The wreckage of the goblin tribe's home was still settling. Coals burned in the ash, broken bits of wood caving in as their internal structures collapsed. The air swirled with black, choking smog, an inferno full of flitting orange sparks like fireflies lingering over a grave.

Shine-Catch refused to even look at the other goblins, head held high as she walked through on her gazelle. It didn’t matter. She was well-fed, bathed, in good clothes. She carried a spear that burned with pale violet fires and rode a beast with skin in the color of dawn. The rest of them were covered in ash, their bodies pale from the grey soot and terribly thin, skin drawn like canvas over bulbous hunches of bone and the ropey threads of sinew.

She came from a different world and their old one was in tatters around them. Simply by walking among them, she became a symbol.

For all that this was a nightmare, I had hope for them. They could grow back stronger. They could cure themselves of the supposed warriors who justified their cruelty as payment for bringing safety, but ran the moment a true threat reared its head.

But I needed to focus elsewhere now.

The beast’s retreat back into the deep caves left me with a dilemma. I had proven there was a route that carried beneath the siege, that the underground caverns eventually returned to the surface world. The problem was the enemy had discovered this hidden way before me.

The route I’d hoped would let me pass beneath them was now an open door into my territory.

Obviously, sealing it was the first priority. I could place static defenses and armor the goblin tribe for further invasions. In a sense, I already had a defensive force placed over the cavern route’s mouth.

Except there were other places that connected to the maze. The Redmouth, certainly, and possibly other entrances to the maze below, buried deep enough that my senses couldn’t find them beneath the sand but only a few hours work to dig open. It was even possible my enemy was massing below. The scouting forces that struck at the caravan were rather weak, and I couldn’t dismiss the idea they were a diversion to the real enemy preparing to surface from a dozen hidden caves and pour into my domain.

In short? Oh, the short, short answer was I was very screwed, and starting to panic.

The caravans soldiers had arrived by now. Six in all, led by Kahlin to make seven. The giant was constantly bending and scraping to fit into the caverns, but he directed his troops to cull the fires and tend to the injured.

“Shine-Catch.” My voice rose from the ashes of the broken tribe. “We have to hunt it down. There’s a chance that thing was a scout, or a breakaway from the enemy’s force. Maybe, maybe they don’t know the tunnels yet either. There’s a chance this was the first one to discover this entrance. If we kill it before it returns there’s a thin possibly, well, a very thin one, that we can stop them from finding this place.”

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She looked upwards with the most dubious expression I’d ever seen on her face. Which…

When Shine-Catch was the one doubting my plans, I knew I was on shaky ground. But the circumstances didn’t leave me the choice of sitting back and playing safe.

“I will go.” Kahlin made the sign of ‘a thing that must be done so tomorrow you can still call yourself a man.’ His soldiers stood behind him, one of the mages among them. “These tunnels were how you expected to smuggle us out, yes? It seems right we should help clear the way. In truth, I would feel like a failure to sit here while Shine-Catch risks herself.”

For a moment I fell silent. I didn’t have a plan. This was hasty, reckless, and the fact that someone else was offering to take that risk for me and mine reminded me of just how much of a gamble I was taking.

“Fine, fine. But- I need a moment.”

A moment I wouldn’t get. My sweet, beloved headache, Tusk-Mouth the goblin chief, was muscling his way forward with his men. Chest puffed out, trying to look big. “You’re going the beast, yes? We want a place in the hunt and you need a guide to the caverns. Take us. It stole our people’s lives, burned our homes. We’ll have revenge tonight.”

“So be it.” If he wanted to throw his life away on this, fine. Fine. I just needed to think…

The beast would turn conventional weapons to ash. Something like Kahlin’s cleaver might be thick enough not to melt, but the arm holding it would. Arrows, spears, these were our best bets.

But if it closed the distance we’d be doomed.

I summoned a waterskin, weaving together strands of fibrous grasses from the earth to form the bag like a swollen fruit on the vine. Within was water imbued with healing light. Since my energies repelled the Abyssal forces, it was possible it might protect someone from the blaze, even if only for a moment. At worst it would heal their wounds.

“Kahlin, take this. Healing waters. And… Which of your troops is the best archer?”

A stoneskin stepped forward, raising her arm. Her fingers were built differently than the rest, articulations molded into the pale blue stone alongside thin, curving patterns like silvered tattoos chiseled into her skin. Each finger was actually triple-jointed. “I was built for this.”

“Good. Then...” I drew Mana into the shape of watercryst, forming diamond arrowhead of glimmering blue stone. Because of the beast’s fire the shaft and even the feather-shaped fletching had to be formed of the same stuff. As the seventh arrow took shape in a spiraling cloud of Mana-flame I ran dry.

Seven would have to do.

“Be very, very careful with these. I’ve poisoned them so you’ll only need to land a single shot.” Behind each arrowhead was a row of backwards bending hooks, filled with the strongest poison I could conjure. Scorpions, cobras, spiders all gave qualities of their venom to the mix, but the greatest portion came from my shadow crow’s spurs.

Seven arrows. Only a single one needed to hit.

The truth was I had no beast suited to take the salamander on. Besides my crow, the rest of my beasts were powerful fighters but remedial in magic, lacking the advanced Arcana it would take to survive the inferno. The lightning spear might be able to do the job, but Shine-Catch would only have a single throw, and the spear was far slower than an arrow.

Even so.

My only confidence came from the fact the salamander was still Bronze rank. The sheer power of its blaze should have pushed it through to Silver on that one strength, suggesting it had other weaknesses that were holding it back.

This couldn’t be a straight fight. The beast only needed to get close for Shine-Catch, Kahlin, and all to burn down to cinders. This had to be a hunt - short and sharp and aimed for the beast’s weak point.

As the ash settled, the dark of the low caves waited.