Chương 82: Chapter 62: Max - Greenglade (Part 2)

The ground beyond Greenglade sloped downward before widening into a shallow basin where the road curved toward the hills. The land there had clearly seen recent violence. Even from a distance, the scars were visible. The earth had been churned up in long ragged stretches, grass lay broken and flattened in broad patches, and the remains of a battlefield still lingered beneath the efforts of those who had tried to clean it afterward.

"This is where it happened," Rulon said as they crested the last rise. The skirmish site stretched across a broad patch of flattened ground nearly two hundred yards wide. Dark stains still marked places where blood had soaked deeply into the soil. Several broken shields and splintered spear shafts had been stacked off to one side where someone had tried to tidy the field after the dead were removed, but there had been too much damage to erase cleanly. Max walked forward slowly, taking in the basin.

"Has anyone been out here since the dead were collected?"

"Not officially," Rulon replied.

"Maybe a scavenger or two hoping we missed a buckle or an intact knife, but no organized return." Cass was already crouching near the center of the field. She brushed aside grass and loose dirt with quick, practiced motions, then leaned closer.

"Traffic." Max stepped over to join her. The marks were faint, but once Cass pointed them out, they stood out clearly enough. Several overlapping impressions formed a narrow corridor across the battlefield, running in a steady line toward the western hills.

"Repeated passes," she said.

"Same route over and over." Borin moved along the line at a slow walk, following the compressed earth.

"Carrying weight."

"That fits everything else we've seen," Elias replied.

"Careful movement, no wasted effort." Rulon frowned as he studied the trail.

"Dragging would've been a lot easier."

"Not if you don't want to advertise where you went," Cass said.

"Dragging tears up the ground." Rulon nodded.

"True." He stared along the tracks for another moment before grunting in irritation.

"Why can't bastards ever be incompetent?" Borin chuckled.

"Would be convenient, wouldn't it?" Elias had drifted away from the trail, his attention moving across the wider field. He slowed near a shallow depression where the grass had burned away, leaving behind a dark circle of ash and hardened soil.

"Here," he called.

"Burn pit." Cass moved in immediately and crouched beside it. She searched the ground in tight, deliberate passes, taking in the ash, surrounding dirt, and debris scattered nearby.

"They worked here." Her hand moved first to a scrap half buried beneath a rusted buckle. She pulled it free, unfolded it, and revealed a strip of blue cloth. Max was already reaching into his pouch, and by the time Cass looked up, he had the thread from Tella's fence pinched between two fingers. Cass compared the two.

"Same weave," she said.

"Same dye." Rulon looked from one to the other.

"So whoever came through town was out here too."

"Looks that way," Cass said. She set the cloth aside and moved closer to the burn pit. After another few seconds, her fingers closed around something small at the edge of the ash.

"Found something else." She lifted it and brushed away the dirt.

"A charm, by the look of it." Max stepped closer. It had been crudely carved from bone and bound with a thin dark cord. One edge was cracked and flattened where a boot had driven it into the ground.

"Dropped and stepped on," Cass said.

"They probably missed it when they cleared out." Elias was already moving toward her.

"Let me see." Cass handed him the charm, and he turned it slowly between his fingers, studying the carving and binding before pulling the one they had recovered in Stonebridge from his pouch and holding the two side by side.

"It's the same." Alina looked.

"No mistake?"

"None. Same pattern. Same make." Rulon let out a slow breath.

"Well. That settles that."

"Aye," Borin said.

"Same people." Max looked between the two charms, then toward the burn pit.

"They were working both places."

"And doing much the same thing," Elias added somberly. Rulon glanced toward the scattered gear around the pit.

"So they stripped the bodies here. Cut away what they didn't want."

"That matches what the boy heard," Elias said.

"Metal on metal. They were removing armor, cutting buckles, maybe taking off anything that would get in the way." Alina looked across the battlefield, then turned to Rulon.

"When your people came for the bodies, was there extra armor lying around?" Rulon considered that.

"No. If anything, there was less in places." He walked a few steps toward one of the piles of discarded gear.

"A few bodies were missing pieces. Straps cut. Buckles gone. Loose gear scattered around that didn't seem to belong to anyone in particular." He rubbed a thumb across his jaw.

"We figured scavengers had beaten us here. Happens sometimes after a fight."

"And now?" Alina asked. Rulon nudged a broken buckle with the toe of his boot.

"Now I think we were looking at what these people left behind." Max followed that thought.

"Were the bodies you collected intact?" Rulon shook his head.

"No. Most were badly damaged."

He looked back across the battlefield, toward the places where the dead had fallen. Then stopped.

"Hold on."

Elias turned toward him. Rulon gestured across the field.

"If most of the ones left behind were torn up…"

"They chose," Max finished. Rulon nodded slowly.

"The bodies in the best condition."

"That would make sense," Elias said.

"If they intended to animate them afterward, condition matters. A body with shattered limbs or half its torso missing would be far less useful."

"And harder to move," Borin added. Cass looked toward the blue cloth and bone charm beside the burn pit.

"So they came prepared, worked the battlefield after dark, stripped what they didn't need, and carried off the bodies worth taking." Rulon let out another slow breath.

"Then went inside Greenglade for more." Max looked west. The narrow corridor of tracks Cass had found still ran away from the battlefield toward the hills, faint beneath the flattened grass but clear enough now that they knew where to look. Max nodded toward the tracks.

"We follow those." Rulon turned without hesitation.

"Then let's move." Captain Rulon led them west from the field, following the line cutting cleanly through the basin and into the low hills beyond. The terrain shifted gradually as they moved. Open ground gave way to uneven slopes and scattered brush. The wind dropped off between the rises, and the sounds of the town behind them faded until only their own footsteps and the soft rustle of grass remained. Cass walked slightly ahead, her eyes on the ground.

"They didn't try to hide it," she said.

"Not completely." Max glanced down at the faint impressions.

"No," he agreed.

"Not enough time." Rulon grunted softly.

"So they expected pursuit."

"Or didn't care," Max said. Cass shook her head.

"No." She gestured toward the narrow corridor.

"This is controlled, not careless." The hills rose slightly ahead, folding into one another in shallow dips and low ridges. The track led them down into one of those dips, a natural hollow ringed by scrub and broken stone. The ground here was more churned than before, the tight corridor beginning to blur at the edges. Max slowed.

"Something's changed here," he said. Cass had already crouched, brushing aside loose dirt.

"Yeah," she murmured.

"This isn't just them anymore." The clean line of repeated passes dissolved into a mess of overlapping tracks. Smaller prints crossed and recrossed the ground, some distinct, others partially erased. The direction that had been so clear moments before fractured into uncertainty.

"Goblins," Borin said, eyeing the size and spacing of the prints. Rulon's gaze swept the hollow.

"They came through here?"

"Looks like it," Elias said. Max stepped forward a few paces, following what might have been the original line before it vanished beneath the clutter.

"No signs of a fight," he said.

"No drag marks. No bodies. No blood." Cass stood slowly, turning in place as she tried to pick the trail back up.

"Tracks keep going," she said.

"I think. But I can't tell which direction is theirs anymore." Alina shifted slightly, her eyes moving over the brush and low rocks surrounding them.

"Feels wrong," she said quietly. Max nodded.

"Yeah—" The arrow struck Max in the shoulder before he could finish the thought. The impact drove him half a step sideways, the shaft punching through his leathers and biting deep into the muscle beneath. A heartbeat later, Elias jerked back with a sharp intake of breath as another arrow buried itself high in his upper arm.

"Ambush!" Rulon snapped. Goblins surged from the brush. They came from several sides of the hollow at once, far more than Max could count cleanly in the first rush. At least twenty, probably more. Most carried crude spears, rusted blades, or chipped axes, while five figures remained higher among the rocks with shortbows already bending for another volley. Stolen novel; please report. Two hobgoblins stood behind the first wave.

They were larger by nearly a head, better armed, and noticeably less eager than the smaller goblins throwing themselves forward. Both carried heavy blades, but neither joined the charge. They watched from behind it, waiting. Max caught the arrow close to his shoulder and yanked it free. Pain tore through the wound with it, and fresh blood immediately soaked into his sleeve, but he tossed the shaft aside and raised his shield.

"Form up!" Everyone moved. Borin came straight toward Max while Rulon surged ahead to meet the nearest part of the charge. Alina backed toward the center, already drawing an arrow, while Cass broke hard to the right and angled toward the rocks where the bowmen had positioned themselves. Rulon reached the first goblin before it could react, knocked its spear aside, and took its head off with one clean stroke. Two arrows came down almost together. One struck Borin's raised shield.

The other was aimed at Cass, who ducked beneath it without breaking stride. Alina answered before the archer could nock again. Her bowstring snapped, and the goblin pitched backward from the rocks with an arrow through its eye.

"Stay together!" Borin called as he planted himself beside Max. Bless settled over them like a soft breeze. Max's breathing steadied almost immediately, his grip firming as Borin pressed one hand over the hole the arrow had left in his shoulder. Heal followed, w armth sinking through the torn muscle, drawing the wound closed beneath Borin's palm. The shoulder still ached when Max moved it, and blood already coated the inside of his sleeve, but the sharp pain faded enough that he could use the arm normally again.

Another volley came down toward them, and Max raised his shield as one arrow skipped off its rim. Alina shifted aside from another, drew, and released almost in the same motion. The answering arrow caught a second bowman in the throat and knocked it backward out of sight. Cass had nearly reached the rocks. One of the remaining archers tracked her, bow turning as she ran, but she dropped behind a broken outcrop before it could release. Max lost sight of her. Behind him, Elias had left the arrow buried in his arm.

His face had gone pale around the edges, but his uninjured hand was already raised toward the advancing goblins." Earthsplit!" Max stepped away from the ground ahead without thinking. Borin moved with him. Rulon didn't. He had already committed himself to a goblin breaking toward the flank when the earth tore apart beneath them. Dirt and stone buckled upward in a jagged line, throwing several goblins from their feet and catching Rulon halfway through a step.

His boot landed against a slab of earth that hadn't been there a heartbeat earlier, and his balance went with it. He dropped to one knee and caught himself with his free hand. A goblin lunged for him immediately, its blade catching Rulon across the upper arm before he twisted away, opening a shallow line through cloth and flesh. Max reached it before the second strike landed. His shield knocked the weapon wide, and his sword punched beneath the goblin's ribs and through its back. Rulon was already back on his feet.

Another arrow cut across the hollow. Alina's bow answered at almost the same instant, both shafts crossing between them. The goblin's shot buried itself in the dirt near Elias. Alina's struck its target through the mouth, knocking it off its feet and sending it tumbling backwards. The fourth archer turned toward her, and was about to fire when something moved behind it. Cass stepped out of the goblin's own shadow and drove a dagger beneath its ribs before it could finish drawing.

She tore the blade free and vanished behind the rocks again as the final bowman swung desperately toward her. Elias turned toward the other half of the hollow." Frostsheet!" Rulon moved this time, clearing the ground alongside Max and Borin just before frost raced outward in a glittering sheet. Charging goblins hit the ice at speed and immediately lost whatever semblance of formation they had left.

One went down hard enough to send another tumbling over it, while several more scrambled sideways toward firmer footing. The surviving archer loosed at Cass, but the arrow struck stone as she came around the opposite side of the rock before it could draw again, caught its bow arm with one hand, and buried her dagger under its jaw. With the bowmen gone, the fight compressed toward the center.

Earthsplit had ruined one approach and Frostsheet made another nearly unusable, leaving the goblins crowding instinctively toward the strip of stable ground between them. Elias had given them a funnel. Max stepped into it and raised his shield again. Battle Focus settled over him as the first goblins reached the line, stripping away the confusion until spearpoints, shoulders, feet, and openings seemed to separate themselves from the chaos. Adrenal Surge followed, strength flooding through his limbs.

A Mana Bolt passed over his shoulder and struck the leading goblin through the chest before it could reach him. The next came in behind it, jumping over the fallen corpse. Max caught its spear against his shield, shoved the point aside, and cut across its neck before it could recover. Borin met another beside him. The goblin tried to crowd inside the reach of his hammer, but Borin drove the rim of his shield into its face, staggered it backward, then crushed its skull with the return swing. The line held.

Rulon came in on Max's other side, blood running lightly down his upper arm but doing little to slow him, while Cass remained outside the formation entirely, moving along the broken flank and forcing the goblins to worry about something behind them as well as the fighters in front. Alina kept firing. Against the goblins, something in her changed. Max had seen her shoot enough times by now, but this was different. Every motion seemed to come easier.

Her draw was faster, her corrections smaller, and the hesitation that still sometimes crept into her fighting simply wasn't there. She picked a goblin trying to scramble around the edge of the ice, released, and was already reaching for another arrow when the first buried itself through its ribs. Rulon caught another goblin trying to force its way between him and Max, turned the spearpoint past his hip, and drove his sword cleanly through its chest. Cass appeared behind a third that had overextended toward Borin.

One dagger hooked its shoulder backward while the other opened its throat, and she was gone from reach before the body finished falling. The goblins were already losing momentum as one body after another fell limply to the ground. Elias fired again, his Mana Bolt striking a goblin as it tried to climb over one of its fallen companions and punched through its eye. Borin took the next one with a hammer blow across the temple. Another made it close enough to Max to swing a chipped axe.

He caught the blow on his shield, turned with it, and drove his sword through the goblin's stomach before kicking it backward off the blade. Then the hobgoblins finally moved. One drove straight toward the funnel, shoving a wounded goblin out of its path as it came for Max. The other broke left, skirting the worst of the frozen ground with two smaller goblins rushing ahead of it toward Alina. The first reached Max almost immediately.

Its sword crashed down against his shield hard enough to send the impact through his entire arm. Iron Guard locked through him, keeping his feet planted as the hobgoblin wrenched the blade back. Borin moved left while Rulon came in from the right, forcing the creature to choose which threat to face. It turned toward Borin and swung again. Borin caught the strike on his shield and pushed the blade aside. Max stepped into the opening and cut across the hobgoblin's exposed ribs.

The blade bit deep enough to make it twist toward him, and Rulon drove his sword into its shoulder before it could finish the turn. The hobgoblin jerked backward, and Borin's hammer slammed into its chest. It staggered but stayed upright, dragging its sword around toward Max again. Max caught the weakened swing on his shield and knocked it wide, leaving the creature open for the instant Rulon needed to strike across its weapon arm.

Borin stepped forward and drove his hammer up beneath its jaw with a sickening crack. The hobgoblin dropped onto its back and didn't move again. To their left, Alina was dealing with the other three. She shot the first goblin through the chest before it reached her. The second kept coming as Elias snapped his staff toward it and fired two Mana Bolts in quick succession. The first tore past its shoulder, while the second struck the dirt just behind it.

Alina shifted her aim, but Rulon had already turned from the fallen hobgoblin. He drew the dagger at his hip and sent it spinning toward her, burying the blade in the back of the goblin's skull and pitching it forward into the dirt. Alina had already shifted her aim toward the hobgoblin behind it. Her first arrow punched into its shoulder, and the second buried itself in its side a heartbeat later. It stumbled beneath the impacts but kept coming, forcing her to drop the bow and draw her sword before it reached her.

Around them, the rest of the goblins finally broke. The remaining six fled almost at once, scrambling over rocks or vanishing into the brush as the fight collapsed around them.

"Don't chase!" Rulon shouted. The hobgoblin crashed into Alina with enough force to drive her backward. One hand caught her sword arm and wrenched it aside while the short blade in its other hand punched into her side. Alina gasped and twisted hard, trying to tear her weapon free, but the hobgoblin was stronger and already inside her reach. It hauled her closer and drove the knife into her shoulder before she managed to jam her forearm between them and stop the next thrust.

Blood spread across her tunic as she fought to bring her sword around again, only for the hobgoblin to wrench her arm against her ribs and pin it there. Its attention shifted past her as it straightened. The hollow had nearly emptied of anything still fighting. Its companion lay dead near the funnel, goblin bodies littered the broken ground, and the survivors were already disappearing into the hills.

The hobgoblin seized Alina more tightly and dragged her back against its chest, locking one arm across her upper body before sliding the knife beneath her jaw. She froze. Max stopped several paces away, his sword still raised. Borin halted to his left, while Rulon remained farther back with his own blade lowered slightly but ready.

The hobgoblin shouted at them, the words coming fast and harsh, several clipped phrases followed by a longer sentence as it jerked Alina tighter against its chest and pressed the knife more firmly beneath her jaw. Then it began backing toward the far side of the hollow, taking her with it. Max shifted left, and the creature immediately turned Alina with him. Borin spread out in the opposite direction, forcing its eyes back and forth between them while Rulon stayed farther away, watching for an opening.

Blood ran steadily from Alina's side and shoulder, but she no longer fought the arm holding her. Another string of goblin words came from behind her, louder this time. Max took one cautious step forward. The knife pressed harder against Alina's throat. He stopped. The hobgoblin continued retreating, still talking as it moved. Another few steps would put it among the rocks and brush at the edge of the hollow. Max edged right instead, trying to widen the angle between himself and Borin.

The hobgoblin dragged Alina around again, keeping her squarely between them, then snapped another sentence at him and backed closer to the rocks. A crossbow snapped from off to the side. The first bolt punched through the hobgoblin's temple. A second struck almost beside it before the creature had time to react. Its body jerked, and the arm around Alina went slack.

She dropped forward as the knife slipped away from her throat, catching herself on one hand and scrambling clear while the hobgoblin sagged backward into the brush. Cass stood well off to its flank with the crossbow still raised. For a moment, Alina remained where she was, breathing hard as she stared at the body. Then she looked toward Cass. Cass lowered the weapon.

"You're welcome." A shaky breath escaped Alina, halfway between a laugh and a groan.

"Thanks." Borin was already crossing the hollow toward her.

"Stay still."

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding. A lot." Alina looked down at the blood soaking her side.

"That's fair." Borin crouched and pressed one hand over the wound in her side. Heal spread warm light beneath his palm, drawing the torn flesh together before he moved to her shoulder and did the same there. Max lowered his sword and looked across the hollow.

"Everyone still standing?" Cass slung her crossbow behind her.

"Nothing that landed." Rulon wiped his blade clean.

"Fine." Max glanced at the shallow cut across Rulon's upper arm, blood still running down his sleeve. Rulon followed his gaze.

"That barely counts. I've had worse from a loose nail." Elias raised his injured arm, grimaced, and lowered it again.

"Mostly intact." Borin stepped over to him. Elias braced while Borin gripped the arrow close to the wound.

"This will hurt, lad." Elias sniffed.

"I assumed as much." Borin grunted and pulled it free. Elias hissed through his teeth, but Heal followed immediately, closing the worst of the torn flesh. When Borin stepped away, Elias carefully rolled his shoulder.

"Better. Thank you." Rulon looked down at the shallow cut across his upper arm, then over toward the broken ground where Earthsplit had nearly put him flat.

"Next time you shout something like that, tell me which way to move." Elias looked at him.

"I wasn't expecting a battle when we left the inn this morning." Rulon cocked an eyebrow.

"That's your excuse?"

"I usually have time to explain before the arrows start." Cass snorted a laugh. Rulon glanced once more at the fractured earth.

"Useful habit, that."

"I've found it helps." Rulon gave him a flat look, though the irritation didn't quite survive it as the corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked grin. For a few moments, nobody said anything. The hollow still smelled of blood and disturbed earth, with bodies scattered across the ground. Rulon walked the perimeter first, checking the brush and low stone before making his way back through the dead. He counted as he went, occasionally nudging a body with his boot before moving on.

"Twenty-three," he said when he returned.

"Twenty-one goblins. Two hobgoblins." Max looked toward the brush where the survivors had disappeared.

"And six more got away." Rulon nodded slowly and looked back across the hollow.

"That's a hell of a gathering this far south." Borin glanced over the bodies.

"Near enough a tribe of their own."

"And sitting in one hollow waiting for travelers," Rulon said. Max exchanged a look with Alina. Rulon caught it.

"What?"

"This isn't the first oversized group we've run into," Max said.

"Crestwood Farm, east of Brookhollow. There were a lot more than this."

"How many?" Alina looked across the hollow.

"Nearly fifty dead by the time it was over." Rulon turned toward her.

"And we still had to run," Max said.

"There were another thirty, maybe fifty left when we pulled out. They looted the farm and burned it afterward." Rulon looked back over the scattered bodies.

"So maybe close to a hundred."

"Maybe," Max said.

"Hard to know exactly by then."

"Same tribe?" Max shook his head.

"No way to know. Nothing here says they're connected." Rulon considered that for a few seconds.

"Still. Twice."

"Yeah," Max said.

"Twice." Rulon crouched beside one of the fallen goblins and rolled it onto its back, inspecting the weapon beside it.

"Equipment's ordinary, at least. Crude blades, poor iron, nothing I wouldn't expect." He nudged the rusted sword with his boot. Max barely heard him. His attention had settled on the far side of the hollow where the survivors had fled, then dropped to the faint impressions running beneath the churned tracks and bodies around his boots. The trail they had been following.

"It's the same place," he said quietly.