The goblin that throws himself at me meets not my face, but my fluffy butt, and my helicoptering tail:

[Wag]

Effect: Your tail starts whipping up a storm, bludgeoning incoming foes and pushing them up to 15ft away

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 1 minute

His cheek is instantly broken as it smashes into my tail and he is catapulted back into one of his charging comrades below – alive, but repulsed – and with a strange surge of adrenaline coursing through my Corgi veins, I twist the scimitar in my mouth and cleave it through the air:

[BLADE ART: Swallow Swipe]

Effect: Vertical Slash up to 50ft/Single Target

Cooldown: 5 minutes

A blinding light of sapphire beams through the air, lighting up the entire sky, drawing gasps of disbelief from Witherfang and Swiftrunner.

Hey guys, I don’t even know how I’m doing this!

A third goblin runs towards me with an animalistic scream and I turn to bark through my blade:

How did I sound threatening before? Does it matter? Ok. Just say anything! Anything at all. Just don’t die!

[Bark]

Effect: You strengthen your lungs, and your tiny mouth belches a vicious rebuke.

25% chance to invoke a flee reaction in foes.

Ineffective vs foe type: {CONSTRUCT}, {WYRMBORN}, {SEEDED}

Duration: 1 minute.

Cooldown: 1 hour.

“Smelly goblin! You stink!”

BRILLIANT.

And – of course – it doesn’t work.

He comes swinging his spiked-ball hand at my face, knocking me across the alcove. I skid over to the lip of the rocky overlook, mewling slightly.

Then, my eyes dart open, and I’m on my feet, glued to the ground, before I even know it.

The goblin’s wasted no time. Enraged, seeing the gaping hole in his commander’s chest, he flies towards my position, and I snarl unconsciously.

“Let your rage by your guide, Little Brother!” I hear Swiftrunner yelp from his position at the mouth of the den.

“Don’t distract him,” Witherfang bellows back, eyes glued to the fight. “Such is not what he needs. If we are to sit this fight out, we must offer the Lightborn more practical advice.”

And before I make my move I hear the old beast shout: “Go for their eyes!”

I would smile if I wasn’t utterly terrified.

[Wag]

I turn and let the beast have a taste of my eternally fluffy flapper. He topples over the side of the ridge and falls into the darkness of the dead trees below, his life finally ending with an audible SNAP.

“Bravo!” Swiftrunner cries out.

“An expertly calculated maneuver,” his Elder agrees.

Two other goblins have seen their comrade fall. They stop their charge. Instead, they plant their talons firmly in the ground and extend their fingers towards me – corrupting vines seeking my quivering throat.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

The thought: RUN dominates my mind. But my paws remain as feeble as ever:

[Doggie Dash]

Cooldown remaining: 18 hrs

Damn my impromptu wake-up dash!

I bark like crazy, trying to scare them off, desperately hoping the percentage chance to inspire fear in them is on my side.

And once again, the ears of these creatures are simply blocked to me. Their vines keep coming, and before I know it they’ve coiled round me, tightening, and pulling me towards the waiting blades of the beasts.

The blade glimmers in my sight. I feel my ears burn as they drag me across the ground, trying to break free, wriggling with all my doggie might but – no! – their hold is too strong.

“Elder!” Witherfang shouts. “Should we not intervene?”

“Nay, Swiftrunner. This is the Lightborn’s fight. So he has said, so shall we listen.”

CURSE MY DAMNED HEROIC MOMENT! FORGET WHAT I SAID!

But then I realize that there’s something I haven’t tried.

I look down at the blade, feel my throat muscles tense, and even though I can’t make my special magic light tear through these guys right now, I can still use this thing, right?

They said so themselves: only I can cut through this ‘Darkseed’.

So, I close my eyes as the vines bring me to their goblin hosts, and the pair of possessed Greenskins place their oaken feet upon my body.

And I swipe the blade across their legs.

They look at me, look at their collapsed feet, and instantly fall to the ground in a heap of vines and rage.

I break free and press my advantage, bringing the sword down on the shoulder of one zombified husk and cleaving through him like carving through a cake.

Me – a Corgi – just did this.

I don’t want to see blood. I don’t want to see the splintering guts entombed in sawdust that are now open to the air or hear the death-scream of the dying gob. Instead I run back towards the hobbling commander, knowing that it was either me or him.

He works his limbs into a thorn-covered spear and lunges at me. Our blades meet – the clash of steel on corrupted oak – and we each stare into the eyes of the other.

Again – sure, this seems cinematic. But here’s what’s currently going on in my head:

DON’T DIE DON’T DIE DON’T DIE DON’T DIE DON’T DIE DON’T DIE DON’T DIE DON’T –

“A battle that would rival even the myths of Lyca herself!” Swiftrunner shouts into the din as I clash with the goblin leader.

“This battle shall be one which our sons and daughters shall speak of with hushed reverence,” Witherfang replied. “Even these old eyes have never beheld such raw strength…”

I really feel like I should be telling them to muck in at this point…

But that wouldn’t exactly make for a great tale for the grandpups, eh?

The goblin brute sneers down at me, but as I meet his gaze and stand my ground, my teeth beginning to shake as he pushes against the blade that’s (admittedly, somewhat snugly) protruding from my mouth, I see that there isn’t hate in his eyes. Instead, there’s just two cold, lifeless voids.

It’s not like it’s his hands that are guiding his blade at all.

It’s something behind them, watching me…

“Whoever…you…are…” I snarl, doing my best to sound like a hero would in the moment. “You won’t…win!”

That sounds cool, right?

The goblin doesn’t think so.

He aims a kick at my face and dislodged the sword from my fangs instantly, kicking it aside with his other foot and spilling more of his rotten, dusted guts over the ground. It didn’t matter how many he lost. He was an object now, being piloted…

“De…” he snarled like a drowsy, drooling zombie. “DEMON!”

And as he raises his serrated claw to cleave the head from my body, I snarl right back at him, finally remembering the one thing that could get my rage-juices flowing:

“CORGI!”

[Bark]

ACTIVATED

He reels back, squealing like a ghoul trapped in a beam of light, and as he drops his guard I lunge towards his ankle and sink my teeth into his barkskin.

[Bite]

(Ankle) You sink your teeth into your opponent – reducing their movement speed and making them more sluggish.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 1 minute

“Go, Little Brother!” Swiftrunner howls.

The goblin roars in animal pain as he falls to his knees, trying to keep the rest of his rotten organs from spilling out, and when he looks back up to behold his death – guess who’s standing there with the scimitar back in his mouth?

“Corgi,” I growl with as much gravitas as I can. “Whoever you are in there, remember that.”

And I rise up and down with a quick stroke that cuts through his head.

It cracks apart like a chestnut, and both halves fall harmlessly to the side. His body teeters, sways, and then simply falls, lame, to the ground.

COMBAT ENCOUNTER: CORGI VICTORY

[Core Skill Increases]:

Wag LVL 2 -> 3

*SKILL MORPH UNLOCKED

MORPH CHOICES:…

No…no more…please.

I watch a tiny seed the size of a rosebud roll away from the slain leader’s head and stop just before it touches my paw.

Only now, backing away from the sight of death all around me, do I feel Swiftrunner behind me.

“Those of us who doubted should have been here for this moment,” he said, his breathing ragged, chest puffed with excitement. “It’s all true. All of it! You are the Lightborn, Little Brother! And you can kill them!”

Kill…the word rebounds off the inside of my pea-brain.

Yeah…that’s what I’ve just done…

I’ve killed…again.

I barely overhear anything more the young wolf says to me. I walk under him, through his legs, dropping the sword from my lips as my head begins to go hazy just like before…

Witherfang steps on the wounded goblin I’d left behind me – the one who’s legs were totally caved in, flailing on his back.

“Crawl back to your master,” the aged elder spat, and his voice now was far graver than I’d ever heard. It was like a totally different wolf, standing over his broken prey, uncaring and with only vengeance in his eyes.

“Go,” he said, kicking the feeble creature and rolling it down the ridge. “Go and give the Darkseed a message: the Lightborn has risen. And your reign will be over before it truly begins.”

Amidst the cheers of the wounded wolves who were now staggering to their feet, bowing their bleeding heads in deference to me, I look at the devastation all around me and let out probably the most exasperated sigh a Corgi could possibly make.

Then I feel four little droplets of repressed anxiety fall behind my back paws.

The wolves watch, switching their gazes between the steaming manure I’d just released, and my tired, swaying form.

“Don’t…” I say, feeling my lids begin to close. Feeling the charged power within me begin to stutter away. “Don’t mention that…in the stories…”

Then I fall.