I dropped to the ground, throwing my hands over my head. Inside the lute, Mischief flurried off-key panic. It was the only thing I could hear over the ringing in my ears and the pulse of my own fear. I waited for the pain. Burning to death should have felt like something. Even a quick flare of fire before the silence and waking in fields of green or deserts or even void under the judging eyes of an angry god or goddess or pantheon.

But all I felt was a vibrating warmth through my toes and calves where they crossed the boundary of stone to crystal.

Then something grabbed my shoulder. Scales scraped my skin with the light prick of claws on my clavicle, and a gentle shake. “Lessssss. Wassss thissss your doing?”

“We’re alive?” My voice cracked when I said it. I wasn’t the spit in death’s eye type. The fact I hadn’t pissed myself with the boom-flash was the end of my courage. It was why I’d washed out of Knight training. Or washed myself out, more accurately, by being the clumsiest, least disciplined, and most insubordinate trainee I could be. On the other hand, if I had pissed myself, it might’ve made my borrowed hobgoblin skirt smell better.

“Ssssooo ffffaaar,” Xy’lint said. The scalemaw sounded way calmer than me about it. Being nine feet tall with claws, teeth, and a spiked tail helped with life’s crisis.

So, the key runes had done something. The crystal under my toes vibrated, and it was getting warmer.

I opened my eyes. The walls and archway shimmered. No sign of fire or flame had breached the chamber beyond the melted goblin the mosaic had killed. I peered through the warping field of magic to the other side of the archway, and my stomach twisted.

Goblin parts, still smoking, lay between flaming chunks of wood and metal. A dented wagon wheel wobbled, rolling into a charred lump of leather and that I realized had once been a hobgoblin. Or part of one. The goblin blunderbuss cannon-mouth kissed the ground, its rear balanced on the cracked and flaming wagon bed. Whoever had operated it was gone now, another spray of burning bits.

A smattering of shadows moved behind the broken wagon. One had the distinct shape of a sniffer-rat dragging its chain.

The field blocked any barks, scratches, or agonized screams, just as the smell of smoke and charred meat weren’t carrying inside. I was grateful. All these charred corpses were going to put me off barbeque forever. Maybe meat altogether. Devouring Fireheart Korma’s mosses and mushroom souffles had been almost as good as our other activities. Almost.

Then the tick-scratch-tick from the mosaics stopped. My gaze shifted towards the spirit jackal. Rows of tile white teeth flecked in red grinned at me.

No. Not at me. I followed their gazes. A shadow grew in the center of the crystal floor. The crystal flared, and the shadow formed into the monstrous armored beast. It stood three feet taller than Xy’lint, with massive, misshapen arms that ended in onyx claws. Long, sharp, glowing onyx claws.

Good news: the key had opened the portal.

Bad news: the portal had sent through something horrible to kill us.

This was the sort of thing that made heroes of songs of legend. Which was the last thing any sensible bard wanted to get mixed up in personally.

Served me right for thinking I could rescue a lady from a tower.

The creature lowered its massive head. Beneath the bronze helm, I noted orange-yellow eyes, a potato lump of a nose, pointed chin and goblin sharp teeth. “You trespass,” the creature growled in a voice that sounded like an avalanche hitting flesh. “You now die.”

“What’d it say?” Larendil shouted, and I realized the creature had spoken in Goblin.

Maybe things weren’t as bad as I’d thought.

The monster hobgoblin lifted an arm. On its forearm between the elbow and wrist (or my best estimate of what a limb like that should look like) I noticed a gap in the armor. Through it, something glowed. Or sparkled. Glow-sparkled?

Didn’t matter.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Stop staring at the pretty crystal, Les.

“Hello friend!” I called out in Goblin, stamping my foot for emphasis.

The monster goblin creature swung its giant head towards me, yellow eyes shining. “No friend,” it grumbled.

“Friends we become!” I said, making sure my lips stayed over my teeth as I smiled, arms open, palms up and out.

The monster goblin glared, nostrils flaring. My heartbeat thumped in my ears. Ker-Thump. Ker-Thump. Ker-Thump. Between the fourth ker and thump, the monster goblin bellowed. “NO!” A warm, damp wash of foul breath blew over me, and I was caught between wanting to hold my breath and release my bladder.

This was a day to try the bladder.

Fortunately, excellent bladder control is something one picks up as a bard. Long hours playing and large tankards of ale favor the performer who can hold his water.

The goblin-monster lifted its arm, and in the gap of its armor, a gem flared orange-red. Fire blasted from its open palm. I’d like to say my life flashed before my eyes, but I was too busy staring at my imminent death to pull the events together.

Then a spear of ice hit the monster hobgoblin right below its wrist, whipping the armored arm towards the glass framed moon above.

Flames rippled over the surface. Eira, still mumbling, hit the monster hobgoblin with a second ice-bolt. It roared as ice blossomed over its arm from fingers to shoulder.

“Whaaaat did you sssssaaay to pisss it offff?” Xy’lint hissed.

I shook my head. “Not me. It doesn’t like us.”

“I ssseee.” With that, Xy’lint clapped zher hands together, head bowed. An aura of gold glistened over zher scales, and Zareb, already a paragon in armor, seemed to grow even stronger.

Zareb charged, calling on the name of his goddess. The air around him glowed with holy light as he drew his sword. The monster hobgoblin chanted and stomped an armored foot. It sounded like a gong. My teeth chattered. My bones felt like they were chattering as the stone beneath flared and bucked.

From the wall, the eyes of the earth-jackal flared. Twin spears of rock shot from the statue's eyes straight at Zareb. One hit, the stone shattering against Zareb’s shield of holy light. The other skimmed the light like a stone hopping over the surface of a lake as it careened towards the opposite wall. Tile shattered, the edged bits flying. One scraped over my back in a line of pain and tickling blood.

Most of my attention focused on staying upright with the ground rising and falling like ocean waves.

This was the time in tales where the soon to be dead bards who had broken the first rule said something inspirational. I was too busy holding onto the remains of grapes, wine, and cheese inside my guts that Lady Isadora had served me as a part of showing her gratitude.

Odd for an abducted maiden raised in a tower by a withering crone would have a magically cooled wine chest filled with a series of immaculate vintages, now that I thought of it. And I needed to stop thinking about it. Because “odd the maiden I failed to rescue had a full wine chest in her tower next to the trunk of battered helmets” was a terrible last thought before one’s demise.

Also, Lady Isadora had not been a maiden. Or in need of rescue.

I sent a tendril of magic towards Mischief and heard the spirit’s tinny snores. No help there.

Zareb slammed his sword into the monster hobgoblin’s side. It hit with a burst of light, bright enough to put spots over my eyes. It was a good hit, the sort that would have split me in the ribs. The monster hobgoblin was made of tougher stuff. As sword squealed over armor, the monster hobgoblin stamped its foot again. I saw a flare of green around its legs, and the ground bucked again, throwing Zareb back.

The monster hobgoblin–that was dull, and I needed a better name–let out a tremendous yell and lifted its opposite arm. An aura of amber glowed from elbow to fist, aimed straight at Eira.

Eira bent her knees and lifted her arm, fingers wide. A shield of ice poured from her palm just as a gale of wind hit. The focused, swirling gale pummeled into Eira’s ice shield, shattering it, and sending Eira sliding out over the stone floor. As she careened over one of the stone blocks, something thunked, and a trellis, three blocks wide, dropped, spikes clunking as they chunked into the floor.

The wind, thankfully, had thrown Eira back with enough force and speed that the falling spikes missed her, but it had been a near thing.

Too near a thing.

Xy’lint clapped zher palms. My skin tingled, and I felt tougher. That’s the only way to describe it. The broken bits of rock under my feet didn’t dig into my bare soles so hard, and my stomach settled even though the ground was still twisting and bucking. That was useful. I’d have been happier if Xy’lint had rained down death on our enemies in a berserker rage of claws, teeth, and razor tail as they sang in the old ballads. But maybe the bards had embellished. We tended to. Especially for the purpose of rhyme.

The tornado throwing twisted hobgoblin of terror bellowed—nice ring, but too long—and I turned just in time to see Larendil clinging to the hobgoblin’s armored back. Larendil had gotten a dagger into the gap between helmet and collar.

The Monstrous Armored Hobgoblin Menace—not quite right—murmured something I couldn’t make out as the center of its chest glowed white. A shell of ice flowed over the goblin’s armor and skin. Larendil stabbed wildly with her dagger, trying to gain purchase. But the ice shell thickened, and then the iced-over monster hobgoblin bellowed, “spike!”

Spike?

Before I could shout a warning, ice spikes burst from the Stupendous Stalactite Hobgoblin Monstrosity—nice ring to that—and Larendil’s dagger dropped. Seconds stretched as I waited for Larendil to jump away. Then I saw it.

A spike had skewered her through her chest. It had split her as cleanly as a strike from one of the thousand folded spirit blades the Winter Fae bladedancers favored. She slid free, falling in slow motion, her form a fluttering cloud of shadow and leaves.