Abduction (2)
Jack's crew had barely rolled the cart away from the inn before they pulled up short at the village entrance.
"Halt!"
A sentry posted along the palisade had stepped into their path.
Harrington Village was not a large place, but it did boast a reasonably sturdy wooden palisade, and the village militia took turns standing watch. That was why a settlement sitting out in the forest had survived this long. Without it, a monster raid would have brought disaster down on them ages ago.
Jack had expected the sentry to stop them. He reined the cart in and offered an easy greeting.
"Uncle Nelson. Working hard, I see."
"What—Jack? Where do you think you're going at this hour, hauling the village cart?"
"An errand for the chief. There's something he wants fetched from the next village."
"That so?"
Nelson, on watch, looked unconvinced. Sending someone out on an errand at this dead hour? And of all people, Jack, the biggest layabout in the village? And Jack had actually gone along with it?
On second thought, it might not be so strange after all. Tonight was the village festival. Anything out of the ordinary could be explained away. Besides, the palisade existed to keep outsiders out; they hardly watched the inside at all.
"All right. Get back safe."
Nelson opened the gate. Jack ducked his head and drove the cart through.
Nelson might well catch hell from the chief over this moment, but that was none of Jack's concern.
Once they were in the forest, he drove the cart harder. They had cleared the first hurdle, but it was far too soon to relax. The instant Canna broke out of the inn's kitchen storeroom, the villagers would come after him. He had to put as much distance between them as he could before that happened.
"D-do you think we'll be okay...?"
Tom muttered it, hunched around his bulk. He was still cradling Ariel with careful arms, afraid the jostling cart would hurt her.
"This kid saved Daisy... Selling her off as a slave is just too..."
"Shut up, Tom."
Susan glared at him.
"We've come this far. Saying crap like that now won't change a thing."
Susan wasn't thinking about Ariel at all. She was busy imagining the money from selling her—becoming a fine lady, ordering a houseful of servants about, some romance with a handsome nobleman.
A long while had passed since they left the village. Anxious Tom had worn himself out and was nodding off when the cart creaked to a halt.
Tom's eyes opened slowly. Susan, who must have been dozing as well, lifted her head, hair mussed.
"Jack, what's going on...?"
She called toward the outside. The cart had already pushed deep into the forest.
"Nothing. Tom, hand me my sword."
Jack said it as he climbed down from the driver's seat. At the word sword, Tom's face went white.
"Th-the sword? Why..."
"Just shut up and give it here."
It was Susan who moved. She passed him the crude iron sword lying in a corner of the cart.
"What's the fuss?"
Only then did she look ahead. A shape stood blocking the cart's path.
"It's a goblin."
Jack answered as if it were nothing. Just then the clouds parted and the moonlight brightened, laying the shape bare.
Green skin. An ugly face.
A goblin.
"H-huh—a monster...!"
Tom nearly jumped out of his skin, but Susan was as unbothered as Jack. A single goblin was truly nothing. Among monsters, they ranked near the bottom. If she put her mind to it, even Susan could beat one to death with a club.
"Krrk."
The goblin let out an unpleasant croak and came closer. Jack slung the iron sword over his shoulder and strode toward it, not tense in the slightest. Once he was close enough, he meant to bring the blade down and smash its skull.
"Krek, krek."
The goblin made the sound again. He hadn't caught it the first time, but hearing it once more, it sounded like laughter. Jack's face twisted.
"You little shit. You dare laugh at me?"
He was just about to swing when a shadow rushed in from the side.
"Ah—!"
Jack flinched and locked up. In that instant a sharp pain lanced through his thigh.
"Ghk!"
What had come in from the side was a second goblin. While his attention was fixed on the one in front, the other had charged and driven a dagger into his thigh.
Watching the red spread across his own leg, Jack ground his teeth. He had never imagined being wounded by something as pathetic as a goblin.
"Krekkek."
The two goblins jeered at him.
"You filthy little bastards!"
Jack's eyes rolled back. One more goblin changed nothing. They were small monsters, not even up to his waist. He'd just kill them both.
He charged and brought the iron sword down. With a wet crack, one goblin's head caved in.
"Hah! Look at this idiot, still acting tough."
The goblin with the crushed skull twitched in fine spasms and collapsed. The one beside it only stared, face blank and stupid.
Jack raised the sword again. In that moment a chill ran down his spine.
"Wh-what..."
Countless points of red light ringed him. Dozens, at a rough count. Every one of them was a goblin's eye. Not one. Not two.
There were dozens of goblins.
He should never have stopped the cart. He had let his guard down, assuming a single goblin was all that blocked the road. The moment the cart halted, being surrounded by dozens of them had been a foregone conclusion.
"Krrrk!"
Dozens of goblins rushed him. Jack never even got a swing off before he went down and they swarmed over him.
"Aaaagh!"
Goblins stabbed without mercy. Goblins clawed and bit with bare hands and teeth. Jack's body was shredded in an instant. In the sliver of vision he still had, he saw more of them pouring toward the cart.
Tom and Susan, and the elf and the fairy with them, would not be getting out of this either.
"Ugh, my head..."
Lou woke to a hangover. She must have drunk fruit wine to her limit and passed out. For a fairy who loved her drink, it was a common enough occurrence.
She fluttered her wings, conjured healing powder, and dusted it over herself. A fairy's healing powder worked on its maker as well, and the hangover vanished almost at once.
"Whew. That's better."
Lou sat on the floor and looked around.
"But where am I?"
Floor and walls were all glass. She was shut inside a glass bottle, by the look of it. Whether she had climbed in herself or someone had trapped her, she couldn't tell. She pressed to the glass and peered out, but there was nothing to see. Only darkness.
What Lou didn't know was that when the goblins fell on Jack's crew, Susan had dropped the bottle she'd been keeping her in. The goblins dragged Jack's lot and Ariel away, but they never noticed the fairy sealed in glass. A bottle lying on the ground was hardly worth their attention. And so Lou had been left behind.
First, she decided to get out of the bottle. Unless it was a magic cage, escape wasn't difficult. Scatter flight powder, lift the bottle high, then drop it and let it shatter.
Crash!
That was how Lou got free. The stifling air opened up, and her view with it.
"Mmm..."
This was not Harrington Village. It was deep in the forest. How had she ended up like this?
Maybe the wreckage of a broken cart nearby, blood spattered on the ground, footprints—any of it might be a clue. Lou flew about, studying the scene with care.
A fight had clearly broken out here. There were no bodies, but blood was everywhere; someone had been badly hurt. The prints in the dirt were human and monster both, and the monster tracks far outnumbered the human ones. A pack of monsters had attacked people. That was the reasonable conclusion.
The monsters had to be goblins. The prints were small. In this forest, nothing else left tracks that size.
"Hmm..."
Lou's expression darkened. She was usually a bit of a scatterbrain, but she was a fairy who could think things through when it mattered, and to her eye this was serious.
Goblins, by nature, were not much of a threat. Their bodies were frail, and they had no real technique to speak of. In a pack, though, the story changed. If a goblin swarm threw itself at you without fear of death and refused to let go, even a troll would eventually go down. They won by numbers, not by quality.
Still, goblins were stupid and foul-tempered, and they rarely gathered in numbers. They usually wandered alone, or in twos and threes at most—enough to hunt some weak beast and eat it. Attack a human, and they would only get beaten bloody and driven off.
But judging by the prints around her, the goblins that had attacked these people numbered in the dozens. They had formed up properly, like an army.
That left only one explanation.
A Goblin King had appeared.