A Desperate Stand

The air, which had been thick with the scent of pine and the distant bleating of sheep, was now acrid with the smell of burning thatch and something metallic, something that made my teeth ache. It was the smell of Eldoria gone wrong, and it was coming for our village. I clutched Lyra’s hand, her knuckles as white as mine. Elder Borin, bless his wizened, perpetually scowling heart, was bellowing orders that sounded suspiciously like “run away in an orderly fashion!”

“Orderly fashion?” Lyra whispered, her voice a tight wire. “These aren’t the usual stray goblins, Elara. Look at them.”

And I did. They were the Marauders, all muscle and swagger and sneering faces. They were the kind of people who treated the world like a particularly stubborn boulder that needed to be shoved out of the way. Their leader, a brute named Kaelen who looked like he’d been carved from granite by a very angry sculptor, strode into the village square. His eyes, the colour of a stormy sea, swept over us, lingering on Lyra and me, who were probably the most out-of-place figures in our tattered tunics and wide, terrified eyes.