When hunting dangerous animals, it's natural for the heart to race and the body to tremble, but if you don't get over these soon, you won't last long. I kept my breathing steady and my eyes on the woods ahead as I rode just in front of a pack of wolves, their yips and snarls a constant reminder that they were always just one step away from being able to snap at Gix’s tail. Of course, they only got this close because I let them, better to give the beasts less warning before they sprung the trap. As I neared the area I set up for the wolves, I narrowed my focus to recognize the trees and underbrush where my traps were hidden. Drawing closer to the first thick patch of bushes, I brought my hand to the side of Gix’s eye and flicked out my finger to signal him to speed up, and as he did so, the wolves mustered the stamina for one last burst of speed to stay on top of us. The tip of my tail curled. It was just as I planned.

“Jump!” I yelled. Gix leapt the bushes at the last possible moment, and the wolves charged directly into them. Those at the front of the pack released strained howls of pain as they gouged themselves on the sharpened stakes of wood concealed in the foliage, echoed when those just behind them ran straight into their backs and pushed them even further into the stakes. A quick glance revealed three wolves were now stuck, two more were wounded but had pulled themselves free, and another three had stopped themselves before hitting the spikes. I continued riding until I’d reached the top of a nearby hill and turned Gix around. The wolves that remained unharmed had stayed by the others, prodding around the spikes, reluctant to leave their packmates but unable to pull them free. I took aim at one that was wounded, but not impaled, and shot a bolt at it. The bolt pierced behind its shoulder, and the wolf jumped, yelping in shock, but remained standing. It looked toward me and growled through barred fangs, then bolted up the hill, with all the remaining able-bodied wolves in tow.

Now that I’d gotten them back on the chase, I rode down the hill perpendicular to the charging wolves, to the left of a patch of snares. As the wolves turned to intercept me, two of them sprung the traps, yelping as their forelegs got snagged out from under them. The other three slowed, carefully eyeing the trees around them for signs of more traps. I took this time to reload, taking one foot out of the stirrup of my saddle and placing it in the crossbow’s stirrup as I pulled back the string with both hands, then loosed my bolt into the throat of a snared wolf. The wolf gagged and twitched its head uncontrollably as it struggled against the ropes, then went limp and collapsed. The remaining three wolves snapped out of their cautious examination and continued after me.

I turned into the snare patch and carefully guided Gix around the snares to keep the wolves chasing us through the patch. They turned in their pursuit, but as they did so, one that was toward the rear dropped its hind leg into the loop of a snare. As their packmate was dragged up and fruitlessly clawing at the ground to get out of the snare, the last two wolves charged right for me. I skirted around a snare and rode to the next one, but my caution had cost me speed, and the wolves quickly gained on me.

As my luck would have it, both remaining wolves ran past my snare and moved to flank me. Just as I began to speed up, the wolf to my right leapt up and snapped at me. I raised my arm just before its jaws could close around it, and its long white fangs instead dug into my tunic. The wolf snarled as it ripped the hides and quickly pulled back, but it failed to gain a secure clamp, let alone damage my flesh. I drew my dagger and prepared to take a swipe when the wolf lunged again, this time slamming its paws into Gix and shoving him off his feet. I dropped my crossbow as I tumbled in the air, but kept my grip on my dagger and twisted my body to keep its blade pointed up and away from me. My back collided with the ground, and I rolled through the brush, still gripping my dagger and holding it close and parallel to my chest. When I slowed to a stop, the wolf that knocked us over was on top of Gix, only for the raptor to bring up his sharp claws in defense.

The wolf that had been on my left ran past its packmate and toward me. I snapped my gaze away from Gix’s fight and scrambled to get to the next snare, not even bothering to stand up, but keeping my dagger ready to strike the beast. The wolf quickly gained on me and snapped at my legs, tearing through the scales above my right ankle and scraping the bone. As the pain seared in my leg, I tried to muster another burst of speed to get away faster, but the wolf easily kept up and coiled its legs to lunge at my upper body. Before it could begin its pounce, I reached forward and swiped my dagger at its face, leaving a deep slash in its nose. The wolf yipped and reeled back, giving me time to continue my mad scramble until I was almost in reach of the snare, during which I spared a quick glance at Gix, who had made several gashes in the other wolf’s flanks and just managed to bring his toe claw to its neck.

The wolf on top of Gix pointed its head down and opened its jaws to bite his foot, but failed to intercept it in time. Gix pierced the wolf’s hide and drew his claw straight down its throat. The wolf gagged as it bled out and collapsed over Gix, who simply pushed it to one side and sprang up to assist me with my wolf. Before he could get there, the wolf lunged again, this time managing to get past my dagger as it leapt on top of me and pressed my shoulders into the ground with its paws. My scrawny arms failed to combat the weight of the wolf, leaving me swinging my forearm alone as I tried to slice the wolf’s legs. My slashes cut skin but were stopped by the bone, though that was enough to make the creature retract its paw and hesitate before biting out my throat. With a quick yip of pain, it turned to my knife hand and opened its jaws to bite my wrist, but Gix arrived just in time to interrupt the wolf with a pounce.

As Gix slammed into the wolf’s side, it yelped and stumbled to its left to keep its balance as it struggled to shake him off. With the weight of the wolf removed from my shoulders, I sprung to my feet and dashed to my dropped crossbow while Gix climbed on the wolf’s back and hooked his foreclaws into its shoulders. When I reached my crossbow, I slid one foot under it and kicked it up into my hands. The string didn’t show any signs of damage from the fall, nor did any other part of the weapon. With silent thanks to the Five for giving me some good luck for a change, I pulled back the string and loaded a bolt. The wolf was getting nowhere in its attempts to buck Gix off, but its rapid jumping and twisting while the raptor repeatedly slashed his claws into its back forced me to hold my breath and patiently wait for the right moment to shoot.

Just as the wolf was falling back down after a leap, I shot the bolt at where it was going to land. As soon as the wolf’s paws hit the ground, the bolt pierced through its ear opening and drove deep into its skull, and the wolf collapsed. After taking a quick look around to make sure the other wolves weren’t about to break free of their snares, I quickly ran over to the newly fallen wolf and plunged my dagger into its throat to make sure it was dead. Gix turned his head quizzically at the dagger in my hand, as if to ask why I stabbed the wolf when the crossbow bolt had clearly gone through its brain. I tucked my crossbow under one arm, and with the other reached up and brushed the feathers on his head.

“Just being sure, unnecessary precautions are always better than death,” I said. Gix stepped toward me and nudged his featherless snout against the bottom of my throat and rubbed all the way up to my chin. I petted and lightly scratched him down the back of his neck, and a contented chirping sound rumbled from within his throat. “Hey, good job today.”

Taking my hands away from the raptor, I sheathed my dagger, set down my crossbow, and used both hands to pry the bolt out of the wolf's head. The skull hadn’t seemed to dull the tip too much, so I loaded it back into my crossbow and checked my quiver. There were only six bolts left, all of them tipped with iron crafted by the smiths of my tribe. With no access to new metal out here, I had to conserve what I had. I climbed into Gix's saddle, rode up to the wolves that still struggled in their snares and put a bolt in each of them, one by one. Some took two before they stopped struggling, but they all died easily. When they were dead, I rode back to the row of spikes and was pleasantly surprised to find the wolves impaled on them had already succumbed to their injuries.

With the wolves dead, I climbed each tree to undo the snares and set down their carcasses, then set up a fire and began skinning them and cooking their meat. When Gix and I had eaten our fill, I cut what was left of the meat into strings and hung them up to dry in the trees when the sun came up. I hung up their pelts, too, so I’d be able to make more bags and blankets, just in case. I also retrieved as many crossbow bolts as I could. Most were in good condition, with hardly any dulling from scraping against bone. It wouldn’t take much sharpening to get them back into shape, but continued use would wear the metal down eventually. I harvested as many bones as would fit in my bag and rode back to my cave, leaving the meat and hides to dry and making sure I paid attention to the surrounding woods so I could find my way back when they did.

The sun was beginning to rise when we reached the cave, a modest little hole among a small cluster of rocks. I dismounted and slipped into the opening before gently leading Gix down after me. When Gix had reached the cave floor, I took off his saddle and helped him preen his feathers, picking out any ticks and fleas while he used his mouth to tidy the arrangement of his plumage. As he had almost full range over his body and limbs, I focused mainly on his head, neck, and tail, working hard to ensure his cleanliness, despite the aching it caused in the tender bruises the wolf’s paws had left on my arms. While sunlight had begun to pierce through the cave entrance by the time we were finished, I was not yet tired, and the shelter provided by the cave gave me plenty of time to accomplish other tasks. As Gix lay down to take his rest, I took off my hides and used a needle with sinew to stitch up the tear made by the wolf’s bite, then removed the wolf bones from my backpack and took stock of the tools currently at my disposal.

In addition to the crossbow bolts currently in my quiver, I'd kept a stash of backups here in the cave, each merely a thin stick of wood with a pointed tip and fletching made from owlbear feathers. I took out a small abrasive stone and got to work filing pieces of bone into triangular points, then cut the tips of my headless bolts and used strings of sinew to attach the tips of bone. I made more than twice as many heads as I had bolts to make sure I could replace tips that broke, and fashioned the remaining bones into hide scrapers and small spikes. The long wooden spikes I’d set up for the wolves had taken a long time to make and only proven effective at stopping a few of them. If I ever went up against wolves again, I’d have to try something less rudimentary than a flat wall of spikes. Spikes arranged in a semi-circular placement, pointed inward, might catch more wolves, and a gap in the center of the spikes big enough for only one wolf to fit through could be used to funnel them and negate their numbers. Alternatively, spikes placed to form a wedge could force the pack to split and leave both groups easier to pick off with other traps.

These smaller spikes would be easier to carry and plant in the event of an unexpected attack. As good as portability was, they'd still need time to be planted, and shoving something into the ground isn't very easy when the only fast ways to do it involve either blunting the tip or skewering your foot. What I’d really need to throw off surprise attackers was at least a few bags of caltrops that could just be tossed on the ground and relied on to always point up. Unfortunately, I'd used up all my caltrops throwing off pursuers as I fled Tsa Thac. I'd always done my best to avoid going too deep into human communities, and avoiding them altogether if I could, but it seemed now I might have to do some more sifting to see if I could acquire better iron tools that would make it easier to deal with dangerous predators and adventurers.

I went to sleep with this in mind, weighing the dangers of intruding on human grounds with the rewards of better tools. As I faded from consciousness, I felt a strange congealing sensation, some metaphysical aspect of me becoming concrete, a feeling one only noticed after having accrued a very large amount of Experience. I had a good, heavy, dreamless sleep, and in the morning, I communed with nature to see how my progress was going. My grasp on my mind as it sifted through the environment was no less tenuous than usual, and the things I explored no less surreal. It was unlikely that I'd reached the next level, but between the wolves and the owlbear, I had to be getting close.

Over the next few days, I kept my hunting focused on small forest animals to give my bruises time to heal, supplementing cooked meals with jerky when I needed to. When the meat and pelts from the wolves were completely dry, I packed everything up and traveled further south, ready to look for signs of a human village I could steal from. It took weeks to find any sign of human activity, and before long, the forest had given way to open fields. I rode across the fields in search of rivers to supply a community with water, artificial paths, footprints of cattle herds, and marks left by wagon wheels that could lead me to a settlement, all the while making sure the forest was in sight in case I needed to run back to cover.

On my second night outside the forest, I found what I was looking for, a cobbled road which even had signs placed along its length. Keeping Gix on the side of the road, I approached the nearest sign pole to see where I could find a settlement. I couldn't read the words on the signs, but whoever made them had been kind enough to give the signs the shapes of arrows, presumably pointing toward the village or town which they displayed the name of. I picked a sign that pointed to my left and rode off in that direction, staying off the road, just close enough to keep it in my sight, and watching my surroundings. Humans may have been typically active during the day, but I still wasn't ready to put myself in the middle of where their guards would be most likely to watch.

After hours of riding at a moderate pace, I spotted another sign on the side of the road and approached it to make sure I was still going in the right direction. Casting my gaze from one end of the road to another to make sure no one was there, I stepped on the road and examined the sign. This poll had a sign pointing in the same direction as the sign I decided to follow earlier, and I did my best to remember the shaping of the letters on the previous sign to see if the one in front of me now matched. So far as I could tell, the letters were the same, so I left the road and continued writing parallel to it as I'd been doing.

When the fields of grain and pastures of cattle finally came into view, the sun had already begun to rise, and I could hear roosters crowing. I rode to a hill a good distance between the outermost farms, dismounted, and made my way toward the town on foot, with my crossbow in hand. The town in the center of the handful of farms was surrounded by a rectangular wall made of logs that were each sharpened to a conical point at the top. At the corners of the wall, and in the middle of each long side, there were watchtowers that stood a little over twice as high as the rest of the wall. Just as the farmers were beginning to leave their homes and do their morning chores, I walked into the fields of crops, easily keeping my head beneath the tall grain plants, and moved toward the wall to get a closer look, tucking in my arms and tail to minimize my disturbance of the grain. When I reached the edge of the grain that brought me closest to the wall, still several dozen strides away, I peeked out and strained my eyes to get a better look at the watchtowers.

Though the humans on the farms were only just rising with the dawn, the watchtowers already had armed guards inside them. Though the sunlight behind the guards gave them a silhouetted appearance, I could still make out light glinting off of metal helmets and the distinct shapes of crossbows in their hands, and between the towers, I could see guards carrying spears walking along the wall. This was good, I reminded myself. Now I knew I could at least find metal tips for crossbow bolts that would be close enough to my size. I stepped back into the grain and made my way toward the road that brought me to this village to see where the entrance was. I found a gate where the road met the wall, but also found that there were many more guards standing on the wall above the gate, and as it opened, a dozen of them stepped out from the village to take posts right outside the gate. The front door was clearly the place they watched the closest.

Once again silently cursing the humans for possessing common sense, I worked my way around the wall to see if there were any smaller openings, perhaps a secret escape tunnel or a hole through which the residents disposed of their excrement. On the opposite side from the main gate, I did find a heap of waste--a revolting brown sludge mixed with the liquid waste that mammals strangely excreted separately--but I saw no opening for it to have been dumped from. Judging by the pile’s position, slightly askew from the wall, it had probably been dumped from over the top. With no visible openings that weren't heavily guarded, it seemed my best option for getting inside this wall was to climb over it. Even then, I'd never be a match for several armed and armored human guards on their own turf, but unless this town had frequent problems with nocturnal creatures like me, I could probably expect thinner patrols at night.

I moved away from the wall and back to the hill so I could wait for the sun to go back down. As I snuck past the farmhouses, I had to work extra hard to evade detection from the several humans that had now exited their homes. Rather than going into the fields, or killing their livestock, or whatever it is farmers do, the humans were all kneeling in the direction of the rising sun, rhythmically bowing and speaking chants I couldn't understand. Some of the humans wore tunics and garments fitted to the shape of their legs, others had outfits fitted to the upper torso, but with simpler cloth wraps around their entire lower halves. If this was to show some kind of distinction between different types of people, I couldn't tell what it was. They also came in various sizes, and as the larger ones seemed to be placed at the centers of their strange ritual, I assumed the smaller ones were juveniles. What did humans call their young, anyway? I was pretty sure they didn't lay eggs, so not hatchlings. Birthlings, maybe? It didn't really matter, I had no plans to interact with human society.

With the human farmers focused on their ritual, I was able to sneak behind them and make my way back to the hill. As I did so, I passed by a short wooden pole with a carving of the Sun, painted deep blue, on top, and food carefully arranged around its base. It was then that I realized the kneeling was no insignificant morning activity, it was prayer. Just my luck I'd wind up in a land full of sun worshippers.

When I got back to the hill, I lay down and had Gix keep a lookout for anyone who might come close enough to spot us. I did my best to relax, though even without the sun shining in my eyes, I wouldn't have allowed myself to fall asleep. Hopefully, this degree of rest would be all I needed to gather sufficient energy to prepare a spell. When, after many long hours, the sun finally set back down beneath the horizon, I prepared Pass Without Trace and cast it on myself and Gix. As the humans went indoors for the night, I made a slow but straight line for the wall. I walked through grain, as I had in the morning, and when I reached the edge, I carefully looked in both directions and at the top of the wall to be sure there were no guards watching my surroundings. When I didn't see any, I made a quick but smooth dash to the bottom of the wall, then removed my backpack and pulled out a length of rope. Checking my surroundings again and finding there were still no guards in sight, I put my pack back on and tied a loop at one end of my rope. I then stepped away from the wall and threw the loop as high as I could. The rope stopped just short of the top of the wall and fell back to the ground. It took me three more tries before I was able to get the loop over the edge of the wall and to snag it around the pointed tip of one of the logs.

Pulling the loop tight, I climbed up the wall, holding the rope with my hands and using the talons on my feet to grip the upright logs. I stopped just before reaching the top and carefully peaked over to check for guards. As I predicted, there seemed to be fewer guards now than there were in the morning, though I spotted larger concentrations in the watchtowers, and one guard appeared along the wall to my left, with a spear in one hand and a lit torch in the other. I pulled my head back down just before the human could notice me and held still as I waited for them to pass. The guard continued past me without slowing or making the quickest glance in my direction. When the torch light shining over the wall reached the next watchtower, I pulled myself over the wall, carefully moving my legs between the spikes and gently setting foot on the walkway. Another glance to either side revealed no guards looking in my direction, so I gathered my rope and steadily made for a set of stairs that ran parallel to the walkway and walked to the ground.

The community within the wall had gone quiet, no one walked the streets and no light shone through the closed shutters of the houses. These houses were much closer together than the farmhouses in the surrounding countryside, ordered in neat rows and only the street running through the center providing major space between them. I stuck close to the houses and kept an eye out for any building that might contain the supplies I was looking for. Weaving in and out of the nooks between homes, I had a hard time figuring out what building might be the village's forge. In my former home, the forge was close to the surface to make it easy to let out smoke and soot, but in a village located entirely above ground, there was no such way to tell it apart.

I began carefully opening shutters and peeking through windows of every house to see if any of them had a forge inside. For the first several houses, I saw only tables, storage rooms for food and drink, and humans in bed, but as I made my way toward the back of the wall, I noticed a building much longer than all the other houses, located on the other side of the village. Given its size, it could easily be a building used for storage. After looking in both directions and seeing no humans or animals who could spot me in the street, I crept across to the long building and tucked myself between it and an adjacent house. When all remained quiet, I slowly stepped out and approached the nearest window.

The shutters were no more difficult to open than any other, and as I looked inside, I saw what I was looking for. The walls were lined with racks of spears placed with their points up, and as I stood on my toes to get a better look, I spotted shelves lined with barrels full of what looked like arrows or crossbow bolts built into the short wall on the left. I reached both arms into the window and pulled myself over the sill, gently climbing down to the floor of the storehouse, closing the shutters behind me, and walking over to the shelves. I pulled a barrel from the lower shelf and examined its contents.

The barrel's rim came up to my waist, and upon taking a closer look at the contents, they seemed short enough to be crossbow bolts. I took one out and compared it to one from my quiver. It was a few talons longer, tipped with a narrow point of metal with a lighter shade. Cutting the bolt short and reattaching the tip would be a simple enough matter, so I pulled patches of wolfskin from my backpack and started wrapping them around as many bolts as I could fit.

After tying up my bundles and stuffing them in my backpack, I looked around the rest of the storehouse for other useful equipment. One of the spears lining the wall could provide valuable reach, but their shafts would take some shaving to fit my hands, their length would also make it too hard to sneak back out, and my backpack only had so much room left. No, I needed tools that were small and easy to carry. I walked to the opposite wall of the crossbow bolts, where several plain wooden boxes were stacked. I undid the latch on one of the boxes and opened the lid to see exactly what I was looking for, caltrops. After taking out another patch of wolf skin and laying it on the floor, I carefully started picking out caltrops and laying them on the skin. I emptied the box piling the caltrops on most of my remaining wolf hides, then I wrapped them all up and shook each improvised bag to make sure none of the points had broken through. When running my hand over the outside of the bags didn't reveal any points of penetration, I tied each of them up and put them in my backpack.

Now that I had what I came for, I strapped on my backpack and walked back to the window. After taking a peek and seeing no guards, I climbed back out and made for the nearest set of stairs to the wall. When I was about halfway there, I heard shouting coming from the other side of the town’s front gate, and the guards on the wall started running toward it. I darted between the nearest two houses and tucked myself in just as the guards started rushing past me. As alarm bells began to ring, more humans emerged from the houses to join them, some struggling to don coats of quilted cloth and a few even wearing ones lined with overlapping metal plates riveted to the inside while they ran to their posts, but most only bothering to take helmets and spears. After readying my dagger and sitting tight for a few moments to let the guards pass my position, I leaned my head out to see what they were doing. A group of guards was forming up at the gate with spears at the ready, and several more were lined up above the gate and shooting their crossbows at something outside.

After nearly a minute of sustained shooting, one guard on the wall pointed to those still on the ground by the gates and yelled something to them. Two of the guards rushed to the gates and lifted the wooden beam holding it closed, then pulled the gates open. Through the open gates, I saw a wagon pulled by two galloping horses rolling toward the village. At the reins was a tall figure draped in a ragged cloak, and at either side was a group of creatures closer to my size, but with strangely large round heads and wide, pointy ears, riding creatures with the size and shape of dogs, but otherwise possessing the features of skinny, hairless rats.

Goblins.

The mounted goblins rode up beside the carriage and caught up with the horses, awkwardly swiping at them with crude, notched blades, only managing to deal grazing blows to the beasts’ back thighs. The horses whinied in pain and strained themselves to gallop faster, and the human guards split formation to make room for the wagon as their comrades at the gates motioned to wave the driver in. I slipped back between the houses and looked for a way to climb up the wall. The inside of the wall didn't have any points for me to snag my rope on, so I instead gripped the wooden beam on the house’s corner, pressed my back and feet against the city wall and began to push my way up.

With the small space between the house and the wall, it was impossible to keep my hands parallel with my feet, so finding the purchase I needed to push off the two surfaces was a constant struggle. Before I was even halfway up the house, the humans’ shouting intensified, as did the goblins’ sadistic laughter, and I began to hear screaming from outside the walls. I closed my eyes and grunted as I pushed myself up even harder, the muscles of my arms and legs burning with the effort of lifting my entire body. When the top of the house was finally within reach, I grabbed a hold and tried to pull myself onto the roof. The smooth wooden tiles proved harder to dig my claws into than the rough bark of most trees, and my shoulders ached as I fought to keep myself from slipping. Before I could fall, I clasped the edge of the roof firmly with one hand and threw my feet back to the town wall, then pushed off the wall and onto the roof.

Now that most of my body was on top of the house, pulling myself further became much easier. I crawled across the roof until I had nothing hanging off the edge and stopped to catch my breath. Just as I did so, I could hear the wagon rolling through the gate, the guards quickly slamming it shut behind the wagon, and the horses scurrying to a stop. I crawled up to the point of the roof to get a look. A small number of guards slowly approached the wagon, weapons lowered. The wagon was covered with a simple sheet of fabric, but none of the humans seemed interested in what was underneath. One of them stepped toward the cloaked driver and spoke, their tone gentle, perhaps asking if they were alright. The darkness must have hampered their vision greatly, because even under the driver’s tattered hood, I could see their face from the rooftop. A wide jaw under a grin of crooked teeth, with two diagonal slits for nostrils. Just like a goblin.

I opened my pack and sifted for my rope in hopes that I could get a latch on the wall from here. All I had to do was get down and call for Gix, then I could ride far away from this attack. The guard who spoke to the wagon driver reached out with an empty hand, palm up. From the driver’s cloak shot a hand covered in rough skin with pointed fingernails, which grasped the guard’s wrist and pulled them onto the front of the wagon. Just as the guard began to scream, and their comrades readied their spears in shock, the cloaked figure wrapped both hands around their victim’s head and snapped their neck with a swift twist.

“Kherek-nor!” the driver shouted, and the cloth over the wagon was sliced to pieces from the inside by notched blades just like those used by the goblin riders outside. A swarm of goblins burst out from the wagon, overwhelming the nearest guards and slaughtering them with their crude iron blades and spears tipped with flint. The driver stood up and threw off their cloak, revealing a slim figure clad in hides and a gnarled vest of scales crafted from what looked like boiled leather. It was almost as tall as a human, but with long muscular arms, and a head to match their lesser goblin companions. On a taller body, this creature's abnormally large goblin head didn't seem so top-heavy, but it's facial features were no less grotesque. This hobgoblin grinned down at a guard standing to the left of their driver's seat, who stared dumbstruck up at their narrowed eyes, then brandished a long wooden club and swung it right for the human's head.

Even with a metal helmet to take the swing, the force of the club knocked the human's head to the side with an audible snap of the neck. Before their body hit the ground, I snapped out of my own stupor, tied a loop at one end of my rope and threw it to the edge of the town wall. I quickly climbed up the wall without bothering to look first, making it onto the walkway and running to the outer edge. Just as I grabbed onto the wall’s edge, a rapid series of footfalls sounded to my right. I turned just in time to catch sight of a human guard charging me with a spear and furrowed eyes. The guard thrust their spear at my face, grazing through my left cheek as I tilted my head to avoid the blow. Snarling in pain, I drew my dagger and ran for the guard’s unarmored legs, wrapping one arm around the right leg and with the other driving my blade deep into the flesh just behind the thigh bone. The guard screamed, but maintained enough composure to reverse their grip on their spear and drive it down at me. I dodged the blow by slipping between the guards legs, then I spun around and thrust my dagger up underneath the guard’s coat of quilted fabric, piercing through the flesh where the thigh meets the hips.

Blood gushed from the wound and warmed my hand as the guard dropped their spear to make a vain attempt to staunch the bleeding and fell to their knees. I glanced back at the town to make sure none of the goblins were approaching my position on the wall. Most of them had fanned out from their wagon and were now being chased around town by the guards who’d managed to acquire armor and survived the initial surprise attack. The hobgoblin remained out in the streets with a handful of its smaller kin formed around it. I watched them run after one of the scattered guards, whom they swarmed around all at once. The human managed to stick one goblin on their spear before the hobgoblin ran in and wrapped its long arms around them, holding them still while the remaining goblins hacked and stabbed the guard until they stopped screaming.

Turning back to the wall, I looked over to see what was happening in the farms outside the town, and what I saw stiffened my tail in shock. The farmhouses had been set alight, the smoke climbing to the sky, and goblins rode throughout the fields on their vicious rodent mounts, chopping the legs of any human that tried to run, while mightier hobgoblins dragged the humans from their homes and grabbed the young ones by the feet, then smashed their heads against their burning shelters. I ducked back down and lay back against the wall. With the carnage outside, my safest bet was to stay inside the wall and keep out of sight until the attack was over. I could only hope that Gix hadn’t stuck around as the goblins rode in and had run off to a safe distance where I could find him later.

Looking back into the town to be sure none of the goblins caught me off guard, I caught sight of another guard chasing a loan goblin, which cackled loudly as it darted between two houses where a handful of their comrades waited right out in front. In the darkness of the night, the human must not have spotted the other goblins that waited in the open, because they followed the cackling one right between the houses, and the goblins outside of the gap poured in to trap the guard. Though the goblins struggled to find their way around the guards coat of plates, the guard had as much trouble reorienting their spear in the tight quarters, and was slowly brought down by repeated thrusts and slashes to their unprotected arms and legs.

All over the town, the goblins were employing this kind of trick, exploiting the humans’ inability to see in the dark to bait them into getting surrounded, but there weren't very many goblins, and they lost one or two for every guard they cornered. It was only a matter of time before they exhausted their numbers. Just then, I noticed two more goblins hop out of the cart and quietly make their way over to the town gate. With the humans distracted, they faced no resistance as they grabbed the wooden beam keeping the gate shut and began struggling to lift it. Though it took them all their strength and required them to stretch their arms all the way up to match the height of the beam, the two goblins successfully pushed it out of its slots and slowly pulled the doors open. As they did so, a yell rang out from beyond the wall, and more goblins began rushing into the town's open gates, accompanied by a few dozen hobgoblins.

The remaining human guards on the ground charged to face the new swarm of attackers, but they were quickly overwhelmed and brought down one by one. Even as those still in the towers rained crossbow bolts upon the attackers, a large number of goblins split from the horde and began scaling up the walls to deal with them while the rest stayed on the ground and started breaking into the shelters, throwing rocks through windows while the hobs battered down the doors. As the goblins charged up the stairs near my position, I ditched any idea of waiting out the attack and ran to the edge of the walkway, jumping onto the roof of the nearest house.

“Ogaar daagaan!” a goblin on the wall shouted as I landed. From what I’d picked up of the goblin language during one of my tribe’s conflicts with their kind, I recalled that this phrase meant “over there”, and true enough, when I looked in the direction of the voice, I saw a goblin pointing its notched blade right at me. A handful of goblins cut off from the others and ran after me as I slid down the roof, dragging my talons as I reached the edge to slow myself before falling off. My knees buckled as I hit the ground, but I quickly forced myself to keep running before the goblins could jump down after me. As I moved to dash out from between the houses, a goblin stepped out from around the corner to block me.

“Wheke fal kahl red kahl'ke gotin?” the goblin asked with a wide toothy grin and furrowed eyes. I dashed past the goblin’s left side, taking a swing from its blade to my chest. My hides softened the blow, but the blade still transferred blunt force that slammed into my ribs with an audible crack. Though I stumbled as some breath had been knocked from my lungs, I ignored the goblin and bolted to the open gate. My attacker made chase, and while its legs had more muscle than mine, my digitigrade feet provided just enough spring to stay ahead of it. Goblins on every side turned to intercept me before I could reach the gate. Rather than let them surround me all at once, I veered to the right and charged the nearest goblin with my dagger. I dodged under its spear and thrusted at its throat, only managing to cut the side of its neck as it dodged to the side. The goblin behind me managed to catch up as I slowed to make this attack, and I heard the sound of its blade chopping through the air. I stepped to the left, dodging the blow while also swiping my dagger across the wounded goblin’s throat.

As the spear-wielding goblin fell to its knees clutching its bleeding throat, I resumed my dash for the gate. The rest of the goblins running toward me were now coming together to block my escape. I charged through the biggest remaining gap between them, taking swings and stabs that tore at my hides and sliced the bare scales on my arms. I didn't let them slow me down, even as my cracked ribs burned and my blood splattered the ground. With one hand I clasped a wound under my left shoulder, and with the other I grabbed my whistle and blew it as loud as I could. If Gix could outmaneuver the goblins outside and reach me before I was overwhelmed by the goblins inside, I’d have a better chance of outrunning the goblins and escaping into the countryside.

I continued dodging through the goblins that ran through the town street. Luckily, many of them were too busy destroying the human shelters and chasing after those humans who managed to escape their homes to care about me. As screaming unarmed humans dressed only in garments of thin loose-fitting white cloth ran into the street, clutching to each other and their young as they desperately looked about for a way through the horde of goblins, I ran into the nearest group and wove back and forth between their legs, turning from side to side to throw off my pursuers. Any humans I moved close to jumped away with a start, if they could see in the darkness that I was not one of the goblins, they must not have cared. Even so, they proved a reprieve from goblins, who now focused more on tackling the confused human non-combatants, some of which they hacked apart with their blades, others they instead worked together to knock over and pin to the ground. By the time all the humans surrounding me had been killed or subdued, I was nearly within spitting distance of the gate.

Bolstered by the shot at freedom right in front of me, I ran straight ahead, only for a goblin to approach from my side and lunge with a loud shriek. It wrapped its arms around my legs and squeezed tight. Failing to escape the trip in time, I took one hand off my wounded arm, used both hands to break my fall, and tried to scramble back to my feet. The goblin firmly held my legs together as I squirmed and clawed the ground to pull away, only managing to lift my upper body before two more goblins tackled me from behind and slammed me back into the dirt. I swung my dagger up over my head, and felt the tip of the blade hit a goblin’s skull and slide along the forehead, leaving a long gash in the skin. The bleeding goblin reeled back and screeched in pain as yet another two moved in to join the action. While the one who tripped me swiftly crawled up to pin down my torso and another firmly gripped my left arm, the rest reached out to take my dagger, but I managed to maneuver my arm away from their grasping hands while also slicing back at their hands and arms.

Just as one goblin finally managed to get both bleeding hands around my shoulder before sliding its grip down to my forearm and pinning it against the ground, an angered shriek rang out from beyond the gate. I looked ahead to see Gix running along the road and straight for the gate, briefly stopping to leap upon a goblin who charged him, knocking it flat on its back and slitting its throat with his killing claw. The goblin tried to lift its heavy blade to strike back, but gave out as its blood spurted like a fountain from its wound. Those that held me looked at each other with scared expressions, and as Gix ran through the gate and bounded toward us with outstretched foreclaws, three of them snapped out of their fear, grabbing their blades and running to face my raptor together in foolhardy determination, yelling their hoarse battle cries as they did so. The other two began to rise, but hesitated to charge the swift raptor that was now swiping his foreclaws at their comrades’ faces. Gix’s claws left long bleeding streaks across the goblins’ skin, but each time he spun around to attack a different goblin, he gave the other two the opening they needed to swipe their blades at him, leaving bloody streaks of their own.

Seeing its fellows holding their own against my raptor, one of the goblins near me found the confidence to run in and join them, but I snapped out by arm and grabbed it by the ankle, straining my fingers to hold firm against its thicker muscles as it tripped to the ground. Before the remaining goblin could re-establish its hold on me, I broke away and leapt on top of the one that fell. It turned and tried to raise its arms in defense, but not in time to stop me from switching my dagger into a reverse grip and using both hands to plunge it into its forehead. A moderately thick skull gave way to iron as I pierced into the creature's brain and the light and its frightened eyes went out.

A set of loud footfalls sounded behind me, coupled with a bellow too deep to belong to a goblin or human, so I yanked my dagger from the dead goblin’s skull and ran toward Gix without looking back. Before the goblins surrounding him could notice me, I ran up behind one that was preparing to take a swing and thrust my dagger at its throat. The goblin reeled in surprise at my attack and nearly dropped its blade, only just managing to step back in time to avoid my blade, but I still distracted it long enough for Gix to leap upon another goblin and begin repeatedly slicing at its face with his foreclaws. The goblin screamed and flailed its arms uselessly as Gix’s claws tore into its eyes, leaving behind only bloody sockets.

Before Gix was finished, the third goblin realized its fight was lost and ran out the gate, leaving only the goblin right in front of me. It spun around with its blade arm outstretched, slamming the pommel into my head and knocking me to the side. I staggered to stay on my feet and ran around the goblin’s other side to get to Gix. The goblin turned back around and took another swing at me, this time with the blade of its weapon. The blow found a tear in my hides and bit into my scales, but all the notches in the poorly maintained blade made it too difficult for it to cut more than a talon or so into my ribs. I did my best to tune out the pain as I left up on top of Gix and steered him back to the gate.

Before we could set off, the foot falls I heard before caught up to us, and I looked back to see the hobgoblin that had driven the wagon charging toward us. I squeezed my legs together to signal Gix to run, but before he could work up a proper sprint, the hobgoblin grabbed me by the scruff of my tunic and pulled me out of the saddle. Even as I rolled to absorb the force of my fall, Gix turned around and swung the claws of both arms at the hobgoblin’s chest with a shriek. The scales of boiled leather stopped his claws in their tracks, and with a loud roar, the hobgoblin punched Gix hard under the jaw. Gix’s head whipped back, then his legs buckled and he collapsed on the ground, where he lay without moving.

“No!” I yelled, and I ran at the hobgoblin with my dagger prepared to stab at its unarmored knees. As I did so, the last goblin to have held me down ran up behind me and shoved me off my feet, landing on my back and pressing its hands into my shoulder blades while the Hobgoblin turned and stomped on my wrist, pressing my arm under its heel until I was forced to release my dagger. I screeched in pain and tried to push myself back up, but failed to make the goblin budge. When the hobgoblin lifted its foot, the goblin immediately slid its arms underneath my shoulders and pulled me up, locking me tight against its chest. I flailed my arms uselessly and released a long chain of shrieks, ignoring the pain that flared up in my wounded ribs as I did so.

“I’ll skin you!” I yelled at the hobgoblin. “I’ll tan your hide and wear your teeth around my neck!”

Ignoring my threats, the hobgoblin leaned down to take a closer look at me.

“A feisty one,” it said in the goblins’ primitive tongue. “Not many of its kind in these parts.”

“Can I keep it?” the goblin asked in a shrill voice. “It’ll be fun to beat up!”

“So will the humans, Riglag,” the hob replied. It turned back to Gix and set down its club to run a hand through the feathers on his head. “But then again, it may know some useful things. Take the kobold with you, just make sure you don’t kill it when you play.”

The hobgoblin turned to the chaos that still ran through the town and pointed to one of the goblins in the street.

“Huggurk! Get me some rope!”

The goblin the hob pointed to nodded and ran up to us, then removed a length of rope from its waist and, with the other goblin’s help, forced me to the ground and tied my forearms together, then did the same to my feet. I squirmed and struggled against my bonds with no success, then desperately tried to slap one of the goblins with my tail, but my control over it was not so precise, so all I ended up doing was tickling the goblin’s bare knees. The goblin burst out laughing, and the other followed suit. I immediately rolled over and gave the first goblin a loud snarl before snapping my jaws at it. The goblin jumped back in surprise, just as the other came up behind me and tied my jaws shut with the last of its rope. I continued squirming and snarling even as the two goblins dragged me over to a wooden post that supported the overhang of a nearby house while the hobgoblin watched and laughed in its guttural voice. When I was next to the post, one goblin ran off, then came back with more rope and tied my hands to the post.

As the goblins left me to rejoin the looting, I looked back to Gix, who still lay limp. Only the opening and closing of his nostrils, accompanied by his wheezing breath and the rising and falling of his ribs, told me that he was still alive. I looked around at the goblins as they started running out of one of the storage buildings carrying lit torches, gazing in awe at the flames and cackling as they ran around swinging and throwing the torches upon the human houses, which slowly but surely began to catch fire. Even as I started picking at my rope with my talons, I remembered the horde of goblins running amok on the farms outside. Outrunning them on foot was a fool’s errand, and waking Gix from being knocked unconscious was hardly a simple matter. Perhaps I could sneak out through the fields of grain, assuming the goblins hadn't set fire to them already, but there was no way I could drag Gix all that way. Even so, no action I could think of could be any riskier than staying here and leaving myself at the mercy of these goblins.

Just as the threads were starting to give way to my picking talons, all the goblins and their hob leaders came walking toward the gate with several dozen tied up humans in tow. The prisoners were almost all of the sort who’s garments wrapped around both legs and went down to the feet, and their fur hung long from their heads. I only spotted one prisoner who wore the padded coat of one of their guards, but all of them screamed, wailed, struggled, or cursed as multiple goblins dragged each of them with long ropes, or in the case of the one guard, two hobgoblins that gripped their arms as they dragged them along.

I stopped trying to break the rope when the goblins came near, and hoped to Hell that they’d turn their attention away from me soon. The handful of hobgoblins that weren't busy restraining prisoners had their arms full of wooden boxes, armor, bundles of weapons, and even dog carcasses and pieces of other meat, which most of them started dumping into a large pile. The hobgoblins walked around the pile of loot and the ones who looked to have the most well-kept armor and weapons began parsing out different pieces to the others. The one that led the initial attack, however, held on to an armored coat of plates, which it held with one forearm through the armholes. One of the other hobgoblins noticed its reluctance and turned away from the loot pile to face it.

“Put it on the ground, Nurdrag!” the hobgoblin yelled as it stood up and walked over to the other. Even with its leather armor, I could tell that the hobgoblin who’d driven the wagon was considerably slimmer than the others, with strong muscles on its arms but an overall lanky build that made it look rather puny next to its kin. The one that approached it had a broader torso than most of the others, coupled with thick muscular arms which gripped a rough-hewn axe that gleamed in the firelight. “You get the share that befits your station, no more!”

“It's mine!” the slim hobgoblin yelled as it pulled the armor away with a snarl. “I killed its last owner, I earned it!”

“Don't you try to cheat the pecking order with me, outcast. Now give up your stolen plunder or I'll make you give up more!”

Just as the broad hobgoblin was preparing its axe to swing, another Hobgoblin with armor of mail and a cloak made from a bear's pelt stepped between them and warded the aggressor off with an outstretched hand. This one's skin was pale and wrinkled, the short fur along its head and cheeks was going thin and grey, and its left eye socket was completely empty, with a scar running from the top to the bottom. Whatever had taken its eye, it left a split in the bone around the socket that was still visible.

“Lay off, Harchak!” the old scarred hobgoblin ordered in a low, rumbling voice. “Nurdrag and his tribe took great risk to open the gate for us. Outcast or not, such courage merritts reward.”

“Rewarding a glorified distraction, Morgbol?” retorted Harchak. “It's a wonder you made it to such an old age with that kind of softness. You'd better keep that one eye open, or else someone who's balls still work is gonna--”

With a swift swipe of a curved sword made from smoother metal than those of the goblins, Morgbol cut a deep gash into Harchak’s throat, and the defiant Hobgoblin dropped its axe to clutch the wound with both hands. As Harchak fell to their knees, they looked up at Morgbol with wide, shaking eyes, and the old chieftain took a second swing down upon their head, chopping right through their skull until the edge of the blade was almost between Harchak’s eyes. Morgbol pulled their sword out and let Harchak’s corpse slump to the ground, then looked around at the other hobgoblins.

“Would anyone else like to take that tone with me?” the chieftain asked with arms and legs in a wide, challenging stance. All the hobgoblins shifted uncomfortably and cast glances between each other, biting their lips and not saying a word.

“Good,” said Morgbol as they sheathed their sword in a scabbard that looked suspiciously like tanned human skin, and returned to passing out the weapons, armor, food, and other supplies, first to the hobgoblins, then left what remained for their goblin minions to squabble over. When the goblins had finished packing up their plunder, they divided the captured humans into two groups, one much larger than the other, and made sure every human in each group was tied together, then they started putting bags over their heads. Nurdrag’s tribe took the smaller group of prisoners, only four, and started dragging them out the gate and spurring them along with whips. The two goblins that had tied me up ran back over to me with shrill giggles. One took out a flint knife and used it to cut the rope that held me to the post while the other held out a bag in both hands, and before I could react, it put the bag over my head.