Lunette’s eyes fluttered open faintly, before shutting again as she winced in pain. Every feeble muscle in her body ached. She had fought tooth and nail, quite literally, to try to fend off the demons that had descended upon Arvel’s farm. Her bloodied fingers ached, and her mouth still burned from demon blood.

“Ah, she stirs,” an unpleasantly familiar voice said.

Slowly, Lunette forced her eyes open, and appraised her surroundings. She was upright, her arms and legs affixed to a wall, encased in dimly glowing purple crystals. In front of her, Melodia stood a few feet away, looking entirely out of place; a dark-haired human girl in a green dress, standing in a demon’s cave. Lunette offered no words in response, but instead ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, before spitting out the last taste of demon blood at Melodia’s feet.

“So you’re going to be rude, then,” said Melodia, “I was hoping we could have a conversation, since you’re going to be here for a while.”

“One who seeks to converse, even on the illusion of an equal playing field, does not approach with blatant falsehoods,” Lunette whispered.

Melodia slowly smiled, and color began to drain from the roots of her hair, as if someone were pouring white paint over the crown of her head. As the inky blackness dripped away, her skin took on a soft lavender-blue shade. She opened her deep, rich purple eyes, and said, “I thought this form might disturb you more.”

“You thought I’d be less confrontational with your other form,” Lunette replied, “I’m afraid you’ve worn out all of your good will, even of the supernatural variety.”

“You’re surprisingly strong-willed, even for a shriveled husk of a woman who’s lost a chunk of her soul,” Melodia said.

Lunette clenched her teeth, before a faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, and she said, “Maybe because I’m close enough to feel where it went. I wonder, if I cut your belly open, I could get it back?”

Melodia laughed, her singsong voice echoing off the cavern walls.

“You humans never cease to amaze me,” she said, “In the most dire of situations, you still have the capacity for such arrogance.”

“What alternative do I have?” Lunette asked, “Bow my head and allow myself to be led like sheep to slaughter? My pride would not allow it. Even if I no longer have the strength to fight you, I will never stop resisting you.”

Melodia smiled at her and said, “You don’t need to fight anymore, and there is no point to your resistance. You’re not my prey, dear, but merely bait.”

Lunette tensed, and said, “I figured as much.”

“I’m certain Arvel must be on his way by now,” she said.

“What do you even want from him?” Lunette asked, “To kill him? To drink his soul? You had your opportunity on the mountain and instead you sought to torture him.”

The demoness let out a wistful sigh, and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

Melodia was taken aback by Lunette’s insistence, but then slowly smiled, meeting the knight’s defiant gaze. She walked a little closer to Lunette and said, “I am a daughter of the Pale Emperor. A ‘princess’, if you would. But the extent of my filial piety goes beyond anything you humans would understand. But still, is it not the dream for a princess to have her knight by her side?”

“He despises you,” Lunette whispered.

“He’s angry with me,” said Melodia, “I was angry with him too. But for a long time, I was all he had. That’s why he couldn’t bring himself to kill me, no matter how angry he was. And soon enough, he’ll have nothing left in this world besides me, again. We’ll find a way to work through it. What is it that you humans like to say? ‘Love conquers all’, does it not?”

Meanwhile, on the mountainside.

“Y’all are real good pursuers,” Arvel said, his eyes slowly sweeping the area around him. He expected that two or three lightly-equipped goblins might’ve been able to sync their footsteps with his for a while. He wasn’t expecting nine armored goblins with spears and swords to emerge from behind the rocks.

One of the goblins lifted his helmet off his head, and let it roll down his back, held around his shoulders by a strap. He was an ugly little thing, covered in scars and with patches of hair, but the most noticeable scar was a broad one just under his chin, running across his throat.

“You again,” muttered Arvel, remembering driving his shovel into the goblin’s neck a couple of months prior. It seemed Tork wasted no effort in building his muscles back up since then, as he looked every bit as built, if not even thicker than before.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Troublemaker, troublemaker!” the goblin rasped, “Killed raiding party! Killed Tork! Took our prize! Even sheltered the disaster!”

“The disaster?” Arvel asked, his eyes narrowing.

The other goblins grunted and shook their heads, murmuring, but offering no response. It was almost as if it might be a cursed subject to them. But the scarred goblin who had positioned himself as their leader, presumably the one known as Tork, didn’t seem as concerned.

“Storm witch!” Tork shouted, jumping and stomping his foot on the gravel, “Cursed! Brings ruin on whole village. We finally lost stupid witch, floods finally stopped... and you went and saved her!”

Arvel felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

“You didn’t lose her,” he spoke slowly, voice low, nearly in a growl, “She was still following you. She was desperate to be welcomed back. She wept over all of you when she finally lost track of you.”

“Stupid!” shouted Tork, “Cursed goblins should go die if they care about village so much.”

Arvel gripped the shovel tightly in his hand, and said, “I’m gonna beat the livin’ hells outta every last one of you. And if you ever come back to my mountain, to Fidget’s mountain, we’re gonna make you regret it.”

“You and what army?!” shouted one of the goblins from behind.

Arvel whipped around to look at the voice, but the other goblins started laughing, their voices echoing off the rocks all around him.

“Troublemaker is hurt,” another goblin teased.

Another shouted, “Not gonna put up much of a fight this time!”

“I got places to be,” said Arvel, “and even if you put me down today, tomorrow I’m gonna come back even more pissed off that you slowed me down.”

Another round of laughter and snickers.

“Not if we cut troublemaker up real good,” Tork said.

The others began to shout suggestions.

“Cut off all his limbs!”

“Throw them off the mountain!”

“Slice him open to feed the crows!”

Tork grinned a devilish grin as he added, “Cut troublemaker’s head off, tie it to a rock, and throw it in a lake. See how well troublemaker comes back.”

A chill ran up Arvel’s spine.

He’d never known the limits of one born under the Warrior Star to be challenged. Surely, some monster at some point had decided to put their theories to the test, but it was not something that Arvel had ever heard of before. But the way Tork spoke so confidently made Arvel feel as if he knew something.

‘Could anyone come back from that?’ Arvel thought to himself.

His chest tightened.

His mind slipped into darker places; ‘Would I stay dead? Would I keep waking up?’

Arvel caught a glint of light from the corner of his eye and narrowly leaned out of the way of a hatchet that flew past his head.

“Attack!” Tork screeched raspily, pointing at Arvel.

Goblin raiders didn’t fight with honor. They fought to win. A handful of sand and gravel was thrown at Arvel’s face from the very first charge, as all of the goblins sprung off the rocks to surround him. They didn’t take their turns attacking him, all charging at once; his only saving grace was that the bulk of their ill-fitted armor prevented them from getting in too close without getting caught up on one another.

But still, he was surrounded, and he felt the grazing strikes of their spears and swords even as he moved swiftly, slinging his shovel to try to chase them back. Though he had leverage to sling the shovel in wide arcs, he lacked the agility and accuracy to land any real hits. He knocked a few of them to the ground, but there were plenty more ready to jump in and take their place.

“Y’damned coward!” he shouted, “Fight me! One on one!”

“Honor is human blunder,” Tork shouted as he drew a pair of cleavers from his hips, “Not for goblins. Breathing and eating are much better than honor!”

Arvel let out a roar of pain as he felt the burning stab of a spearhead sink into the back of his calf. He fell to one knee, but he swung his shovel with a mad fury, knocking back several more of the goblins. They were beginning to grow wary of his wild and unpredictable swings, stepping into his range and hopping back out again. They were testing him. They were making him waste his energy. And his energy was quickly fading.

Blood soaked through the bandages on his shoulder. In spite of his best efforts to keep the arm still, he’d torn his stitches.

“Sad hunt, sad hunt,” said Tork, “But goblins not mind easy kill.”

Arvel shifted his weight and let out a roar as he swung the shovel at Tork, who swung one of his cleavers down and embedded it in the tool’s wooden shaft, stopping it abruptly.

“Goodbye troublemaker!” Tork shouted in delight as he lifted his other cleaver high above his head, “And never come back!”

The cleaver fell heavily toward the side of Arvel’s neck, but he lifted his right hand to grab Tork’s wrist, even as blood spread through his bandages. Gripping the spear shaft in one hand, and Tork’s arm with the other, he clenched his teeth, reared back, and swung all of his body weight forward, pushing off the ground with his one good leg as he slammed his forehead into the bridge of Tork’s nose.

Tork let out a screech, blood erupting from his face as he fell on his back on the ground. Immediately, Arvel was on top of him, throwing wild haymakers with his left hand.

“K-Kill him!” Tork shouted, gurgling as his blood overflowed from his nose and mouth, “KILL HIM!”

Arvel felt the burning sting of a sword carve into his back, but he didn’t stop. A spear struck him in the back of the shoulder, and he slumped forward, resolving to keep slamming his elbow into Tork’s face as it began to crumple and cave in.

“I won’t go!” Arvel shouted, “This won’t be the end for me! It won’t!”

A sharp pain radiated from the base of his skull, and everything went black.