Through a spyglass, at a safe distance away, the granny was intimidating. Up close, she was downright terrifying.

In the moonlight, she was cold and imposing as a statue. Her broad, mountainous shoulders stretched the frilled nightclothes she was wearing to their limit. Her thighs were as thick as tree trunks, her calves bulging and stiff. Her biceps looked like they could crush a boar’s skull in between them. Her palms were like spades. The backs of her hands marbled with knotted veins.

“Oh, hello dearies!” she declared. “I didn’t hear you come in. You know, knocking on a door is the polite thing to do at this time of night.”

Her scratchy, high voice was cheerful, but it carried an undercurrent of danger. I can crush you where you stand, whenever I want.

The three of them were frozen in place. Gumbo’s hand trembled over the hilt of his dagger. Tryle noticed with relief that the other two goblins were closer to the granny than he was. He knew he was supposed to feel guilty, but at that moment he saw a glimmer of hope for his own survival.

“Stay calm,” Jrunta muttered out the side of his mouth.

Easy for you to say, thought Tryle. His heart was racing.

The granny’s beetle-black eyes had a predatory gleam. They flicked between the treasure chest to Jrunta to Gumbo, and then back again.

“I do hope you aren’t here to take what’s not yours. Tonight I was determined to not exert myself after I’ve gone to bed.”

“Perhaps you should take a rest, then,” replied Jrunta in English.

His accent made his words rough around the edges, but he was understandable, and all the more menacing for it.

But the granny looked unfazed. She smiled grimly and cracked her knuckles. “Oh, don’t worry about me, dearie. I’m suddenly feeling the need to stretch my muscles out, anywhoo.”

Jrunta drew his cutlass and took a pace forward. “Stay back, human. You have no idea what we are capable of.”

The granny raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure I don’t. But rest assured, goblin — if you don’t put down that puny toothpick you call a sword, you might break it. Along with a few other things in your body.”

“What’ve you done with Yorin?” blurted Gumbo.

The granny looked at him with amusement. “Your exploratory little friend in the other bedroom? Oh, he’s doing fine. I’m having him take a little nap at the moment. Which is what you were planning to do to me, I suppose. It’s been a long time since I’ve been put under by a sleeping potion as strong as this one. I must say, the smell alone doesn’t make it easy.”

Jrunta’s outstretched sword blade didn’t waver. “Give us our comrade and let us be on our way.”

“You’ve got quite the nerve to be telling me what to do in my own home, goblin.”

Tryle glanced at the door. Out of the remaining trio, he was the closest to it. He was partly hidden by shadows and the lone rocking chair by the hearth, and the granny didn’t seem to have spotted him yet. There was no time to get out through the chimney. If he could just get to the doorknob and slide open the bolt…

Jrunta seemed to be having the same thoughts about their exit. “I’m going to distract her, Gumbo,” he said in Goblano. “Grab Yorin and get him out of here. Bodkin, get that door open.”

“But Chief, what about you?”

“You heard me, Gumbo.”

The granny cracked her knuckles and advanced. “I hope you’re telling your boys to stand down, sonny.”

“Now, grubs!” roared Jrunta, dropping the bag of coins he was holding. He bounded onto a chair, then the dining table, and jumped on the granny’s head. He levered her head back, exposing her neck, and swept the blade of his cutlass up to the soft flesh of her throat.

The granny stumbled as if punch-drunk, and at first Tryle thought the impact of Jrunta’s body alone would be enough to topple her. But she regained her balance quickly, catching the wrist of Jrunta’s sword-hand and stopping it mid-swing. She backed up against the wall, jamming Jrunta tight against the cobbled stone.

Tryle made a dash for the door. From the corner of his eye, he spotted the granny shake Jrunta off and seize something out of an open cupboard. He leapt for the doorknob and yanked the lock bolt open, just before a whirling circular disc came hurtling in his direction.

Metal crashed against the side of his head. The pot lid clattered to the floor, but Tryle barely registered it over the sound of his ears ringing.

“You’re a sneaky one, aren’t you?” The granny’s voice came through to him as if through several feet of water. Tryle grasped for the doorknob, but his arms wouldn’t cooperate. His legs had turned to jelly. He lost his balance and staggered over to the rocking chair in an uncontrolled stumble.

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Meanwhile, Jrunta and the granny were fighting head-on: cutlass versus an iron pan, cutting and parrying. As old as she was, the granny moved like a seasoned warrior, swinging her pan low in an attempt to catch Jrunta a glancing blow on his skull. Jrunta was tall for a goblin, nearly four feet in height, but the top of his head barely reached her chest.

Metal scraped and shrieked. The stone walls of the cottage were thicker than Tryle had thought, because none of the goblins outside came in to see what was going on.

Jrunta swung a forehand strike. The granny smacked away his sword and smashed a fist into his barrel-like chest, sending him flying across the room. Jrunta recovered quickly, pulling himself up to one of the square windows.

“Had enough, dearie?” The grandma advanced, spinning the pan languidly in one brawny hand. “Your life isn’t worth a couple sacks of coins, you know.”

From the windowsill, Jrunta coughed wetly and gave her a bloody grin. “For my village, my life is worth any amount of gold.”

A flint and steel glinted in his hands. He struck them together twice. Sparks flew into the air, reflecting tiny starbursts in the window glass.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the front door — unlocked by Tryle just moments ago —burst open and the goblins of Team One and Two flooded in. They brandished knives and cutlasses and crescent-shaped tomahawks, screaming bloody murder at the top of their lungs.

There were dozens of goblins filling up the cottage. Yet for all their ferocity, they weren’t very coordinated. They hacked and slashed wildly, running into each other and tripping themselves up in their haste.

The granny moved to meet them. She was untouchable. She swept them aside with long, backhanded swipes of the pan, knocking them around like bowling pins. The goblins stood no chance.

Ceramic shattered and wood banged against stone and metal thumped against scales. The goblins’ war cries turned into howls of pain. Pretty soon, many of the elite members of the raiding party were supporting each other out the door. Others crawled away on all fours, nursing bruises and broken ribs.

Eventually, the granny stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily. Her frilled nightclothes were ripped and torn.

The main room looked like it had been through a tornado. The neat rugs had been scuffed and bundled into messy, haphazard rolls. The kitchen table was overturned, shards of teacups glinting in the moonlight. The chairs were knocked over, their legs pointing upward like those of helpless donkeys.

A few of the nearest goblins still standing eyed her warily, spreading out in a loose semicircle with their blades outstretched.

The granny planted a hand on her hip. “I’m old, goblins. Come now, don’t be shy.”

Five of them rushed in at once. She sidestepped a clumsy dagger thrust and smacked the wielder smartly across the face, spinning him around like a top. She clapped another two goblins’ heads together, cartoon-style. The fourth she dispatched with a hard uppercut to the stomach; he plopped onto the floor with his mouth flopping open like a fish.

The fifth was smarter; he waited for an opening. A second before his last comrade fell, he darted in with his tomahawk held high.

But before the blow could land, the granny caught his descending arm, yanked him into a hunched position, and kicked him in the chest like she would a rubber ball, punting him across the room and out the front door. The hapless goblin’s airborne body bowled over a column of his waiting fellows in a cacophony of yells.

Sitting with his back against the side of the rocking chair, Tryle watched the turmoil dazedly. His skull was throbbing, but instead of pain he felt strange in the head, like it was stuffed full of wool.

“Hey! Ox woman!”

Gumbo stood in the middle of the entryway, his dagger gleaming in his hand. In the commotion, he had passed off Yorin’s limp body to somebody in the raiding party. Two other goblins flanked him half-heartedly, but they hung well behind, cutlasses shaking in their clawed grips.

Tryle’s head was swimming. Why didn’t they just leave? Then he saw Gumbo’s gaze flick towards the window. Jrunta was on his knees, his shoulder rising and falling with ragged breaths. One arm was braced around his chest.

“Now look what you’ve all done,” said the granny grumpily, gesturing to the wreckage around the room. “Would you really make an old lady clean this up all by herself?”

Gumbo spat. “You’re no regular old human. You’re a devil.”

“A devil? Why, you and your silver tongue, sweetie — I’m quite flattered.”

“I’m gonna cut you up and flay your skin into a tent tarp,” said Gumbo savagely.

The granny’s eyes narrowed. “How interesting.”

Gumbo charged in. The granny’s pan whistled through the air and he dived beneath it, rolling in between her legs.

“Yah!” He came up behind her and raised his dagger high to stab her in the small of her back.

The granny was quicker. She spun around and clocked her fist against the side of his head. Gumbo’s body bounced across the floorboards and crashed through a cupboard in an explosion of wood splinters.

Tryle rose to a kneeling position. His head was still woozy, and overall his body had a boneless feel. Somewhere in a hidden compartment of his brain, the pain was starting to set in, but he was unable to process it.

His disorientation, ironically, might prove to be his advantage. Maybe he could make it to the doorway and call for backup.

His thoughts were in a jumble of half-realized ideas and concepts. If the perimeter team could lure the granny out, then the reserve team at the tree line could loop around and evacuate them. But did the reserve team know what was going on...were there enough of those uninjured to do this…were Jrunta and Gumbo even still alive…

Then somebody darted through the shadows. The two others goblins that had been behind Gumbo hauled Chief Jrunta up by the armpits, dragging him right by Tryle’s lolling form and out the door.

So much for the backup.

The granny, who had gone over to check on the shattered cupboard she’d sent Gumbo through, watched them go. She went over to the treasure chest. One of the bags had split open, and heaps of coins had spilled out all over the floor. The granny scooped them up and closed the chest.

She hefted her pan and stormed out the door. “Okay, boys! You really asked for it!”

Tryle could hear her roars distantly as if from a far-off ocean, peppered with pained yelps from the retreating goblins. But the feeling in his legs had mostly returned. His arms were starting to feel like arms again.

He got to his feet, swaying slightly. The cottage was empty — now was his chance.

Tryle ran for it. Or at least, he tried to.

He managed three steps before he heard something from above him — actually, more a feeling than anything — of something displaced. A slight disturbance in the air.

The act of Gumbo’s body hitting the side of the cottage had been the last straw. The big round shield above the mantelpiece, which had survived an entire goblin raid, finally fell off its hook and slammed straight down on the top of Tryle’s head.

Shadows quickly crowded in from the edges of his vision. The waves in his ears crashed down.

Just my luck, he thought. Wonder what the odds are?

Then the floor came rushing up at him, and the world went dark.