by Ryo Mizuno
He was also famously eccentric. His small house was cluttered with books, and the shelves of his cupboards were laden with herbs and bottles of dried insects. He gazed at the stars at night, mumbling to himself. All in all, he simply just stood out. Because of that, most people were friendly to Slayn but kept him at a distance. He didn’t get many visitors.
Except for that day—when he had two. Filmer, the village chief, was surprised to see that someone else was already there—and doubly so when he realized that the guest wasn’t human, but a dwarf.
The dwarf awkwardly introduced himself as Ghim while Slayn served him a flagon of ale, and remained still and silent while Filmer reported to Slayn what had occurred at the meeting—that Parn and Etoh had gone after the goblins alone, and couldn’t Slayn do something?
“Goblins?!” Ghim cried suddenly. “How many of the filthy burglars are there? I’ll chop them to bits!” At that, he grabbed the huge, double-edged axe propped against the wall. In his head-to-toe chain mail and sturdy helmet, he was utterly prepared for war.
Filmer nearly jumped out of his skin at the outburst, but Slayn barely batted an eye. “Goblins and dwarves have been enemies since ancient times,” Slayn explained in a solemn tone while Filmer tried to regain his composure.
“They’re thieves,” Ghim growled. “They hoard beautiful jewels, but they don’t even know how to appreciate them. Since the days of old, we’ve chopped off as many goblin heads as there are stars in the sky, but they still infest this place.”
“There are infinite stars,” Slayn gently reminded Ghim. “Luckily, there are only about twenty goblins here. Though that might be too many for Parn and Etoh. Did they really go off by themselves?”
The chief nodded, and Slayn gripped his chin, thinking, This isn’t surprising for Parn, but Etoh usually has a better head on his shoulders.
“Youth is the bane of reason,” Slayn mumbled to himself. “All right,” he continued louder, “We cannot abandon two promising young people to their fate. I’m sure we can figure out a way to deal with twenty of the goblins.”
“I swear upon my beard,” snorted the dwarf as he slung his axe over his back.
“You’ll go?” Filmer asked, visibly relieved. “Thank you both.”
“Don’t mention it. This village is my home, too.” Slayn stood and grabbed a wooden staff that had been left leaning haphazardly against a wall. One end of the staff was strangely crooked and covered in mysterious writing—a Philosopher’s Staff, only permitted to wizards of the Wizard Academy, a guild in Allan. Wizards learned an ancient language to control mana, the origin of everything. Their chanted spells could unleash powerful magic.
When the villagers ignored Parn’s request, Filmer had hoped Slayn would be able to help him. Meeting a goblin-hating dwarf at his house was an unexpected bonus.
“Knowing Parn, he’s probably woefully unprepared. We’ll have to hurry, or it’ll be too late.” Slayn picked up a thick book with the same ancient language stamped on the cover in gold leaf. Translated, the title read Slayn Starseeker’s Book of Spells.
4
Parn and Etoh picked their way carefully down the path through the woods, watching for any movement as they approached the hills where the goblins lived. The area was littered with boulders, providing cover for their approach.
Despite moving with caution, the duo was making their move in broad daylight. Goblins lived in darkness and abhorred sunlight, which meant they usually came out at night and slept through the day in their caves. Parn and Etoh relished the spring sunlight as they walked along.
The first part of Etoh’s plan was simple: use ranged weapons to take out any lookouts, and take them by surprise. They’d keep the rocks at their backs to stop the goblins from getting behind them. The fact that the sun was out would weaken them further.
Parn was reluctant to attack from a distance but had begrudgingly agreed. The goblins were evil creatures, after all, and there were too many to make it a fair fight.
Having a plan put Parn at ease, as if knowing what they wanted to do meant they’d already succeeded. Etoh, the brains behind the attack, was still worried. He glanced at his friend as Parn crept forward, sword at the ready—and reached up and gripped his talisman, reciting a short prayer to himself.
When they reached the cave, Etoh sighed and looked to the heavens. The bad feeling gnawing at his gut had been right.
There, before them, were two ugly goblins. They were shaped like humans, but only half as tall as a grown man, and their bare limbs were thin and gnarled like weathered trees. They had no hair, and their bald heads made their already large eyes and ears seem even larger. Their noses were so flat that their nostrils looked like two gaping holes in the middle of their faces, and their mouths were slits with yellowed fangs and blood-red tongues peeking out. They wore filthy rags tied over their reddish skin, and crude daggers dangled on straw ropes around their waists. Each of them held a wooden shield in its left hand, and they stood hunched and blinking in the bright sunlight.
They hadn’t noticed Parn and Etoh hiding among the rocks yet—they were milling around, aimless and bored.
“Looks like we’ll have to improvise,” Etoh whispered with a wry smile. They’d assumed there would only be one lookout, and between Parn’s bow and Etoh’s sling they would’ve had a good chance of taking a single enemy down in one hit. With two opponents, if either of them missed their mark, their plan would fail.
Etoh took his sling out of his pack and started clumsily gathering suitable rocks.
“I’ll take the one on the right—you get the left,” Parn muttered as he took the bow from his shoulder and tightened the string. He pulled out two oak and eagle feather arrows and nocked one to his bow, drawing it back as he did so. Etoh tucked a rock into his sling and started swinging.
At Etoh’s signal, they both let their weapons fly.
“Gah!” the goblins squawked as they were hit—they both staggered, and one fell to the ground. Etoh’s rock had hit the goblin square in the head and crushed its skull, but Parn’s arrow missed its mark, burying itself deep in the goblin’s right shoulder but leaving it alive.
“Hofurk!” the surviving goblin howled into the cave.
“Blast!” Parn shouted, quickly nocking the other arrow to his bow and making a shot. This time, he pierced the goblin’s gut, and the creature fell to the ground gushing dark red blood.
“We have no choice—we’ll have to kill them one by one.” Parn jumped out from behind the rocks, followed closely by Etoh, their armor clanking as they moved. Parn drew his sword and pointed it toward the sky, the blade shining in the sunlight.
Etoh, determined to at least try his plan, pulled two vials of oil from his satchel and threw them into the cave. The glass shattered, splattering a slick liquid all over. But when he took out his flint to light it aflame, he realized it was too late—the hideous creatures were already leaping out of the cave. A few slipped on the oil and fell, and one hit its head on a rock and stopped moving, but the rest kept coming.
“Die!” Parn roared beside him.
“Parn! Put your back to the rocks so they can’t get behind us!” Etoh yelled before Parn could leap into the fray. Etoh retreated; Parn hesitated a moment, but followed.
The goblins were already upon them. Each was armed with an axe or dagger, crude and rusted and disgusting. The blades were all coated with a thick, green liquid.
“Careful, the blades are poisoned!” Parn warned. With the rocks at their backs, they at least only had to deal with the goblins in front of them—but both of them still had to fight multiple foes at once. There was no escape—the only way out was the goblins’ extermination, or their own deaths.
Parn wielded his sword and shield deftly, blocking one attack while stabbing at another foe. One goblin failed to block and fell, blood spurting from its shoulder. Parn finished it off with a thrust to its back. He may not have been a seasoned veteran, but he could keep up with goblins.
Etoh had been trained for combat at the Pharis Temple and was used to handling a mace and shield, along with holy spells of attack. In his lighter armor, he was quicker than Parn—he danced artfully around the goblin blows and swung his mace hard when he saw an opening.
The clang of metal on metal and the dull thud of striking flesh blended together. One by one, the goblins fell, but the survivors made no move to retreat—they stood their ground to protect their lair.
As the battle raged on, Etoh started to tire; his arms felt as if they were made of lead. Parn noticed him flagging and tried to shield him, swinging his sword in wide arcs to threaten the goblins attacking his friend. He was tiring too, but the sturdier man had stamina to spare.
They were through about half the horde—a dozen bodies were strewn around them, the smell of blood thick in the air. But the remaining goblins boldly clambered over the corpses. Perhaps their rage overcame their fear, or maybe they could sense the humans’ fatigue; goblins were ferocious when they could smell victory.
“It’s over…” Parn mumbled. His parries had slowed and his feet dragged. Etoh was overwhelmed by a coughing fit and slumped against the rocks.
Parn knew what he had to do. He threw down his shield and, wielding his sword with both hands, let out a mighty roar to summon all the courage he had. Then he slammed into the two goblins poised to finish off the immobile Etoh and charged like a berserker into the other five that remained.
Will this death be honorable? he wondered. Dying in battle should have been a noble end for a warrior—and yet, his father’s hopeless battle against bandits had been deemed dishonorable, forcing Parn and his mother to leave Valis altogether. Disease claimed his mother’s life when he was ten, and ever since, Parn had helped in the fields and hunted in the woods to earn his keep. At sixteen, when he could finally fit into his father’s armor, he went to Flaim to fight desert savages as a mercenary; he’d then returned home, taking jobs guarding the village or the occasional trade caravan, waiting for a chance to return to the battlefield. That was his dream—to be a knight, serving a king somewhere.
If this death isn’t honorable, then what was my life for?
Suddenly, he felt white hot pain slice into his left shoulder. A goblin had gotten behind him—with gritted teeth, Parn turned and slew it. But that left him in an awkward position where his legs couldn’t support the weight of his armor. Metal slammed against rock in a shower of sparks as he fell to one knee.
Another goblin pounced and stabbed him in the left thigh. It tried to yank out its knife, stuck deep in the muscle, and every jerk sent a new shock of pain through Parn’s body.
Soon, though, the pain started to fade, and the world slowed like he was wading through molasses. The poison on the blades worked quickly. Parn struggled to stand, but his energy was gone. Even craning his neck to look for Etoh was too much effort.
All he could see was the cloudless blue sky. He suddenly felt oddly free. He dropped his sword and flung out his limbs. He could only stare blankly while a filthy goblin aimed its dagger straight at his throat—
And then an arrow punched through the goblin’s chest.
It collapsed in a heap, almost seeming to deflate. Parn heard someone new speaking, though he couldn’t understand the words. His vision began to fade, and he struggled to draw breath.
As the darkness overcame him, one final thought crossed his mind.
I get it now, Dad…
Then everything went black.
“Looks like we made it just in time.” Slayn breathed a sigh of relief as Ghim took out the attacking goblin with a crossbow.
Three of the goblins noticed the new arrivals. They let out a wild screech and charged, but Slayn gave his staff a quick wave and began reciting, “Tranquil breeze that brings slumber…”
The charging goblins pitched forward as if the life had been sucked out of them. He’d cast the spell Slumber Cloud, which created a soporific haze in the air. Only two goblins remained.
Ghim switched from his crossbow to his battle axe and charged. In one blow, he cleaved the head from one goblin’s body—it still had a shocked expression on its face as its head flew through the air. When the other one turned in panic to flee, the axe sliced into its side, tearing the goblin’s body apart at the chest and sending its legs toppling sideways in a shower of blood.
“Finish off the sleeping ones, will you?” Slayn requested while he carefully scanned their surroundings. Nothing else moved. He turned his attention back to the goblins’ lair—he focused briefly and recited a short spell, sending his perception deep into the cave. Advancing slowly, he searched ahead for any creatures left lurking.
Once he confirmed that the depths of the cave were clear, he stopped chanting and said, “We’re safe now.”
“I’m done, too. They’re all dead,” said Ghim as he remorselessly chopped off the last sleeping goblin’s head.
Slayn nodded and made his way to Parn’s side. Kneeling, he pressed his fingers to the young man’s neck. His hand came away covered with blood.
He’s alive, Slayn thought, but this is bad.
“I need some help over here!” he yelled to Ghim, “We need to get him home, now. He doesn’t have much time left!”
5
Slayn and Ghim carried Parn to his house, peeled off his armor, and laid him in bed—he had injuries on his head and leg, but the shoulder was the most serious. They brought Etoh, too. The priest was uninjured but had lost consciousness upon using magic beyond his ability—when he finally came to, he quickly closed Parn’s wounds with healing magic, but by that point the goblin poison was already coursing through his body, and Etoh didn’t know a detoxification spell. He and Slayn tried every treatment they could think of, but for several days nothing seemed to make much difference.
The third day after the battle left Parn wracked with a high fever and no recovery in sight. Etoh went to the creek countless times for snowmelt to cool Parn’s feverish body—but they could only hope that the young man’s strength and vitality would carry him through.
Parn’s fever broke the following morning, finally allowing him to fall into a deep, peaceful slumber that lasted until evening. From that point on, he recovered quickly—though he was stuck in bed for three more days.
It was the tenth night after the goblin battle. Slayn sat in his house, reading his ancient books as usual, when someone knocked at the door.
“Oh, it’s you two,” he heard Ghim say from the doorway.
“Who is it?” Slayn asked as he walked over, only to see Parn and Etoh standing respectfully at the door. Ghim was offering the pair clumsy words of encouragement, which seemed to embarrass Parn—who answered with uncharacteristic restraint.
“You seem much better,” Slayn said as he looked Parn over. The young man had lost some weight, but his complexion was healthy and his eyes had a youthful sparkle to them.
“Thank you for everything,” Parn said, bobbing his head to Slayn.
“You should thank your friend. He went to great lengths to care for you. You may well have died otherwise.” While he spoke, Slayn noticed that Parn was fidgeting. “But it seems that gratitude isn’t the only reason you’re here today. Come in. Pardon the clutter.”
“Thanks,” Parn replied. He and Etoh exchanged a glance and a nod as they entered.
True to Slayn’s word, his small house was overflowing with books, equipment, and all kinds of materials used for magic. Four people was a tight squeeze, and without enough chairs, Etoh and Ghim ended up sitting on the bed.
Parn scanned the room. He seemed like he didn’t know where to start, so Slayn gave him an encouraging nod.
“I… I want to go on a journey,” Parn began haltingly. “I never wanted to live my whole life in this village anyway, and I completely humiliated myself against those goblins. And I wake up to people calling me a hero? Getting credit for something I didn’t do just makes me feel miserable.”
“It doesn’t matter how it ended, you do deserve t
o be called a hero for what you did. You don’t need to put yourself down,” Slayn replied, though he knew Parn wouldn’t accept what he said.
“There’s so much evil on Lodoss,” Parn continued. “Goblins—and so much worse. And I know I’m not strong enough yet to defeat that evil. But I still want to go—no, that’s why I want to go. And Etoh agrees with me. It’ll be much better to go together so we can watch each other’s backs.”
“So, you want to go on a quest to better yourselves?” Slayn asked. “It makes sense. But what is it you want from me?”
“We want you to come with us,” Parn blurted out. “You’re a wizard, and magic is a powerful tool against the kinds of things we’ll be facing. I hear there are some monsters that you can’t even hope to defeat without it! So…will you please join us?”
Ghim let out a hearty laugh. “It’s a good idea, Slayn. And as for myself, well—I’m leaving on a journey of my own soon. Might as well travel with you all a ways. And with this magician and his tricks on board, we’ll at least never want for food.”
Slayn met Parn’s gaze dead on. He recognized that unclouded, unwavering stare. Back when he’d been a student at the Wizard Academy in Allan, he had a friend—a mercenary with a strong sense of justice, just like Parn. The kind of man who’d stick his nose into any trouble he could find and always fought for what was right.
One day, he’d asked Slayn for his help taking down the Thieves’ Guild. It was a dangerous task even with a magician on board, and Slayn had refused—and tried as hard as he could to dissuade his friend. He hadn’t been able to change the man’s mind in the end and had reluctantly lent him an enchanted invisibility ring.
Three days later, his friend had been stabbed in the chest with a poisoned dagger.
Later, rumors reached him that the leader of the Guild—a man known for his villainy—had been found dead. The Guild replaced him with a more orthodox leader who respected the thieves’ code. His friend had made the city a better place. Nevertheless, Slayn still had regrets. He still wished he’d found a way to stop his friend that last night he saw him alive.