Asheeri dove into a roll, placing a rock outcropping between her and the tree line. Wynn dropped prone and shimmied towards his weapons. Jules's bubble shield popped into place twice more as arrows tried to pincushion her. Donavan's body moved faster than his mind. He'd flinched, jerking back a centimeter from a passing arrow. Two more shots revealed he needn't have bothered. One struck his chest, the other his thigh. They shattered against his body. No more deadly than a rubber band

Another arrow struck Jules's shield. The blue bubble burst into so many pieces of ephemeral light. Asheeri darted from her cover to pounce on Jules and they both crashed to the ground.

Donavan knelt, gathering small rocks at his feet. A few more arrows broke against his skin. He squinted out at the treeline. In the dark, he could only make out the most vague suggestions of movement. It would have to do.

Pinching the first rock, he slung it like a skipping stone. It made a zipping sound as it tore through the air, ending in the echoing crack of bark exploding off a tree.

Hoarse chittering and cackling came from the shadows all around their little clearing. The monsters had them surrounded.

Donavan sent four more rocks sailing into the dark. Each followed by more inhuman laughter. Donavan frowned. They may not be able to hurt him, but with the cover of the night and the trees, he'd be shooting blind. They could dog them all night before he made any leeway. The other three had all found some cover. Donavan was the only one still standing in full view.

"Asheeri, suggestions?" Donavan asked, backhanding an arrow out of the air.

"They took the time to get into position before they attacked. We have the cliff at our back. If they didn't get us with the first volley, they could turn it into a war of attrition. We need an exit strategy. The longer we're here, the more time they have to get an angle on us."

If Donavan could see in the dark, this wouldn't be so annoying. he glanced back at the cliff they'd made their camp against. Trying to climb that would make it easy to pick them off with arrows. Which meant the only option they had was to charge the treeline.

They'd be out in the open until they crossed the sixty-or-so feet to make it to the trees. Donavan could use his body to defend them, but he was still only one man. Could he defend Wynn while Jules used that magic shield of hers to protect Asheeri? If so they could make a run for it.

"Jules, can that shield of yours withstand more arrows?"

"No. It's run out of charge! It won't work until it can gather more essence!"

Essence? Well, whatever. That idea was down the drain.

"I will make us an exit!" Wynn roared as he leaped from cover.

Wynn was halfway to the trees before Donavan registered what he was doing.

"Idiot!" Asheeri spit as she stepped out to let loose cover fire.

Wynn bobbed and weaved across the clearing like a first-draft pick quarterback. Arrows flew but none managed to hit their mark. He crossed the tree line and faded into the shadows. The goblins roared with unmistakable excitement. That was exactly what they were hoping for.

For the first time in this world, Donavan felt a chill run down his spine. The goblins may not have been able to hurt him, but he had no assurance the main characters had the same impunity. Until Wynn got the sword he'd just be some farm boy. Maybe he had some plot armor built in, but what if he didn't? What if Donavan was supposed to be Wynns plot armor. Wynn was his ticket out of here. If Wynn died, would Erwin call it a rap and let him out?

No, no he wouldn't. Erwin wasn't the type to react well to his favorite toy getting broken.

Donavan put all his weight on his front leg, feeling the muscles tense. "I'm going to get him," Donavan called back to the others.

"Wai—"

Donavan rocketed forward. One solid push sent him flying across the clearing and into the trees. Beyond the light of their campfire, Donavan's eyes began to adjust. Squat silhouettes formed amidst the darkness. He came to a skidding stop, unable to halt his momentum. The instant he regained control, he launched himself at the first shadow he saw.

Something wet exploded. Warm viscera splattered across the trees. He turned on the next silhouette. Throwing an amateur punch at where he guessed its head was. His fist sailed straight through it like a cannonball through a rotten watermelon. Donavan saw more vague shapes, but their forms were growing smaller.

They were running? But they seemed so excited when Wynn charged. Were they giving up that easily? Was it because he'd followed Wynn?

"Wynn!" Donavan yelled into the darkness. "Where are you!"

"I'm here!" Wynn's voice called out somewhere to his left.

Donavan ran towards his voice. He found Wynn just as he brought his axe down into the skull of a goblin. He couldn't make out Wynns's features very well, but his frame was far too tall to mistake for anything else.

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"They're retreating," Wynn cheered. "We've got them on the back foot!"

Right as he spoke, an arrow flew from the underbrush. Donavan moved. Whipping a hand out, he caught the arrow an inch from Wynn's head. Wynn pulled his axe from the dead goblin with a squelch and turned on the hidden archer. The bushes rustled as the short silhouette took off running, laughing as it did.

"Damn Cowards." Wynn spit. "They ambush us and then run."

Donavan snapped the arrowhead off the shaft and whipped it at the retreating form. The silhouette dropped with a thud.

Wynn turned to stare in awe at Donavan. "Caspiera wasn't kidding."

Donavan sneered. "The fuck do you think you're doing!"

Wynn flinched back. "What?"

"Charging off on your own, no discussion, no plan. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Wynn set his jaw. "We needed a way out. They were going to close in on us if I didn't do anything."

"Pay attention. The moment you charged, they started laughing. Think Wynn. Why would they do that?"

Wynn frowned at the ground, eyes darting side to side.

"They had a plan. They surrounded us before starting their attack. You charged off on your own and they started laughing. Does that sound like they were scared of you?"

Wynn clenched his teeth. "But the moment I got close they started running. It isn't like they piled on me."

Donavan pinched the bridge of his nose. "If their goal wasn't to draw one of us out for an ambush, then they must've been trying to do something else."

The realization hit Donavan and Wynn at the same time. The two men met each other's eyes.

"The girls," Wynn whispered and darted off.

"Damnit, Wynn." Donavan charged after him.

Donavan may have been far faster than Wynn, but he wasn't about to leave him alone in the forest. He matched pace and the two of them ran back towards the clearing. The moment they breached the trees they saw their mistake.

The archers were a distraction. The real ambush was the goblins rappelling themselves down the side of the cliff face.

Donavan scraped a handful of rocks off the ground mid-stride and sent them all flying. They hit the side of the cliff with smacks like thunder and goblins fell like rain. They'd arrived too late though. Several of the creatures had already descended on Jules and Asheeri.

Asheeri wielding a short sword, cut down each goblin that got too close. Jules screamed while waving a stick back and forth. They stood back to back in a circle of the ugly creatures.

"We're coming!" Wynn yelled and charged forth.

Donavan heard the snap of a bowstring behind them. He tackled Wynn to the dirt as an arrow whistled overhead. More laughter. Wynn scrambled off the ground, blind in his charge. If Donavan vaulted forward to save the girls. The remaining archers would fill Wynn's back with arrows. Wynn had to stay his priority.

The two men arrived back at camp. Several goblins stood between them and the girls. Wynn swung his axe like a mad lumberjack desperate to carve a swath through the encirclement.

They were too slow.

One goblin jumped onto Asheeri sending her to the ground. They struggled against each other. Asheeri managed to push the thing off and plunge her sword into its gut. But the altercation left Jules open. A goblin with skin mottled with spots of pale yellow leaped forward. A crude spear consisting of a piece of jagged glass tied to the end of a stick in its gnarled hands.

"Jules, to your right!" Donavan shouted.

She turned but wasn't fast enough. The crude spear's tip slid into place centimeters below her ribcage.

Ice water rushed through Donavan's veins. He'd never seen someone get stabbed like that before. Skin was thicker than people gave it credit for. It meant the goblin had to really put its weight into the strike.

He'd expected Jules to scream. She didn't. She made a wet heaving kind of noise and fell to her knees, clutching at the spear in her gut.

Wynn yelled. It sounded so distant to Donavan. He'd stopped moving, stopped fighting. This wasn't supposed to happen. He didn't recall Wynn or any of the main characters ever sustaining serious injury. That was one of the criticisms he'd leveled at Erwin. They'd always gotten off too easy. So what changed?

Donavan was what changed.

He'd slowed Wynn down. Was that it? When he tackled him so the arrow wouldn't hit him. None of the arrows hit him when he'd first charged forward. Maybe that one wouldn't have either. Maybe Wynn would've gotten there just a bit faster and saved her.

Or maybe Wynn would've taken an arrow in the back. There was just no way to know.

It didn't matter now.

Rumbling filled Donavan's ears. Like the roaring of a river or the charge of a stampede.

This was Erwin's fault. He put Donavan in the middle of all this. Made him watch this poor girl get hurt. To Erwin, this was all entertainment, words on a page. But Donavan was here. He was living this. Jules didn't know she was a character in a story. She was a girl who wanted to go on adventures. She wanted to write for a magazine and pine over a handsome boy. She was alive. She was real.

And now she was bleeding out in the dirt.

Donovan couldn't do this. He wouldn't do this. He wouldn't be party to Erwin's torment of these people. Fuck his story. He would be out of this place as soon as possible.

But first, he would make them pay.

Donavan stepped forward, Silent, and expressionless. They never knew what hit them.

With his bare hands, he ripped and tore his way into the circle of goblins. Their chittering laughter turned to racking screams and cracking bone. Someone yelled at him. They were saying his name. Donavan crushed a goblin skull in one hand and moved to the next. Something grabbed his arm. He barely noticed. Soon all the goblins that had repelled down onto them were a pile of mangled bodies.

"Don! Don! The archers are coming back. We need to move!"

Donavan blinked. Asheeri was pulling at his arm. She had a strange look on her face. It was something in her eyes... fear. Wynn had scooped up Jules's limp frame. Her chest still rose and fell, albeit weakly. Awareness flooded back to his senses.

"Where?" Donavan croaked. A lump had formed somewhere in his throat. No one had ever looked at him like that before. Asheeri's scanned the distance.

"I—I don't know. I can't spot an opening."

Donavan peered up at the cliff. The goblins had tricked them. They'd distracted them with the archers so they wouldn't notice their aerial attack. They'd used the environment to gain the advantage. He could do the same.

He didn't know the first thing about battlefield tactics. He'd never read The Art of War or Machiavelli's The Prince. But he could pay attention. He could learn from his mistakes. He needed to think.

The goblins hadn't just outmaneuvered them. With their laughing and taunting from the shadows, they'd messed with their heads as well. It was one thing to play a game and fight monsters as pieces on a board or a screen. It was another to be there. To experience the chaos and confusion of the battlefield firsthand.

The enemy had picked the fight on their terms. There wasn't anything he could do about that now. They'd been able to target his weak points; his companions. He couldn't leverage his overwhelming strength due to their positioning. Hunting them through the trees in the dark would only leave his group open to attack again. He needed a way to remove their ability to use the shadows as cover.

"Grab what you can," Donavan said, walking over to the remnants of their tents and ripping off the canvas. "Wait for my signal. Choose a direction, any direction, and run. I'll do my best to clear the way."

"What are you going to do?" Asheeri asked

Donavan tore the canvas into sheets and walked over to the nearest goblin corpse. He could feel Asheeri eyeing him as he wrapped the body in the canvas.

"Turn on the lights."