Chương 78: When the Feast Ends

The night had thinned down to embers. Not the feast itself, Hearthroot could keep a hall loud until dawn if Marla let it, but the edge of it. The part where the songs slowed, where laughter turned softer and rarer, where the last plates were scraped clean and the cooks finally sat down with their own bowls like they'd been invited to their own celebration. By the time James stepped out of the Hearth Hall, the clearing felt strange in the way it always did after a crowd emptied.

The air was cooler than he expected, and the silence wasn't true silence, there were still the insects, the faint crackle from the Circle's eternal fire, the distant shift of something in the forest, but compared to the roar inside, it was like stepping underwater. Selathi followed him out, close enough that her shoulder brushed his. Her cheeks were flushed from dancing and from the berry-wine Elira and Ilyndra had been proudly pouring all night, and her eyes were bright in the mana-firefly glow.

She looked less like a chieftain burdened by losses and more like a woman who had remembered what it felt like to be young and alive. James felt it too. The looseness in his chest. The warmth in his limbs. The rare, stupid thought that maybe, just for tonight, nothing would go wrong. Selathi hooked her fingers into his shirt as the door shut behind them.

"You're trying to escape," she murmured, voice low, teasing.

"I'm trying to breathe," James whispered back, leaning in. He still tasted smoke-salt and roasted meat, still felt the echo of song in his bones. He kissed her, and the world narrowed in the best way. Selathi made a pleased sound that she didn't try to hide, and James laughed into her mouth. Her hands were sure and unembarrassed as she tugged him toward the shadowed side of the hall, away from the Circle's direct light, away from any late wanderers.

The mana butterflies were asleep up in the Heartroot's branches, but the fireflies were out, drifting through the clearing like slow sparks. They painted Selathi's pale skin in soft glints when her collar shifted, when her hair fell forward. She pulled him close again, and James's mind, already dulled by wine and relief, did what it always did when something felt good. It tried to believe it could last. Selathi's fingers slid under the hem of his shirt. James sucked in a breath, half-laugh, half-gasp.

He reached for the tie at her shoulder...

"Chief." The voice cut through the moment like a knife through cloth. James and Selathi froze so hard it felt like someone had poured cold water down his spine. For a heartbeat, his wine-addled mind refused to connect sound to meaning. The clearing swam. The fireflies blurred. Then the voice came again, closer this time. Hoarse. Controlled. Carrying a weight that didn't belong in the afterglow of a feast.

"Chief… I need you." James turned. Bren stood at the edge of the clearing where the light thinned, his face half-shadowed. His hood was down, hair damp with sweat, and his eyes were the color they always became when something was wrong, sharp and dark and too awake. Behind him were shapes. Small ones. A line of gnomes, more than a dozen, emerging out of the darkness like they'd been carved from it. They didn't stumble like drunk villagers.

They moved like people who had been walking for too long without stopping, and only kept walking because stopping meant dying. Selathi inhaled sharply beside him.

"Are those…?" Bren nodded once.

"Gnomes." Now James really saw them. Blood on foreheads. Dirt packed into creases. Ash smeared across cheeks like war paint. Torn sleeves. A woman with one boot missing, foot wrapped in cloth. A child clinging to another child's hand with an intensity that made James's throat tighten. There were adults, yes. There were also five children, eyes too wide, faces too quiet. James's stomach dropped, and the wine warmth inside him went sour and thin. He straightened so fast Selathi's hands fell away from his shirt.

In a breath, he was no longer a man standing in the dark with someone he cared about. He was the chieftain of Hearthroot, and a problem had walked into his clearing. He took one step toward Bren.

"Tell me what happened." Bren's shoulders loosened like James had just taken something heavy from him.

"I have news," Bren said. His voice scraped.

"Bad news." James looked at the gnomes again, at the way they stood bunched together like they were afraid the dark would reach in and take one of them if they left a gap. He didn't need to be told goblins were involved. He could feel it in their faces. He swallowed once, hard.

"Do we wake the others?" Bren held his gaze a long moment.

"I think it would be wise." James nodded and turned to Selathi. His voice stayed calm, even as something in his chest started to squeeze.

"Wake Irla first. Her services will be needed. Then bring Rogan and Marla." Selathi just nodded, already moving.

"We'll meet you where?"

"Hearthweaver's Lodge," James said, then looked back at the gnomes.

"If you'll follow me." They started across the clearing. No one spoke. The mana fireflies drifted around them, lighting the path in small pools. The Circle's eternal fire crackled behind, indifferent and steady, like it didn't care if the world outside burned. James walked in front, Bren to his side. The gnomes trailed behind in a tight knot, children in the middle. James counted without meaning to, the way his mind always did when it needed to hold onto something solid. Thirteen adults. Five children.

Eighteen souls that had come to his village because something else had failed them. At the lodge, James opened the door and stepped into darkness and the faint scent of herbs. The Hearthweaver's Lodge had been built for healing, but it still felt new enough that the wood smelled fresh. Beds lined the walls. Shelves held salves and bundles of dried greens. The air carried a softness that wasn't just warmth, it was the structure's magic settling into its bones. The gnomes hesitated at the threshold.

Bren murmured to them in a low voice that sounded nothing like his usual clipped speech.

"You're safe. Come in. It's safe." One by one, they filed inside. Fear moved with them like a second shadow. James stepped out again and picked up stones from the ground, smooth ones, fist-sized. He brought them back in and set them on a worktable cluttered with jars and herbs. He didn't want the gnomes in darkness. Darkness made people imagine things. Darkness made children cry. Darkness made grief grow teeth. He took out his crystal stylus. Even with the wine haze, the motion came easily now.

Arcane Runecraft wasn't his oldest skill, but it had already rooted itself in the part of his mind that liked systems, clean rules, and tangible results. His hand steadied as he placed the stylus tip to stone. Glow Rune. Central starburst. Radiating lines. Mana fed through the grooves with a gentle pressure, like guiding water into a channel. The first rune took, and the rock began to shine with soft, steady light. A few gnomes stared as if he'd pulled a lantern out of thin air.

A child leaned forward, eyes reflecting the glow. James made three more. Each one cost mana, but he'd rather spend it on light than save it for pride. When he placed the stones around the lodge, the room changed. Shadows softened. Faces became visible. Fear didn't vanish, but it stopped being fed. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Footsteps approached outside, fast and purposeful. The door opened and Irla stepped in, hair messy, eyes sharp.

Aelthirra was right behind her, still tying a sash around her waist like she'd dressed on the run. Irla's gaze flicked to James, then to the gnomes, then to the children. Her worry sharpened into focus.

"What do you need?"

"Help," James said simply. Irla didn't waste a second.

"You, sit. You, lie down. Children first, and anyone bleeding." She crossed the lodge like she owned it and in a way, she did. The Hearthweaver's magic answered her like a familiar tool. Aelthirra followed, hands already moving, checking bruises, peeling back torn cloth to see what was hidden beneath. James stepped aside and let them work. More footsteps came. Rogan arrived first, broad enough to fill the doorway.

Selathi came behind him, now fully sober and fully armored in that quiet way she had when responsibility snapped back into place. Marla appeared last, hair loose, still in a simple tunic, but her eyes were hard. James gestured them in.

"Sit." Marla and Selathi took a bench. James leaned back against the wall, arms folded, watching. Rogan chose to stand at the door like a barricade. It was his protective instinct kicking in at the sight of people in need. Irla and Aelthirra moved from cot to cot. Soft murmurs. A pressed hand, a salve applied, a child given water and a piece of dried fruit without anyone making a fuss about it. James looked at Bren.

"Tell us." Bren inhaled like he was about to dive underwater. Then he began.

"This morning, I went south with the hunters," Bren said.

"For meat. For the feast." Marla's mouth tightened, but she didn't interrupt.

"We had trouble finding anything," Bren continued.

"Which should have been the first warning. The forest wasn't… normal. Too quiet. Too empty." James felt Selathi's posture shift slightly, as if she was filing that away for later. Bren went on.

"Eventually everyone found something worth bringing back. One by one, they returned. I didn't. Because I found tracks." James already knew what kind, but he let Bren speak it.

"Goblins," Bren said. Rogan's jaw flexed.

"They weren't many," Bren said.

"Just a couple of sets. Fresh. I wasn't alarmed at first. But I knew, if there are two, there are more. So I followed." Every voice in the lodge seemed to quiet.

"It took hours," Bren said.

"Then I smelled it. Smoke. Ash. Blood. I could taste it in the air before I even saw anything." A gnome near the back made a sound, small, broken. Another gnome put an arm around her. Bren's eyes flicked toward them, then back to James.

"I found a trail. Tracks of a force. Not just a band. An army. Bigger than the one we faced." James's hands tightened on his own arms.

"I followed carefully," Bren said.

"Deep into the south. And then I found a village." He paused. Or what was left of it.

"There was nothing left," Bren said quietly.

"Burned to the ground." A gnome woman covered her mouth. Someone else began to sob, shoulders shaking, sound muffled like they were trying not to make it real. Bren swallowed once.

"No survivors." Selathi's face went still in a way James recognized. Rage held behind discipline.

"I checked," Bren said.

"I had to. I had to make sure no one was hiding in ashes, no one trapped under wood. But there was no one left." James felt his stomach hollow. Selathi asked the question that had been forming in everyone's head.

"Then how did these people..." Bren's voice remained steady, but his hands flexed once, like he was squeezing something invisible.

"After I searched, I traced the tracks back. I wanted to know where the goblins were going." He nodded toward the gnomes.

"Then I noticed a smaller trail breaking off from the main force. Half a dozen goblins. I followed it." His eyes sharpened.

"I found their corpses." That made James blink.

"Corpses," he repeated. Bren nodded.

"Burned. Spiked. Torn apart." James looked at the gnomes again. He didn't need Bren to finish the thought.

"An ambush." One gnome, a man with a soot-streaked face and swollen knuckles, looked away. Bren let out a slow breath.

"Yes. I followed a single set of tracks away from the corpses, and it led me to them. Hiding. Wounded. Terrified." James's gaze cut to Bren.

"Did you run into goblins on the way back?"

"Yes," Bren said simply. There was no boast in the straightforward statement, just fact. Marla's hand rose to her mouth. Rogan's eyes went colder. James watched Bren for a moment longer. He remembered Bren when he'd first met him, quiet, sharp, but still a man learning what his place was. Now he stood at the center of a lodge full of survivors and gave bad news with the steadiness of someone who'd made peace with hard truths. James looked away first, because pride didn't belong here. He addressed the gnomes.

"How did you survive?" The soot-streaked gnome man lifted his head. His eyes were raw.

"We were out gathering," he said. His voice trembled with exhaustion and something worse.

"We forgot to take food. So Twinkletoes went back to the village to bring something." A few gnomes flinched at the name.

"We were looking for Moonwhisper Lily," the man continued.

"Our elder had a bad feeling. He said he needed the flower before nightfall… to read the stars. The lily is rare. That's why so many of us were sent out." His shoulders sagged.

"The doom came before we could find it." He swallowed hard.

"Twinkletoes never returned. So I went to find her. I was going to punch some sense into her for leaving us hungry." His voice cracked. He stared at the floor like it might open and swallow him.

"I saw them," he whispered.

"Slaughtering our friends. Our families. Burning our homes. They didn't hesitate. They didn't care. Kids. Elders. Everyone." The lodge felt too small.

"I ran," the gnome said.

"I ran so hard I thought my legs would fall off. But someone spotted me. They chased me." He drew a shaky breath.

"I knew they would catch me. So… I decided if I was going to die, I would take some of them with me." He reached into his pockets and pulled out two wooden balls, each no bigger than an acorn. They were carved and scored with tiny grooves.

"I only had these," he said. James's eyes narrowed.

"Trinkets." The gnome nodded once.

"My creations." He looked down at the balls like they were both salvation and sin.

"They worked. Well. Too well." Bren's voice came in softly.

"That's why the goblins were burned and spiked." The gnome didn't look proud. He looked haunted.

"Then I found the others," he said.

"We gathered. We headed north. Something was calling to us. Promising safety." James and Selathi shared a look, brief and sharp. The Circle, James thought. The guiding flame.

"It was hard," the gnome continued.

"Goblins everywhere. We hid. We crawled through brush. We moved at night. And then your man found us." James's gaze snapped to Bren again.

"You protected them." Bren nodded, as if that was obvious.

"It was my job." James let out a slow breath. Then he spoke, voice steady, carrying the authority the village had given him.

"Our village is open to you," James said.

"You may join us, if you wish. Or you may stay until you are ready to move on. That choice is yours." He looked at the children, at the way they clung to each other.

"But know this. You are safe here. There is a place for you." Irla and Aelthirra continued tending as if James's words had simply confirmed something they already believed: that healing was offered, not earned. James turned his head slightly.

"Marla. Food." Marla stood immediately.

"Of course." James nodded once.

"Rest. Irla, Aelthirra, make them comfortable. We'll speak more in the morning." Then he gestured for Rogan, Selathi, and Bren to follow him out. They left the lodge behind, leaving light and murmurs and pain inside, and stepped into the cool clearing where the fireflies still drifted like quiet witnesses. No one spoke as they walked. The Circle waited. When they reached it, the eternal fire crackled merrily, as if the world wasn't about to get more complicated.

The stone table was cold under James's hand when he sat. Selathi sat to his right, posture straight, face unreadable. Rogan remained standing, because sitting felt like surrender when danger was close. Bren stood too, hands clasped behind his back like a soldier reporting to command. They waited for Marla in silence, each of them caught in their own thoughts. James lost track of time, his mind repeating the same warning over and over, danger, danger.

When Marla finally reached the Circle, she settled on the other side of him, her jaw tight. Bren spoke first.

"Chief," he said, voice low.

"There's more." James looked at him and felt something unclench in his chest despite the news.

"Before you tell me," James said, "you have no idea how proud I am of you." Bren blinked, thrown off balance. His cheeks darkened. For a second he looked younger than his level, younger than his blades made him. James held his gaze.

"You became a true power for this village. Thank you." Bren's throat moved. He nodded once, stiff and grateful. James turned to the others.

"That gnome settlement," he said.

"It was on the map we found in the goblin camp." Selathi nodded slowly.

"It matches. The description. The position." Rogan's brow furrowed.

"Are we at fault for not investigating those points sooner?" James shook his head.

"No. We're not in a position to take offensive actions. Not yet." Marla's voice was quiet, but it hit like a hammer.

"The goblins probably took prisoners." James closed his eyes.

"I know." Rogan's fist tightened.

"Should we go after them?" James opened his eyes and looked at Bren.

"You said there's more." Bren's expression tightened like he hated the words he was about to say.

"I found where the goblins got the mana-reactive stone." James stood so fast the stone bench scraped.

"Stoneheart," he breathed. Bren nodded.

"There's a source near our village." Marla's hands went cold on the table. Selathi's eyes sharpened. Rogan looked genuinely stunned.

"How near?" James asked.

"Minutes," Bren said.

"A few south. And there's a settlement there." Rogan's voice came out rough.

"How? How do we not know about it?"

"We didn't know because the settlement is underground. A small dwarven community working day and night to get their hands on the precious stone hiding beneath the mountain. They settled recently and have been excavating the mountains for that rock." James frowned, "we have mountains to the south?" Marla answered before Bren could, like she'd been holding that memory for years.

"When we first settled here, before you came, we explored. There are mountains nearby, well, rock ridges. They circle the southern side of our valley. The river is north. Those ridges are why we chose this place. We thought it would keep us safe." Bren added, "They're not mountains exactly. More like rock formations that jut out like knives. Wide enough to slow an army. They wrap around our position. Like they've been hugging us without us noticing." James felt a cold clarity settle into him.

He'd been living inside a pocket. Building inside it. Protecting inside it. Meanwhile, the world had been moving.

"So," James said, voice quiet, "you're telling me goblins have come to our doorstep without us knowing." Bren's nod was grim.

"It appears so." He reached into a pouch and poured pebbles into his palm. They looked like ordinary stones at first, but each held a faint inner sheen, like trapped dawn.

"Stoneheart," James said again. Bren nodded.

"The goblins must have mined what they could from outside. When they couldn't get in, they retreated. The gnomes traded with the dwarves there, food for tools. Then one day the entrances were blocked. Signs of battle. Digging." Selathi's face tightened.

"If they're sealed inside, they'll have no food." Rogan looked at James as if waiting for him to decide the shape of tomorrow.

"Chief," he said.

"What are we going to do?" James stared into the eternal fire. He thought of eighteen gnomes sleeping under his roof right now, still smelling like ash. He thought of goblin tracks. Of a village burned to the ground. He thought of Stoneheart. Of a resource so valuable it had drawn monsters, and now goblins, to his valley. He thought of an underground dwarven community sitting behind blocked tunnels, possibly starving, possibly fighting, possibly dead already.

And he thought of Hearthroot itself, his people, his children, his half-built walls, his new wonders that shone like beacons in the dark. If he did nothing, the dark would come anyway. James lifted his head.

"Tomorrow," he said, each word steady, "we pay a visit to our neighbors." Rogan's shoulders eased like he'd been waiting for permission to act. Selathi nodded once, sharp and satisfied. Marla's eyes didn't soften, but something like resolve settled in her. Bren exhaled quietly, as if the burden had finally moved from his chest to the table where it belonged. The eternal fire crackled, throwing light across their faces.

Behind them, the village slept, warm from feast, unaware that morning would come with work, with choices, and with danger that had been closer than any of them had known.