The chill autumn wind from the Scablands was a familiar companion in Alderholt. For two centuries, as the embers of the War of Solitude cooled to ash, its mournful sighs had carried little more than the scent of snow and the promise of harsh winters. But tonight, dread rode with the wind, burrowing deep in Marta’s weathered bones. A dread she hadn't known since she was a girl listening to her grandmother's tales. Tales of the Chained Races. Tales softened over generations into little more than bogeyman stories. Tonight, the bogeymen felt real.

  Above the ruddy glow of the hearth shadows writhed on rough-hewn walls. The warm rabbit stew cooled in Marta’s gut, yielding to a cold emptiness no food could satiate. Another summer had gone, without news of her daughter. Another winter loomed ahead for the boy and her in this creaky old cabin.

  Silence stretched taut until the sound of her own breathing startled her. Marta listened. The forest held its breath, and the crackle from the hearth grew as loud as the snap of tree branches. At the edge of the clearing dogs whined, and the evening cries of crows veered away from the deep woods. Beside her, Tomar stifled a yawn, his hands idly oiling a hunting spear for a stag hunt that would never come.

  A clanging sound echoed from the north, piercing through the slumbering stillness. "The traps," she whispered, her voice raspy. "The warning snares on the old game trail. Something's tripped them. Not deer. Nor wolves."

  Tomar bolted up. The boy knew to trust his grandmother’s instincts. Together they left their warm hut amidst a dozen homes of pitch and pine, silently creeping to the edge of the village. A faint metallic chink in the distance, from the deep woods, followed by a low, guttural sound.

  Panic pierced through Marta, cold and sharp. "Bar the doors!" she hissed to the nearest cottager. "Light the signal fire! Elenya," she grabbed the arm of the swift-footed girl standing by the well, "run to Lastwall. Tell them... tell them the old stories are true." Dread swelled in the young girl's eyes as she looked past Marta's shoulder, and she froze for a moment before turning and breaking into a run.

  A rallying cry ripped through the village. Old Herb, his hands trembling more from nerves than age, fumbled with flint and tinder by the signal pyre.

  "Curse these damp nights!" he muttered, his breath fogging in the chill air.

  Marta directed the panicked villagers. They were flanked in the east and west by impassable brush, but the north side was vulnerable. "Barricade the lane between the storehouse and Brenn's cabin! Use the woodpiles, the old cart. Aeron, you and your boys, take your bows to the loft of the cooperage. Slow them, give Elenya time!"

  The wiry trapper nodded curtly, already ushering his two teenage sons towards a sturdy two-story structure.

  The sixty souls of Alderholt were not warriors. They were woodcutters, trappers, subsistence farmers, lives owed to resilience against the harsh northern clime, not to prowess in organized violence. Old axes, wood-splitting mauls, hunting spears, and a few well-maintained hunting bows became their arsenal.

  Tomar stood beside Marta, his hunting spear gripped tight, peering through narrowed eyes at the looming expanse of night. Barely a man, his jaw set in a fierce scowl. "They won't find us easy prey, Nana."

  She squeezed his arm, a fleeting touch of warmth. "They won't, child. But they are not mindless beasts. Remember what the old tales said: cunning, cruel, and they fight as one." Her gaze had swept upon these oaks, firs and chestnuts every night for decades, but tonight she scanned the tree line as if for the first time. The forest was a veil for the unseen horrors lurking beyond. She could smell them now: a rank, metallic odor mixed with damp earth and something else… something acrid, like burnt pitch.

  From the deep woods a guttural chant grew steadily closer, punctuated by the rhythmic thud of something heavy striking the earth. There was a discipline to it, a chilling purpose.

  "They're coming!" Aeron’s youngest shrieked from his vantage point. He pointed a trembling finger towards the north-east path, where shadowy figures, small and hunched, moving with unnerving speed, emerged from the gloom. Their eyes gleamed like malevolent embers in the torchlight.

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  The first volley of arrows clattered against the timber walls. One thudded into the thick oak door of a cabin, quivering.

  "Hold the line!" Aeron bellowed from the cooperage loft, loosing an arrow that found its mark with a wet thwack, sending one of the advancing goblins tumbling. His sons, shakier, loosed their own.

  Goblins moved with a pack-like coordination, carrying patched shields of wood and hide, brandishing short, wicked-looking blades that glinted darkly in the twilight. Dozens of them poured from the woods, like ants from a disturbed nest.

  Old Herb finally got the signal pyre to catch, flames licking upwards. A beacon of hope, and a target for their tormentors.

  The foul creatures reached the hastily erected barricade of logs and forlorn upturned carts, testing for weaknesses, their movements disconcertingly disciplined. Some carried burning brands to set the wooden structure ablaze.

  A goblin adorned with crude bone fetishes pointed a clawed finger towards the cabin where a child was crying. He barked a series of harsh commands, and a squad of its brethren surged forward, ignoring the arrows from the loft.

  "Tomar! With me!" Marta cried, grabbing a pitchfork.

  The air filled with the stinging smoke of burning brands. One caught the thatched roof of the cooperage and flames began to spread upwards, forcing Aeron and his sons to abandon their vantage point, coughing and blinking.

  "Water! Get water!" someone yelled, but the well was perilously close to the main goblin assault.

  Marta’s arm ached from the strain of wielding the pitchfork, and a sudden intense heat flared against her chest as if her heart was giving up.

  She clutched at her tunic. The old iron key on her leather necklace – the one her grandfather had worn, a charm from the old times before Alderholt was resettled – was growing warm, burning. She gasped. It was an odd sensation, as if the metal itself was made of memories or dreams.

  Through the swirling smoke and the chaotic din of battle a figure appeared, as if coalescing from the haze of old nightmares. Astride a monstrous wolf, draped in crudely stitched animal furs and adorned with yellowed bones and teeth, his face was obscured by a grotesque mask, fashioned from a wolf's skull. He radiated a cold menace, directing the attack and guiding the ravenous creatures with his bone pommeled staff.

  The ramshackle barricade groaned under a coordinated push from a score of goblins grunting and snarling in a unified chorus of effort. With a splintering crack, a section of it gave way. Goblins poured through the breach, flashing blades like fangs in the lurid crimson light.

  "Hold them!" Tomar screamed, thrusting his spear into the chest of the first goblin through the gap, its tip piercing flesh, slipping through bone. It shrieked, a high-pitched, bird-like sound, and fell, but two more clambered over its body even as Tomar yanked his spear free, a gush of blood spraying over his boots.The fighting became a frantic close-quarters melee around the breach.

  The spectral rider raised his staff and a chant emanated from him, a sound that vibrated in Marta’s teeth. The air around the broken barricade shimmered, the splintered wood seemed to writhe, broken ends twisting and straining under an unseen pressure. Another section of the barricade buckled inwards with a deafening crack, as if struck by an invisible fist. Dark sorcery.

  The key on her chest pulsed with heat, almost searing now. Instinctively, she pressed her hand against it, her eyes fixed on the robed figure. For a fleeting moment through the chaos a pressure, a subtle resistance pushed back against the malevolent force that had buckled their defenses.

  Grandfather, what did you leave us?

  ***

  Sulking on the rickety planks, a lone sentinel shivered, muttering a staccato curse. Knight Ronigren had chosen to inspect their weapons today of all days, and the unoiled underside of his hand axe had earned him a week of this pointless charade, staring out at the damn foliage while everyone else drank, played dice and swanned about at the tavern.

  Snapped branches, crumpling leaves, startlingly loud in the nocturnal hush. A glimpse of a ghostly creature flashed through a gap in the vegetation. Just his luck, he thought, as his heart leapt into his throat and the night air rushed into his lungs.

  Marta’s swift-footed runner broke from the treeline, her breath rasping. The dark silhouette of the town’s palisade stood against the star-dusted sky, a collection of wooden walls and a few watchtowers encircling a small town of maybe a thousand souls. To this Alderholt girl, it looked like the strongest bastion in the world.

  She staggered across the last stretch of open ground, a dark, shivering figure emerging from the black maw of the forest. The main gate, a heavy timber construction, was closed. A single torch sputtered on a bracket beside it, casting long, dancing shadows.

  "Help!" She cried, her voice a hoarse croak, barely audible above the sighing wind. "Open the gate! Please! Alderholt… Goblins!"

  She stumbled, falling to her knees a dozen paces from the gate, her strength deserting her. The lone sentinel above straightened, peering down into the darkness, his voice sharp with alarm.

  "What in the blazes? Who goes there?"