Dorro couldn’t believe he was still alive.
In the past minutes, he’d engaged no fewer than ten goblin fighters, and by some miracle, many were dead and he was not. Granted, the bookmaster couldn’t take credit for winnowing down so many goblins—he was surrounded by Dwarf fighters, several of whom had assisted mightily. He was astounded with how ferocious both the Dwarves and goblins were, hacking and hewing each other with frightening sword, axe, bow, and mace blows.
It was brutal combat in the cool Autumn air. The ground of the forest had become littered with the dead body parts and ash from the burning trees.
The trees! There, I can be more useful, Dorro thought, and he immediately ran towards the flames. While the battle continued around him, he began stamping out flames and kicking dirt into the conflagration to reduce the heat. His jerkin and heavy gloves were helping him ward off the fire, and his efforts were beginning to pay off as a few hot spots began to smolder.
From behind, Dorro felt something painful jab his ribs, knocking the wind out of him for a moment. He turned to find a goblin spear on the ground and its warty owner coming up to finish the job.
“Stay away from my forest, foul beast!” he heard himself say, quite bravely in fact.
“Ach, we shall burn all your trees to the ground, puny mouse, and slaughter yer children,” the goblin hissed back. “And I shall wear your bones as a luv’ly crown.”
Dorro knew something about the genus orkus and how intelligent they were—this was just battle talk to intimidate him. However, the goblin didn’t know that; to him, Dorro looked like a frail Halfling about to wet himself. The bookmaster played that up as the beast moved within two strides.
“Oh please, Mr. Goblin, don’t hurt me! I’m just a wee little fellow and more accustomed to gardening than fighting. You wouldn’t attack me, would you, especially considering your powerful arms and weapons?”
The creature stopped short, listening to Dorro’s words. “You are one of the smart ones. We were told you miserable Halflings would just run and flee from us, but you are wise to realize our superior potential. We are the masters now. Maybe if I let you live, you will serve me as a slave. Träag will like that!”
Dorro fell to his knees in supplication, weeping and moaning for mercy. Above him, Träag put his hands on his hips and laughed.
“My own little puppy! You will be my pet, and the others in my clan will be jealous, especially my brother Knüt.”
Träag was laughing so hard, in fact, that he didn’t see Dorro whip out his sword and swing it in a deadly lateral arc. Nor did he really understand what happened as he began falling to the ground. Had he been paying more attention, he would have realized that the tiny Halfling had neatly severed his leg just below the knee and that he couldn’t stand on one leg. It was only a fleet second later that the pair’s roles had been reversed—the goblin warrior lying prostate on the forest floor, while the Halfling stood over him with a bright sword, about to end his life.
“You deserve to die, goblin scum! For what you did to our trees, I should kill you now.” Dorro was breathing hard and felt anger surging through his veins.
“Spare Träag, oh mighty one. I only meant to toy with you; I would have freed you later, I promise!”
“I would kill you, but seeing you up close reminds me of a friend, one of your kind,” said the bookmaster. “He would have spared your life.”
“You, friends with orkus? Impossible! An orkus who did that would die. Where is he?” screamed Träag, trying to staunch the flow of black blood from his leg stump with his belt.
“Oh, he is far away and safe from you and your clan. I made sure your kind would never harm him.”
“These are lies!” roared Träag. “You are a filthy Halfling after all!”
The one-legged goblin leapt up on his stump and pulled a hidden dagger from his tunic, pulling back to stab his foe in the heart.
Dorro knew the end was coming, but heard a giant Creak! behind him. Above them, a badly scorched oak tree broke in half, sending its upper trunk and crown hurtling towards the two. The Thimble Downer leapt out of the way as Träag screamed, yet without a second leg, could not move.
Dorro looked just as the tree toppled to the ground, crushing the goblin to death. The bookmaster was horrified, but felt it was strange justice.
No one messed with a Thimble Downer’s forest and lived to tell the tale.
* * *
Sheriff Forgo’s plan to create a defensive barrier near Fell’s Corner never materialized, for the sole reason that the goblin fighters were already inside the village. The orkus had, as Forgo guessed, come over the tops of the burrows and now were everywhere.
There was hand-to-hand fighting in every direction, though as the lawman noted, the Halflings were acquitting themselves well. He saw Farmer Duck decapitate not one, but four goblins with one swing of his field scythe, while Nutylla Parfinn bashed a few heads in with an iron skillet from the kitchen of the Bumbling Badger.
Dowdy Cray and Bog the Blacksmith took down more than a few monsters, Dowdy with a wagon axle that he’d fashioned into a spear and Bog with a wooden mallet that he wielded with terrifying accuracy. Together, they slew at least twenty of the enemy.
“Sheriff, help!” Forgo turned to see tiny Minty Pinter riding on the shoulders of a goblin while thrashing him on head with a stick. But it wouldn’t be long until poor Minty would be shaken off and killed. A ball of silver flashed by and slammed the goblin between the eyes, rendering him instantly dead. The creature lay on the ground, with Minty pinned under his leg. Someone ran up to free him, as well as retrieve his spiked metal mace. He stood and locked eyes with Forgo, who was shocked to see Silas Fibbhook staring back at him.
“Well on ya, lad,” was all Forgo managed to say, as the brawny Fibbhook ran off to engage more goblins with that mighty weapon of his. He had assumed that the smeltery’s foreman had run off and hid like ’ol Bindlestiff, but was grateful to see him out there, risking his life for his fellow Halflings. “Maybe that one’s not such a rotten egg after all. Whoa!”
Swoosh!
A blade nearly lopped his own head off that time, but the Sheriff snapped back to reality and took on the goblins who’d jumped onto the lane from a nearby burrow roof. The monsters began taunting him and making crude remarks about his mother. That was all that was necessary to get Forgo fired up and begin slicing the attackers with his own worthy sword.
A few seconds later, the three orkus were dead or dying.
“No one says things like that about my Mum!” he roared, already running down the lane to the next skirmish. Forgo knew there were too many goblins for the villagers to fight off, but good news came down the line—there was a fresh Dwarf force attacking from the north. He didn’t realize this was Crumble and Aramina’s battalion, but he’d take all the help he could get.
The goblins sensed pressure on their rear flank and began fleeing. They were pinched between Forgo’s valiant Thimble Down fighters pushing up from the center of the village and the Dwarves bearing down from the West-Upper Down road.
As the Sheriff looked towards the far end of Fell’s Corner, he saw the Dwarves break the goblin line, and one fighter in particular whoopin’ and hollerin’ as he descended on the frantic orkus fighters, hewing them left and right. Yet as Forgo soon learned, it wasn’t a he—it was a she.
“Beware, Malachite Molly, ye beasties!” screamed Aramina Wump from the saddle of her war pony, both of them covered in armor and leather. “Fear my sword! Run from my mace because it will be the last thing you’ll ever see, goblin scum!
With Crumble and Orli trailing her, Aramina was knocking heads off left and right, and the goblins ran in terror from her, breaking out towards the East, where there were woods to hide in. Soon, Dwarf and Halfling forces met at the edge of town, Forgo and the Dwarf she-warrior clasping hands as fellow warriors.
“You are a marvel, Malachite Molly!” gushed the Sheriff. “I’ve never seen anyone fight so well. You must have killed fifty goblins.”
“Seventy-five, at least!” boasted Aramina. “When Molly goes berserk in battle, I can’t control her—she enjoys her work.
“Have you seen Dorro? He disappeared about a week ago with the girl Cheeryup Tunbridge. As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen Crumble or you around for nearly that long, too.”
Aramina cackled loudly. “Oh, we’ve been on the adventure of a lifetime, but I bet ol’ Dorro would rather tell you of it himself. Last I saw him was in the Great Wood about an hour ago. He was acquittin’ himself well in battle and trying to quell the fires them goblin mischief makers had set. A fearsome look was on his face—that Mr. Dorro loves his trees and flowers!”
“That he does, Aramina—I mean, Molly.” Forgo could tell she preferred that name in battle. “I hope he’s still alive. Minty, Dowdy, Bog! Come with me—we need to find the bookmaster.”
At that precise moment, the skies finally opened up, and a thick, chilly rain began to fall on the battlefield. It would make the fighting harder, Forgo knew, but for the burning forest, this was a gift.
If only they could find Dorro and the younglings before trouble found them.