by Eric Ugland
“Oh?” I asked.
“Yes, by the rear.”
Tarryn stared intently at the rough leather.
“Ah,” he said. “There it is.”
“What are they up to?” I asked.
“It is a tiny thing,” Arno said. “Perhaps a magic item, weapon or some such.”
“An altar?”
“I doubt it would register as magic in that way.”
“Unless it was to the god of magic,” Tarryn said.
“Yes, I did not consider such a case. Whereby, it would—”
“Yeah, got it,” I said, getting the feeling that these two were going to become fast friends and likely never shut up. “I suppose that concludes the investigation portion of the evening. Ready for some elimination?”
I pulled out a large scutum, the basic shield of the legion, and got it affixed to my left arm. Knowing I was likely going up against a lot of lightly armored little foes, I chose a sword for my chief weapon. I needed to be fast and lethal, and I probably wouldn’t have room for a spear.
“What is it you would have us do?” Arno asked, still intent on the goblins.
“Clean up and back up,” I said, giving my shoulders a roll and bouncing a little on my toes. “If you see that it’s a trap, make sure I can get out. And, you know, potshots.”
Arno shrugged, but nodded. “Understood, your grace.”
“Okay,” I said, “let’s play.”
26
There were lots of ways I could have attacked the camp. I could have been sneaky, going around and killing the goblins in silence. I could have used a bow and slaughtered from afar. But since I knew this was as much a psychological game as it was physical, giving the goblins another reason to fear me was a big part of our potential victory. I needed the goblins to be more afraid of me than their own evil overlords.
So I went in guns blazing.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
I sprinted through the snow, jumped up to a low branch, and launched myself into the air. A few goblins looked up, confused about the giant in metal armor soaring by.
I skidded to a stop, kicking the remains of a goblin off my sabaton. I twirled the sword once, and then dropped into stabby-stabby mode.
Goblin to the left? Stabby. Goblin to the right? Stabby.
Arrows came rocking toward me from every direction, little stone tipped things that plinked off my armor and did little aside from making an annoying noise.
I slammed my shield out now and then, driving the goblins back on their heels.
Some goblins just ran for it, screaming. Maybe that was my goblin slayer indicium at work. As more goblins ran, more goblins noticed the running and then ran themselves. It wasn’t long before it was just goblins running from me. A rout.
I had exactly one second to breathe, and I used it to look over my shoulder at Arno and Tarryn. They flashed me the thumbs up, and then everything changed.
The vast tent fell apart to reveal a waiting ambush.
Larger goblins, dudes with actual armor and actual weapons, roared at me and charged.
I got my shield sideways, giving me as much horizontal blocking area as I could, and ducked behind it before the goblins slammed against me.
There was a moment where they were actually pushing me across the ground before my feet got purchase. Then I stopped their charge.
Any time the goblins tried to peek around my shield, on either side, I counterattacked with my sword, stabbing out with quick thrusts over and over, getting the goblins off of me.
“It’s an ambush!” Tarryn yelled.
“Yeah, aware of that!” I called back.
I gave my shield a hearty shove forward, pushing the goblins off to get a little room.
Spears bristled in my face as goblins brought their weapons to bear. But while spears were useful in this situation, they were too long for the goblins to use to get around my shield when we were up close.
I stepped back, leaning out of their range, and took a second to figure out what the fuck was happening.
The large tent had hidden a bowl-shaped hole and about thirty heavily armed goblins.
I’d managed to get about six down, and now the other twenty-four were spreading out across the clearing. They weren’t necessarily afraid of me, but they knew I was better armed and armored than they were, so they wanted to flank me. And they had the numbers to do it.
For the most part, they wore heavy chain as armor, and had eight-foot long spears with nasty curling spearheads. They’d do real damage going in, but even more coming out. I had to hope my armor would hold, because I was definitely going to get stuck a few times.
A feint forward caused the middle of their line to bulge back.
I eyed the goblins as they glared at me.
They were ugly fuckers. At least to me. I’m sure that the goblin ladies, and probably the gents too, weren’t at all into my looks. These ones were between three and four feet tall, and some had on conical helmets that gave them an extra few inches. They had small red eyes and sharp teeth, and almost all of them had piercings in their ears with multiple heavy rings. Their fingers ended in pointy nails. Most of them had scars crisscrossing their bodies, I assumed from a lifetime of fighting.
I risked a glance to the left and then to the right, seeing how my flankers were getting on.
The ones on the right were moving slower than the left, maybe thinking the shield would give them better cover for an approach.
In a smooth motion, I threw my sword to the left. The blade flashed in the camp’s firelight before finding its mark and thunking home in a goblin’s face.
The goblin’s eyes crossed as it looked at the blade for a heartbeat before realizing it was dead and slowly falling back to the snow.
A cry rose up from the goblin in the middle, and there was a sudden rush because they all thought I was weaponless.
Naturally, I didn’t feel the need to watch the goblin die, and while its fellows did, I’d pulled another sword from my bag, and had it ready to receive guests.
The first goblin got two inches of steel in his belly. Just enough to drop the thing, but not so much that I couldn’t reset for another enemy.
It was a harder fight this time, balancing keeping up a defense across over 180 degrees of action. My sword was a blur, and my shield shifted constantly to keep the scrapes across my armor to a minimum. And all the while, I was having to retreat toward the trees to keep from being overwhelmed.
Seconds passed like hours, but finally the goblins relented, realizing that their spears were just glancing off my armor. They had yet to find the weak points and were paying heavily in blood. Another eight were down, though not necessarily out. The goblins put a few yards between us, and, notably, left their wounded where they lie.
I gave the sword a quick twirl to get rid of the bits of blood and viscera on it, noticing that it was heavily chipped from the short fight. The goblins seemed to have gotten better armor since our last fight.
Fast as I could, I launched the sword to the right. The blade hit home perfectly, right through a goblin.
This time, though, there was no immediate attack as they knew I’d have another weapon ready to go.
And I did: another sword.
They moved uneasily, wondering if I was going to use the sword as a dart again.
But there was something keeping them there. They wanted to leave, I could see that in their beady red eyes. Looking from left to right, desperate to find that opening to flee, but not going through with it.
The goblin in the center, someone I’d ignored because it seemed to keep behind its fellows, whistled sharply twice. Then all the goblins dropped to the ground.
A creature that seemed like a mouth mounted on two stubby legs launched itself out of a hole, landing in the snow and bouncing around, eyes wide, gigantic mouth bared to show massive, shiny teeth. It bounced right, then left, obviously looking for something.
Then it saw me.
I
t made a strange mewling sound, something between a whine and a roar.
A sound that echoed in the hole that had been covered by the large central tent. A hole I’d assumed was empty.
It was not empty.
More of the same creatures launched themselves out of the hole. They charged me while slobber ran out of their massive mouths. Their tiny legs pumped in the snow, dragging their bellies and stubby tails, leaving a groove wherever they went.
The first creature snapped at the shield, and its long teeth went all the way through like it was nothing. The only plus side was that it didn’t seem to be able to pull its teeth out. But plenty more of the beasts were coming at me.
I sliced out quickly, bisecting some of the first to arrive while I backpedaled.
The stupid things were everywhere, and while the sword seemed to do a stellar job cutting their bodies to shreds, they had something inside that my steel blade would clang off of, sending some swings in odd directions. I stomped on one, then kicked it off my foot toward the goblins.
The corpse bounced off a goblin head, and the little fucker made a squeak. The squeak got the attention of the little mouth creatures, and suddenly there wasn’t just one target to attack. There were plenty.
It didn’t seem like the little mouth creatures had any love for the goblins. Or, conversely, perhaps they had too much love, because they were more than happy to tear into the goblins.
With more space, I had a half-second to look over the things emerging from the tent and coming my way. About the size of basketballs, with a stout tail and two stubby legs. Mostly they were just teeth and a mouth. As well as being fearless and daft.
I glanced at my notifications to get a name.
GG! You’ve killed a Lesser Swarm Florg (lvl 4 goblinoid monstrosity).
You’ve earned 185 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
They were swarming over the goblins now. I found it more than a little strange that the goblins would release creatures so likely to attack themselves.
I was basically being left alone. Every now and again, one of the florgs would attack me, but one-on-one, it was easy to just cut it down. They really needed to work together as a team. Looking at the goblins, I could see how effective they were as a swarm. I glanced over my shoulder, trying to find Arno and Tarryn, see what they were doing or what they were thinking.
Pain exploded in my leg. One of the little beasties bit me in the thigh right when I wasn’t looking. I grabbed it, ripped it free from my leg, and threw it back into the hole from whence it came.
Then I waded into the goblin-florg fracas, swinging my sword and stomping with my heavy metal sabatons. I killed indiscriminately, as they were all my enemies.
Between the florgs and myself, we killed all the remaining goblins. I’d almost thought about breaking a sweat, but the florgs had paid the price. They no longer had the numbers needed for a swarm, and now they almost seemed docile. Or confused. They moved around, a bit skittish, looking for another lesser swarm florg to glom on to. But after a single gulp of air, I kept up the pressure, killing all the florgs I could until I was the only thing still moving in the camp.
I’d been bitten six separate times by florgs. Four dead florgs were still hanging off of me. Blood spurted from the teeth holes with my every step, and I could feel my feet practically swimming in my metal boots. I didn’t want to think what might happen on the walk home, if my blood was going to freeze around my feet.
“Balls,” I mumbled, looking at how ruined I was. With the teeth sticking inside me, and me unable to get a grip on the teeth to pull them out, I wasn’t healing. Pain throbbed out of each puncture, washing over me in waves, and there was nothing I could do but grit my teeth.
I picked up a few of the florgs and tossed them into my bag. I figured it might be something worth examining once we got back to base.
“Might be over,” I said. Which, you know, was the cue for it to not be over at all.
27
While Tarryn tried to pull a tooth out, I heard a strange sound coming from the sky. Like a wet fluttering noise. Like someone threw a Jell-O mold off the Renaissance Center and—
“Slimes!” I shouted.
I got my shield up just as the first slime hit.
The mass of red jiggling nastiness slammed into my shield with an incredible amount of force, enough that I felt it all the way across my back. The slime practically exploded on impact, causing an acidic red mist to spread around us.
Anything organic started sizzling. Thin, putrid tendrils of smoke rose from the ground.
Tarryn wretched.
“What is happening?” Arno cried from his hiding spot in the trees.
The next slime hit right when my brain was trying to process an answer, another massive onslaught of weight on my shield. Either I was in the exact wrong place, or they’d managed to figure out long-distance aiming. I had a bad feeling about things. As before, the slime exploded on impact, sending another acidic mist around Tarryn and me.
I started moving, keeping my improvised slime umbrella in place and shepherding Tarryn along a few steps until we both realized, at the same time, that his boots were being eaten by the acid. Leather soles.
Under the sabatons, my shoes were leather too, which meant they were about to be smoking and thinning as well.
I picked up Tarryn and sprinted to the trees.
Another slime landed right where I’d been, smashing to the ground.
I lowered the shield.
“These are not your typical goblins,” Arno said, looking out at the carnage in the camp. The slime acid was busy eating through the dead goblins and florgs, doing a pretty bang-up job cleaning up the camp.
I had my shield ready and my eyes skyward.
Was another slime going to come?
“Should we go find the slime launcher?” Tarryn asked quietly.
I waited longer.
Another slime flubbered through the air before smashing to the ground in the middle of the camp. It exploded on impact, as had the others.
“Was it an ambush for me?” I asked.
“Probably,” Tarryn replied.
“Not effective,” I said.
“Unless they’re testing their launcher,” Arno said, as we watched the fifth slime come down. A sixth and seventh followed. There was a five-minute delay before seven more slimes came down in quick succession. The slimes were mostly red, but there were also two blue, one yellow, and one green. The ones I could track in the air were roughly the same size, about five feet around. Thickness was impossible to judge, though, because they moved so much in the air.
As more slimes landed, the exploded pieces of slime seemed to find each other and merge into new slimes. Smaller, sure, but slimes all the same. They moved around the clearing, doing their own version of hunting.
A slime slammed into the trees above us, and I got my shield up in time to block the spray of slime bits.
“I think we need to move,” I said.
“Should we burn those?” Tarryn asked.
“Just you,” I said. “Better to keep our other warmancer a secret for the moment.”
Tarryn nodded. He unleashed bursts of fire from his hands, walking forward and moving from left to right and back, scorching the earth and all the slimes.
I kept my shield overhead while Arno hurried away toward a waving Amber.
No more slimes came. Either the goblins ran out of ammunition, or they decided that once the fire was going, their slimes weren’t worth wasting.
“These are weird goblins,” Tarryn said, his face a little paler after using so much magic.
“Everything is here,” I replied.
28
We moved quickly on our return. I wouldn’t say we were careless, but we cared less about noise and more about speed. I wanted to get back behind the walls, and preferably under something stone or steel. I didn’t relish the idea of being eaten alive by slimes. That was probably the least pleasant way I’d died, and one time was
enough, thankyouverymuch.
Half an hour into our return trip, wolves began howling. Or, you know, something wolflike.
“Come on,” I said, exasperated. I grabbed a big axe from my bag and turned to face the source of the noise. “Behind me.”
Wolves with goblins on their backs streamed through the woods from the north.
I slammed the axe into a tree.
Again and again, and then finally I gave the tree a hearty push.
An immense crack sounded from the base of the trunk, and the tree began to fall.
While the first tree fell, I was already on to cutting a second so it would fall at a ninety-degree angle to the first.
Tree two started falling as tree one crashed into the forest floor, hard enough to make the ground rumble.
I got trees three and four down, also at ninety-degree angles, taking away all but one lane of access to my little party. Sure, the wolf-riders could go all the way around, but we could defend two spots a whole lot easier than every direction at once.
“Up,” I said. When I turned around I realized Amber was already in a tree, standing on a spike jutting out from the trunk about twenty feet in the air. She had a small rope around her waist, keeping her on the spike and the tree.
Bow out, she loosed an arrow that sped right over my head and popped a goblin straight in the eye.
Skeld and Ragnar already had their shields and spears out, one standing on either side of me.
The wizards were moving towards the rear, each with their hands out, ready to sling spells.
“You got a plan here, boss?” Ragnar asked.
“Kill?” I replied, watching as the wolf-riders bore down on us, coming together in our little funnel.
“Always the easy way with you,” Ragnar said.
“Feed me,” I said to the little lutra, tossing him the bag.
“Food—?” Arno began to ask.
Skeld moved to take up more of the front, while Ragnar dropped his shield and started pulling spears out of the bag.
