The rest of our journey to the mines is silent. I stopped talking because I was afraid I would draw attention to my leg and that mistake that happened. I do not want them to think I do not deserve to be here. We stop some distance away from the mines, knowing there are probably guards ahead. We need to avoid being seen as much as possible.

“So, what is the plan?” Sylvar asks.

“Honestly?” I say.

“You could lie.” Meuko says.

“I have no idea.” I say.

“And the truth?” Sylvar says.

The silence speaks for itself.

“So, do we attack them?” Meuko says.

“I do not want… No idea.” I say.

“Let us consider a few paths of action.” Sylvar says.

We spend quite a lot of time discussing. Thinking about aggressive means, how we would acquire the ores that Blago wants. We could attack, we could wait until dark… No, we are not allowed to sleep outside. The conversation leads nowhere. We remain silent for a bit, contemplating our next move when the sound of leaves rustling draws our attention. We turn our heads there, Sylvie growling… Nobody is there. Except... A group of goblins jumps out from the surrounding trees, taking us completely by surprise. What starts as five goblins quickly becomes ten, twenty, all around us. We have been ambushed. They all snarl at us, waving their spears and swords.

“Do not attack them.” I say, getting a sword on my right hand and a spear at my left hand. I found out that the spear is actually a pretty good defensive weapon at my off hand. They are not attacking us.

“Are you crazy?” Meuko says, raising her fists and staying on my left side.

“He is right.” Sylvar says, looking up. We follow his eyes, witnessing multiple archer goblins, bows half-drawn, sitting on top of thick branches.

“We do not want to fight you. We gave you food. Remember?” I say loudly, trying to match the sound of their shouting. Sylvie starts barking, causing the goblins to take a step back.

“Volter...” Sylvar’s voice trails off, possibly waiting for some sort of plan. What plan? Here? We will die instantly, or we are gonna have to rush them, hoping that the archers miss, giving us a chance to run.

“We have more. We want to talk. Talk.” My voice gets drowned by the collective threatening sounds of these gray goblins.

“That is enough. Enough, I say.” A shrieking voice stops this... Whatever it is. “Sorry about that, needed to make sure you were the right humans.” A gray goblin with expressive arm movements walks forward, carrying no extra armor or some sort of leading, I guess, identification.

“And elf.” Sylvar says.

“And Blight Dog.” Meuko says.

“R-Right...” The goblin says, taking a step back “Can it stop growling?”

“Are we under threat?” Sylvar says, still having the bow half-drawn.

“Oh, this. No, no, no, you are fine.” The goblin says, snarling back at the rest of them. Every single goblin holsters their weapons. Even the ones up on the trees start climbing down.

“What is happening?” I ask, the tip of the sword touching the ground.

A few goblins join us, these ones having a slightly smaller frame than the others. These are the goblin kids we gave food to. They must be. I really cannot see any distinctive features. On the other hand… How used to goblin physiology am I?

“Meuko… The bag.” I say, gesturing at Meuko to give the bag to me.

“Right.” She says, opening the bag and passing it over.

I offer some food to the same… Probably, I cannot tell the difference… Kids.

“When the kids came back from a training expedition, telling us that people gave them food, instead of killing them on sight, we thought they were lying. So… When we saw you here, we thought we could test whether or not you would attack us instantly.”

“We could have killed you.” Meuko says.

“We had every advantage.” The goblin says.

“Who is killing you on sight?” I ask.

“Volter, I do not think we should-”

“Humans and all the rest, of course. On the other side of the mountain range.” The goblin interrupts Sylvar.

“What?” I say.

“Of course...” Meuko says.

“I am confused.” The goblin says “Where are you from?”

“About that...” I mumble. What do we answer? Is that what Alayne meant when he said to trust no one? I cannot risk them finding out where the Village is. How do they not know where the Village is? We keep finding more and more of them all over this area. How have they not stumbled on our home?

“Do you have more goblins behind you?” Sylvar asks, looking around. Does it even matter? These ones are plenty.

“No, just us.” The goblin says, followed by the affirmations of random goblins around us.

“What he said.”

“No.”

“No more.”

“None.”

So… Every goblin can understand us. I should have tried talking sooner. Instead of shouting and burning and slashing and…

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“I saw momevement, on the ground near us.” Sylvar says.

“Where?” The goblin frantically searches around.

A sudden burst on the ground, as dirt and parts of roots fly upwards, a long terrifying arm extending towards the branches, impaling one of the archer goblins. That is a troll arm. We have been found… Or followed. This is our fault.

“Run.” I shout, shoving goblins towards the location of the cave.

“We are no match for it.” Sylvar says, shooting an arrow, which breaks against the hide of the beast. Sylvie whimpers at his side, waiting for a command.

The goblins scatter as another arm makes a swipe, completely slashing two goblins near us into bits of flesh, black blood and bile. The rest of the body begins rising, revealing a bony head, moss and twigs on its shoulders, skin hanging in places, teeth like knives. It eats one of the archers it impaled, wailing as it does so. Is it complaining again? No time to think. I run, just like everyone else, trying to reach the cave. Meuko is right next to me. I throw my spear at her, which she grabs and then throws directly at the troll.

“The hide is tough.” Meuko says.

A rock flies at an insane speed towards me, which I realize only as Meuko pulls me aside. The rock lands on a goblin, separating the upper from its lower body. Blood is everywhere. On trees, on the ground, on me… Run, run. The sound of crying stops me. I look back to see a goblin kid with a broken leg. I instantly dash towards it, staring at the troll in the meantime. Thankfully, the troll is busy eating the remains of slain goblins, using the long claws it has to pick on the bits and pieces that were previously alive. I sheath my sword, trying to pick up the goblin kid. It tries to bite my hand, then quickly realizes that I am trying to help. Screams of pain echo in my ears as I lift the kid on my shoulder.

“Could ask for help.” Meuko says, throwing stones towards the troll.

“Help.” I say, dropping the bag on the ground.

While the bag itself is relatively light, the combination of that and a kid makes it hard to cross this terrain. Meuko jumps towards me, skipping a lot of undergrowth in the process. Somehow, she manages not to trip. She picks up the bag and gets multiple spears. A loud, guttural scream reminds us that there is a troll behind us trying to eat us. A thumping sound that I assume is one of its feet and a cracking sound every time its claws wrap around a tree. It slowed down, again. That does not change the fact that I am running as fast as I can, regardless of how my spine feels about it.

“Volter.” Meuko shouts as she tackles me on the ground, rescuing me from the fate of being reduced to paste, as stones fly above us.

“Thanks.” I say, trying to calm down the kid that is crying.

“Come on.” Sylvar says from the entrance of the cave. The same goblin that talked to us is right next to him. At least… I think it is. I cannot tell them apart. I need to work on that. If I make it out of he-

Another troll wailing. I pick the kid up, while Meuko throws a spear towards the troll. Ineffective.

“Save it. We cannot waste resources.” I say.

“Right.” Meuko says.

We reach the entrance of the cave and look behind us. The troll’s lower body is buried under the ground. Is that how it reached us? It went below so we could not hear it?

“Inside.” I say.

We regroup with the rest of the goblins inside the cave. This is larger than the one we were in all those days ago. There are carts inside with meat, salted and dried. I give the kid to one of the goblins.

“Thank you. For the kid.” One of the goblins say. It is hard to distinguish much else while my eye is adjusting to the lack of light.

“Are you the same goblin that talked to us outside?”

“Yes.”

“What is your name? I am Volter.”

“I have no name.”

“How do you know who is who?”

“Goblins have better senses. We know each other through smell, touch, signals like that.”

“Well… You are Gray from now on.”

“What?”

“Your name is Gray, so I can know you. Fine?”

“Sure. Gray it is. But… We are all gray.”

“No, you are Gray, the rest will have to wait.”

“So, you named me Gray because you cannot think of a name and my skin is gray?”

“Yes.”

“How about Snaray?” Sylvar suggests.

“I like that… I snarl, I am gray… Snaray it is. Also, try to remember my little necklace with polished rocks.” Snaray says, exposing his neck. His voice… It really is shrieking but there is a bit of trembling there, like my dad.

Our conversation gets interrupted by a scratching noise that echoes through the cave, like someone is running their nails through… No. It cannot possibly fit in here. The sunlight gets obstructed by the monster. My eye finally completely adjusts to the low light of this area. It is not a cave. I completely forgot. It is a mine, one that had people working here daily, with the entrance enlarged. The hand is followed by the appearance of the same terrifying saggy face.

“We will die in here.” Snaray says “We need to retreat further in.”

The rest of the goblins, even the armored ones, start arguing with Snaray. They are doing so in their own goblin language, so I cannot understand anything. Another arm runs through the entrance, searching for easy food. Why are they arguing now?

“What do we do?” Meuko asks.

“Ready yourselves. We might have to fight both fronts.” Sylvar says.

Snaray gestures towards us, then keeps arguing. Is he trying to convince the goblins to take us with them? The obstruction is removed, allowing sunlight to hit the entrance once more then silence… The troll throws a handful, well… A trollful of dirt mixed with stones and branches inside the mines. The wave of smoke and dust disorients me. Luckily, no large debris hits me. As the smoke clears, I realize the same is not true for Sylvar, who is holding his arm close to his chest, growling. Pieces of wood pierced his right arm. Sylvie reacts by barking and licking Sylvar’s wounds but what can that do?

“Snaray, it is okay. You can go with them. We got this. We will keep your place safe.” I say, trying to properly communicate confidence. I think I did a good enough job.

“I cannot use my bow.” Sylvar says, applying bandages over his hand. It is bleeding, but he appears to be stable for now. The hand goes limp on his side. He cannot fully use it.

“Of all times… Get spears.” I shout.

“Take cover.” Meuko says, as sunlight begins flooding the entrance once more. Distant guttural sounds. The same attack. I quickly hide behind some rock formations. Thankfully, the mine is full of them, sticking out of the ground. Another wave of smoke and debris hitting the walls, a cacophony of sounds echoing through the mines.

“Everyone good?” I ask.

“Yes.” Meuko says.

“Relatively.” Sylvar says “Sylvie is fine too.”

The rest of the goblins have left this area. I look around just to make sure. There are still a few of them watching, three or four. Behind rocks and hiding inside some ceiling… Holes? Could it be the kids? I cannot tell from this distance. These mines break into two large areas with no apparent end. Before the split though, there is a chasm with small bridges over it. If the troll’s throwing attacks push us over there, I have no idea where we might end up. If we are still alive. So we cannot retreat just a bit and we cannot completely retreat because the goblins do not want us with them and they might attack us. We cannot rush out, because the troll is expecting us. I saw those movements. It is extremely slow unless it is about to deliver a killing blow. Then it overextends, using the entirety of its long arm and claws to kill. So, it can be fast only for a short amount of time.

“It is slow, until it becomes really fast. Do not stay inside its threat range for long.” I say.

“Yes, we got that much. Thank you, Leader.” Meuko says.

“I actually get it. It cannot spend too much energy so it is trying to reserve it for lethal strikes.” Sylvar says.

At least I am right.

“So, we tire it and then it leaves. Sounds like a plan?” I say.

“Something better than hoping?” Meuko says.

On the right of the entrance there is a small wooden platform, probably used by the goblins defensively. The good thing is that there are javelins sticking out of a box.

“Sylvar, on our right. Use the spears.”

“On it. Sylvie, Heel.” Sylvar says, darting off to the side.

“Meuko...” I say.

“Ready.” Meuko says, holding three spears on one hand and readying another for throwing in her other arm. I pick up the two daggers from the bag and the one I had sheathed. I cannot waste these three chances. The troll wails, attempting to enter the cave. I throw the bag towards the platform where Sylvar is.

“I have a plan.” I say.

“Anything is fine.” Meuko says.

“Shall we?” I ready myself for… Not losing an eye.