Bickle Brakk's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Bickle Brakk wanted the goblin crown, and his left head wanted it first. His right head wanted it slower. That was the whole trouble, and tonight it was going to cost him another audience. He stood on a crate in the muddy yard behind the pig pens. Twenty goblins slouched in front of him, picking at their teeth with bone splinters. Bickle raised both fists. Both heads opened their mouths at once. "We march on the warren by dawn," said the left head. "We wait three nights and poison the well," said the right. The goblins groaned. One spat. A small one in the back laughed so hard he fell off a barrel. "Shut up, Rennik," said the left head. "Don't call him Rennik, that's not his name," said the right head. "It is his name." "It's Grennik." The goblin in question was already walking away. So were the others. Bickle watched his second crowd of the week drain into the dark, and he knew a third crowd would not come. He climbed down off the crate. His left head bit his right ear. His right head bit back. He staggered in a circle until his own shoulder hit a fence post and knocked both heads still. That was when the two clowns stepped out from behind the pen. They were fat and short and painted like sores. Red noses, wide smiles, wigs like sick fruit. Bickle knew them. Every goblin knew them. They took contracts nobody else would take, and they were paid in teeth. "Somebody hired you," Bickle said. Both heads said it together. It was the first thing they had agreed on in a year. The striped clown tilted his head. "A goblin who wants to be king," he said, "and can't decide with himself. Very messy. Very cheap job." The spotted clown drew a thin knife from his sleeve. Bickle's left head shouted, "Run!" His right head shouted, "Fight!" His legs did neither. He froze. The spotted clown lunged. The knife went for the left head's throat. In that half-second, the right head bit down on the left head's ear and yanked hard, dragging both heads sideways. The blade opened air. Bickle's body, jerked by his own skull, tumbled into the mud. He came up gasping. The clowns were already circling. "Left goes low," said the right head, quiet now. "I go high." "Together," said the left head. Bickle grabbed a fence rail and swung. The left head ducked a slash. The right head spotted the second clown moving in and screamed a warning. The rail cracked across a painted skull. The second clown dropped. The first ran. Bickle stood in the mud, breathing hard, both heads still on his shoulders. "We can do that again," said the left head. "With witnesses next time," said the right. He turned toward the warren. Someone had paid to kill him. That meant someone already thought he could win.