Chapter 49 The Rain’s Cruel Mockery

Through swollen eyes, I saw Lyn straining against her bonds, her golden eyes burning with helpless rage. The hatchlings trembled beneath me, their tiny whimpers a knife twisting in my chest.

The beating didn't stop until guards stepped back, panting with exertion, their weapons and boots slick with blood—ours and the hatchlings'.

"That's enough," the lead guard grunted, wiping his club clean on my crushed face.

  "Boss wants 'em alive, remember?"

They sauntered off, leaving us in a broken heap beneath the scorching sun.

I could not stand. I could not move. My body was a ruined thing—shattered bones, split skin, a throbbing mass of agony that barely obeyed my will. Every breath was a knife twisting between my ribs, every heartbeat a dull, distant drum of fading strength.

But I crawled.

An inch. Then another. My fingers, broken and trembling, clawed through the dirt, dragging my limp form forward. The world blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in, even the familiar laughter of a woman started to ring in my ears, but I refused to let it take me. Not yet.

Not while they still needed me.

One by one, I gathered them—my precious, broken hatchlings.

Their tiny body curled inward, breaths shallow and wet. Their eyes were swollen shut, arms twisted at unnatural angles, claws cracked and bleeding.

Usually so loud, so cheerful, now lay silent except for the occasional whimper. Ribs pressed against their skin with each rattling breath, skin painted with dirt and blood.

Smallest of them all got it the worst. His face was a grotesque mask of swelling, his features barely recognizable beneath the bruises. His mouth hung slightly open, a thin trail of blood and saliva dripping onto the ground.

I pulled them close, my arms—useless, trembling—wrapping around them as best I could. Their small bodies were warm, but their stillness was terrifying.

And then—I cried.

Not the proud, angry tears of defiance. Not the quiet, controlled grief of a warrior.

No.

This was the raw, ugly sobbing of a creature pushed beyond endurance. A miserable, useless goblin that I was. My chest heaved, my breath coming in ragged, shuddering gasps as I pressed my forehead against theirs.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, "I'm so, so sorry."

We lay there, beaten and broken, until the night came. The sky wept icy tears, just to further mock our misery, each drop a needle of freezing malice stinging our broken flesh. The rain fell in sheets, turning the dirt to mud beneath us, seeping into our wounds, our bruises, our very bones. I lay curled on the ground, a shattered goblin husk, my arms wrapped around my hatchlings in a feeble attempt to shield them.

But I was too weak. Too broken.

The hatchlings—what was left of my precious—whimpered and writhed in my grasp, their tiny voices rising in a chorus of shattered pleas.

"D-Dada… hurts… P-please… make it stop…" one cried in a wet rasp, his swollen lips trembling. 

"C-cold… s’so cold…" another one shuddered violently, his claws digging into my tattered skin as if I could somehow absorb his pain.

"D-don’t… don’t let them c-come back…" next one sobbed, his face buried against my chest, his words muffled by the blood in his mouth.

The others were no better.

"W-want… home…" one mewled, his voice barely audible over the drumming rain.

"C-can’t… breathe…" another gasped, his broken ribs pressing too sharply against my arm.

"P-please… no more…" a third begged, his tiny fingers clutching at my broken finger.

"M-Muma…" one whispered, delirious with pain, mistaking me for a memory long gone.

I held them tighter, though my arms screamed in pain. The rain soaked through us, washing away the blood only for more to seep from fresh cracks in our beaten skin. Their whimpers were knives in my chest, each one a failure, a reminder that I couldn’t protect them.

"I-I’m here, I’m h-here…" I choked out, my voice raw. 

My gaze lifted, trembling, toward Lyn’s broken form.

She hung limp from the post, her fur matted with rain and blood, her breaths shallow and uneven. The fire in her eyes had dimmed to embers, her proud defiance reduced to a body barely clinging to consciousness. The sight shattered what little remained of my spirit.

It was the same pain.

The same unbearable, suffocating pain.

The day I lost Kaka—his warmth, his voice, his protection—it had felt like this. A yawning chasm of helplessness, where grief drowned out everything else. And now, history repeated itself. Lyn, the one who had become my strength, my family, my love, was broken before me. And I could do nothing.

A sob tore from my throat, raw and broken, mingling with the downpour. My lips moved, trying to form words—her name, an apology, a plea—but my mouth was too swollen, my jaw too battered. Only a mangled, wet sound escaped, lost beneath the rain’s relentless hammering.

Tears blurred my vision, hot against the cold rain.

"I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry."

The words looped in my mind, a silent scream.

But the rain didn’t care.

The night didn’t listen.

And the hatchlings in my arms kept whimpering until darkness claimed me and I lost consciousness.

Dawn came not with light, but with pain.

A sharp kick to my ribs jolted me from the shallow, feverish sleep I’d managed to claw into. My body screamed in pain—every bruise, every broken spot flaring back to life as if the beating had never stopped. But the real horror wasn’t the pain.

It was the screams.

My hatchlings—my precious, broken hatchlings—were being dragged from my arms by laughing guards.

“Wake up, worm! We’ve got a show for you!” a guard sneered, grabbing me by the wrinkles on my scalp and yanking my head up. 

Through swollen eyes, I saw them—what was left of my hatchlings—being carried toward a pit of thick, churned mud near me. The guards had already gathered in a jeering circle, their faces alight with sick excitement.

“Two copper bits says the runt dies first!” one crowed, shaking a fistful of coins.

“Nah, the loud one’s got fight left—he’ll sink slower!” another countered, grinning.

My heart stopped. They weren’t just beating them. They were drowning them.

“NO—!” The word tore from my throat in a raw, guttural shriek as I thrashed against the hands holding me down. 

“PLEASE, NOT THEM—TAKE ME INSTEAD, PLEASE—!”

The guard quickly silenced me with the back of his hand against my face. So strong that I nearly returned to my sleep.

The first hatchling—little Snik—hit the mud with a wet splat. His tiny limbs flailed, his panicked shrieks muffled as the thick sludge swallowed him to his chest. The guards howled with laughter as he struggled, his claws scrabbling for purchase, his swollen face a mask of terror.

“UNTIL SAND RUNS OUT!” a guard bellowed, holding up a cracked hourglass. 

“WHO’S BETTING HE MAKES IT?!”

Pip was next, then Muk and the rest followed—each tossed into the pit like discarded trash, their weak bodies sinking deeper with every frantic movement. The mud was too thick, too heavy—they couldn’t swim, couldn’t escape. They could only struggle as the guards placed bets on their lives.

I screamed until my voice gave out. I begged until my throat bled. But the laughter only grew louder. And the hourglass kept counting down.

My swollen eyes flickered toward Lyn, still hanging from the post like a discarded pelt. Her fur, once vibrant and fierce, was now matted with filth and blood, her breaths shallow and uneven. The guard who had been beating her—a hulking brute with knuckles crusted in dried blood—finally stepped back with a disappointed grunt.

“Tch. Like punching a sack of grain,” he muttered, shaking out his hand. Then, hearing the raucous laughter from the mud pit, his bored expression twisted into something crueler.

  “Now that looks fun.”

Without a second glance at Lyn, he sauntered over to the jeering circle of guards, already digging coins from his belt pouch.

  “Five coppers on the scrawny one with the torn ear!”

Lyn’s head lolled weakly in my direction. One of her eyes was swollen shut, but the other—still a sliver of burning gold—locked onto mine. There was no rage left in her gaze. No defiance.

Just sorrow.

The last grains of sand trickled through the hourglass.

"TIME'S UP!" the lead guard bellowed, kicking the pit’s edge. The surviving hatchlings—three out of eight—were hauled from the sludge like half-drowned rats, their tiny bodies limp and shuddering. Snik, miraculously, was among them, his chest heaving as he vomited up thick mud and bile. The other two—Muk and the smallest, Pip—were barely conscious, their whimpers weak as the guards dangled them by their ears for the crowd’s amusement.

"PAY UP, LOSERS!" the victor crowed, snatching coins from his fellow guards. 

"Told you the runty one had fight left!"

The losers grumbled, cursing the surviving hatchlings in frustration.

  "Useless shits couldn’t even die right," one spat, dropping Snik into the dirt like a spoiled toy.

I watched, hollow, as they tossed the survivors back toward me—a mercy as cruel as the game itself. Snik crawled to me on broken limbs, his breath rattling. The others didn’t move.

The five who hadn’t made it were left where they sank.

No burial. No mourning.

Just mud filling their mouths, their lungs, their still-open eyes.

I reached for Snik, my fingers brushing his trembling back. No words came. Only a soundless, shattered howl trapped behind my teeth.

The guards walked away, already arguing over their next game.

The rain began again, slow and icy, washing the mud from Snik’s skin in bloody streaks.