From their right, a horse whinnied.

Lefty glanced at the duck, but the bird was already waddling toward the sound of the horse. Great, just great. As he followed his feathered friend through the branches, he began to feel like the unwilling participant of a guided tour through the crocodile pen at the zoo. Only he was on the wrong side of the fence and his guide was a duck. Briefly, he wondered if there were a better metaphor he could come up with, but couldn’t. He was too scared.

Things did not improve on the other side of the trees. They had found a clearing with a half-dozen horses grazing on the grass. For a moment, he hoped against hope it was a wild herd, but then he saw the saddles. And a leg in a stirrup. A leg with no person attached.

They needed to run. He looked for the duck, but the duck was busy investigating another dead body lying beside a log. The duck looked concerned. Lefty felt scared. The duck looked up at him and he looked down at the duck. The duck seemed to say, ‘Be scared all you want, we need to find out what happened here.’ To which Lefty thought, Why do I know what the duck is thinking. Followed closely by, Why do we need to know what happened here? It was bad. And we need to make certain it doesn’t happen to us. Then finally, What is the duck doing now?

The duck, undeterred, was investigating yet another body lying face down in washout. It was another man dressed in leather armor but instead of being burned, there were several arrows sticking out of his back. Lefty noticed the arrows were short with bright red feathers. The duck looked up at him with a questioning look.

Lefty went wide eyed as he understood the question. He reached down and turned over the body. The man was indeed dead. He turned the body back over and inspected the arrows.

Quietly, he said, “Something small, I would guess.”

The duck nodded in agreement.

Lefty turned around to see something small and green standing next to one of the horses. It had the shape of a man, roughly four feet tall with crooked teeth, beady black eyes, and long pointed ears. It looked at him and growled.

Oh no, a goblin.

Stunned, Lefty stood there as the small, green monster drew his sword and began walking toward him. Then a flurry of white, flapping violence flew down from a tree and attacked the little warrior’s face. The goblin, unaccustomed to defending himself from angry waterfowl, panicked, turned, and tried to run but tripped over an upturned root and impaled himself on his sword. Feathers landed on the dead goblin’s back, pecked him twice on the head, and let out a victorious quack.

“What do you mean, ‘A fat lot good you are?’ You didn’t even give me a chance!” Lefty exclaimed.

The duck glared.

The underbrush then trembled as three more of the tiny warriors stepped out. They were bristling with weapons as their beady red eyes looked down at their dead comrade, then to Feathers, and finally to Lefty.

Stolen novel; please report.

Lefty, thinking quickly, pointed at the sky and shouted, “Look out!”

All three of the goblins hesitated, looked to each other, and then to the sky, giving Lefty just enough time to turn and run. As a he jumped over a rotted log, the duck appeared next to him, wings flapping as he quacked in annoyance.

“Look, I learned what it meant to fight fair a long time ago and I decided squarely against it. So if you’re going to follow me around, you’re just going to have to get used to certain things.”

The duck, flying by his side, said nothing in reply.

A dozen sets of tiny feet were chasing them now, so Lefty took a straight line directly away from their pursuers as he dashed around a bush, past the tree where they’d first encountered the dying soldier, and back into the trees. Halfway up a hill, an arrow flew past his head. A few steps later, a second arrow did the same. He looked back.

There were not a dozen goblins. There were over a hundred.

Feathers gave a worried quack.

“I know, I know, I should have a spell that could slow them down but I can’t think of one right now. I’m sorry.”

Two more arrows landed at their feet.

The duck offered an angry quack.

“What do you expect me to do? Stop and read my spellbook? Like, excuse me mister goblin horde, do you mind putting things on pause so I can see if I have something written in here that can turn the lot of you into a pile of burning cinders?”

Another angry quack.

“Well I don’t appreciate your tone either.”

Cresting the hill, Lefty crashed through a tangle of underbrush. Behind him, he could hear the tiny footsteps of the goblins. Fighting, clawing, and scraping, he fell through the other side of the thorn bush, picked himself up, and turned to find himself face to face with another goblin holding a sword. Behind that goblin was another goblin, and behind that goblin were a dozen more.

The nearest goblin twisted his mouth into a grin.

Then the duck appeared, flapping and biting at the closest goblin. Lefty, seeing his opportunity, reared back and kicked the goblin directly between the legs. The tiny warrior collapsed to the ground as both wizard and duck took off again.

The duck, half flying and half running by Lefty’s side, gave a hesitant pair of quacks.

“I know, I know. I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

A cliff appeared as they turned right and ran across the ridge. Behind them, the first group of goblins ran into the second group, decided they were friends, or at least grudging allies, and then formed into one large group with the clear intent of murdering both man and bird.

Next they ran into a path, the kind of beaten down strip of earth formed by a herd and Lefty followed it, running as fast as he could as arrows, rocks, and even spears flew past.

The ridge dipped and then crested. Lefty found he was starting to get winded. I didn’t know that was possible in this game. Why do I actually feel winded? I thought it was just supposed to be a stamina bar. He then felt his lungs start to burn, his leg weaken, and his head begin to go dizzy, as he began to slow.

Another spear flew over his right shoulder just as the duck flew past his left. Well, I suppose the easiest way to survive a goblin horde is to outrun your friend, he thought as he watched the duck’s tail feathers disappear around a tree. He briefly considered just giving up then and there. What did it matter? Did he really think he could out run all these goblins?

Then the duck returned. Panicked and quacking loudly, the duck flew past him as, a half second later, something huge, brown, and well muscled came crashing through the trees. A bear, Lefty thought until he noticed the overlarge teeth, red eyes, and bony spines along its back. No, a dire bear.

They were trapped. The goblins behind them were circling around the bottom of the hill as arrows, rocks, and spears hissed through the air around them. As the duck landed on his shoulder, he asked, “I don’t suppose you can do what you did with that ogre, can you?”

The duck gave a doubtful quack.

“I didn’t think so.”

The dire bear was almost on top of him. There was only one thing left to do. Taking aim at the edge of the cliff, he ran and jumped.

A massive claw tore the hem of his robe, narrowly missing his leg. An arrow hissed past his ear. A spear flew over his shoulder. Behind him, the dire bear roared.

He hung in the air for a second that felt like an eternity. Then a memory. An idea. A thought pierced through his haze of fear and struck his brain like a hammer striking a bell.

“Pulrama Ruinamus!” he shouted.

His staff glowed blue as the spectral shape of an umbrella formed atop it and suddenly he was floating through the air he were holding a parachute.