“Behind me!” I yell.

The goblins pause for a minute, likely unused to such a strange order. But Kabaret repeats it and as the orcs charge forward the goblins scramble back. I reach inside and find my light.

Help me protect the goblins.

The rays explode from my hand, leaping forward and bouncing around the sides of the tunnel. Like the rocks are mirrors of glass. The orcs real back before the brightness, some try to cover their eyes but my light shines so bright, and the space in the tunnel is sp constricted, that the light overpowers them. Even the goblins step back as the brightness before them is so intense.

I lower my arm and it feels like the player hit the pause button as everyone is sort of just froze. Even my companions are gawking at the effects as the fearsome orc are just bumbling around or rolling about on the floor. Hell, even I’m kind of impressed.

This magic stuff is kind of cool.

“Attack!” Kabaret yells out and the goblins pounce on their incapacitated foes. They swing their weapons with a vengeance, like they are taking retribution for all the dead and wounded paid out behind their wall. My companions are with them as well. I am…not.

The light is still coursing through me, light blood in my veins. It’s making me feel dizzy, a little light-headed, and I start to see flashes. Flashes of places, people, and events. Some clearly in the past, and some I cannot place.

“Are you ok?” asks Myran.

He’s reaching down, offering me a hand. I didn’t realize I’d fallen.

“Yeah,” I mumble. “Just a little dizzy…and tired.”

“I believe it,” says Myran. “That was a hell of a light show you put on. Remind me to sell tickets next time.”

Myran grins at me and I accept the hand. Standing, but still feeling a little wobbly.

“It was just a lot of light,” I say, still feeling groggy.

Kabaret comes puffing-up. “We killed them all, Sir Ethan. None were able to escape.”

“Good, we don’t need the whole army finding out we’re down here.”

Unless they already know of course. Maybe the dragon can tell somehow.

Best not to think about that at the moment.

“Right then,” I say. “Let’s get back to it.”

The goblins forum-up again and continue down our tunnel. We pass over branches on both right and left, little side streets off of our main drag. It’s a spiders web down here and I could easily get lost without the goblins. Even staying on the main path is a challenge because it forks once, then twice as we head ever lower.

“How do you remember all this?” I ask Kabaret.

The goblin shrugs. “How does an elf remember the trees or a dwarf his sands?”

“I don’t remember every single tree,” Myran pipes in.

“But you understand them, no? You can find your way among them?”

“Of course. I mean they’re just plants. But sure.”

“And our mountains are just rocks, but we know then just the same, and our tunnels are the same as an elven paths guiding us among them.”

I never knew someone could wax so poetic about stone.

“We are tied to these mountains,” Kabaret continues. “We have no interest in living under the suns and moons. These rocks shield and protect us. Or they did anyway. Until the orcs came.”

His voice drops at the end. Like he’s lost a loved one, or a dear friend.

“Let’s deliver from them then. How much further?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Kabaret’s eyes harden. “Not long now. “Yes, not long at all I don’t think.”

Kabaret is true to his word. We arrive shortly at a junction of sorts. It’s a mishmash of tunnels going here and there kings of like a highway mixing bowl back on Earth. And for the life of me I couldn’t tell you which exit to take.

“They aren’t here yet,” says Kabaret. “Something must have happened.”

“They likely encountered resistance,” suggests the cleric, “Just as we did.”

Kabaret nods and motions for the other goblins to halt. All of them look concerned.

They suspect the worst.

Kabaret circles from one tunnel to the next, finally stopping at a wide one. He looks to me. “Sir Ethan, come here. Quickly.”

I do so and am not sure why as it looks like just another tunnel to me.

“Listen,” says Kabaret. “Do you hear that?”

At first I hear nothing, just the feint roll of pebbles as they slide and tumble in the tunnels. Then I hear something. It’s feint, but it sounds like voices and perhaps….screaming.

I look to Kabaret. “You think that’s them?

“Almost certainly.”

“Let’s get a move on then,” I say. “It sounds like they’re in trouble.”

“I agree.”

Kabaret rallies the goblins and together we charged into the tunnel. The voices get louder and louder and I’m certain of the screaming now.

Must be the orcs, has to be.

But it’s not. We turn a corner and see a lizard, giant freaking lizard blocking our way. Like some sort of dinosaur that time forgot, the beast gnashes his teeth and swings its barbed tail at the goblins. In the distance I can see Colonel Iagz trying to hold together a defensive line, but the spears and swords of the goblins cannot break the lizard’s skin. So thick and hardy is the creature.

“Maker’s mercy,” says Kabaret. “What can we do against that thing?”

I have an idea.

“Cyrus,” I call, “I’m gonna need another of those potions.”

Cyrus grins. “I’ve got a better idea.”

The cleric takes two bottles from his belt and throws them at the prehistoric lizard. They shatter against his side and the beast doesn’t even notice as he’s still focused on clawing at the overwhelmed goblins before him. But then I smell the burning flesh and the lizard howls. It may have taken a minute but potions did the trick.

Or should I say the acid did.

The lizard’s hide is peeling away from its body and I point Kabaret to the wounds. “There. Those spots. Everyone target those spots.”

Kabaret urges his goblins forward and I hear a whoop as Iagz’s group sees us for the first time. Emboldened by our own aggression his goblins try to counter the dragon as well. And for a minute there are almost too many of us. Goblins swarm everywhere and the lizard tries bat them away as I do mosquitos in July.

But these mosquitos are armed.

The goblins lunge at the acid wounds and the lizard shrieks as the swords and spears gouge the lizard’ s flesh. I shine my light in narrow beans to distract and blind the beast as it strikes and swats at its assailants. Some of those blows do connect and goblins are slammed back against the walls of the tunnel.

I grab the neck and hang onto the creature like its some sort of bucking bronco at a Texas rodeo. The beat swivels this way and that trying to toss me off, but I hang on like some kind of raving lunatic.

I always had a soft spot for the crazy ones.

I shimmy to the head and for a moment we are eye-to-eye the beast and me. Its eyes are black and look like they are positively popping out of the tan skin. They are deep and immeasurable. For a moment I’m lost in them and nearly tumble off the beast, but at the last minute I wrap myself around the beast’s mouth and as it tries to close down on me I draw my sword.

The draws close down and I thrust up, piercing the soft gummy insides of the lizard’s mouth. It howls and claws at my sword, trying to remove the weapon. The jaws close again and I leap away, letting the tongue and mouth crunch upon the elven steel. Blood gushes from the dragon’s long snout and I see the cleric smash another bottle against the dragon’s bloodied body.

The creature explodes in fire. With the flames spreading rapidly along the open bloodied, flash. The lizard sways and for a moment looks like some macabre carnival attraction of blood, fire and acid. Then the bellow finally cease and the lizard collapses in a puddle of its own blood.

Dis-gusting.

The carnage is through. With goblins lining the floor and walls. Sometimes just bits of goblins. Somehow this is worse than the orcs. It’s like they were turn apart instead of just killed.

Like they were mauled by a velociraptor.

“Colonel Iagz!” Kabaret shouts and runs past me to his leader who leans against the wall clutching his belly. There is a healer attending to him but his face looks grim, and pale.

“Cyrus,” I call. “Come quick.”

The cleric dashes over and reaches inside his robe for some herbal concoction. There’s already been so many casualties, we can’t lose Iagz. I don’t know how this mission can still work. Will we really seem like an invasion force? Something worth dedicating the orc’s army to? How can we lure them back now? How much farther can we even go?

But one thing I am sure of.

We never should have split-up.