Captain Edric Vane had spent sixteen years guarding villages, roads, and grain convoys across eastern Caldris, and in all that time the most dangerous enemies he had faced were usually ordinary men.
Bandits stole livestock, smugglers moved untaxed goods through the forests, and desperate deserters occasionally tried to rob travelers before disappearing into the mountains. Brackenford was too small to attract anything more serious.
The village sat beside a narrow road between farmland and dense eastern woodland, protected by a wooden palisade, a single watchtower, and a guard detachment that was larger on paper than it ever was in practice.
Edric had learned not to complain about that. His men were enough to keep thieves away, settle drunken fights, and make merchants feel safe when they stopped for the night. He had never expected Brackenford to become important.
That belief began to change shortly after sunrise when one of his patrolmen stumbled through the gate several hours before he was supposed to return.
Edric was inside the small guardhouse checking grain delivery records when the door opened hard enough to strike the wall. Tomas, one of the younger patrolmen, stood there breathing heavily, mud covering his boots and the lower half of his trousers. He had left before dawn with two other guards to check the eastern road and should not have returned until midday.
Edric put down the wooden tally board.
"Where are the others?"
"Still patrolling east of the village."
"Why are you asking?"
Tomas swallowed and glanced toward the open doorway as if expecting something to have followed him.
"We saw something."
Edric waited for his response.
Tomas did not continue.
"What did you see?"
"Weird creatures."
Edric frowned.
"What kind?"
"I don’t know."
Tomas forced himself to breathe more slowly.
"They were small. Smaller than us. Green colored skin. Seven of them."
Edric initially suspected exhaustion or fear had distorted what the patrolman saw. The eastern forests contained enough strange animals that a frightened man could invent almost anything from a glimpse between trees.
"Green men?"
"Yes, Captain."
"How small?"
"Most would barely reach my shoulder. Some shorter. Long ears. Pointed. Broad noses. Teeth like little knives."
Edric leaned back.
"Goblins?"
The word came from old stories more often than military reports. Travelers occasionally used it for malformed raiders or forest spirits, but Edric had never seen anything resembling the creatures described in childhood tales.
Tomas shook his head uncertainly.
"I don’t know what they were called."
"What were they doing?"
That question changed the patrolman’s expression.
"They were seemingly watching something on the road."
Edric’s attention sharpened.
"Watching how?"
"Not like other animals."
Tomas stepped closer to the table.
"They moved carefully. Two stayed behind while the others checked the ground. One climbed onto a rock and watched the road. Another had some kind of flat board. He kept scratching marks onto it."
Edric said nothing for several seconds.
"They were armed?"
"Yes."
"With what?"
"Short spears. Bows, I think. One carried something like a small crossbow. Their clothes matched too."
"Matched?"
"Not exactly the same, but close. Same kind of leather. Same packs. They moved like soldiers."
Edric stood.
"Where did you see them?"
"Near the old stream crossing, east of the charcoal trail."
That was less than two hours from Brackenford.
Edric walked outside and looked toward the palisade. Farmers were already leaving through the southern gate. A merchant wagon waited beside the well. Nothing looked unusual, which somehow made Tomas’s report worse.
He turned to the sergeant near the watchtower.
"Close the eastern gate. No one leaves through it until I return."
The sergeant blinked.
"Bandits?"
"Maybe."
Edric did not want the village panicking over creatures he had not seen himself.
He selected seven guards to accompany him, including Tomas. Eight men in total would be enough to investigate seven small strangers without stripping Brackenford of its defenses. Two carried crossbows. The others had spears, short swords, and round shields. Most wore padded coats reinforced with old pieces of mail gathered through years of service.
They entered the forest less than twenty minutes later.
Tomas led the party.
The patrol moved slowly along the road before leaving it near the charcoal trail. The deeper they went, the quieter Edric became. He began finding signs even before Tomas pointed them out.
Small footprints.
Too narrow for adult humans.
The tracks appeared in groups rather than scattered randomly. Whoever made them had moved along the edge of the trail, avoiding open ground whenever possible.
Edric crouched beside one impression.
"They knew enough not to use the road."
Tomas nodded.
"That’s what frightened me, they seemed to be intelligent."
The patrol continued toward the stream.
They found the goblins before reaching it.
One of Edric’s men raised a fist and pointed through the trees.
Seven figures stood near a shallow ridge overlooking the road below.
Edric finally saw them clearly.
Tomas had described them well. They were short, most standing somewhere between a child and a small adult, but there was nothing childlike about them. Their skin ranged from dull green to darker olive. Their ears were long and pointed, their faces broad, and several exposed sharp teeth when they spoke to one another.
Their equipment immediately destroyed any remaining possibility that they were wild creatures.
They wore fitted leather armor reinforced with overlapping plates. Small packs rested against their backs. Their boots were properly made. Two carried compact bows. One held a short mechanical weapon that looked very much like a crossbow adapted to their size. The others carried short spears and curved blades.
One goblin knelt beside the road with a flat board resting on his thigh.
He was writing.
Edric felt something cold move through his stomach.
One of the goblins suddenly looked directly toward the trees where Edric’s patrol stood.
The creature made a sharp sound.
Every goblin moved at once.
The writer rolled sideways and grabbed his weapon. Two ranged fighters disappeared behind trees. The others spread into positions without shouting or colliding.
Edric raised his hand.
"Hold."
His men stopped.
He stepped into the open with his shield lowered.
"Who are you?"
The goblins stared at him.
One answered in a harsh language Edric had never heard.
"I don’t understand you."
The goblin spoke again.
Edric pointed toward the east and then made a pushing motion with his hand.
"Go back."
The goblins did not move.
Behind him, one of the younger guards whispered.
"Captain, they’re monsters."
"Quiet."
The goblin holding the small crossbow shifted slightly.
One of Edric’s men reacted.
He raised his own weapon.
"Put that down," Edric snapped.
Too late.
The goblin fired.
The bolt passed over Edric’s shoulder and struck the young guard in the throat.
The man collapsed without making a sound.
Everything broke apart.
"Shields!"
Edric raised his own as another projectile struck its wooden face. His men surged forward, angry and frightened.
One guard charged too far ahead.
A goblin ducked beneath his spear, slashed behind his knee, and jumped backward. A second goblin came from the side before the man could recover. Its blade punched repeatedly into the gap beneath his arm.
The guard screamed once before falling.
Edric drove forward and smashed his shield into the attacking goblin. The creature stumbled, and Tomas thrust his spear into its chest.
It went down immediately.
"Stay together!" Edric shouted. "Stop chasing them!"
The goblins were faster than his men and knew it. They moved between trees, attacking exposed targets before retreating. Their ranged fighters aimed for faces, legs, and gaps in armor rather than wasting shots against shields.
A bolt struck one guard in the thigh.
Another caught an arrow through the shoulder.
Edric realized with sudden disbelief that his patrol was losing.
Seven creatures half their size had already killed two men.
He pulled the surviving guards closer.
"Form on me! Spears forward!"
The tighter formation changed the fight.
The goblins could no longer isolate individual men as easily. Edric’s soldiers were physically stronger, and their longer spears gave them an advantage once they stopped scattering through the trees.
One goblin rushed toward the flank and found two spearpoints waiting. It tried to turn away, but Tomas struck it through the side.
A second goblin fired from behind a fallen log. One of Edric’s crossbowmen answered. The human bolt hit the creature high in the chest and threw it backward.
The remaining goblins began pulling toward the stream.
Edric saw one of them dragging a wounded companion.
"Press them!"
His guards advanced together.
At the stream bank, another goblin slipped on wet stones while trying to retreat. Edric reached it first. The creature swung its short blade at his thigh, but he caught the strike on his shield and drove his sword downward.
The goblin stopped moving.
Four dead.
Three remained.
The survivors did not break into panic.
One fired twice while the other two retreated. Then they withdrew in sequence, each covering the others until the forest swallowed them.
Tomas took several steps after them.
Edric grabbed his shoulder.
"No!"
"They’re escaping."
Edric pointed back toward the patrol.
Three guards lay dead.
Two more were wounded badly enough that one could barely stand.
"We follow them and they finish the rest of us."
Tomas stopped.
The forest became quiet again.
Edric suddenly became aware of how hard he was breathing.
He counted the casualties.
Four goblins dead.
Three escaped.
Three of his own men dead.
Two wounded.
Only three guards besides himself remained capable of fighting properly.
For several moments nobody spoke.
Then one of the injured men looked toward the nearest goblin corpse.
"What in the gods’ names are those things?"
Edric wiped blood from his sword.
"I don’t know."
He knelt beside the body.
Up close, the equipment disturbed him even more. The blade was properly forged. The leather armor had been cut to a standard pattern. Inside the pack he found dried food wrapped carefully against moisture, rope, spare bowstrings, a small knife, a water container, and several pieces of writing material covered in symbols he could not understand.
He found a folded sheet with rough lines marked across it.
A map.
Not a good one yet.
But part of the eastern road was unmistakable.
Edric stared at it.
"They were mapping us."
Tomas looked toward the forest.
"Scouts?"
"Most likely."
One of the guards shook his head.
"Scouts for who?"
Edric looked east, toward the direction where the surviving goblins had disappeared.
"There should be other kingdom in the vicinity.
He stood on his legs.
"Take their weapons. Take the writing. Anything with symbols or markings comes with us."
He looked toward the bodies of his men.
"And prepare stretchers."
The return to Brackenford was slow.
The wounded had to be supported, and the dead were carried between spears and cloaks. Edric kept glancing toward the trees. He no longer saw seven strange creatures.
He imagined seventy.
Seven hundred.
The thought of fighting 700 goblins bothered him more each time.
At the edge of the forest, Tomas walked beside him.
"What do we tell the village?"
"The truth."
"That monsters attacked us?"
Edric looked at the captured map tucked beneath his arm.
"No."
He turned toward Brackenford’s palisade in the distance.
"We tell them soldiers are in the eastern woods."
Once they reached the gate, Edric would send a rider to the nearest Caldris military post with the fastest horse available.
His report would contain no stories about monsters or forest spirits.
Seven unknown green-skinned soldiers encountered east of Brackenford. Four killed. Three escaped. Three Caldris guards dead. Two wounded.
Organized equipment.
Military discipline.
Reconnaissance activity.
Possible hostile force operating inside the eastern frontier.
Edric had left the village that morning believing he was investigating something strange.
He returned knowing something far worse.
Whatever those creatures were, they had not wandered into Caldris by accident.
And the three that escaped now knew exactly where to find Brackenford.
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