Elbryan and Pony were stunned and terrified for many seconds. It was too unreal, too beyond their experience and expectations. Images assaulted them, mingling with imagined scenes even more horrifying, and amid all of it welled utter denial, the hope against obvious reality that this simply could not be happening.
Jilseponie moved first, a single, tiny step, her arm reaching out helplessly. That almost involuntary motion seemed to break her trance and she let out a shriek for her mother and ran full out for home.
Elbryan thought to call out for her, but indecision held his voice and kept him from immediately following. What should he do? What were his responsibilities?
A warrior would know these things!
With great effort, Elbryan tore his gaze from the dreadful spectacle below and glanced all around. He should organize his friends -- yes, that was the course, he decided. He would gather together his scouts, perhaps even call in the older scouts from the vale, and charge down into Dundalis in tight formation, anchoring the defense.
But time was against him. He glanced about again, turned to the evergreen and caribou moss valley, and started to call out, thinking to bring in the patrol of older men.
Elbryan fell back behind the twin pines, catching the shout in his throat, gasping for breath. Just over the ridge, facing away from him, he saw the nearly bald head, the pointed ears, the chalky yellow skin of an enemy. With trembling fingers, Elbryan retrieved his short sword, and then he sank even deeper into the hollow, paralyzed with terror.
Pony wasn't armed, having left her club back at the ridge. She didn't care, for she wasn't really running into battle.
The girl was running to find her mother and father, to feel their comforting hugs, to hear her mother telling her that everything would be all right. She wanted to be a little girl again, wrapped tight in her bedsheets, and tighter in Mother's embrace, waking from a nightmare.
This time, though, she was awake. This time, the screams were real.
Pony ran on desperately, blinded by tears. She stumbled to the base of what she thought was a tree, then nearly fainted as it shifted suddenly, as the fomorian giant, huge club in hand, took a long step away from her.
If she had had any breath in her lungs, she would have screamed, and if she had screamed, the giant would have noticed her and squashed her where she stood.
But its focus was the village and not some insignificant little girl, and in a few loping strides it left Pony far behind. She scrambled back to her feet, picked up a couple of rocks of a good size for throwing, and ran on, taking a course that would parallel, but not too closely, the giant: Now, as she entered the area of battle, as she saw the confusion, the fierce fighting, the dead bodies on the road, she was no more a little girl. Now she remembered her training, forced herself to think clearly and concisely. Goblins swarmed everywhere, and Pony spotted at least two other giants, fifteen feet tall and perhaps a thousand pounds of chiseled muscle. Her friends and family could not win! That logical, adult part of Pony -- the part that knew that the time of fending off nightmares with bedsheets was long past -- told her without doubt that Dundalis could not survive.
"Plan B," she whispered aloud, using the words to steady her thinking. The rules of survival, taught to every child in Wilderlands settlements, declared that the first priority in any catastrophe was to save the village. If that failed, the next task was to save as many individuals as possible. Plan B.
Pony picked her way around the back of the nearest houses, moving in and out of the shadows. She peeked around the corner and stood transfixed.
On the main road of Dundalis, just on the other side of this house, a fierce battle raged. Pony saw Olwan Wyndon first, standing tall in the middle of the human line, calling out commands, forming the group of twenty men and women into a tight circle as enemies came at them from nearly every direction. Pony's first instincts were to try and join that battle group, but she quickly surmised that she would never get in. She clenched her fist hopefully as Olwan Wyndon smashed a goblin's head, dropping the wretch to the dirt.
Then she held her breath as she noticed the man behind Olwan, parrying wildly as two goblins prodded at him with sharp spears.
Her father.
Elbryan held his breath, gasped once, then held it again. He didn't know what to do, then cursed himself silently for what he had already done!
In the hollow of the twin pines, he had lost sight of his enemy -- the first, and often fatal, mistake.
Now he had to work hard to deny his terror, had to climb above the emotion and the physical barrier and remember the many lessons his father had given him. A warrior knows his enemy, locates his enemy, and watches its every move. Silently mouthing that litany, Elbryan inched his face toward the edge of the pine. He hesitated momentarily at the very last instant, certain the goblin was just on the other side, weapon poised to smash him as soon as he peeked around.
A warrior knows his enemy . . .
A sudden shift brought the field beyond the pines back into view, and Elbryan nearly collapsed with relief when he saw the goblin had not moved and was still facing away from him, staring into the northern valley. That relief fast transformed into a sinking feeling as Elbryan realized the meaning of this creature's positioning. The patrol in the valley had been spotted perhaps had even been already engaged, and this goblin had been set as sentry, watching for any other potential human reinforcements while its companions sacked the village.
That thought sparked anger in the young man, enough to overcome his fear. He clenched more tightly. his short sword and slowly brought one leg up under him.
Without hesitation, for if he paused, he knew his courage surely would falter, Elbryan slipped out from behind the protection of the tree: Half walking, half crawling, he moved closer to the goblin, quickly covering a third of the distance.
Then he wanted to turn back, to run into the hollow and cover his face. The sounds behind him, from his home, bolstered him, as did the smell of burning wood carried by the wind up to the ridge. With a grimace of determination, Elbryan halved the distance to his foe. No turning back now. He scanned the area, and, as soon as he was confident that this creature was alone, he stood up and rushed out.
Five running strides brought him to the goblin, who didn't hear his approach until the last second. Even as the goblin began to turn, Elbryan's sword came down hard on its head.
The sword bounced out wide. Elbryan was surprised by the force of the impact and that his sword had not cut into the goblin's skull. He thought for one terrible moment he hadn't hit the thing hard enough, that it would turn and skewer him with its crude spear. Desperately, the young man scrambled to the side, trying to ready a defense.
The goblin staggered weirdly, dropped its weapon, and fell to its knees. Its head lolled from side to side. Elbryan saw the bright red gash, the white of split bone, the grayish brain. The goblin stopped moving. Its chin came to rest on its chest, and it held the kneeling pose, quite dead.
Dead.
Elbryan felt his guts churning and labored for his breath. The weight of his first kill descended upon him, bowing his shoulders, nearly driving him to his knees. Again it was the smell of his burning village that cleared his head. He had no time now to ponder, and any sympathetic notions that he might have captured the goblin instead of killing it seemed perfectly ridiculous.
He looked ahead at the evergreen vale and noted to his dismay that a fight was going on down there. Then he looked back at the larger battle for Dundalis.
To where his parents were fighting, to where Pony had run.
"Pony," the desperate young man whispered aloud, and before Elbryan even consciously knew what he was doing, he saw the trees going past him in a blur as he sprinted down the slope toward Dundalis.
Pony made her way around the house, inching toward the battle, wondering how she might get past the ring of goblins to stand beside her father. A cry of agony within the house froze her in place, and she leaned heavily on the frame for support. She took a moment to consider where she was, whose house this was, and she stifled a sob.
"No time for that," she scolded herself, and she focused on the battle raging on the road. Again her shoulders sagged, for though many goblins lay dead or dying on the bloodied ground about the ring of desperate fighters, several humans were down as well. And the goblin ranks, for all the carnage, remained deep, and seemed undiminished.
Above it all stood Olwan, proud and strong and unshakable. He clobbered yet another goblin, bashing in its ugly skull, then raised his arm and called out, trying to rally the others. Pony blinked curiously, for Olwan's arm did not come down, seemed to be going up, up, up. She saw the look of horror and pain that came over the, man, then looked higher, past his stretched shoulder, his elbow . . .
The giant's hand covered the tall man's entire forearm. Blocked by the wall of the house, Pony couldn't follow the man's ascent. She wanted to yell out for someone to help doomed Olwan, wanted to scream simply for the sake of screaming.
And then Olwan came flying back into sight, falling in a broken heap on the road right in the midst of the valiant fighters. Their ranks broke apart. They ran every which way, most getting no more than a couple of strides before being buried under a wave of swarming goblins. Pony lost sight of her father immediately, mercifully. She tried to sort out the mob, saw another person -- the woman who had taught her to read and write -- get pulled down to the ground, saw the goblin spear fast following. And then Pony turned away, stumbling to the back of the house, holding her churning stomach.
There were no lines of defense anymore, no organized pockets of resistance. Everything was confusion, screams and cries of pain. Pony didn't know where to turn, where to run. She saw the image of dead Olwan again, and the last glimpse of her father.
She turned back toward the road, hoping that her dad would come for her, would somehow rush out of the jumble and scoop her away from the danger, would make everything better, as he'd always done.
As if in a grotesque mockery of that hope, a goblin marched around that corner, bearing down on the girl. Pony let out a cry, hurled one of her stones at the creature, and ran off.
Anger held her in place just around the back of the house. She stopped and braced herself, measuring the goblin's footsteps. As it rounded the corner, the girl snapped back her elbow with all her strength, catching the charging creature right under the chin.
Pony spun and jumped on it, flailing wildly with both fists, kicking and kneeing viciously. Stronger than its little body would indicate, the goblin finally pushed her aside and turned its spear.
"Elbryan!"
The call brought the sprinting lad to a skidding halt. He caught the trunk of a young maple and swung about it, turning in the direction of the voice.
Carley dan Aubrey, one of the younger scouts, staggered toward him, his face ashen, both hands clenched firmly to his right side at his waist. Elbryan saw the dark stain near those hands.
"Elbryan!" the nine-year-old boy called again, stumbling forward. Elbryan ran out to meet him, caught him as he fell.
The older boy moved quickly to inspect the wound, forcing Carley's hands away. Elbryan grimaced, and Carley whimpered and nearly vomited, when Elbryan's hand brushed against the broken tip of a spear jutting from Carley's side.
Elbryan pulled back his trembling hand, staring wide-eyed at the bright blood that now covered it. Carley clutched desperately at the wound again, but he could not hope to stem the blood.
Elbryan forced himself to remain steady, to think clearly. He had to get his own shirt off and use it to somehow wrap the wound. And quickly! He tore off his overcoat and pulled open his leather vest, quickly unbuttoning the sleeves of his white shirt. Then he saw the goblin, coming fast, half a spear in its hands. It raised the shaft like a club, bearing down on him.
Elbryan grabbed for his short sword, tried to bring it up in front of him, and fell back as the goblin dove upon him. They came together hard, Elbryan going flat out on his back.
Down they rolled together. Elbryan's sword was up against the creature's side, had cut in a bit, but the angle was wrong, and the goblin's grip surprisingly strong, preventing the boy from driving the weapon home.
Over and over they rolled, tumbling down the slope, punching and thrashing. The ugly goblin face, all twisted teeth and long pointy nose, was barely inches from Elbryan's face, and closer still when the creature began to butt the boy. Elbryan felt his nose crack, felt the warmth of his blood running. He struggled harder, but the goblin would not let him drive his sword home.
Elbryan tugged more fiercely with his other hand instead, increasing the pace of the roll. He caught his ankles on a tree trunk but kicked off, not daring to stop, and the goblin came right over him. Still the creature held on stubbornly, pulling Elbryan over, and they began to roll sidelong again, heads to feet. On the first roll, Elbryan saw his new advantage, and on the second the young man poked the elbow of his sword arm out so it hit the ground and was braced.
When the goblin came over, its own weight forced it down on Elbryan's sword.
The creature went berserk, kicking and thrashing, flopping like a landed fish. Elbryan at first tried to defend himself but when that seemed futile, went on the offensive instead, brutally turning and twisting his blade.
The pair rolled hard into the trunk of another tree, and the goblin abruptly stopped its thrashing. Elbryan, dazed, his breath blasted away, nearly fainted. His thoughts came back in a terrifying rush and he tore free his sword and began hacking wildly, cutting the goblin again and again. He crawled out from under the thing, but kept on attacking it, savagely, primally, his blows wrought of sheer terror. Finally he stopped, realizing it was dead, that it could no longer hurt him. He knelt over it, trying to catch his breath, which would not seem to come to him.
Carley dan Aubrey's whimper brought him back to his senses. He dashed back up the slope, finally getting to the boy.
"Cold," Carley mouthed quietly. Elbryan fell to his knees, reaching for the wound, gingerly touching the spear and wondering if he should pull it free. He looked at the boy, and he held his breath.
But Carley was dead.
Pony ran off, stumbled and fell, then scrambled on all fours -- anything to get away. The goblin was behind her; she could imagine it readying its spear, lining up her vulnerable back. She cried out and fell around a corner, flat on her face. Realizing she hadn't been hit by anything, she put her feet back under her and ran on.
Around the back of the house, Thomas Ault, Pony's father, tore his dagger free and let the dead goblin fall to the ground. He looked plaintively at the corner around which his daughter had run, hoping, praying she would somehow escape.
Thomas had done all he could. He felt the sting of the light spears, six of them, in his back, his side, deep in one thigh. He heard the footsteps as the band of pursuing goblins closed the distance to him.
He prayed Pony would get away.
Before Elbryan could start back toward the town, he saw the shadows moving among the trees in the area from which Carley had come. He knew these were not his other friends, knew instinctively the others had fallen. He moved slowly, quietly, away from Carley's body, taking cover behind a larger tree.
Seven goblins came into sight, trotting easily down the slope. They hooted and laughed when they spotted the dead boy, then hooted even louder when they saw their fallen companion, not even pausing as they passed.
Elbryan wanted to jump out at them, to slash them all. Wisdom overruled his rage, though, and he stayed hidden and let them pass. Then he stalked after them, his bloody sword in his bloody hand, hoping one of the creatures would stray from its friends.
The smoke was growing thicker down in the village now. The screams had diminished, but when he crossed an area that offered him a clear view of Dundalis, Elbryan saw the scrambling forms were still thick about the place.
The young man knew it was hopeless, knew that his village was lost, knew all of his friends, his parents, his Pony, were gone.
Elbryan knew it, yet he did not slow his pace and did not alter his course. He was beyond grief, beyond logic, with no tears to cry. He would go down to Dundalis; he would kill every goblin he could catch.
She saw the dead, saw the dying. She didn't know why she hadn't yet been caught, but as she darted from shadow to shadow, from the side of one burning building to the next, she knew that her luck would not hold out for long. All thought of rescuing anyone was gone. All that she wanted now was to get away, far away.
But how? The roads were thick with goblins. Groups of the ugly creatures ran into each house, ransacked the place, and then, set it ablaze. They showed no mercy; Pony saw one woman beg for her life, offer herself to the goblins circling about her.
They hacked her down.
The noose was getting tighter, Pony knew. As villagers died, more and more goblins were free to run about. She looked in every direction, trying to find some course out of the town to the trees. But there was no escape, no way to get beyond Dundalis without being seen. And there were other goblins in the woods, coming in a few at a time.
No escape.
Pony squeezed in tight between two buildings and put her head against a wall. She wondered if it would be better to run out into the road and get it over with. "Better that than to wait," she mumbled determinedly, but she found she could not do it, that her most basic instinct for survival would not let her.
Pony took a deep breath. She felt the heat against her hands as this house, too, started to burn. Now where could she run?
The girl cocked her head, suddenly realizing exactly where she was. This was Shane McMichael's house in front of her, Olwan Wyndon's right behind her. Olwan's house; Elbryan's house.
Elbryan's new house!
Pony remembered the building of the place, only two years previously. The whole village had buzzed about the house because Olwan Wyndon was laying a stone foundation.
Pony fell to her knees and began to scrape the ground at the base of Olwan's house. Her fingers bled, she felt the heat growing behind her, but she dug on desperately.
Then her hand broke through into an open area. She reached deeper, perhaps a foot and a half down, and her hand met cold, wet ground. Olwan had used large slabs for the base, and, as Pony suspected, the house hadn't completely settled.
The smoke grew thick about Pony; Olwan's house, too, went up in flames. Still she dug, widening the hole, trying desperately to squeeze under the slab.
The angry young man didn't have long to wait. The goblin band, sentries apparently and not part of the attacking force, did not continue down toward Dundalis but split ranks and filtered left and right into the trees.
Elbryan went left, shadowing a group of three. He heard the continuing screams in Dundalis, more of a pitiful weeping now than any cries of resistance. He saw the houses burning, was close enough to realize that his own house was among them.
That only fueled the young man's outrage. He stalked quietly from tree to tree, and when one of the goblins paused and fell behind the others, he was quickly to the spot.
The kill was swift, a single thrust through the creature's ribs, but not quiet, for the goblin managed to let out a dying cry.
Elbryan tore free his sword and started to run, but too late. He swiped left and right, picking off a pair of thrusting spears as the two other goblins bore down on him, howling and shouting. Their eyes -- so full of glee, so uncaring for their fallen comrade -- unnerved Elbryan, and he tried hard not to look at them, tried to concentrate on their stabbing spears.
All the while he was backtracking, realizing he had to flee before the other group answered the howling, call. The goblin on his left came in hard and straight. Elbryan snapped his sword over and around the spear, angling it past on his right, and he skittered out to the left, up the slope, gaining the higher ground.
All advantage was lost as the young man stumbled, the loose earth slipping out from under his foot. The other goblin ran around the back of its companion and moved higher, coming in at Elbryan from above.
Desperately, he threw himself backward, put a foot under him, and kicked off, flying past the turning spear of the first goblin and rushing to get out of range of the second. He slashed out with his sword as he careened past, gaining hope as he felt it connect with something solid.
Then the world was spinning as Elbryan bounced and rolled. He finally controlled his slide and tried to angle himself so he could stop his roll and come up in a defensive posture. He expected the goblin -- perhaps both of the creatures -- to be right behind him.
They weren't. The one Elbryan had slashed lay very still on the ground -- apparently he had hit it harder than he'd believed. The other was also on the ground, squirming and groaning.
The only explanation Elbryan could think of was that it had charged at him as he had leaped away and had slammed hard against the ground or against a tree trunk. Not one to argue with good fortune, Elbryan scrambled to his feet.
Something tapped him on the shoulder, not hard at first, but then he was flying once more, sidelong this time. He hit the ground in a roll but slammed hard against a tree trunk as he came around. Confused and dazed, Elbryan staggered to his feet.
And all hope flew from him as a fomorian giant, holding a club as large as Elbryan's entire body, casually walked toward him. And Elbryan heard hoots from behind him and knew the other four goblins were on the way.
The young man glanced all around. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He braced himself, used the solid tree as support. When the giant was within one huge stride, Elbryan leaped out, trying to confuse it with sheer savagery. He stabbed and slashed, came in close to the monster's knees and stabbed again, then rolled right between the giant's legs.
But the giant had seen the move dozens of times in its battles with little folk. Elbryan got halfway through before the giant clamped his knees together, holding the youth so securely he could barely draw breath. Elbryan tried to stab the monster again, but the giant squeezed even tighter, and all the young man could do was groan. He managed to turn sideways, and from that perspective could see the giant's club rise up over its head.
A sickening feeling washed over Elbryan. Stubborn to the end, he stabbed again as hard as he could, then closed his eyes.
The air came alive with a strange humming sound. The giant released its grip and Elbryan fell to the ground. He scrambled out, running on for several steps. He heard the continuing whistles and thought for a moment that a swarm of bees had flown up around him. Instinctively he whipped out his band, and then he cried out for the sudden sting and pulled it back in close.
He turned about, regarding the giant, which was dancing and slapping at the air. Beyond it he could see a pair of the four goblins that were coming in, both of them jerking weirdly and then falling to the ground.
"What?" Elbryan asked in "utter confusion. Dots of red, like grotesque chicken pox, covered the giant's face and arms. Looking closer, and then at his own injured hand; Elbryan realized that these were not caused by bees, but were bolts, small arrows, the likes of which he had never seen.
Scores and scores of small arrows, filling the air all about him!
But they hardly seemed to stop the behemoth. The fomorian charged ahead with a tremendous, hideous howl, its cudgel going high. Elbryan, puny and helpless beneath it, held aloft his short sword, though he could not possibly deflect such a mighty blow.
The next volley was concentrated, sixty arrows flying fast for the giant's face and throat, sixty bolts that looked indeed like a swarm of bees. The fomorian staggered once, twice, and then again, as the bolts burrowed in, one on top of the other, a dozen on top of the previous dozen. Finally, the stinging ended, and the fomorian tried to move forward, back toward its prey. But before it could get anywhere near to the young man, the giant went down, choking in its own blood.
Elbryan never saw it; he had fainted dead away.