The Goblin's Heir

Chapter Thirty Three: The Third Option

The first sign that something was amiss was the strong acrid smell of smoke. 

The second sign was the chorus of screams erupting from the farmhouse. 

We ran as quickly as we could to the house. The boys raced ahead while I hobbled behind, pain shooting up my leg from the bite wound on my lower thigh. 

Floki kicked the door in until the wood at its hinges splintered, exploding into tiny bits of wood and we made it inside just as Neasa slammed the portal she'd been holding shut right onto the goblins that had been trying to crawl out of it. Their severed heads and other body parts fell heavily to the ground, still twitching as the goblins' new life faded from them. Two more clawed at Neasa's back and took her down to the ground. Flames came up from her pale skin, but though they burned the goblins kept biting, kept clawing, too hungry, and panicked by the lack of guidance to care that their flesh was being melted from their bones. Fire touched the wood of the house, creeping up the walls to the rafters and the failing roof overhead.

Numerous others filled the room. They swarmed and convulsed around our friends, snapping their jaws in anticipation. Cerise was pinned in the corner, screaming as both teeth and claws sank into her. With a growl, Cerise thrust her knife into one of goblin's eye sockets and got a good twist in before it reeled away in pain. 

Ask grappled with Cerise' attackers, trying to pull them off of her before they ate their way into her belly while we were quickly swarmed ourselves. Though our muscles ached and our feet were growing heavier with every motion, our bodies reacted on instinct. Thrust. Slash. Thrust. Slash. Over and over again. There was hardly any thought behind each motion, just muscles acting on memory.

"Run!" Cerise gave another high pitched wail as claws dug into her side down to the second knuckle. 

An almost animalistic roar shook through the house. It made my heart leap and my stomach quiver. I froze in place like a rabbit, stunned by the growl of a wolf, out in the open and vulnerable. It wasn't until Floki charged forward and cleaved numerous goblins into pieces with one swing of his sword that I realized it had come from him and not one of Knut's greatest horrors. He tossed the goblins aside, skewering them, tearing them to bits until at last, he was at her side "Are you all right?" He asked, reaching for her with blood-soaked hands and that wild look still in his eyes. 

The goblins had ripped open massive wounds all over her body. She was bathed in red from the small cat-like scratches on her cheeks, to the deep, rough holes left in her thighs and belly from where goblin teeth had bit in and ripped the meat away. She started to reach out to him, with fingers trembling from fear and loss of blood, but she stopped. Suddenly a small round-shaped goblin in vaguely familiar red striped livery leaped down from the smokey rafters onto Floki's back.  He yanked at Floki's long hair, trying to expose the more vulnerable spots of his throat to his viciously sharp teeth. Floki struggled with the small goblin, reaching back over his head as best as he could to rip the goblin off of him. 

I caught the glint of metal as the round goblin brought a small knife to Floki's neck. I shouted his name, slashing more furiously as I tried to get to my middle son before the goblin's teeth tore into his throat. There were so many goblins packed into that tiny house. They overlapped each other, clamoring over their brethren with hungry open mouths. Too many. I'd never reach him in time.

Cerise threw herself forward. She leaped onto Floki's front, holding on with one arm around his neck and her legs around his waist. "Get off of him!" She snarled, her pretty face contorted with a mixture of pain and rage. She brought the knife down into the attacking goblin's spine, snarling through her teeth with every furious blow until at last the thing went still with a pitiful whimper.