Matthew Nesheim
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Chapter 23: Calista - Battle Along the Docks
🕑 Added 2023-10-20 17:00:07 +0000 UTCDogmoore’s axe flashed again in the firelight, felling the nearest warrior, while Thalias loosed his arrow into the belly of a goblin bowman. Calista, for her part, stepped over so she was back to back with the dwarf Gumner, who had drawn a long sword with his free hand. Parrying a short sword, she punched her attacker with her free hand and as he stagger back, she rammed her blade into his neck. Two more goblins took his place and she managed to grab the spear of the first, while cutting at the skull of his partner.
It was right then that Abby, who was still hanging over Grumner’s back, decided to begin screaming. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” the tavern keeper howled.
As Calista listened to the upside down woman scream, Calista sliced open the belly of the goblin spearman and kicked him on to the corpse of his friend. Then she looked around to see that every goblin within earshot was suddenly looking directly at them.
“Gods dammit!” she spat as she turned around. The buxom red haired woman hanging over Grumner’s back waved her arms in the air while Grumner fought off a goblin armed with a broadsword. The woman’s bosom was nearly falling out of her top as she flopped and bounced against the dwarf’s back. Calista turned, grabbed the screaming bar maid by her hair and shouted, “Would you shut up, woman!” then punched her straight in the jaw.
Grumner hacked another goblin in half with his axe, looked over his shoulder at the now unconscious Abby, and gave Calista a nod, “Thanks.”
She snapped, “You have a real way with women, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” the dwarf agreed.
The four of them then drew themselves into a tight circle as the goblin horde closed in. Dogmoore and Calista then took the lead as they began to fight their way toward the shoreline. Everything from there was fire, blade, and blood until finally Dogmoore cut through a swath of goblins in a single blow, clearing a hole in their enemies.
“Run!” Grumner shouted as they all dashed through the opening and across the road.
Arrows and spears flew past as they ran across a yard, over a broken fence, and onto the docks. Here, another horde of goblins were swarming over the shoreline in an attempt to overrun a handful of watchmen who had constructed a barricade along the shoreline and were attempting shepherd the remaining villagers to their boats.
Dogmoore, not wasting any time, crashed into the goblins with a fury as his axe swept through the unsuspecting green warriors like a scythe through grass. Calista did her best to follow, stabbing and kicking every goblin she could find. As she reached the makeshift barricade the villagers had erected, she spent one glance over her shoulder to see that Grumner and Thalias were close behind.
Over the barrier and down the dock they went, stabbing and swinging at the goblins in the water as they ran. The last of the watchmen had rallied themselves around the two remaining boats. One, a dug out canoe that was full of women and children, and the second a skiff that they had clearly been holding back for any of the surviving fighters. As Calista and her party reached the end of the dock, the canoe launched as its oarsmen desperately paddled away, while a spearman urgently shouted for everyone else to jump aboard the skiff.
However, there was just one problem: The goblins had overrun the skiff and everything else.
The next few moments were a blur as Calista stabbed, sliced, kicked, clawed, and fought her way aboard the skiff. There, she joined the villagers who were locked in a desperate struggle to launch the boat and extract the goblins.
As she jumped aboard, she found herself next to a man flanked by two of the tiny green warriors. Stabbing the first in the back, she grabbed the second by its mouth and sliced its neck open. Then, after running another goblin through with her blade, she made her way to the edge of the skiff where she fought frantically against the goblins who were swimming through the water in an attempt to climb aboard the boat. Soon, the water around the skiff was dark with blood.
However, after several minutes fighting like this, she noticed that the skiff had not yet launched. What do we have to do to get this thing away from the dock? Looking back, she watched the last villager still on the dock fall to his knees with the head of spear sticking from his chest. In his hands was the rope that was still tied from skiff to dock.
Then, before she could react, Dogmoore jumped out of the skiff and onto the dock. With a single swing of his axe, he severed both of the remaining ropes and then kicked the skiff away from the dock.
“Dogmoore!” Thalias shouted, but it was too late, the villagers aboard the skiff had already pushed their oars into the water as they paddled away from the dock. As the gap between dock and skiff began to grow, Thalias pushed past Calista and ran to the side. However, before he could jump into the water, a flaming arrow came flying through the dark and struck him in the chest. The half-elf collapsed into Calista arms. As she held the bard, she looked back at the dock to see the huge, bare-chested man fighting alone against a mass of the little green warriors. His axe rose and fell and rose again as he felled goblin after goblin. However, she could see between his tattoos and broad shoulders that there were wounds as well. Blood streamed down his back and over his face. Finally, as she felt the river’s current begin to carry them away, she saw his shadow fall into the water and move no more.
