Page 76 of Winter Unleashed
Astrid tilted her head. “I’m not sure what a stormtrooper is, but yes, this is what you’re going to wear.” She snapped her fingers. “There you are.”
“What the fuck?” I muttered when I looked down at my lap. A quick glance around the room showed we were all outfitted in the strange armor.
“Now for weapons.” When she snapped her fingers again, we had belts holding knives and small swords. “Chop their little ugly heads off.”
“What about our power?” I asked.
“I can’t be sure. Shifters don’t go to Alfurgrund. The magic there will limit Celeste’s and my power, so it’s logical to expect yours to be diluted as well.”
My shoulders slumped as I pulled out a sword to examine it. “How big are these goblin things?”
“About the size of a toddler,” Astrid said. “But they’re fast and vicious.”
“How will we know where Celeste is?” I asked.
All the scenes Astrid had conjured up for Liam and me were never-ending landscapes of rambling meadows or fairytale gardens that went on forever or dark forests of incomprehensible sizes. If Alfurgrund was anything like any of them, we could be there for decades searching for the fairy.
“I’ll know,” she replied, and without waiting for a response she snapped her fingers again.
The weight of the armorwas unexpected, and I fell to the damp ground of Alfurgrund. Liam helped me up as I let my eyes roam over the landscape. It reminded me of a trash dump. The ground was brown and muddy. Steam rose from various places, some of it bubbled up making gross slopping sounds, and any trees or other flora had long since died. Or maybe that’s just what they looked like. When the smell of sewage hit me, the helmet went from dreaded to welcome. I didn’t want to know how bad the stench would be without it.
We followed Astrid through the desolate terrain. We walked for what felt like miles without meeting another living thing. It was so quiet, after a while, I wondered if we’d even come across any of the goblins. The only sounds were from our stormtrooper boots sticking to the muddy ground as we walked.
Astrid stopped abruptly and held up a hand. No one spoke as she concentrated on the strange world surrounding us. After a few minutes, we followed her as she turned left. We made it five steps before she stopped again.
“They’re coming,” she said in a strained voice.
“Goblins?” I asked looking around for any signs of the creatures.
I focused on the spot she was looking at when she nodded. There were no strange creatures, but the ground seemed to breathe. Big mounds of mud undulated toward us, stopping a few feet in front of our group. I watched in amazement and disgust as the mounds grew and slowly revealed the ugliest creatures I’d ever seen. The parts of them that weren’t covered in mud were stone gray and wrinkled. They looked like elderly gargoyles.
When they had fully emerged from the muck, they grinned to show their sharp, pointy teeth and black gums. We all drew our weapons at the same time. None of us could take our eyes off the little buggers. They were hideous and ominous, and clearly capable of causing us great harm.
And in the blink of an eye, we were fighting to keep them from latching onto us. They lashed out with their dagger claws, snapped at us with their razor-like teeth, and threw tiny knives at us. I was the first to detach one’s head from its body and the resulting geyser of green blood was more than I could ever have expected.
It smelled like rotten eggs and coated my armor like slime. “Astrid, why the fuck didn’t you warn us about that shit?” I yelled through the helmet and the sounds of the melee.
“Slipped my mind,” she returned as she sliced her sward through the middle of a chubby one. The top half of his body fell to the side and more green shit spewed everywhere.
I shook my head at her memory lapse. It was bullshit. The Fae always left something out. They never told you the full story. There always had to be a surprise. Like the pixie venom. She’d only told us about the pixie dust and it being itchy. Nothing about the toxic and lethal venom.
Fucking fairies,I thought as I decapitated another bastard.
Once we were sure the goblins were dead and no more were coming, we continued our trek to find Celeste. Every once in a while, a green sparkle would come from Astrid’s hands. I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of fairy GPS to find Celeste or if she was casting an anti-goblin spell around our group. Either way, we didn’t run into any more of the little creeps until we found Celeste’s cabin.
Smoke flowed from the chimney indicating she was home or had been recently. The smell coming from the open windows was horrid. But the worst part was the goblins mounds surrounding the cabin. As we neared the house, the little weirdos came out of their hiding spots to form a chain of protection around the cabin. Once they were all in place, the front door opened, and Celeste stepped outside, carefully staying behind the goblins.
“So, you’ve found me,” she said, giving Astrid a pointed look. “I trust this means Cybil is dead?”
Astrid stepped forward, ignoring the snarls from the goblins closest to her. Whatever Celeste saw through Astrid’s helmet had a flicker of fear passing over her face. She backed up until her feet were over the threshold of her door. The second she was inside her cabin a swirling gray mist enveloped the house. She stood in her doorway with a smug look as the goblins snarled and hissed at us. They didn’t advance though, which led me to believe they were there in case we crossed the invisible line in the sand.
“Well, we can’t stand here forever staring at these creepy gargoyles,” I said, earning a hiss from the goblins. “Should we just attack or…” I shrugged when I couldn’t think of an ‘or.’
“Or we can let the little fuckers decide for us,” Isaac said as the little creeps finally made a move.
As they advanced on us, more emerged from the ground. We were a group of seven against a horde of vicious little creatures. As we slashed our way through the little fuckers, I looked up at Celeste. She stared at us with a slack jaw and wide eyes.
“We’re killing them faster than she thought,” I whispered more to myself than anyone else, but Celeste heard me.