The goblin swung its hammer at Raine. He hurriedly stepped back and thrust his spear at its exposed arm. It was a clumsy strike, but he still hit the goblin’s arm and cut through the gambeson protecting it. The goblin howled in pain and dropped its hammer. Raine pulled his spear back and raised his shield, thinking the goblin would lunge at him desperately. But instead, wide-eyed with fear, it backed off and ran away.

What the hell? Raine considered throwing his dagger at it, but an arrow soon hit the back of its head. The goblin fell face-first onto the ground.

I guess there are cowards even among goblins. Raine looked around for another one to fight. To his right, Stanbury’s team was dealing with a handful of goblins. To his left, Ava was fighting two alone. She deflected a goblin’s sword and countered in one fluid motion, beheading the wielder. The other goblin tried to stab her from the side. She smacked its spear down with her blade and took a deep step forward to bash the goblin’s face with her shield.

Raine went up to the goblin and stabbed it in the back of the leg. It howled in pain, and Ava hit its face again. This time, the monster fell down.

Ava killed it and pulled the spear out of its grasp to pass the weapon to Raine. “Throw it at the one over there.”

“Got it,” he said. He flung the spear at a goblin approaching Cecily. It hit the goblin’s side, and the monster bent over, groaning in pain. Cecily finished it off. Meanwhile, June and Edgar killed two other goblins.

With that, all of the monsters in stabbing range were dead. Raine looked ahead and saw a few goblins in the distance, hiding behind trees and watching his team fearfully.

“What should we do?” Raine asked Ava.

“They’re waiting for help,” she said. “So the obvious thing to do is kill them before that help comes. I’ll deal with it.”

She raised her shield and strode forward.

The goblins were already out of spears to throw, and they looked and sounded panicked. Two ran, and Kayden shot them dead.

The first goblin Ava reached died with one blow. She knocked out the second one by grabbing a shield on the ground and tossing it like a frisbee at the goblin’s head. While she finished it off, Edgar killed the last goblin with a javelin.

Ava cleaned her sword and sheathed it. Then she picked up a few goblins’ spears, as well as Edgar’s javelins. She was careful on her way back to her teammates, watching her back and staying close to the trees.

June pulled out a healing potion from the small pouch at her hip and poured a little of the green liquid onto her wrist. She asked if anyone else was hurt. They were all fine.

Putting away the potion, June went up to the ditch and clapped. Dirt emerged from it. Most of it piled up to the side, but she used some to put a thin cover on the ditch. It didn’t look perfect, but it would be hard to tell that anything was unusual about it from a distance.

“Woah, nice,” Kayden said. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “You know, this job is turning out to be way easier than I thought it would be.”

“Don’t let your guard down,” Ava said. “It’s about to get a lot harder.”

“Goblins would have died off long ago if they were dumb enough to keep throwing themselves to their deaths,” Cecily said.

“I guess so,” Kayden said with a shrug. “So how will they respond?”

“They’ll probably stick closer together and advance more carefully to avoid getting hit with projectiles,” June said. “A few might try to sneak up on us from the sides.”

Then someone shouted from behind, “Timber!”

Raine looked back and saw a short tree fall. The logger who’d cut it down tossed aside the fallen branches in his way and moved on to the next one.

The other loggers soon felled their own trees. None landed near Raine or his teammates, but he expected that they would have to move forward later on to avoid getting crushed.

Ava gave Edgar his javelins and passed around the spears she’d picked up.

“More goblins,” she said, looking ahead. “Time to take cover.”

“Oh, they really are better prepared,” Kayden said. He pulled a metal shield out of the ground and put it down right in front of the other one.

Raine watched the goblins from behind a tree. He couldn’t see exactly how many there were, because they were using the trees to try to stay out of sight. There had to be at least fifteen of them, each carrying a shield.

“Tricky,” Kayden said. He drew his bow and fired. His arrow hit a goblin’s shield. He didn’t seem bothered by that and calmly fired again. This time, he hit the side of a goblin’s helmet, sending the monster reeling. Another one helped it stay on its feet.

“Aren’t they too organized?” June asked Ava.

“Yeah, they are,” Ava said. “There are probably some elites among them. Raine, go back a bit and watch the trees. Make sure an elite isn’t sneaking up on us.”

“Got it,” Raine said. He held his shield up as he went to a tree a few yards behind him. Raine’s expression was calm, but inside, he was nervous. Elite goblins. Shit.

Kayden watched the goblins for a few moments before drawing his bow. He loosed the arrow, and it flew past dozens of trees to hit one of the slowest goblins in the knee. It fell to the floor, screaming in pain.

“Nice shot,” Raine said.

“Thanks,” Kayden said. “They're being goddamn careful. It’s hard to get a good hit.”

And when the goblins approached, instead of getting easier, it became harder for Kayden to hit them. They hurried from one tree to the next, keeping low and covering themselves with their shields. Even when they were close enough to throw their spears and hit Raine’s team, they didn’t.

While Raine’s teammates threw spears and shot arrows at the goblins, he took his eyes off them and scanned the trees to his left and right. He didn’t see anything unusual.

His gaze returned to the monsters ahead. All of the regular goblins raised their spears.

“Oh shit,” Kayden said. Most of the goblins were aiming at him.

“The shields will stay up,” Ava said. “Probably.”

Well that’s not at all comforting, Raine thought.

Kayden went down on one knee and held his own shield in front of him.

This would be a good time for a surprise attack from the sides. Again, Raine watched the trees, and again, he saw nothing.

Then the spears hit. The sound of it was loud enough to make Raine’s heart skip a beat. But none of them knocked down or pierced the metal shields in front of Kayden.

“Ow,” Edgar said. A spear had hit his thigh glancingly. He picked up the spear and threw it back at the goblins.

At the same time, Kayden shot an arrow. It narrowly missed a goblin’s head.

“Crap, I’m running pretty low on arrows,” Kayden said. “And my arms are burning out.”

“That’s fine,” Ava said. “Hey, when they approach, June and I will be at the front. Raine and Kayden will attack from the sides with missiles. Edgar will be June’s backup, and Cecily will watch our backs.”

“What?” Cecily asked. “Can I join the fight after a minute?”

“Nope,” Ava said. “Unless someone gets seriously hurt, keep watching our backs. Elites are smart enough to pull off tricky shit.”

Cecily groaned. “Okay.”

She and Raine switched places, and Edgar passed him his quiver. There were five spears inside, a mix of javelins and goblin’s spears. Raine picked up a shield from a dead goblin to use that as a missile too. It didn’t look hard when Ava did it. Might as well give it a shot.

He put his spear and shield on the ground and watched the goblins from behind a tree. When they were about thirty feet off, the three elites shouted at the normal goblins, who then formed a messy line. The elites stood behind them.

Despite the goblins’ disorder, it was an intimidating sight: a row of shields and spears facing Raine and his teammates. Raine imagined what would happen to him if he had to fight them alone. He gulped.

“Make sure to keep an eye out for the elites’ throwing spears,” Ava said. “They can toss that shit fucking hard.”

“Exactly how hard?” Raine asked. “As in, gambeson-piercing?”

“Of course. I haven’t seen it personally, but it happens.”

Okay, time to get behind a bigger tree.

They waited for the goblins to get closer. In that time, Raine saw just how much more frightening the elites were than normal goblins. Their arms weren’t massive, but were still packed with muscle. They wore much better armor—one even wore a mail shirt. Another had a houndskull bascinet. The third wore demi-gauntlets. Each of the three elites held a shield and a spear and carried at their sides a sword and a dagger. In essence, they were equipped like hunters.

Ava and June didn’t attack. They looked like they were waiting for something. Raine’s eyes went to the pit. Then he looked at the goblins. Their shields were blocking their view of the ground in front of them. Oh.

The goblins reached the trap. Ava and June advanced. Some of the goblins regained their balance quickly, but most yelled in surprise and fear and fell to the ground. The elites shouted at the regular goblins in anger and confusion.

Raine coiled his body and threw the shield in his hands. It struck a goblin’s leg, and the monster bent over, screaming in pain. Kayden shot it dead.

Ava and June reached the monsters. Two elites tried to keep them from slaughtering the normal goblins, who were getting battered by missiles from Kayden and Raine (who was now out of spears and looked to the ground for his new weapons: rocks). Ava still butchered several regular goblins with metal javelins.

Edgar wasn’t far from her and June. He picked up a spear on the ground and chucked it at the third elite, who was barking at the regular goblins, probably giving orders.

The spear struck the elite’s shield. The goblin tried to pull the spear out, but failed and tossed aside the shield without hesitation. It shouted at a regular goblin, who reluctantly threw its own shield to the elite. The now shieldless goblin lay down in the pit to avoid getting shot dead by Kayden.

The elite, meanwhile, stared straight at Edgar with a furious gaze. It raised the spear in its hand and coiled its body.

“Shit,” Edgar said. He protected his head and torso with his shield and ran to the nearest tree. The goblin launched its spear.

Raine watched with wide eyes as the spear glanced off the bottom of the shield and struck Edgar’s right thigh.

“Argh!” Edgar said. He fell to the ground. “Fuck!”

“Shit. Raine, Kayden, help him out!” Ava said. She and June were still fighting the two elites, as well as a few regular goblins.

Edgar pulled the spear out of his leg. The spearhead didn’t seem to have gone deep into his thigh, though Raine was too far to know for sure. When Edgar tried to get to his feet, his injured leg gave out on him, sending him right back to the ground.

Three goblins shot at Edgar. He saw them and cursed. He quickly used his spear to support himself and get up. Then he backed away from the monsters as fast as someone with a half-functioning leg could.

Shit, shit, shit. Raine dashed toward him. He was just seconds away, but that was also true for the goblins.

Kayden fired at them. The monsters were, however, conscious of his arrows, and their shields faced him, not Edgar. Kayden tried to aim at their legs, but his exhaustion was taking its toll on his accuracy. Almost every arrow either missed or hit a shield. Only one found its mark. It didn’t do enough damage to stop the goblin it had hit.

Raine reached Edgar, who was struggling to stay on his feet.

The monsters split up. One went after Edgar. Two approached Raine. He gritted his teeth and entered his stance. Come on. I have to kill you fast and keep the idiot from dying.

The goblins held their shields in front of them and attacked at the same time. One longsword, one spear. Raine backed away, and the spear hit his shield at the very end of its reach. He took a deep breath and continued moving backward. The goblins were moving in opposite directions, trying to attack him from both sides.

Fuck that. He knew that if he kept retreating, he would eventually hit a tree, or worse, trip on a root. He remembered what Ava had said before about fighting multiple opponents: he had to be aggressive.

The sword goblin swung its blade at him. Instead of moving back again, Raine took a deep step forward. His shield blocked the goblin’s blow, and he thrust his spear at its face. The goblin jerked its head back and raised its shield. It blocked Raine’s strike, but its lower body was wide open. Raine stepped forward and kicked it hard in the groin. The goblin screamed in pain and scrambled backward.

I end lineages. Raine was about to finish it off, but he saw the other goblin charging at him. He retreated, holding his shield in front of him.

Nervousness quickly filled his chest. He’d never practiced dealing with a charging opponent. It was horrifying to see the spear goblin approaching so quickly. But still, he knew he had an opportunity to deal it serious damage. This is my chance. Sidestep and stab.

Then, while his eyes were fixed on the goblin charging him, while his mind was focused on the timing of his sidestep, his back hit something solid. Leaves rustled. He felt the blood drain from his face.