The first scream came just as Father Zantus started to speak. Kali, Ameiko and most of the crowd around them turned to see where it had come\u00a0from when the\u00a0second scream pierced the air.\u00a0Ameiko focused on something in the distance, said “Goblin!” and\u00a0then took off at a full run, darting and weaving through the crowd as a wave of panic rippled across the square from the southwest.\u00a0Kali called out after her, but Ameiko\u00a0neither turned nor slowed.\u00a0Then, a chorus of shouts, yells and howls\u00a0erupted from everywhere and true<\/em> panic set in, several people running in any direction that took them away from the festival grounds. Kali lost sight of Ameiko in the chaos.<\/p>\n As the crowd scattered, Kali watched\u00a0a small, dark shape slip behind a wagon parked next to Savah’s Armory. A small animal of some sort lay in front of it in the street, motionless in an expanding pool of blood. Strange, high-pitched\u00a0voices—nonhuman voices—joined the cacaphony.<\/p>\n “Dad…?”<\/p>\n “We need to leave. We need to leave now<\/em>!”<\/p>\n Akmal and Denea started to run but stopped mid-stride just as abruptly and Kali collided with her father, almost knocking them both down. Briefly irritated, she\u00a0quickly saw what was wrong: a group of six goblins had appeared in the square, one jumping up on to the tables and scrounging for food while the others shrieked at disoriented stragglers.<\/p>\n “Go around, not through!” she heard her mother call out.<\/p>\n Denea grabbed Akmal’s arm\u00a0and steadied him, then looked directly at Kali. Their eyes met, and Kali nodded.\u00a0Let’s go!<\/em> she thought.<\/p>\n As they dashed along the southern edge of the square, dodging scattering\u00a0townspeople all the way, Kali caught sight\u00a0of several heavily armed individuals\u00a0confronting the goblins who were now advancing on the thinning crowd. She thought she saw Sedjwick and Kyras among them, but she did not recognize any of the others (and\u00a0you could hardly forget, say,\u00a0a half-orc carrying\u00a0the largest battle axe she had ever seen). When they reached the southwest corner of the square, Akmal (now in the lead) almost ran straight along the narrow alley between buildings\u00a0to Shell Street, but at the last second he saw something he didn’t like and yelled out “Right! Right!” and rounded the corner. Denea and Kali followed close behind. The battle in the square sounded fierce and brutal.<\/p>\n Now headed towards Church Street, the Kesk’s jewelry shop straight ahead, Kali glanced over and saw two\u00a0goblins fall, slain by a pair of\u00a0sword fighters. A\u00a0large man and an equally large woman had nearly cut them\u00a0in half.\u00a0A priest was tending to a teenage boy who lay dying on the ground behind them.<\/p>\n Where is the town guard?<\/em>\u00a0she thought to herself.<\/p>\n Akmal called out “Stop!” just before they hit Church Street. The\u00a0three of them came to a halt, hearts pounding and breathing heavily.<\/p>\n “What is it?” Denea asked him. Kali recognized the stressed tone in\u00a0her voice.<\/p>\n “Something large, just past the Cathedral. I do not know what it is, but I see\u00a0two animal eyes reflecting in the dark.”<\/p>\n Kali saw a glint of steel and noticed that her mother was wielding her dagger, and remembered\u00a0seeing her\u00a0draw it while they were running.\u00a0I didn’t even know she was carrying that. Where does she hide it? S<\/em>he’d only seen her mom produce it like this a dozen or so times\u00a0and it always gave her chills.<\/p>\n “Are you armed?” Denea\u00a0asked her husband.<\/p>\n “No,” he replied.<\/p>\n “Idiot.”<\/p>\n “It was a festival<\/em>.”<\/p>\n A huge ball of fire rose into the air\u00a0on the far corner\u00a0of\u00a0the square. All three turned in unison and saw\u00a0a wagon engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n “The fuel oil,” Akmal observed.<\/p>\n “More are coming. Can we make it to the house?”<\/p>\n Kali watched as several more\u00a0goblins descended on the square. The group of would-be defenders—she counted seven\u00a0of them now—met them head on. There was still no sign of the town guard. A furious skirmish erupted.<\/p>\n “That thing is still there. It is watching us.” Akmal replied.<\/p>\n “We’re probably safer near them<\/em>.”<\/p>\n The fight in front of the Cathedral was over almost as fast as it had started. In less than half a minute the square was littered with the bodies of slain goblins. One of their wounded—Kali couldn’t see who—was sitting on the steps. Father Zantus had arrived and was reviving\u00a0the critically injured teenager. The group held\u00a0an agitated\u00a0discussion that Kali\u00a0could not hear, but she was pretty sure what they had decided: to the south, plumes of smoke were rising from the city center and there were\u00a0sounds of distant\u00a0fighting. They started moving that way\u00a0when yet\u00a0another<\/em> scream rang out, this time from the northeast, near the city’s north gate. It was followed by the furious barking of a large dog.<\/p>\n “That thing is moving. It is headed towards the White Deer…” Akmal said. Unspoken—he didn’t have to say it because they were all thinking it—was,\u00a0Next to our house.<\/em><\/p>\n The impromptu militia stopped, turned, and bolted up Church Street, running towards the source of the commotion.<\/p>\n “Go!” Akmal shouted.<\/p>\n Kali saw it happen and cried out “Wait!<\/em>”\u00a0but it was too late: a goblin sprinted out from behind a water barrel along Junkers Way heading in the same direction as the others, just as Akmal and Denea stepped into the street from alongside the building. Neither saw the other and the goblin collided with Akmal’s legs at a full run, sweeping\u00a0them\u00a0out from underneath him. Akmal went down hard onto his side, landing inches from the goblin that had been flattened\u00a0onto its back, the wind knocked out of it.<\/p>\n Denea reacted first, bringing her dagger down with a sickening thud into the prone goblin’s chest. It shuddered and was still.<\/p>\n Kali watched this all unfold. Something in the back of her head told her she should have been frightened, but she wasn’t. It also occurred to her that, all around her, people had been panicking but she hadn’t done that either.<\/p>\n “Are you OK? Are you hurt?” Denea\u00a0asked her husband.<\/p>\n “I may have broken a rib when I fell.”<\/p>\n He got up slowly. Denea handed him the large knife that the goblin had been carrying and he took it without question or comment. Up the street, the dog had stopped barking and\u00a0they could hear another skirmish. From the sound of it, this one was much more fierce than the others.<\/p>\n “Through\u00a0to Cliff Street?” Akmal asked.<\/p>\n Denea nodded and they moved, crossing the road more\u00a0carefully this time, then slipping between the jeweler and the neighboring house. When they emerged on the other side they saw one\u00a0of the town guard laying face down in the\u00a0street on their left, almost certainly\u00a0dead. His sword was not drawn and his hand had been clutching\u00a0his crossbow when he fell. It\u00a0looked like he had\u00a0been stabbed from behind while readying his shot.<\/p>\n They went over to him and Akmal bent down to\u00a0confirm what they already knew.<\/p>\n He added,\u00a0“It is\u00a0Garridan.”<\/p>\n Kali was staring\u00a0at the crossbow on the ground. She looked up\u00a0at her dad, to the sounds of the fight up the street near their home, and then at\u00a0the glow from the fires burning in the city to the south.<\/p>\n And then she picked it up.<\/p>\n “Kali.”<\/p>\n She turned to face\u00a0her father. He was holding something out in his\u00a0hand.<\/p>\n “The quiver.”<\/p>\n \u00a7<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rova 21, 4707 The first scream came just as Father Zantus started to speak. Kali, Ameiko and most of the crowd around them turned to see where it had come\u00a0from when the\u00a0second scream pierced the air.\u00a0Ameiko focused on something in the distance, said “Goblin!” and\u00a0then took off at a full run, darting and weaving through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vignettes","tag-kali"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1737,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/1737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}