In one of the tents there were a few slaves together in a cage. Some arrived a few months ago, others had been here for years. Bran was one of the later.
He was only 16 years old when the goblins destroyed his squad and took him as a sex slave. That was about four or five years ago, he couldn't really keep count of the days. He knew that winter was closing in, since the tent started to get colder each day, but that was all he could manage.
In the same cage was three other person, one man and two woman. They arrived somewhere before summer, maybe at the end of last winter? Bran didn't know...
They talked about two larger cities falling to realm gates, one of the girls even talked about surviving the disaster, but soon after that she got captured. Her age was young, a bit younger than Bran, 18 or 19... He didn't remember, or care.
The people in his cage tried talking to him, but he hasn't spoken a word in years. At this point he didn't even know how. The years of torture broke him completely.
At first he thought someone will care about them and liberate them, but nobody came. But when that realization first came he didn't stop hoping, praying to any deity that would hear him, and after that didn't work he tried to take his fate into his own hands and escape... How naive he was.
There was no way out, no escape, no liberation... Nobody would come for them.
The night came and Bran knew exactly what that entailed... Another day of torture.
When the goblins came to take them for their bodies he didn't care, he let them drag him and the others away, because there was nothing he could do. His eyes weren't afraid like the girls', they were just hollow... But then something changed.
The goblins turned their heads and ran out of the tent leaving them in an open cage. From the outside shouts came in the goblin language, then screams... Goblin screams.
The usual giggling that was a constant echo around the camp turned silent. It took the four of them a long time to notice it. The whole camp was quiet, not like a church but a graveyard. The only sound was the cold wind's howl within the open flaps of the tent.
The wind brought something else though, the smell of rusty iron. Bran knew that smell more than the other three. It was a very special one, the smell of goblin blood.
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He stood up from the ground and with a few quick steps looked outside. He expected to see some sort of goblin fight, but that's wasn't where the blood came from. The source was a road made entirely from corpses.
*Laughter*
Somewhere near him or more like around him the sound of mad laughing came, it took him a few minutes to find its source... his own mouth.
With one quick movement she pulled back her arm, and threw the spear so hard, Bran didn't even see it until it hit its target. One of the goblin female in front of the chief got her head pierced by the spear and she instantly fell over dead.
The spear in her skull slowly dissolved into speck of light and appeared back in Sera's hand.
*Laughter* "So? Will you come and fight me now?" Her grin was scary even for Bran, but also a deep satisfaction grew inside his heart. Seeing the despair on the chief's face was something that filled him with great joy.
The anger spread on his face and with a mad scream he jumped towards the mysterious slayer. Her weapon changed again, this time into a western longsword and with one move she stopped the attack that was about to decapitate her.
The chief wasn't even slowed by the block and in the next moment he moved to her side stabbing towards her right leg. The smile on the woman's face grew as she parried the attack.
They exchanged another few moves before separating. Only now did Bran notice the limp in her right side, and he quickly understood why the goblin tried to attack that leg.
"Dum Ba Qua!" In his mind Bran quickly translated the words. "Not bad whore!" This time he did use whore as an insult, the woman didn't care though, and just began another exchange.
Her sword moved with accuracy Bran had never seen. Each cut or stab nearly hit some point on the chief's armor which would be a death sentence, but the goblin had one advantage over the mysterious goblin slayer... He was an ascended.
Suddenly he giggled and moved back a few steps. In the next second he seemed to disperse into a cloud of colors, and after about five seconds he settled back into his goblin form... Except he wasn't alone.
From the cloud five goblin chief's stepped out of and they immediately encircled Sera. Her head moved to try and keep all of them in her sight, but that was impossible. Seeing this ability her whole demeanor changed and she turned serious.
Specks of light appeared around her head and a helmet soon appeared. Also on her chest a small pendant grew out of the armor, it looked like a dragon or something. Bran didn't understand what was the pendant's purpose, but as the goblin slayer's sword ignited with dark flames, it didn't take a genius to figure it out.
She spun her sword around a few times leaving scorch marks everywhere it touched the ground, then strangely enough she turned around and cut a spear out of the air.
One of the harem members that looked very similar to the female who had died, threw the spear. Her face had tear marks on it, which brought happiness to Bran.
It only took him a moment to look at the female, but within that time frame one of the copies was already stabbed through the chest. As the goblin hit the ground he dissolved into a colorful cloud and reassembled himself into a copy.
*Laughter* "Marvelous! What other tricks do you have up in your sleeve?... And here I thought your biggest weapon would be boredom."
The goblin chief giggled as well, and in the next second all five copies attacked at the same time.