I instantly hide behind the nearest boulder just inside my cave, cursing myself for still not closing that opening.

There are more than just a few of them. With each new goblin I see, my heart sinks a bit deeper. And in a minute, I see five dark heads wearing rusted old helmets standing in front of my dungeon and hear more making noise while they climb the trail.

"How can a dungeon be abandoned?" one of them asks.

"It is not abandoned. It's just resting. Sleeping. Waiting." one with a particularly eerie voice answers.

“We can come in and regenerate,” another mumbles out, talking as if he has a mouth full of stones. “It used to be one very decent dungeon. Our Old Sergeant told us he hid here during the raids four winters ago.”

"Maybe it even has some blood of Dwarfs."

“Maybe."

"I'm so thirsty for Dwarf's blood. Any blood..."

"Oh, how I miss our Old Sergeant. When he led us during the Wereds Raids, we ate so well. So good.”

“For some ranger to take his head like that."

"A shame."

"We'll revenge him. Then fill the horns with Ranger's blood. Drink it!"

"Yes. Feast, feast on human blood. And flesh."

I literally hear saliva coming out of their mouths, they sucking it back in.

They stand there, six or seven of them now, staring at the inside of the cave, wondering what to do.

“So, we should go in?”

“Why not? We have to spend the night here. Might as well be safe inside.”

Please don’t, please don’t, I’m silently begging, not knowing what I can do to stop them. If they see Oollie, he’d end up on a spit for sure. Unless they eat him raw right there and then.

Can I use something to stop them? Temperature controls??

I doubt they would get afraid of the cold or hot. As I take a peek at them, they seem to have come from Hell itself. They may actually welcome whatever temperature I can throw at them.

They take a few shy steps inside the Great Hall.

“For Rhilons to destroy this place, it’s a sacrilege."

“We’ll revenge it.”

“Yes, we revenge it even though this dungeon never wanted to listen to our Master. If it did, it would have never fallen.”

“It had too much pride! And look at it now?”

“It’s them Rhilons and their zealous followers. I’d see all their heads on spikes.”

“Yes, rolling over a slow burning fire,” one of them adds, chuckling so disgustingly I’m hard not to throw up.

Okay… Rhilons… That's a good name to remember. Have to find out about those dudes. But first…

“Master Ernok will soon give us an army that will fleece the meat of all their old bones. We'll feast on their babies in no time.”

They suddenly sniff their noses, raise their heads, look around, and I bet they can pick my scent, so I duck down, and curl inside a ball, hoping even if they see me, they would not think I’m a living creature.

“Hey, what’s there?” one of the shouts.

The wolves growl loudly from below, the sound coming upstairs as a monstrous gnar.

“Wolves!” one of them shrieks and takes a step back.

“Not any kind of wolves. Don't you hear their growls?? Those are Dungeon Fangers, bred by the dungeon itself to hunt the nearby forest for any human who dares to trespass."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I take a peek and see them shivering.

"But they will not hurt us. They do not feast on goblin meat,” the goblin who seemed to be their leader says and eases their fears. “No, I smell something else…”

They look around and I duck down again. “It’s strange unlike anything I ever… smelled…”

They are coming so close to me that I can even smell them. Not good.

Maybe I can just come out. And tell them who I am. Maybe we can work things out somehow. But something tells me they would only consider me after they eat me. And I crawl further along the boulder.

“Is it Human?” one of them asks in his veiled voice.

What can I do to stop them? My brain just freezes. Could I freeze them? Without water? I do not know and do not want to stake my life trying to find out I cannot.

“No… It’s not human. Different. Who’s there??”

I hear them breathing, reeking of things I do not even want to imagine. Only steps away from me, and I slowly slither along the edge of the boulder to the left, hoping they will not come around.

Then something spooks them, and one of them shrieks, “What’s that?”

An instant later, I hear the smashing of the swords. It’s coming from outside the cave. They growl and run outside.

I hear more noise. Shrieks of horror, more banking of the steel. There is a fight going on outside! Someone has attacked the goblins. I'm sure of it as I hear their monstrous screams.

I gasp for air, feeling a world better. Can't believe my good luck again. Just a bit scared, since I have to wonder how long can such a run of good luck last.

I get up and move carefully toward the cave opening, not able to see any of the goblins there. I sneak my head out to take a peak, expecting to see Tarra there, shredding them one by one.

But it’s not her.

It's clear at the first glance. The guy fighting them is covered by a long dark green rope, all over his head and coming down to his knees. it flies around as he moves between goblins, slicing at them with a sword in his hand. His free hand is holding a round red shield with an eagle painted on it, and he uses it to block the strikes that fall on him before his sword does the slashing.

At first sight, I thought there were just too many goblins. But then I count and see that five of them are already on the ground, some without limbs, some trying to collect their dark guts and put them back in. One even without a head. And only five more are left standing. Their leader seems to be along the survivors, keeping himself to the back, pushing the other ones down the trail to face the attacker.

"Circle him!" he barks the order at them. "Attack from all sides! Now!"

It might be a good strategy. But it's of no use. On this narrow trail, you step off, and you step into thin air, and then you go down with the rolling stones, especially if you are shoved off with the help of that beautiful warrior's shield.

They try to attack him two at a time since three abreast would give them no space to wield a sword. But the mysterious warrior is just too fast, way too fast for them. He jumps on the rocky wall to the right side of the trail, propels in the air, and flies among the goblins, cutting two of them from behind as he lands behind them.

As he whirls around them, his hood comes off, and I don't see the face of a seasoned warrior. Not a death dealer performing his mortal ritual. There is a brown waiving hair in there that flies around, but mostly it’s the face. It's just too damn young to belong to a warrior. His skin is smooth as a baby’s ass, with not a hair or a scar on his chin. He must not be even sixteen years old!

Who is he kidding?

But then his hair flies aside as he moves and I get to see dark gleaming eyes with enough fire in them to light up a campfire.

He is magnificent. He ducks down and shields two blows that are supposed to land on him, and then just cuts one foot off. Moves so skillfully, always anticipating, always protected. And still just a kid. Makes me wonder how early they start them here. Probably you raise your hand, wanting to scratch your papa’s beard for the first time or grab your mama’s feed breast, and they shove a sword in your hand.

And then, a few months later, you learn to walk. Must be… because he moves so fast and so elegantly, I think even if there were two dozen goblins they would not be able to land a blow on him. It’s like a dance, a dance of death with nothing seeming to be difficult for him.

Makes me wonder what happened with all the old people around these parts. Do they send them on a holiday once they reach a certain age? To a happy farm someplace they never come back from? Or do you grow into a dwarf and become mean? Or a goblin?

Watching him flash his sword in the late afternoon sun, my deepest thought is that I want him to be my hero. I can hire him to keep me safe. At least till I rebuild my freaking gate. I do not know how I can pay him. But, I want him. If there is a draft for Fantasy Warriors, he’d be like my first pick.

He shoves the last goblin off the trail, making him spin down the ravine, and then drives the blade deep into the belly of their leader, the last goblin standing. Then he pulls the blade out and as the goblin goes to his knees, he slices his head off in one swift and powerful strike.

It's the first time I hear very clearly the sharp sound of a deadly sword swooshing through the air. Makes the hair on my hand spike up. Makes me admire the weapon even more.

The young man turns around and looks at the pinkish fluorescent blood of goblins that run down the trail and the bodies lying dead or dying around. Looks down the ravine. Two of them are down in there, but only one still moving, holding its twisted leg as it tries to get up, trying to crawl toward the tree lines and escape.

"You won't get far," he says in a serious voice, sounding unlike any sixteen-year-old I've ever met.

What is equally impressive is that he ran up the trail, did the killing, and did not even lose a breath. He is just shaking his head, breathing as normally as if he is having a cup of coffee.

He carefully wipes the goblins' blood covering his sword using the back of their leader as a cleaning towel. Then he does something I do not understand. He points the shiny sword in my direction, toward the cave opening, and says with the same hateful intensity, “I killed goblins. Now it’s your turn!”

I duck back into the cave really fast, scared of all that anger, scared of that glimmering sword that had just diced a dozen monstrous goblins, scared we may not end up as friends after all.

Yeah, suddenly I don’t feel so friendly anymore.