Leaving Hauvstadt was less eventful than I thought it would be. My friends and family saw Ripper and I off at the city wall, and then it was a bit less than a day-and-a-half walk through tame farmland to the river. We spent the night in a barn belonging to a very friendly family of farmers. We were up before dawn and on the road again. Within two hours, as the sun was just peaking over the horizon, we reached the C’esa River. Half a mile across, there was no way we were going to swim across. Ripper was a strong swimmer, but not strong enough to make it across with our supplies weighing her down. Besides, I wasn’t a strong swimmer, and there wasn’t much of a quest without me.

Luckily, since we weren’t quite in the boonies yet, there was a bridge only an hour’s walk downriver. We ignored the signs that warned us we were leaving Goblin territory and entering the Sim’o Woods, which was technically human territory, but in reality was a buffer zone between the Empire of Man and Goblin lands.

The bridge itself was obviously goblin-made. It was constructed out of stone bricks and wood, and was clean, well-maintained, and looked new, even though I knew it couldn’t have been. Around halfway across the bridge, I realized that there wasn’t much of a road on the other side. Whereas in goblin territory, there had been a well-marked cobblestone path, clear of clutter, in the Sim’o Woods, there was a small dirt path, obscured by overgrowth and foliage.

“Typical,” Ripper muttered. “No sense of maintenance.”

“This journey might be more…taxing…than I originally thought,” I said.

I stepped off of the bridge and felt grass and dirt crunch under my feet. For just a second, I paused, and Ripper walked right past me. It hit me that I wasn’t in Goblin territory anymore. With this step, I was officially out of my homeland and on foreign soil. I kept waiting for some grand emotion to sweep over me, but it didn’t. So I shrugged and kept going.

—

The Sim’o Woods were dark, darker than I thought woods could be. Rays of light occasionally snuck through the tree cover, but they were far and few between. The forest got so little sunlight that it was noticeably colder than the farmlands around Hauvsadt had been, so cold that I could see my breath in the air. And that was at, approximately, midday. I shivered and wrapped my cloak a bit tighter around me. I was glad I wasn’t here in winter.

When we’d been passing through the farmland, Ripper and I had talked basically the entire way. We’d been friends since before we could talk, so we had plenty to talk about, even if we weren’t talking about anything in particular. But now, our conversation had suddenly run dry. Instead, we walked in silence, our hands on our weapons, listening to the noises of the forest. At every rustle of the leaves or crack of branch, we flinched. Paranoia was setting in.

“Are we going to have to spend the night here?” Ripper asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

I nodded, very slowly. “As long as we follow the path, we should be out by tomorrow.” I looked down at the path, if you could call it that. I was only half sure that we were actually on it and not just a semi-trampled area of overgrowth, but I didn’t let Ripper know that.

—

It was hard to tell when night fell. The forest just went from dim, to dark, to even darker, and when it hit even darker, we decided to set up camp for the night.

Ripper helped me dig out a shallow recess underneath the roots of a tree. We gathered leaves, sticks, and loose foliage to use as camouflage, and within an hour we had a small tent that was large enough for the both of us to sleep in. More importantly, it was hidden from the roving eyes of any potential predators. Even though I was practically blind in the dark, and Ripper was just sort of blind, and we were both freezing, we decided not to light a fire. Instead, we immediately hunkered down in our little shelter, ate dinner, and tried to sleep.

I don’t know how much Ripper slept, but I knew that after what felt like hours, I was still wide awake. Every sound from the forest sent a jolt of fear and adrenaline through my system. A part of me wanted to run, a part of me wanted to fight, and another part of me wanted to stay very, very still. I decided to listen to the last part of me. It seemed like the smartest.

At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up to find the forest only dim, with a couple of rays of sunshine poking through the trees, reaching the forest floor. I shook Ripper awake and we slowly gathered our things before carefully resuming our trek.

Finally, we reached the banks of the C’esar River again. The river looped back on itself, so we hadn’t gone in the wrong direction, at least in theory. We spent the entire day walking along the river’s edge, looking for a way across. Unfortunately, the C’esar was just as wide and just as fast as it had been the first time we’d encountered, so there was no chance of Ripper and I, barely having six and a half feet in height between the two of us, being able to wade through even the remotely shallow parts.

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An hour before sunset, I sat down on the banks of the river and began to cry. Ripper sat down next to me, started to say something, and then started to cry even louder than I was. We bawled our eyes out, sobbing and choking on tears until we heard a branch snap behind us.

Both of us dove for our weapons and spun toward the noise, where we saw a tall human standing with a branch, broken in half, in his hands. He cleared his throat and said, “Miss Thunderhorse and Miss Keystone, I presume?”

Ripper quickly climbed to her feet, wiped the tears from her face, and leveled her spear at the stranger. I did the same and gave him a good once-over.

The human was tall, even for humans. He was nearly twice my height and the fact that he was standing on a bit of an incline didn’t help the imbalance. His skin was lighter than mine, the color of dried river clay, rather than wet river clay. His hair and eyes were dark brown, unnervingly close in hue. He had a short beard that clearly told me he’d been traveling for days. That, or he just didn’t care much about his appearance. His cloak had sticks and leaves stuck on it and there were large bags under his eyes. There was a crossbow slung around his back and a rapier hanging at his hip. I saw the glint of a chain shirt coming from underneath his cloak.

Ripper poked me in my side and I realized I was staring. In my defense, I’d never met a human before, so I think it’s reasonable that I was a bit surprised.

I cleared my throat and said, “Who’s asking?”

The man stared at me for a moment, his deeply tired eyes registering no acknowledgment of what I’d said. Then, he bowed deeply, and announced, “My name is Lionel Hargrave. I am a Knight Mortis of Emperor Malikon the Undying, of the house Lineamortis.”

I didn’t know anything about human politics, so I just nodded along. But Ripper wasn’t so quiet. “How do you speak Goblin?” she asked.

“Many people speak Goblin in the farlands,” he said, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips. “We trade often with the downriver Goblin territories.”

“Hm,” Ripper said, and I could tell she was trying to remember if that was true. Hauvsadt was an upriver city and Ripper didn’t often concern herself with things like politics or trade, so I was almost certain she would have no idea if Lionel had told the truth or not.

I stepped forward and lowered my sword. “Very well, Lionel.” I pushed the tip of Ripper’s spear down until she got the hint and lowered it. “Were we not supposed to meet you in Wolfwood?”

“Yes,” he said, “originally. But the plan changed. I was hoping to catch you along the way and luckily, I did.”

“And just how did you find us?” I asked. I also wanted to ask just how long he’d been watching us cry, but I didn’t.

Another ghost of a smile passed through Lionel’s lips. “You two aren’t exactly the stealthiest goblins I’ve ever met. In all fairness to you though, I’m a tracker by trade. I’m good at what I do.” I couldn’t tell if he was bragging or simply stating a fact, so, knowing what I knew about humans, I defaulted to bragging. I decided I wasn’t too big of a fan of this man.

“Well,” I said, “if the plan has changed, what has it changed to?”

“It’s best if we talk while we go,” Lionel said. “Time is precious and cannot be stolen back once it has been spent.”

“But we can’t even cross the river,” Ripper said. “Do you see how big that thing is? And how not-big we are? We’ll drown!”

I once again stepped in front of Ripper. “My friend here has a point, Sir Knight.”

“Don’t call me Sir Knight,” Lionel said. “Call me Lionel. And I have a way across the river.”

Lionel led us down the river a bit, to a small alcove where there was a wooden raft floating in the water, tied to a tree. There were a couple of makeshift wooden paddles laying on the ground next to it.

“Is that safe?” Ripper asked, pointing at the “boat.”

“It got me here,” Lionel answered, before stepping down onto the raft. Surprisingly, it held his weight and didn’t immediately sink into the water. Ripper was about to say something, but in an instant, Lionel had grabbed Ripper by the waist and spun her onto the raft. She squealed in fear but as soon as she touched the floor of the raft, she went perfectly silent and still. I recognized the look in her eyes, it was fear.

Lionel offered me his hand and I cautiously took it. “I figured Miss Keystone would be more of a problem than you, Miss Thunderhorse,” he said, gesturing over to Ripper, who was hugging the floor of the tiny craft. “Now,” he said, “grab and oar and paddle.”

“Only if you call me Quick and her Ripper,” I said, stepping onto the boat. “Goblins don’t use their family names like you humans do, as I’m sure you know.”

Another slight smile spread across Lionel’s lips, but it was gone even quicker than the previous two. He nodded politely, untied the boat, and gestured for us to row.

We complied.