The Cursed Extra

"The only good goblin is a dead one."

***

The next goblin came through low. Trying to duck under his spear thrust. Smarter than the first three. Learning from their deaths in the way that only creatures who lived by violence could learn.

Rhys adjusted his aim. Drove the point downward into its spine.

The creature collapsed with a sound between a shriek and a gurgle. But its momentum carried it forward. Claws raked across his leg before it died. Tore through cloth and skin and left tracks of fire in their wake.

Blood soaked through his pants. Warm and sticky.

Another goblin. This one carried a short sword that looked like it had been stolen from a human. The blade too long for its body. The grip wrapped in leather that was clearly not goblin work.

It feinted left. Then came in fast from the right. The blade whistled through the air in an arc aimed at his ribs.

Rhys barely got his spear up in time to block. The impact jarred his arms and sent a shock of pain through his shoulders. His earth wall shuddered under the pressure of more enemies pressing against it from the other side. Cracks appeared in the stone.

The goblin with the sword danced back from his counterattack. Its blade traced patterns in the air as it searched for an opening. Unlike the others, it didn’t rush in blindly.

It watched. It waited. It circled as much as the narrow space would allow.

Rhys could feel his mana draining as he maintained the wall. A slow leak that would eventually empty him of everything he had. Sweat stung his eyes.

He shifted tactics.

Used the spear’s reach to keep the sword-wielder at bay while he called on his earth magic again. The stone beneath the goblin’s feet rippled. Shifted and buckled in response to his will.

The creature stumbled. Its careful balance thrown off by ground that suddenly refused to stay still.

Rhys lunged forward in the moment of opportunity. Drove his spear through its chest and slammed it back against the tunnel wall. The blade scraped against stone as it punched through. The goblin’s eyes went wide before glazing over.

Six dead.

How many more were out there?

His answer came as claws scraped against stone and angry voices chittered in the darkness beyond his torchlight. The wall he’d raised was starting to crack under constant pressure. His mana reserves were running low. The familiar ache building behind his eyes that meant he was pushing too hard.

He’d felt this before. On the palisade during the worst raids. When he’d burned through everything he had and still needed more.

The seventh goblin squeezed through the gap. This one carried a wicked-looking axe that gleamed even in the dim light. The blade was notched from use, but the edge was still sharp enough to split bone.

It swung wild. Trying to overwhelm him with brute force rather than skill.

Rhys gave ground. Used his spear’s length to stay out of range while he looked for an opening. The creature’s axe bit deep into the stone wall. Buried itself in rock that should have been too hard to cut.

While the goblin struggled to pull the weapon free, Rhys stepped in close and drove his spear up under its ribs.

The eighth goblin learned from that mistake. It kept its weapons light and mobile. Two curved knives that caught the torchlight like curved smiles. It moved like a dancer. Its body bending and weaving as it slipped through his defenses.

One blade scored across his shoulder. Parting cloth and skin in a line of cold that quickly turned to fire.

Rhys stumbled back. His foot slipped on blood-slicked stone.

The goblin pressed its advantage. Both knives flashed in the torchlight. Weaving patterns too fast for his tired eyes to follow. Rhys blocked one with his spear shaft. The impact numbed his fingers. But the second blade sliced across his forearm.

His grip on the weapon loosened. For a moment he thought he might drop it entirely. His father’s spear. The only thing he had left of home. About to slip from fingers too weak to hold it.

Then his father’s voice echoed in his memory. Clear as the day he’d first heard it.

"A spear isn’t just for thrusting, boy. Use every part of it. The point, the shaft, the butt. Every part is a weapon if you use it right."

Rhys reversed his grip and swung the spear like a staff.

The weighted butt caught the goblin across the temple with a crack that echoed off the walls. The creature dropped like a stone. Its knives clattered away into the darkness. It didn’t move again.

Silence fell over the tunnel.

Broken only by his own labored breathing and the steady drip of blood from his wounds. Eight bodies lay scattered around the chokepoint. Dark stains spread across the stone floor. The torch flame had burned lower. The air stank of blood and death and goblin musk.

His earth wall held. But barely. Cracks ran through the stone like spider webs. His mana reserves were scraping the bottom. His arm ached where the goblin’s knife had found its mark. His leg burned from the claw wounds.

He leaned on his father’s spear. Used it as a crutch while he caught his breath.

"Rhys!" Petra’s voice came from behind the protective barrier. She sounded scared and angry. Both reasonable. "Are you hurt?"

"Still breathing." His voice came out rougher than he’d intended. "How’s Jorik?"

"Conscious. Complaining about missing the fight. Says if you’d just moved the rock off him, he could have handled this himself."

Rhys managed a tired smile that probably looked more like a grimace. That sounded like Jorik. The man would probably complain about missing his own funeral if he had the chance.

The silence stretched on.

For a moment Rhys allowed himself to hope. Maybe they’d killed all the goblins in this section. Maybe they could rest. Tend their wounds. Figure out a way to free Jorik and find another way out.

Maybe luck was on their side for once.

Then the sound began.

Low and rhythmic. Rising from the darkness beyond his makeshift fortification. Not chittering this time. Something deeper. Something more purposeful.

A chanting that seemed to vibrate through the stone itself. Made the torch flame waver and dance. The sound got inside his head. Pressed against the backs of his eyes. Made his teeth ache in their sockets.

"Gorth-ek... gorth-ek... mal-sha-gorth..."

The words felt wrong in his ears. They didn’t belong to anything that should exist in the same world as sunlight and growing things. They were sounds that came from deep places. Dark places. Places where the stone had never seen the sky and never would.

The chanting grew louder. More voices joined the first until the tunnel echoed with alien syllables that scraped against something deep in his brain.

"Gorth-ek-mal... sha-gorth-ek... mal-sha-gorth-ek-nal..."

Rhys pressed his back against the stone wall. His father’s spear held ready despite the exhaustion weighing down his limbs. His arms trembled with the effort of keeping the weapon raised. His wounds throbbed and burned and leaked blood down his side.

But he held his ground.

Because there was nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

Whatever was coming next, it wasn’t just more goblins.

The torch flame guttered lower. The oil was running out. The wick burning down to nothing.

And in the growing shadows at the edge of its light, where darkness met the last dying gleams of orange flame, something began to move.