Free The Goblin War by Hilari Bell

Southlanders had been slain, there were at least half a dozen barbarian bodies.
    We should get their amulets. The church had forbidden the Realm’s soldiers to wear them, since their making involved human sacrifice. But they did collect them and allow them to be worn by the insanely brave men who scouted behind enemy lines.
    And Jeriah had sent most of the Realm’s supply of amulets into the Otherworld with the goblins, so he’d better make sure that these were gathered up.
    He stood slowly, and after one lazy spin the world steadied under his feet, and he approached a man who was dragging one of the enemy corpses over to the place where the others had begun to dig.
    “Are you taking their amulets?” he asked.
    “What for? The priests won’t let us wear them, and the few who tried it anyway found they didn’t exactly work like the stories said.”
    “What do you mean?” Jeriah asked. “I thought the barbarians wouldn’t fight a man who was wearing one of those amulets. That’s why scouts and spies are allowed to wear them.”
    “That’s what they said,” the man told him. “But I’ve seen barbarians attack men wearing those amulets just like anyone else. In fact, they seemed to go for the soldiers who wore them more than those who didn’t.”
    “But I thought . . . I’ve heard of scouts and spies who survived because of those amulets,” Jeriah said.
    The soldier shrugged. “Maybe it’s different for them, somehow. If you want any amulets, they’re yours for the taking.
    He dropped the corpse he was dragging near the rest and walked away.
    Jeriah fought down a surge of revulsion. He’d helped kill these men. You could call them barbarians all you wanted, but they were still men. Men who were trying to conquer his Realm and slaughter its citizens. And then eat them.
    Jeriah took a deep breath and knelt to lift the dead man’s head and remove the amulet from around his neck. He tried not to look at the man’s face. He couldn’t help but look.
    Jeriah froze, his hand clenching in the clay-stiffened hair. It was the barbarian who had first attacked him, the one from whom Commander Malveese had saved him, cutting open the man’s cheek.
    There was blood on the dead face, staining the white clay, washing some of it away . . . but the skin beneath it was whole. The cut was gone, leaving not even a scar behind. Completely healed.
    “Yes, they heal themselves,” Commander Malveese confirmed. “Almost instantly, in the midst of combat. And it’s not those amulets you gathered that causes it. We’ve done some experiments, despite the priests’ orders.”
    He reached out and added another log to the fire, keeping his eyes on the blaze. Jeriah had waited, storing up question after question, till they’d returned to camp and he could talk to the commander alone.
    “They also don’t tire the way we do,” the commander went on. “I’ve seen battles in which the numbers were even to start with, where we were forced to withdraw simply because our people were exhausted, and they fought on and on like . . . like an incoming tide. But I’ve killed enough of them to know they’re flesh and blood. Any stroke that kills too swiftly for their healing power to act will slay them. But that’s the only way to do it, and that’s why we can’t win.”
    He looked up, for the first time, and met Jeriah’s eyes. “The official inspectors, safe in Helverian, they say that’s impossible, that we’re making up wild tales to excuse our failures. But look at today. We outnumbered them by a third, and that let us kill seven of them to the four men I lost. But I have two more so badly injured they may never fight again, and another eight who will take weeks or months to mend their wounds—which makes it fourteen of ours to six of theirs, at least for a time. And numbers like that,” he finished grimly, “is how they’re taking the Southlands.”
    “But what can we do?” Jeriah asked. “If they always