We walked through the night. I was no stranger to all-nighters—I spent plenty of sleepless nights cramming before a test I hadn’t studied enough for. But going through two heart-pounding, life-or-death battles and then walking all night with no sleep was another thing entirely. My legs were heavy and I found myself moving more on autopilot than with any conscious thought. My mind felt sluggish, and whenever Connor indicated a change in direction I responded slowly.

Werner had it worse. The ambush by the goblin archer had made it clear that this deep in the forest, we were no longer safe. He kept wearing the armor, weighed down on a cross-country trek. I hoped we would either find what we were looking for soon, or find somewhere we could hunker down for the night.

Connor seemed intent on continuing, though. We had a clear trail, which meant that the goblins were fleeing through the night as well. Which, he argued, meant that we needed to be quick or they’d have time to prepare their defenses.

I didn’t like it, but it made sense so I chose not to argue. When the sun began to rise and Connor showed no signs of slowing down, I began to regret my decision.

“Connor, we need a break. I know it’s important we hurry, but at this rate we’re gonna be too tired to do anything anyway. I’m pretty sure Werner is about to collapse.” Somewhere behind me Werner tried unintelligibly to wheeze a response.

“If we hurry, we’ll be able to—”

“Dammit, if we hurry then we’re going to die! We don’t need to lie down and sleep, as much as I’d love to, but we need to rest and eat. You do too.”

Connor glared at me, but finally relented. “We’ll have a seat and eat for a bit. Then we get moving again.”

We settled down near an old, fallen tree, sitting against it to shield us from at least one side, and each took more food from our supply. We had found the goblins sooner than expected, so Connor had found no time to hunt for anything that could supplement the preserved fare Hugo provided us with. The food was almost an afterthought, though. Just getting to sit down and rest my tired muscles felt heavenly, and probably doubly so for Werner.

We ate in silence—Werner too exhausted for conversation, and Connor silently fuming. I knew he had lost a lot to the goblins, but he had seemed so put-together and on top of things when we left I hadn’t thought about just how much that must have affected him. I had let him guide us without holding him back, and if I wasn’t careful, he’d push us to the point of uselessness.

I swallowed a bite of jerky and said, “Connor, I know this is important to you, but it’s not just about you. We have to be in good condition to be effective when the time comes, you know? If we’re exhausted, we’ll die. Maybe you’re okay with that, but not me, and I’m not gonna let Werner get killed because you pushed us so hard either.”

“I’m just trying to—”

“I know what you’re trying to do! We brought you along because you want this so badly! But you’ve got to think about other people, too. Even if you don’t care much about the two of us dying-”

“I don’t want you to die.”

“-you also have to consider what happens if we fail. We’re kicking the hornet’s nest. If we attack the goblins and fail, they’ll be just like you. They’ll seek revenge on Northwold, and all the people living there.”

Connor didn’t respond, and I didn’t press the issue. If I got through to him, great. If he keeps pushing us, I’ll address it. The meal break ended like it began: in silence. After an all-too-brief moment of rest, we picked up our gear and rose to continue.

I watched Connor to see what he would do. He studied the ground for a moment and then began to walk—slowly. Good. I patted Werner on the back.

“Do you need to lean on my shoulder, or anything?”

He shook his head. His handsome face had grown haggard, with dark circles under his eyes and none of the usual energy he had. His mouth hung open as he breathed slowly and deeply, leaning on his spear. “I’ll manage.”

And so we continued, Connor moving at a much slower pace than the one he had maintained through the night. Thankfully the cold air was bracing and kept us alert, especially when a chilly breeze swept through the forest.

Even with our slower pace, Connor led us more quickly through the woods than we would have ever been able to do on our own. Soon enough the mountains loomed overhead, high enough that we would lose the sun behind them only a short while after noon. Werner and I closed in on Connor as he came to a stop.

“We’re close,” he said. “Footprints have been getting more common as we traveled, but here there are dozens, going in every direction. Some of them are days old, at least.” I looked down, and even I could see the mess of small, overlapping footprints.

“Then we need to stay on alert. We could get ambushed again.” Connor thought for a moment before turning to look at the mountains.

“If we travel along the mountains, we’ll be able to scout the area without being exposed on all sides.”

“Oh, wonderful. Hiking now,” huffed Werner. It seemed the rest and food had done him some good, but he still looked worn out. He rolled his shoulders, trying to alleviate some of the pain and stiffness.

“I know. But it’s better than getting swarmed by goblins, yeah?” I said, wishing I could do more to help him.

With no more complaint or discussion, we began to trudge towards the steep cliffs of the mountains, finally following along to the south when we reached them. It was slow going, and the footing was treacherous, but whether by luck or skill Connor managed to lead us safely. Before long, we rounded a cliff to see several pillars of smoke rising in the distance.

“That’s them, I’d wager,” said Connor, the only words he’d spoken since we moved toward the mountains. Nearly an hour later, and very near to the end of our precious daylight before the sun moved behind the mountains, we finally crested the top of a hill and found ourselves on a cliff overlooking our destination.

Looking upon Northwold from a distance had revealed a sprawling town, constructed with no major long-term plan. Buildings had been built as they were needed, and roads wound lazily from place to place.

Compared to what I could only describe as the goblin war camp before us, Northwold looked downright orderly. All of the chaos of the campsite we had ambushed was magnified: haphazardly constructed tents, bonfires scattered throughout, and dozens and dozens of goblins swarming about, shouting, bickering, and fighting, filled a wide, flat stretch of ground nestled among steep cliffs.

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“That’s… horrifying,” gasped Werner, dropping heavily to one knee to kneel behind a small rocky outcropping. “They look like a swarm of insects.”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of them.” I eyed Connor, worried that he might lose his cool at the sight of so many goblins, but he seemed strangely calm as he stared down at the camp. “It looks pretty well defended, too.”

In addition to the natural barriers it enjoyed, a series of freestanding walls created a shoddily constructed but no doubt effective maze, forcing any invaders to either pick their way through multiple barriers or somehow break through. As I stared at them, Connor spoke up again.

“They’ve likely filled the approach with traps. Entering through there would be a death sentence.” He gestured further along our approach, where we could follow along the cliff running behind the camp. “It’s hard to see from here, but it looks like there’s a path down from there. We could sneak down, but I don’t like our odds with so many of them.

“Wouldn’t we just need to kill the boss? Whoever rounded them all up like this?” asked Werner. “Normally they don’t gather and organize in these numbers, right?” Connor nodded. “Then that means whoever’s in charge here is fighting against their nature. If we take them down, then that’s gonna be a big morale hit.”

I nodded. “That’s true, but we don’t even know who the boss is. I don’t see any real sign of where they’d be down there.” There was no obvious place, no tent much larger than the others with flags flying or heavily guarded sites to indicate where they might be. “And with so many of them, I don’t think just taking down the boss will be enough. We’ll have to properly frighten them as well.”

“How do we do that with only three people? I… I’ll be honest, Colranth. I didn’t expect there to be this many, all in one place. Seems foolish to even attempt this now.”

I turned to Connor. “What do you think? Is this all of them, or do you think they’ve already sent some out after us?”

“It’s hard to tell. With how disorganized this all is, I can’t really say if this seems like a sparsely populated camp, or a bustling one.” He stared down at them, studying the sight intently. “There are some clusters of tents. If we could set them on fire, we might be able to sow some unease down there. How far can you throw those little fires of yours?”

I shook my head. “Only fifty feet or so.” Even at its lowest, the cliffs looked to be higher than that.

“Alright, that’ll be on me then. We should… Wait a second.” He peered down near the center of the camp, where one goblin in particular was being given a wide berth. It wore what looked like heavy armor, with two small hatchets on its belts. On its head was a strip of cloth, tied around the forehead like a headband, and it was followed by two goblins carrying a bow—not too large for a human, but massive in comparison to their small frames.

I wonder… I hadn’t tested its limits yet, but I reached into my backpack and pulled out the parchment, studying that goblin closely before looking at the sheet to see what it said.

BIG BOSS

Species:

Goblin

Class:

Warbow

Level:

2

Stats

Combat

Skills

Rank

Powers/Spells

MP Cost

Duration

Strength

16

Warfare

2

Piercing Shot

3

Instant

Agility

14

Evasion:

17

Leadership

1

Exploding Arrow

5

Instant

Resilience

14

HP: 10/10

Intimidation

1

Presence

12

Wit

14

Willpower

16

MP:9/9

“What’s that?” asked Werner, leaning over to look at the sheet.

Damn. I was hoping I could keep this a secret, but… I guess there’s no real reason to.

“Oh, this? Just another one of my magic items. It tells me some information about people if I study them closely, and… I’m pretty sure that’s the leader.” Connor raised an eyebrow.

“I had that thought myself, but what makes you so sure?” I held out the parchment for him to see.

“The name. ‘Big Boss.’ Unless there’s a Bigger Boss down there somewhere, that seems pretty decisive to me.” Connor chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess so. Neat little item you’ve got there. I have some questions about it when we’re done here.”

I nodded, and we continued watching the scene before us. It was impossible to hear, but it seemed as though a handful of goblins were explaining something to Big Boss, who listened quietly to what they had to say. After a short report from the assembled goblins, Big Boss threw back their head and laughed, the cackling reaching us even at our distance.

Big Boss then said something to the goblins standing about before grabbing the bow from the pair standing nearby and striding toward the front entrance. As they walked, more and more goblins emerged, grabbing weapons from nearby tents and following their leader. In all, about thirty of them followed their leader to the walls, where they then made their way out. I tried my best to note their route through the maze, just in case we had to flee that way ourselves.

There were still plenty of goblins left down in the camp, but we all looked at each other for a moment, sharing the same realization: If we were going to attack, now was the safest time to do it.

But is safe the right call? “Should we wait?” I asked. “Even if we attack now and win, Big Boss could escape more easily now, and come back with another army.”

“You’re right,” said Connor. “But… if we can break their army here, they’ll need to rebuild. They can’t do that overnight, and we can report what we discovered here. Send someone to Dongannon, ask for some real warriors to come and do something about this while they’re still scattered.”

“I say we wait. Stunt the problem now so we can better prepare to deal with it later,” said Werner. “Plus, I won’t say no to more time for me to rest.”

“Alright. If that’s what you both want to do, I’m fine with—”

“Wh-who’s there?!”

I froze. We all did, before whirling around towards the source of the question: a lone goblin, walking along the cliff coming from the path up in the back of the camp. I didn’t know why he came this way. I probably never would. We locked eyes for just a moment, and then he turned and ran.

I chased, my longer legs letting me catch up to him quickly, but as I reached for him I tripped. My outstretched hand shoved him, rather than grabbing, and he stumbled forward before slipping…

And falling off the cliff, screaming the whole way down. All eyes in the camp looked up, directly at the falling goblin—and at me.