Chương 37: Chapter 29: Max - Crestwood Farm (Part 1)

The road out of Brindleford wound through browned fields and hedgerows stitched into old, familiar lines. Frost clung to ditch grass where the sun had not yet reached, and thin ice filmed the puddles in cart ruts. Max kept his cloak snug and his pace steady, boots beating a rhythm on hard-packed dirt. Alina Crestwood walked beside him with her bow and quiver slung over one shoulder.

She kept to the firmer ground without looking down, stepping around ruts and loose stones while her eyes moved ahead to each bend in the road, every gap in the hedges, and the ditches where a stray animal or waiting traveler might appear without warning. Behind them, Borin's mail rattled faintly, Elias's staff clicked along the road, and Cass moved with a quiet ease.

"Brookhollow is another hour," Alina said after a while, breaking the silence.

"The farm is just beyond. We should reach it by early afternoon."

"Good," Borin grunted.

"No sense wasting daylight." Cass exhaled, watching her breath curl white.

"Can someone remind me why every job we take has the words cold and goblin in it." Max glanced sideways.

"You were the one who said goblins post steady."

"I said they post steady," she replied.

"Not that they pay steady. Big difference." Elias shuddered.

"I would still rather face goblins than another sewer run. I am almost certain the last one wanted me personally." Borin grunted.

"If anything tries to eat my beard, I'm smiting it." The banter eased the tightness in Max's chest for a few moments. Alina didn't join in. Her jaw stayed set and her eyes stayed scanning. Max tried a different tack.

"What's your favorite part of it?" he asked her. She frowned faintly.

"Of what?"

"The farm." She hesitated and seemed to give the question real thought.

"The orchard," she said finally.

"In spring. When the blossoms come in all at once. It's beautiful. You can smell it from the road." She seemed almost embarrassed at the softness in her voice.

"My Da says if the orchard blooms thick, the year will be kind." Max nodded.

"I'd take that as a good sign." She didn't smile. But the tension in her shoulders eased for a step or two. Not much later, the small village of Brookhollow came into view as a pocket of thatch and timber cupping a bend in a shallow river. Smoke curled from a few chimneys. Dogs barked as they crossed through the center of the village, and children stared openly until Cass caught one of them watching and gave a quick, exaggerated wink. The girl yelped a laugh and ran. Alina didn't slow.

She took a cart track that climbed a low rise beyond the last cottages. Houses fell away behind them, replaced by open fields and the long view of winter land. Crestwood Farm sat beyond the hill with a working eye over its fields, as if the house itself wanted to watch what fed it. The yard was open and cleared of cover within bowshot. Hedgerows along the approach had been cut back brutally.

"Someone's been thinking," Cass murmured, eyes moving.

"I approve."

"A necessity," replied Alina. A man waited for them at the fence. Alina pointed to him, "That's my Da, Garret." She visibly relaxed as they approached him. Garret Crestwood wasn't a large man, but he had thick wrists and a farmer's back built from years of lifting and hauling. Gray threaded through his beard, and the lines at the corners of his eyes had been carved there by wind and long mornings before sunrise.

He pulled Alina into a brief, tight embrace, one hand firm at the back of her head as though confirming she was whole. Then he released her and turned his attention to the four adventurers.

"You came," he said at last, his voice rough from too many short nights.

"Thank you."

"We did," Max replied evenly.

"We're here to help." Garret gave a small nod and waved them through the gate.

"Come. I'll show you around. They keep coming for the storehouse," he said without ceremony.

"Ours is the largest on this side of Brookhollow. We trade out of it in winter and help neighbors who run short. That makes us worth the trouble." Elias studied the long, low building, then glanced toward the scattered farms visible beyond the fields.

"If they take your stores, you and your neighbors will feel it." Garret's jaw clenched.

"Aye." The yard told the rest of the story. Fence rails had been wired back together in haste. The barn door bore deep scratches and splintered patches where something had clawed or struck repeatedly. Broken arrow shafts with scrap iron heads lay half-buried in dirt. The storehouse lock was scuffed and bent where it had been tested hard more than once.

"Grain and smoked meat," Borin said, running a calloused thumb along the heavy planks of the storehouse door.

"Easy to carry. Not surprised they're trying to get in."

"We've had raids before," Garret replied.

"A few arrows, some shouting, and they decide another farm is easier. This time they don't."

"How many on the worst night?" Max asked.

"Ten. Maybe twelve." Garret hesitated before adding quietly, "And they come back. It isn't normal." Cass moved through the yard slowly, studying angles and sightlines with a thief's patience. Borin tested the rails and the firmness of the ground with the sole of his boot, judging where footing would hold and where it might fail.

Elias crouched near the storehouse entrance and pressed the end of his staff into the dirt, testing how compacted it was and how readily it would respond if he needed to shape or split it quickly. Max listened as Garret and Alina described the pattern of approach. How the goblins used the same gaps in the hedges. The same line across the yard. The same pressure against the lock. They didn't attempt to turn the farm into a fortress.

There was neither time nor material for that, and too much structure would only create more for the goblins to burn. Instead, they adjusted what was already there. They narrowed the clearest approaches and shifted loose equipment to break straight runs toward the storehouse. Brush was cut back where it offered cover, and certain objects were moved to deny clean angles. Elias selected a stretch of earth near the primary approach that would take his magic cleanly and marked it in his mind.

A few slick patches were prepared where a rush might lose footing. Stakes were set where bodies could pile and slow those pressing behind. The changes were subtle, but deliberate. By dusk, the farm looked much the same to an untrained eye, yet anyone attempting to cross the yard in a hurry would find it less forgiving than before. Garret set stew on the table and insisted they eat, though he himself spoke little once they were seated.

His eyes moved between them in quiet assessment, as if measuring how they carried themselves even at rest. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Alina barely touched her bowl. Her gaze drifted toward the storehouse door more than once, and each time it did she forced herself to look back at the table, as though catching herself in the act.

When they set watches later that evening, Garret lay down fully dressed with his boots still on and his pitchfork resting against the wall within arm's reach. He didn't remove them even when he stretched out. The first two nights passed without an attack. During the day, they helped strengthen the farm's defenses and took on whatever work needed doing. Max hauled water, repaired fencing, and carried hay bales until the familiar strain in his arms pulled him briefly back to his warehouse job in Berkeley.

He remembered the wrist injury, how he'd tried to dismiss it as nothing, and Gideon refusing to let him. Gideon had made Max tell him exactly what happened, helped him put the details into an email, then sent it over so he could forward it to his supervisor. Somewhere, in an inbox he would never open again, that email was still waiting. They had died before he ever sent it. The absence of movement beyond the hedges didn't bring relief.

It only made every sound carry farther, and every shift of wind felt like a warning that had not yet decided to show itself. On the third night, the wind shifted and carried a faint stink of rot and unwashed bodies. Max felt the hair rise at the back of his neck.

"Company," he called quietly. Small shapes broke from the hedges all at once. Seven goblins moved low and quick and hunched, eyes glinting in the dark. They carried crude weapons: bent spears, jagged knives, and one even bore a broken scythe lashed to a stick. They moved fast, and went straight for the storehouse just as expected. Max Identified a few of the goblins as they ran, shrieking in their guttural language, towards the building.

[Goblin Warrior - Level 3] Health: 40/40 | Stamina: 30/30 | Mana 10/10 [Goblin Warrior - Level 2] Health: 30/30 | Stamina: 20/20 | Mana: 10/10 [Goblin Warrior - Level 3] Health: 40/40 | Stamina: 30/30 | Mana 10/10 [Goblin Warrior - Level 4] Health: 50/50 | Stamina: 30/30 | Mana: 20/20 Nothing too impressive. Max readied himself.

"Hold steady," Borin said. Bless settled over them, firm and bracing. Max drew his sword and let Battle Focus tighten the world to edges and movement. The goblins rushed the yard the way Garret and Alina said they had before. Only this time the yard wasn't the same. The clearest path narrowed between stacked rails and shifted troughs, forcing them into a channel they didn't slow to examine. Elias's Frostsheet waited there, invisible in the dark.

The first goblin hit it at full speed, and its feet went out from under it. The second crashed into its back. The third stumbled trying to leap them both. Momentum collapsed their charge in a single heartbeat. Confusion flashed across green faces. At that moment, Cass's first crossbow bolt took one of the fallen goblins in the throat before it could rise. The second struck another in the mouth as it tried to scream a warning. Max stepped forward into the choke point before the others could reorganize.

His shield caught a wild knife strike and shoved it aside. His blade came down and cut cleanly through collarbone into its chest. The body dropped like a sack of potatoes, blood already spreading into an ever growing pool. Borin moved with him, hammer rising and falling with measured force. One goblin's sternum caved under his blow. Another lost its footing on the slick patch and cracked its skull against frozen earth.

Garret moved in beside them and drove his pitchfork forward, catching a goblin that tried to slip along the fence line where Cass had warned it might. Only one goblin remained now. It had lingered near the hedges, long enough to see the charge turn to chaos and the farm answer with steel instead of panic. It hesitated. That was long enough for it to understand. It turned and ran.

"Let it go," Borin said evenly.

"We may want arrows later." The yard fell silent almost at once. Six bodies lay where the narrowed approach had forced them to die. Cass already moved among them, reclaiming her bolts with efficient motions.

"Six," she confirmed after a moment.

"One runner got away." Garret exhaled slowly and looked toward the storehouse door. It still stood untouched. They cut ears for proof. It was ugly work, but necessary. The Guild wanted evidence, not stories. At the trough, as Max scrubbed goblin blood from his blade, steam rising where water met cold air, Alina joined him.

"They'll come back," she said quietly. Cass straightened from a nearby fallen body.

"That last one hung back from the start."

"Aye," Borin said.

"Most goblins I've encountered would've rushed and died with the rest." Max glanced toward the hedges.

"This one chose not to." The goblins didn't return the next night. Nor the one after. On the sixth night since they'd arrived at the Farm, the hedges stirred again, this time from more than one direction. Max rose slowly from his post, hand settling on his sword. Shapes slipped through three separate breaks in the hedge line, moving low and quick against the frost-paled ground. Not just a handful this time. A larger group. Some moved toward the funnel as before, but the others spread along the fence line.

Two went straight for the storehouse door without hesitation.

"Positions," Borin said calmly. Bless rolled outward once again and steadied them. He tapped Max's shield and a faint glow surrounded it before fading away. Max felt Battle Focus narrow his awareness until distance and movement were all that mattered. The first cluster of enemies entered the narrowed path between the stacked rails and shifted trough. They slowed just enough to adjust to the altered ground. Elias's Earthsplit broke the earth beneath their feet, tearing packed soil into uneven ridges.

Frostsheet followed a heartbeat later, glazing the churned dirt into a slick sheen. The front goblin lost its footing and went down hard. Two collided behind it. Another tried to leap and slipped sideways into the trough. But the rest didn't collapse into confusion. They broke wide. Three veered left along the fence, trying to bypass the choke point entirely. One reached the storehouse door and began swinging at the lock with focused blows from a crude stone hammer. Cass shifted her angle smoothly.

Her first bolt dropped a climber halfway over the fence. She reloaded without looking down and drove the second into the throat of one scrambling out of the slick ground. Alina stepped into the clear lane they had carved that afternoon. She drew and released in one clean motion, striking the goblin at the storehouse door square in the chest. It staggered back into the wall, and Garret closed the distance instantly, driving his pitchfork through its ribs and shoving it aside.

Another goblin sprinted for the same door. Alina pivoted and shot again, catching it high in the shoulder joint. The impact turned it just enough for Max to step in and finish it with a downward cut. A spear struck Max's shield rim, but Borin's Stone Ward bled most of the force away. He shoved the attacker off balance and cut it down in one smooth motion. Borin's hammer rose and fell beside him, collapsing ribs and ending another that had tried to dart through the churned earth.

Radiant Flare suddenly burst in a tight cone along the fence where several goblins had begun to regroup nearest to Elias. They shrieked and clawed at their eyes, blinded by the sudden flash of light. Alina shot one through the mouth while it staggered. Cass dropped another as it turned to flee. For several moments, the yard was nothing but steel, frost, and controlled violence. That was when Max saw it.

Just inside the tree line, a larger shape stood upright among the shadows, broader through the shoulders than the others. It didn't rush in or shout. It watched.

"Tree line," Max warned.

"A big one."

"I see it," Cass yelled back.

"What the hell is it doing?" The figure shifted slightly but didn't advance. As bodies began to stack and the yard clearly favored the defenders, the figure shouted something, and the remaining goblins started to pull away. They didn't panic. Instead, they disengaged cleanly. One slashed at Borin's shield, forcing him to block and take a step back, to create space before breaking for the hedge. The others that still lived followed in quick succession, backing away until they could turn and run.

Cass tracked one briefly with her crossbow, then lowered it. Five goblins vanished into the hedgerow. The larger shape stepped back to meet them, and then it too was gone. Silence settled over the yard. Only after the breathing slowed and they were certain the goblins weren't coming back did they begin to count. Eleven bodies lay across the churned ground and along the fence. Some were piled in the funnel. Others lay near the storehouse door where they had pressed hardest.

Garret stood near the storehouse, pitchfork still in hand, and looked over the dead with a long, steady breath.

"They never came in numbers like that before," he said at last.

"Not around here. And not for one farm."

He shook his head slowly.

"That felt like anger. Like they were trying to answer for the first beating we gave them." Cass wiped her blades clean at the trough and stared toward the hedges.

"They won't come back after this," she said, her voice tight but certain.

"No goblin pack throws this many lives away. Not for grain." Borin glanced toward the tree line where the larger shape had stood.

"No," he agreed after a moment.

"They've paid dearly." Elias let out a long breath.

"Even goblins learn eventually, when the lesson is costly enough." For the first time in days, the tension in the yard eased. Garret planted the butt of his pitchfork in the dirt and looked at the four of them.

"If you can," he said evenly, "stay a few more days. Just to be certain." Alina nodded quickly.

"Please," she added.

"I believe they're done. I do. But if we send you back tomorrow and they come the night after…" Max glanced at Borin. The dwarf gave a small nod.

"We'll stay. A few days more won't hurt." Garret exhaled, some of the strain leaving his shoulders.

"Good," he said quietly.

"Then we'll all sleep easier." The yard still smelled of blood and frost. They set about cutting ears again. When they finished, the sack felt heavier than it should have. No one said it aloud, but they all carried the same thought. Surely this would be enough.