— They closed the gate, — Pieck muttered as we surveyed the empty village, standing at the edge of the forest.
— That's no problem, — the woman-chasing Hef grinned. — I can climb that palisade even without a rope. And I have a rope.
The weather favored us. The bright sun generously warmed this cruel world with its rays. I felt unusually vigorous. I don't know if the reason for such well-being was the presence of the attached Slann or simple adrenaline.
Hungry, dirty, scratched by Goblin claws, I felt better than when I woke up in my homeworld under a warm blanket. Life flowed through me. Every sunbeam, every new smell was perceived incredibly vividly. Even the local stench was no longer so bothersome, and the heaviness of the helmet, pressing down on my head again, didn't hinder me.
— There is likely a way to strengthen this weak body, warm-blood, — the Slann declared to me. — Enter the battle with the savages. I will take steps to help you.
Very good. I hope this time my personal hypnotoad will succeed.
The Halfling Eri skillfully loaded the heavy pistol. Carefully and even lovingly, he poured in powder, rammed a wad into the barrel, and rolled in a bullet, followed by another wad, securing all the contents of the future shot. Pieck grinned maliciously, looking at the Halfling.
— You're wasting powder, shorty. You'll shoot one, but what about the rest? You have to hack and slash Gobs.
— Thank you for your advice, Herr Pieck, — Erik replied. — That bullet is for their leader. When you shoot the leader, hacking and slashing the rest is much easier.
— He has a point, — one of the hunters boomed, weighing a cleaver in his hand.
However, Pieck only grimaced, continuing to needle the Halfling.
— You want to fight too? Did the shorty-cook decide he's a soldier?
— Fight? No. What are you talking about! — the Halfling grinned, weighing his spiked hammer in his hand. — I'll just be tenderizing very, very fresh meat. That's what being a full-cycle cook is called. Kill, butcher, cook!
A bloodthirsty madness flashed in Erik's eyes that I hadn't seen even in the Goblins.
— Eri doesn't like greenies, — Magg commented, picking his nose. — They ate his wife, his nose, and his dog.
— Magg, buddy, — the Halfling smiled venomously. — I specifically asked you not to tell everyone about that. It makes me sad.
— Oh, right, — the Ogre boomed, slightly guilty. — Since I got smacked a couple of times by a Troll, I started forgetting little things. But I remember the main thing. Let's go eat! Follow me, skinny! — Magg announced, and raising his club, led us into the attack.
Even Pieck didn't argue with the Ogre and silently followed him, placing his hand on his saber.
At the gate, Hef pulled out a coil of rope, made a loop, and tossed it onto the palisade, catching onto the sharpened point of a log. Pushing off with his feet, the hunter easily climbed up. Hef swung over the palisade and a few minutes later, the gate swung open. The sight of the captured village's devastation once again presented itself to me.
Bones, garbage, scraps of clothing, broken pots, and empty ale barrels lay everywhere. Human skeletons could be seen in the embers of the bonfire.
Pieck looked around, squinting his cold, cruel eyes.
— Where was your guard post, boy? — he asked me. — Where was the weapon storage?
If only I knew. My memory offered no clues. No feeling of déjà vu. However, I had to answer something.
— I don't know exactly. Something might have been left in the watchtowers.
— We need to get our hands on shields and spears, — Pieck continued to reason. — Even those blind green bastards will be shooting arrows and throwing whatever they can. Look for gear, but don't go inside the houses. Look, see… — Pieck pointed to the fortified tavern. — They boarded up the windows. That means they're still inside.
The tavern windows were indeed boarded up in places, and in others, simply covered from the inside with cloth. Pieck's companions scattered throughout the village, looking for gear. I also headed along the palisade to look into the watchtowers.
The corpse of the guard from whom I managed to loot the helmet and spear was gone. The Greenskins probably ate him. That tower had been thoroughly searched by the raiders. Nothing useful remained.
My companions were much luckier. When I came out of the tower, one of the hunters was armed with a long pitchfork, another added a shield made from a barrel lid to his short sword, a third brought a large splitting axe, and Herr Pieck found a perfectly normal rectangular shield with a faded Imperial eagle.
— Kill, and don't let yourselves be killed, — Pieck said as words of encouragement.
Magg was much more eloquent and loud.
— Greenies are hiding, and I'll knock on their door! — Gut-Gouger chuckled and, with a cheerful smile, charged toward the fortified tavern.
The ground shook from the Ogre's stomping. Even despite the powerful stomach plate, his belly wobbled as he ran. The metal of the armor on his arms clattered.
Magg's club was a piece of a young tree trunk about two meters long. The end of the club was bound with metal. There were four protrusions there, each the size of my fist.
When the three-meter-tall Ogre, grasping his club like a battering ram, slammed into the tavern doors, there was first the cracking of wood, and then the squealing of Goblins. Even the Greenskins who had drunk heavily last night instantly woke up from such an intrusion.
Could we have taken them out by stealth? I doubt it. The gang leader was probably clever enough to lock himself in tightly and post sentries.
The Ogre's onslaught was monstrous. He knocked down the door with a single blow and even broke part of the doorway with his bulk. I was afraid that Magg would rush inside, where the Goblins could stab him from all sides, but the Ogre showed some cunning. After breaking through the passage, he recoiled. In his free hand, a desperately whimpering Goblin in a black cloak thrashed. Magg Gut-Gouger smiled, turning to us. He now resembled a fisherman proudly showing off his first catch of the day. The Ogre shook his hand, as if assessing the Goblin's weight.
— Good, well-fed one, — Magg decreed and violently slammed the greenie against his stomach plate.
Something cracked. The Goblin fell silent. Then Magg tossed him toward Eri. The cook added to the Goblin's misery with his meat hammer. He struck its limbs, breaking the small bones.
The Goblins in the tavern recovered from the initial shock. I saw black figures huddle inside, bristling with weapons.
— Let's go! — Pieck commanded, raising his saber. — Break the windows! Blind the bastards.
The people rushed to the assault. Mugs, shards of broken crockery, short spears, and arrows flew from the tavern in our direction. However, the Goblins were firing wildly.
Pieck ducked low, shielding almost his entire profile. I crept along behind his back. That's how we moved out from under the firing, ending up by one of the windows.
— Go on, lad, — the mercenary croaked.
I first broke the miraculously intact glass with the blunt end of my spear, and then pierced the black cloth with the point and pulled it toward me. Blades immediately began to protrude from the resulting gaps. They swung blindly to hit the enemy, but the length of the spear allowed me to remain relatively safe.
Pieck made a short, almost invisible movement with his saber. One of the Goblins shrieked. Its wrist was nearly severed.
When I cleared the window of the cloth and sunlight penetrated through it into the tavern, the Goblins whimpered and recoiled. Fear was audible in their nasty voices. This was incredibly satisfying. A well-deserved payback for their night atrocities.
The next window was boarded up. We had to struggle with it. The boards held fast. Through the cracks, the Goblins tried to reach us with spears. However, then a easily recognizable voice rang out:
— Stand aside, skinnies!
The Ogre slammed the boarded-up window with his club, using both hands. Cracking, glass shards, and splinters flew in all directions. The tavern building seemed to tremble. Dust fell from its roof. Magg struck again and again. He smashed windows, breaking out fragments of the log walls smeared with clay. The Ogre almost tore the building down entirely.
Through more and more new holes, the sun burst into the tavern. The line of Night Goblins pressed deeper, where the last shadows gathered. The wretches whined and cursed.
— Evil sun, bad sun!
The Goblins pulled their hoods down over their eyes. Squealing, frightened little ones scurried at their feet. Snotlings, probably.
— Spill their blood, warm-blood, — the Slann instructed me.
— With pleasure, — I replied.
Magg's club strikes widened what was once a doorway even further. Our squad began the assault on the Gobs. I tried to stay close to Pieck. The other mercenaries also split into pairs. Before us was a writhing mass of Gobs in black cloaks. They swung blades and spears in all directions, hiding their faces under their hoods. But from time to time, one of them would lift the fabric, looking at us with red, watering eyes.
Pieck selected one of the Goblins, who was especially actively swinging a curved blade, and slashed his arm with his saber. A howl rang out. Other Goblins rushed at Pieck, but he deftly stepped away, covering himself with his shield. I retreated with him. With my left hand, I simultaneously made a long lunge, stabbing one of the Goblins in the side. It twitched, pushing its neighbor. The whole mass of Gobs swayed like a school of fish scared by predators.
— Smash the greens! — one of the hunters encouraged himself with a shout and deeply plunged his pitchfork into the Goblin crowd.
I also stabbed again and again. Striking with my left hand, holding the cleaver on my shoulder with my right. For a second, time seemed to stop for me. As if in a dream, I saw an ancient stone bowl, illuminated by the bright rays of the sun. Complex carvings in the form of lizard heads adorned the vessel. Sacrificial blood sloshed at the bottom. The image appeared and vanished. There was no time to think about it. I was stabbing Goblins.
There were several dozen of them in the tavern hall and even more in other rooms. A real crowd. If they had all rushed at once, even Magg might have been in trouble. However, the sun was on our side. In addition, Magg and Eri clearly had a lot of experience in Greenskin extermination.
— Are you Gobbos or damned runts! — the leader I knew from the night before, who had ordered the Squigs to be released, yelled. — Come on, bash the 'oomies! Stab them in the…
A shot rang out. The leader froze for a moment and collapsed with a punctured head. The Goblins panicked worse than before. I looked to my right. Erik was standing there, gripping the smoking pistol. The Halfling brought the barrel to his noseless nostrils and inhaled the scent of burned powder with obvious pleasure. The Halfling smiled blissfully.
When the Goblins did try to counterattack, Magg Gut-Gouger made his move. With one swing of his club, he diminished the Greenskins' enthusiasm. However, the Ogre wasn't trying to smear them all into a thin layer on the floor. From time to time, he would grab one of the Goblins, stun it against the plate on his belly, and toss it aside. Collecting his future dinner.
It seemed that the greenies were doomed. Deprived of their leader and constantly taking losses, they began to retreat into the other rooms of the tavern. Where it was still relatively dark. My other old acquaintance made one last attempt to snap back.
A Shaman, brandishing a staff, emerged from the ranks of the Greenskins. One of his arms was bandaged. The fracture had not yet healed. The Shaman, rolling his eyes, began to mumble something. Green sparks flashed above him. The Goblins cheered up.
— Magg! Sorcerer! — Erik shouted.
The Ogre was already heading there, but it was too late. A second more and the sorcery would work. Then I stepped in. Squeezing my eyes shut, I lunged to the side, positioning myself between the Shaman and the Ogre. With a corner of my mind, I managed to think that my resistance to magic might surprise my new comrades. Therefore, to explain such a miracle, I shouted the first thing that came to mind.
— Sigmar protect! Sigma…
A green flash struck my face. There was a smell of burnt hair and cloth. The pain was simply disgusting, but I managed to stay on my feet, and most importantly, I didn't suffer serious wounds. When my eyelids opened, a crowd of stunned Gobs stood before me.
— You again! — the Shaman shrieked in a mix of malice and despair. — Not fairrrrrrr!
He turned, wanting to run away. The other Goblins followed suit. I stabbed the Shaman in the back with my spear, and then rushed forward. There was no more resistance. I properly slammed the cleaver into the Shaman's back from my right shoulder. I aimed for the head, but missed by a bit. The image of the ritual bowl appeared before my eyes again.
Now I managed to see that it had a kind of measuring divisions. Lines made of gold and rubies. The blood in the bowl had become a little more.
I hacked at the retreating Gobs, barely using the spear anymore. In an adrenaline rush, the cleaver, which had seemed heavy before, darted in my hand. Every new blow felt stronger than the previous ones. I was no longer just slicing the Gobs, but embedding the cleaver into their bodies, leaving deep wounds. Shoulders, necks, muzzles, ears — I chopped everything indiscriminately.
The sacrificial bowl appeared before my eyes again for a moment. It was now almost half full. The blood in it was bubbling and glowing red.
When the Goblins finally left the large hall of the tavern, I got a couple of seconds to think. The Greenskins had fled into the back rooms and cellars.
Many of the green runts lay dead on the floor, but there were noticeably more wounded. Piteous groans sounded from all sides. However, I had to tread carefully. Some Goblins remained dangerous even lying down. One of the mercenaries cried out and cursed when a wounded Goblin stabbed him in the leg. I finished it off, seeing the hallucination-like image again.
The bloody bowl. Could this be…
But before I could talk to my cold-blooded companion, Pieck and the hunters rushed up to me. The mercenary leader, having dropped his shield, gripped my shoulder.
— What was that, boy?! — he bellowed.
One of the hunters answered for me. Crossing himself with some gesture that vaguely resembled the sign of the cross, the strong man stammered in superstitious awe:
— That's Sigmar… The Hammer-Wielder protected him from the sorcery. Look, Pieck.
The hunter pointed at the ceiling. One of the large supporting beams was cracked and scorched by the ricochet of the spell. Such an attack would clearly have killed a human. Even an Ogre would have had a tough time.
Pieck tugged at my collar, peering under my shirt.
— Are you wearing some kind of amulet? A talisman?
— No, — I replied. — I don't know why I survived myself, but this isn't the first time. I rushed to cover Magg from the sorcery because that Shaman couldn't kill me anymore. It happened last night. It seemed like the end for me. I closed my eyes and prayed, and when I opened them, the Shaman was very angry.
— See! — the superstitious hunter confirmed. — That's Sigmar! I told you! His holy ones are immune to evil sorcery.
— Holy ones are one thing, but this is just a tavern boy, — Pieck persisted. — Did you tell us everything?! Look me in the eye!
Pieck's insistence and anger were unpleasant to me. However, I didn't feel like striking him. He was a human after all. The bloody bowl again appeared before my eyes. It no longer flickered, and the contents inside were slightly less. Then it dawned on me: it's a gauge! It filled up while I was hacking and stabbing the Goblins.
— Leave the lad alone, Herr Pieck, — Erik interceded for me, breaking the legs of the wounded Goblins. — He helped us a great deal today. There are many miracles in the world. Perhaps he is blessed by the gods or has Dwarfs among his ancestors.
— Dwarfs don't shag humans, — Pieck objected.
— Actually, they do shag, — Hef spoke up. — I once saw one of their Troll Slayers, and he was reaching for every woman's ass. Maybe the boy's a little Dwarf? He's small and…
— And can Dwarfs actually make children with humans, though? — the mercenary wounded in the leg pondered. — Shagging is one thing, but having a child is another. For instance, I could theoretically screw a goat.
A general laugh rang out.
— Theoretically, you bastard! — the mercenary was indignant. — Well, anyway, my point is that a lamb won't be born, right?
— Where do you think Beastmen come from? — another mercenary replied through his laughter. — You've probably birthed more than one herd of mutants, you filthy goat-fucker.
— If it weren't for my leg, Pauhl, I would now…
Amidst the discussion on interspecies breeding, everyone, including Pieck, forgot about me and my resistance to magic. It seemed that victory was already in our pocket. Perhaps a couple more houses needed to be cleared, but the main Goblin forces were defeated. However, fate is full of surprises.
The light dimmed slightly as two huge figures partially blocked the former doorway, which had now become a breach. All the mercenaries fell silent at once. It was the first time I saw these creatures live, but I already guessed who was before us. Trolls. Huge, ugly beasts.
One was larger. In his right paw, he held a large bone of some gigantic animal, which he used as a club. The smaller Troll was unarmed, but my eyes almost bled just glancing at the creature. Two huge, saggy breasts with spotted nipples reached almost to the female Troll's stomach.
Next to the big ones stood a Goblin, covering his eyes with his hood. The small scoundrel had performed practically a feat by the standards of his race. Enduring the sun's rays, almost blind, he had led the gang's War Trolls here.
— Bash the 'oomies! — he squealed, jabbing a crooked finger.
The humans tensed. Eri frantically reloaded his pistol. Magg gripped his club more securely. However, unexpectedly for everyone, including the Goblin, the Trolls behaved completely non-aggressively. They were likely sated, a little drunk, and had just woken up. These dull creatures were only nominal allies of the Goblins. Of course, they would rush at enemies in the heat of battle when special drivers directed them into the thick of the fight. But now the Trolls probably didn't feel like fighting. The female kicked the noisy Goblin into flight, and her mate, letting out a loud burp, slowly shuffled away.
— Sigmar the Merciful… — the devout hunter whispered. — I will definitely donate to the temple as soon as…
He didn't finish speaking. The female suddenly turned and began to walk toward us with interest. The humans raised their weapons, but the Troll didn't attempt to attack. She walked up to Magg Gut-Gouger, looking at him with a pair of bleary, stupid eyes. The Troll smiled, showing crooked yellow teeth. She took the Ogre by one of his large arms and tried to pull it away from his club to place it… on her saggy breasts.
— No! — Magg recoiled. — Woman, you are scarier than an empty plate! Go to your man.
However, the Troll clearly didn't understand his speech. She began to advance on the Ogre, trying to embrace him. At that moment, her mate turned around very inopportunely. He immediately understood the situation. His eyes turned bloodshot. Raising his bone club, the Troll charged into battle!