by Jeff Inlo
#
“He is removing them from my control! The sword is enchanted. It’s burning fear into anything it touches, so much fear that I can’t overcome it. He is also moving so fast that before long he will have sent every goblin I command scrambling into the woods.”
Suddenly, the serp gained yet another perspective that served to increase his disdain for the situation. The rock beetle sensed a new commotion, but this disturbance did not come from the town, it came from the trees, from the areas where his minions now retreated.
Sazar seized upon the last fragments of trace images he could obtain from these goblins that surfaced through their panic. He viewed their last visions with increasing alarm. Several fell into an ambush, slaughtered quickly and efficiently.
“Human soldiers waiting in the woods to attack! They are efficient in weapons. Burbon guards!”
Sazar pounded the walls in growing frustration as he now knew that a contingent of Sy’s men had reached a position at Pinesway’s edge. They simply waited patiently for the fleeing goblins to fall into their range. It took little effort for them to dispatch all that came into their path.
“That means the delver did not come alone,” Sazar bellowed. The rage of frustration, however, soon turned to distress. “These are soldiers of Burbon. If they have come, then perhaps the wizard…”
Concern over the possible appearance of Enin caused the serp to break off in mid-sentence. He blurted out his own realization, and the importance that it must not come to pass.
“I will not be trapped here.”
He sent out an order to his most prized minions. He ordered the rock beetle to burrow underground and tunnel into the forest, and he commanded the hook hawk to immediately take flight high into the night sky. The one shag still engaged in the battle he ordered to escort as many goblins as possible to exit the town through the eastern gate. The large shag was already on its way back to Sazar’s side, thus the serp simply encouraged the monster to move faster. To most of the goblins that still remained under his control, he stopped pressing them forward and instead hastened them to make for the trees in the quickest way possible. He hoped the scattering of the goblins throughout the forest in different directions would make it more difficult for Sy’s guard to eliminate large numbers of them. Sazar sent a final command to twenty goblins that had not yet been fallen upon by the delver. They remained to the southeastern outskirts of town.
“Move quickly to the square at the town center. You will find groups of humans banded together. Open fire upon them. If you see one moving at great speed holding a shining object, avoid it at all costs. Keep your distance, but continue to fire with your crossbows at any humans you see. Continue this until I call for you.”
Sazar, in fact, had no intention of calling for these goblins. He was sacrificing them so he could make his own escape.