In the darkness of a cold red stone room, two treacherous silhouettes seemed to bend and twist together. “There is a stranger in town,” a mouthless shadow hissed. Its voice seemed to be absorbed by the stone walls.

A croaking voice answered, “It does not change anything, or our plans continue as normal.” The silhouette seemed to take in a breath and pause before continuing their dark conversation. “But what if he….”

The first silhouette turned on the croaking voice and lashed out. “Quiet, fool, our plans do not change! If anything, this stranger might make a good tool.” A smile seemed to cross its featureless face. “Yes. A tool. Either we will use him to achieve the forge or rip those town folk apart.” The silhouette stepped into the centre of the room, and a light glow of runes pulsed, and it was gone.

In a small fit of rage, the croaking silhouette slammed its fist into the stone wall. In a whisper to itself, “If I am lucky, they might end you!” With that, the runes pulsed, and the room was empty.

******

“Man, this is one sleepy, boring town. This northern waste, a waste of time, is more like it,” Drovic complains as he soaks in the morning, raises pouring over him as he lies atop the Tavern. “I climbed up here to get a better view of the area; it is nothing but farmland and coal mines.” Flipping the dagger in his hand, and each time landing perfectly. He pauses and leans over the edge of the Tavern’s roof, the sign of the singing fool blowing in the wind. His ears start to tweak, and he focuses on the conversation below.

“So, there is a connection to the south,” smiling his wicked grin and starting to spin the knife again, “the girl. There once was a maiden of the north, and her grandfather’s past deeds haunt her future,” he whistles to himself.

He watches as the tiny humans run into the Tavern. It must be school time. Why must humans waste little time they have on their young? That was when Drovic noticed the fires burning, not northwest where the mine was but from the east. Trouble was coming. With his free hand, he grabs the ledge of the roof and swings into his room’s window below. He gracefully landed on his feet with a little twist of showmanship. Laying on his bed was his pride and joy, smiling down upon it, “Today, you will have some fun, my friends.”

******

The runes on the floor pulsed again, a purple light flashed briefly, and the two silhouettes stepped out from the circle. The one silhouette flipped its hand over, casting a flame in the centre of its hand and showing a man in a black hood. The light from the flame seemed to dance off the red stone walls.

“Goblins, why are we using goblins? Why cannot I go into the village and eat them all,” the phantom silhouette complained to its partner from within the cold stone room. Not much larger than a poor farmer’s hut with no fixtures but low burning coals in the centre of the summoning circle that was giving off an amber glow, reflecting off the lower sections of the stone wall. The phantom’s voice seemed to be coming from the walls themselves or the dancing shadows cast by the flame in the man’s hand. “Goblins are just mischievous, spiteful creatures who are greedy. I find them constantly annoying, little creatures no better than some brownies or even worse, those self-noble gnomes to the east.” The hooded man could feel the hatred flicker in each word the phantom seemed to speak.

There was a brief pause, and the air seemed to crackle with each second passing. “A goblin is grotesquely evil,” a hooded man speaks as he walks towards the opposing wall. “They are as evil as they are stupid. Yes. We cannot control them, but we do not need to. Our goal is not to destroy the village, always remember our goal. If I let you go into the village, there would be no trace of what had transpired there.” The man began to rest his back against the wall and almost seemed to blend into it.

The phantom silhouette spat, “They are not my goals; you have me bound to you.”

A deep laugh bounces off the walls and seems to echo into the red room from another world. “Halfwit, that is the reason why we share a goal. The sooner that my plans are completed, the sooner you are free, remember?” With that statement, the phantom seems to almost giggle in pleasure. “That was the pact the red queen agreed to.” The giggling from the shadows stopped with all due haste.

“I do enough. I am watching humans. All they do is cry. It is so boring. If this goes well, I will not even try to kill you after.” The coals in the central fire seemed to spin into a small whirlwind at the end of its statement. Then darkness, as if all the lights in the world went out at once, the hooded man snapped his fingers, and the coals seemed to glow with natural light in a moment.

“Foolish creature, once my plans have been completed, no one will have the power to challenge me. You will be set free but will not bother me again. Now do the task I have set for you” with that, the hood silhouette of a man walks into the wall vanishing from sight.

******

Calvary is a small, hardworking town. Much of its population is human. The elves enjoy the ancient forests far to the south, where the weather is warm. The dwarves are around, but the closest city of note is a two-week trip if you are riding fast on horseback. The most significant human town of note is to the west on the coastline; if you could fly like a bird, it might take you three days, but to reach it on foot would take you around a month to travel the one road through the mountains, and the road is gracious. But Calvary mines coal, and that coal fuels the dwarven halls and once a year, a brave merchant will take the mountain pass.

The merchant hall is connected to the mayor’s home. It is the largest building in Calvary, and it is from this hall that the fire was first noticed. Other than by the stranger and his blessed ability to catch the unnoticeable. The fire was detected by the long-time resident of Calvary, who has lived there for nearly fifty short years, a short time for a dwarf. Strong shield Ulrok is drunk more often than sober, which many humans from this tiny village believe is normal behaviour for dwarves. During trading encounters, there is always a feast to wish for good fortune with the added help of dwarven ale.

Ulrok was sitting in the small den when he saw the blackened smoke rise above the treeline. He factored it was not more than an hour away. Quickly for a dwarf with such a round belly that hardly raised a hammer anymore, he dashed from the hall. Ulrok called for an alarm.

At this time, the militia watch started to sound the bell. Ulrok dashed to his room and threw open his weapons chest with a hearty laugh. He looked forward to bashing in some goblin skulls that day. His arms had been ideal this past winter. Looking down on his family’s sigil of golds and greens upon his tower shield, he donned his armour and latched on his shield. A dwarf had never been happier at that moment. Ulrok was going to have some fun.

******

Jeremy was too young to work the mines yet, but he was old enough to start to learn how to keep a watch. However, he and four other young boys are keeping watch this day. Each had a wooden tower to look outwards; it was tedious work, but Jeremy enjoyed it. He would sit atop the building and practice his bow. Jeremy could sit up top and fire arrows all day long. Each morning he would set up targets upon the tree line and carry with him countless arrows. Over the last few years, hardly anyone was a better shot than young Jeremy. He would dream of being a ranger one day, travelling the woodlands and saving… saving anyone.

Jeremy aimed at a scarecrow man that he set up that morning when he thought he saw something move. It was a dull task to keep watch, Calvary was not attacked often by goblins, but it has happened in the past. Jeremy had never seen a goblin in the two years he started to watch, but he did see something small and green dart behind his target. This slight distraction made him miss and send an arrow into the bush. That is when he heard the scream coming from the town square. He turns to face the cry just for a moment when something just flew past his cheek and left a scarlet mark. He barely saw the black arrow shaft past his face and trail off.

Spinning away from the screaming behind him, he noticed a band of what he could only imagine as goblins. They were coming from behind his scarecrows. That is when he heard the bells ringing. The screaming finally stopped; he knew it would start again if he did not let the arrows fly; he pulled the bowstring, the cord pressed to his bleeding cheek, and blood dripped upon his fingertips. He looked for the goblin that fired at him. Smiling to himself, he knew every inch of his killing field and would make these bastards pay for hurting his town… his only family.

The arrow passed his fingertips, and before it even found the heart of its target, he had another arrow knocked and pulled back to his cheek. The blood flowed unimpeded, but he hardly noticed; this was his dream come true. This day he was going to become the ranger of Calvary. From the corner of his eye, he saw a goblin leaving the bush and rushing to the tower’s base. He let loose the arrow, meeting its mark right above it is the right eye. The creature hit the ground with a crack. “Two down,” he counted. This time three more rushed out; he let loose another arrow killing the one in the lead. He quickly saw a goblin come from the bush and take aim, this time with a fire arrow. He fired again, whispering to himself, “Must move faster. If you get by me, someone will die….”

He hit the goblin with the bow square in the chest, dropping the arrow and lighting his scarecrow in a blaze; there is no time to worry about this now. The first goblin was almost past him, he let loose another arrow, but as he did, the goblin ducked and rolled. It began to climb the tower, dagger between its teeth. Three more goblins rushed from the woods and began to dart back and forth. He let loose. It reminded him of his hunting trips with his father. He took down two goblins before the third clued, believing it was not working. He started to smell a faint smell of rot coming, he looked down, and the goblin was near the top. He fired again and landed a hit right between the eyes.

The last goblin, seeing his comrade hit the group from the top of the tower, decided that his best choice of action was to turn around. “Got you!” Right in the middle of its back, the arrow landed, pushing the goblin into the blazing scarecrow, but it was dead before it started to burn. Jeremy began to imagine the pain that the creature would have felt if it had been alive. Giving a quick prayer, he turned to face the village for the first time in years. What Jeremy saw was the colour red. He almost dropped his bow, but he found his courage and let arrows fly until he could not feel his fingers…

******

Drovic saw the first signs of the attack before the young watchers. He had locked his travelling gear in his room and had his cloak and breastplate on, dagger in hand. Moving into the trees without being noticed was easy for a being of his skills. He dashed past the young boy who was napping in his tree. He thought of waking the young lad for a moment, but a wicked smile spread over his lips and dashed into the treetops. These trees were much smaller than the ones he first climbed when he came to this realm, but it was easy to move through such open space. He just had to be mindful of any frost or ice which could make him fall. It was about a thirty-minute travel time when he came across the first band of goblins that started the fire. They had caught a hunter and his dog, a bad mistake for the man. They were roasting the dog alive over the flames making the man watch.

A ping of sadness seemed to creep into Drovic, “Foolish humans, goblins hate dogs with more disdain than any other creature.” Drovic weighed the pros and cons and decided to act. He would need the village to trust him, and what better way than to bring back a survivor. He did a quick count of what he might be facing. It was a small area with no large open spaces, “Easy enough, TWO, 4, 5… and 6,” Drovic did a quick count of the goblins. He dropped to the ground as light as a feather. Drovic bent to one knee and did a short slide around the tree. He was behind the first goblin, who was giggling from the outside. In a swift movement, he placed one hand across the goblin’s head and slit open the creature’s throat.

Before the dead weight fell to the ground, he flipped the dagger. Drovic’s hands let fly across the fire into the face of the leader goblin, who was taking a bite at the dog. In a flash, the silver dagger returned to Drovic’s hand, flicked again off his wrist, and killed the goblin close to the hunter. “That is three of you dead. Who else wants to taste my steel, you cowards. You dogs,” Drovic yelled at them all.

One ran into the bush, but the last pair, being called a dog, rallied against Drovic and bull-rushed headfirst at the skilled warrior. Just as he had planned, he ran up the edge of the tree and pushed off, sailing off the tree and landing with a twist behind the goblins. A second silver dagger appeared in his left hand, and he sank both to the hilt within the backs of the goblin’s head, and the blades disappeared and returned to his hands, both still shining beautifully in the sunlight, not a drop of blood upon them.

The hunter could not believe his eyes; this lone man freed him when he had given up hope. He watched as the man began to spin the daggers in his hand, then in a flash, there was just one, he blinked again to clear his eyes of tears, and the blade was gone. The man began looting through the bodies as he worked toward the hunter. His hands quickly scanned the bodies for information and gold. The hunter was alive that he was speechless and fell back upon the tree. Then from behind the tree, a small green figure darts out and bites out the hunter’s throat. His last thought was of his son.

Drovic, in a burning rage, quickly stepped over to the little beast and began to punch it with his fists, breaking a few of the creature’s teeth. The crunching sound, not uncommon to the sound of stepping on the first snowfall, was music to Drovic’s anger. The beast stopped moving. Blood stopped dripping from its mouth, dropping it to the ground with a thud. “Damn little beast, if I wanted that man dead, I would have watched the goblins eat him,” with that, he begins to head back to town, but when he reaches the top branch of the tree, was the most diminutive creature Drovic has ever seen. It was smoking on its little pipe and blowing small rings around his head.

“Oh, Drovic, it is good to watch your handy work. You are ever so skilled with the use of a knife.”

Drovic pulls himself up the last few inches, sits on the tree branch, and looks at the creature, trying to figure out what it is. He always found that magical creatures also packed a good punch in smaller sizes, which reminded him very much of a tiny fairy with no wings. “What are you,” Drovic asked straight forward, his anger past and now replaced with much curiosity.

“Just your friendly local brownie sent with a message from the man pulling the strings of these simple goblins. He thinks you could be a powerful ally, and we could support each other, but….” The brownie passes and blows another smoke ring, “but you have to stay alive through today.” With that, the brownie disappeared, and Drovic heard something significant coming down the forest path.

******

Ulrok’s tower shield was splattered with goblin blood. He rushed to the nearest watch tower to find the young man dead. The goblins were enjoying him as a snack. A few had cut off his right arm and left leg with their rusty weapons and cracked open the bones to get the marrow from within. It looked like they caught the young boy napping; not a single goblin was dead. Upon his discovery, Ulrok went blind with rage and began to attack the goblins with unbridled dwarven hatred. Whether the reason he only saw red was because of his wrath for the fact that there was no other colour present on the dead boy’s body. Ulrok body did not even feel the weight of his armour, and his hammer sang with the cracking sounds of goblin skulls.

Another comes at him; it is a crude sword bouncing off his tower shield, raising the shield and bashing the bottom across the eyes, causing the bridge of its nose to break. Blood poured out of the creature’s wounded face and fell to the ground, tweaking. Without a pause, Ulrok spins, looking like the centre of a whirlwind. His hammer smashes into the side of the goblin. The hammer turns bone into powder, and the goblin flops to the ground like a rag doll trying to sneak up behind him.

That was when Ulrok saw the leader leaving the tree line. He did a quick count, he had finished off fifteen dead, but this one was different. He wielded a two-handed cleave dented but stained red from his foes. The creature had a helmet made from the skull of a great bull; it had dead horns that could rip a man apart easily. It was atop a giant dire rat, whose winter fur was starting to fall out in patches that could barely hold its enormous bulk. This foe was no average goblin, and its forearms bulged with strength.

Running out behind the fear-inspiring leader came a dozen small goblins who were cheering him on. In Ulrok’s mind, it did not matter what foe stepped out in front of him. These creatures had attacked his home, killed his friends, and they dared to challenge an angry dwarf? Ulrok steps on top of the dead goblin, whose head he caved in moments ago, and speaks their filthy tongue, “Are you this afraid of me that you had to bring a small army to challenge me?” He begins to laugh a great belly laugh of his, and all the goblins stare at him dumbfounded.

In the goblin tongue, the warrior rebuts, “I need no help killing a simple dwarf.” Jumping from his wild mount, which appeared to be a cross between a boar and a bear, as if a mad god had smashed the two creatures together. Goblin warrior snots and cleaves the head of the closest goblin, picking it up with an easy and giving it a mighty heave with its great arms. The goblin warrior sends the head flying in a perfect arc at Ulrok. The head smattering across the tower shield made Ulrok smile, one more dead. The leader started to walk towards Ulrok, and his mount began to devour the body of the headless goblin. Ulrok tightens his grip upon his Warhammer. As the goblin leader approached him, he could gauge the creature’s size better; this so-called leader stood a good head taller than the biggest miner in all of Calvary. Ulrok had never seen a goblin so prominent in all his days.

“Simple… that is a good way to describe your whore of a mother,” Ulrok charged the leader, head braced behind his shield and the mighty hammer arched behind his back. The leader, so full of himself and not wanting to show fear to the growing number of goblins forming behind him, chose to stand his ground. Right before Ulrok contacted the massive leader, he angled his tower shield directly under the creature’s groin and, his leg muscles bulging as he used every ounce of strength, Ulrok jumped forward.

His speed, mass, weight, and armour crashed into the beast’s soft area. The leader propelled over, but not before his massive cleaver slammed into his shoulder of Ulrok. It did not matter for the pain to Ulrok, and he had to kill this creature. The creature was underneath him, spitting blood from the assault on his groin. Ulrok smashed his Warhammer into the leader’s chest. Then he picks up his cleaver and, with his remaining strength, sends the cleaver home into the leader’s skull.

“Who is next,” Ulrok viciously screams towards the forming goblin line, picking his hammer up from the dead leader’s chest. Lighting pain screaming in his arm from the blow, the leader landed as he fell. A few goblins started to walk forward. Ulrok quietly prayed to his mountain god when he thought he heard a voice. Two arrows came flying past him, killing the bravest of goblins. Seeing their leader dead and more of them cut down caused the goblins to flee back into the woods. Ulrok took in a deep breath. He could hear the voice clear now.

Jeremy, the young man of twelve cycles, comes running up, “That was amazing, Ulrok. I could never muster the bravery to face a creature like this in close combat.”

“Young man, when you are older, you might be released. I had no choice; bravery comes from a choice. Even a cornered mouse will attack a large cat.”

“Why are they attacking us like this? I have never seen anything like this before. We have had a few raids in the past, but nothing to this scale and plan. They attack all the towers at once.” That was when Jeremy saw Tyler’s body, half-eaten, at the tower’s base. It looks like he pushed him off the building and broke his neck on the landing. Jeremy did a small prayer to the gods for letting Tyler be dead before they feasted upon him, “Tyler,” Jeremy pointed to the body.

“There was nothing I could do for the boy. He was dead upon my arrival,” pausing for such talk, “What if the other towers? Have you been to any of them?”

“I left my tower, killed about thirty, a few got past me, and I hunted them down as father taught me. Tyler’s tower was closest to mine, and he was not a very good shot, so I thought I would help.”

“Did you get a look at the rest of the town?” Then with a large explosion coming from the Tavern, Ulrok’s question was answered. The fighting was not over yet. Jeremy walks to the cleaver and barely pulls it free with both hands.

“I might need this; be my shield, and I will let fly from behind.”