by Pirateaba
If she ever got home, Erin would never complain about an airplane again. That was what she decided.
“Anyone want dinner?”
“It’s cold.”
Pisces grumbled as he lay sprawled out on the wagon. Ceria, sitting next to his foot, shifted it aside irritably.
“I could warm it up with magic. So could you.”
“I would much rather have stayed the night in the inn in the city. If we had left the next day—”
“If we had, we’d be that much behind. I want to get moving while the roads are clear.”
Ceria pointed that out acerbically. But from the way she glanced back at Celum, still visible in the distance, Erin knew she felt the same.
“After all my hard work with the door, I am resigned to this. A cold meal on wagon back. Truly, gratitude is a foreign concept among even the staunchest of comrades.”
Pisces sat up, grumbling. Erin wanted to grumble back at him, but she was grateful for the door, really. He really was a genius, just like Ceria sometimes said. So she’d let him grumble a bit more.
“What are you going to do with the door, Erin?”
Yvlon asked that, wrapped up in her coat. Erin had to think.
“I’ll probably put the door somewhere in the city! It’ll be so cool! I can pop in and visit Selys all the time, and I’ll get so many visitors since it’ll be easy to get to my inn!”
“Not to mention it’ll be safer since you can get away if there’s a monster attack.”
The woman nodded approvingly. Pisces just sniffed.
“What a waste.”
“What would you do with it, then?”
“Certainly not use it to for a simple walk of a few minutes. Why, with a door so useful I’d link it to a safe space—perhaps far underground. Or perhaps as a trap to deter unwelcome visitors. I could fix it so that at your command anyone unsavory was transported deep underground—”
“You can send people that far?”
Erin was surprised. All the Horns of Hammerad nodded, looking grim. Ceria kicked the door and cursed as she winced in pain.
“The door teleported us to a pit trap when we first found it. And like Pisces said, it recovers magic. So it won’t run out. It’s a great tool for you, Erin. I’m glad we can give it to you.”
Erin nodded, but her heart had suddenly jolted in her chest. She took a breath, trying to contain the excitement trying to explode out of her body in case she was wrong.
“Well, if this door is so powerful, it can probably teleport people a long way away, right?”
“Any [Teleport] spell can do that.”
Pisces murmured as he tried to get himself comfortable in his spot in the wagon. He pointed at Erin.
“You were there when that objectionable Gazi teleported away, were you not? Her spell took her far away. Across the ocean, I’ll wager. Thousands of miles. True, that was with a customized spell for long-distance, but a normal [Teleportation] spell can still cover many miles, albeit at increased mana cost.”
“So this door—”
“—Is clearly a relic of a past pinnacle of magical achievement. Indeed, that entire room—the private hidden store room of a powerful mage—was filled with wonders. Putting aside the mediocre traps preceding the door, the pit trap was truly a death sentence even for a Named Adventurer. If all the [Insanity] runes had been active, I cannot imagine any Skill or spell short of…Tier 7 that would have saved you from an untimely end.”
“Wow.”
Erin shivered a bit, realizing how dangerous it had been. But she pressed forwards anyways.
“So this door is incredible because it can teleport people really far. And it recovers magic. So…”
“So what?”
Ceria looked at Erin blankly. The girl paused, and then pointed to the stone in Ksmvr’s hand.
“Why didn’t we just leave that in Celum? If we made another door or something, couldn’t we travel back and forth to the wagon? And once it gets to Liscor, I mean, I don’t know if it’s too far, but could I use it as a door to…”
Her voice trailed off. Everyone on the wagon—including the wagon driver—was staring at Erin with an open mouth. Pisces closed his.
“Remarkable. And of course it would work. The charge might not last for more than one or two mass teleportations per day but if you found a way to recover mana—”
“Ksmvr!”
Ksmvr shot to his feet.
“I will go to the city.”
“Hold on! Let me tune the stone. I had it so you would teleport with it. But clearly we need to…hm…”
Pisces and Ceria clustered around the stone, arguing with each other as Yvlon, Ksmvr, and Erin watched with baited breath. In a few moments Ksmvr was jumping off the wagon and running quite quickly back towards the city in the distance.
The other settled back in the wagon to wait. They didn’t speak much—just watched Ksmvr’s shape slowly disappear. The minutes felt like hours, and after an interminable number of them had passed, Yvlon coughed.
“Been a while. Ksmvr should have made it to the city by now. Do you think it didn’t—”
Pop. Ksmvr appeared back on the wagon. Everyone shouted, but he raised his hands.
“The stone is at the Frenzied Hare. I have explained to Miss Agnes but she does not quite understand. Shall we attempt to return now?”
“Yes. All we have to do it—”
From his seat on the wagon, the driver half-turned to look. He caught only a glimpsed of the five people clustered around the door lying on his wagon when he heard a quiet pop of air and they vanished.
The horses, pulling the wagon, snorted in surprise when they felt the sudden change in weight. For his part, the wagon driver stared at the spot in dismay.
What was he supposed to do? Keep driving? While these adventurers feasted in the inn? That wasn’t fair!
But it was what he was paid for, so after a moment the wagon driver urged his horses on, scowling. He drew his scarf tightly around his face as the night grew closer around him.
The poor wagon driver sat miserably hunched over in the cart as the horse plodded onwards through the cold night. After a few moments, the door opened on the wagon. The wagon driver gaped as from out of the wagon a girl stepped out with a sudden outpouring of noise—and heat!
She stepped up, since the door was lying on its back, but somehow was facing the right way when she stood upright on the wagon.
“Woog. That’s trippy.”
She muttered as she held something in her hands. The wagon driver stared at her. The girl—was her name Erin?—smiled at him. She held out what was in her hands. The man looked and saw a steaming bowl of soup.
“It’s fresh! Sorry about the wait—Pisces said he could actually make the door connect! Don’t ask me how—he put the stone, you know, the anchor-thingy? He put it in another door and he and Ceria did some magic to it and look! Portal door!”
The man just stared at her. Slowly, he took the bowl of soup. It did indeed smell fresh, and the hot liquid warmed his cold hands and soul in the winter night.
“I’m making popcorn as well. I’ll bring you some when I’m done! Do you want something to drink with that?”
The man brightened up. The girl opened the door, stepped down and into the inn and the door closed. After a few more minutes, the door opened and popcorn was handed over in a bowl along with a big mug of ale. The man stared down at the white, fluffy kernels seasoned with butter, salt, and yeast—which was the only way to eat popcorn, or so Erin claimed. He tried some, and cheered up even more.
And so the wagon plodded onwards, bearing its curious load. It traveled down the silent, winter roads, slowly heading south. To a city claimed by Drakes, Gnolls, and the strange Antinium. To Liscor. To a place known as The Wandering Inn.
To home.
3.26 G
When he was young, he had always dreamed of walking among other races. But now all he dreamed about was death and fire. The Goblin King burned city
after city to the ground, damning the screaming inhabitants by death and fire. Across the ocean, his Goblin Lords led similar crusades, pillaging, slaughtering.
There was only war. The peace he had sought for so long was a false lie. That was what the King realized. His armies burned across the continent, fighting Drakes, Undead, Antinium, Gnolls and Humans alike. They could not be stopped. There was only death in his heart, and the fury to destroy the world. With it he slew the greatest of heroes they sent against him.
Rage. All consuming. It burned him and he howled it as his warriors fought and died and leveled. He would kill them all.
—-
And then Rags woke. She started, still tasting smoke and blood, still full of the Goblin King’s fury. She slipped and nearly fell—the Carn Wolf she sat on shifted and Rags clung to its fur, eliciting a mild noise of complaint. But it had been trained too well to protest.
In a moment, Rags was sitting upright. She blinked around and realized that they’d stopped. After nearly two weeks of nonstop marching, they had arrived.
Where, exactly?
The young Goblin sat up on her mount, letting it—him—pace restlessly ahead. She was riding in the center of the army.
Her army, supposedly. Rags frowned as she looked around. As ever, a group of Hobs walked with her, as did several of Garen’s elite wolf riders. And past them?
A sea of Goblin heads flowed past Rags, and the noise of their passing washed over her. Goblins were by and large fairly quiet as a people; they preferred gestures to words and they had learned to be quiet long ago, lest they attract attention.
But thousands of marching Goblins, armored warriors who rattled with every step, noncombatants who carried packs, horses and mules and donkeys, animals liberated from Human farms, and Goblin infants, uncharacteristically quiet for babies but still occasionally noisy—all produced a din of their own.
It was an army worthy of any Chieftain. More than worthy, in fact. Rags knew her own forces, that was to say the former tribes she had personally subjugated and now controlled, were mixed into the lot. But she only commanded the huge mass. The assembled Goblins were not hers, and that was an important distinction.
Still, they didn’t fight or quarrel, and that was important. Disunity could be death here, in the heart of Human lands.
Not that there were any around. Rags looked and saw only trees. They’d been marching through a forest full of annoying trees with burrs the size of walnuts that clung to clothing and pierced skin with their sharp needles. Tall stone loomed ahead of her, and snow mixed with rotting leaves lay underfoot. Only the trees, brown and lifeless, made any impression on the landscape.
They were close to the mountain. Rags stared up at it grimly, knowing they had to be close. This was their destination, after all.
Long ago the flat grasslands had given way to forests and hills, and then to an area of rocky land where a lone mountain sat high above everything else.
It wasn’t much of a mountain to Rags, who’d grown up in the shadows of the High Passes, staring up at peaks so tall that no one had ever climbed them. But the mountain was their destination, and it seemed that after staring up at it for days, they’d finally reached the base of it.
Rags sat astride the large Carn Wolf and stared up at the massive cliff face that met the edge of the forest. She had no idea why there were here, so far from home. Well, she had some idea, but Garen Redfang had been reluctant to tell anyone his full plan when he’d told them where to go when they marched north.
Perhaps she should have argued harder. But Rags had known at the time that he was right. It was just that she couldn’t stand the long days of not knowing was was going on! The assembled tribes needed an ally in their war against the Goblin Lord, that she knew. But would they find it here, near Invrisil, where adventurers roamed in great numbers and slew any monster they found?
Rags hoped so. Or else they would all die here. She shivered in the cold and drew the fur coat more tightly around her. She remembered. This was not a memory of times long past; it was her memory, fresh and vivid.
—-
The Goblin army was a black mass that swarmed up the walls of the Human city, climbing ladders, fighting with the Human defenders among the broken gates.
Black armor. That was what set these Goblins apart from ordinary rabble. Also, no tribe would have dared to attack a Human city. But these Goblins did not fear the burning fire and lightning that the enchantments on the walls spat down at them. Their arrows flew upwards, catching the mages who tried to burn the dark shafts out of the air.
Humans fell and died. It was simply that there were not enough of them to man the walls and stem the black tide that attacked from every direction. This was a Goblin army, superior in numbers to any other force.
The knot of desperate men and women slowly grew smaller around the north gate. Soon the Goblins would gain a foothold there, and then they would be in the city, too late to stop.
Now was the time. Rags raised her hand.
Now.
The first wave of Goblins hit the black armored Goblins at the same time as the rain of arrows and crossbow bolts fell from the sky. Elite Goblins mounted on Carn Wolves tore into the unguarded backs of the Goblin Lord’s forces, causing havoc while Hobs strode next to their smaller Kin, besieging the bewildered Goblin force from behind.
From where she sat Rags smiled grimly. The Goblin Lord’s forces hadn’t expected to be attacked, much less by their own kind.
Crush them against the walls.
Rags ordered more forces into the fight, reinforcing places where her forces were weak. But there wasn’t much for her to do; she’d already positioned countless archers and her Goblins armed with crossbows where they could rain death down upon the Goblins.
They were outnumbered in truth. But Rags’ forces were aided by the Humans fighting on the walls and the fact that they’d cornered the Goblin Lord here. And one more thing ensured their victory.
“Redfang! Redfang!”
A streak of crimson. A Goblin warrior sitting astride a huge wolf. Garen Redfang’s warriors howled as they plunged into the ranks of the enemy, following their leader. Rags watched Garen carving his way through the enemy, feeling both jealous and relieved at the same time.
They were on the same side, and she knew he belonged at the front. But she wished she could be fighting too, rather than stuck overseeing the battle.
And yet, this was it. Rags watched, viciously pleased as the Goblins in black armor began to rout. They’d done it. They’d won!
But where was the Goblin Lord? Rags hadn’t seen anyone remotely like a leader in the army—at least, not like the image in her head. She’d expected a warrior like Garen, or a spellcaster full of magical power. But she hadn’t seen anyone like that. Perhaps the Goblin Lord was like her?
Below her, Goblins fled. Goblins died. But Rags could feel little pity for these invaders who wore another tribe’s colors. She had seen what they left in their wake. These Goblins slaughtered villages, put crops to the torch. They were destroyers, not scavengers. They didn’t fight to survive, they fought to kill and pillage.
And rape. She had seen that too. So Rags cut down the stragglers and wiped this army from the face of the map. And as she stood with her small band of guards witnessing the last of the violence, she felt uncertain. Because the battle was won, but she didn’t know if the Goblin Lord had survived the battle.
Her answer came when Garen rode towards her, covered in blood, still wild-eyed from the adrenaline pumping in his veins. Rags strode towards him. She was nearly hopping with impatience.
Goblin Lord. Where?
She wanted Garen to say he’d killed the Lord. But Garen just stared at her strangely.
“This was not the Goblin Lord’s army. This was just one of his warbands.”
And then the ground fell out from beneath Rags. She stared at the devastation, at the Human city broken by this army. But it was not a true victory for this was only a fr
action of her enemy’s strength. She had underestimated the power of a Lord and so for the first time—
She felt fear.
—-
A warband. Rags shivered at the thought. Or maybe it was just because she was cold. She sneezed and wiped her hand on the Carn Wolf’s fur. That was the convenient thing about riding the wolf, for all they were hard on the butt and bounced Rags about. Their fur was nice and easy to wipe hands and feet clean on, although the wolves tended to bite if they noticed you doing it.
Perhaps a Human – like Erin – would have just shrugged and said ‘so what?’ upon hearing that this was a Goblin warband. But Goblins understood how their kind made war. There was a simple, almost instinctual way they organized, and so from this Rags understood the dangers of the Goblin Lord’s main force.
No one had ever taught Rags about percentages, so she thought of it like this. Goblin armies were always a huge mass, but they always fragmented their forces in order to attack most efficiently. Around two thirds would constitute the main force which moved slowly from place to place, devouring and razing everything in its path. But the remaining third would break down into warbands and raiding parties that spread out in the path of the main army, seizing supplies, recruiting other Goblin tribes, and clashing with smaller forces.
A warband constituted around a tenth of the actual army’s force, so that it could be easily replaced if lost. The same went for raiding parties, which were less than a hundredth of the size of the actual army. But what that meant was that if this warband Rags’ forces had crushed numbered in the thousands, the Goblin Lord’s army numbered in the tens of thousands.
All together, the combined tribes of the High Passes numbered little less than two thousand warriors. Rags had known in an instant what would happen if they were to lead their forces against such a huge enemy. Any Goblin could figure that out, really.