Anemoi 24, Imperial Year 1645
The Eastern Valley – The Old Gerrard Farm (Abandoned)
The farmhouse had been empty for three weeks. Not abandoned—emptied. The door hung open, swaying in a wind that smelled of rain and something else. Something sweet. Something wrong.
Goblin Slayer stepped inside. The floorboards were soft, swollen with dark moisture. When he lifted his boot, a thin string of dark fluid clung to the sole, then snapped. He did not look down. He already knew.
A child's shoe. Upturned. The laces still tied. A small sock, once white, lay beside it. The sock was not empty. He did not look closer.
He moved deeper. The hallway walls were scratched low, at the height of a child's hand. But the nails that made them had been too long. Too thick. A single bloody handprint marked the wall at the end of the hall, low, at the height of a child's palm.
The bedroom door was closed. He pressed his ear to the wood. Breathing. Multiple. Shallow. Rapid. The sound of something wet being chewed. A low, guttural hiss.
He stood still. The silence stretched. His jaw ached from clenching. He realized he had been clenching it since he entered the farmhouse. He forced his teeth apart.
He kicked the door open. The door slammed against the wall. A goblin on the other side shrieked.
The bedroom had been transformed. The bed was overturned, mattress slashed, stuffing pulled out and piled in a corner to make a nest. A half‑knitted sweater lay tangled in the stuffing, its needles still crossed. A family portrait hung crooked on the wall, the faces scratched out with something sharp.
Bones littered the floor—small bones, delicate, the kind that came from hands and feet. A spoon lay near the hearth, its handle bent.
Goblins. Six of them. Bruise‑colored skin, wet yellow eyes. One gnawed a curved rib. Another clutched a strip of cloth that might have been a dress. A third was picking its teeth with a finger bone.
They turned. They hissed.
The first leaped at his chest. He caught it on his shield—not a block, a push—redirecting its weight into the wall. Its skull cracked, but it did not die. It writhed, clawing at the floor. He stepped on its throat. Pressed. Felt the cartilage collapse with a wet, sucking sound, like stepping on a rotten melon. It stopped moving.
"One," he said. Quiet.
The second went for his legs. He stomped on its wrist, felt the bones snap like dry twigs, and drove the tip of his sword into its eye socket. The blade scraped against the inside of its skull. He twisted. Pulled free. The goblin convulsed, blood and grey matter leaking from the hole. The stuff was warm on his hand. He wiped it on the goblin's tunic.
"Two." Louder, as if drowning out the gurgle.
The third climbed the wall, launched itself at his back. He heard the scrabbling of its claws, turned, and caught it by the throat. Squeezed. Its windpipe collapsed, but he did not stop. He lifted it off the ground and slammed it against the wall—once, twice, three times—until its skull cracked open and its body went limp.
"Three." Flat.
The remaining three tried to flee. He threw his club. It struck one in the back of the head—a wet, hollow sound. The goblin fell, twitching, its skull caved in. He walked over and stomped on its head. Once. Twice. The skull caved in. He stomped again, to be sure.
"Four."
He walked to the last two. They cowered in the corner, clawing at the wall, trying to dig through stone. He grabbed the first by the hair, pulled its head back, and drove his sword into its mouth. The blade scraped against teeth, then punched through the soft palate. The goblin's scream became a gurgle. He let it slide off the blade.
"Five."
The last goblin tried to bite him. He caught its jaw, forced it open wider than it should go, and heard the joint pop. Then he drove his dagger up under its chin, deep into the skull, and twisted until the body stopped thrashing.
"Six." A whisper.
He stood among the bodies, breathing through his mouth. The smell was thick—old blood, fresh blood, the sour stench of goblin sweat, and beneath it all, the sweet, cloying smell of rot from the overturned mattress. His sword was notched. His shield had a new dent. His shoulder ached where the first goblin had clawed him. His hand, when he reached for the woman, was steady. He did not know why that bothered him.
He searched the room. Behind the nest, he found the farmer's wife. Alive. Her eyes were open. They did not blink. A thin line of drool ran from the corner of her mouth. She did not wipe it away. Her left hand was missing two fingers, the stumps scabbed over. Her dress was torn at the collar, but otherwise intact. She stared at the ceiling.
"Can you walk?"
She did not answer.
He lifted her. She weighed nothing. She smelled of old sweat and urine. She did not react.
He carried her out of the farmhouse, past the sticky floor, past the child's shoe, past the door that still swung in the wind. Rain had begun to fall, cold and steady. The child's shoe was already filling with water.
A farmer on the road saw them—the scratched helm, the blood‑spattered armour, the woman in his arms—and ran to help. His eyes went wide when he saw the helm. He crossed himself. Then he took the woman without a word.
"Is she—?"
"Alive."
"The goblins?"
"Dead."
The farmer carried the woman toward his cart. Goblin Slayer stood in the rain, watching them go. The rain washed the blood from his boots. It did not wash the smell from his nose.
He turned and walked back toward the farmhouse. He stepped over the child's shoe on his way. He did not pick it up.
"Six."
He had not saved the child. He had not saved the husband. He had not saved the farm. He had killed six goblins. That was the contract. That was the job.
He walked into the grey, the rain dripping from the scratched visor of his helm, and did not stop. There would be more. There were always more.
End of Chapter One Hundred Fifteen