The camp was a haphazard, chaotic thing, with half-collapsed tents sprawling throughout a wide clearing. A bonfire burned in the center, and various goblins crowded around it, shoving, punching, and biting each other as they jockeyed for a position to cook whatever meat they had been able to procure from the forest—or, in one case, sneak away with someone else’s food as they were distracted by another goblin.

From our vantage point I could count six of them. Connor had claimed there were twelve, and there were clearly some on the other side of the bonfire, but I simply couldn’t count beyond that. I even doubted the six I had counted; they jostled and moved about so much it was entirely possible I had counted one twice, or missed one in the chaos. I leaned in close to Connor.

“Should we attack now? They look pretty preoccupied.” He didn’t respond immediately, instead observing the camp closely. His eyes darted back and forth, and his lips moved almost imperceptibly, as if he were talking to himself. I waited patiently until, eventually, he answered.

“I don’t see any signs of a leader. That’s unfortunate. We’ll just have to go ahead as planned. Werner, Colranth, you should wait here. I’m going to circle around to the side. Wait until I initiate, and then charge in.”

“Why do you need to…” I trailed off as Connor began moving, rapidly leaving the distance where he could hear my whispers. I looked at Werner instead and nodded. It would be too risky to have him move much at this distance. Loud though the goblins may be, we couldn’t afford to risk a noise giving us away. Instead, I quietly slunk back, taking up a position behind Werner.

My heart began to pound in anticipation, a sensation that was becoming unnervingly familiar considering how relaxed my life had been before. I watched as two goblins began to bicker over a piece of meat, one shoving the other to the ground and raising his foot to stomp on him, when…

Thunk! Thud, thud!

The standing goblin was sent flying by an arrow impacting his chest—likely one empowered by Connor’s Heavy Draw skill. He hit the ground, unmoving and quickly followed by two more arrows. One hit the bonfire, sending a shower of sparks flying, while the other came perilously close to the head of another goblin, piercing its large floppy ear instead.

“Go!”

Werner and I broke into a run. The armor slowed him down, so in order to stay behind him I supplemented our charge by stopping to throw two Motes of Fire. My accuracy suffered at this range, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to land shots on the goblins, so instead I aimed for their ramshackle tents. At the same time, another powerful arrow flew into the camp, this time directly across the camp from our approach. Connor had moved before firing again, and had done so quickly.

His arrow struck another goblin in the back, sending it lurching forward into the bonfire. It screamed and staggered to its feet, attempting to flee but falling face first into the dirt as another arrow hit it in the shin. It stopped moving.

With two goblins dead, Werner finally reached the impromptu front line the goblins had formed. They seemed woefully unprepared for combat, having removed their armor and most of their weapons as they sat down to eat. Four goblins stood, trembling, with knives in hand as they faced down the armored form bearing down on them.

Werner collided with them shield-first, knocking the two in the center onto their backs with his charge. The two on the flanks rushed forward to stab him, but their knives barely pierced through the rings in his chainmail before being stopped by the thick gambeson beneath.

I moved to Werner’s left, behind one of the goblins who tried to stab him, and swiped with my left hand. My claws scraped across his scalp, dragging across the bone underneath, and the goblin screamed in pain. It dropped its weapon and turned to flee, scrambling away on all fours as it stumbled. I swiped at it once more for good measure, missing and clawing only the air.

Six more arrows emerged from the treeline in quick succession, two finding their marks and felling as many goblins. Werner dispatched the other goblin that had stabbed at him with a quick thrust of his spear, and the two goblins he had knocked to the ground stood up and began to flee, screaming as they did.

“Run! Everybody ruuuuun!”

Werner caught up to one before it could cover much distance and skewered it, and I threw another Mote of Flame at the other fleeing target, burning it badly before another arrow grazed it, causing it to trip and fall where it ceased moving.More goblins emerged from the tents, screaming and fleeing as the fire spread through them.

We continued to chase the goblins away, acting like we were trying to kill them as they fled to truly drive fear into them. They couldn’t be allowed to regain their morale—we needed to shatter them. More arrows came from out of sight, hounding the goblins even as they retreated.

“It’s an army! The humans brought an army!”

As the cries of the goblins faded into the distance, Werner and I stopped to catch our breath. The clearing, which had been first a chaotic mess of goblins and then a frantic, deadly battle, had fallen silent save for the crackling of the bonfire and the now-flaming tents. The sound of footsteps soon broke that silence as Connor emerged from the trees and began gathering what arrows he could salvage.

“Think that did the trick?” I asked.

“I do. That was the easy part,” He said, breathing heavily.

“What’s the hard part?” asked Werner, leaning on his spear like a walking stick.

“Those goblins scattered. Some will probably get lost and lead us nowhere. We’ve got to try and find the trail that leads us back to their source.” He strode to the west edge of the clearing. “The one who called for the retreat went this way, so we’ll start here.”

He knelt down, running his hand along the ground and moving along as he did so. By the time we reached the edge of the clearing, he had already moved into the woods, barely visible.

“It’s easy to follow for now, so we’ll move as quickly as we can. Let’s go!”

With that, Connor stood back up and began to jog through the forest, Werner and I running after him.

* * *

“Dammit… Connor…” Werner wheezed, finally able to catch his breath as, after almost half an hour of jogging, our hunter finally came to a stop. “Let me… get this damned armor off before you go again.” He immediately began to remove it, but Connor interrupted.

“No, keep it on.” Werner swore, but acquiesced. “I’ve lost the trail, but…” he said, trailing off.

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“But you think there’s danger?” I looked around at the surrounding forest. The sun had long since sunk below the mountains. The sky still cast an orange glow that provided just enough light to see by but now, at the thought of danger in the trees, I realized just how easy it would be to hide from sight. “Do you need some light? I could make a bit of fire so you can see better.”

“No, not right now. Right now…” He continued to look about, straining to see or hear something. “Get down!” He grabbed my tunic, pulling me down with him as he threw himself on the ground as an arrow whizzed past. Werner reacted more slowly, and a second arrow caught him in the shoulder. He fell to the ground.

“Shit! Werner, are you okay?” I shouted.

“I’m fine! The armor stopped it!”

I looked at Connor. “How many do you think there are?” A few more arrows soared overhead, but we were much harder to hit while we were prone on the ground.

“Only one shooting at us, I think, but there could be more.”

More? My blood ran cold at the thought of more goblins sneaking up on us as we were pinned down arrows. Thoughts whirled through my head. When I had played this game with my friends, we had never faced a situation exactly like this, but… Plenty of enemies had to deal with it.

Chelsea had played Bullseye, a Warbow. She was a heavily armored, high-powered archer, using bows that launched massive arrows with immense power. She had been an instrumental part of so many of our strategies, so eventually, Rob had to come up with ways the enemies could counter her. I considered one such method now as I crawled closer to Werner, shouting to Connor as I did.

“How far is the archer?”

“I don’t know for sure, but the trees limit visibility. It can’t be too far.”

I had hoped to hear that, but my hands trembled. It was one thing to conceive of a strategy that put you in danger—it was another thing entirely to enact it. I took a deep breath, then whispered to Werner.

“Hey, hand me your shield.”

“What? Why?” he asked, though his questioning didn’t stop him from doing as I asked.

“Just be ready to defend Connor if any goblins get to him,” I replied, crawling back over to Connor. “Hey, if you get eyes on the archer, can you take him out quickly?” He met my gaze for a moment, his face grim, and then nodded.

Alright, nothing for it.

I took a moment to rehearse my next few moves in my mind. Rise to a crouch. Defend. Stand. Ignite. Charge. I repeated the words like a mantra, trying to overwrite my anxiety, before enacting my plan.

Holding the shield by its grip in the center, I propped it up in front of me, then placed my other hand on the ground before pushing myself up into a crouch. I pulled the shield back, closer to me, and waited until I heard the terrifying thud of an arrow burying itself in the wood.

I took that as my cue. I exploded up from my crouch, shouting, “Ignite!” as I did so to set my claws ablaze. I stayed as low as I could, blocking as much of my body with the shield as possible, and dashed forward. With the shield blocking my vision I had to focus on the ground in front of me, relying on my reflexes and the footwork that had become muscle memory for me to keep from tripping on any roots.

One more arrow thudded into my shield, and then another. That was good. It meant I hadn’t run past the archer. I took a chance and raised my hand above my shield, letting the flames illuminate the area as I continued to charge. I hoped that, due to its small size and the scales covering it, it would suffer no harm, and I screamed.

“Can you see it?!”

There was no response. At least, not a verbal one. Instead, I heard four sudden noises, one after another: the twang of an arrow string behind me, a whoosh of air as the arrow flew past, a strangled scream, and then a heavy thud.

I peeked over the shield to see a goblin on the forest floor, feebly trying to crawl away. It wore brown and green clothes—camouflage—and a crude bow lay near it, snapped from the impact of its fall. I quickly dropped the shield, raising both of my hands to provide more light.

“Do you see any others around?”

A tense silence fell, broken only by the shuffling of the mortally wounded archer still trying ineffectually to flee.

“If there were others, they’ve fled.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. A moment later, the flames on my claws went out, and so I finally had a chance to sneak the parchment out of my pocket and study the archer.

GRISTLE

Species:

Goblin

Class:

Goblin Archer

Level:

1

Stats

Combat

Skills

Rank

Powers/

Spells

MP Cost

Duration

Strength

8

Stealth

1

Nightvision

N/A

Permanent

Agility

16

Evasion:

14

Observation

1

Heavy Draw

3

Instant

Resilience

10

HP: 1/6

Presence

7

Wit

10

Willpower

8

MP: 0/3

My shoulder ached from blocking the first shot that landed during my charge. That must have been his Heavy Draw power. A quick check of my own status revealed that even blocked, it had dealt two points of damage to me. I quickly folded the parchment once more as I heard my companions approaching me.

“It’s still alive, barely.” I looked down at the pathetic creature, which had barely moved a foot even as it struggled to crawl away from me. It gasped and wheezed, and one arm was bent at a terribly wrong angle. I knelt down next to it.

“Gristle,” I whispered. Its bulging eyes fixed on me.

“Y-you… know… me?”

“Yes, I do. I’m here to guide you home.” A look of relief washed over its face. “You need to tell me where your home is so I can take you there.”

“M-m-mountains.” He could say no more before he finally succumbed to his injuries. I stood up, turning to Werner and Connor.

“He said we’re going in the right direction. We need to keep going until we reach the mountains, but that’s all he managed to tell me.”

“What exactly did you say to him? You’ve got a real knack for getting goblins to tell you things,” said Werner. I shrugged.

“They’re cowards, I guess. Just want to survive, so they’ll tell someone stronger what they want to hear.” Connor interrupted.

“It doesn’t matter how he did it, he got that goblin to confirm where we’re going. Normally I wouldn’t trust it, but plenty of folks have reported seeing goblins retreat west when driven off, and that’s where the trail was leading before. We’ll trust it for now.”

I nodded. “I don’t think we have time to rest, either. We need to hurry. Sorry, Werner, but we’re not in the safe part of the woods anymore. You’re gonna have to carry that weight.”

Werner groaned. “If it keeps me alive, I suppose I’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Alright, Connor. Lead the way.”