10 Chapter 10

When dawn broke, Tylin, Aerwyn, and his undead beasts began their trek south. It appeared that while Aerwyn slept, Rorik had established a pecking order as the direwolves matched his stride yet kept their distance from the barghest. He pet Rin's little head and asked.

"What, was Rorik bullying the direwolves?"

"KWEE! KWEE!"

Aerwyn picked the little brexil cat up from his lap and hugged her. He realized that out of all the beings he's come in contact with since he woke up she was the only one who showed him any affection. 'Pfft, my closest friend is an undead demon beast.' He laughed at himself before speaking.

"Don't worry i won't let anyone bully my little Rin."

"KWEE! KWEE!"

They traveled for most of the morning while Aerwyn practiced controlling his flames. He was able to push them to his left arm but it only lasted a moment before seemingly rebounding to his entire upper body once more.

Having a moment to think he wondered how Tylin seemed to know where he was going. They were in the middle of a fairly dense forest that barely let the sun light through. Without a better answer it was added to the 'must be an elf thing' list that seemed to be growing larger by the day.

After another hour of walking Tylin hopped off his mount and spoke to Aerwyn.

"Look there across the glade, i want you to handle it on your own. A word of advice, try to only kill creatures yourself when you have at least three souls of the same type. Especially when your soul is in a weakened state, as is currently the case. It's not perfect but it should be a close enough guess from what I've observed over the past few days."

Aerwyn crouched near Tylin to see the encampment he was pointing. Across the glade he could make out a shabby fence surrounding four large earthen huts capped with dry grass. The goblins seemed active although Aerwyn's eyes could barely see them at this distance. A few dozen of the creatures were surrounding a bonfire in the center of the encampment, seemingly in celebration as they yelled and danced around the fire.

"You should hurry, goblins have an excellent sense of smell. They should be noticing us any minute now."

"Ugh, Ren and Rin you stick with me. Rorik you're going to take two direwolves and draw their attack. The other three sneak up and wait in the trees near the encampment until most of the goblins come out, then attack them from behind."

The three direwolves began swiftly sneaking their way around the edges of the glade. Rorik and the other two trotted in the open howling and drawing the attention of the goblins. The goblins began to scatter and grab crude weapons before streaming out of the gate like ants towards Rorik. Aerwyn along with the brexil cats snuck through the forest opposite of the three direwolves.

The goblins were merely a meter tall with diverse shades of green skin, long thin ears, and a mouth full of sharp fangs. They carried mostly sharpened sticks and various crude bone weapons, a few could be seen wearing skulls to protect their heads as well as rib cages and spines for armor. These few were clearly the upper class of the goblins society.

Rorik howled before leaping into the mass of the goblins, swatting away the many spears aiming to take his life. He grabbed a goblin in his jaws bursting the small creature apart as he shook his head. The goblins began to move in after the sudden attack stabbing at Rorik's sides until two direwolves came crashing into them like a wave. The last of the goblins trickled out from the encampment until there were nearly a hundred of them surrounding Rorik and the two direwolves.

Rorik did his job perfectly and once the last goblin ran towards the battle, three more direwolves entered the fray. They smashed into the back line of the creatures knocking many over, before biting and clawing their way to Rorik and the others. A constant stream of souls shot into Aerwyn as he got into position behind the battle. Noticing the many wounds spewing black smoke on his beasts he darted out with Ren and Rin beside him.

He wasn't nearly as quick as the direwolves and was spotted when he was just ten meters away, prompting three goblins to charge him. Rin and Ren immediately jumped into action letting out the brexil cats signature screech disorientating the goblins. Rin quickly zig zagged to the closest goblin using her long claw to rend its ankles. The moment before the goblin hit the ground Ren swiftly jumped up slashing the goblins throat nearly severing its head from its neck.

While the brexil cats were dealing with one the other two goblins regained their senses and charged Aerwyn. One had a wolf skull on its head, it's body was covered from head to toe in numerous bones tightly tied together while the other wore nothing but a simple loin cloth. They both carried bone daggers, however the goblin in the loin cloth's was smaller and more like a knife than a dagger.

Aerwyn swung his spear horizontally slashing through the bone armor as if it were air. He attempted to pull the spear out as quickly as he could but the peculiar spearhead got caught in the goblins mangled chest. Struggling to pull it out, his only choice was to kick the goblin causing both of them to fall to the ground. Luckily the sudden fall loosened whatever the spear was stuck on and he was able to pull it out.

He quickly got back to his feet but the goblin was too close for him to properly use his spear. He attempted to dodge the small knife aiming at his torso but was too slow and the knife dug deep into his hip. The sensation of bone hitting bone rattled him, but he had no time to worry about that as a purple tendril was prying it's way out of his chest. The sudden onslaught of pain nearly caused him to black out before he kicked the goblin to the ground once more.

Fighting through the pain he dove on top of the goblin with his spear impaling the creatures small chest. The creature slashed its knife stabbing it into Aerwyn's arm before he brought the spear up and down once more plunging it into the goblins heart. He sat over the creatures body for a moment to catch his breath, when he stood up another purple tendril was peaking out of his chest as if to remind him he still had a battle to fight.

His pained gaze met the sight of a goblin in bone armor with a wooden spear raised up as if ready to drop it down and end a life, below it was Rin, wounded and spewing out black smoke from her little chest.

"NOOOO!"

'Rage, hatred, hunger'

His eyes immediately burst into dark purple flames as he cocked his arm back to throw his spear. His body was free of flames but the bone knife stuck in his arm began to melt and drip to the ground. Flames poured from his hand and began swirling up the spear as if they were dancing snakes. Using every ounce of strength in his body he let the spear fly. He fell forward when the spear left his hand and not wasting a moment he immediately burst into a sprint towards Rin, reaching her in an instant.

He inspected her quickly not even paying attention to the battle raging around them. A long gash along her ribs was now sealed with a dark tar like substance that he had seen on Rorik before. He didn't know what would happen if she died or even if she could die but he didn't want to test it, not with Rin at least.

She licked his arms as if telling him she was ok and he felt relieved.

"Don't scare me next ti-" His words were interrupted by a mass of purple tendrils reaching out of his chest. There were too many, way too many. The pain was far worse than when he brought Rorik back to life. Collapsing to the ground he could see a clear line of dead goblins. Some were cut completely in half while others had a large hole in their chest.

He felt catatonic as if someone had switched off his brain and left his eyes open. He couldn't move, couldn't think, there was nothing besides the scenes of a battle playing out in front of him. He watched with empty eyes as eleven purple souls shot out to the bodies of goblins in front of him. He could see Ren doing her best to cripple the enemies rushing towards him, not even having the time to finish them off before moving onto the next.

His senses began to return to him as the undead goblins began to stand. They stood silently watching him as if waiting for a command.

"Pro..tect....me" He struggled to speak but managed to get the order out. The influx of souls slowly allowed him to regain the use of his body, he could feel Rin still licking his arms as he watched the final bouts between the goblins and his undead. In his arms, Rin's large gash was gone as if it had never existed at all.

"Are you ok now?"

"KWEE! KWEE!" She happily nuzzled his chest. He stood up still holding her, doing his best to ignore the raging inferno of pain in his chest. Looking at one of the undead goblin he ordered it to go and fetch his spear. He could see Rorik and the direwolves nearby licking their wounds. Ren strutted over with a sense of pride as if saying 'What would you do without me?'. He patted her head but she jumped back immediately like she was dodging an attack causing Aerwyn to laugh.

"Well done!" Tylin yelled enthusiastically behind Aerwyn startling him.

"You were watching! I almost died!"

"Ah, yes but you didn't, praise be the gods." Tylin spoke matter the factly.

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"You hate the gods!!!" Aerwyn went red in the face from anger.

"Yes, yes. If you're complaining about this little encampment what will you say tomorrow i wonder?"

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes tomorrow we... Ahem, i mean you will be raiding the large encampment i found while you were playing around here."