Chương 38: Chapter 30: Max - Crestwood Farm (Part 2)

Two quieter days followed the last attack. They repaired what had been trampled and reset what could be salvaged. Rails were lifted back into place. The trough was dragged back upright. Charred boards were replaced where they could be. Garret worked with steady hands and fewer words, the hard edge in him easing slightly as the hours passed. Alina and Cass ventured into the nearby woods and hunted enough for all of them.

They moved through the trees and undergrowth with a natural grace the others lacked, bringing back rabbits and birds. On that first evening, Alina and Garret spoke of rebuilding properly in spring. Of reinforcing the storehouse. Of the orchard blooming thick and sweet when winter broke. No one said it outright, but they all believed the worst had passed. On the second night after the large raid, that belief shattered. Max woke to a sound that couldn't have come from seven goblins.

A low roar rolled across the farm, rising as torchlight flared beyond the hedgerows in a long, broken line. Shapes moved behind it, too many to count in the dark. Elias stepped onto the farmhouse porch, peered toward the fields, and went pale.

"By the Saints."

"They came back for blood," Borin said. His gaze moved once across the open yard, measuring the distance between the house, the fences, and the approaching line.

"We can't meet that many outside. Inside, now. We hold the doorway and make them come through a few at a time." They fell back into the farmhouse. Borin planted himself in the entrance with his shield raised, filling most of the narrow opening. Max took position just behind and to one side, close enough to strike past him without crowding his footing. Bless settled over them again as Borin murmured a short prayer, quieting trembling hands and tightening their focus. He then reached over and tapped Max's shield.

Stone Ward sank into the rim until the iron felt fused to Max's arm. Elias pressed Armor Ward into Borin's shield boss next, his breathing already uneven. Then he spoke a few words and touched Max's sword. Translucent blue fire sprang to life along the blade. The fence collapsed almost immediately beneath the goblin advance. They spilled into the yard, and several torches sailed over the first ranks toward the barn.

Fire caught along the dry outer boards, climbed into the beams, and spread fast enough to throw the whole yard into wavering orange light. Then they turned toward the farmhouse. They crossed the open ground in a mass, using the smoke already rolling from the barn to cover their approach. It reached the doorway ahead of them, thick enough to sting Max's eyes and catch in his throat. Cass fired into the oncoming crowd for as long as she could make out faces, reloading again and again while bodies pressed closer.

Alina emptied her quiver, cast the bow aside, and tore a heavy tool from the wall before stepping into the line beside them. Borin held the doorway while Max braced against his shoulder and cut at anything that forced its way through the smoke. Then a deeper voice rose above the others, clipped and commanding. The goblin advance changed. What had been a blind rush broke into waves, each group pushing forward as the one before it fell back or died.

Through the smoke came the larger goblin they had seen the night before. It stood taller than the others, broad across the shoulders and heavy with muscle. A straight-edged blade rested easily in its grip, held with the confidence of someone who knew how to use it. Max focused and activated Identify. The world narrowed for a heartbeat before the familiar System window appeared. [Hobgoblin - Level 10] Health: 140/140 | Stamina: 85/120 | Mana: 15/30 Max's stomach dropped.

"Level ten hobgoblin!" he shouted.

"That one's much stronger than the others!" The hobgoblin barked another order. The goblins dropped low at Borin's legs while others thrust high at Max's guard, their attacks falling into a deliberate rhythm. Max stepped forward to meet them.

"Don't let it reach the doorway!" The large figure suddenly sprang into action as it leapt forward onto the porch toward Max, its blade coming down in a powerful overhead strike. Max managed to get his shield up just in time, the hobgoblin's blade striking his shield with a force that rattled his teeth. His knees bent from the pressure. The second blow came fast and angled, slipping past the rim of his shield and biting into his side beneath the chain. Max drove forward through the pain and cut hard in return.

His sword opened the creature's shoulder. Dark blood splashed across the doorframe. The hobgoblin jumped back, snarled, and shouted again. Torches flew through the air and the farmhouses thatched roof went up with a roar. Flames began licking down along the porch roof. Heat slammed into the doorway. The air turned harsh and choking. Their line was bending. Cass took a cut along her arm and kept firing. Elias's Mana Bolts slowed, then stopped, as his Mana emptied.

He began swinging his heavy staff instead, crushing one goblin's head with a precise strike. Borin's shield arm began to tremble as he continued to block strikes from the goblins crude weapons. They couldn't hold the porch for much longer. Garret saw it before the others.

"Back way," he yelled over the roar.

"Now." Another wave of bodies slammed into the threshold. Borin staggered half a step as he blocked multiple strikes.

"Garret—" Max began.

"Back way," Garret repeated.

"Pantry hatch. Hedge gap. Move. Now." He kicked loose the chock beneath a pile of stacked rails braced at the porch edge. The mass toppled outward in a crashing snarl of wood and iron, bowling over and entangling goblins at the base of the steps. Garret seized a small oil keg from a table nearby and hurled it into the wreckage. It burst, sending oil washing over wood and bodies. A torch followed shortly after, and the whole mound of wood and bodies burst into flame.

The creatures stuck in the pile wailed a horrific screeching cry as they burned alive. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

"Go," he snarled.

"While you still can." Alina stared at him, panic in her eyes.

"Da. No. You come with us." A goblin lunged through the smoke. Garret pivoted and drove the pitchfork forward, the tines punching through its chest. He ripped it free and kicked the body into the fire as another scrambled over it.

"If I run too," he said, breath rough, "they chase us. I will buy you time. Now go, girl."

"Then we fight together," she shot back, stepping toward him despite the heat.

"I won't leave you." A blade slashed at his side. Garret knocked it aside at the last moment with the haft and smashed the butt of the pitchfork into the attacker's forehead, sending it reeling backwards. Garret's eyes found hers again.

"I will not abandon my farm," he said.

"Not to them." The hobgoblin barked another command, closer now. Two goblins rushed together. Garret met one, and Max the other, forcing them back half a step.

"This land fed you," he continued, breath coming harder as he buried the pitchfork tines into a goblins neck.

"It buried your mother. Your brothers. I won't leave it to burn alone." He kicked the corpse off the tines and blocked another strike from the left. Alina's face crumpled.

"Da—" Another goblin clawed over the railing and slashed high. Garret twisted, caught the blade in the ribs, and shoved the goblin backward into the flames.

"Go, girl," he said, voice steady now despite the chaos.

"Run. Live long enough to remember it right." The press surged again.

"I'll see them soon enough," he added, almost quiet beneath the roar. Then he raised his voice.

"Now move, girl. I love you." With that, he gave Alina a hard shove toward the back door, sending her stumbling into the house. Borin seized Alina's arm before she could right herself.

"With me. Now." He began to drag her toward the kitchen, Cass and Elias close behind. Max hesitated for a moment longer. Through the smoke, the hobgoblin's eyes locked onto his. Garret stepped fully into the doorway, blocking the view.

"Go, boy," he roared without turning.

"Mind your own. I have mine." And he drove the pitchfork forward again. Max turned and followed the others. Cass slipped through the rear hatch first. Elias followed. Borin forced Alina through, then went himself. Max backed through last, ribs burning. He looked back one last time over his shoulder. Garret stood framed in the firelight, holding a line that should have crushed him. Then Max stepped out and into the night. From the ridge beyond the kitchen garden, they watched Crestwood Farm fall.

The hobgoblin stood in the yard, arm dark with blood where Max had cut it. It barked orders, and the goblins moved with purpose. They broke the storehouse door first. Sacks were hauled out in rhythm and passed hand to hand. Only when the stores were fully stripped did the hobgoblin shout again. Torches went to the fields. To the porch supports. To anything that would burn. The barn collapsed first. The porch became a skeleton. The fire climbed and roared into the night sky.

As the farm burned, the goblins retreated back into the night, the spoils of the storehouse slung over their shoulders. Alina stood with both hands clamped over her mouth, tears streaming down her face, trying to hold back the sobs until her shoulders shook. Borin exhaled slowly.

"We go down at dawn," he said softly.

"He earned that." Ash crunched underfoot when they returned to the yard in the gray morning. The farm was a black ruin. The smell was thick and awful. They found Garret laying where he'd made his stand. He was on his back, eyes open to a sky that didn't answer. Goblin corpses sprawled around him in a rough ring. Pitchfork wounds. Crushed skulls. Ugly chest cuts. Proof that he hadn't died easy. Alina knelt beside him and closed his eyes with her thumb.

For a long moment she made no sound at all, breath coming in short, ragged pulls. Then the sob broke loose. Cass dropped beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Alina leaned into it like she was falling and clung, shaking. Max looked away, jaw tight, tears coming to his eyes. Elias stared hard at the burned storehouse. Borin's grip whitened on his hammer. When Alina could breathe again, she whispered, "He could've come with us." Borin's voice was quiet and steady when he spoke.

"The mind will chase roads backward until they become ruts. He knew what he was doing, sending us away. He made his choice. That debt is paid by living well, lass, not by breaking yourself against what cannot be changed." Alina swallowed hard and nodded once. As the sun continued to rise, they set to work claiming their grisly bounties. They cut ears from each goblin yet again, because proof counted far more than stories. The Guild counted numbers, not tears. The blade work was ugly.

Some bodies were charred enough that ears crumbled under the knife. Others lay half in ash, half in mud. Taking the ears felt wrong somehow, but they persisted and made sure to get them all. When they finished, their sack bulged with the weight of close to one hundred ears. No clerk in Brindleford would dare argue that number. Only then did Max let his focus drift long enough to notice the pulsing notifications at the edge of his vision. Level-ups stacked. Stat points waiting. He ignored them. Later. Not here.

They buried Garret on the small hill overlooking what remained of his home. Borin broke the hard earth with steady blows while the others gathered stones and cleared away roots. Max and Alina lowered the wrapped body into the grave together. Elias spoke a few simple words over him. Cass stood nearby with her crossbow held across her chest, as though setting it aside would leave her with nothing to do except watch.

By the time the last of the soil had been returned and the stones arranged over the mound, the sun had climbed toward midday. Smoke still rose from the ruins below, thinning into pale streaks against the sky. Alina stepped back from the grave. Her face was blotched from crying, but she held herself upright, staring past the fresh earth toward the blackened farm.

"They burned everything," she said softly.

"They didn't have to."

"They'll answer for it," Borin said. The wind moved across the hill, stirring ash through the dead grass. No one spoke for several minutes. Eventually, Borin gathered the sack of goblin ears and tied it securely to Max's pack. The weight settled against his back, foul but necessary. Proof for the Guild. Proof that this had been more than another frightened farmer mistaking shadows for monsters. They were ready to leave, but Alina remained beside the grave.

Max looked toward the road, then back at the smoldering remains of the farm below.

"We're going back to Brindleford," he said.

"You should come with us." Alina didn't answer.

"You don't have to decide what comes after that," he continued.

"Just come back with us. Get some food, find somewhere safe to sleep, and give yourself time to think." Her breath caught. She wiped her face with the back of a dirty sleeve.

"I can't rebuild this," she whispered.

"Not alone." Borin placed a hand on her shoulder.

"No," he said.

"But your father didn't hold that door so you could spend the rest of your life standing beside his grave." Alina closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked down at the mound beneath the stones.

"Alright," she said quietly.

"I'll come." They left Crestwood Farm behind and descended toward the road. The morning had grown clear and cold, the sun bright enough to cast their shadows across the rutted ground without offering much warmth. Behind them, smoke still marked the sky above the trees. They had been walking for a short while when Max slowed until he was beside Alina. He adjusted the strap digging into his shoulder.

"When we reach Brindleford, we'll report everything to the Guild," he said.

"The numbers. The hobgoblin. The way they came back prepared." Alina kept her eyes on the road.

"And after that?"

"We keep taking jobs. Helping those that need it."

"That's what adventurers do?"

"Mostly. We work, get hurt, and complain about the pay," Elias quipped. Cass glanced at Alina back over her shoulder.

"He complains more than the rest of us."

"I complain the correct amount." A faint breath escaped Alina. It wasn't quite a laugh, but it was the closest she'd come since the fighting ended. Max let a few more steps pass in silence.

"We could use someone who knows the land," he said.

"Someone who can shoot, keep her head when things go wrong, and notice trouble before the rest of us blunder into it." Cass turned and began walking backward.

"He means we could use you." Max gave her a flat look.

"I was getting there."

"You were taking the scenic route." Alina looked between them.

"You want me to join you?"

"I think you could," Max said with a small shrug.

"Not today, necessarily. You've got more important things to deal with before making that kind of choice." Elias slowed enough to walk on Alina's other side.

"You wouldn't be expected to know everything immediately," he said.

"None of us did. The Guild has rules, contracts, ranks, and enough exceptions to keep me explaining them for most of the walk back."

"You'd do that whether she asked or not," Borin called from ahead. Elias considered it.

"Probably." Alina glanced toward Max.

"I'm not trained like you."

"You fought beside us," Cass said. She had turned forward again, though she remained close enough to join the conversation.

"You didn't freeze, and you didn't shoot any of us in the back. That puts you ahead of some adventurers I've met." Borin glanced back at her.

"Training can be taught. You kept your head when everything went wrong. That's harder to teach." Alina walked in silence for several paces. Her gaze drifted toward the smoke behind them, then returned to the road.

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life hiding whenever something comes out of those woods," she said.

"And I don't want to face it alone again."

"You wouldn't," Max said. Alina looked from him to the others. Borin gave a single nod. Elias offered her a quiet smile, while Cass only lifted one shoulder, as though the answer should already have been obvious.

"Then I'll give it a try." Max nodded.

"That's all I'm asking."

"We'll see what the Guild says," Borin added.

"Then we begin properly." Cass reached over and squeezed Alina's shoulder once.

"You'll need something beside the bow. A blade, preferably. Something you can use when they get too close to shoot." Alina glanced at her.

"So grabbing the nearest farm tool isn't the usual approach?"

"Only when the Guild forgets to issue pitchforks." A small smile tugged at Alina's mouth.

"Good to know." Cass's mouth twitched.

"I might like you." They continued toward Brindleford. When the road narrowed again between the hedges, Alina fell into step between Cass and Elias. No one remarked on it. They simply made room and kept walking. More than once, Max caught her looking his way as though she had something else to say, but each time she turned back to the road before the words came. The sack of goblin ears knocked against his back with every step. Max found himself think ahead, to what they would report to the Guild.

The goblins hadn't stumbled across Crestwood Farm by chance. They'd returned deliberately, led by a hobgoblin, and burned the place to the ground in apparent retaliation for those killed there before. The ears would prove the size of the attack. Whether the Guild saw a warning in them, or merely another bounty to count, remained to be seen.