by Jeff Inlo
Chapter 6
Joel Portsmith found little comfort in escaping the rock beetle. After deciding to return to his home, the ever changing circumstances of the goblin attack continued to affect his movements. He stayed near building walls and behind as much cover as available, but never ventured fully inside a structure beyond a porch or an open stable area. As long as he remained moving on the streets, he kept his ultimate destination in mind. He feared the moment he entered a building that might seem to offer security, he would lose this focus. Confusion ruled Pinesway, and screams of torment continued to echo through the cluttered alleys. He knew there was no true safe place to hide, and he had no intention of lulling himself into a false sense of security by muffling the encroaching sounds of doom with four walls, a locked door, and a dark corner.
He encountered quite a few others in his path, many more people in fact than he ever expected. With each block he crossed, he witnessed one or two fleeing in senseless, helpless, panic. Others remained hidden behind carts or under porches, and almost all wore a glassy-eyed, dumbfounded expression. These thieves and hooligans were no longer the predators of unsuspecting wanderers that ventured unwittingly into their hands. Instead, creatures of a nightmare now hunted them, and their minds were ill-equipped to deal with such irony. Many did not wish to speak to him, those that did often made little sense. A mix of fear, anger, horror, and confusion slurred their words as well as their meaning. When he was able to obtain viable information from a few of the less bewildered, he cursed at the news.
“They’re herding us here like cattle,” he grumbled to himself. “They’ve got us surrounded and now they’re heading inward. No wonder everyone is running in every direction. Running east is as bad as heading west, same thing in every direction, bad news. I don’t think there’s any way out of here. Ok, doesn’t matter. I’m not looking to leave. I just have to get home, have to keep moving as long as possible in that direction. I wonder how far I can get.”
He avoided contemplating this question again for as long as he could. Eventually, however, he was forced to a stop. His careful movements brought him a fair distance away from the town’s center square and about six blocks from his home. Unfortunately, at this point he encountered a segment of the goblins’ forward line. To make matters worse, this particular group of monsters showed no sign of advancing. They stood in a loose formation with clear lines of sight in several directions. They cut off every path he could see that offered a way to his planned destination.
Joel crouched low and avoided attention, but it was not something he could do forever. “I could double back, but that’s not going to get me where I want to go. Ok, not the situation I had in mind, but this ain’t a festival parade, either. Face facts, it was going to come down to a fight eventually. Might as well start it here, just don’t want to end it here.”
Joel took a long look down the street towards a group of goblins that staked out a crossroad in front of him. They crouched low and their small stature made them difficult targets, but they seemed to show no care toward finding cover. For the most part they stood out in the open, as if they held no fear of attack, or perhaps it was just their way of being seen so that any panicked human wouldn’t dare try to pass them.
Joel remained hidden from their sight as he contemplated the situation. “I got a clear shot at a few of them right now. If I fire from here, though, they’re going to see me.” He paused to look back over his shoulder. “And no real good escape from here, either. Once I take my shots, I’m gonna have to move, but I gotta move smart. Not going to get trapped here.”
Joel remained careful to stay out of sight and always remained mindful of the sounds of the hook hawk that remained in the distance. The thought of the rock beetle gave him a cold shudder, but there wasn’t much he could do about that nightmare. If it was under his feetat that very moment, he’d never know it.
Instead, he focused on his main objective and toward that end he needed two things—a covered spot to take out a few goblins with his crossbow, and then a safe path of retreat. That path had to allow him a route away from the goblins and not to a dead end. He wanted his withdrawal to take him a safe distance away, but also allow him to turn back in a direction toward his home.
Scanning the row of buildings, he found a secure spot to shoot fairly quickly. An emptied and ransacked merchant store had two broken windows facing the goblin line. It also fronted an equally empty warehouse that included a broken delivery door that opened to a back alley. Calculating the distance from the storefront to the goblin position, he believed he could hit his targets. The cover of the store would allow him to take at least two or three clean shots from the windows, maybe even four. With the windows already broken he wouldn’t make much noise.
Still standing in one spot, the goblins didn’t look too concerned with facing an attack at this particular moment, so he believed he could catch them off guard. Once he fired, he hoped that before they could get a clear lock on his position he could move back through the storefront, into the warehouse, and then out into the alley.
The alley ran parallel to a street he needed to cross to get back home, so he could follow this path for as long as necessary. If the goblins called for reinforcements, they would have to close in tight, and that would open some holes in their line. He just needed to create enough havoc to distract the goblins enough for him to get through.
He took his position in the store and stared down through his line of fire. He wouldn’t get a better chance than this. “It’s getting darker,” he whispered to himself. “Shadows are getting longer, must be near sunset. Don’t want to do this in the dark, that’s their advantage, not mine. Ok, best do it now and get it over with.”
He carefully slid the crossbow down from over his shoulder and took hold of the stock. His hand trembled slightly at first, but with a quick breath, he steadied himself. He loaded the first bolt, and decided not to take any more time to think. His decision was made and it was time to fire.
The first bolt found its mark in the neck of an unsuspecting goblin. The creature spun around twice upon being hit before crumpling to the ground. The other goblins jumped at first and Joel thought they might scatter. Something, however, seemed to grip them in place as they stood frozen in dumbfounded awe of the sight. They looked back and forth from the downed monster to the streets as if trying to determine from where the attack came. The spiraled movement of the victim’s fall, however, left them looking in the wrong direction.
Joel allowed himself a short nod to his luck as he loaded another bolt. He took aim, but this time his fortune did not smile with the same benevolence. The bolt flew straight and true, but it smashed against the thick metal chest guard of another unmoving goblin. The creature was stunned as it was knocked off its feet, but the bolt did not penetrate the armor and the goblin was unhurt. It appeared to peer right at the window from where the bolt came.
Joel ducked low, mumbled a curse as he loaded a third bolt and moved over to the second window. When he raised his head slightly to get a look at the situation, the curses faded.
The goblins remained unmoving and in the open, almost as if standing in a dazed stupor. They looked in all directions and none made a move toward his position. He decided to gamble at this point. He fired the crossbow once more and quickly reloaded, fired again, reloaded and fired a third time. He ducked down and moved back to the first window, popped his head up, and took another long look while he loaded yet another bolt. He could see that luck swung back to his favor. All three bolts found a victim and now there were four goblins on the ground already dead, or mortally wounded. The remaining goblins lost their stoic nature and now moved in pure panic. They hissed and growled as they dove for cover or ran in every direction. They appeared to care very little for determining the source of fire, and thus Joel did not make an immediate attempt to leave the store.