Chapter Three
My girls and I were immediately on high alert at the piercing sound that echoed from the Mist Woods. Even with the vine wall shielding us from most of the sounds outside of it, the shriek somehow made its way in and bounced across my vast farmland.
“What in the hells is that?” Raeth growled as she gripped the hilt of her greatsword sticking out over her shoulder.
“I don’t know, but it’s close,” Karrida said as her sharp blue eyes darted across the stretch of land in front of us. “Very close.”
“What do we do?” Ellyn asked as she eyed the towering wall. “We’re protected in here.”
“What if it’s a lure from Shaar?” Raeth asked. “We shouldn’t risk it.”
“Yes, or more bandits holed up in the forest,” my wife added.
“What if it isn’t?” Karrida suggested as she took a bold step in front of us. “Listen. Does it truly sound like bandits?”
The silence that fell upon us was brief and fleeting. Within a matter of seconds, another shrill cry pierced through the air, followed by similar sounds in quick succession.
Whatever it was, there was more than one.
“I think we should see what it is,” Karrida said as she took another step toward the path winding down to the edge of the farm. “It sounds like something in distress.”
“And if it is a trap?” Raeth demanded. “What then?”
“Then we fight it,” the half-dwarf said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and she set her hand on her own sword. “I’m not defenseless anymore. And if there’s something that could be a threat to Gladewood out there, I think we should stop it before it reaches town.”
She had a point. Even with all of the new defenses, leaving things to chance seemed a little reckless.
The sounds coming from the Mist Woods didn’t sound human, and while that would usually be a terrifying prospect, I’d take a rabid magic-touched animal over another legion of bandits.
“Can you sense anything, Karrida?” I asked as I toyed with the idea.
I really was exhausted, but if there was truly a threat, I needed to deal with it before anything worse happened.
“It’s weak, but it’s there,” the small woman said with her brow furrowed in concentration. “I can’t tell you what it is, but I can feel their panic.”
“Then I guess we need to go and see what it is,” I sighed as I moved back toward the side-by-side. “Let’s get going. The sooner we find out what it is, the sooner we can go to bed.”
“Hear, hear,” Raeth grumbled under her breath as she trudged to the back of the side-by-side and threw herself down.
“You could be a little bit more enthusiastic, Hiraeth,” Karrida teased as she hopped onto the back beside her. “We could be saving lives.”
“Or walking into another hairy fight on very little stamina,” the mercenary fired back as she tightened her vambraces. “Sleep was already beckoning me.”
“Well, sleep will have to wait,” Karrida said as she settled against Raeth’s side. “We’re doing a good thing here. I’m sure of it.”
“I believe you, Karrida,” Ellyn said as she slid into the front next to me. “Your intuition hasn’t led us astray before.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Raeth scoffed.
“You’re such a pessimist, Raeth,” my wife joked as she reached back and ruffled the moping orc’s dark hair.
“You’re only just figuring that out, Blondie?” Raeth shot back, but I could see a smirk tugging at her plump lips.
“I’m very much used to it, trust me,” Ellyn giggled and flicked her pale blonde hair over her shoulder. “You can use that pessimism if we meet something unruly in the woods.”
“Oh, I plan to,” Raeth huffed as she rolled her shoulders.
I restarted the Gator and drove us toward the exit out of my farm, with the shard following a respectable distance behind us. When I approached the wall, the new and improved gate unfurled itself and allowed us passage through.
As soon as we were out of the enclosed territory of my farm, the cold breeze hit us like a slap in the face. I shuddered and was now hyperaware of how I was only wearing my shirt, but there was no time to head back and grab a coat.
The Gator rattled as I drove it over the clumpy ground and into the dense thicket of the Mist Woods. We bobbed up and down as I ran over numerous fallen branches and mounds of dead leaves, and I kept us pointing straight toward the sound of whatever was shrieking in the darkness.
The shard disappeared into the treeline as if it could sense the potential need for secrecy, and there was nothing but dull snapping above us to signify its presence.
The closer we got, the more shrill the sounds became, and the more it sounded like an animal.
“We’re close,” Karrida said as she leaned over our seats and pointed straight ahead. “I can feel them.”
“How many are we talking here, Karrida?” I asked as I unconsciously tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
I was mentally and physically exhausted, and I didn’t want to have to go through another fight, just like Raeth.
“Maybe a dozen,” Karrida said as she scrunched her button nose and squeezed her eyes shut. “I still don’t know what it is.”
“Well, we’re about to find out,” Raeth said as stuck her head through the gap over our seats, too. “Does anyone want to bet?”
“I think I’ll keep my gold close to my chest, thanks,” I commented.
“Bet on it being something passive?” Karrida asked. “You’re on.”
“Ten gold,” Raeth said with a tusky grin. “If you’ve got the coin.”
“I can find some if need be.” The half-dwarf shrugged. “But I know I’m right. Whatever is out there just needs help.”
“So confident for someone who just learned how to use a sword,” the mercenary teased.
“My ability to hold a sword has nothing to do with my sensory abilities,” Karrida said with a proud tilt of her chin. “So, if you want to bet on that, I’d be happy to oblige.”
“Cocky dwarf,” Raeth murmured under her breath, but her smirk didn’t let up. “You’re on. Just for the sake of it.”
I kept the side-by-side rolling straight toward the sound, and after a few more tense moments of driving, I finally pierced through a large shrub blocking what was ahead of us.
As soon as I did, all of the anticipation dissipated like fallout settling on the ground after a nuclear blast.
There, in a small creek cutting through the mossy banks of the Mist Woods, were a dozen goats with black pelts scrambling to get out of knee deep water.
“Shit,” Raeth hissed as she fell back onto her ass. “You were right.”
“I’ll take that gold whenever you’ve got it, Raeth.” Karrida winked with a smug smile. “No rush.”
Some of the goats in the ravine craned their necks to look up at us, and once they’d seen the new intruders, they began shrieking even louder.
Their panicked cries were piercing now, and it sounded like a bunch of knives being dragged across a chalkboard.
The efforts to escape the dark water doubled, and black hoofs scrambled against even blacker fur in order to get out.
It was only when I climbed out of my side-by-side that I realized these weren’t just normal goats we’d stumbled across.
They were huge, for one. Most goats I’d seen had always been the same size as small sheep, but these guys were closer to Fang’s size, if anything.
Their thick black fur hung from their wide backs in sizable locks, and they had huge curling onyx horns that wound around their ears and glowed orange at the tip.
Their irises were a burning orange color, too, and looked like they held flames within them, with one dark black pupil cutting across horizontally.
But most curiously, the water they were standing in was bubbling vigorously.
“What’s wrong with the water?” I asked as I peered over the lip of the bank to see more of the squirming creatures shielding themselves from our view.
“It’s boiling,” Raeth commented as she stood by my side. “You can feel the heat coming from it.”
Raeth was right. Even from our position above them, I was already feeling the soft waft of steam brushing against my skin and fighting off the cold.
“They look like Emberhorn Goats,” Ellyn mused as she joined me at my other side. “They must have fallen down from the mountain and couldn’t find their way back home.”
“The mountain?” I blinked. “The mountain as in… the White Mountains?”
“That’s usually where they reside, although they’re quite rare,” my wife informed me. “They usually stick to themselves. Their fur allows them to survive in almost all weather conditions, which is why a lot of farmers in the colder parts of Mystica like Giir and Vorshaak raise them in bulk.”
“So, why are they here?” I asked. “What could have sent them down here?”
“Maybe they were pulled in by the shard?” Raeth suggested. “It wouldn’t be the first time a creature has followed its call.”
“Emberhorn goats had distant magical qualities even before the shard came to this part of Mystica,” Ellyn said with a shake of her pale blonde head.
“Maybe they were spooked by some of the bandits who came here today. If they passed through the mountain, they might have made a run for it in order to escape them.”
“And wound up stuck in a creek in the middle of the Mist Woods.” I sighed as I looked down at their panicked forms still scrambling to get out and away from us. “What do we do with them? They don’t look like they belong to anyone.”
Their pelts were overgrown and messy, with foliage clinging to the dense locks of black fur hanging from their backs. Their horns wound around in unkempt spirals, and by the state of their hooves, they had never been trimmed before.
“You’re right,” Ellyn agreed. “I doubt they came from any farmer. And their reaction to us doesn’t seem like one from an animal who’s used to people.”
“We need to help them,” Karrida urged. “If we get them out of the creek, they’ll probably go on their way.”
The thought of leaving these animals to their own devices hurt a little, but I wasn’t exactly planning on expanding the number of creatures I had on my farm. Plus, I had no idea how to take care of a normal goat, let alone an Emberhorn one.
“Alright, I suppose we can jump down and try to help them out,” I said, but the bubbling water was making me uneasy.