Travmetis Woodworker had been working himself half to death, cutting down trees and getting as much wood for spears, walls, and pickets as they thought they might need over the past few days. Then he’d doubled it, to be sure.
It was Dobretin’s fault. He’d been the one stupid enough to ask him to be their scout when he could barely keep his eyes open.
“Heavens help them…” he breathed, clenching his axe tightly.
He’d been skulking from one bush to the next for the entire night, and he’d finally caught sight of some familiar landmarks. He was almost home.
‘If I still have a home,’ he thought bitterly.
It hadn’t been enough to ask him to cut down half an entire forest in three days. No. Once he was done, and it seemed that Pemolar’s Hill would finally have enough spare wood, he was immediately drafted as a scout.
…To Mitoras.
“Fuck you, Dobretin,” He muttered under his breath.
He had no wife or children. That qualified him for shit duty. He found it a bit unfair that he’d been forced to sacrifice so much just because he lacked family connections. Mularet’s talent was all about stealth! So why had he been picked?
“Dammit. It wasn’t my fault…” he whispered.
He could hear his breath in his ears. He felt like he hadn’t slept in a season. His shoulder throbbed. His blood had long since soaked through his shirt.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid man. I’d been happy to go! Anything to get away from chopping more fucking trees… Someone better should’ve… fuck!” He cursed himself, wishing he could make himself believe that it really had been Dobretin’s fault.
But no. It was his.
Mitoras hadn’t been ready.
They’d prepared. Of course, they had. They’d had the warning before Pemolar’s Hill! Their defences hadn’t looked much different than the ones his own town had built.
They hadn’t been ready.
He bit his tongue, trying desperately to dislodge the guilty lump in his throat. He’d been staying the night in a camp overlooking the town, where he’d watched the attack unfold. Trolls half again the size of a grown man had rushed through the town’s hastily erected defenses, and they crumpled. They’d been overwhelmed, and many of the monsters had run straight on toward Pemolar’s Hill, without even stopping while their brethren began…
His throat seized again, his gag reflex acting up involuntarily as he remembered the troll biting a chunk of flesh out of an old man whose sword hadn’t been fast enough.
Travis wished he hadn’t stayed. He wished he’d just gotten on his horse the moment the attack came. But he hadn’t. And now Pemolar’s Hill might pay the price for his fucking mistake.
Goblins.
Not war trolls, thankfully. If it had been trolls, then he’d surely be dead, but five goblins were dangerous enough. They were smarter than their massive cousins and used bows and daggers, while war trolls typically only used their claws and teeth.
He’d killed them all and survived with only a one deep gash to his side, thanks to his new axe.
His horse hadn’t been so lucky.
Flushed with the success of besting five goblins at once, he turned to find his horse dying right there on the bluff overlooking Mitoras, as surely as the town below.
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Instead of rushing to warn the town, he became stuck in the same horror as below. The goblins were far from his first encounter that night. His axe carried the blood of at least twelve now, and even one troll.
The woods were swarming with the monsters, but thankfully, they were thinning out. Trolls seemed interested in fighting and eating anything that moved, including one another. At least three separate times during his careful return to Pemolar’s Hill, he spotted groups of goblins and trolls fighting each other. Even with the ridiculously well-made axe, that was the only reason he’d managed to make it so far. His stealth skill had gone up by eight points over the sleepless night, and he didn’t even want to look at his One-Handed Weapons, or Axefighting skills.
The rift break must’ve been absolutely massive if creatures so aggressive even toward each other had made it so far from the front lines.
Finally, though, he’d reached home, dreading the worst. The last corner. Just around the next few trees, he should be able to see if the army of trolls he’d seen crash through Mitoras had done the same to Pemolar.
Heart in his throat, he rounded the corner…
An arrow slammed into a tree right next to him.
“Whoa! Stop! Heavens! Don’t shoot!” He screamed as relief flooded through him.
“Travis!? That you!?”
“You’re alive. Thank the heavens, you’re still alive…” Travmetis breathed as he spotted Korlotom.
Wait. Had that arrow been Tom? He suddenly began thanking the heavens for an entirely different reason. Tom rarely ever missed.
“Travis! Wonderful news! When the refugees began coming in, we feared the worst.”
Refugees. Refugees had made it? That… that was good.
“Well, don’t lay those fears to rest yet, ya old fuck! I’m not going to bleed out, but the miasma’s almost certainly going to get me.” He shouted as he slumped against the tree that had taken an arrow for him. “You… you’re all okay? Pemolar?”
“We’re well,” Tom called as he approached, with his son in tow. “We were attacked in the night, but we destroyed the beasts. It seems you might’ve had it worse than we have.
“Thank god…” he breathed. “I thought… they got my horse, Tom. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, I–!”
“None of that, lad. You look like you’ve been through hell. Let’s get you to Normuran. He’ll get you patched up, good as new.”
A sigh of relief, joy, and fear all left him in a single breath. Normuran. Fuck, he’d somehow forgotten the healer.
“Thank god…” he breathed. They were alive.
“Get him some water, Reid. It's still a long way back to town, and these woods aren’t safe yet.”
Reid knelt down next to Travis and put a water skin to his lips. He drank greedily and deep, thinking that Reid had always been a good kid. He met the boy’s eyes and saw a hardness that had never been there before.
‘Not a kid anymore,’ he thought.
“Good god man, you’re covered in it! How many goblins did you fight?” Tom asked as he threw Travis’s arm around his shoulder, careful to avoid the wound in his other side. The woodworker's legs weren’t injured, but he was grateful for the support even so.
“Too many. Too damn many,” He breathed.
A few minutes later, they approached the deforested area he’d spent the last three days clearing. The place was unrecognizable.
Bodies littered the stumps he’d left behind, tumbled across them. Five, ten… He lost count in his dizzy state.
‘By the divine, what did we have that Mitoras didn’t? This hadn’t been a battle. It’d been a slaughter,’ he thought, mystified.
“Heavens above…” He hissed as he saw sacks. Stained and wet with viscera, bulging, like they were all filled to the brim. Those were familiar. Joenal’s talent was in high demand all across the village. Instantaneous harvesting was incredibly useful, even though he tired quickly and could only cover a small area. These sacks certainly weren’t filled with crops, though.
“Trust me, we were as surprised as you are now,” Tom said as he stared. “I still don’t know what to make of it.”
“How… what… just… what happened?” he asked.
“Let’s get you back to town. I don’t rightly know how it happened myself, but we think Joenal upgraded his talent. Good thing, too.”
“I’ll say,” he breathed. “Remind me not to get on his bad side…”
“You haven’t got much to worry about,” Tom chuckled. “Not at all like my boy here. He’s trying to court the man’s daughter, after all.”
Reid, for all his newfound hardness, had not thought of that. His blank eyes suddenly found the aptitude for alarm.
Still a bit of a boy after all. Travis laughed, sharp and sudden. That was good.
Pemolar’s Hill was okay. He could breathe. He had failed, but he wouldn’t do so again.
‘Luck favors the sharpened blade,’ he thought. ‘Next time, I’ll be as sharp as my new axe.’
Much closer interlude to home this time. Hope you all enjoy!
Till Next!
MB
