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By Root 710 0

profoundly this particular goblin would affect my life. All thoughts of cowardly goblins disappeared as the unwounded ogre drew me back into the battle. It got in the first swing, the first two or three, actually. I kept on the defensive, picking my openings carefully. As I expected, the ogre's frustration mounted with every miss. Its attacks grew more wild, more open to counters. I had hit the brute four times, cutting painful, if not too serious, wounds in its hide, when I noticed the ogre with the split ear starting to rise. My opponent swung again and again, forcing me to dodge. I rushed in for a quick and furious flurry of stinging strikes, pushing him back on the heels of his huge feet. Then I turned and rushed the groggy ogre. The beast lifted its great club pitifully, hardly having recovered the strength to line the weapon up at all. Its swing was slow and clumsy, and I easily stepped back out of danger. I followed the club in on its follow-through, slashing wildly with both scimitars. How many lines of blood I drew on that ogre's face, I do not know. In barely an instant, the monster's features all seemed lost in a gory mass. I scanned the camp as the huge corpse fell away, and was heartened, for the ogre with the arrow in its chest had given up the fight, had given up everything. It lay facedown, so very still that I knew it was dead. That left only the one behind me, slightly wounded. I knew I could beat any ogre in an even fight, knew that it would never get close to hitting me if I kept my concentration absolute. Always eager to battle such vile creatures, I admit an instant of regret when I turned around and found , that the ogre had run off into

the night. The tinge of regret disappeared when I remembered the prisoners. To my relief, the ores in the south had been defeated by the five farmers, with only one of the men, the youngest, showing any wounds at all. Rico wore a smug expression, one I dearly wanted to pound from the boastful man's face. Guenhwyvar came trotting back into the camp a moment later at an easy gait, the western area secured. The panther showed a couple of small wounds from orcish arrows, but nothing serious. Thus the fight ended, three ogres and eight ores dead, another ogre and perhaps a half-dozen ores fleeing into the night. A complete victory, for not a single companion had been slain. Still, I could not help but consider that this battle needn't have happened at all. Any thoughts I held of berating Rico did not remain for long, though, not with the ensuing greetings between Tharman and his family, between another of the farmers and his lost younger brother. “Where is Nojheim?” Rico demanded. His callous tone surprised me. If he'd lost some kin, a child or a sibling, I would have expected sorrow. But I heard no sorrow behind the man's question, only a desperate anger, as though he had been insulted. The farmers exchanged confused glances, with all gazes finally coming to rest on me. “Who is Nojheim?” I asked. “A goblin,” Tharman explained. “There was a goblin among the prisoners,” I told them. “He slipped out during the fight, heading northwest.” “Then we go on,” Rico said without the slightest hesitation, without the slightest regard for the beleaguered prisoners. I thought his request absurd; could a single goblin be worth the pains of this man, woman, and boy who had gone through such trials? “The night grows long,” I said to him, my tone far from congenial. “Bring the fire back up and tend to your wounded. I will go after the missing goblin.” “I want him back!” Rico growled. He must have understood my confused and fast-angering expression, for he calmed suddenly and tried to explain. “Nojheim led a group of goblins that attacked Pengallen several weeks ago,” he said and glanced around at the others. “The goblin is a leader, and will likely return with allies. We were holding him for trial when the newest raiders came.” I had no reason not to take Rico's claims at face value- except that it seemed odd to me that farmers of the small village, so often besieged by the many monsters