Free The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Book 1) by Aleron Kong Page A

inane
babbling of goblins, but it worked to distract the rest of the camp for a few
seconds! In those moments of misdirection, he dropped the two jars of poison he
had prepared. He held his breath during the short fall, praying his aim was
true. Success! Both jars dropped into the pot, and quickly sank thanks to the
stones he had placed in each jar to increase their weight. Some poison had
fallen out upon striking the surface of the soup, but luckily whatever vile
ingredients the goblins had found to make their stew left an oily surface. The
dark color of the poison he had prepared could not be distinguished in the
firelight. He started the slow climb back to the safety of the forest, and
began to curse that damn human again!
     Sion made his way back to the
stand of trees that had been hiding them for the last day with no problems.
They waited for another hour, and then cautiously made their way back to the
encampment. When they got there, they realized they could have broken every
branch they found along the way, and they would not have been detected. The
stench of the camp had been increased five-fold. The bowels of every goblin
there had been released from both ends, and almost all were on the ground
groaning. Richter looked at Sion expecting to see another blood thirsty grin,
but all he saw on the Sprite’s face was grim resolve. “I take no joy in
slaughter,” Sion said arching his back and rolling his shoulders, “but I will
not shy from it either.”
     They knocked arrows to their
bows and began. It took very little skill to strike the goblins since they were
barely moving targets. They had decided not to Imbue their first shots for several reasons. One, to keep the encampment from knowing
their position as long as possible. Two, neither had enough mana to imbue the
amount of arrows that were required. Three, Sion had coated all of their arrows
with poison. Neither were sure they even had enough arrows, but thankfully Hisako
had given then several dozen each prior to leaving the Hearth Tree. In the
night, the arrows were nearly invisible. The whsst sound they made as they cut through the air could was not loud enough to
attract the attention of the goblins. Not when each of the green creatures were
mired in their own personal hell. At near point blank range, their shots struck
necks and chests center mass. Apparently the goblins’ sickness and position
qualified some as helpless, because it seemed to Richter there were an inordinate
amount of critical hits. That coupled with the damage the poison had already
done meant one arrow was usually enough to finish each goblin.
     They killed ten, then fifteen
more before the camp at large became aware of them. Even then the cries of alarm
were ignored for a few critical moments, being mistaken for the already
existing moans of pain. By the time there was a coordinated counter attack,
they had killed more than half of the goblins, leaving between fifteen and
twenty scouts and warriors. As the goblins began to move towards the two
archers, Richter’s shots grew more erratic, some missing, others hitting limbs
but few striking critical points. Sion though, was able strike three more, this
time infusing the strikes with mana. The scouts smoking chests made clear that
they would not rise again.
     The first scout reached
Richter, and he smashed it in the face with the end of his bow. Stepping
forward to give Sion the time to make a few more precious shots, he raised his
knife and slashed at the next goblin. It ducked, sending a viscous swipe of its
own knife back at him. His longer reach kept the scout from reaching him with
its blade, but several more were right behind it. A second scout moved in to
his right and grabbed at his leg, holding tightly. With the decreased mobility,
Richter was not able to move out of range of the first and it dove towards him,
the blade in its hand outstretched. It managed a shallow cut on his left leg.
Hunching over slightly, he drove the