iv

The game of hide and seek began.

Neon’s eyes instantly scanned the woods, searching for the densest patches of trees where she might find herself a comfortable place to wait while Memphis found her brothers and little sister.

“How I hide?” Gweneth’s voice asked.

Neon looked down and suppressed the urge to sigh.

“You don’t have to do this, Gwen,” she said softly.

But the little girl’s cheeks puffed up as if she was about to cry.

“All right, all right,” Neon said. “Calm down. You can hide with me.”

“Yay!” Gweneth exclaimed. “Piggyback!”

“What? No, we’re playing hide and—”

“Piggyback!”

“Oh, you silly goose…” Neon wanted to argue, but her little sister’s imploring expression was too adorable. Maybe I’ll find a good hiding place next time.

She reached down, plucked Gweneth up, and placed her on her shoulders. Gweneth bounced a little in her arms, then wrapped her arms around Neon’s neck eagerly. Then Neon began looking for a place that she could hide while also holding a little person on her shoulders. She walked into the tree line, keeping her eyes peeled.

Gweneth did not help matters. As soon as she felt secure in her place on Neon’s shoulders, she began to fidget. At first, she was just running her fingers through Neon’s hair. Then she started reaching up and trying to cover Neon’s eyes with her pudgy little hands.

“Stop that, now, or I’ll put you down,” Neon said.

Gweneth pulled back, but a minute later, she was at it again. This time, Neon just let her be. It was a little like a game within the game they were already in. Gweneth would try to cover her eyes, and Neon would wriggle to avoid both eyes being covered, while also still looking for their hiding space. Somewhere behind them, she knew Memphis was silently counting.

Big bro will give us plenty of time, she thought. He would not want to begin his search until everyone was well hidden. Memphis liked a challenge.

Still, Neon kept moving and kept looking out for a hiding place, even as Gweneth kept covering her eyes. She did not want to be the last one left out in the open again, as had happened before when they played. She was bigger now and getting good at hiding.

She was moving forward when Gweneth managed to successfully cover both of her eyes.

Neon was amused at first.

“All right, you got me,” she said, stumbling around like she was drunk. “Now let go, or we’ll—”

Neon stepped on a smooth rock that slipped out from under her foot, and she tumbled forward.

The ground seemed to open up beneath her as she fell—she could not see where she was falling, but that was how it felt, as she fell with Gweneth’s hands clasped tightly to her eyes. Her body tumbled forward into what she imagined was an endless void, and Neon found herself scared and screaming.

“Help! Someone help me!”

A hand grasped hold of her ankle, and Neon’s fall slowed instantly, her body striking the side of the hole she had tumbled into. Then another hand grabbed the other ankle, and Neon’s fall stopped completely.

“We’ve got you, sis,” came Raucus and Embrus’s voices in unison. “Don’t worry!”

—

Geoffrey stepped around a low-hanging tree branch and into a small clearing in the woods.

A strange sight greeted him. The body of a man lay slumped against a tree, but that was only what Geoffrey had expected and hoped to find. The strange thing was the two goblins he saw kneeling beside a human-sized hole in the ground close to where the body lay. The creatures were small, the size of young children, but Geoffrey had no idea how old they were from sight alone. He had heard that all goblins were small of stature, and he had never met one in person.

What in the world are they doing?

He looked more carefully. The goblins seemed to be holding onto a pair of little ankles. And there were a handful of gold coins scattered around the hole.

“Oh. Someone else found the gold first,” he muttered under his breath.

What do I do now?

“You’re damned right,” growled Brutus from Geoffrey’s left flank. “Bloody green skins…”

“Who are you humans?” A distinctly male voice caused Geoffrey to turn to his right. Another goblin, who was noticeably larger than the first two Geoffrey had seen, was stepping out of the trees. From the way he had spat out that last word, Geoffrey did not imagine he was friendly.

How many of these creatures are there? Geoffrey wondered uneasily. He had heard horror stories from his father’s men about being ambushed in the woods. Well, this one’s still small-ish. I think I can take him. Though I have heard they’re deceptively strong for their size.

“We’re the owners of what's in that there hole, greenskin,” declared Brutus angrily, stepping forward.

Geoffrey would have been annoyed at Brutus trying to take charge, but the brute seemed to actually be representing their interests well, so he decided to let it slide for now.

“The hole?” A flash of confusion appeared on the goblin’s face, only to be replaced by rage as the last part of Brutus’s sentence hit him. “Greenskin…?!” The goblin looked Geoffrey and his group up and down, as if assessing whether he could take them. Then he seemed to decide that he could not. “Whatever.” The goblin hocked a thick glob of phlegm and spat on the ground in front of them, then rushed over to the goblins already around the hole.

As Geoffrey’s eyes followed him, he saw another, smaller goblin had stepped out of the trees and was moving toward the hole.

What is this, a whole gods-damned goblin family spelunking together, looking for our treasure?

“Are they adults or children?” asked Cornelia in a low voice at his side.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Geoffrey admitted quietly. “I haven’t seen a whole lot of goblins.” This was, in fact, his first time encountering goblins in person. “They’re all so gods-damned small. I’m not sure how much it matters, though. My father would say they’re dangerous at every age.”

He could feel Henry and Thomas looking to him for direction, while Brutus’s eyes remained fixed on the goblins.

“Surround them,” Geoffrey said in a quiet but clear voice, his brain working over what their options were.

To his satisfaction, Henry, Thomas, and Brutus all fanned out in response to his words, moving to cut off the goblins’ possible routes of escape. Imogen and Cornelia remained behind Geoffrey, which was ideal in his mind. He needed to keep Cornelia safe and be able to give direct orders to Imogen.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

But he mainly focused on processing the situation.

The goblins discovered the gold, and I have to get them to give it up. Is there some way I can let them go after? We said no witnesses. Goblins and humans don’t talk much, as far as I remember. But if the King or my father were to somehow get wind that we came in here and stole the gold, we’d hang for sure…

As he watched, the two goblins pulled another pair of goblins out of the hole, but he could not focus on what the two new goblins looked like. He only saw that they were the smallest ones yet.

Those two are definitely children.

“Are you certain of what you’re about to do, Geoff?” Imogen’s voice poked at him from Geoffrey’s left side, while Cornelia clutched his arm on his right.

Geoffrey’s mind reflexively closed for a moment. It’s not that easy in the real world, he thought. You have to act. You can’t wait to be certain. You have to be decisive. Things get ugly in war.

On the rare occasions he had spoken with his father, that was the great lesson Lord Crinus had taught him. Conflict between the races was as ugly as it was inevitable.

—

Malin approached the clearing where she had heard the little ones calling for help.

Then she heard two distinctly human voices talking. For a moment, she stood stock still.

“Are you certain of what you’re about to do, Geoff?” It was a female voice.

Malin forced herself to edge closer to the trees so that she could see as well as hear the people talking. She saw the man the woman was talking to. He looked angry, and his fingers beat a quiet drumbeat on the sword at his side as he replied.

“We said no witnesses,” he said. “Even if they were humans, the answer would be the same. We have to do this.”

Malin turned her head and saw three other human males. They were moving to encircle her brothers and sisters. Neon and Gweneth were clutching each other, terrified. Corin stood protectively in between them and the humans.

Raucus, Embrus, and Memphis tried to look fierce as they formed a barrier between the littlest ones and the humans.

Malin could not see a way for her siblings to run away. Even if she made a distraction, that might peel away one of the humans, but the other two would attack the little ones.

No! What’s happening? Why are they attacking us? What would grandma do?

Malin suddenly knew exactly what she had to do.

“If you kill the leader, a lot of the time, the rest will run.” That was something Grandma Gwendol had said more than once when discussing her war experiences with Malin’s dad. Malin had secretly listened in on those conversations that happened after they thought she was asleep.

I just have to kill that one who said “no witnesses.” Then the rest will run.

With her heart in her throat, Malin sent up a silent prayer to the gods.

Please let this work…

Then she drew the knife grandma had given her from her side. She stroked the magic rune twice. And Malin was suddenly invisible.

She quickly climbed up the side of a tree.

The boss human looked like he was about to say something to the others that had the little ones surrounded.

I can’t let him say whatever order he’s about to give.

Malin felt certain she knew what would happen if she hesitated here. She could see her little brothers’ and sisters’ bloody bodies in her minds’ eye.

“I won’t let you,” she whispered fiercely, blinking back tears.

Then Malin threw herself down onto the human.

—

Maybe we could cut out their tongues or something. That would keep them from talking…

There was still a part of Geoffrey’s mind that wanted to find a way out of this. He had grown up in a time of peace. He did not want to kill these stupid goblins. He just wanted the gold—and their silence.

He was about to say something to the others surrounding the goblins—or maybe to the goblins themselves. No matter what, Geoffrey wanted to take control of this situation. He needed to guide it to the perfect resolution, even without knowing what resolution that was, exactly. He was still deciding exactly what to do as he opened his mouth to speak.

Don’t make any sudden moves. Or maybe—

Geoffrey felt a sudden, heavy weight strike him in the back, landing from above him. Since the attacker came from his blind spot, he could not see anything. His senses went into overdrive, trying to figure out what was going on. The enemy was the size and shape and weight of a small human, he felt. Or maybe a large goblin.

The one thing Geoffrey’s father had done for him was to ensure that his son knew the ways of war. His man at arms had instructed Geoffrey in secret, so that no one would know the truth of the Lord’s indiscretion.

“With the greenskins as neighbors, we can never have permanent peace,” Sir Wermund had said. “If only our damn fool of a King understood what your father has always known…”

“The greenskins love to ambush,” he had said on another occasion. This was the preface to giving Geoffrey what Sir Wermund called “ambush training,” where he surprised the boy with an attack that came from an unexpected angle, at a random time during his regular drills.

So Geoffrey’s instincts were well honed by now.

As the weight struck him, he felt that it was not too heavy for him to carry while remaining upright. But he deliberately dropped to the ground, trying to keep the attacker from getting a firm grip on him.

He heard a clank of metal on stone and realized that the enemy had tried to stab him, only to have their balance thrown off so that the blade of their knife struck a rock instead.

So it is an ambush, he thought. The rest of them weren’t armed, were they? They must have been some kind of bait.

But most of his mind remained focused on the present. The life and death struggle.

Geoffrey pushed off of the ground and shoved himself backward, trying to throw his attacker off balance. By now, one of the enemy’s supple hands had him around the neck—definitely a goblin’s hand—gripping him so that Geoffrey thought it would be impossible to throw them off. The hand tightened, almost a stranglehold.

He swung his body around wildly, and he felt the attacker’s body swing counter to his change of direction, without losing their grip on his neck.

There was a moment when he thought he should have seen an arm or a leg of the attacker swing out over his head. But there was nothing.

What? How is that possible? I can feel the way his body’s moving. I don’t get it.

He threw his arms up, trying to grab hold where the attacker should be, and a blade that he could not see sank into his lower arm.

“Ahh! Damn it!” He cried out through gritted teeth.

In his peripheral vision, Geoffrey was aware that Henry, Thomas, and Brutus were engaging with the other goblins, but he had little attention to spare for that. With the hand that had not been stabbed, he grabbed hold of the wrist of the body that had stabbed him. He could not see what he was holding—by some magic, the enemy and their weapon seemed to be invisible—but he could grasp the attacker.

Geoffrey went to the ground again, grappling with the one who had stabbed him, fighting for his life, trying to wrestle the knife free from the goblin’s grasp.

He managed to get on top of the invisible goblin and beat the knife-holding hands against the rock that the knife had struck when the enemy first tried to stab him. He heard the deadly blade skitter away, and the weapon suddenly became visible as if it was popping into existence for the first time.

Geoffrey took a deep, relieved breath. He wanted to go for the knife, but with the enemy still wriggling hard and invisible beneath him, he grabbed for where the throat should be instead.

The attacker bit into his hand, and he let out a yowl.

Then Geoffrey managed to get his other hand around the neck, and he began to squeeze. After a few seconds, the bite weakened, and both of Geoffrey’s hands closed around the throat, crushing the life out of the enemy with all his strength. He ignored the blood streaming from his hand and his wrist and the further clawing of the invisible goblin as the two struggled to determine who would live and who would die.

In the long seconds while he was strangling the enemy, Geoffrey saw one of the larger goblins running toward him, an enraged look on his face. He braced himself to try and use the invisible one as a shield, but to his surprise, when the goblin drew close, Cornelia stepped up from behind the little monster and cracked him in the back of the head with a heavy stick she had picked up somewhere.

Almost at the same time, Imogen moved from behind Geoffrey, unleashing a fireball at the last of the goblins who was still fighting Thomas and Henry at the other end of the clearing.

I didn’t even notice her chanting, Geoffrey thought.

The body beneath him went limp, and he reflexively relaxed his grip slightly.

The clearing was suddenly quiet, at peace.

“It’s over,” he said quietly, under his breath. “It’s finally over.”

“What do we do now?” Imogen’s voice carried from behind him, full of uncertainty.

“Burn the rest of them, too,” Geoffrey found himself saying. “It’s what my f—what Lord Crinus would do. It’s the only way to make certain they aren’t playing possum. We wouldn’t want any of these things to get back up.”

“Bloody greenskins,” Brutus grunted from the other end of the clearing.

Geoffrey saw him kick one of the corpses.

Imogen began chanting again.