No, what it took to kill the party was a massive explosion from the rear of the camp that sent chunks of wood and unknown trinkets flying through the air. The music stopped abruptly, and the dancers immediately crouched into ready positions. Some of the warriors reached for the weapons at their sides, and the archers on the perimeter turned their attention to the smoking husk. It was their storage building, now bathed in a soft red glow from the pieces that were still on fire. For a moment, silence descended upon the camp, save only for the soft crackling of the flames.
Then they heard the clacking of claws and the scraping of feet.
Eric said nothing as he stared at the blade still quivering in the wood less than two inches from his head. There hadn’t been time to react, not rationally, when they heard the explosion. Eric had merely glanced at the storage building, seen something coming, and hurled himself to the side. So great was the force from the blast that the axe Grumph had been carrying whipped through one set of the cage’s bars with ease, sinking at least halfway into the wooden barriers on the other side. Eric was intimately familiar with that spot; his head had been there only an instant before.
“The fuck?” Gabrielle said at last, eyes trained on the smoldering building uncomfortably close to them. It was strange, the way the flames were cascading through the smoke; it almost appeared that there were shapes moving in the wreckage. It must be a mirage. Her party members were the only ones large enough to make such shadows, and they were all stuck in cages.
“We need to go,” Thistle said, grabbing his companions’ attention. While the others had been caught up in shock, he’d examined the hole that the axe had carved through the cage’s bars. It wasn’t too large, big enough for him to fit through without much trouble, though the same couldn’t be said for the humans. In this instance, however, the cage’s flexibility worked to its disadvantage. While a material that moved made breaking through more difficult, once a hole was carved, it meant areas could be stretched as needed.
“Go?” Eric asked, still unwilling to look away from the axe that tried to behead him.
“Vamoose, escape, do the kobold charge, run away,” Thistle clarified. “Someone blowing up part of an entrenched goblin encampment means an attack, and I prefer not to be unarmed and trapped in a cage during such circumstances.”
“You’re wrong,” Gabrielle declared. “These goblins are smart and safe. No one could have surprised them like this. It was probably just some magic item they didn’t know was going to blow up. We’re in no danger.”
“That theory is a good one,” Thistle complimented. “But it doesn’t explain why the goblins all seem to be braced for attack.”
A quick glance confirmed he was right. The children and non-warrior goblins were being herded toward the other side of the camp, while those with armor and weapons slowly advanced toward the remains of the storage shed. It was then that Eric’s human hearing finally caught up to what the goblins’ large ears had already noticed.
“What is that noise?”
Thistle and Gabrielle cocked their own heads, listening intently. Now that he’d pointed it out, there was a strange clacking sound coming from the burning building. To Gabrielle, it was completely alien; however, Thistle went white as a wight when he heard it.
“We need to get out and get clear, now.” Thistle tugged on Eric’s tunic. In a motion quicker than one would have suspected his knobby form capable of, the gnome slipped through the hole and landed softly on the ground.
“Why? Do you know what it is?” Eric asked.
Thistle opened his mouth to speak, and as he did, the first of the monsters stepped into view. It was hideous—six feet tall with red, gnarled flesh along its twisted body. Atop its shoulders sat the head of a malformed rat, upper jaw stretched out inches further than its lower. Instead of hands, it had claws like that of scorpion, the clacking sound suddenly making a sickly amount of sense to all in attendance. The legs were birdish, long and lean with feet that spread into four individual claws. Despite all of this, it was the eyes that were most disconcerting, black orbs like midnight dipped in ink. Looking into one, a person couldn’t help but feel like they were being sucked into that abyss.
“Demons,” Thistle said, his voice scarcely above a whisper.
Grumph had put the book down when the celebration began, and he’d stood up in the cage after the explosion rocked the camp. However, since he was closer to the lines of warriors than the others, Grumph was less impetuous about getting free from his mobile prison. As they began advancing toward the building, Grumph shuffled his position slightly. The goblins had their back to him, and the explosion had dropped his importance in their list of immediate priorities, yet he was patient. Grumph did not move until he saw something that compelled him to. It was not seeing the demon emerge from the smoking ruins, nor was it observing a few of the goblins near the rear drop their weapons and flee. No, the signal that told Grumph things were getting dangerous was when he caught sight of the terror on Thistle’s face. He’d known the gnome for many years, and anything that spooked him in such a manner was not to be taken lightly.
The goblin cages were sturdy, well-designed, and built to last. Grumph was impressed by their construction. Had he been a mere mindless brute, the cage would have proved more than a match for his strength. By contrast, had he possessed the knowledge to assess such a contraption, but not the power to act on such information, he would also have been stuck. Thankfully, Grumph was an experienced craftsman with muscles cultivated by centuries of half-orc breeding. In a controlled motion, he seized one of the areas in the corner where a bar had been improperly bound. With a grunt of effort that would have been noticeable in any other situation (demons do tend to steal focus), Grumph tore the bars apart. From there, it was a simple matter to disassemble a few exposed binding cords and knock away a section large enough for him to emerge from.
He landed softly, choosing stealth over speed, the whole process having taken less than a minute. In that time, three more of the creatures had stepped forth from the fire. In the chaos, Grumph couldn’t quite make out whether his friends were free from their cage yet. A quick survey of the ground at his feet netted Grumph an abandoned goblin polearm. It felt more akin to a dagger on a stick in his considerable hands, but he would take it over nothing.
With careful steps, Grumph began edging his way around the bulk of the goblin troops and toward his friends’ cage. He might have made it unnoticed, too, if the demons hadn’t chosen that moment to leap.
The first landed dead center in the mass of the goblin warriors, letting out a horrendous shriek as it seized one in each claw. Another came down on the side of camp where the largest exit was, clacking its claws excitedly. The initial demon to emerge stayed put; evidently it felt no need for relocation. The final demon leapt the furthest, soaring through the air and landing with a muffled thump.
It was less than four sword lengths away from Grumph.
6.
When the demon emerged, the humans had needed very little in terms of convincing to leave the cage. Eric slid out with relative ease, his narrow, lean frame no longer encumbered by the heavy metal burden that had weighed him down. Gabrielle had found the task a bit tougher. Though brought up a proper lady, her love of horse riding and self-defense courses (in a vain attempt to stem her kidnappings) had left her strong and somewhat more muscular than one might imagine. After two unsuccessful tries to squeeze through the cage, she took a new approach.