She hacked at the goblin, but it raised its buckler just in time as her sword nicked the wooden shield and then bounced off. Kicking her smaller opponent in the belly, she brought her blade around again and this time she caught the little marauder in the neck. The goblin whimpered and died.
When she had first ran out of the tavern, she had hoped to fight her way to the stable, find a horse, and make for the hills. However, she hadn’t made it more than a few feet around the corner before she had been attacked by a steady stream of the little warriors. Then, before she could reach the stable, a horse had galloped out in a full panic as it pulled along a rope tied to a burning bundle of sticks and straw. Now a horde of goblins had trapped her against the cobblestone wall of the tavern.
A spearhead flashed and she dodged, shifting her head as the point struck the stone behind her. Next was a short sword, it’s point aimed at her belly, but she parried it to the side. Then, as she turned another sword aside, she spotted something flying at her so she ducked just in time to avoid a hatchet that buried itself in the mortar above her head.
The goblins were everywhere now. Bands of them were running every which way on the road. A party of them were setting fire to a barn. While a trio of them were doing something terrible to a woman over by a well. Calista, however, had no chance of helping anyone. A dozen goblin warriors had encircled her as she stabbed, hacked, bit, and kicked her way along the tavern wall, hoping to make it back inside. Dodging another spear thrust, she stuck her sword through the belly of one goblin, only to pay for that by watching a short sword bite into her calf. As she grabbed that goblin by the neck, she parried another sword thrust and then tossed one goblin into another. It went like that for a long while as she fought her way around the tavern, so that by the time she reached the door, she was bleeding from a half dozen different places. Thankfully, before she could even reach for the handle, the door flicked open as a pair of very large and tattooed hands shot out and pulled her inside.
“What are you doing? There are goblins everywhere!” Thalias cried.
“I know!” she shouted back.
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“The entire village is filled with them! They’re burning everything!”
“I know!”
“We have to find a way out of here without getting killed by that mob of monsters out there!”
“I know!”
“And they’re trying to burn the tavern as we speak!”
“I KNOW!” she shouted as she reached back and slapped the half elf across the cheek. “And if you don’t stop freaking out, we’re all going to be burned alive.”
Thalias, his mouth hanging open, stared at her blankly. Behind her, Dogmoore was busy tossing tables, chairs, and all manner of furniture against the doorway and in front of the windows. Across the room, she could hear Abby sobbing from behind the bar while the dead body of the fisherman was lying in the middle of the room, an arrow sticking from his neck. Finally, Grumner managed to speak up. “What do you mean, we’re going to be burned alive?”
A scream of pain and fear came from outside as something sharp and heavy began hacking at the tavern’s front door.
She replied, “I mean they’ve already managed to set the stable on fire. It’s only a matter of time until the rest of this building goes up as well.”
“Oh,” Grumner walked calmly over to the bar and leaned over the ledge. “Abby, say, you don’t happen to have a back door to this place, do you?”
A squeak of fear came back in response and Grumner sighed, walked around the bar and into the kitchen. A moment later, Grumner emerged from the kitchen and pointed his thumb back over his shoulder. “The kitchen leads out into the stable. If we hurry, we can still make it before it collapses.”
“Hey,” Calista snapped, “I thought you had social anxiety.”
“I lied,” Grumner then picked up the barmaid, threw her over his shoulder, and walked back into the kitchen. A moment later, the rest of them followed.
The stables stunk of fire and burning horse manure. Calista’s eyes watered as the smoke threatened to choke her, but she pulled her shirt over her mouth and managed to push through to where the stable opened into the yard.
Outside again, things had not improved. Beyond the five of them, there was not a single living non-goblin in sight. Fire was everywhere and corpses of the villagers were strewn about every doorway, road, and yard they could see.
Then something flashed from behind her and she turned to see Dogmoore pull his double bladed axe from the belly of dead goblin. The big, silent man then inhaled deeply before spitting a wad of green goo on the goblin’s face. Beside the huge warrior, Thalias had notched an arrow in his short bow and was looking from her to Grumner. “So, which one of you has a plan from here?” he asked.
The dwarf pointed toward the river where the firelight was shimmering against the water. “Since the trees are filled with goblins, I’m going to guess the rest of the village ran for the docks so they could use the boats to get away.”
Calista was just about to add that the goblins probably had the same idea, but before she could speak, a dozen of the monsters came running through the smoke.