Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 2024: Into the Goblin Cave

"We followed their tracks into this basin. Then they came at us from every direction. The ground’s been trampled to hell."

Black came to stand beside her.

"Della, could you three go over the details with him? You know these lands and people better than I do."

"Of course, my lord."

She answered before she could worry about whether she was qualified. He had watched her fight, listened when she pointed out the path, and now he was asking for her judgment while his family waited.

Warm pride filled her chest. There were people here who could smash their way through an army, yet he had turned to her. She wanted desperately to be worthy of that trust.

Then she remembered the girls waiting for help somewhere in these hills.

Turning to Blossom, she asked, "Could you follow these creatures back to their lair?"

"Blossom’s already on it!"

The dogkin jumped across the basin and slipped through the broken barricade. She sniffed along one muddy trail, then doubled back to check another, her tail sweeping behind her as she followed the scent between the trees.

"This way!"

Della tightened her shield straps and ran after her. Ahead, Blossom leaped over a fallen trunk and turned into a narrow gully, her wagging tail disappearing around the bend.

"Could you tell us how they were taken?" Della asked the father as he caught up. "We can talk on the way."

"Pirates. Fomorians."

With the father keeping pace beside Della, Tavi had to hurry to offer him her waterskin. Brena ran on Della’s other side, listening.

"You’ll need your strength when we find them."

"Thank you." He took a swallow and handed it back to Tavi, his attention already returning to the trail ahead.

"We bought passage to Sarthal," the old man sighed wearily. "We were told a person could settle here, find work, make something of their life. My daughter wanted to see it."

"The same ship brought all of you to Sarthal?" Brena asked.

"Until the pirates sank it. Some of us fought them on deck. Others were trying to keep the ship afloat. During the boarding, they got the girls into a boat. I wounded the men carrying them but couldn’t reach the boat before it got away."

Tavi tucked the waterskin beneath her belt. "And your ship...?"

"Went under. We lashed together planks and part of the mast. Those who could swim helped tow the rest ashore."

His clothes were stained with salt beneath the blood. Della looked back at the travelers, at the damaged hems and battered equipment, and understood why they had remained together.

They’d already survived the sea. Now they were fighting their way into a nest for the children it had taken from them.

Ahead, Blossom slowed at a fork to sniff the crushed leaves, then swung right with a pleased flick of her tail.

"Blossom still has the trail!"

At Blossom’s call, the father hurried toward the right-hand trail, and Della pushed herself to keep up.

"Where did you find the trail?" Brena asked.

The man tugged open the heavy sack hanging from his belt and lifted its mouth for them to see as they ran.

Two severed heads knocked together inside.

"Oh, Goddess..." Tavi whispered.

Fomorians. Della’s gaze caught on their dead faces before she had to look ahead to keep her footing.

"These were the ones who took them. We found their boat on the shore and their bodies farther inland. Greenskin arrows in the corpses. My daughter and her friend were not among the corpses."

"Which is why you think they were taken by the monsters... I’m so sorry..." Brena drew closer on his other side, holding her crossbow against her chest to keep it clear of the brush. "Tracks?"

"A great many. Small bare feet, larger ones. We followed them as far as that clearing."

He pulled the sack closed and pressed ahead before she could ask another question.

"But enough of this. Whether you help me or not, I don’t have time for talking. We can discuss the voyage after my child is safe."

"Yes," Della said at once. "Of course."

She wanted to tell him that they would find the girls alive. The promise pressed against her teeth, but she had been an adventurer long enough to know what such words cost when they proved false.

Instead, she looked toward Black.

He was a few paces ahead, where the blonde elf with the staff had drawn alongside Black Fang.

"Hello! You were really badass back there! Thank you for the help!"

Black Fang kept her eyes on the trail.

The elf leaned closer as they ran, taking a curious sniff near her shoulder. Her long ears twitched.

"Wait... What’s that smell?"

"Blood."

"Hmm..." The elf considered her for a moment. "That, or someone had quite the morning~"

Black Fang turned an ice-cold gaze on her.

The blonde beauty met it with wide-eyed, angelic innocence, her smile sweet enough that Della found herself staring.

’What a strange woman...’ she wondered inwardly just as the older man reached toward his belt.

"Whatever your usual fee is, I can-"

"We’re here to eradicate that filth," Black spoke up before Della could answer.

Tavi let out a breath that shook as it left her.

"That’s right. Please keep your money."

The father looked at Black for a long moment, his hand resting against the purse he’d begun to unfasten.

"Thank you."

"Della, could you stay with him?"

"Of course."

She kept pace at the man’s shoulder. Ahead, Brena followed Blossom around a boulder, pointing back at the deep tracks pressed into the wet ground beside it.

They had come out of Sarthal thrilled to be spending a few days with Black and his women. Now there were two missing girls to find, and Della wanted to get them back so badly that she pushed harder up the slope despite the ache in her legs.

"We’ll stay with you," Tavi told the father. "All the way."

He bowed his head to her in response; then Blossom’s tail shot upright as she rounded a jutting shoulder of rock.

"Master! Here!"

Della followed her around it and saw the cavern mouth. The opening lay beneath an overhang, screened from the lower ravine by the rock and a dense stand of trees. Muddy tracks converged on the beaten ground before it.

The pink-haired shieldbearer pulled a leaning trunk out of their path. Della slowed behind the father as the others caught up, her breath loud inside the sudden shelter of the overhang.

Cool air flowed out of the cavern. Della could hear movement within, the scrape of feet on stone followed by a sharp, guttural cry that carried farther than she liked.

Blossom came up beside Black, her ears directed into the dark.

"Master. There are many people inside. Blossom can smell them."

The father’s sword rose. Della brought her shield level with his shoulder as the rest of the company gathered at the mouth of the cavern.

Black held an open palm toward the darkness.

"[Burning Hands]."

Fire bloomed above his fingers, lighting the first stretch of descending stone.

...

The passage dropped steeply beneath the overhang, carrying Adventurer Black and the others below the last traces of daylight. His fire moved with him, crawling over wet stone and the crude steps hacked through it.

The first greenskins met them at the bottom.

"Intruders!"

A greenskin came around the bend with a rusted sword raised. The dark saber left Black’s hand, turned through its throat, and continued into the chest of the creature behind it before blue fire carried the saber back to his palm.

The older swordsman passed Black on the right and cut down another.

"There are more ahead," the old man called, continuing deeper without slowing.

The father’s urgency pulled Della after him. He had fought through thousands of greenskins outside, and now he ran deeper into their lair with enough fury in his voice to drive her aching legs onward.

The cavern widened into a chamber lit by smoking braziers. Cages had been built into the walls with timber and scavenged iron, each one crowded with people who recoiled from the armed figures entering through the bloodied passage.

"We’re adventurers!" Della raised her empty hand where the prisoners could see it. "We’re here to get you out!"

Several voices broke at once. A woman dropped against the bars. Two others began to cry, while another remained curled in the rear of her cell with a torn shift gathered around her legs.

Brena’s crossbow lowered. The color left her face when she saw that some of the adult captives had been brutally assaulted.

Seraphiel and the blonde elf moved toward the worst of the wounded. Tavi hurried after them, stripping off her cloak to pass the garment through the bars, while the rest of both companies spread into the adjoining tunnels to stop anything from reaching the prisoners.

The father looked into every cage.

"They’re not here."

"Master!" Blossom called from the chamber’s far end. Her nose was directed toward a narrow split in the rock. "Some human scents go deeper!"

The swordsman was through the opening before she finished. Della, Brena, and Tavi ran after him, their concern for two strangers now thoroughly sincere.

Black followed them at an easier pace until the passage forked, with a narrow opening on one side and a wider tunnel winding deeper into the rock.

Blossom glanced back at him.

"Could you keep them on the stronger trail?" he asked. "I’ll check this side and catch up."

"Yes, Master!"

Her ears rose with the importance of the task. Blossom darted past Della to retake the lead, and Kitsara’s tails followed her around the same turn a moment later.

...

Quinlan waited until the last footstep passed beyond hearing. Then wind gathered beneath his boots and carried him through the smaller opening.

Cold blue light spilled around the next bend.

A line of Elite Souls guarded the mouth of a natural cell, their spectral armor filling the narrow passage from wall to wall. More stood within, facing every crack and adjoining tunnel with weapons ready. Dead greenskins lay beyond them, each corpse cut down before it had come within reach of the girls chained against the rear wall.

The first soldier to see Quinlan, Eva, kneeled.

"Master."

The others followed suit as the soldiers bowed to their master as one, blue fire streaming from their armor and spreading over the cavern walls until his shadow towered above the entire formation.

Quinlan walked between the bowed ranks with [Soul Reaper] burning beside him.

"Any trouble?"

"Nothing noteworthy," Eva swiftly reported. "Herding the greenskins through your portal without killing them was the hardest part. Getting them to join the locals... The dumb creatures did it themselves."

"As expected of the rape dwarf hivemind," Quinlan chuckled darkly. "Good job, everyone."