Alice did not understand what Tarra was telling her, could not comprehend that one of the two was going to have to die. She looked at her dumbfounded as if all the death around her was happening to someone else, and that now for the first time, it finally touched her and she had to deal with it.

Nearby, Trim was killing a goblin who tried to climb a tree by piercing his back with his sword. But as he was doing that, another goblin cut him from behind and sent him lurching forward, yelping in pain.

Alice heard the horror shriek of his wife who was up in the tree, her longbow empty of arrows as all of them were used. But Elma did not watch helplessly from above, as the next second, she jumped on the goblin who was ready to slice at Trim again with a long dagger in her hand that she buried inside the goblin’s neck.

The most of the fighting was still happening around the turtle of shields that soldiers and village fighters had formed. But their tight formation was slowly faltering.

There were just too many goblins coming at them with too many spears and crude swords, ready to die as if that was their favorite thing in a whole wide world.

“Don’t you worry if you die!” one of the tall ones screamed at them from behind. Probably their leader. “The Master will resurrect you anyway! And reward you handsomely afterward! So, fight and die! And worry not!”

Scarface decided to shut his filthy mouth permanently. So he picked one of the spears that were stuck inside a nearby dead goblin, got it loose, and threw it at the tall goblin, impaling him through his chest, dropping him down, and leaving him dead, and outside the border of the dungeon, leaving him to stay dead. Nevertheless, big goblin’s lies, intentional or not, lived on, and goblins just threw themselves at the soldiers, with the river of their blood melting the snow, making a bloody mash of it all, a swamp of dead.

Alice caught all of that in the corner of her eye, in a single breath she forgot to exhale.

Something ran down her cheeks. Maybe it was droplets of sweat, or blood, or tears. Maybe it was all three.

As she stared at both El and the Prince, their eyes closed, their hands grabbing the wounds from which the blood was not stopping from springing out together with the little bit of life they still had left in them.

Tarra threw her a quick glance, her hands full of holding their wounds.

“Save El, of course. Have to save him,” she finally muttered, her mouth still gaped wide open, her voice so quiet that it almost did not reach her own ears.

Tarra sighed and moved her hand from the Prince’s chest and put both her hands on El, closing her eyes, and making El’s body suddenly quiver.

One goblin came out of the woods and was ready to put a long dagger inside Alice’s throat, but Scarface was there to chop his hand off. That made Alice finally take her eyes off El’s and Prince’s body and look at a dozen of goblins that were running toward them.

Too many even for Scarface.

As he was engaging three at a time, moving against them, throwing one against another, two more goblins ran past him and charged at Alice.

Suddenly, the axe she was holding became too heavy to lift up and she watched in horror as one of them raised an axe of his own to hit her in the head. Time continued to flow in slow motion as she watched it all helplessly, thinking of an irony that she, who had killed so many of the goblins with an axe, should die by the same weapon.

But before he could bring the axe down on top of her head, a spear pierced him and pushed him back into the body of the other goblin.

Alice tilted her head thinking to find Tarra there, but it was a goblin who still held a spear.

Then, the same goblin jumped to wrestle the axe out of the goblin's dead hand and used that axe to chop the leg of the one who fell down and was getting up to attack Alice again.

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Now I've seen it all, a goblin killing a goblin, she thought as she squinted her eye to see that it was Noseless who defended her. How he got free of the rope that she used to tie him to a tree not too far away was a mystery she could not solve.

“You saved my life. Now I save yours,” he told her as he got up and lifted the axe to stand and fight next to her.

But it did not matter what Noseless and Scarface did. There were just too damn many of the goblins coming at them, and Alice knew the battle was lost.

And then, it went dark as the daylight suddenly became a twilight.

Alice thought at first that it must have been a work of Magic and Mana and that somehow El came about. But he was still out and Tarra was still frantically towering above him, her hands still pressed against him.

So, she looked up and saw something that she did not expect to see in millions of years. Not the first or the last surprise of that day.

The sun was completely blocked by flocks of humongous dark birds flying up.

There must have been hundreds of them. And suddenly, they dived down, their high-pitched screams suddenly piercing the air, making everyone who still did not look up to do so.

They dived right into goblins, picking them up, their claws tearing their limbs and heads off.

Some had beaks big enough to grab the whole of goblin’s head in, and they easily lifted them up in the air, severing their heads and letting their headless torsos fall down.

Instantly, goblins all but forgot about fighting. Those who were not frozen with the site of their comrades being devasted by the huge birds tried to run, some even hugged the ground and crawled, trying to move toward the cover of the trees. But to no veil.

The birds just kept diving and picking them out.

As she had a chance to examine them closer, Alice realized they were actually of different sizes and kinds. The largest were the voulchers with wings that spanned meters in width. But then some had eagle heads while others had long tails like hawks. But they were all unnaturally big, pre-historic, raptors.

Suddenly, one particularly large one dropped down close to Alice, landing on the shrieking goblin, its wings so large and fierce that it knocked a few other goblins that tried to run away.

Alice instinctively moved a step back, an axe in her hand, not knowing how to defend herself against such a creature if it were to attack her.

To her even bigger surprise, a little white fur ball that she could swear looked a lot like a cross between a teddy bear, Star Wars' Ewok, and a monkey jumped out from the bird’s neck. And walked toward her.

“Hi, Oollie,” Tarra suddenly spoke in a relaxed tone behind Alice. “What brings you this way?”

“Well, the Master said to come and check on you,” a little creature said in a relaxed tone as he smiled at Tarra.

Tarra took time to slowly get up. “You have any healing potion on you?” she asked. “I’m trying to heal this guy, but it’s not working.”

“Only a bit. Did not expect trouble,” Oollie said and suddenly threw a little bottle toward Tarra.

Tarra opened it up swiftly and let a creamy liquid sip inside El’s throat.

As Tarra waited to see how El was to react, the little guy called Oollie walked a few steps toward her. “Yeah, he was worried we would not find you. Then, when he realized you were fighting a dungeon, he sent his whole flock here after you.”

“Yeah? Well, you found the best moment to find me,” Tarra said, getting up from the ground, happy to see El suddenly breathing better, his wounds not bleeding any longer.

Not getting an answer, Tarra walked to Ooolie and gave him an inquisitive look. “So, he is not upset with me no more?”

“I would not go that far,” Oollie answered.

Tarra nodded her head. “Maybe if I give him a nice gift, that would soften his heart.”

“Maybe,” Oollie said as he shrugged his shoulders. “But I would not bet on it.”

“Well,” Tarra said, looking at how the birds were still coming down and finishing off the remaining goblins. “At least, I’m glad he hates goblins more than he hates me.”

“Yeah, again, I would not say that either,” Oollie said, still smiling. “He’s still very pissed. So pissed he wants us to take you to him.”

Tarra frowned. “That pissed?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s already been like… two months.”

“Yeah. I think it will take way longer for him to start and feel different. Yeah, he has not been a happy camper as of late, let me tell you. Makes all of us very nervous, you know.”

“Well, I’ll be glad to go, but my job here is not finished yet.”

Oollie looked around, not understanding what she was referring to.

“What are you talking about? This dungeon has been defeated. I think it threw everything it had at you, even its underwear, and you still survived.”

“Thanks to you,” Tarra added swiftly.

“Thanks to the Master,” Oollie corrected her.

“Yeah, that is true. And I have a proper way to thank him, don’t you worry, a little fella,” she said and padded him on the head.

Alice came to Tarra and pulled her by her sleeve, asking her in a whispering tone, “Where did all these birds come from and who is he?”

“A long story,” Tarra answered her shortly. But Alice could tell that Tarra felt suddenly different.

Her eyes gleamed brighter, her face looked as if she was a teenager, and there was a new vibe inside her voice when she turned around to lock eyes with Alice and said, “Not everything is lost. But, we need to get into that dungeon. Maybe there is still a way to save the Prince.”