Snubs glanced through the crowds, looking for any sign of trouble. As the crowd began their moment of silence, a woman’s scream pealed against the dark sky. Snubs could hear drums beating in the distance growing closer. More people began screaming and running away from the Square. As the group stood, he saw Zevran pulling a wand from his belt while Sabacen unsheathed his greatsword. Three green streaks ran through the tables towards the North end of the Square, one leaving a sticky, red trail in his wake.
Snubs watched the group as a whole follow the line of blood to a nearby cart; crouched beneath it was a goblin, licking the blood off his make-shift sword. Giggling to himself as he readied for action.
The goblin leaps from his low position, clamoring onto a nearby table, shoveling food into his mouth. To his right, a fire blazes forth; a second goblin drops a torch into the large brazier at the foot of the new obelisk, a memorial to those slain five years ago. A third goblin appears, running up the steps onto the now empty stage, looking around the receding Square.
Zevran moves towards the first goblin, wand outstretched; a purple flicker of energy sparks down his arm and into the wand, sending forth three beams of shadowy grey light that coalesce into a snarling wolf. It snaps at the legs of the first goblin, missing and biting the wooden table instead. The wood creaks and breaks in the jaw of the beast; it chucks the piece aside, turning again to its foe.
Sabacen reaches one hand towards his chest, grasping a chain and muttering under his breath. His hand glows for an instant, and Snubs feels a pulse of warmth in his chest. He moves and turns his crossbow towards the stage, loosing his first bolt. As he shoots, a javelin whizzes past him towards the stage. Drux runs beside him, readying another javelin.
From the corner of his eye, he sees Tansy racing through the square, dual blades swinging and shining in the fiery glow as she nears the table. She feigns with her longsword, manipulating the goblin to the right where she stabs forward with her short sword. The goblin falls onto the table, shrieking and screaming as it kicks towards her and the wolf, trying to back away.
As it slides on its back, the goblin wildly swings off the edge of the table, trying to return to its hiding spot. He manages to disengage with both Tansy and the wolf, cowering behind the nearby cart. After lighting the brazier, the second goblin turned in time to see Tansy’s charge. He runs towards her, climbing the table and slicing across her arm while she was distracted with her retreating quarry. He laughed and smiled at her, as if this was all a game, grasping a hunk of meat to eat from the blood-splattered table.
A blast of arcane energy shot out from Zevran’s hand, coating the nearby ground with a thin layer of grease. The hiding goblin jumped to avoid it, but slipped, falling on his back into the slimy mess. The wolf growled as he dominated his prone prey, gnawing and biting his legs. Meanwhile, Tansy turned to face her new opponent, swinging with both the left and right, catching the goblin in the middle to tear across his hide armor.
Sabacen dashed through the Square, looking and listening for new foes. Shouts and clanging echoed through the streets in the town below; however, this did not seem like an organized attack. He watched the goblin on the stage leap off to loot a nearby tavern booth, pulling cutlery off the table and into his knapsack. His mind clarified; this was most likely an initial attack, a lesser force to prepare the way for larger numbers or a scouting party probing the city’s defenses.
Snubs and Drux turned, watching the goblin bound across the stage, soaring towards a nearby stand. Snubs lined up his first shot, firing just as Drux’s javelin pierced the goblin’s shoulder, pushing it just out of Snub’s attack. He was prepared; as the goblin turned to face his attackers, Snubs shot hit true, the bolt entering its bulbous eye, snapping its head back.
Zevran moved towards the wolf and captive goblin, hearing it cry, “This wasn’t supposed to happen! This was supposed to be easy!” Zevran responded in Goblin: “What are you doing here? Talk or die?” He snarled a response: “Ask your own, longshanks!” Before he could continue, the wolf clawed his way up the body, ripping its throat out. As the blood pooled around the lifeless body, the wolf turned to Zevran, nodded, an faded out of sight.
As Sabacen finally reached Tansy’s side, the goblin lashed out at him, slicing across the dwarf’s shoulder. Sabacen grinned at the pain, leveling his greatsword to rend the final goblin through the waist. Snubs and Drux turned in time to see the final foe cleaved in two; Drux returned to collect his javelin, while Snubs climbed onto the stage and yelled, “Put the fire out!” Sabacen lifts a hand, pooling water into the air and releasing it over the brazier as steam and smoke billowed forth.
As they turned to the South, Snubs saw flashes of light like torches in the city below. He could hear Hemlock shouting to his troops, organizing the defenses in the lower city. Tansy began running to the causeway; but Zevran remained fixed over the goblin remains, studying the bodies. “They have the mark! The Sihedron Rune!” he shouted through the Square.
As they began moving southward, a cart near the Cathedral went up in flames. Two goblins with fiery torches stood atop the burning cart, while another stood below, trying to light the bottom. A chanting, screeching voice sounded nearby in Common: “Burn the skin and mash the head; goblins here and you be dead!”
