Every part of me screamed to plant my feet, turn, and hold ground. To declare a space around myself as mine, to declare that I would not be moved from it no matter the force brought to bear. But I couldn’t, and it bothered the Hells out of me. It wasn’t that fighting on the run hindered my abilities too badly. The Willow’s Wrath required movement to be used properly. What bothered me was that running like this while I fought went counter to the philosophy of my style. I’d trained my whole life to embody that concept. I was meant to hold space like a great willow in a clearing, not flit about like a leaf on the wind.

  Ultimately, my feelings on the philosophy of a fighting retreat didn’t matter, and the goblins continued to make passes at the herds on their lanklatts. They probed for areas in our defense that they could break through. Ellena and I were left alone for the most part after I stalled an overconfident goblin long enough for Ellen to break two of his mount’s legs.

  We’d left his crushed corpse under the whimpering lanklatt, unable to spare the time to put the beast down as we ran. As a matter of fact, the [Lanklatt Cavalry] rarely tested any of the herd’s defenders and instead preferred to make passes at the wagons carrying the injured.

  What, so far, was a casualty-less retreat for everyone guarding the herd was quite the opposite for the people ahead of us. It was a regular occurrence for one of us to have to step over a body laid in the middle of the tunnel or for a laborer to have to guide the moles around them. The loss of life concerned me, but only because it meant there’d be less of a force to face the goblins once they caught up.

  As we ran, Maggie regularly bounced between Ellen and I on the left and Mika and Nora up at the front. Usually she stopped to talk briefly, make sure we weren’t about to collapse, and then head back to check on the others.

  “Your employer wants you dead.” She said one visit, easily keeping pace with Ellen and I as we sweated.

  “We know.” Ellen heaved, speaking for the both of us. “What do you want us to do about it?”

  “I need to make sure you both understand the gravity of what just happened.” Maggie continued. “I don’t know if it was arrogance or stupidity, but the girl almost got her entire clan barred from Guild services. When we get back to the surface, I’m going to have to record the attempt and her minders know it.

  “I want you to keep in mind that while your orders won’t be homicidal again, Gunilla’s too smart for that. The fact you’re at the back of the convoy set to guard a herd of livestock is proof enough that Gunilla would be more than happy for the four of you to die quietly.

  “We can’t do anything about our position for the moment, but I want to make sure you know. Right now, your one and only goal is to keep each other alive. Sacrifice as many of the aranae as you need to. Stay alive.”

  ~~~***~~~

  The first death amongst the moles didn’t come from a passing lance but a poorly aimed javelin. The [Lanklatt Cavalryman] aimed for one of the warriors at the back of the herd but overthrew and speared a mole in the back of the head. To the warrior’s misfortune, she’d been defending a lance thrust and didn’t see the corpse in time to avoid the dead beast as she backpedaled. The time it took her to recover her footing was enough for a passing lanklatt to snap its jaws around her neck and end her life.

  Like the first domino, the woman’s death began what felt like a period where the wagon train deliberately slowed and allowed the goblins to make up ground. The distant horde was no longer a collection of small dots on the horizon and now were near enough that I could see a group of them break off from the main force and sprint down the tunnel we hadn’t taken.

  “Nora!” I shouted, fighting to be heard over the clamor. “Goblins are going down the other fork!”

  I figured I wasn’t the only one to have seen the split, but even still, I figured one more report couldn’t hurt. Nora and Maggie briefly conversed before Maggie ran off to the front of the wagon train, where Gunilla walked beside the spiress’ carriage, speaking into the window.

  The elder aranae didn’t drop to the back for long, only staying long enough to call the four of us, and the other five warriors not engaged in combat to follow her. As I sprinted along beside the walking Gunilla, I noticed that the [Lanklatt Cavalry] who’d continuously harassed the convoy eased up and let the older woman pass wherever she wanted without incident.

  We reached the front of the convoy after about three minutes and the effort of having to sprint for so long on top of the jogging and combat took its toll on me. Ragged gasps echoed around my helmet and fluttered the chain mail of my veil. The Touch of the Black Hand eluded me so far for the entire retreat and at that moment, I yearned to retreat within the cold surety of its grasp.

  Gunilla broke off from the convoy and called the nine of us to follow. Goblins charged into where she’d been, their beasts huffing with feral glee, but ignored us as we ran to join her. Maggie trialed just behind. By the time we reached a small tunnel entrance, maybe ten feet wide, Gunilla collected a force of another fifty warriors, though I’d no idea where she scrounged them up from.

  “The goblins you saw break off will attempt an ambush from here.” Gunilla intoned, her voice regal despite the choked accent. “You are to hold this tunnel while the wagons pass behind you. Rejoin the train once the moles are twenty meters past this opening.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Like an echo, a couple of the aranae behind us repeated the orders in their native language for those who couldn’t understand the Trade Tongue. Finished speaking, Gunilla moved all of us into a circular formation. Half the melee combatants faced the tunnel while the half faced forward to defend from passing cavalry. She placed me to face the ambush while Ellen faced outwards. Mika and Nora were within the circle with the other spell casters, allowed to target who they saw fit.

  The wagon train got to us first. The spiress’ carriage blew past us. Its twin draft animals bellowed breaths as lashes rained down upon their chitin from a driver hidden within a lattice worked alcove of stone. As it rumbled past, skills of some kind keeping the ride smooth, the calvary that harried it broke off to harass us.

  The sounds of combat erupted behind me and I felt the pinprick sensation of flared mana as spell casters within the formation launched volleys at the goblins. I did not turn to engage, however, and kept myself positioned towards the moss-lit tunnel in front of me.

  It took five minutes with my back to active combat before I heard voices from around a bend. They spoke amongst each other in their native language. I couldn’t understand what was said, but the jeers and taunts that passed between them were familiar and as clear as the midday summer sky.

  Wraith-like the goblins appeared from the dark of the tunnel into the soft azure light. They weaved amongst each other in packs of five. Terror birds in the heart of the Emerald Ocean competing for which pack got to the wounded elk first.

  Iona Black Hand, Mistress of the Howling Winds, Flayer of the Unwary, hear my pleas.

  I beg for your guidance and your touch, let my pain sate the Howling Winds, let my dread buffet the unwise.

  Grant me bravery so I might add the screams of the unworthy to your command.

  Gently, I felt a hand appear on the back of my neck. Five dots of pain flared up where her fingertips would be and everything fled me. All panic, exhaustion, pain and doubt snuffed out. Their heat drained by Iona’s touch to fuel her domain and the Howling Winds within.

  With eyes that no longer weighed ten pounds each, I looked back to the packs of goblins. The comparison between them and the terror birds of my home was still apt, but no longer did it bring about the thrill of nerves. Instead, all I felt as I looked upon those about to die was a slight nostalgia for home. It’d been so long since I’d seen trees and gods, how I missed them.

  The war hymn left my throat more an act of instinct than conscious choice. Like the rest of their charges, the goblins hurled themselves at us rather than slow down and engage with caution. They banked on their sheer mass and momentum to carry them through our lines and into the heart of the formation. Like the distant call of a horn, I was glad to have a hoblite in front of me instead of an orc.

  I swatted at their wrists with both shield and hammer as she tried to reach over top and spear me through the helmet. A skill sent echoes of her spear thrust cascading behind the blade as it moved. I punched my shield into the bottom of her dominant wrist, which sent the strike above me, and opened her shoulder.

  Hammer met armor and rocked the woman into the side of the tunnel where her head small smashed against a small divot in the rock. She stumbled a step forward and almost crashed into me before I drove the spike of my hammer into the face mask of her helmet. Metal whined, then screamed as the spike forced itself through the armor and into her skull.

  Mist swirled around my feet as I stepped back into position. Nora’s spell was immediately helpful in a chokepoint. The goblins forced to move through the area she defined as her own. Often, before they even got to us, their legs became a mangled mass of shredded armor and exposed bone.

  As the fight progressed, I found myself swept up in that illusive rhythm I’d heard defending the gate. It floated at the edge of hearing. A [Master Skald] performing a Great Work just on the other side of a stone wall. Without thought, I felt myself try and line up my movements with the song, and tried even harder to force the war hymn into harmony with it.

  “Moles Approaching! Prepare to disengage!” Maggie shouted from nearby, her call picked up and translated into the aranae language by one of the scholars in the center.

  The goblins were not deaf, and some understood. Commands echoed between the packs and, like animals with their kill stolen, they came at us. Content to either break our formation or die in the attempt. Maggie called out to us with ever shortening time frames until we rejoined the convoy. Every time her call rang out to echo down the side tunnel, the goblins fought harder.

  Distantly, as I broke the knees of an orc too distracted by the warrior beside me, I wondered what could possibly keep the goblins fighting like this. They had to know the ambush had failed. Perhaps our defeat was the only way to salvage some wounded pride. Otherwise, it made more sense to disengage and wait for the horde to catch up.

  “Break!” Maggie commanded.

  The maneuver was sloppy. Those facing the wagon train moved too fast while combat slowed those of us facing the ambush. My boot squelched in a puddle of gore as I stepped over the body of a dead aranae. A javelin protruded from the back of her head. I couldn’t help but note with disdain how graceless of a display this was. A retreat should be better, more organized, dignified.

  But those thoughts didn’t stop my boot from oozing out the soaked in blood with each step. Nor did they stop the goblins from executing the twelve injured we left behind.

  Back into the convoy, it almost felt like muscle memory to fall back into the pattern of running, fighting, blocking, and redirecting lance thrusts. The only thing at this point that allowed me to move was the Touch of the Black Hand. It was vague, but already I could feel it in the back of my consciousness. A fire that warned of torn muscle, ripped flesh, and broken bone. When this was over and Iona’s mercy finally left me, I would be in no condition to move, and without extensive healing, would likely see myself crippled for months.

  I noticed that around a third of the herd was missing and the rest of the moles looked dead on their feet. Each beast huffed great plumes of stale air and the laborers with them smelled so terrible my eyes threatened to water even ten feet away. Every single laborer and especially their whips reeked of urine and animal fear.

  I’d never smelt the emotion fear before, but there was no other way to describe the scent of the whips other than raw, animal dread. It was the sensation of being a lizard and looking up into the eyes of a hawk. The feeling of a field mouse stumbling into the hive of a tiger wasp. The hopelessness of an elk on the verge of collapse watching a pack of hairless apes crest the horizon at a jog.

  Strips of flesh waved behind the terrified moles as they ran. Whip strikes rained down on them, urging them on ever faster, but there was only so far the exhausted animals could run. Thankfully, the wagons in front of us matched the decline in pace when they certainly could have left us for dead.

  Part of me knew Gunilla ordered the reduced pace because a separated wagon train was easier to pick apart and would only end in the death of everyone. The cynical part of my brain wanted to believe, however, that she had some way to kill us cooked up, and she needed the wagon train whole for that.

  Whatever her goals, the convoy remained one cohesive grouping, and the slower pace allowed for the goblin infantry to catch up. No longer was the stray lance thrust my only concern. Balls of fire splashed against the stone, and javelins of earth and lightning landed amongst a hail of arrows in the wagons further ahead.

  For ten miles we ran, and locked within the grip of the Black Hand my favorite moments were when a [Lanklatt Cavalryman] would make a pass at Ellen or I because it provided reprieve from blocking spells and arrows lest they hit one of their own. Side tunnels passed us by in a near endless stream, and occasionally Gunilla marched up and down the wagon train to collect warriors for a blockage. Never again were my party and I a part of those groups, however.

  Mika and Nora were forced off of their moles’ backs about four miles past that first tunnel when it became clear the animals wouldn’t be able to handle the increased weight for long. They’d both done exceptionally well to keep up with us for the ten miles since, but now both were struggling to maintain even a place in the center of the herd, away from their original place in the front.

  Maggie noticed the pair struggle and during a lull in the projectiles when a team of five cavalry pierced deep enough to almost reach the moles, she raced ahead to speak to Gunilla. I’ve no clue what was said during the brief conference, but I made note of the barely contained rage in her posture as she did so. Whatever Maggie said worked because when she returned it was with Gunilla in tow, with orders for Mika and Nora, along with another three casters to climb up onto one of the wagons for the injured ahead of us.