Forty warhorses trained for the shock of impact burst from the treeline as one, thundering across the grass, towards the smoldering ruins of Alderholt. The ground trembled. The air split with the roar of men, the shriek of horses, and deep, harsh war cries Ronigren’s soldiers unleashed in a primal wave of fury.

  The goblins’ heads snapped up, bulging eyes widened with disbelief and terror as the wave of steel and horseflesh bore down on them. For a heartbeat they froze, a tableau of grotesque figures silhouetted against ancient stone.

  Spectral war horns blared from the woods to their flanks, ghostly shouts echoed from behind them, and dazzling flashes of emerald and violet light pulsed through the air, momentarily blinding and confusing the goblins. Their already agitated shrieks turned to howls of panic.

  Ronigren, Stormchaser thundering beneath him, led the charge, his sword a silver glint in the morning sun.The world narrowed to a terrifying, exhilarating blur of speed and violence. A goblin raised its spear, its face a mask of hate, and he leaned low, deflecting the thrust with the shield, his own blade cleaving downwards in a brutal arc.

  Around him, horses smashed into the goblin line, sending bodies flying like broken dolls. Swords rose and fell, finding flesh and bone. Lances punched through ragged leather armor.

  Ronigren’s arm ached from the repeated impacts, and the stench of goblin blood cloyed in his throat, as the screams of the dying and the clang of steel on steel merged in a wall of sound. Gregan, beside him, weathered face taut in a grimace of effort, slashed again and again with his heavy cavalry axe, chopping away limbs with precise brutality.

  The stunned goblins attempted a resistance. Short blades flashed, trying to hamstring the horses or pull riders down. A thrown hatchet glanced off Ronigren’s helmet, sending a jarring shock down his spine. Halsted impaled a goblin on his spear, then cried out moments later as another, darting low, thrust a barbed dagger deep into his thigh. Halsted swayed in his saddle, his face paling, before Gregan’s axe slaughtered his attacker with a downward swing that split the goblin’s helmet in a muddy spray of gore.

  A veteran screamed as a goblin’s hooked blade tore his arm from shoulder to elbow. A third man was unhorsed, disappearing beneath a pile of snarling creatures, only to be dragged clear by a comrade who hacked a path to him.

  But the sheer momentum and ferocity of the cavalry charge, amplified by Earlant’s illusions, overwhelmed the goblins’ resolve. Their attempts at a defensive line shattered. They broke, shrieking in terror, most of them scrambling back towards the dubious safety of the woods, leaving behind a dozen of their dead and several more wounded, twitching and moaning on the blood-soaked ground.

  The charge had lasted less than two minutes, a brutal, lightning-fast deluge of violence. Ronigren signaled the wheel. "Back! To the south trail! Form up!"

  Breathing heavily, faces splattered with mud and gore, the mounted soldiers began to pull back, their horses lathered and wild-eyed. The immediate threat around the hall was neutralized, but the woods to the north were now stirring, angry shouts and the deeper bellow of a war horn echoing from within.

  As the last of Ronigren’s riders began to disengage, a sound cut through the din. A scraping, grating noise. From the stone hall.

  The iron-banded oak door the goblins had been so desperately trying to breach creaked open.

  Ronigren reined in Stormchaser, his heart pounding. His men, seeing his halt, turned back towards the hall, their weapons still drawn. Exhaustion, triumph, and renewed apprehension rippled through them.

  The heavy door of the ancient hall groaned open, revealing deeper darkness within. For a moment, nothing stirred. Ronigren’s men held their breath.

  Cloaked in soot-stained rags, a girl emerged, no older than ten, her face smudged, her eyes wide and fearful. She clutched a wooden doll. Behind her, another followed – a woman, her arm bound in a makeshift sling, her face pale but resolute. And then more, a trickle at first, then a hesitant stream: the survivors of Alderholt.

  Perhaps twenty of them in all, covered in wounds and woodsmoke, clothes torn and bloodied. A mix of women, children, and elderly men, blinking in the nascent daylight, a dawning, fragile hope blooming in their eyes as they rested eyes upon the Argrenian soldiers.

  A profound relief surged in Ronigren, quickly followed by the stark realization of his new predicament. He had survivors. Wounded survivors. And a larger goblin force, now undoubtedly enraged and regrouping, lurked just beyond the treeline.

  He dismounted, signaling his men to do likewise, though they kept their horses close. "Hold your positions! Watch the woods!" he commanded, then strode towards the emerging villagers.

  "Are you all that's left?" he asked the woman with the sling, his voice gentle.

  She nodded, tears welling in her eyes. "Marta… Old Marta got us in here. Said the stones would protect us. They tried to burn the door, but it’s too thick…" Her voice broke.

  "We saw," Ronigren said grimly. "Are you fit to travel?"

  The woman shook her head, gesturing to the others. "Some… maybe. But many are hurt. Old Herb… he fought bravely, but his leg… And little Vana… she took a bad hit to the head."

  Ronigren’s gaze swept over the small, battered group. Escorting them back to Lastwall, a rough ride even for fit soldiers, was out of the question. Not with the goblins regrouping, and not with so many wounded. They’d be picked off before they made it a league.

  His eyes fell on the stone hall. It was their only defensible position.

  "Everyone inside!" he ordered. "Bring the wounded. We make our stand here."

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  Murmurs of agreement rose from his men, but also anxious glances towards the northern woods. Corporal Gregan, his axe still dripping, helped a limping man towards the hall. Young Halsted, despite the blood now soaking his thigh, gritted his teeth and waved off assistance, hobbling towards the doorway.

  As the last of the villagers and his own wounded – Halsted, Torvin with his slashed arm, and Davin, who’d been unhorsed and badly bruised – were helped inside, Ronigren paused at the threshold. The sun was now fully above the horizon, casting long shadows across the despoiled village.

  He looked back at the treeline. The goblins were quiet now, too quiet. They would be assessing, regrouping. The shaman, with his enchanted ram and ladders, would not be easily deterred. Ronigren hoped their sudden charge had given them pause, made them unsure of the true strength and nature of the force they faced. Perhaps it would buy them some time.

  Inside the cavernous, gloomy hall the cool air smelled of damp stone and the dust of countless years. Windows shuttered with thick oak let in just a hint of light. Soldiers and villagers mingled in the dark in a shared community of brittle hope and fear. Myanaa and Earlant were tending to the wounded, their subtle magics offering what comfort and aid they could.

  Ronigren began to organize the defense, posting men at the few viable arrow slits, instructing others to reinforce the door with salvaged timbers from the ruined village. They gathered decent provisions of water from the stream that ran near the hall and some meager rations from their saddlebags, supplemented by whatever the villagers had managed to bring with them. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

  As he moved through the hall, assessing their situation, an old woman, her face a roadmap of wrinkles and soot, her sorrow-stricken eyes fiercely sharp, approached him.

  "Sir Knight," she said, her voice raw but firm. "You have bought us time. But they will not give up."

  "We know, good woman," Ronigren replied. "We've sent for reinforcements, but they won't arrive before tomorrow, if then. We hold here."

  She grunted, her gaze unwavering. She held out her hand. In her palm lay an old, strangely shaped iron key, its surface unnaturally warm to the touch. "This belonged to my grandfather. He was one of the first to resettle Alderholt after the Barren Years. He said it was important to this place, to this hall. When the goblins attacked, when their leader… that thing on the wolf, began its dark work, this key… it grew hot. It responded in some way.”

  Ronigren looked at the key, then at the intense old lady.

  "What do you know of this hall, ma’am?" Ronigren asked, his voice low. "And this key?"

  Her eyes looked past him, into the shadows of the timeless stones. "Only what the stories tell. That this hall is older than Alderholt. Older than Argren, perhaps. That it guards something. Or waits for something." She closed her hand around the key. "And that this key… it might be the only thing that keeps the deepest darkness out. Or lets the right light in."

  * * *

  The sun climbed higher, banishing the last of the night’s chill but doing little to dispel the oppressive atmosphere that clung to Alderholt. Inside the eerie stone hall a fragile sense of order began to emerge.

  Under Ronigren’s direction, the soldiers established a perimeter. While a handful of them manned the narrow arrow slits and peered from the high, shuttered windows, the able-bodied among the villagers and the less seriously wounded soldiers ventured cautiously outside.

  The immediate vicinity of the hall was a scene of carnage. The bodies of a dozen goblins lay where they had fallen, their grotesque carcasses already drawing flies. A grim-faced Gregan methodically checked them for any signs of life, dispatching the wounded with cold efficiency, veiling all but the lightest flinch as he delivered death.

  Soldiers and villagers, working side-by-side, salvaged timbers from the wreckage of the burned cabins nearby. They dragged charred beams, splintered planks, and even overturned carts to form a crude but functional barricade around the stone hall, extending perhaps twenty paces out. Others began to dig a shallow ditch just outside this new wooden wall, piling the earth inwards to create a low berm.

  Stories were shared in low voices as they worked. Villagers spoke of loved ones lost in the initial onslaught, voices choked with grief. Soldiers recounted the ferocity of the charge. Young Joric, a villager whose father had been cut down trying to defend their cabin, worked tirelessly alongside Torvin, the soldier whose arm Myanaa had skillfully bound. They didn't speak much, but a silent understanding passed between them, a bond forged in shared trauma.

  Old Herb, his leg hastily splinted and propped up inside the hall, loudly complained that the goblins had ruined his prize-winning pumpkin patch, a declaration that drew a few weak smiles.

  Sergeant Borin would have grumbled about the unprofessionalism of digging trenches with hunting knives, but here, under Ronigren’s command, necessity was the only doctrine.

  He moved among them, offering encouragement, directing efforts, assessing their dwindling resources and the threat from the woods; strained voices and the clank of hard labour promised an even more formidable challenge to come. Fear lingered in their eyes, but also a stubborn refusal to break.

  Myanaa, having tended to the worst of the injuries with her gifted touch and healing herbs, now walked the perimeter of the new fortifications, her expression thoughtful. She occasionally stooped to touch the earth, or run her fingers over the bark of a salvaged timber, as if listening to secrets only she could hear. Earlant, his initial burst of magical exertion having left him pale, sat near the entrance of the hall, gaze fixed on the northern treeline beyond which the main goblin force lurked.

  Inside the hall, the elder named Marta sat with the children in the dim, echoing space. She told them old stories, not of goblins and monsters, but of brave knights and clever foxes, her voice a soothing balm against their fear. Yet her gaze often drifted to the heavy iron key she still clutched, her fingers tracing its unfamiliar contours as if trying to decipher a forgotten language.

  He approached her during a brief lull in the frantic work. "Marta," he said quietly, "that key… you said this hall guards something. Or waits. Do the old stories give any hint as to what?"

  Marta looked up, her eyes searching ancient knowledge, following a path stretching back generations. "The stories are fragmented, Sir Knight, like pottery shards. They speak of a time before Argren, when the earth itself held power. They say this hall was a… a fulcrum. A place of balance. And that the First Ones, those who came before even the elves and dwarves of common legend, left something here. A ward, perhaps. Or a weapon. Or maybe just a memory, too potent to be forgotten, too dangerous to be known."

  She held up the key. "My grandfather said this was passed down, from keeper to keeper. That it resonates with the hall’s purpose. He never knew what that purpose was, only that it was vital to keep the key safe, and close to this place."

  "Do you think the goblins know what's here?" Ronigren asked.

  "Perhaps not in detail," Marta mused. "But their master… the one who pulls their strings from the shadows… that one might. The Chained Races were once closer to the deep powers of the earth. They might sense things we have forgotten."

  A shout from one of the lookouts on the hall’s upper level shattered the uneasy quiet. "Movement in the trees! North side! They’re coming!"

  The brief respite was over. Ronigren’s hand went to his sword hilt. The villagers and soldiers working on the palisade dropped their tools, scrambling for their weapons. The makeshift fortress, built of salvaged wood and desperate hope, was about to be tested.

  Mistwarped (Mistworld Series, Book 2)

  by NeoRyu777

  When solving the unsolvable means breaking the rules, are you justified?

  why the Undead existed at all…

  And the Mist isn’t so easily conquered.

  Mistbound is now available on Amazon!

  Mistwarped is now available for preorder:

  https://www.patreon.com/c/Mistbound