Heric attacked.

He raised the heavy sword up  and swung it directly at the goblins head.  Yet immediately he realised he was up against a very skilled opponent.  This fight would not be quick, and quiet as he had initially hoped.

The goblin parried with its own curved sword, guiding Heric’s blade out of harms way.  At the same time it moved to the side, so that Ganthe couldn’t attack its flanks. 

The three of them danced for a moment, as they tried to manoeuvre in the tight space between the column and the edge.  The goblin constantly repositioning to keep Heric and Ganthe both on the same side.  

Heric realised that Ganthe was in a curious predicament.  Carrying Ifonsa’s bow and quiver of arrows seriously  handicapped his litheness, but he didn’t dare drop them.

The goblin suddenly bellowed in its guttural tongue, a cry for help.  The battle was getting away from them.  The goblin could wait them out.  All it needed to do was to stall until reinforcements arrived.  Heric needed to do something to improve the situation.

He leapt forward, his sword aimed once again at the goblin’s head, but this strike came in from the side instead of from the top.  The goblin parried again, but this Heric pivoted his blade around the goblin’s sword.  The move sharp and unexpected. His sword slammed into the goblin’s helmet with a dull clang.  The impact left only a slight dent, but it was a potent reminder of what might have been. The sort to wake you in a puddle of cold sweat in the middle of the night.

As Heric slipped away from the counter-attack, Ganthe took his opportunity.  He flung his knife.  Although not designed to be thrown, the hefty blade spun end-over-end with precision, headed straight for the goblin’s exposed face.

Heric watched the knife’s path from the corner of his eye.  He thought the knife had made it through the goblin’s defences, but at the last moment the goblin whipped its blade around to bat the knife away into the void.

With the goblin distracted and its sword blade on the far side of its body, Heric acted instinctively. He leapt and kicked out.  His boot snapped into the goblin’s breast plate sending the creature staggering back towards the edge.  The goblin hung in the air for a moment, then toppled backwards disappearing into the void beyond.

“Go!” Heric cried, as he darted past the column.

“My knife!” Ganthe exclaimed.

Beyond the column, lustrous candles cluttered the floor leading to an exit on the far side of the cavern. The chimes and chanting was coming from that way, but Heric  could also hear the sound of heavy boots running towards them.  To Heric’s immediate right, he glimpsed an unlit runnel stretching back the way they had already come, like the thumb of the splayed hand. 

“This way!” Heric said, as he darted into the darkness.

 

Ganthe fumed.

He’d lost his favourite knife.  The last piece of kit from The War. He didn’t even know why he had thrown it.  Like with most things he did during a fight, he acted on impulse.

As Heric fled Ganthe hesitated, caught between seeking the blade and bolting.  He didn’t know how far down the cavern floor fell beyond the edge.  It might have been only a short drop, and an easy retrieval.  But that meant that the goblin hadn’t fallen far, and would be up and ready again in a flash. Ultimately, he chose to escape, plunging into the gloomy tunnel, grumbling all the way.

Heric waited for him.  The tunnel branched, continuing back to where they had entered the mines, but also sharply to the left. Heric shepherd him towards the latter, practically pushing him as he kept his gaze towards the cavern.

They scurried away as fast as they were able. Harsh cries and the shuffle of heavy boots echoed after them them.  While the passage was unlit, they weren’t smothered by the darkness.  Vestigial veins of luggold arced through the stone, offering a hint of their surroundings.  The tunnel widened, shafts branching away on either side at regular intervals.

At one of these shafts, Heric grabbed Ganthe’s shoulder, drawing him to a halt.

“Light,” Heric whispered.

Ganthe could barely see it. The warm, pink glow shone scantily more than the luggold. They waited a moment, watching it.   It didn’t move or even flicker.

The sounds of pursuit, further up the tunnel, prompted them into action.  Heric guided them into the side tunnel, towards the light. As they crept towards it, rounding a corner, the glow brightened. A pale, even pink colour, that reminded Ganthe of the flowers that used to grow beside their home.  They had been his mothers.

The shaft opened up into a narrow cave, and finally into a larger cavern. A wide, circular pit descended  in the middle, the light radiating from its depths.  Six disparate stone towers reached up from below, their tops mostly even. Frail-looking, makeshift, wooden bridges spanned between them, allowing the passage from one side of the pit to the other.

Ganthe edged forward so that he could see within the pit.  Phalanges of glassy crystals grew across the floor, radiating with a soft, welcoming light.

“They’re coming,” Heric whispered, moving past Ganthe.

The Captain placed his foot upon the nearest  bridge, testing it.  It rocked slightly, but didn’t fall.  Heric carefully crossed over to the first tower.

Ganthe heard cries from behind.  He scampered across the bridge to join Heric.  Then turned and shoved the end of the bridge off the tower. The bridge tumbled onto the crystals below with a hollow crash, that echoed throughout the cavern.  

Ganthe cringed at the noise.  Heric gave him a look of disapproval, but his captain said nothing before crossing the bridge to the next tower. Ganthe quickly followed.

Looking back, Ganthe expected goblins to appear at any moment. At the edge of the pit they had sounded like they were right behind them, but there was no sign of them.   He also could no longer hear anything beyond their own movements.  Perhaps they had dashed passed the side tunnel, missing it entirely.  Or maybe the pit (and its glowing crystals) did something to their hearing. 

There were enchanted places that did that sometimes, messed with your senses. Thonri was always banging on about it.  He blamed the giants (as he usually did), claiming they had left their magicks all over the world.

“Hasn’t done them much good, has it?” Sige had quipped. 

It earnt Sige a hearty laugh from the entire company, as well as a week of double guard duty.  Thonri wasn’t known for his sense of humour.

By the time Ganthe looked back, Heric had almost crossed over to the centre tower.

Having crossed to the far side of the pit, they found themselves in a narrowing cavern.  Ahead they could see the flickering of lantern-light through a narrow fissure.  Beyond that a narrow corridor ran perpendicular, with stairs carved from the stone leading up to the right and down to their left.  

The opening itself was barely wide enough for them to squeeze through.  Ganthe managed it with some effort, but Heric became stuck.

“I told you I should have taken the breastplate off,” Heric hissed.

“We don’t have time,” Ganthe whispered.  He placed the bow and quiver carefully against the wall , then said “I’ll be back.”

As Ganthe slunk away, he heard Heric hiss, “Don’t just leave me here.”

However, Ganthe already had his knife drawn.  The same one he had scored from the goblin they had killed outside, in the rain.  The knife felt both odd and familiar.  Ganthe had spent a long time working on his favourite knife, sharpening and working on the balance (removing a little here, adding a little there).  This one needed even more work, yet it would have to do. Heric continued to complain (quietly) as Ganthe crept up the stairs. 

He could hear someone up above.  Someone that might need to be dealt with.  The someone, or something, breathed hard, puffing as though they had just finished a long and hard run.  Or a battle. 

The stairs gradually curved to the left bringing Ganthe to the mouth of a long cavern, strewn with stalactites and stalagmites. The light from the lantern at the bottom of the stairs spilt out, offering Ganthe a mottled view of shadows. It also revealed the source of the breathing: a goblin crouched behind a sprout of stalagmites. It peered between the apexes staring deeper into the cave beyond, completely ignorant of Ganthe’s presence.  The thing reeked of its own filth.

Ganthe had been right to pursue it.  It was too close. 

As he crept nearer, Ganthe wondered why the goblin was hiding.  He knew goblins would often attack one another.  The leaders especially loved bullying their underlings.  

The goblin appeared to be injured.  It groaned and whimpered softly.  Its left arm twisted, and hung limply.

He was almost within striking distance - just a few more steps.  The goblin didn’t even have a helmet, Ganthe realised. He couldn’t see any weapons and its legs were also exposed.  Was it wearing any pants?

Then a loud grunt echoed from the stairs.  Ganthe froze.  The goblin turned towards him.  Ganthe wasn’t close enough to strike, but he was easily close enough to be seen.  

The goblin stared at him , with Ganthe staring back, both frozen in time.  There was no call or cry, just eyeing one another amid the shadows. Then just as Ganthe was about to launch his assault, the goblin yelped. It leapt over the stalagmites, to disappeared into the shadows.

Ganthe remained listening. But there was no sound from the fleeing creature.  Not even a cry for help. 

He waited for a long moment, until he heard another grunt from Heric.  The threat seemingly gone, Ganthe slipped back the way he had come.

By the time he slipped down the stairs, the captain had well-and truly extracted himself from the fissure. He found The Captain at the bottom of the stairs, crouched with his sword ready. 

“Where’s the bow?” Ganthe asked in a whisper.

“Sssh,” Heric commanded. “I can hear her.”

“Who?” 

“The Princess.   I heard her voice. She was telling someone off.  Then I heard a door open and close, and someone leaving.”

“A door? In here?”

“Let’s go.” Heric said, creeping forward.

“Where’s the bow?” Ganthe repeated.

“Didn’t you pick it up?” Heric asked, stopping at the corner.

“No.  I thought you had it.”

“There’s the door.”

Ganthe peeked.  The tunnel bent to the left, and on the right-hand wall there was indeed a door, wooden and stained a dull, greenish-grey.  

The door was covered with pitting and other signs of weathering, as though it had been removed from one of the huts they had seen outside.  It also didn’t fully fit the opening it covered. It was too tall and broad in places, and had been bodged until it fit.  

“Go get it!” Heric ordered.  “I’ll wait.”

However before Ganthe could move, battle sounds erupted from up the stairs behind them.  Moments later they heard someone in heavy boots moving towards them further up the corridor. 

They both dashed toward the door.  It was their only escape.  Yet instead of opening it, and darting through.  Heric stopped and knocked upon the door.

A young woman’s voice answered, clear and crisp, both regal and commanding, “Come.”

 

Ifonsa relaxed.

The battle was over. It had taken considerable effort, patience, and guile, but she had ultimately brought down her fourth kill. Yet it had left her feeling bitter.

She had followed the two goblins into the darkness, trailing behind them for a considerable distance. She heard the large one issuing orders, explaining the other’s role as they moved. The tone and manner was unmistakable, despite its accent being so heavy.  She only caught a word here and there.  Something about a religious ceremony.  Perhaps the word was holy.  That surprised Ifonsa.  She didn’t believe goblins held anything to be truly holy.  

At one point, Ifonsa had almost blundered into them, as she crept between the cave formations. The cavern was long and thin and they had fallen silent unexpectedly.  

In a rush she had raced ahead believing they had slipped away.  Then a tiny flame only a handful of paces from her burst into being. She threw herself to the floor, waiting with her blade ready, hoping that she hadn’t been spotted.

When she peeked again, the commander was hurrying away into the darkness.  It carried a jug or something similar in its hand.

Meanwhile The Cripple, as she now called it, was slowly climbing a ladder up a short, rocky wall, while cradling a red candle in one hand.  The ladder led up to another level of the cave.  

As much as she wished to test herself against a commander, Ifonsa followed The Cripple.   By the time she reached the top of the ladder she could no longer see the candle light.  

She almost raced ahead, like before, in an effort to catch up. Then a rank odour caught her nose, followed by muffled groans of pain.

She found the candle propped on a stone. The Cripple crouched nearby, right at the back against the far wall of the cave. It relieved itself into its own helmet, emitting a foul, rank smell. Evidently the goblin had eaten something that hadn’t agreed with it. 

Ifonsa felt no pity for its suffering, nor remorse for what she was about to do.  Yet as she struck, The Cripple twisted away at the last moment, out of her reach.  It’s curved blade snapped out suddenly, catching her left side.  Not a bad cut, but annoying.  The Cripple might have won the day had it followed up the attack, but instead it howled in pain and fled, dropping its sword along the way.

Ifonsa followed the fetid trail it left behind, up into a tunnels of luggold veins, until she reached a new cavern.  She waited, listening.  She could hear its ragged breathing echoing off the walls, but there was no sign of her prey.

Then Ifonsa heard a sudden cry.  For  moment she believed it had laid an ambush.  But the echoes had deceived her.  There was a momentary burst of boots on stone, running away then nothing.  

She found The Cripple by following its faecal stench. It whimpered softly, writhing in pain upon the ground in a puddle of its own filth.

The Cripple sensed her approach.  It looked up at her and hissed, “Mïna ëldësïnaeng.”

Ifonsa complied, quickly ending its suffering.  

Yet she did not like the manner of the execution.  Catching the prey in this way removed all sense of honour.  Nor was it fun.  She preferred to be tested by each new  opponent, knowing that ultimately one would be better than her.

Ifonsa was about to head back to see if she could find the commander, when she was drawn to the faint light coming from further up the cave.  The Cripple had been here, she realised.  It had left a squirt of black fluid behind a cluster of cave formations.

Beyond she found a lit corridor, stairs leading down, bending to her right.  At the top she paused.  She heard the sounds of goblin-made boots running ahead in the distance.  Only once they had faded did she descend, but only a short way.  Ahead she spotted two old friends leaning against the wall, almost as though they were waiting for her.

She smiled, as she greeted them.