I was up and out of my sleeping roll in an instant. I pulled my bow from inventory as I dashed down the stairs. I spotted Slade sitting in a corner on the main floor, fast asleep. There was a pool of ale next to him, and I worried he might be too drunk to be much help.
“Slade!” I said, shaking him violently. “We got problems.”
He was awake in an instant. His eyes focused on me sharply as if aware and in command of all his faculties. What little he had, I thought.
“What’s up?” he asked, already climbing to his feet.
“I think William and the raiders are going to try killing Malworth.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, but he was already in his inventory, his chainmail and axe appearing suddenly.
“I think he tried to recruit me.”
“Think or know?” he said, hefting his axe.
“Highly suspect. He approached me about confronting Malworth and said they joined you to kill Malworth, not have drinks with him.”
“Great googly moogly,” Slade said while striding down the basement stairs. “He’s totally going to try. Get Max, I’ll grab Emma.
Slade ran down into the dungeon depths. It didn’t surprise me that Emma was down in the place where we’d first discovered the glitch. I raced out of the keep and to the stables. As I ran across the empty compound, I realized no raiders were anywhere. I’d seen none in the keep, and no noise or light was coming from the barracks. We were alone in the fort.
“Max!” I called out. I dashed down the length of the stables, checking the stalls. Twelve horses, including Princess, their horses were here, but the raiders were not.
“Huh?” Max groaned from a corner above the entrance. He’d strung up a hammock in the rafters ten feet up.
“The raiders,” I yelled with a ragged breath, “they’re going to assassinate Malworth.”
“Sumofabitch,” Max came awake as the seriousness of the situation hit him. He then rolled out of his hammock, landing smoothly on his feet. The focus in his eyes drifted, and his leather armor and ebony katana appeared. “Let’s go.”
Max and I raced back into the compound as Slade and Emma came out of the keep.
“We have to warn Malworth,” Slade said, taking the words right out of my mouth. “Follow me.”
“Wait,” I said. “I can track William and his crew. Max and I should track them down.”
Max agreed, “Good call.”
Slade nodded, “Okay, me and Emma will warn Malworth.”
“Be careful with that,” I said. “We don’t know for sure Willaim means to kill him.”
Slade wasted no time. He was already trotting to the front gate, calling back, “Yes, we do. I’ll give you my guitar if they don’t try it.”
Emma followed close on his tail, and they slipped through the open gate out into the massive spread of goblin tents.
I looked down on the ground and walked back and forth between the keep and stables. Yellow flashes showed me many different trails of footprints. The drinking party earlier had confused things. There were so many footprints that it took me a few moments to spot William’s.
“Got him,” I said as I singled out his trail and followed it to the gate. Max was right behind me as I frantically traced William's footsteps. They left the fort and veered west into a mass of tents and makeshift hitching posts with swiftscales attached.
Following the glowing trail, I saw that William was moving in a direct line. He’d obviously scouted out the location of Malworth’s tent. The raiders moved through the goblin tents in a constant direction. I caught occasional glimpses of Slade and Emma, but they zig-zagged off in a different direction.
“Damn it,” I told Max. “I think Slade got lost. Just you and me for the moment.”
Max didn’t even have time to reply when we heard the sounds of fighting. As we rounded a set of tents, we could see William in the dim light. He had his sword drawn and was in the process of butchering a burly goblin just in front of a tent with two massive totems in front of its entry flaps.
Another large goblin guard was fighting off several raiders while blocking the entry. It was a losing proposition. They whittled the lone guard down as he stood alone, protecting his king’s tent.
As the two guards vanished, I counted six raiders and Willaim. I didn’t even have time to use my Hunter's Mark; I just started firing. Max chanted, and oil bubbled up from the ground, catching all of the raiders at once and seeping inside the tent under the flaps.
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Only two of the four arrows I fired found their marks. The first raider was hit in the back of his shoulder, howled, and spun. The other raiders turned immediately. That’s when they started slipping. If they hadn’t been in the process of falling and flailing, more of my arrows might have hit. My last shot hit one of the raiders as he grabbed the tent to keep from falling. Neither of the hits were kills. I could see from the health bars that each barely took a quarter of their health.
Max drew a torch from his inventory. I had a vision of Malworth being killed not by the raiders turned assassins but by us on . I yelled, “No! You’ll burn the king!”
That pause was just enough time for William to throw his sword at Max. It smashed into his face pommel first, and Max flew backward, dropping the torch. With his concentration broken, I watched as the oil slick he’d cast evaporated into a dark mist. The raiders stopped struggling to stand and readied themselves for our fight.
William roared and rushed at me. All I could see was six feet of muscle and armor coming at me like a runaway train. Without thinking, I drew an arrow and fired a Crippling Shot.
The arrow landed right in his calf's thick, meaty part. It didn’t do a lot of damage. His health bar barely budged. It did, however, stop him in his tracks. He tried to take a step forward and howled in pain.
I lined up a shot on him and paused only long enough to cast a Hunter’s Mark. Four of the raiders rushed around him, blocking my line of sight. I let loose an arrow anyway and was rewarded with a hit to one of the raiders. It didn’t stop him, though.
Three more arrows flew, killing one of the raiders before the other three got to me. With rage blazing in his eyes, one of them in front of me brought down an axe with all his might. I backpedaled and held up my bow. The force of the blow made both my wrists scream in pain. I was able to block the blow, but my bow shattered into pieces. The force of a grown man bringing all his weight down was so shocking it slammed me down to the ground. I felt every bone in my back compress painfully into each other.
Meteors of light zagged around me, each striking the raider with tiny bursts of light. He roared in again and staggered back. His health bar shrunk to half full
The other two raiders moved past me, swinging their swords. Max dodged backward and flung a handful of dirt at one of them. He then threw down another handful of dirt, which exploded into a thick, choking cloud.
In the cover of the cloud, Max made, I rolled away from him and scrambled away. I heard the raider that had attacked me, smashing the ground where I’d been.
It only took a moment, but it seemed like the longest moment of my life. I opened the inventory and drew out the short sword I’d kept from earlier. Leaping to my feet with a sword now in my hand, the billowing smoke cleared, and I caught the gaze of my attacker. He rushed at me.
I saw his axe pull back behind his body and come swinging at me. I panicked and tried to hit it with my sword. I somehow managed to block his blow, but his hit made the sword vibrate with a force that nearly made me drop it. My palms were completely numb at this point. I couldn’t even feel the sword in my hand.
It didn’t matter. The raider reared back his other hand and smashed me in the face with a fist. Stars exploded in my vision. I staggered back and landed on my back in the dirt. Everything lost focus, and it was hard even to think thoughts. I looked up and saw him raising the axe overhead.
The raider looked down at me, ready to murder me with his next blow. I saw the hatred in his eyes, the pure murderous rage. I was an obstacle he was now going to end. He jerked. His whole body seized up, and the health bar over his head dropped to a quarter of what it had been.
Thoughts were still coming to me very slowly. Slade, battleaxe in hand, slammed into the raider in a full football-style tackle that sent both flying over me. I blinked, trying to understand what had just happened. The stars in my vision were fading now.
When I lifted myself on one elbow and looked back, Slade slammed his axe down into the fallen raider, who blinked into a blue cube.
Turning back to Max, I saw he was on the ground like me. One raider stood over him, shoving a sword through his stomach. The other raider turned back to look at me. Nope, turned back to look past me. There was a flash of blackness, and then I saw strokes of black lightning consume the two raiders. The lightning only lasted the blink of an eye. In its passing, two blue cubes were all that remained.
There was a scream, unlike anything I’d ever heard before. I looked at Malworth’s tent, afraid the raiders may have completed their goal. Instead, I saw Malworth, half-dressed and bloody from several cuts, standing in the entry of his tent. In his hands, he held a bloody spear made of twisted red-wood with a silver metal tip. Behind him, a blue cube floated.
William and the last two raiders surged forward at Malworth. The goblin king warded off several blows but could not stop William's dagger from stabbing him through the chest. The goblin king’s health bar dropped suddenly but did not empty fully. He fell to his knees, still using his spear to ward off blows.
Black lightning flickered, and the two lesser raiders shrieked. Their health bars shrank to half their size. They were not out yet.
William, seeing the odds shifting, stepped away from Malworth, protecting the backs of his men. His dagger dripped blood as Slade advanced toward him.
“You asshat!” Slade yelled. “We had a deal.”
“No, traitor!” William shouted back. “You broke that deal when you made peace with our enemy.”
Behind William, the last two raiders desperately hacked at Malworth, trying to wear him down. The goblin deflected the blows with his spear, managing to lash out and wound one in the process. William was buying time so they could finish the job.
“We could have all lived peacefully,” Slade screamed.
“To what end? To raise some mongrel half-goblin pups of my own? I’d rather die!”
Slade granted his wish by planting his axe firmly in William’s chest. The lieutenant gurgled once, then became a blue and gold cube.
“Pardon me, do you mind?” Emma said to Slade.
“Oh, sorry about that.” He replied, scooting off to his left.
Black lightning flickered, and the final two raiders vanished.
“Well,” Slade announced, “Looks like that’s that.”
He didn’t even have a chance to look smug before Malworth replied, “What do you mean? You send your own against me. You kill my guards. You almost kill me.”
I glanced around. Both Max and I were messed up. Max was clutching his stomach. I’d lost count of how many times he’d been stabbed there. Slade looked okay-ish, a little battered, but his health bar still had three-quarters. Emma was the only one not hurt, and she looked confused and uncertain about what to do with the goblin king screaming at us.
“It’s not quite like that…” Slade tried to explain. Dozens of goblins who came to the king’s tent to investigate the noise of battle surrounded us. Slade spun slowly, looking at all of them.
Malworth slammed the spear butt to the ground, and all the goblins around us showed us the sharp tips of their spears.