Chapter 10 - Unwelcome Visitors

The house is surprisingly well preserved. Aldric taps against the wall on the upper floor and listens to the sound. Solid, no hollow space, no creaking. The floor beneath their feet does not give way and the roof has only two small holes through which rays of sunlight fall on the dusty ground. Two rooms upstairs, one large room downstairs, a fireplace that still looks intact. Aldric marks the facade with a circle when they are outside again.
Nara stands beside him and looks down the street. Back toward the castle ruin.
“Your Highness, it is not going anywhere.”
Nara turns her head. Aldric leans in the doorframe and looks at her, not accusingly, but like someone who has to say something a second time because it did not sink in the first time.
She exhales. “Is it that obvious?”
“You look in the same direction every five minutes.”
Nara says nothing. Aldric is right, of course he is right. Shelters, water, food, those are the things that matter. Not a buried ruin that has been underground for generations and can wait a few more days. Still, it gnaws at her like a splinter under a fingernail.
“Next house?” Aldric asks.
“Next house.”
They work their way down the street. Aldric and two guards go into each building that looks even halfway intact from the outside, checking the stability, the floors, the roof, while Nara and the remaining two wait outside. Some houses look promising from outside but are completely collapsed inside. Others surprise them with solid ceilings and usable rooms.
They turn a corner and the front guard stops abruptly. He raises his fist and everyone freezes. Not a word is spoken. Nara knows the gesture by now. The guard points ahead to the next intersection. There, between the rubble of a collapsed house, figures are moving. Small, green, with a hunched gait that Nara has seen in her nightmares for three nights.
Five goblins. They crouch between the stones and seem to be examining something, heads together, daggers ready at their belts.
What happens next occurs so fast that Nara can barely process it. Without a word the group forms. Aldric steps directly in front of Nara and creates a shield wall, sword already drawn, gaze fixed forward. The other four move in two pairs ahead, crouched and silent, one to the left, one to the right, a pincer movement so natural, as if they have done it thousands of times.
The goblins notice too late. The first pair attacks from the left and the front guard drops two goblins with quick strokes before the other three have even drawn their daggers. The second pair comes from the right and the fight is short and over before it really begins. One goblin tries to flee and is struck on the back by the second guard’s sword. It crashes to the pavement and does not move.
Silence. Then cheering breaks out.
The guards clap each other on the shoulders, one lets out a cry of triumph and even Aldric, who has remained beside Nara, grins widely.
“Why are you so happy about this?” Nara asks.
Aldric sheathes his blade. “Because it worked, Your Highness. The training, the formations, everything. We have practiced this for years and never had the chance to use it for real. Guard posts, patrols, securing festivals. This was different.”
Nara looks at the dead goblins. Five corpses, green and small with daggers now scattered across the pavement.
“I have an idea,” she says. “Each of you cuts the crystal from a goblin and keeps it. As proof and as a keepsake. We can make it into a little competition and at the end of the year we will crown the goblin slayer of Arthengard.”
The guards look at each other and Nara sees the idea catch fire. One immediately pulls out his knife and kneels beside the next corpse. The others follow. Nara watches them and puts her hands in her pockets. Five goblins, five guards, five crystals. The math works out without her needing to use one.
No master falls from heaven, she thinks. Not for them and not for her. But a beginning.
When they reach the marketplace, the guards are still pumped up. They stand in front of the tavern and recount the fight to each other, even though they were all there. Each has his own version and each version is accompanied by gestures that grow bigger with each retelling.
Nara leans against the tavern doorframe and lets them talk. Then she says, more to herself than to the others: “Five goblins.”
Aldric looks up. “Your Highness?”
“In the three weeks I was here alone, I did not see a single goblin. Not one. Then, the night before last, two suddenly appear and today a group of five.” She looks across the marketplace at the alleys leading into darkness between the buildings. “That is no coincidence.”
The guards fall silent. The grins vanish from their faces and Nara sees understanding sink in.
“You think there will be more?” Aldric asks.
“I think they are coming from somewhere and that they have started coming into the city in recent days. The question is why and where from.”
At that moment she hears voices from the city gate. Cerena’s group comes across the square, five guards with bows and knives, two of them carrying a deer on a pole between them. Cerena’s face is serious.
“Successful hunt?” Nara says.
Cerena nods curtly and sets the deer down on the pavement. Then she steps to Nara and lowers her voice. “We need to talk.”
“What did you find?”
“A goblin settlement, maybe an hour’s walk into the forest. Twenty to thirty of them, hard to say, we did not get close enough.”
Nara’s stomach knots. “A village?”
“Simple huts, a fireplace. No permanent camp, a very primitive village.” Cerena looks toward the city wall. “They are positioned between us and the deeper forest. If we want to hunt, we have to pass them.”
Nara nods slowly. “That explains the scouts.”
“What scouts?”
“Five goblins in the city on the way back from the castle ruin. The guards dealt with them.”
Cerena says nothing, but Nara sees her jaw tighten.
The guards take care of the deer. Someone has already lit a fire in the center of the marketplace and chairs and tables have been carried out from the tavern. The smell of roasting meat soon fills the air, but the conversations are quieter than expected. Word of the goblin village has spread.
Nara and Cerena sit apart on the steps in front of the Adventurers’ Guild. The fire on the square casts shadows across the buildings.
“What do you recommend?” Nara asks.
Cerena answers without hesitation, as if she has already calculated everything on the walk back. “There are two options. We go on the offensive and strike while we have the element of surprise.”
Nara crosses her arms. “And the alternative? We stay in the city, fortify what we can and wait. If they keep coming in small groups, we can fight them one by one and whittle them down piece by piece without having to attack the whole village at once.”
Cerena has obviously expected Nara to suggest this. “Normally I would agree with you, but there are three problems. First, we do not know when the next group will come, and not whether it will be five or fifteen. Second, we do not have the capacity to maintain a permanent watch on the wall, not with ten guards who have to hunt, build and explore at the same time. And third, we lose the element of surprise as soon as the goblins realize their scouts are not coming back. Then they might all come at once.”
“And if we go on the offensive?”
“We have the advantage of initiative. In the best case the first ten fall before they can react. Another ten in their response time. We should handle the rest easily, and they might even flee.”
Nara listens and says nothing. This is not her world. Battle plans, tactics, troop strength. Cerena talks about it like a meal. Fluent and confident.
“This is your area of expertise,” Nara says. “The decision is yours.”
Cerena nods.
“But Cerena,” Nara looks her directly in the eye, “use every advantage you have and have a plan B through F.”
A tiny smile flickers across Cerena’s face, barely visible in the firelight, before it immediately disappears again. “Understood.”
“One more thing. When you attack, not right after dinner. Wait until deep in the night, two or three o’clock. Let the guards rest for a few hours first. They need sleep and the goblins will be deepest asleep then.”
Cerena looks at her and Nara sees an expression she cannot quite place. Recognition, perhaps, or surprise.
“That is tactically sound,” Cerena says.
“I have my moments,” Nara smiles.
They go back to the fire. The meat is ready and someone is distributing portions to the wooden bowls. The guards eat slowly, eyes fixed on the fire. The conversations are quieter than at the last dinner. It is clear something is brewing.
After dinner one of the guards stands, goes without a word to the goblin corpses they left at the edge of the square, and carries them one by one to the fire. He throws them in and several guards wrinkle their noses at the smell that rises, but no one complains. Better the stench now than rotting corpses at the doorstep.
Hours pass. Some guards go to the barracks after dinner to sleep for a couple of hours before it starts. The others sit by the fire, stare into the flames and wait. Nara sits among them and listens to the fire crackle, with quiet conversations flaring up and then dying away.
At some point, deep into the night, Cerena stands. She gives Aldric a brief sign, barely more than a hand gesture. Aldric nods and stands as well. One by one the guards rise, some coming from the barracks, some from the fire. Sword belts are tightened and armor is checked.
Cerena steps to Nara. Her eyes are alert and focused and in the way she adjusts the sword at her hip lies a calm that Nara envies.
“We are ready,” Cerena says.
Nara stands and looks at her. Then she looks at the guards standing behind Cerena in a semicircle, eleven faces in the firelight, some tense, some determined, all ready.
“Good luck,” Nara says. “Come back alive.”
Cerena nods. Short and firm. Then she turns and leads the group across the marketplace into the darkness. Their footsteps on the pavement grow quieter and quieter until they disappear.
Nara sits alone by the fire. The city is still. Somewhere out there, an hour’s walk through a dark forest, a goblin village sleeps in false security.
She adds more wood.