Chapter 10 – The Ambush

The first arrows struck them like a hailstorm full of sharp teeth. Shaelith reacted instinctively, activated her defensive glyphs and just the blink of an eye later purple energy danced across her skin and formed a shimmering barrier around them.

“Shields up!” the guard captain yelled, but his order came a second too late. One of the arrows with the strange glowing crimson runes managed to penetrate the magical shield and a Shaeravyn guard staggered back while staring in disbelief at the shaft sticking out of his throat.

These things can penetrate magical shields?! This is new. And fucking bad.

“GROFF’FUFFBAR! GROFF’FUFFBAR!” The goblin war cries echoed off the cliff as green bodies tumbled down the slopes like a living avalanche. Shaelith activated another, stronger shield glyph, which unfortunately consumed more mana than the other. She then activated her Kinesis Glyphs and hurled pure kinetic energy into the onrushing mass. Dozens of goblins flew through the air like puppets with severed strings.

But for every one of them she flung away, three more seemed to follow.

“Circle!” The guard captain lowered his razor-sharp sword spear. “Protect the daughters of Vyrnara!”

The remaining eight guards formed a tight circle around Shaelith and her companions. Beside her, Ryzinre gasped and her hands trembled as she desperately tried to activate a simple shield glyph, but a faint flicker of energy was all she could manage.

She wasn’t trained for this.

Meanwhile the three other servants, Nylenre, Seralith, and the youngest, Araglysse, huddled together like frightened rabbits. Araglysse was barely sixteen. She had only left Myzelemaerlazin for the first time last month. Her large lavender eyes were wide with horror.

Shaelith watched the attacking goblins more closely. Their eyes glowed red-rimmed, which was the classic sign of heat-fever. But their movements seemed off for that.

It doesn’t make any sense, this is no wild frenzy. They attack in a coordinated manner, they take cover, this is an elaborate trap. Since when can goblins think tactically in heat-fever?

Another arrow with crimson runes struck her new, stronger magical shield and made a sound like a gong, but it held. Yet.

Time to take off the gloves.

Shaelith activated her emotional glamour glyphs, because if they already were in heat-fever, she could use that. Emotional glamour was devastating for primitive goblin psyches and the effect was instantaneous.

One goblin, who was just about to raise his rusty spear, suddenly turned and rammed it into his comrade’s stomach. Another bit into the throat of the goblin next to him making the brown blood from his carotid artery spray in a high arc on the goblins surrounding them. Fights suddenly broke out all over the attacking mass as artificially amplified rage, greed and paranoia raced through their already feverish brains.

Works almost too well.

Shaelith grimly watched the goblins tearing each other apart, then she activated her illusion glyphs to create three perfect copies of herself that sprinted in different directions. For a moment that managed to confuse them further and lots of arrows flew at the wrong targets.

But then a hoarse scream cut through the chaos and the goblins gave a deafening hoot.

A Fuff Shaman stomped forward, covered from head to toe in furs and bones. In his claws he held a metal shield covered all over with crimson runes and as he raised it, Shaelith’s sorcery… just faltered.

All of a sudden everything reacted so much more sluggishly, costing far more mana should have actually been necessary.

What the-

Another Shaeravyn guard fell with three spears sticking out of his chest. Then another, as his throat was ripped open by goblin claws. Their line of defense shrank steadily.

“Keff-maraz unbuff!” A massive goblin chief bellowed orders from a ledge.

The purple witch unharmed! The rest will fill our bellies or we fill theirs!

Shaelith’s heart sank. They wantedher alive. So this was probably not just some random ambush, they targeted her specifically.

A guard beside her staggered back with a gaping head wound and a missing eye. Only five left. The goblins pressed closer, forming a stinking wall of teeth and claws.

Okay, I have no choice. The nuclear option it is then.

She resorted to House Vyrnara’s most secret glyphs, the kind her mother had only taught her in private. The kind of glyphs that other Houses would commit murder and wage war for to get their hands on them.

The glyphs she was activating now didn’t glow somewhere visible on her skin, because they were far too well hidden. But she realized immediately that the activation was successful, because suddenly she couldfeela myriad of fungus spores everywhere around them. In the air, in the ground, on the goblins’ skin, in their lungs, there was no place around them where there weren’t any fungus spores present.

Thanks, fungi, for literally being all over the place. I owe you one.

She commanded them to grow.

The first goblin it hit looked down at his hand in confusion, as gray threads suddenly sprouted from his skin. Then he screamed in horror as the mushrooms exploded from his pores, his eyes, his mouth, and in seconds, he was nothing more but a twitching pile of flesh and sprawling mycelium.

Shaelith was definitely not squeamish, no, she mercilessly dealt out gruesome death left and right and all around them goblins dropped like flies. Mushrooms sprouted from their lungs, their brains were eaten from the inside and dozens and dozens of them died in bestial agony and the chorus of their screams was horrifying.

And Mother wonders why I don’t like using these glyphs.

The problem was that her mana ran like water through a sieve. Every spell cost so much more energy because the Shaman’s resistance with his damned rune shield made everything three times as exhausting and expensive.

She killed many of them, but still, for every goblin she killed, two more followed. There were simply too many of them.

And her guards became overwhelmed and another one fell and then another.

We have four guards left and there’s still hundreds of goblins. Math has never been my strong suit, but this doesn’t look good.

Shaelith watched Nylenre’s gaze glide over the battlefield as the same realization flashed in her eyes. The servant’s hand traveled up to her braided hair, and she took the ornate hairpin hidden in there.

Oh no. Not that.

“Sisters,” Nylenre said in a surprisingly calm voice. “It’s time.”

“House Vyrnara above all others,” Seralith murmured as she pulled her own hairpin and young Araglysse shivered but followed the older women’s example, nonetheless. “Let’s die clean.”

“NO, WAIT!” Shaelith shouted out as she flung another goblin away, but the three servants were already in motion.

Their hands holding the sharp needles trembled but didn’t hesitate as they found their target in the heart. Nylenre, Seralith and young Araglysse sank to the ground and blood seeped from their bodies into the dry earth.

Fuck. Fuck.

Her shield flickered like a dying candle, and she could feel her reserves dwindling as the mana slipped through her fingers like sand.

Ryzinre pressed herself against Shaelith’s back and her hands shook as she desperately tried to activate any working glyph.

“I can’t keep a shield up,” she gasped, “Shaelith, I’m sorry, I can’t-“

“It’s okay, we’ll be fine,” Shaelith lied and hurled another wave of Fungus death into the goblin ranks. She hated lying to her, but lying was far easier than saying ‘We’ll probably spend the next few years as goblin breeding stock.’

Another guard went down. He spat blood but still grabbed his dagger to fight to his last breath. “Tell the Matriarch,” he rasped, “we died with honor.”

If I survive, she will know.

“House Vyrnara above all others!” The guard captain mowed a few rows of goblins down with some desperate swings of his sword spear, then he too was overwhelmed by a dozen goblins.

The sound of the goblins tearing apart his flesh was haunting.

And then there were only two.

Her shield continued to shrink, like a slowly deflating balloon, just big enough for her and Ryzinre. It was more wishful thinking than real protection by now.

“Shaelith,” Ryzinre’s voice was little more than a whisper. “What… What are they going to do to us?”

You know that as well as I do.

The goblins were circling them like wolves now, waiting patiently for the shield to collapse any moment.

“Hang in there,” she said instead. “Just hang in there.”

I have no idea. I have no idea what else to do. Why don’t I have an idea? We’ll be goblin property in a few seconds. But better than dead, I guess. Maybe. Fuck.

A particularly daring goblin took advantage of a gap in Shaelith’s weakening shield, grabbed Ryzinre’s long silvery hair with his green claws and yanked her out.

“Keff-maraz!” he screeched triumphantly.

Ryzinre cried out, more in rage than pain and with one smooth motion, she twisted in his grip and pulled out her own ornate hairpin, her last refuge.

But instead of jamming it into her own heart, she tossed it to Shaelith. Who didn’t have one. Because what Sorceress needed a blade.

One that had no mana left, perhaps?

“Here!” Ryzinre screamed. “Use it! USE IT NOW!”

Shaelith caught the needle purely on reflex. The polished metal was still warm from Ryzinre’s body heat and the sharp point glinted in the fading light of her shield.

Just one quick movement into the heart or the carotid and then it is over.

Time seemed to stretch out and memories of cold water filling her lungs came back to her, memories of the darkness that had engulfed her and of Ben’s panicked face as they both drowned. Of the absolute and unrelenting terror of dying.

I can’t. Not… not again.

Her hand trembled, the shield flickered one last time and went out like a blown-out candle. Mana exhaustion hit her like a hammer blow now, and dizziness, nausea, overwhelmed her now. It was as if someone had replaced her spine with boiled noodles.

“SHAELITH!” Ryzinre’s scream cut through the chaos. “DO IT!”

I’m sorry.

Ryzinre got thrown hard to the ground and held down with spear shafts.

I’m just too much of a coward to die.

Instead, Shaelith did the only thing she could think of, lunged at the nearest goblin and jammed the needle into his eye.

I’ll take at least a few more of you disgusting creatures with me.

The goblin shrieked and staggered back with brown blood spurting from his eye socket. Shaelith yanked out the needle and whirled around, hitting another one in the throat. But it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave with a teaspoon.

“Buff’nark! Keff-maraz unbuff!” The Goblin Chief roared angrily from his ledge.

Dozens of green bodies rushed at her and Shaelith only managed to hit two more, maybe three, before the sheer mass overwhelmed her. The goblins grabbed her by the arms, dragged her to the ground and then the needle was wrenched from her hand.

A goblin shrieked in panic near her.

Watch out for the signs! No signs! Get rid of her signs!

Dozens of goblins spit on her and rough fingers rubbed over her skin, hard, with their bare hands and some with stinking rags. The carefully applied glyphs smudged and her last connection to magic was brutally wiped away.

I’m useless now.

Rusty shackles snapped around her wrists, and a goblin also bound her arms together with coarse ropes, so tight that she lost all feeling in her hands.

A few feet away, Ryzinre was treated even more brutally. They shouted obscenities at her while poking her with spear shafts and tugging at her hair and her silver strands were already caked with blood.

“Ryzinre!” She called out to her, but a goblin punched her so hard in the stomach that she gasped for breath.

The massive goblin chief leapt from his ledge and stomped towards her. He was even uglier up close, with scars criss-crossing his face, one eye milky blind, and rows of teeth like rotten tombstones. He grabbed her chin with a hand reeking of blood and worse and turned her head back and forth.

“Pretty purple witch,” he grunted in broken Tulvian. “The master wants you unharmed, for himself.” His tongue slid over his lips. “Too bad. Would have liked a taste myself.”

He turned to the other goblins.

The witch remains untouched! Make sure she doesn’t make any signs!

A smaller goblin pointed at Ryzinre.

What about the other purple flesh?

The chief shrugged his shoulders.

Breed it, eat it, I don’t care. But this one here must stay untouched until delivered to the master.

Shaelith was already nauseous from mana exhaustion, then the thought of what this goblin master might do with her, the worry about Ryzinre, and that stench all around of unwashed goblin bodies, rot, and that sweet, pungent heat-fever smell they gave off.

She retched, forcing herself by sheer force of will not to vomit.

The chief was yelling again.

Gather the meat! Good purple meat, tender and juicy!

Oh God.

Shaelith watched the goblins pick up the corpses of her guards and of her servants, Nylenre, Seralith, little Araglysse. They all were cut up into more manageable pieces like freshly slaughtered cattle.

She threw up violently all over one of the goblins holding her down. He tried to punch her in the face for revenge but was stopped by another.

Ryzinre’s eyes found hers for a moment and confusion was written in them, and betrayal and overwhelming fear. ‘Why didn’t you do it?’her gaze asked. ‘Why is my sacrifice in vain?’

Because I’m a coward, Shaelith wanted to answer. Because I already died once and it fucking hurt.

Then a goblin put a stinking sack over her head and the world sank into musty darkness. She was dragged up and pushed forward and somewhere behind her, she heard Ryzinre whimpering.

“March!” barked a voice in broken Tulvian.

Shaelith stumbled forward over the uneven ground, blind, hands bound, without glyphs and surrounded by the ever-present stench of goblins.

I hope I won’t regret not using the needle.