Night vision goggles were flipped down, weapon bolts were pulled, and chambers checked. We made our way down the trail slowly. ‘You know what they say “slow is smooth and smooth is fast.”’ I thought as we moved into formation. I was on the left side of the trail, and Alexei and Kazamir were on the right. Alexei was watching the way forward while me and Kazamir watched the flanks.

We moved like that for about 45 minutes. When we spotted their campfire through the trees, I broke off left to get into position, and the other two did the same, breaking off right. I moved through the trees like a ghost. I made sure not to step on any tree branches by moving slower and feeling out each step for said tree branches before fully committing my weight. In all, it took me a good 20 minutes to half an hour to get into a good firing position on the campfire.

My good firing position was under a fallen tree trunk covered in moss with just a little grass to the front and back. Just enough grass to give me some cover but not block my vision. I got down onto my belly and crawled into the little hidy hole. When I was fully tucked in, I reached over to my radio and clicked the receiver button for a brief second. While I waited for Alexei to get into the position, I decided to have a little looky lou through my scope.

I pushed up my night vision cause looking into a light source with night vision is not a good idea. I brought my scope up to my eye. I softly muttered, “I spy with my little eye…” there were seven figures lying down near the campfire. Three more were sitting upright, and four more were in the cart itself.

I placed my scope over one of the figures sitting up. They were less than 50 meters away, so I didn’t have to worry about bullet drop. A burst of static from my radio told me that Alexei was in position. I waited a few seconds for him to line up a target then I gave two clicks of static over the radio.

The idle sounds of the forest were drowned out by the sound of gunfire. I was quick to partake in the bloodshed. I realigned my sights on the figure, who was slowly getting to their feet. A breath and trigger squeeze later, and it joined the other figures on the ground. A second later, I had another one in my sights. In another half second, it was on the ground, not moving. I continued on with lining another into my sights, watching him go down then repeating the whole thing.

Some of them screamed and writhed on the ground in pain. Others lay still and silent, unable to care about pain any longer. Some pulled their swords, others just tried to run; it didn’t matter. They all were cut down by the invisible hand of uncaring foes regardless.

Click.

My bolt locked back just as the last running figure had fallen. I swapped mags and slammed the bolt release. It took a couple of times before I got the magazine in because my hands were shaking from the adrenaline coursing through my veins. After looking around for any more lives to end and not finding anything, I clicked the receiver on my radio and started talking into it.

“Alright, it seems like we got a clean sweep. Let’s move out there and confirm that we got them all.”

“Ok, got it,”

Alexei replied, sounding slightly out of breath.

I crawled out of my hole and out into the open. I got up after steadying my breathing. I was slightly shaky on my legs. Even though I had seen bodies and been in gunfights before, this felt different. In prior fights, it was kill or be killed. But in this one, I felt less like a man than an invisible act of destruction and violence. I shuck off those thoughts. ‘I saw what these animals did when they got the chance.’ I reminded myself.

I walked out onto the blood-stained road past a goblin that had been trying to crawl away. He wouldn’t make it far, he had a gut wound, and he would bleed out if he didn’t get any help. I saw Alexei and Kazamir as they walked down the road. Kazamir raised his rifle, aiming to my side. Before I could react, he had pulled the trigger. I instinctively dropped to the ground, expecting the pain to come any second.

After a few seconds, I opened my eyes to find Kazamir sprinting past me and Alexei, asking me if I was alright.

I nodded slowly as Alexei softly shook me. I finally gave him the answer he wanted with a quick

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yea, Yea, I’m alright. You can stop shaking me now.”

I said while I got up and batted his arms away.

BANG! BANG!

I whipped my head around to find Kazamir with a blank look on his face shooting the injured goblins.

“WHAT THE HELL, KAZAMIR!”

BANG! BANG!

I started running towards him while yelling for him to stop. He didn’t. And I didn’t get to him fast enough to stop him. A few more gunshots rang out before I tackled him to the ground. He didn’t offer any resistance as I grabbed the rifle from his hands. I continued yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear me. I could tell he was in a far-off place.

“Mama, papa, I did it. Your killers are no more.”

Kazamir muttered as I shook him to try to break him out of whatever entrancement he was in.

It was no use. I shook Kazamir one more time, then rolled off him to his right onto my back. I looked up onto the black starless night, trying to regain my breath as embers of the campfire floated into the sky. I rubbed my mud-covered hands across my face. ‘FUCK FUCK FUCK.’ I mentally screamed as I lay there.

‘I got to look for survivors, this is a massacre.’

I thought to myself, even though there was a part of me that knew there weren’t going to be any. It was the same part of me that said it was good that they were all dead. I pulled myself back onto my feet and started looking around with darting eyes. Alexei had gone over to the fire and sat down with a hand on his forehead. He was obviously thinking about had had just happened.

“Alexei! Get off your ass and help me look for survivors.”

His shouted name caused a minor scare in the Russian. His eyes were blank with shock`. He didn’t move. I walked over to him and pulled him to his feet. He just gave me a blank look and then collapsed back onto the blood-covered soil. I just left him there and started walking around, looking for any signs of life from the unmoving bodies. I pushed over bodies looking for any signs of life, and started counting.

One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten… eleven… twelve… thirteen… fourteen…

All of them were dead.

____________________________________________________________________________

Jones had just polished off his fifth glass of nectar just as the final goblin fell. ‘Well, it wasn’t the last one, but it didn’t really matter.’ Jones thought to himself. The screen was now showing the stats of the fight.

Total Humans: 3

Humans killed: 0

Humans injured: 0

Human spells cast: 0

Total Goblins: 15

Goblins killed: 14

Goblins injured: 7 (later killed)

Goblins spells cast: 0

Kiger had his jaw on the floor. I just called Barkeep over for another round.

“HOW THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO THAT??”

Kiger asked incredulously.

“I didn’t do anything. I was sitting right here with you.”

I said with a small smirk, the type you get when you’re screwing with your friend.

“So your meaning to tell me that those humans coordinated that attack all by themselves? You

trust them with that much freedom?”

“Yea… we’ll go with that.”

Kiger’s face turned into a smile as he said,

“Yeah, sure, uh, you’re just a lazy bastard.”

“Oh, screw you,”

Jones said in a light-hearted tone.

____________________________________________________________________________

A small crowd had gathered in the area coliseum to watch the upcoming fight between the goblin main army and the Ork hoard. They had come early; the battle wasn’t supposed to happen until the following morning. They had watched the giant orb in the middle of the coliseum for news. It was mostly reports of small skirmishing forces engaging each other on the outside of the main camps of both sides through out the night.

The fight between a couple of humans and a raiding party of goblins was just supposed to be a quick sideshow. Supposed to be. The onlooking gods were shocked when the sheer noise of the human's weapons of fire was put to use. With the raids, Gren had basically declared war against humanity and, by extension Jones.

This was going to be humanity's first full-on war. And the gods would watch with great interest.