(Book One Complete!) Friendly Neighbourhood Goblin (Mercenary Company LitRPG)

The doors crashed open.

Pugg staggered in, a rock thudding off his armour. Another sailed overhead and blew apart a tower of wine-soaked pears and careened off the table.

Morg and Kestrel broke from their struggle. The lumen winked out.

"Goblins!" Pugg's voice was hoarse. He jabbed the air behind him with an axe as the horde scaled the hill.

Thunder preceded Rilla grabbing her weapon beneath the table. She yelled names and orders and codes that had been drilled into the mercenaries over the last few days. Her words rang through the hall as more than sound, and everyone rose, instilled by the arcane bravery of her Commander class.

"Drive them down the hill!" she called. "Don't let them over the palisade! Show no fear!"

"Show no fear!" they echoed.

Colourful finery was shrugged off for the dress of battle. Chairs toppled and plates clattered, and the damp air hissed with the sound of drawn weapons. Bows were gathered, quivers snatched. Kestrel made for the stairs, running to his post on the roof. Merra and Tydas hurried Lyda to the cellar. Maven screamed about her plants. Even the servants, fear scrawled on their faces, scattered like they'd been taught, making for their positions.

Show no fear. The first and last line of defence—not the manor, not the palisade. Show. No. Fear.

But Stump froze. It wasn't terror that gripped him in place, it was anger. A roiling bloodlust thrumming behind his eyes. He looked to the rain spearing the dirt and the fighters running out with furious battlecries.

A storm. That's what Thrung was waiting for. They'd scouted the manor's defences. They knew of the palisade, of the hill. Stump had thought the idea of the slope turning to mud would deter an attack in the rain. But no. Of course not. Under cover of darkness the goblins could more easily scale the hill unseen.

He'd let the Orwen farm burn because he made a quick decision to return to Peaktree, and now the horde had gotten the drop on them because he couldn't unravel their plan before it happened.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Outside, gobby!" Morg, already suited up and wielding an axe, grabbed Stump by the elbow. "We'll be needin' yer light out there. It's dark as night 'n 'em greens are quick."

"Ergul…" whispered the stone. "I know you're there… I know you can hear me…"

"Go," Stump said to the dwarf. "You're faster than I am. I'll be right out."

Morg might have insisted if the din of combat didn't snag his attention first. He followed the others with vampiric speed.

When he was gone, Stump steadied his breath and spoke into the pearl.

Show no fear.

"I hear more than you, Thrung. I hear your army dying," he said.

"And die they will," Thrung agreed. "But come morning it's your friends who will be nothing but husks in the ashes of their home." His voice was stuttered by the distant sounds of fighting.

He's far from the battle.

Stump paused and gathered his thoughts. Thrung may have planned the attack better than anticipated, but he was still a goblin, and goblins could be angered. "Maybe you're right," Stump allowed. "And by the sounds of it, none of the glory will be yours. Not if you sling your spells from behind your tribe like a coward."

"Coward? Me, a coward?" The stone shook at Thrung's fury. "You're the one who ran! You couldn't face me! You're the coward! Not me! Six-thirty!"

"And here I am, ready for you. Are you going to stand back while your minions do the work, or will you come find me yourself?"

Thrung was already lost in his rage. Numbers peppered his rant like prophetic sneezes. "Coward? Coward! I'll squeeze the eyes from your skull! Six-thirty! I'll tear the skin off your bones! Six-thirty! Coward? Curse you! Curse—six-thirty—you!"

That should do it.

Thrung's voice muffled as Stump slipped the stone into his pouch, threw off his coat, and made his way outside.

Lightning lit a scene of horror—goblins that had breached the palisade bled into the earth, Pugg lay in a pool of his own blood, clutching a torn knee, while Durgish struggled to close the wound. Dharmis was on his side, muttering incoherently beneath a shivering Eskel, who tended to the Fighter with one hand and cursed the sky with the other.

Their lines had formed as they'd practiced—two Rangers or Rogues every fifteen feet along the palisade, each one flanked by a Knight or Fighter.

"Back! Back! Hold them back!" Rilla yelled through the crash of rain and thunder. "Draw! Loose! Faster, faster! Show no fear, Tallas! No fear!"

The felari's shots, made choppy by wind and trembling fingers, suddenly quickened at her magically infused words. And then she was gone, pacing swiftly to the north side of the manor where others were hungry for inspiration.

"K-keep them down! That's right, Tallas, good form! Ilora, you can do this!" said Wick, whose speed was carefully matched with Rilla's to keep them at separate lengths of the line at all times. His words, despite their kinder touch, stoked as much arcane courage as hers.

Stump rushed beside Tallas and Ilora and peered beyond the stakes. The hillside was dark and smothered in fog. Shadows darted left and right. Arrows zipped through nothing, or thunked into mud, or drew pained yelps from out of sight.

They're not charging, Stump realized. Normally the bloodlust would have challenged dozens of them to be the first up the hill. Thrung is showing too much restraint. Why?

"I hit one!" Tallas said, reaching for another arrow.

"Good! Now can you hit a hundred more?" said Ilora, unimpressed.

Hadder speared the mist with his sling. "Can't see anything!"

The fog retreated from Stump's lumen, unmasking several dead goblins, but still the world was dark and the horde only teased the edges of visibility.

He followed darting figures with the light, but his eyes traced the outlines of the fallen. Griza? Yeza? Where are you? He prayed he wouldn't find them sprawled in the mud.

"Quivers?" came a shout from the greenhouse doorway.

"Five!" Ilora called.

Gorash, who had asked the question, leaned back into the manor and yelled, "Five east!"

The words bounced from room to room with decreasing volume as each member of the staff relayed the information to the next. After a moment the sound came back, until Stump could make out the words, "Two north!"

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"Two north!" repeated Gorash. He sprinted into the storm and swiped up a quiver next to Tallas before running back inside and handing it off to the next servant. "One quiver for north!"

They'd turned Peaktree into a quilt. It was a patchwork defence where every thread counted. Every part of the manor webbed to every other part, and through their dance of information, supplies, and arcane bravery, they would crush the goblin invasion.

"Show no fear! No fear! Hadder, strike true!" came Rilla's inspiration on her next pass. "Dharmis, collect yourself! We need you! Pugg, on your feet!"

A volley of fire streaked up the hill and crashed into the manor, but the flames whisked off harmlessly and swirled around a churning ball of heat before it could consume the wood.

Kestrel stood there, commanding it with outstretched hands, and launched it back down the hill. This time the rumble was not thunder, and the fog flashed orange and red.

Stump followed the explosion with his lumen. Griza, I hope that wasn't you. Why did you have to run?

"Loose, Tallas! Loose!" Wick called.

"I'm loosing!" the catfolk replied. An arrow cut through the air and punctured goblin neck, sending the tribesman tumbling through smoke and mist. "They're not so fearsome, are they?" He looked to Ilora for agreement, but she had shifted further down the palisade to where a Scout had snuck up the hillside.

"Why are they holding back?" she said after opening the goblin's neck with a downward thrust.

Stump squinted down the hill and moved his light across the reddening battlefield. Are you trying to tire us out, Thrung? Use up our ammunition?

As if in reply to his thoughts, another pillar of fire lit the sky. Kestrel caught it before damage could be done, and served it back.

Bows nocked, arrows loosed, stones flew, and the rain came down and down. And the horde moved up and up. Cautious but relentless. A goblin died here, another there, and soon the sacks of rocks diminished and quivers emptied.

"Low on arrows!" Tallas called, kicking a quiver aside and grabbing a fresh shot from another. "Two east!" When there was no reply, he called again. "Two east, I said! You! Ah, what's his name?"

"Gorash!" Stump said, turning to the orc in the greenhouse doorway. "We need more arrows! Two east!"

A minute later Gorash returned with a cordon and dropped it by the catfolk's feet. "One from south!" he said, then wrapped his hands around a sack of stones. "Taking one sack north!"

He turned and rushed to the manor, but stumbled halfway. He forced another step, grunted, and fell to a knee. Blood bubbled under his leg.

"Glory for Ungrul!" screeched a goblin. He darted through the palisade, slipping by Ilora, who'd been focused on chasing away two other Scouts, and leapt in for the kill.

"No!" Stump reached his hand out for a spell, but the spear was faster.

It sunk into Gorash with a squelch. The goblin shoved him to the mud, then pulled the spear free and brought it down again and again.

Stump barrelled forwards, but the goblin was off again on a trail of mocking laughter, sprinting for the greenhouse. He nearly made it before his head rolled off his shoulders.

The air whistled around Rilla's blade, and blood splattered in a wide arc.

"Ilora, eyes on the hill! Let none pass!" she yelled to the Knight and rushed to Gorash.

Stump followed and fell to a knee. He pressed on one of the wounds. Blood gushed between his fingers. "I tried… I wasn't fast enough," he stammered.

"What are they waiting for?" she barked.

It took him a moment to realize she meant the goblin army. "For our supplies to run out, I think. They know the arrows have to stop eventually."

"Since when do goblins strategize like that?"

If Stump didn't know her natural disposition before today he would have assumed her anger was directed at him. "It's their leader," he said. "I don't think he's like the others."

Gorash pulled a feeble breath.

"Eskel!" said Rilla, waving the old man over.

"Oh my…" he breathed on approach. His bones cracked when he kneeled by the dying orc. "Oh…"

"See his passing," she said coldly, then grabbed the ammunition and shoved it against Stump's chest. "Take these to north, now!"

He nodded and ran over rain-slick mud, dragging the sack at his feet. Rilla followed, rousing, inspiring, commanding, but her voice cracked. Wick marched in the opposite direction, his own presence waning.

"Stump!" Morg said on seeing the goblin arrive with the stones. He broke from his post, axe in hand, and grabbed his friend by the collar. The flowers had fallen from his beard. "Arrows! We need arrows!"

Behind him fresh goblin innards dribbled from the stakes, and a nearly cleaved body drifted down the hill on a mudslide.

"Rocks, they told me!" said Stump.

"Aye, rocks too! But arrows! Boren's nearly dry!"

"Arrows!" Boren demanded between shots. He looked over his shoulder for a nearby servant. "Give me a quiver, damn it!"

"Only two at east and one at south!" Celetta replied from the storage room threshold.

"Then get me one of them!" Desperation shook his tone.

She hesitated, then relayed the order through the web of Peaktree.

Stump pointed over Morg's shoulder to a goblin shuffling between stakes. "Behind you!"

The dwarf spun and splattered blood across Boren's armour with a diagonal cut. An arm sailed in one direction, while the body slumped on the palisade with an anguished wail.

Morg brought the weapon down a second time to kill the scream. Two more emerged to his right.

"More up the hill! Loose your arrows!" he said, and shifted to meet the enemy.

"Arrows! Where are my arrows?" Boren growled, unbothered by the guts dripping off his mail.

Stump rushed back to the east side of the battle, and passed Rilla, who took up a position along the palisade. Behind her an Iron Fleece Knight was on his knees, chest heaving. Goblin bodies twitched around him.

"G-good work, Perrin! Keep fighting!" said Wick, doubling his speed to cover for Rilla's absence.

The exhausted Knight nodded, but the inspiration had little effect.

"What do you mean there are no arrows?" Tallas was saying as Stump returned.

Ivis crouched in front of him, dripping in the downpour and flinching at every nearby sound. "There are none!" he wheezed. "They took the last from the south to the north! No one has any arrows."

Stump grabbed a sling and rifled for a rock, but the sack was empty and the second stockpile was rapidly dwindling. "What about rocks?" he said.

Ivis shook his head.

"Anything, then. From the manor," Stump stammered. "Start handing out anything that can fit in a sling."

The rains slowed, the fog thinned, and the fighting continued. Mud squelched under goblin feet, and then it squelched under goblin bodies. They were felled by stones at first, and then by glass baubles, onions, and bars of soap. Stump volleyed a shot of sweet cherries and another of smoked honey with notes of fig.

The manor staff carried trays of trinkets to each section of the palisade, straining the extent of their dining skills to decorate the ground behind the slingers with an assortment of improvised weapons.

But still the goblins came, roaring through the parting mist. It was their chance, they knew, now that the storm was clearing and the objects of their death were becoming ever more peculiar.

Griza? Yeza? Stump asked himself each time a new figure made themselves known.

"I can't aim with this damn thing!" Tallas yelled after missing three in a row. "Rill? Wick? I need inspiration!"

The sky glowed orange, but this time the fire wasn't headed for the manor.

Stump jerked before the wall of heat crashed over the palisade. Splintered wood broke against his shoulder, and his sling caught fire. A second crack of burning force took him off his feet.

He opened his eyes to find his face in the mud and scattered pockets of flame all around. It stopped raining, he realized.

"Back! We need to get back!" someone said, their voice faraway.

Tallas was on his belly, motionless. Dharmis crouched by his side.

A goblin scaled the hill, but Ilora cut her down. Another followed close behind, but she rammed him with her shield, then turned to face two more. "Fall back to the manor!" she yelled. "They're over the palisade!"

Show no fear, Stump wanted to say, but he couldn't form the words.

Strong hands hauled him to his feet. He expected to be brought to the face of Rilla, but he met the eyes of a different muridean.

"Wick…" he managed.

The ratfolk said something, but his words were smothered by desperate cries of retreat. He dragged Stump as they made for the greenhouse, and all around them mercenaries fled.

Show no fear…

Perrin was on his back, his armour more red than silver. Pugg's eyes were open to the sky. When someone called his name, he didn't reply. Tallas was barely awake, leaning on the shoulder of Dharmis, who limped from the encroaching invasion through biting pain.

Jets of flame shot from the rooftop. They'd coated the stakes in oil, using the kitchen supply and what was left of Stump's purchase from Sunless Sundries, but the storm and blood ensured only half the palisade caught fire, and their planned ring of flame sparked to life staggered and splintered.

"Stump, the s-s-smoke," said Wick, when they caught a breath against the greenhouse panes. The others ducked inside—Ilora, limping from a leg wound. Tallas and Dharmis. Eskel. Hadder, after a final whoosh of the sling, and Rilla, walking backwards and threatening the space around her with a sword.

Stump fished for the Smokestone in a daze. His ears rang, but even he could hear the war howls rolling up the hill like thunder. He spun, obsidian in hand, and drew his arm back.

He hesitated mid throw at the goblin squeezing between burning stakes.

"Griza," he mumbled. She was always the fastest.

He was afraid, he realized, when their gazes found each other. And he knew by the tremble in her lust-stricken eyes that she was, too. He wanted to cross the battlefield, to find the perfect combination of words that would convince her to leave Thrung, and join him instead. He wanted to lay with her again like they had in the barn.

Don't be afraid, he wished he could tell her. Show no fear.

But she'd already made her choice.

After a breath he let the stone fly.

Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (9/9)

Storm and fog parted, releasing the soft twilight they'd been hiding, but only for a moment. Acrid clouds of black hissed out of the Smokestone, and Griza disappeared behind it.

Gorash, he thought. Pugg. Perrin. Names he'd only just learned, and others still he never knew. The smoke swallowed them all.

Stump turned and ran inside.

He didn't look back.