The four runtlings moved like shadows across the forest floor—quick, twitchy, and low to the earth.
Scab led the way, his face a mangled mess of dried blood and scar tissue. Only one eye worked, flicking side to side with the paranoid intensity of a hunted thing. Behind him crept Retch, Flicker, and Nosebite, their rusted daggers and jagged bits of scavenged metal clutched tight in grubby fists. Tools of pain, not war.
But war wasn't the plan tonight.
Their target wasn't the house.
It was the people.
Eye Stabber Ha-Rashion had been clear: Bring one back. Alive. Injured, preferably. Screaming, ideally.
The bait didn't need to be clever. Just convincing.
Scab gave a signal—two clicks of his tongue and a twist of his fingers—and the runtlings scattered into the brush at the edge of the human perimeter. They skirted the gravel ring, avoided the oil-drum traps, and stayed clear of the open spaces. Those had been mapped. Too risky.
They needed soft ground.
They found it in a clearing just beyond the barbed-wire field—down near the gully where the humans had abandoned a giant yellow machine. No patrol. No watch. Just frogs croaking and faint human voices drifting down from the house above.
Perfect.
Retch knelt and smeared blood across the grass from a grimy pouch at his side. Flicker, the fastest, strung a tripline of greasy gut-string low between two shrubs. Nosebite planted fake boot prints using a hacked-off rubber sole.
And Scab?
Scab crouched beside the excavator, unhinged his jaw wider than seemed possible, and rammed two broken crossbow bolts through his own cheek. Blood ran freely now, mixing with the old. It painted a story: injured, desperate, dying goblin.
Then he flopped into the clearing.
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"Urrrghh… hhhelb… mmmheee…"
He dragged his leg through the dirt—real wound, real pain—and groaned again, louder this time.
"Uuurghhh… hhhumanss… plz…"
In the brush, the other runtlings tensed, limbs coiled like snakes.
If a human came running?
Strike.
If more than one?
Scatter.
But if just one wandered down—curious, cautious, maybe thinking it was a stray goblin in trouble…
Then they'd have their prize.
A blade to the hamstring. A net. A blow to the head.
Then drag them screaming to the Chief.
Tarni lounged on the couch with a deepening scowl.
"Oi!" he shouted toward the window. "Zane, turn this bloody thing off already!"
Outside, somewhere just beyond the veranda, muffled laughter answered him.
"Sorry, mate!" Zane called back. "Just wanted to see how long Create Light lasts when you stick it on someone else."
Tarni twisted to glare at the softly glowing orb bobbing over his shoulder. It hovered like a smug little sun, casting a warm yellow halo over him—and making him the single most visible thing for a hundred metres.
"I'm going on watch soon! I look like a bloody lighthouse!"
"You're welcome," Zane said, sipping his tea. "Now the goblins won't miss you."
Bell chuckled, then grimaced at herself as she called out from where she was sitting at the kitchen table. "Zane!"
The tone in her voice made Zane wince.
"Yeah, yeah," he called up to Tarni. "I'll kill it before your shift. It's a good test, that's all—I think it might come in handy."
Tarni grumbled, "Think of it as a boot up your arse next time I see you."
Still, he didn't swat the orb away. It was kind of useful, and part of him was curious.
The house sat in low-power mode: generator off, solar battery running silent. Lily had blacked out the big windows, and the only other light came from candles flickering on the kitchen table.
Kai sat nearby, hunched over a book, eyes squinting as he tried to read by candlelight. None of them were tired. Not really. Not after the chase through the bush and the mad scramble over barbed wire that afternoon.
They'd learned something important: two people on watch weren't enough anymore.
So they'd set a rotation. Zane and Lily had the first shift while the others stayed awake. Later, Tarni, Bell, and Kai would take over.
For now, Lily was doing slow patrols around the house. Zane tried to keep eyes on her and their makeshift defences at the same time—watching the gravel ring, the ladder, the drum traps, and the treeline all at once.
Then Lily reached the corner of the house, near the excavator.
She stopped.
There—just beyond the yellow excavator, came a low sound.
"Urrrghh… hhhelb… mmmheee…"
She froze.
A moan.
Barely a whisper.
Her bow came up, arrow nocked but not drawn. She moved forward slowly, her boots silent in the grass.
Her first thought was to call for help. Better to be sure.
But a voice in her head—soft, cruel—whispered: You were the last to get the System. They think you're weaker. Slower. You've got to prove yourself.
Terrible logic. She knew it.
But still, she moved toward the sound, alone.
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