"The best accidents are the ones you plan in advance."
***
The sound rolled through the tunnel like distant thunder. Reverberated off the stone walls. Seed to co from everywhere at once.
It wasn’t loud. Not exactly.
But it carried a promise of violence that made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.
We all froze.
Marcus’s manual slipped from his fingers. Hit the stone floor with a sound like a bone snapping. The pages scattered. Absorbed moisture from the damp ground and imdiately began to warp. His face went pale in the torchlight. Shadows pooled in the hollows of his cheeks.
Thomlin’s hand flew to his sword hilt. The motion smooth and instinctive despite his earlier complaints. His knuckles went white around the leather-wrapped grip. His stance widened as he prepared to face whatever was making that noise.
Seraphina imdiately began reaching for the dical supplies at her belt. Her fingers found the clasps of her satchel without needing to look. Her movents were quick but controlled. Professional. The response of soone who’d dealt with ergencies before.
And I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.
Because that’s what terrified cowards did.
Three shapes detached themselves from the shadows thirty feet down the tunnel.
Goblins.
Their yellow eyes reflected our torchlight like malevolent stars. The pupils narrow slits that seed to absorb the illumination rather than reflect it. They were smaller than I’d expected from the novel’s descriptions. Barely four feet tall. Their bodies twisted and hunched as if their spines had been compressed by the weight of the darkness they lived in.
Grey-green skin stretched tight over wiry muscles. Pointed ears twitched at every sound we made.
But their movents held the coiled readiness of natural predators who had spent their entire lives hunting in these tunnels. They knew this terrain. They knew where every shadow fell and every stone lay loose.
And they knew exactly how to use that knowledge to kill.
Crude weapons glinted in their clawed hands. One carried a rusted knife that might have been stolen from so long-dead adventurer. Another gripped a sharpened stick. The point hardened by fire until it glead like obsidian.
The third, slightly larger than his companions, hefted a club made from what was unmistakably a human femur. The bone yellowed with age. Stained dark with old blood.
[Level 2 Goblin Scouts], my Narrative Appraisal inford . The System text appeared at the edge of my vision in neat, clinical lines. [Weak individually, dangerous in groups. Primary tactics: ambush, overwhelming numbers, targeting isolated prey. Known weaknesses: poor eyesight in bright light, limited strategic thinking, tendency toward cowardice when facing superior numbers.]
The information was helpful but hardly necessary. I’d read about goblin encounters in the novel.
What concerned more was what I didn’t know: why only three had appeared when the warrens were supposed to contain at least a dozen scouts in this section alone.
"Contact!" Marcus yelped. Scrambled on hands and knees to retrieve his dropped manual. His torch had fallen too. Rolled dangerously close to the scattered pages. "Enemy forces sighted! Implenting standard engagent protocols as outlined in Chapter Fifteen!"
Oh, for the love of—
"Flanking maneuver!" Marcus barked. Sohow managed to sound both panicked and authoritative at the sa ti. He’d gotten back to his feet. Manual clutched against his chest with one hand while the other retrieved his fallen torch.
"Form Pincer Formation Gamma! Thomlin, take the left flank and establish a defensive anchor! Kaelen, advance right and apply pressure to their formation! Seraphina, maintain support position in the center and prepare for casualty evacuation!"
I stared at him.
The words registered in my brain. But my brain imdiately rejected them as the product of either madness or a fundantal misunderstanding of how physical space worked.
A pincer formation? In a ten-foot-wide tunnel?
Where exactly does he expect us to flank? Through the solid rock walls?
This absolute moron is going to get us all killed. And he’s going to do it while quoting page numbers.
The goblins had stopped their advance. Apparently as confused by Marcus’s tactical brilliance as the rest of us. They chittered among themselves in their guttural language. The sounds sharp and staccato like stones being struck together.
The largest one gestured at us with his bone club. Said sothing that made the others bare their needle teeth in what might have been laughter.
They were probably debating whether to attack imdiately or wait to see what other entertainnt we might provide.
Given Marcus’s performance so far, I couldn’t bla them for wanting to watch the show.
But Marcus was already moving.
He charged down the left side of the tunnel with his sword raised high above his head. His manual sohow still tucked under his arm. His battle cry more of a squeak than a roar.
Thomlin cursed. The word was short. Sharp. Deeply felt.
He followed Marcus into the charge. Clearly recognizing the futility of the maneuver but unwilling to abandon his teammate to certain death. His sword ca up in a proper guard position. His footwork adapted to the uneven terrain even as he ran.
Which left with a choice.
I could follow Marcus’s suicidal orders. Join the charge. Hope that sheer luck would keep from getting gutted by a goblin knife.
I could hang back. Play the coward. Hope the others survived long enough to win without .
Or I could find a way to salvage this disaster without revealing my true capabilities.
Option three it was.
I started forward. Made a show of fumbling with my sword as I drew it from the sheath. The blade caught the torchlight as I raised it.
I made sure to hold it at exactly the wrong angle. Too high. Too far from my body. Completely unbalanced.
The stance of a first-year student who had slept through every weapons class. The kind of mistake that got you killed in real combat because it left your entire midsection exposed.
The goblins saw coming and grinned.
Their needle-sharp teeth glead wetly in the flickering light. Their yellow eyes fixed on with the focused hunger of predators spotting injured prey.
The largest one, the leader judging by the fresh human scalp hanging from his belt like a trophy, pointed at with one clawed finger. Chittered sothing that sounded distinctly mocking.
His companions laughed again. The sound high and harsh in the tunnel’s acoustics.
Perfect.
I stumbled forward. Played up my nervousness with every step. My feet shuffled against the loose stones that littered the tunnel floor. The sound of scraping leather and clicking pebbles announced my position more effectively than any beacon.
Three steps. Five. Seven.
My eyes tracked the ceiling as I moved. Noted the patterns of cracks. The distribution of weight. The places where moisture had weakened the stone over countless years of seepage.
Ahead, slightly to my right, a thin stone pillar supported a section of the ceiling. The pillar looked like it had been holding up that particular chunk of rock through stubbornness and prayer alone. Cracks radiated from its base like frozen lightning. A dark stain spread across its surface where water had been slowly eroding it for decades.
There.
I caught my toe on a particularly large rock and pitched forward with a strangled yelp that echoed through the tunnel. My arms pinwheeled wildly as I fell. The sword flew from my grip and clattered against the wall. My knees hit the ground hard enough to send a jolt of pain up through my thighs.
The rock I’d tripped on skittered across the tunnel floor. Bounced off the walls with sharp cracks that rang like gunshots in the enclosed space.
It careened off another stone. Changed direction.
And struck the thin pillar I’d noticed with a hollow thunk that seed much louder than it should have been.
The impact wasn’t much.
A gentle tap, really.
The kind of impact you’d barely notice under normal circumstances.
But sotis, gentle taps were all you needed.
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