A/N – Sarah's mad rampage towards the Castle had far-reaching consequences. And it's not the Goblin King who has to clean up the mess afterwards.
Disclaimer – I don't own the Labyrinth. I'm merely messing about for my own entertainment. Don't sue.
A Messy Business
The city was burning.
It was a scene straight out of nightmare. Crimson and orange flame burned hellishly, sending clouds of billowing black smoke high into the night sky. Chaos reigned on the streets and in the crowded alleys, hysterical shouting and screaming mixing with the roar of the spreading fires and the deep, chilling war-chant of the invaders.
"OUT!" they howled, their faces twisted by hatred and fanaticism. "OUT! OUT! OUT!"
In their thousands they spilled into the city, their hearts filled with holy fervour. They brandished their crude, ill-made weapons, flaunting the blood that stained their blades and their rough, leathery hides. Carried away by their success in the outer-lying regions, convinced of the righteousness of their cause, they dealt death and destruction with utter, wanton abandon, destroying everything and anyone in their path.
"OUT!" they screamed as they dragged a young, cowering woman out of her hiding place and stabbed her to death in the streets. "OUT!" they chanted joyously as they speared a fleeing merchant, toying with him as he begged and screamed for mercy. "OUT!" they cried, over and over again, as they rampaged through the city towards the castle.
The King watched from his eyrie in the great tower, the small crease between his brows the only indication of his thoughts.
"Sire!" the captain of the guards called. "The goblins –"
The King turned his head. "Yes, captain," he said, "I am aware of it." His bleak, mismatched eyes seemed to stare straight through the captain, into a place and a time the younger man could only imagine.
They said that the goblins had been fearsome warriors, once, before the King's followers arrived from beyond the Bloody Mountains and took their lands, before displacement, disease and hunger reduced them to their current cringing, gibbering state. Throughout the long centuries, a number of discontented zealots and would-be messiahs had sought a return to the old ways, had tried to stir rebellion and incite their cousins into revolt – always before, the King had crushed them with little effort.
But this time it was different. This time he had no heart for it.
"Sire!" the captain tried again. "Sire, you must –"
"Must?" The King's terrible temper whiplashed, and for a moment his eyes sparked with his old strength and spirit. But then he sagged, the force of his will subsiding into dull apathy. "There is no mustLet them rampage and burn; they will tire of it, in time."
A third time – magical third – the captain appealed to his King. The oaths of allegiance were powerful, obligation flowing strong between both liege and lord. "Sire –"
A sigh. "Enough, captain." Languidly the Goblin King arose, his passive scrutiny abandoned as he stripped off his gloves. "Come, then," he said. "I will put an end to this folly."
Didymus sifted through the wreckage and debris, nudging stiffened, twisted corpses with the point of his rapier. "His Majesty hath been most thorough," he said.
Beside him, the captain of the guards made no comment. The edges of his soiled cloak trailed in the dirt, ripped and torn by goblin swords and billhooks. There had been hard fighting in the city streets – the rampaging goblin mob had been almost to the castle gates before the King finally emerged from his self-imposed solitude. Ungloved, his cruel eyes glittering with malice, he was no longer the impatient, cynical ruler exasperated with his witless subjects, but a terrifying figure straight out of goblin myth –
And, hours later, the survivors were left to deal with the aftermath.
The air was rank with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Scattered fires still burned, and low moans and agonised whimpers marked the few survivors of the goblin horde. These, the captain would finish off with one brutal, efficient thrust; there would be no mercy for the failed rebels. The King had ordered it.
Granting another groaning, helpless goblin the coup de grace, the captain finally responded. "His Majesty waited long to intervene," he murmured.
The little fox coughed, unwilling to criticise his sovereign lord. "He hath his reasons, I warrant."
His Majesty was too busy brooding and obsessing over the human girl. She had challenged and defied the king at every turn, piquing his interest and intriguing him, to the point where he had thought of nothing else but the game – she had let loose a rock-caller in the goblins' shantytown, by all the gods, completely demolishing it, and still the King had allowed her to continue. He had been so enraged by her victory that he had refused to rebuild the devastated town, dismissing the growing complaints and discontent as irrelevant, retreating to his tower eyrie to watch over her through his crystals –
One could – and the captain most certainly did – place the blame for this current madness squarely at her feet.