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

A cool wind rolled over the promontory, carrying with it the low roar of swaying trees and drawing a shiver out of Stump. Even with his goblin eyes the valley below was a hulking mass of black.

He shuffled away from the stony ledge and bumped into the round belly of Morg.

"Ye sure 'bout this spot?" said the dwarf.

"No," Stump admitted. "But it'll be easy for them to spot the fire if we light it here."

"Aye, mountain bats, too."

Stump gulped.

After Thrung's challenge it was only a matter of time before the remnants of the goblin horde were on the prowl again. The promontory, being near the cave and visible from all directions, was ideal for the plan Stump had in mind. After returning to camp with the news, they'd hastily gathered their belongings and followed him to the hill to stage their scene—and they needed Thrung to see it.

"Sure is prettier than I remember," said Morg, turning his gaze to the great bowl of stars.

"I didn't think there could be so m-m-many," Wick observed, standing next to him with his head back and mouth open.

Stump joined them in their awe. Although it hadn't been long since he'd seen true night, he'd forgotten how much it sparkled. He rested a hand on Morg to prevent himself from tumbling off their rocky terrace.

"That there's the Lantern Bearer. See it?" Morg pointed to a cluster of stars as shapeless as those around it. "Right next to the Hollow Fang. Looks like an old man, hunched, carryin' a lamp."

Stump and Wick shared hums of uncertainty.

"Those stars there make up his face. Follow 'em four down his back. See it?" the dwarf went on.

"Oh, I think I… no, I definitely see… right. Does he have a tail?" said Wick.

Stump squinted but the supposed image refused to clarify.

Morg conceded a frustrated grumble, then sighed.

"Ah, doesn't matter," he said wistfully. "S'pposed to be good fortune if ye spot him on a clear night, or so I learned back home." He turned from the sky and tapped the axe hanging from his belt. "But we need more'n fortune tonight, don't we?"

"Trap's set," said Boren, yanking them from their stargazing. He had wandered over from where the rest of his company were busy adding the final touches to their campsite. "What now?"

Wick scanned the scene—the unlit campfire surrounded by bedrolls stuffed with supplies to support the illusion that their companies were sound asleep.

"Now we wait. Right?" said Wick, passing the burden of command.

"Now we show them where we are," said Stump. "Light the fire."

The flames crackled to life and its ruddy bubble engulfed their stony perch and the nearest trees as Rilla paced back and forth, lacing her commands with arcane inspiration.

Morg, having volunteered to bait the goblins, crouched near the fire and began prodding it with a stick. When Rilla raised the question of who would join him, there was a tense beat of silence as their cohesion threatened to spiral into a repeat of their bickering in the manor cellar, until the quiet was broken by Boren.

"I'll stay," said the taurean, stepping forward. When he was met with the surprised relief of the others, he shrugged. "Last time I ran, we lost half our contingent. Maybe if I'd stood my ground we could have fought them off."

Rescued from having to volunteer, no one objected. After Dharmis exchanged parting words of luck with his oxfolk friend, Morg and Boren assumed their places around the fire while the rest of them followed Stump to the woods. They crouched by a tree, where he spent the virtue on Minor Illusion, draping their huddle in the likeness of a moss-covered boulder. Narrow slits allowed in shafts of moonlight and gave them a clear view of the promontory and its encroaching forest.

And soon it would give them a view of Thrung and his army.

Or so he hoped.

The fire coughed a flock of embers when Morg dropped a bundle of sticks into it. Hadder stumbled in his attempt to scratch an itch, and Rilla admonished him with a sharp whisper. A breeze came, then left again, and soon an hour had gone without sight of the goblins.

Stump spent a second point to sustain the illusion.

"I see nothing," complained Dharmis.

"Quiet," Rilla hissed.

"Maybe they know," said Tallas.

"Shut up, I said."

Wind. Whispering flora. Stump's eyes chased every hint of movement against the natural sway of the woods—a leaf caught in a wind swell, a face-like formation in the shadows, lit only by the distant firelight flicker, a tower of nightflies swirling in the opposite direction of the others. Goblin Scouts were adept at hiding in plain sight, but he knew what to look for to unmask their camouflage. And as the bark of a tree shimmered briefly as though seen through water, Stump knew they had come.

The goblin skulked up the hill. Its skin and clothes warped to match the colours of the land around it. A second appeared behind it. A third. A fourth. They moved side by side, spears and axes at the ready.

Stump knew by the sharp inhales of those behind him that they had spotted the army, too. He felt the mercenaries tense at his back.

Morg and Boren, unaware of the approaching danger, exchanged quiet words around the fire. The dwarf fished an apple from a sack and sunk his teeth into it with a juicy crunch.

"Should we—"

Rilla covered Tallas' mouth with a gloved palm as a goblin navigated by their illusion, only a few feet away.

Stump held one arm in front of the others, signalling them to wait, while his fingers curled around the Firestone at his belt. He timed the unclipping with a surge in the wind, and readied himself for the throw.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Rilla's blade whispered out of its sheath. The others followed her lead.

As the goblins neared the fire, its glow dispelled their stealth. The first one stepped onto the promontory and raised his weapon.

"MORG!"

A dozen heads whipped around at Stump's call as he released the stone in a high arc. The goblins looked about in a mild panic. Morg and Boren leapt from thier seats, sweeping weapons into their hands.

A thunderous crack belched a pillar of dirt from the earth. Trees shook and goblins scattered, and Morg released a bloodcurdling cry that would be the envy of any tribesman. He brought his axe down on a confused goblin and shattered its skull against rock. Boren was by his side, cleaving the shoulder of a second foe with a fearsome roar of his own.

"For Denna!" he said.

"Show no fear!" Wick called, bursting out of their phantasmal stone with steel ringing in the air.

"Follow your commander!" Rilla bellowed.

The illusion winked out with a sweep of Stump's hand, and the mercenaries burst forth like spiders from an overturned rock.

They crashed into the tribal flank. Ilora skewered a goblin against a tree with a charging thrust. Tallas whistled his rapier left and right, spraying blood across his orange fur. Stump followed behind, but before he could find a target of his own, a ball of flame coloured the forest red. It broke against the trees high above and spewed pellets of fire. Stump leapt out of the way of the burning debris, but skidded to a stop at the shriek of a distant beast.

A second trill pierced the din of battle.

"Morg, away from the ledge!" Stump called.

His dwarven friend was too snared by battle to hear. He split the neck of a goblin, then spun to shatter the jaw of another.

And above the monster descended.

It was a blur, a great fanged carpet that summoned a cloud of dust with the beat of its wings. The campfire snuffed out. Morg and Boren stumbled as it swept low with a baleful cry. Talons reached down, snagged a goblin by the collar, and yanked him off his feet. His scream faded as the creature took again to the sky.

Then the scream returned, louder and louder, until it was cut short by the squelch of a body hitting the ground. Blood streaked across stone, and all that was left of the tribesman was a mangled pile of flesh and bone.

"Mountain bat!" someone yelled.

The beast swooped in again, sinking its claws into a trunk, where it perched above their battlefield. Trees bowed at its flapping, and Stump tumbled over his head in the gust.

"Fall in! Fall in close!" Wick called, standing strong in the windstorm. "Rilla, gather the others!"

"Form up! All of you!" she echoed, stepping in front of him, sword up. The rest of their company navigated through the storm and stood together on the promontory, backs to each other.

Even Dharmis, who might've fled a second time in the chaos, remained with his allies, and gripped his weapon with frightful determination.

Stump's bones rattled and his vision blurred at the next shriek of the bat, but it too was cut short by another arc of flame.

The creature's wing erupted in orange heat, illuminating its twisted horror. Its eyes, black as coal and unlit even by firelight, were sunk into the cracked folds of its hairless skin. When it cried in pain, its lips curled back to its nose, revealing dagger-sized teeth held together by dark strands of sinew. What might've been arms were shaped like scythes of flesh, and were pulled close to its sagging, pustule-covered belly.

It leapt from the tree, snapping it in half with its feet, and dispersed the fire with another flap of its wings. Morg and Dharmis were thrown to the ground. The others stumbled out of the way, barely making it to the tree line as it passed overhead and vanished in the night.

"Look! They're runnin!'" Durgish's voice cut through the dazed clamour.

"Chase them down!" said Boren.

Goblins skittered under logs and leapt over the remains of trees, only partially camouflaged in their bloodlust-fuelled escape. Stump reached for his sling and was about to pursue when he noticed Morg and Dharmis still on their bellies, motionless. The lizardfolk was sprawled near the dead fire, whereas Morg laid frighteningly close to the rocky ledge.

Patches of stars winked out behind the slowly circling silhouette of the mountain bat.

"Morg!" Stump called, but the dwarf didn't move.

Boren sprinted deeper into the woods, pursuing the horde. Wick was already ahead of him, rallying the others to follow.

But Stump went the other way. He rushed to his fallen friend and shook him by the shoulder.

Morg woke like a slumbering lion. "Eh… Stump… what're ye…"

The shadow neared. The rhythm of its wings sounded through the night.

Stump guided Morg to his feet. "We need to run," he said.

Like a torch flickering to life the dwarf seemed to comprehend the danger all at once. He straightened but hissed at the pain of his first step.

"I don't think I can," he said, and fell to a knee. "Damned leg's torn."

"You can." Stump urged him like he would a goblin child learning to walk, but another step brought the dwarf to the ground in a grumbling heap.

Morg gave a weary look to the tree line ahead, then spat a wad of blood.

"Take this with ye," he said, slipping the amulet over his head.

Stump hesitated. He found in Morg's eyes the same look Gold-Blooded had given him during her final moments. Sadness. Acceptance.

"No. It's yours. You'll need it for when we visit Borovic," he pleaded.

"Take it," said Morg.

"No. I'm not leaving you here to—"

"Better yerself than in the belly of that winged demon."

"—be swallowed by that mountain bat—"

"You'll need it for yer magic more'n I will—"

"Maven gave it to you for—"

"Take the damn thing!" Morg pressed the amulet against Stump's chest.

If Stump had been the goblin of his old tribe, the timid little thing that spoke with his head down and feared the ancestral power that ran through his veins, he might've taken the item and ran.

Instead he forced the stone back into Morg's hands.

"You're part of my company, Morg. That's not changing tonight," he said, and pulled away from the dwarf's desperate swatting and stole across the promontory.

He swept the Firestone out of a crevice, fit it into the sling, and twirled on his heel. The stone had a single charge remaining, and it needed to count. He took aim, and wheeled the obsidian over his head.

The next shriek shook the earth. It was the cry of an angry, vengeful beast, and its silhouette widened as it hurtled for Morg. Pebbles rattled. The wind howled.

The Firestone whistled through the air.

A stretch of silence preceded the sky flashing orange and red as the mountain bat jerked from the burning thunderclap. Smoke curled from holes punched through its wings. It tried to right itself, but curved off course and cratered into the promontory.

Scorching dirt and stone lifted Stump off his feet, and the anguished roar of the creature left a ringing in his ears.

When he blinked, dust hung in the air. Rocks tumbled off his back as he straightened to gaze on the blackened path that led from the cliff to the woods where half a dozen trees had been sundered by the mountain bat's plummet.

Morg was slouched where he had been, caked in layers of soot and ash. He blinked and looked about in a daze.

Stump hobbled over, his gait unsteady, but stopped at the sound of the creature. When he turned he spotted it, hulking behind the settling dirt and smoke. Its scythe-like arms dug into the earth like giant hooks, dragging itself back up the hill. It was a mound of burning flesh, its wings no more than skeletal frames dripping with melted skin.

How's it still alive?

Stump shuffled back, but it closed the distance, hatred roiling in its eyes.

How do I kill it? He felt for the obsidian—no, not the Smokestone. Not the Rainstone. Around him lay a number of small rocks, but none that would slay a creature of its size. He had his Lumenurgy, but blinding it would only go so far and illusions were not suitable for monster slaying.

A whimper pulled his attention to the mountain bat. An arrow sprouted from its back.

"For the Iron Fleece!" called Boren.

"The Iron Fleece!" echoed Ilora.

Other voices joined the chant, ones Stump didn't recognize.

Two more arrows pierced the beast. It tried to turn, but its melted belly had partially fused to the ground. It grunted and strained as someone ran up its back and straddled its neck. A downward facing sword rose above its head, glinted briefly in the firelight, and came down with a sickening crunch.

The already dark eyes of the creature dimmed as the head left its body and rolled to the earth. Its torso deflated in a huge, smoking heap.

The one who had delivered the final blow slid off the creature's back and brushed the matted hair from their grimy face. They sauntered across the promontory with a grizzled gait.

"Stump," she said, when she was close enough.

He gave her a puzzled look, unsure if she was real or not. "Denna?"

She kneeled and swept him into her arms, squeezing the breath out of him.

"Are... you... alright...?" he wheezed.

She released him and held his gaze with eyes ringed by the purple and black of exhaustion. Even still, she offered something approaching a smile.

"I'm alright, now," she said, then rested her forehead against his. "Knights stand together."