I don’t know if there is anything that can really prepare one for such a horrific reality, sure hollywood can do a decent enough job for it, I guess. But with everything they do, you still know you are suspending your disbelief. You know when you turn off the screen or walk out of the theater that none of it was real and all of the actors are either home with their families, doing copious amounts of drugs, or both depending on their lifestyles.
In front of me were the remains of two or three real humans who would never see their families again and the only prayers I could utter for them was that I hoped they hadn’t been consumed alive. I would like to think that if there was a God on this world he would be merciful enough to end their suffering early, but from everything I had experienced that was unlikely to be true.
This wasn’t hunting for sustenance, making sure you took the old that hadn’t much longer to live. This wasn’t the pruning back of the younger generation that had multiplied beyond the ability of the region’s resources. Maybe I was being hypocritical, as I am sure there had to be humans out there killing goblins wholesale. But I was also equally sure that they weren’t consuming them alive as well, taking delight in their screams, as they cracked the marrow from their bones.
Shaking, I gripped the haft of my spear and turned resolutely to continue my quest to catch up to the raiding party, with my disgust and rage fighting for supremacy as I looked to wipe them from the face of this awful moon. From the beginning, I had been thinking of this like this was a book or game. A grand adventure that I was on to discover magic and be reunited with my family after experiencing all that this new reality had to over. Too often had I glossed over the nagging in the back of my head telling me the words that so many veterans know all so well. Adventures are something horrible happening to someone else far away, if it is happening to you it is a living nightmare you are doing your best to survive.
Well, now I had nightmare fuel to last for ages. Hoping that the flower was good for multiple uses, I was sure I wouldn’t be falling asleep on my own ever again.
Continuing on, with the bear a few short paces behind me, leaving me to stew in my rage on my own. I continued my practice sending out another punch every couple of minutes, whenever I felt the momentum of the mana was high enough. As much as I tried, I was unable to drive my focus down into my body without the external stimuli I had every time I had managed to before. But as I tried to focus on the feeling of the mana leaving my palm I came to realize that part of the reason it wasn’t getting far was I was sucking it back in as soon as it left my body.
Pondering what I could do to let go, I began different experiments without much success to my chagrin. I have always thought of myself as quick witted, although the endless centuries I spent traveling through the void before I had conquered the Chaos and Order may put a lie to my beliefs. How much time does a mortal need to understand the fundamental forces of the universe? As I continued my punching with no more success in getting the energy to explode out of me, I tried varying the exit point to see if I could at least make some progress with my control if I wasn’t able to easily increase my strength.
As we walked I swapped my spear to my other hand and then tried the easiest adjustment of swapping focus with my palms. This at least had me believing once again in my ease of being able to at least pick up the beginning stages of a new hobby. As my friend wandered back to even with me at my newfound focus, I tucked the haft of my spear in the ropes across his back and focused on trying to alternate hands before moving on to releasing the energy from both palms at once.
I thought about trying to point both palms together to build up feedback to power up that way, but without the ability to test it on a live subject, I didn’t want to risk injury to myself. Instead, as the sun reached its apex I started trying to send it out both my elbows and my knees, making sure that nothing was pointing at the bear. While for now it was still not projecting at any force stronger than the lightest of breezes. I would hate for my first success to be the one that would wipe out my companion, so for now I made sure of my target, while keeping to range discipline.
I left off trying the exit point in my eyes for now, as I don’t know what I had been thinking when I cut out that exit. I must have been high on power and the recent escape to even attempt something that messed with my vision. Finding myself suddenly not able to see seemed like a poor way to start this assault and while nothing happened at any of the other exit points, I still had way too many of the heebie jeebies to attempt it.
Instead, I started trying to send the power out through my heels for my final attempts at mastering what little power I had come to possess. First sending it out when my feet were in the air, but after mistiming a step and only gaining the barest of boosts to my upward motion. I started trying to time it for when my feet were in contact with the earth. I liked to imagine that this was helping me increase my speed, but it was a long way from even the beginnings of Qing Gong.
I don’t know if it was a loose stone or if I managed to find a sweet spot, but after one particular step, I found myself stumbling, doing my best not to send myself head over heels and spill everything out of my sack. Hopping on my left foot, because when I tried putting my right down I felt a shooting pain driving up my leg that told me I had sprained my ankle. Before I could even begin getting into any suitable curses for the rank stupidity that had me injuring myself for such a stupid idea, Gaian was there. Wet nose pressing against me, I immediately felt a difference as he applied his spell. After he moved his head away, I pressed down gently, before setting my whole foot down when there was no initial pain.
Taking a few halting steps, I slowly started increasing my pace back to what it was. Rubbing the bear’s ears I thanked him and told him I would stop with the ridiculous experiments. I don’t know what possessed me to think this was a good idea and I wondered if my pragmatic side was sneaking in some reasonable suggestions in an effort to injure me, so we wouldn’t be able to throw ourselves into the assault.
Looking up to the sky as we crested the next hill, I saw that we still had several hours of daylight left. Looking ahead it looked like we only had two ridgelines to cross before we got to the final elevation that was home to the two offsetting woods. I thought about trying to sprint over to the rabbits and see if I could bargain again for some backup, but the feeling I got from my one conversation with their leader told me it would be futile.
Even if I could convince him, I doubted it would be an easy conversation, which meant we would have trouble being in time even if he agreed. I was surprised that we hadn’t caught up to the raiding party, as I would have thought the captives would be doing everything they could to delay their arrival at their final destination, but on second thought wondered if the dinner the night before had lessened their desire to slow down the monsters. If the meal for the monsters last night had been the two slowest of the captives, that would no doubt be a huge modifier to the prisoner’s desire to resist.
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With only a couple of miles to go until the woods, I decided to take this next set of hills at a trot to see if we could catch a glimpse of the raiders, so I could decide if it was worth trying to attack them out in the open instead of trying to surprise them. As awkward as the pack was without any kind of the auxiliary straps of my old pack the dragon had burned up, I still managed to double my pace, while the bear had no trouble at all keeping up.
Part of me still wanted to try to convince him not to come, I felt like in general, he couldn’t care less if some humans lived or died, but in the end decided to leave it alone and respect his decision. I tried searching my soul, but wasn’t able to tell if it was because I was respecting his decision, or if instead I just didn’t have the courage to face the goblins on my own, and wanted a meatier backup to help me brave stepping into hell.
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As we arrived at the next ridge, we slowed to a stop and I slowly crested it in a crawl. I left my pack and the bear a few feet back so as not to give away that they were being followed in case they had any scouts watching their trail. With again only the line through the grass that the mass of bodies had left to show the way in front of us. I quickly retrieved my pack and we set out once again to see if we could make it to the final ridge before they disappeared into the woods. I really couldn’t believe the pace they were making to keep so far ahead of us. I would have thought with their shorter stature and a line of captives that we would have managed to catch them by now.
Perhaps they were just anxious to make it back to their Home, as the rabbit elder had called it, so they could share the rest of their provisions with their fellow monsters. Gagging a little at the thought really wanted to smack the irreverent side of me for making such an awful comparison. As the bear continued to stay even with me and showed no sign of exhaustion, I once again had to drop back down to a walk and catch my breath. I had to wonder if it was just because he was a bear and naturally in better shape than me or if instead, he was tapping into the core I had given him. Either way, I had to stop myself any time I found myself getting annoyed as he waited for me expectantly. Showing no discomfort as I needed to take the time to catch my breath.
Approaching the final ridge line between us and the woods, I once more shed my pack and companion to make the final approach myself. Again crouching low so as not to silhouette myself to any of the pack that might be watching their trail. Slowly raising my head up, I kept low as I finally saw the signs I had been expecting the last two ridges.
It was way worse than I was expecting, I couldn’t see the fodder goblins, but from the number of spears sticking up through the grass, there had to be at least a hundred of them. Accompanying them were probably between twenty and thirty archers, I wasn’t able to get a decent count as they were also small enough to stay below the grass line and they might have been just fodder goblins that had lost their spears.
The evolved spearmen and shield carrying bruisers were tall enough that their heads were sticking up, making them easier to count and it seemed like there were slightly more of the shield carriers, who numbered ten as opposed to the eight longer spears that were glinting in the afternoon light. It seemed that the magic users had no desire to walk on their own two feet and that for this expedition they had commandeered hogs of their own. Whether this was because they didn’t have the stamina to keep pace or these users of the occult had a higher status, I had no idea.
Surrounding the group I could see trails circling them as the hog trotting calvary seemed to actually be doing a decent job of screening them. From what, I didn’t know, but there would be no ambush that we would be able to set up. Even if we were able to teleport in front of them. Either that or they were just out looking for food, judging by the occasional line that was pausing before resuming its circle, that might be the better answer.
Trotting behind the line of captives, and no doubt the reason that they were moving so swiftly was the boss of the attack on the rabbits. Either that or there were more of the goblins on his level. Riding his wolf he had it snapping at the trailing captives heels. Speaking of which it seemed like they had made a good haul I thought I left the analytical part of my mind in charge to keep me from shouting out a challenge and drawing their attention in an attempt to stop them from entering the woods.
It looked like they had managed to capture twenty adults, although some of them might have been teenagers, it was impossible to tell from this distance. Along with that, there were two children that were being carried. One seemed to be slightly older as they were holding on to what I could only assume was one of his parent’s backs while the other one looked to be even smaller and was being carried in their parent’s arms. I couldn’t tell if they were one family or two as they were in different parts of the line. But with them all being connected by the neck, it might just have been the order the goblins had roped them together.
Telling myself I had to wait, I forced down the part of me that shared the horror these parents must be feeling, I couldn’t begin to understand how they were carrying their children to such an awful fate, but with the snapping jaws of the large, silver furred wolf behind them I also didn’t see what option they had.
It didn’t seem that any of them were looking backward and I wasn’t anxious to let them keep getting farther away from me. Even though the humans were only moving at a fast walk with their longer legs able to easily move twice the distance of the smaller goblins. So slowly moving back to recover my pack I had a feeling we were going to need all of the makeshift weapons I had cobbled together.
Shouldering my burden, we took a chance and took the ridge at a dash, anxious to get lower and have the grass as cover for our own quicker pace for the woods. As we followed behind I couldn’t help but find myself trying to put myself in the parent’s shoes as they were forced to carry their kids to such a waiting horror. How could they continue on knowing what was to come? I couldn’t help but think of the parable that had a prisoner dragged before his king to be executed.
Begging his liege for mercy he extolled how it would be a shame for a man of his talents to be taken so early from this world. When the king took the bait and asked what the scoundrel could possibly be of use for, the man said proudly that he was the sole surviving practitioner of a magic that would allow horses to sing. He asked the king that if only he might be granted a brief reprieve from his sentence, he might work his magic on the king’s own horse so that his majesty might be serenaded on his hunts.
When the king asked what kind of guarantee the prisoner offered, he proudly replied that the king could take his head for his mantle if in five years he hadn’t managed to teach the horse any songs, but if he did manage such a magnificent trick then he would be rewarded the horse’s weight in gold. The king intrigued asked if he needed anything else to work such a fine miracle, and the prisoner who had befriended a small orphan in his time in prison, asked if he could take the youth as an apprentice so that his magnificent skills wouldn’t be lost to all time when he finally passed from this mortal coil.
The king with nothing to lose and such a marvel to gain, agreed to the man’s deal. He assigned the two to his stables, where they would be fed and housed, and given a space to practice their art in secret. As they were led away the youth asked why the scoundrel had made such a ridiculous bargain with the king. The conman replied to the youth saying that they now had five more years that they wouldn’t have had before and that who knows what might happen in the ensuing five years.
The orphan scoffing asked what could possibly happen in such a short time. To which the older man replied, “Why many things can happen? The king might die, he could grow senile and forget about us. Perhaps he might be overthrown by his courtiers, or god might grant him a grandson and we might all be pardoned. The possibilities are endless as long as you still have beats left in your heart. As long as there is life there is hope. For now, we have food, shelter, and a horse to train. Who knows? Maybe in the end the horse will even have learned to sing and we will be rich! So let us be off my lad, for we have a horse to teach.
Wondering if these parents might be praying for that same miracle, I decided for once the horse would indeed sing and that these children would not know the horror of being devoured by goblins.