Goblin Haze, Druid Rage

Chapter 1: Relay

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Night was meant to be a dark and mellow time. Which made all the fire and screaming a blasphemy of the greatest caliber.

Fire, fire everywhere, Emrys, adept goblin druid of the Tanglesooth, found his eyes searing from it all, a conflagration that consumed all greenery beyond the haven of their second boulder ring. The first ring had fallen already, the humans raising their burning palms to char the few remaining goblins who hadn’t retreated from the makeshift wall. Their anguished cries burned with them, the smell of cooked flesh doomed to scar his nostrils for life. Which he surely had little of.

Around him, goblins yelled and ran about, Emrys a silent cog in their commotion. Trolls too, the lumbering, gray-skinned figures their allies from the Cragfall Druids. The boulder rings had been their idea. A necessary one against the human pyromancers.

They would be dead already if not for them.

We’ll be dead anyway.

Hours ago, such morbid thoughts would’ve left him despairing and horrified. Now? It was just the nature of things. Nothing to do but to accept it. And to pray his pessimism was unfounded.

And to fight on. One amongst many goblin druids clad in dark green cloaks, he raised the small wooden staff in his hand, gnarled at the end and with a swirling pattern like that of a snail’s shell. The other goblins did the same, green mist empowering their staffs, and thorned roots snaked out of the ground to skewer unsuspecting humans. The trolls joined suit, their own staffs shimmering with a gray hue as pebbles and debris coalesced together overhead. They compacted together, until a seamless boulder with an unearthly glow was left, and the trolls lobbed them with a flick of their staffs.

The roots hardly ever killed. The fire made it difficult just to use them at all. But the rocks crushing skulls and flinging bodies off the first ring made all the difference, especially since any pyromancer who busied themselves too much with watching out for flying rocks was a pyromancer whose legs were susceptible to being assaulted by surprise roots.

Overhead, fairy lights fell and flashed amongst the humans, disorienting them at inconvenient times. Occasionally bolts of strange azure energy too, which shocked a few of the enemy as well. Emrys almost found himself smiling as he glanced up to the blue specters also aiding their cause — faunimals, they were called. Fae spirits with the form of woodland critters, be it robin birds or racoons or squirrels. Innocent creatures, seemingly, but not so innocent today.

Flames jettisoned toward them. They all missed. The commotion all around did nothing to drown out the faunimals’ jeering mind-voices as they mocked and pestered the humans.

The first wall had fallen too early, but enough of them had fallen back to their second wall. Their defenses still held — they had to. The humans had surrounded them on all ends, and escape was impossible. The Tanglesooth Druids were meant to be wiped out, just as their neighbors had been. The unassailable Armorbark? No protections could shield them from being scorched out of history. Their longtime rivals, the terrible Kindlefury? Their rage was snuffed out like a candle flame.

We’re next.

We’re not meant for this.

Tanglesooth’s order lacked the warding powers of the Armorbark, nor the berserk power of the Kindlefury. They were trappers and healers by profession, not hardened warriors. Their root-based magic was almost useless against firebenders, and anyway, few of them were built for war and combat.

Hence the last stand they now were engaged in. Their only stand, frankly. With the support of the Cragfall Druids and the anger of the roaming faunimals uniting them, it was all they could do to fight back.

Ducking as fire sailed past the druids’ ranks and the second boulder ring altogether, Emrys hissed as the fireball crashed into one of the huts on the outskirts of the Tanglesooth village. The third ring wrapped around the majority of the actual village, and most importantly, the Blessed Tree. A towering pillar of support, a tree whose branches and leaves formed a canopy over much of the village. And the current residence of crying children, women, and the elderly.

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All watched over by his grandma Birog, the Dryad’s communer. How long can we really hold against them, Gran?

A monstrous rumble made the earth tremble, and for a moment, Emrys thought the troll druids had collapsed the first boulder wall to entomb the humans — before catching sight of giant, maw-like plants sprouting out of the earth, complete with large roots that snatched startled humans before their heads chomped them whole. Fires rained down on them in response, singing vines and roots and heads, yet the carnivorous flora kept devouring and fighting to the death.

Maneater tunnelers. At that Emrys truly smiled — one of the Dryad’s personal beasts, meant to protect her Blessed Tree. You unleashed them for us? he thought with awe. We might just survive the night then.

One night, at least. Another though might be a stretch. There were too many of the human pyromancers after all — a vast army to sweep away the entire great forest and all who dwelled therein. The guardian spirits that had empowered the Armorbark and Kindlefury had fallen to them, and the Dryad would surely fall too. It wasn’t like any of them could flee, most certainly not the Dryad.

But we need to. She needs to.

There could be no Tanglesooth Druids without the Dryad, after all.

On and on the war raged on. They had the home field advantage, but every human that died always got replaced by another. Expendable troops from a blackhearted nation, Emrys figured. Some overly devoted, others clearly afraid, conscripted against their will. Yet they all fought, so he fought back.

Vines lashed. Thorns shredded. Maneater tunnelers chomped and feasted. Rocks crashed down, and lights stunned. But in return, fireballs soared, and flaming boulders launched from catapults that somehow had been placed on top of the first boulder ring. Emrys considered the means involved — maybe some kind of calculated pyrokinetic force to safely launch them onto the wall? — then thought better of it.

A flame-tipped arrow sniped a goblin druid several feet from where he stood, the goblin falling flat and screaming as fire ate his flesh. Other goblins pulled him away at once, dousing him in water buckets and taking him down from the second boulder ring, their staffs glowing with purified green light. Healers.

I should have been with them.

But his own healing skills were better at placating and soothing people’s minds. Not their bodies.

His control over roots wasn’t his speciality either, but he had more than enough proficiency to be amongst the defenders. Eyes squinted against the bright fires in the night, searching for weakness. His staff rose, and thorny vines struck humans too focused on greater threats to pay attention to the little ones. He fought, and hoped with little hope he clung to that somehow this nightmare would end. That oblivion could be turned back—

Emrys.

The goblin felt his spine freeze over. Behind him, a blue fox-like spirit stared at him with large cold eyes that covered her entire face, her tail swishing with aggression. Her lack of a mouth to go with her muzzle only contributed to the eeriness.

She eyed another goblin in the back row. Take over for Emrys, she commanded with her telepathic voice.

“S-Seekit?” said the goblin. “What—”

I need the boy. Now.

Nearby goblins had glimpsed the faunimal too, their faces twisted as a quiet apprehension stirred amongst their forces. Amongst the trolls too, though many knew not who Seekit was or her significance. But Emrys knew.

Gran.

One of the druids pushed the goblin Seekit had commanded to replace Emrys in front, Emrys himself finding another druid gently shoving him toward the fae spirit. She darted off. He followed.

The sound of boulders crumbling and humans screaming pricked his tipped ears. The trolls must’ve finally collapsed the first wall.

“What happened?” he loudly whispered once he had run halfway between the second and third boulder rings. “Did something go wrong? Where’s Gran?”

Seekit’s cold expression shifted, and Emrys winced at the silent fear that emerged therein. Aodh struck her down. She’s gone mad.

“Aodh?” Emrys paled as the words sunk in. “Aodh attacked her? Why would — no, how? How could someone as bedridden as him—”

But even as he spoke, the truth leapt out at him. A mangled truth that shouldn’t be, yet was.

Aodh, the champion warrior. Aodh, one of the few true forces to be reckoned with in combat amongst the Tanglesooth. He’d been rather sickly since his last skirmish with the Kindlefury, and surprisingly, none of the healers had been able to cure nor relieve him—

“Except he was never sick.”

Seekit’s ears flattened. No.

At the worst of times, Aodh had gone traitor. “The Blessed Tree,” said Emrys. “Is he—?”

Invading the Dryad’s chambers. He has strange magic, Emrys. Lady Birog’s gone crazy from his blighted touch.

Oh. Oh no.

Fireballs exploded in the distance. At his command, roots grew close to the base of the third boulder ring, Emrys using them as a stepstool. He leapt onto the ring, breath panting.

Gran needed him now.