eaters had arrived first and taken the place, so the wolves and jackals could only prowl around helplessly, hoping that once these Corpse-Eaters had eaten their fill and left, a few scraps would be left for them.
The wretch nearly brought up her own dinner too. Xia Ya finally had looked his fill; he picked up a stone and hurled it across the river. His arm was tremendously strong—the stone actually flew all the way past the tribe's earthen wall. Then Xia Ya stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and bellowed across the river.
The wretch was so frightened she could have jumped up and throttled Xia Ya!
"You lunatic! What are you doing? Do you want to bring those monsters down on us?!" Her lovely face had gone pale with fright.
"Hahahaha." Xia Ya patted her shoulder. "You really are an idiot. Don't you even know basic common sense? Corpse-Eaters are deathly afraid of water by nature. We're on the other side of the river—they'd never dare come across."
Sure enough, the racket Xia Ya made roused a pack of Corpse-Eaters. Roaring with fury, they charged out of the tribe to the riverbank and bared fangs and claws at Xia Ya across the water, howling. Closer now, the wretch could even make out what the monsters looked like.
Their legs were thin and short, their upper bodies thick and powerful, their hides covered in yellow hair, their arms hanging past their knees; a pointed triangular head, a bloody great maw, and a mouth full of rotten teeth.
Put it this way: smash a bear and a wolf into pieces, then randomly glue the parts together, and you'd roughly have a Corpse-Eater.
And Xia Ya was right. A few Corpse-Eaters did rush down to the riverbank and try to cross and grab him, but the instant their feet touched the water they let out panicked cries and hastily backed off. All they could do was vent their fury with a round of roaring at Xia Ya from across the river.
The goblins had all woken up too, and they behaved far better than the wretch. Clearly they knew the Corpse-Eaters' habits well; with a river between them, they stood at the bank without a trace of fear, laughing at the far side.
The two sides roared back and forth across the water, and some goblins even picked up stones and threw them at the far bank. Goblin strength wasn't enough to send a stone across a river a hundred paces wide, but this reckless behavior still struck these timid goblins as tremendous fun.
The two sides kicked up a racket for half the night, and only as dawn drew near did the Corpse-Eaters finally disperse, unwilling to go.
"All right, time to get on the road." Xia Ya pulled the wretch to her feet, then thought for a moment. "But before we go, there's one important thing to take care of."
That important thing was…
A bath!!
Uh… don't misunderstand. It wasn't Xia Ya bathing himself, and certainly not the wretch bathing—at a time like this, even if Xia Ya held a knife to her throat, she would absolutely refuse to strip off and bathe in the river in public.
The ones who needed bathing were the goblins!
Goblins have a fine old tradition: their hygienic habits are the worst of any intelligent, civilized race known to exist!
There isn't even a word for "clean" in the goblin language.
For a goblin—normally, most goblins may go their whole lives, from birth to death, without bathing once. Their bodies are forever caked with mud, dust, and layer upon layer of suspicious, disgusting secretions. Given time, it's like a suit of armor stuck to their skin.
Among goblins, only those of notable status ever pick up the habit of bathing.
For instance, a tribal chief, or a lord, or… a consort.
Yes—when Xia Ya asked Mr. Consort Oakes one question, whether he had the habit of bathing, Mr. Consort tilted his head and thought hard for a while before answering:
Yes—when Xia Ya asked Mr. Consort Oakes one question, whether he had the habit of bathing, Mr. Consort tilted his head and thought hard for a while before answering: "The last time I remember bathing was at the wedding I held with His Lordship…"
And the time before that, he couldn't remember.
In short, you can't measure a creature like a goblin by human standards.
By goblin reckoning, anyone willing to wipe his backside after relieving himself already counts among the tiny few with a cleanliness obsession!
Just imagine standing beside a fellow who hasn't bathed in years, hasn't even wiped his backside—what is that fellow going to smell like?
And what if it isn't one, but a whole crowd?
Yesterday, handing the job of escorting the captives to Mr. Consort had been a last resort for Xia Ya—stand with a pack of goblins for longer than it takes to eat a meal, and if you haven't been fumigated to death, then there must be something seriously wrong with your respiratory system.
But now that he'd decided to bring all these goblins along, Xia Ya at least had to make some effort for the safety of his own nose.
Goblins are all lazy. Xia Ya gestured and shouted for a good while, and the fellows just shook and wagged their heads, refusing to jump into the river. Xia Ya stopped being polite about it: he went up and kicked them in one after another. Seeing that this master had lost his temper, the rest simply jumped in after them, plop, plop.
Mr. Consort, newly promoted to jailer, had laughed gloatingly at first, but then he noticed that Master Xia Ya was pointing a finger at him, then at the river, and he understood—so there was no exception for him either.
In many old tales, to describe the bloodiness of a massacre, storytellers use this figure of speech: the fresh blood dyed the river red…
And a crowd of goblins bathing can achieve the exact same effect!
A pack of goblins who had never bathed in their lives splashed around in the river for a full half a morning—not that they didn't want to come out; Xia Ya stood on the bank with his axe in hand, and the first fellow who tried to climb ashore had been knocked back in with one blow of it. Of course, Xia Ya used the back of the axe.
For a full half a morning the goblins washed until they'd practically shed several layers of skin…
And horrifyingly, over a long stretch of water near them, the river had turned a frightening black…
"Good thing we're heading upstream… otherwise, I swear I'd never dare drink from this river again." Xia Ya patted his chest, still shaken.
The wretch had long since retreated far away… Watching a bunch of stripped-naked male goblins bathe was not something a person of her standing could be doing.
Xia Ya walked over to the wretch, who was changing the dressing on the wound on her leg.
"Hey." Xia Ya suddenly spoke, looking down at her from his height. "Let me ask you something."
"What?" The wretch instinctively stopped what she was doing and quickly pulled her trouser leg down to cover her calf.
"Who is Adeline?"
The wretch's body gave a violent start; she stared at Xia Ya wide-eyed, in disbelief!
Xia Ya rubbed his chin, scrutinizing the wretch. "Hey, you know what? You've got a habit of talking in your sleep. And last night, when that pack of Corpse-Eaters woke me up, I happened to hear your voice."