That moment feels awfully quiet in my memory, despite the racket of the surrounding me villagers.

  The realisation. The thought that I might have left someone behind in some bushes, bloodied, bruised, scared and hopeless. Possibly dead. Thoughtlessly, in an act of bravery, I turned my horse around and rushed him into a gallop towards the woods once again.

  At first, I wandered.

  A few hours of aimless ride through the woods, turning sharply every few hundred metres and looking behind each and every bush. I scouted the whole edge of the forest, long past the boundary where the village could be even barely seen on the horizon. Wildlife stirred, deers ran from me at first sight, rabbits and hares jumped in their holes, boars stood fearlessly, and finally a bear – from whom it was I who fled. No point in fighting such a ferocious giant.

  Through my wander, I calmed down on the thought of failure and managed to focus on my task. Thus noticing that despite the abundance of game in the forest, there were no wolves. Well, that might have been a reason for the plethora of animals wandering about unperturbed, but I had a feeling deep in my gut.

  That something wasn’t right with the woods.

  If the Count managed to exterminate the local wolf population, he would have surely boasted about it at least once or ten times during the months I spent in the estate. There was no question about it.

  If something else, hunted them down, Marfeld would have been quiet about it neither. Last, the third normal option I would think of, was that the wolves didn’t have who to hunt. But both the state of the forest and the wolf-untouched village denounced that possibility.

  My gut feeling came around the corner once more, and told me, that both the goblin raid and the disappearance of wolves were caused by one, very unnatural, possibly magical in type, factor. And the lost girl, who by all means should have been saved by me a few hours before, along with her fellow village women, had to be entangled with that factor in some way.

  Thus, I resumed my search with newfound passion –instead of on the wood’s edges, deeper and deeper as I went.

  The forest darkened, shadows grew and animals quieted as I moved further from the tree line. Despite the early afternoon, the nocturnal creatures were awake. An owl flew near me, so soundlessly that I wouldn’t notice it if it didn’t show its white feathers in the dim sunlight right before my face, then disappeared among the grasses, bushes and trunks. Few foxes stalked creatures they hoped to outfox, despite the sun still shining above the canopy of trees. Even bats woke up and chased after beetles, or sat on some lonely fruit.

  Sometime in the evening, or earlier as my perception of time was skewed by the unnatural darkening of the world, I saw a lonely tower sticking from between the trees.

  At the time, I was riding through a large clearing, with a few old tree stumps and even remains of a camp. Few burnt logs and a circle of stones, an abandoned campfire. From there, I looked north and saw the pointy roof of a wooden tower, weird, as the wood the structure was made from didn’t look like it was from trees that grew in the proximity.

  Slowly, as I approached the tower, I started to hear noises uncommon for the forest. The same ones I heard this morning – whimpers and croaks of the goblin’s crude speech.

  It was not as loud as nearby the village, but much less restrained – which meant that there were fewer of them there than in the raid party. Or rather, they were a lesser, faster fraction of the raiders who fled to their suspicious-looking hideout with the trophies much earlier than the rest. Somehow, the boy’s sister had to get lost after all.

  When I was near enough to see the goblins in detail, I jumped off my saddle and let my horse loose. Adrianna craves blood sometimes, she really likes to help me when I deal with those who deserve the kiss of my blade. And to be honest, the mare is much more efficient and ruthless when I am not on her. She sometimes even gets more blood on her hooves than I do on my fists and weapons. A pity she couldn’t come to the hall today, what a party would it be…

  “Did he really just say that he would like to drink with his mare? That's some fucked up behaviour, can horses even digest alcohol?” Sekta commented towards his conversation partners: Ekta and the servant boy Tristan.

  “I heard of some noble from around these parts who dabbles in alchemy a bit. Apparently, he tried to get a horse drunk, and let's just say, it wasn’t easy – so, it probably would do nothing.” Tristan answered quietly, from behind them.

  “When you say, ‘it wasn’t easy’, what exactly do you mean by it?” Sekta couldn’t hold her curiosity – stereotypical for the mages at this point – in reigns.

  The boy looked at her with some discomfort before elaborating: “It’s said he had to make the horse drink half a barrel of beer, or even more before it started to look drunk.”

  “So, the horse would be fine? I doubt animals in their weight class would drink so much in a day, not to mention a timeframe in which the whole contents affect them at the same time…” Ekta questioned. As always, Knight-Sister acted all high and honest, giving everyone even chance. No one would bat an eye if she challenged a devilspawn into an honourable duel, instead of charging at it with pikes from all sides.

  “I guess so? I don’t think we can have a definitive answer unless we get a horse drunk ourselves, or find some respectable source, not some dubious roumours and gossip exchanged between the cooks.” Tristan seemed to align with Ekta’s stance.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Wow, well… either way Altarius is an asshole and basta!” Sekta decided, then turned away from the young servant. How dare the two of them find reason in her allegations? What has become of this world, can a girl gossip and complain no more?

  Maybe, it would be actually better to let the Litch leave? There would be plenty to talk about, at least.

  I dealt with the rabble of a force easily, if you even could name a loose group of poorly equipped goblins a force. I bet that if I trained that boy from before for a month or two, given him a good sword and some armour, he would take the group himself. The whole raid was a success only because of the element of surprise and numerical advantage, in my opinion.

  Not that even those factors changed the outcome much. The most valuable commodity – life – was lost mostly on the greenskins’ side, whose bodies burned in the fires. Not to mention about twenty of them who I killed between the village and the tower. Be it in the forest, or below the suspicious structure.

  Surrounding the tower, were dozens of pikes embedded straight into the earth. On top of them, wolf skulls were hanging. Some distance closer, were pens with a few cows, pigs and chickens, who raised a huge commotion while I was dealing with the mob.

  I neared the doorway and entered the tower.

  Before me, there were two ways. One up, one down. After a moment of deliberation, I decided to go up first, and then see what lies below.

  The stairs hugged one of the four tower’s walls and led me to a room fitted like a kitchen. The first floor was empty, but there was some basic cutlery and unfinished food on the table. Still relatively hot. The fire under the stove wasn’t put down either.

  I went to the next floor.

  There, few large beds stood. Very basic and crude, something goblins would make in a feeble attempt to copy human lifestyle. That place was even emptier, as no signs of recent activity remained.

  The next floor didn’t offer the luxury of stairs, instead, there was a ladder perched in the corner of the goblins’ sleeping chamber that led to a hole in the roof. I have to admit, that climbing up into an unknown room, with no way to say if there was someone there was quite scary. But I put my visor down, tightened the straps of my armour and went up.

  Fortunately, no one hit me with a club as I poked out from the hole – but just as I did that, some muffled voice reached me from behind.

  There, two women were tied to a supporting wooden pillar. They looked at me with hope in their eyes, every now and then glancing towards their wrists, bound from behind. Soon, their gags were on the floors and the ropes cut – and the first thing they said shocked me.

  It wasn’t ‘thank you’, or even curses at the captors – the first thing they said, unanimously, was ‘he hid in the basement’.

  So, as any capable knight would, I rushed down the tower. But before I could reach the stairs leading underground, I saw something that turned the blood in my veins ice-cold.

  A middle-aged man, in black, torn clothes and with a large stick in hand, was just getting onto my mare’s saddle as I passed the tower’s doorway. Disregarding the basement, I ran outside in a rush, shouting at Adrianna to come to my side.

  The man cursed loudly – horribly so that I will not repeat what got out of that mouth of his – and fell off Adrianna as she turned sharply towards me. Obediently, as soon as the man was on the ground, she went towards me, disregarding her instinct to cave in his skull with a mighty kick.

  Before she could turn around and attack him along with me, I ordered her to stay away – I had a bad feeling about the man. Who would be able to order around nearly thirty goblins? Certainly not some common shepherd, so, the chance that the man’s stick was a shepherd’s staff was very slim. More likely, a wizard’s focus.

  And I was right, as soon as he stood up, he swung his stick in a wide arc – throwing a ball of fire in my way. I stepped to the side, narrowly dodging the projectile, then dashed at the wizard with my sword in hand, ready to strike.

  Before I could reach him though, he first threw another fireball at me, then, after I dodged once again, smashed a force wave into me. I flew through the air, stopping a few metres further between the bushes.

  The mage didn’t relent, he charged at me with the staff in hand, casting fiery projectiles all the way from where he fell off Adrianna to the bush I stood up from. Of course, I either dodged or redirected the projectiles before they could burn me, but I have to admit that the offensive was a good move on the wizard’s side – I barely managed to stand up and block as he brought the staff, encased in fire, upon my head.

  We wrestled for a moment before I overpowered him and kicked him in the guts, throwing him into a tree. The mage struck the wood heavily, air escaped his lungs and his head banged with an audible crack. Blood started to spill from the back of his head.

  A horrendous scream escaped his mouth, horrifying and mindnumbing. I couldn’t hear anything for minutes afterwards. When the last bits of air flew into the ether, the man clutched his belly and fell onto the ground with his knees next to his head.

  I stood there, rooted to the ground for some reason, as light bent around the figure. He blended, squashed, mixed and whatever that magic mindfuckery was, until there was no man, no wizard.

  Only a snail.

  Snail covered in loose human clothing, holding a staff with one of its antennas. The back of its slimy head was covered in blue liquid – presumably it’s blood.

  I awoke from my stupor, and with a swift horizontal slash, cut off the musky head, before its nasty brain could conjure another projectile.

  And thus, I fulfilled my obligation as a Knight, bringing peace to the realm once more.

  As the Archmage’s hand started to glow green, the headache slowly faded away and the memory of the spell’s usage his behind the story told mere moments ago.

  “So, that’s my story. Did you like it?” Altarius asked the audience, somehow proud of his storytelling. For his aching head, he used a common cure – a pitcher of beer, straight from the castle’s cellar.

  “The last dog I petted would have done a better job. Shitty and predictable, really, how did you manage to have so an un-original adventure?” The Litch laughed, his manner of speech evolved once again, and he appeared more eloquent each time he opened his jaws.

  The Archmage once then there a spell on the ceiling bones, not even commenting the Litch’s rude behaviour.

  “I think it was fine. Though, if I may be honest, the first story we heard would rank higher in my opinion. The rest of them though, would fall short of your adventure, Sir.” Inferir, The Bountyhunter expressed his opinion. From his manner of speech and body language, I was clear he held The Knight in high regard.

  “Thank you, good sir!” Altarius beamed with a smile.

  As the warrior walked back to his previous seat, Sekta couldn’t keep herself from commenting: “It was fine, I guess. But it will be a fucking miracle if our story ranks lower.” She glanced between Tristan and Ekta as if boasting to the boy about the adventure they were about the tell about – but it was clear, she knew that her voice was heard in the whole hall.

  Had a spell not bound the sound around the undead competitor, the rattle of his bones would be the only response to the young witch’s bold claim.