1.1.7 : A Struggle in Vayne

 

 

With a wail, I fall down in a heap thanks to my numb and exhausted legs giving beneath me. Fright and adrenaline can only carry me so far. Just short of my goal, the illusion of safety stands before me. My arms slam into the loose gravel in the mouth of the cavern. Pain shoots through both arms as my skin is broken by jagged stones. My blood seeps into the rocks beneath me from numerous wounds. Haltingly, I reach for the cavern’s entrance with tears running down my cheeks. 

This isn’t even remotely fair! It’s fucking unfair! Please! PLEASE!

Above my head, a breeze of fresh air plays through my hair, teasing me with the possibility of freedom for a moment, before turning into an explosion of wild wind. The force of all that air explodes through the passageway and along the way it buffets my body, pushing me further down the throat of the cavern, back towards where the goblins wait for me.

It’s as though the world responds to my desperate flight by telling me, “Get back where you belong.”

Looking up desperately, exhausted, my eyes meet those of a newcomer. It’s a human being whose eyes aren’t glowing like the goblins do in the dark. Even so, his eyes possess a dark force that frightens me no less. They possess a dark gravity that attracts my eyes like filings to a magnet as I lose consciousness.

Everything goes white as I’m sucked into those eyes.

Lowering my sword, seeing that the wind magick I sent careening into the cavern’s mouth to clear it of any lurking ambushers was effective enough, I proceed downwards. 

Since I’d scanned around prior to entry into this dark cavern, just to be certain that there wasn’t anything lurking in the bushes and trees outside and finding nothing waiting there, I peered into the pitch-dark gullet of the cavern to search for any felled or goblins playing dead , but instead saw a blooded, naked young woman, not counting some soft leather shoes that she was fortunate to still have, by the looks of it.

The golden blonde-haired girl lay not twenty paces from the exit, looking beyond filthy, not to mention bruised as hell. Her blonde hair is a matted and dirty mass. She looks up at me with a pleading expression with bright blue eyes and in that moment, I notice that she has thicker dried bloodstains going down her chest. 

When our eyes meet, a shocking sensation goes through me like I was splashed by iced water as the light goes out from her eyes and she collapses.

That’s what I look like? So pathetic and totally naked. Damn it!

The girl on the cavern’s entrance’s graveled ramp leading downward into the bowels of this mountain might be somewhat pretty if cleaned up, but I shake my head, dismissing these idle thoughts. This isn’t any good time to worry about how she looks.

Did she just die on me?

Sliding down the slope thick with loose rocks, I kneel by her, pull one of my gauntlets and touch her carotid at her nape to monitor her pulse. Her skin is warm to the touch and I sigh in relief when I find that she’s still alive. My brows knit and I nod as I pull my gauntlet back on and move on. 

She’ll have to sleep here until all the gobbies hiding inside are slain. 

Looking ahead, I shake my head with a twist of my lips. 

Sure as hell, they’re waiting down there for me. I need to make sure none get out of this deathtrap. Theirs—not mine.

Making my way down a distance with cautious steps, I think as I proceed with utter silence accompanying me aside from my footsteps.

It’s all too easy.

It’s rare to find any survivors of such raids, since as clever as goblins can be, they seem to have a need to kill more than they really need for food and oddly enough, they don’t take live prisoners. Finding just one such is very strange. It’d be smarter in the long run to take prisoners and breed a race of human livestock, but you can’t count on goblins for such revolutionary ideas. 

Most likely reason why they never do that is probably because alive prey can get away from you like this one managed or even fight back. Keeping up the way they are, they run a greater risk, should they fail to properly dispose of the bodies.

It’s beyond me that that girl’s managed to hold on so long. Wouldn’t have been too much longer before they caught and roasted her. Why’d they wait to finish her off? Some kind of a game? Hmmmm… 

Could it mean that the gobbies are changing and actually learning a new trick or two? If they’re capable of such change, it’ll be harder going forward. They might even learn to cover their traces.

Keeping a look out I continue, one heavy footfall after another, echoing down to announce my approach, I trend onwards downwards. My heavy boots slide now and again on some loose gravel that blew down here and I continue down until reaching solid stone. If my showy Zephyr Slash technique didn’t announce what I am, I’m sure the clanking of my footsteps will.

With the same unconcerned loud clattering accompanying every step I take, the cave retorts the noises and as I get close enough to the gobbies to smell them and their grisly feast’s remains. 

A sweet, burnt odor pervades the air, mixed with fetid scents that I’m all too familiar with. 

Cooking human flesh. 

There’s no fire going, else I’d see some glimmering of it out from the darkness ahead of me. They doused their fire just about as soon as they heard me. The goblins probably filled their stomachs with what they could until now. 

Their prey won’t keep forever, so they’ll be in a hurry to attack me. 

To keep their food fresher, butchering helps, but even so, the meat will still rot. 

Gobbies are able to fast for long stretches in between their raids out of necessity, since even pilgrims have the sense to not wander too far from their communities in these mountains alone. The ghastly green beasties feast when they band together out of hunger and become far more fierce. Helps for them to catch and eat game, but with their voracious appetites, the species of deer and other large creatures native to these mountains have long since gone extinct.

You are reading story Euphonia – Requiem to a Cursed World at novel35.com

As I carefully pass around a corner, a loud bellowing greets me, as expected.

If I was green and believed it was a lone gobbie, I’d be lost. This is a typical tactic of theirs to ambush any adventurers that come after them in their lairs. Some will rush to attack such an ‘isolated’ goblin, and die by the swords of three others hiding nearby. They use darkness to cloak their movements. 

But that ploy won’t work on me.

My smile is dark as I wave my gauntlet’s hand across my eyes and my adventurer’s nightsight cantrip takes effect. I feel a slight discharge of the magick energy inside me as the spell takes effect and the goblins come into sight, in a way. This cantrip changes the nature of a human’s sight while in use. Instead of taking in light to create an image for the mind to put together, it locks onto heat signatures. Because of that, I’m suddenly able to see all the goblins grouped around me in perfect formation, all quietly slavering. I count six heads, with the largest among them standing a head taller than all the rest, their alpha. The precise amount of heads I need for the bounty.

Interestingly, the leader looks like he was recently bloodied. But not having any more time to plan, they all leap at me, everything happening in seconds. 

Lowering my blade, I dash to meet my closest opponent’s overhand strike with my counter. Our blades meet with a loud clanging and sparks fly. My eyes narrow and I shift my weight and my blade slides along his, striking even more sparks as it grates its way down to the guard of his pillaged blade with a loud clang. The moment my edge reaches the hilt, I turn slightly, making the use of the force this one had thrown against me, I let him fly past to loudly collapse behind me.

Unpausing, I dart towards the next nearest of them, a minion this time, to run my blade through his throat. Too slow and weak. Picking off the weaklings is a damn good idea, since as weak and slow as the weakest can be, letting any live is a mistake.

Blood sprays out the back of his neck and down his front, looking like incandescent paint rolling down his chest’s armor. With a gurgle, he crumples. Wrenching my blade free, I turn to meet the concerted attack of the other four now reaching me. In a blink, those four re-evaluate me as a threat and their attacks become sharper.

Desperation will kick in and they’ll give me everything they have as long as they have the advantage of numbers on their side. 

Any of those idiot adventurers back at the guild would probably have paused after having killed one or two, but a pro doesn’t STOP to admire his work. They’ll pile up on their enemy, disable them, and kill the unlucky novice without too much of a hassle, even if you managed to take one of them out with you.

And with four to one odds, that strategy would normally work like a charm, particularly with the leader still alive and climbing back up to his feet. 

This could become a power pincer maneuver if I’m not careful. 

Tapping my magick reservoir, I unleash that energy, holding my sword horizontally in front of me as the four rush in and the biggest spreads his ugly lips to roar. Tendrils of wind creep around my body. The four sail through the air at me with their swords thrusting ahead of them as spittle leaks from the corners of their misshapen lips and across their stained sharp teeth poking out from between them, their skin sickly-green and their faces knobby. 

Drawing my arm back, I quickly swipe, envisioning my blade extending beyond its physical form as I infuse it with my magick energy and release. My blade slices the air and cuts the air, stirring it into a furor. 

Zephyr Slice.

The resulting burst of wind slams into all four, sending them clear across the cavern all around. Unable to see the far walls, since it gives off no heat, the moment they collide with the walls, they impact and fall in heaps, injured. Turning, I meet the blade of the goblin’s leader, taking advantage of a moment of perceived weakness, right in the moment when I unleashed my magick. He brings his weapon down onto mine with a snarl in a heavy downward slice.

My lips twist as my eyes meet his blade midair with mine. That glowing effect their eyes have a way of doing in the dark wouldn’t impress me even if I could see it. To me with this form of vision, I see nothing in his eyes but a dark abyss. 

Damn critters are soulless. No adventurer can see that so clearly as now using the nightsight cantrip, this absence plain in their eyes.

The goblin gazes into my eyes warily and its lips peel away from its teeth and it shrieks in frustration, calling to his minions, barking nonsense orders in his shit language splattering my face with his spit, “Vzin i’ zo bhi!”

It breaks away and raises its heavy arms to slam its sword repeatedly down onto my sword, hammering at my sword with very little finesse and all power. The things have strength, but swordmasters they aren’t and most likely never will be. 

My sword parries each of his hacking and heavy strikes. My eyes narrow as I take note of the pattern of his strikes. 

Every warrior has a pattern, and the worse he is at fighting, the more obvious. If he keeps this up, I’ll have an opening.

Lowering my weapon at the right moment, I sidestep his last heavy hacking blow. Any such moment would be the right moment to act, but I choose now! My sword should bite straight through that ill-fitting leather jerkin that it looted off someone. This strike may not end the fight, given that none of his vitals are there, but blood loss and an injury will hamper his movements and leave him open to a fatal blow later. Moving quickly, I slash and let my sword’s blade bite into the gobbie’s unprotected side.

The moment my weapon draws close to its target, two goblins rise in time to leap onto me from behind. One wraps its arms around my legs while the other moves to stab through my side.

“Shit!” With a curse, I tuck my body in and down, letting that one pass over me. Even a sticky situation can be an opportunity for a strong reprisal. When the goblin snagged my legs, my momentum changed, so my strike hadn’t hit the intended target. They may have saved the life of their leader for now, but combined with the momentum built from my spinning torque, using everything intended to injure their leader, I turn upwards, completing the arc of my attack in a different direction, shifting it into a wide overhead slice. 

The goblin sails past, missing and eats my blade from chin to crotch. His blood sprays all over as the goblin hits the far wall, crumpling into a pool of his spent lifesblood.

Hitting the ground, I hold onto my sword. Thankful that none of its blood got onto my sword’s grip, even though his blood got all over everything else or so it seems, myself included, the steaming mess glowing in my eyesight gives me an idea. I pull my bloody blade through my free and bloodsoaked gauntlet and fling the blood into the face of the one holding onto my legs. It hisses, blinded by the hot ichor-like blood. 

Kicking my legs experimentally, I find that even so his grip is too strong. With a chuckle, I thrust my blade straight through his head, skewering him right through his left eyehole with a satisfying crunch and accompanying squishing noise. He couldn’t even see it coming at him to dodge.

The moment my sword crunches through his head, scoring a fatal blow, his grip loosens. His right arm starts twitching first since his left lobe took damage. With the loosened grip, I kick free as that one dies with a pitiful scream and a sigh. The leader and other two goblins stare down at me, shocked.

The two smaller ones, draw back, cowed.

The leader yells at these last two minions loudly, screaming, “Hostraci! Bij AK!!!”

Its subordinates stiffen and leer maliciously as they flank their enemy. Lazily I rise to my feet, extending my bloody gauntlet in front of me directly at the leader and extending my blade behind me, crouching slightly. My eyes convey my intent to kill. My fingers clench and blood drips from between my fingers.

“UMAR!” I yell in their own language at them. I’d once captured a gobbie before, having gained the leisure to be able to briefly interrogate him long enough to figure out a few of their words. The only one that matters right now is… DIE!