Jean Rabe - Goblin Nation

Birds shot into the air by the hundreds, squawking so loud that they briefly drowned out the whoosh and crackling flames of Isaam’s great creation. But they were gone quickly, in search of a safer part of the forest. The animals trapped on the ground would not be so fortunate. The fire was moving too fast for escape.

A dense cloud of fiery embers pushed to the south just ahead of the flames that were swallowing one tree after the next. The fire was taking a firm hold in the peat soil too and would be spreading across the ground, though it would move slower there as the wind couldn’t help spread it.

“Burn well and wildly, my creation.”

He could hear the goblin shouts easily-louder, clearer, closer. And though he couldn’t understand the language, he could well translate their terror. Bera was right; they did sound like wild dogs yowling.

A haze formed over the upper canopy from all the smoke and the wind that continued to agitate the fire. It reminded Isaam of fog hanging over pastures on early spring mornings. There was something beautiful and otherworldly about it. He stared proudly at his creation for several long moments.

Even though he was above it all, his eyes were watering and his mouth felt dry from the effects of the fire. Isaam didn’t mind the uncomfortable sensations, though. They spoke to his magic’s success. He took a deep breath of the sulfurous air.

Likely when the fire finally died down, they would find only goblin bones. They could well turn everything to ash-bones and ash.

“As hot as the Abyss, that blessed fire must be.” Isaam swelled with pride. He floated a little farther east and north, spotting the knights below. They fought goblins and hobgoblins that must have broken into the Dark Knights’ camp right before the fire struck. There’d been no flames to keep that group of foul creatures back. But that was a fortunate thing, he decided. “Let Bera have some fun. It will keep her mind off Zocci.”

The fire would keep all the rest of the goblins and hobgoblins at bay-the thousands that had no doubt been streaming toward the Dark Knights. The fire would slay all of the stinking rats for Bera.

The light from the fire made it easy for Isaam to pick out details on the ground below. In the front rank, Bera fought madly, parrying attacks from two goblins that looked to have some skill with knives. Her fighting form was never better, he thought.

Isaam drifted lower for a better look. He could aid her with a simple spell or two, make her blade sharper and her arm stronger, or he could give her more energy so she could fight faster. But Bera might not appreciate either of those spells. So instead he used his magic to lock the image of her battling into his mind. Then he could retell tales of her bravery with perfect clarity later, reporting to the Dark Knight Counsel that would want to hear about the mission. He would use spells to replay the most vivid parts, and he would make Bera shine. She could gain the promotion she’d been dreaming of.

On the forest floor, Bera was coughing hard with each swing of her sword. Her eyes stung so badly that tears streamed down her face. Her men fared the same, but all of them fared better than the goblins and hobgoblins who were closer to the fire.

“It’s Isaam’s doing no doubt, this great blaze,” Doleman said.

“Aye, Lieutenant. I’d told him to cast some spells that would trouble the rats.”

“But you didn’t expect this business, eh, Commander?” He forced a smile as he drew his sword over his head, two hands on the pommel, and brought it down hard on the collarbone of a tall, red-skinned goblin. The blade sliced through the flesh and broke the bone. The goblin crumpled and Doleman drove the point through its heart.

“I had not anticipated help to this extent,” she replied wryly.

“Unfortunate the Gray Robe had not thought of this earlier,” Doleman continued. “It would have cut our losses by the bluff.” He tugged his shield free from his back and wielded his sword with one hand.

Bera parried another blow. The goblins in front of her changed the rhythm of their attack, and she used that to her advantage, bringing the sword down on one’s wrist, cleaving through the arm and sending the creature away, howling and holding its blood-spurting stump. While the other goblin glanced at its wounded kinsman, she drove her blade through its throat and brought her heel against its stomach to help free her weapon.

“I did not order Isaam to cast such fire magics then, Lieutenant. At the bluff I was expecting a straight-up battle.” In truth, she hadn’t realized the sorcerer might be capable of such a magnificent gesture. And she had been determined to take the goblins down with brute force rather than even consider magic. “This mission rests on me. Only my head, you hear?”

“At least the wind is cooperating, Commander. It keeps most of these rats at bay. We’ve only a few hundred here to kill.”

That was both good and bad news as far as Bera was concerned. It was good that goblins were burning to death in the woods; in the distance. She could hear their screams and smell the stench of their roasting flesh.

But still, it was unfortunate that they were not dying by her own hand.

“For Zocci,” she whispered as she engaged a hobgoblin she’d spotted by the bluff earlier. One of its shoulders was lower than the other, and it moved with a pronounced limp. It wielded a crude spear that splintered when she struck it with her sword. “Pity you are not a more worthy foe,” she muttered as she shoved her blade through its stomach then raised her foot to push it off the weapon. The creature fell back onto an approaching goblin.

Goblins to her right shouted a horrid-sounding battle cry she couldn’t translate. Their strangled voices mingled with the clang of steel and the crackling flames. The air was hot to breathe and singed her lungs.

But Bera raged as hot as the fire.

She’d been weary after the failed strike on the bluff and their subsequent retreat, her arms and legs sore, and her neck stiff with a bothersome ache. But fighting with her hated foes somehow refreshed her; fresh power went into each swing. Not one man in her army-not one living man since Zocci was dead-was her equal in combat. She exulted in the moment.

Her husband had once told her that she lived to fight and that her bloodlust was stronger than her love for him or their daughter. She’d denied it, of course, though both of them knew he spoke the truth. Bera was born for battle. On another occasion he’d said she came into the world too late, that she would have been better suited to legendary challenges of the War of the Lance. She’d agreed with him then, saying those skirmishes were reportedly faster and deadlier than those of recent memory, and the stakes were in many respects higher.

The stakes were high for the battle that raged in the forest, though.

Flames snapped and popped all around her. The air was filled with burning flesh and trees. What would her husband think of her at that very moment, flailing away at goblins in the heart of the burning Qualinesti Forest? Would he be proud? Would she ever tell him her heart had been broken with Zocci’s death?

Another hobgoblin charged in, wearing a breastplate that looked like it had been cobbled together from multiple mismatched suits of chain and leather armor. Almost comical in its appearance, the hobgoblin nevertheless protected itself from her first swing. It grinned at her, drool spilling over its lower lip, the creature looking wet and slimy in the firelight.

“You disgust me,” she spit. “All of your kind.”

She swung higher, forcing the hobgoblin to parry her thrusts and giving it no chance to launch an attack of its own. Then she made a move to swing higher still, aiming for its big head. As it brought its own blade up, she dropped to a crouch and angled her sword up like a lance, skewering it in a gap she’d noticed between the uneven segments of chain mail. She faintly heard the sound of her blade grating against its ribs.