Darius sat in the great hall, alone.

The throng were coming, he knew, to argue and to debate their course of action. He felt a knot in his stomach. The same he always felt on the eve of battle, the nerves of whether he would fight well or whether he would die. But this time, he realised, the feeling was about the impending Althing and not the battle at all.

During an Althing, all men and women of the village and its surrounding homesteads and hamlets would gather in the Thingstead to discuss and debate whatever plight was ailing them. All were permitted to speak and share, and there would be no repercussions to those that did.

Darius had lived a long life and seen many things, and his bones creaked and his muscles ached. Another realisation dawned on him; this next battle would be his last, regardless of the outcome. But the outcome was inevitable. The forward scout had reported a thousand goblins. The Althing was pointless, because they had two options - to fight and die, or to run and die.

But Darius couldn’t share these doomed thoughts at the Althing.

Duty, servitude, loyalty. They were all important to Darius. But Darius had something far more important - a debt. Two debts. He was the son of a travelling merchant, back when merchants travelled. One day, as a boy, their group had been ambushed and waylaid by a goblin war party that had left him for dead. He had been found by some men from the nearby mountain village who had brought him back there and nursed him back to health.

So he began to call the village home. And he held two great debts - a debt of gratitude, to the village, for taking him in and saving him. And a debt of blood to the goblin infestation of the land. Most would argue he had paid both, time and time again, in the mines and on the battlefield, but still he served.

The snows would fall. The crops would grow. The sun would grow hot. The leaves would drop. And the snows would fall again and the cycle would repeat. But to Darius, there were only two seasons; there was mining season, and there was goblin hunting season.

He had known it was his last mining season. His arms were getting too sore and tired to swing the pick. He thought he would still get one more hunting season in before he would become too weak to battle, but even that looked like it was to be ripped away from him. Now they were the hunted, in their little mining village with a great army approaching them. It must’ve been how the pesky goblins in their caves and warrens, that Darius exterminated, had felt.

The door swung open. The fire crackled beside Darius in resistance to the cold wind that entered, and Darius raised his head. It was the first of the townsfolk coming to the Althing. Three men and three women entered and nodded and mumbled their greetings to him.

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He recognised them as farmers from a hamlet a great distance away, and wondered if their homes still stood or they had been destroyed already by the goblin host as they travelled.

He swallowed his fears and doubts and rose to his feet to greet the newcomers and welcome them to the village.

—

Dozens of people entered; men, women, children. All weary from the road, all with wide eyes full of fear. Darius swallowed nervously. He would have to speak to the crowd, settle their nerves… but his own were so on edge, he doubted he could muster the words.

He couldn’t think of a course of action and, despite the numbers that had travelled to the Althing, he could not raise a militia that could defend the village against anywhere near the numbers the scouts had reported.

He knew they were safe for a time, behind their walls. The mountains to their back were rich with iron and silver that had brought prosperity to the village for decades, and they had been targeted time and time again for these resources.

Every time they were attacked, they would rebuild the walls a little stronger. And now, they stood as tall as two men, wrought with iron, timber and stone. They were strong enough now to withstand any regular assault - but this invasion was anything but regular.

This time they would fall, Darius knew. Eventually, they had to.

Darius swallowed again as Alaric, one of his old companions, moved to address the gathering.

Darius’ heart thumped in his chest, to the point where he was sure the crowd would see his breastplate shaking. Although he knew there would be no fighting today, he had dressed for battle this morning.

Darius was sick with nerves, but Alaric looked like he might actually throw up, he seemed so nervous. Darius wondered why the man would be so shaken - like Darius, Alaric was a veteran of the Goblin Wars and he was generally well liked by most of the people of the village and surrounds. Darius pondered. Alaric had been involved in some nasty business some years back that Darius knew many still begrudged him, but most had forgotten.

‘Friends, brothers, sisters,’ Alaric began shakily. ‘The Horde comes for us all. They think us weak. They think us doomed. For decades we have fought, and decades we have held strong against their increasing threats.’

Alaric’s hands were still shaking uncontrollably, but he had steeled his voice and, if Darius did not know him as well as he did, he wouldn’t have even suspected his discomfort.

‘Ten years ago, we exterminated them all but completely, and we still pay the price of this victory. The hells below know what evil work is at hand that they have regained so much strength so quickly.

‘But do not fear, my friends! They cannot overrun us! They do not know what we possess - a secret weapon for a decisive victory. We can save the village.

‘All we need… is to bring back the Mother.’