Chapter 7

I didn't tell the others what I'd seen. They had enough on their minds, and I was supposed to be the goblin expert of the group - my mother knew more about goblins than any other human on the planet, and I'd spent my entire life helping her with her work. (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.) I couldn't tell them that there was something going on with the New Queen that I simply didn't understand.

And so I didn't specify why I needed the New Queen gagged. Whip didn't question it, but as she was tying the gag, a more obvious reason appeared: the New Queen began to squeal. Not in pleasure, not in pain, just loudly. A loud, emotionless, high-pitched squeal and even though the gag cut it off within a few seconds, we almost immediately heard footsteps.

The New Queen seemed to be acting as some kind of beacon, summoning all nearby goblins. We were already learning from our capture. My mind was swimming with theories - I'd never heard of anything like this. Perhaps it was used to sway goblins from one Queen to another, or lure in any goblins who weren't currently attached to a Queen.

Capturing a Queen alive ... no one had ever done it before. Previous attempts had been horribly unsuccessful - if you capture a Queen who has subjects, you soon find yourself overwhelmed, being attacked by wave after wave of goblins. Even when a Queen is unconscious, every goblin instinctively knows where she is, and has no other goal but to find and free her. Our time window had been short - we'd needed to strike after the new Queen was born, but before she was given her first subjects.

We hoped the information we'd gather from having a live specimen would be enough to start to tip the tide of the war in our favour. It was an unprecedented coup.

Now all we had to do was get her back home.

With the New Queen gagged, we killed the lights and hid. The small pack of goblins who had been attracted by the squeal had no chance against the combined forces of Whip, Vernita, and Cameron's arsenal, but the Queen almost certainly knew where we were now.

In the darkness, no one noticed Uma shed a single tear as she watched the humans casually murder three goblins, three of her fellow slaves. She hadn't known them personally, but they had worshipped the same goddess, knelt at the same feet. They were sisters, kin.

She inspected their killers. Five women. Soldiers, bar one. Uma was already assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

There was The Warrior, the big, black leader of the group. When Uma had spoken, The Warrior had become panicked - she clearly held a deep hatred for goblins. She was strong, powerful. No one stood up to her, no one questioned her. A fighter, she had probably been in more battles than she could remember. She acted on instinct, and she most likely thought of goblins as animals - it would make it easier to hunt them, easy to kill them. Seeing a goblin speak, it was against what she knew goblins to be. It had shaken her. This was something Uma could use to her advantage.