Hayden couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Sam was splayed on the ground, with a bolt through his shoulder, and still he was yelling at them to run. Even in the moment, the image of Sam’s blood spurting forth onto the grass as the bolt had ripped through his flesh kept replaying in his mind, freezing him to the spot.

He couldn’t even move as he saw the little goblin reaching down to reset his crossbow. It was only as the goblin was raising its crossbow once more, a fresh bolt sitting atop it that he felt he was able to move again. Before he could however, a soft twang sounded from beside him and an arrow flew across the clearing and buried itself into the goblins eye, collapsing it immediately.

Hayden’s head whipped around, to see Jake holding a bow, his eyes wide and glasses slightly askew as he looked at the dead goblin with surprise, almost as if he hadn’t expected to actually hit it.

Not only did he have a bow, but he now had a sword belt tied tight around his waist, with a long machete and a dagger sheathed upon it, as well as a quiver that was tied to his thigh below the dagger.

His little brother’s eyes widened even further as he watched the five other goblins climb their way through the brambles.

Four of them had short spears that they held aloft and the last was another with a crossbow.

Jake turned to Hayden, pulling out his machete and throwing it toward him.

Hayden jumped back, not willing to try and catch the spinning blade.

“Protect Sam.” Was all Jake said to him before he turned back to the goblins, drawing an arrow and loosing it in their direction sending them scattering as they had come out in surprise to see their friend already dead.

His arrow went wide, missing all five of them, but it did create a whirl of action.

The spear goblins split into two pairs, running wide, but both were angling towards Sam, nonetheless. He was the target that was closest to them.

The crossbow goblin bolted off to the side, looking for cover in the trees, releasing a bolt in Jake’s direction that would have hit him, if he had stayed still. Instead, He had pulled another arrow and was running towards Sam with it nocked and bouncing on his bow.

Hayden, not needing anymore prompting, had scooped up the machete and was legging it towards his eldest brother, who was still writhing in pain on the grass, and covering a lot of ground as he did.

His legs pounding the ground, he quickly outpaced Jake who had to stop twice to fire off two more arrows. The first had missed its target again, but the second took the crossbow goblin in the shoulder, sending it tumbling to the ground and firing its bolt harmlessly into the air.

Hayden reached Sam first his machete held high above his head, only moments before the first pair of goblins did, one shoved its spear at him, screaming at him in a language he didn’t understand, a faint *Ding* went off in the back of his mind as he dodged to the side of the spear thrust and brought his blade down towards the goblins head.

The goblin pulled its spear back and up to try and block, but Hayden’s blow powered through it, the shaft of the spear cracking under the weight of his strike as the blade continued on, penetrating and lodging into the goblins head, sending a spray of purplish-blue blood spraying into the air and into Hayden’s face.

The second goblin jabbed his spear at Hayden as its partner died on his blade and Hayden tried to whack away the spear head with the blade of his machete, but the blade had remained stuck in the goblins skull only dislodging halfway through Hayden’s attempted parry, sending the carcass careening through the air to slam into its still alive partner, both goblins knocked down to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

The other pair of goblins had arrived now, but so had Jake.

The fresh pair, had run in to try and save their friends, leaving Sam writhing alone on the ground, not seeing him as an immediate threat. The leading one had jumped forward, the head of its spear aimed directly at Hayden’s throat, and as currently occupied as Hayden was with the other two, he hadn’t seen it coming.

Jake, not even a second behind the goblins had, though.

In a desperate dash, Jake launched himself at the goblin, tackling it out of the air, his bow and its spear were knocked down onto the grass as they slammed into the ground. The goblin, winded by the tackle, attacked in valiant effort, its claws cut into his arm and its teeth gnashed as they tried to bite into him but were unable to find anything as Jake kept a tight hold of it, wrenching his dagger out of his belt and slamming it down again and again into its back. Spurts of blood and gore mixed in with screams as all three crashed over him, but still, he didn’t stop. Even as its vicious throes began to weaken in his grasp, he continued to stab in an adrenalin fueled fear.

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He had no focus to give to the second goblin, until he felt a searing pain shoot into his left arm as a spearhead cut through flesh and muscle and scraped against the bone.

He let go of his dagger, desperately grabbing at the spear in an attempt to pull it out in fearful reaction.

His hand missed the spear, grasping at air as the other goblin pulled it free from his arm, and he stared down the goblin for but a brief moment that felt like it froze and stretched for an age.

Its eyes locked onto his. A deep yellow surrounded a large black pupil in one and a milky white filled the other as a jagged scar ran through it. Its arm was already pulled back and its spear was reared and ready to strike forth and end his life. Jake was helpless and in no position to either dodge or defend himself properly.

Hayden was also too busy hacking at the tangled forms of the other two goblins to have any chance of helping him. The goblin that was still alive trying to use its friends’ body as a shield as Hayden’s machete came down towards it again and again, slowly finding more and more of the living goblin’s flesh to bite into.

Jake looked on knowing that his death was coming with the plunge of its spear.

Time resumed as normal, and a spear struck forth, but not the goblins.

Having picked up the spear of the goblin Jake had tackled Sam rammed it into the back of the goblin attacking Jake. A wail of pain screeched out into the clearing, assailing the brothers ears and giving Jake the chance to dive at the goblins spear in a desperate wrestle for control of it.

The two collapsed to the ground, Jakes greater size lending him the advantage in the struggle and Jake quickly found himself slamming the haft of the spear into its throat. Fumbling upon the ground, he got around the back of the goblin and pulled the spear into its neck once more, cutting off its air supply.

The goblin thrashed around as Jake began to strangle it and Sam beat down at it with his fist, his stolen spear wrenched from his grasp as Jake took the goblin to ground.

Hayden, having hacked at his two goblins for long enough that the living one’s arms finally collapsed after having been turned into mincemeat. He kicked the dead one off of it and with one strong blow cut straight through its neck, its head rolling along the ground.

Hayden stepped back eyes wide in horror at what he had just done. But the job wasn’t finished.

He turned to see the last goblin alive in a dogpile of his brothers as they strangled and beat it. He saw the light glint off the dagger still sticking out of one goblins back.

He strode over, dropping the machete as he wrenched the dagger out of the goblin and fell to his knees next to Jake, pushing Sam out of the way.

“Hold him still.” Hayden said, his voice strangely steady, cut through his brothers screams.

Jake locked eyes with him ,and redoubled his efforts with grit teeth and muscles strained in his neck to try and keep the goblin from moving. The goblin saw Hayden and realized what was about to happen and tried to swipe at him, but it was ineffectual. Between Sams beating and Jake choking him out, the goblin was already at the end of its tether. Even without Hayden about to rush him along, the goblin was likely going to die.

Not wanting to think about it, Hayden plunged the dagger down into its gut. It would have been a cleaner death if he’d aimed for its head, but for the same reason he had swapped to the dagger rather than using the machete, this felt less likely to hit Jake.

The goblins eyes bulged in pain, and it looked like it tried to cry out in pain but couldn’t with the spear choking it.

Hayden wrenched the dagger up its guts spilling out over it and Jake and the light slowly left the goblins eyes until it stopped struggling entirely.

Jake let go of the Goblin, its body flopping limply to the side as he rolled over onto the grass, clutching his shoulder, pressing his face into the ground and screamed into the grass.

When he was done, he rolled back over and gasped in a breath but seemed relatively fine. If you could call a slowly spurting arm wound fine.

Sam, however, was much worse. He was as pale as a ghost and his breaths were coming in short and shallow and even those sounded ragged.

Hayden crawled over to him and reached forward to help before pulling his hands back.

“What do I do?!” he asked, his steady voice now gone and replaced by a fearful shake. “Sam, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. Jake?!” Tears were forming in his eyes, falling freely as his hands hovered over his brother unsure where he could place them to make anything better. Sams eyes began to slowly close, and Hayden’s breath stopped for a moment.

“Healing magic skill!” Jake said from behind him his voice strained with pain.

“What?” Hayden asked his skill tab opening in a rush with a quick thought.

“Yes!” Jake said through gritted teeth.

“Jake, I don’t have that skill.” Hayden said, his voice quavering as he looked through his skills.

Hayden’s head whipped around as Jake began to mutter what, even to Hayden’s ears, sounded like an ancient and powerful language. A gentle glow began to form around him, visible even in the daylight. Jake lay there clutching his shoulder which seemed to be repairing itself as Hayden looked on.

Jake’s eyes fluttered a little as he finished his spell, but he quickly jerked them back open, his shoulder now looking like just a bad cut rather than a life-threatening gash.

He sat up with a grimace and crawled over to Sam. He held his hands out over him and began to mutter the same spell. This time the gentle glow enveloped their eldest brother, and a little bit of color seemed to return to his face. His breath began to even out and his eyes reopened.

“What the fuck was that?” Hayden asked as Sam’s face went from fear inducingly slack back to pained and alive.

Jake looked up at him with a smile. “Magic.”