Chapter 394 - Old Foe

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Frey's metal boots left deep impressions as he stomped onwards. Over the course of a half-hour, the sled had become more of a burden to his shoulders than a help. It was slight, but he noticed that he was exhaling larger puffs of air. He did not care if he got a bit tired. He needed that firewood; the only problem being that there was not enough around. Stacked onto his sled were mere sticks and twigs. They would not last an hour. He glanced up at the sun, and grimaced.

"How did this happen," he muttered under his breath. Had he not trained to be stronger? Why was it, then, that it seemed like he could not protect those he needed to protect. He couldn't give a damn about Gwen, but little Arte. Now, he might fail Elero too.

"You must protect your family, no matter what." The memory of his grandfather's words echoed in his head, as if accusing him of weakness.

Frey came to a stop and threw down his axe. "This is not working," he muttered to himself again. He rubbed the sides of his temples and began to pace. 'I can't find any firewood, but all she needs is heat, right? If I can find something hot, will that have the same effect?' He scanned the snow-covered surroundings. 'I must be a moron. How am I supposed to find something hot in the middle of monster infested woods?'

He let out a defeated sigh, and watched with widening eyes as a puff of fog rose into the air. He smirked and breathed out again. 'Maybe I can just blow on her back.'

A thunderous echo set him on his toes.

He glanced over his shoulder as a cloud of white fog rose above the tree cover. He paused, wondering what it was, until an old memory came to mind. He condensed life essence around his legs and took off in a run towards it.

As he got closer to the source of the noise, the air thickened with a white fog. His boots pushed into melted snow and splashed into mud. He leapt over charred branches and splintered trunks.

'I knew it sounded familiar,' he thought as he reached the edge of a clearing. Goblins weren't the only monsters who dwelled within the woods. In front of Frey were other such creatures, but more importantly, sources of heat. Lava Boars. With tentacles of lava dancing in between their sharp tusks, the massive creatures ran into one another. Each clash brought the snow under their hooves into the air as steam.

Frey grinned as he pulled his poleaxe out of his spatial ring. Just one of their tusks would do the trick. He thanked the goddess but, just as he was about to step out, he stopped. He cursed, for the god of Evil must have spat on his good fortune.

The thunderous echoes sounded again, and dozens of trees fell to a wrestling pair of Lava Boars. Frey frowned, and counted six total Lava Boars within the vicinity, then eight, then ten. Dozens. It was their mating season, when it was finally cool enough for them to gather. Frey watched on with great annoyance as the males wrestled each other for dominance.

'Damn, it'll take too long to slaughter them all,' Frey thought. 'And if I leap in, they'll all come after me.'

He glanced at the edges of the clearings, where smaller packs of exhausted, beaten Lava Boars watched the strongest of the herd duke it out. Frey looked up at the sun, and began to circle the clearing.

Everything was a matter of time. He wasn't stealthy like Thomas, so he had to circle at a further distance, lest he gamble with the time he had left by getting closer. 'I have plenty of time as long as I don't aggravate the mass,' he thought to himself as he estimated the hours left in the day.

He hadn't circled halfway around the herd before he heard a voice.

"Get around it!" a voice yelled out. A blast of fire sent a vomit-inducing stench into the air, which Frey recognized to be burning hair.

Frey ducked to the side as a smoldering body flew crashed into a tree, dead on impact. 'I'm never going to get used to this smell,' Frey thought, covering his nose. He turned away from the corpse and curiously crept through a mass of nearby vegetation.

The screams died down the closer Frey got. He passed over spears, which were more like branches that had been whittled to have points. Trunks had markings of a Lava Boar, and he heard its mournful cry mixed into the human ones. He peered through a mess of branches and he found a perfect target, a Lava Boar that had been isolated from the herd. The only problem was that he hadn't found it first.

Humans covered in rags, if at all, launched their improvised weapons into the bloodied Lava Boar which, in return, ransacked their ranks. The attackers dove at the Lava Boar as it passed by, their pale, untrained hands jamming forks and knives into its outer layer of fat. They moved sporadically and without direction, blindly charging the beast only to be either trampled by it or stomped down.

'What are these people doing?' Frey thought. 'They're getting themselves killed!'

Arrows whistled out of the tree cover and into the Lava Boar's back. It let out another mournful cry as blood ran down its lacerated form. Frey condensed life essence around his eyes and found goblins, who launched volley after volley from a safe distance away. The Lava Boar panted and groaned, but the humans would not let it escape. It was more like both sides were trapped.

"Get down!" one of the older humans who, while older, seemed to shout with a hint of combat experience. He shoved a woman out of the way, and was pierced through the gut with a horn as the Lava Boar made another pass at him. The old man drew a dagger out of his back pocket and jammed it through the creature's eyes just before he died, saving the last two humans from a similar demise. The beast fell dead.

Frey condensed life essence around his eyes and scanned the faces of the humans, both dead and alive. None of them were Gwen but strangely he didn't feel relief. 'They're using humans as bait,' he thought. 'Which means Gwen might have gotten captured by them.'

Frey waited and watched the last survivors collapse from exhaustion, the old man's sacrifice made mute. 'Sorry, I could not have saved you anyway.'

The goblins dropped from the tree cover and gave a short, chuckle-filled cheer before moving in on their kill. They split into teams. Half of them used their nimble fingers to cut loose the most valuable parts of the Lava Boar and load it all onto a small sled. The other half went around plucking anything worth more than a copper from the bodies.

Frey felt his heart rate steadily rise. He pulled his pole axe out of his spatial ring and planned out the best path to the sled. As much as he wanted to kill them all, Elero came first. He could always track the goblins down later. He eyed the closest target, the smallest goblin of the group.

The goblin had been shunned to the outer edges of the clearing by the rest of the group. It sighed as it patted down the corpses with the smallest pockets, only to produce lumps of junk. It picked up a small toy from one of the corpses, and smiled. It shook it, and a calming chime greeted its pointed ears.

Frey wrapped his hand around the goblin's neck and twisted until he heard a snap. The toy fell to the ground.

Frey stopped in his tracks, his gaze locked onto the familiar toy. 'Is that…Arte's?'

Battle cries warned Frey that his hesitation had alerted the rest of the group. Looking up, the goblins were already hauling the sled away from the battle while others took aim with their bows.

The first volley bounced off his shield, which formed around his left hand. With his right, he picked up the toy. Bringing it up to his face made his vision blur. He wiped his face on his sleeve and gritted his teeth.

A few months prior…

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