They reached the settlement two hours before dawn. The wounded needed to be carried the last mile. People stumbled with exhaustion.

  Aionel met them at the perimeter. His eyes widened at the number of injured, at the blood-soaked survivors.

  "How many?" he asked Gunnar.

  "Seventeen. Three won't last the night. The rest..." Gunnar's voice was rough from shouting orders during the retreat. "The rest can work if you give them time to heal."

  "Get them inside. Materlyn, Hilde… we need to use any spare site for the wounded, make a camp as fast as possible… Now!!"

  The settlement became an organized chaos again. Space cleared for the wounded. Water heated inside the cauldron. Bandages were torn from whatever fabric could be spared.

  Skuggi found Aionel an hour later near the incomplete defensive wall. The chieftain was examining the gaps, the sections that still needed posts.

  "We don't have much time," Skuggi said.

  "I know."

  "The hobgoblin will come. It wants the healer. It won't stop."

  Aionel looked at the wall. At the people working despite exhaustion, driving stakes into the ground, lashing posts together with rope. "How long do we have?"

  "A day. Maybe two if it's being cautious."

  "That's not enough time to finish this properly."

  "Then we finish it improperly. Make it good enough to slow them down, give our archers clear sightlines."

  Gunnar approached, wiping sawdust from his hands. Despite his wounds… a gash across his scalp, bruised ribs, he'd been working alongside his people. "My farmers can help. Most of them know construction. We've built barns, fences, and repair work. We can speed this up."

  Aionel nodded. "What do you need?"

  "More axes for cutting posts. More rope. And your fighters… the ones not on watch, they need to be making arrows. As many as possible. We'll need volume over quality at this point."

  They organized quickly. Every able body is given a task. The less wounded refugees from Gunnar's village took up axes. Started cutting and trimming posts. Others gathered whatever scrap metal they'd brought, broken tools, and bent nails and began fashioning crude arrowheads.

  Skuggi worked on the wall. His strength made a difference; he could lift posts that normally required three men and could drive stakes into hard ground with force that would crack handles for anyone else.

  The work continued through the morning. People moved with the urgency of those who knew death was coming.

  By midday, the wall was half-finished. A rough perimeter enclosing the core of the settlement. Gaps remained, but the major sections were up.

  Then Skuggi heard it.

  Footsteps... Multiple of them... Coming from the Northeast. The same direction they'd come from last night.

  He stopped working. Listened harder.

  Not running… Walking… steady, with some rhythmic pace. The sound of a group that wasn't trying to hide and wasn't concerned about being heard.

  "They're coming," he said.

  Everyone heard the certainty in his voice. Work stopped... People grabbed weapons to start getting ready….

  "How many?" Aionel asked.

  Skuggi counted the footfalls. "More than before. Thirty at least. Maybe forty."

  "Can we finish the wall?"

  "Not properly, but we can close the gaps enough."

  They moved faster now. Posts were driven in without being properly secured. Sections were tied together with whatever was available. It wasn't quality work. But it created a barrier, something that would slow an assault and force the goblins to climb or break through.

  The last post went in as the first goblin appeared at the tree line.

  Everyone inside the wall. Archers in position. Spears were ready for anyone who broke through.

  Skuggi looked at the approaching horde. Counted them properly now. Forty-three goblins. The hobgoblin in its mismatched armor was leading them.

  They spread out... Began encircling the settlement. They were not attacking yet, just positioning themselves for an even messier attack.

  Then Skuggi saw their eyes.

  They were flat… colorless... No reflection of light, no response to movement. Just hollow spaces where awareness should be.

  He'd seen those eyes before. On corpses. On things that had stopped being alive but hadn't stopped moving.

  He looked closer at individual goblins. Found the one he'd stabbed through the throat last night… The wound was still there, a ragged tear that should have killed it but hadn't. Another one was missing half its face from where he'd thrown the metal shard into its eye socket. It walked normally despite having no depth perception.

  Dead. They were all dead.

  Or undead. Reanimated somehow.

  "Something's wrong," he said to Aionel.

  "I can see that. There are forty of them."

  "No. Look at their eyes. Look at their wounds."

  Aionel squinted. His face changed as he understood. "Those are the ones from yesterday. The ones we killed."

  "Yes."

  "How…"

  Gunnar pushed past them. Went to the wall, looked out through a gap. His hands gripped the wooden posts until his knuckles went white.

  "Gunnar?" Skuggi moved beside him. "What do you see?"

  "What I don't see." His voice cracked. "Astrid. My wife. She's not here. Neither is Olga."

  "Who's Olga?"

  "My daughter. The girl your companion saved yesterday."

  The girl Erik had defended. Skuggi remembered her… seventeen, terrified, backed against a tree.

  "Where are they?" he asked.

  "They went out this morning. To gather medicinal herbs. We're low on supplies; people are dying from infected wounds. Astrid needed specific plants, and Olga knows what to look for." Gunnar turned to face Skuggi. "Your man Erik went with them. He said he'd guard them and keep them safe. Two of my fighters went as well."

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  "When?"

  "Three hours ago. They should have been back by now."

  Skuggi looked at the goblins surrounding the settlement. At the hobgoblin standing apart from the others, watching.

  If the monster wanted Astrid badly enough to coordinate an assault to capture her, it wouldn't pass up an opportunity to take her while she was outside the walls.

  "They're captured," Skuggi said. "Or the hobgoblin is hunting them right now."

  Gunnar's face went gray. "We have to… we have to go after them."

  "We're surrounded."

  "I don't care!"

  Aionel grabbed Gunnar's shoulder. "We need a plan. Rushing out there gets everyone killed."

  "My wife and daughter are out there!"

  "I know. And we'll get them back. But not by being stupid about it."

  Skuggi left them arguing. Went to find Aionel's second, a man named Halvard who'd been organizing the archer positions.

  "The goblins," Skuggi said. "The ones surrounding us. They're undead."

  Halvard's bow drooped. "They're what?"

  "Dead but still moving. I killed some of them yesterday. They're here now with the same wounds."

  "How do we fight that? Arrows won't…"

  "Fire," Skuggi said. "Or probably destroying the body completely. Decapitation, dismemberment, seems like a working condition too as I don't see those that were cut in pieces. Whatever's animating them needs the body to be mostly intact."

  He returned to where Aionel and Gunnar were still talking. Myn An had joined them, the young priest who'd been so timid when she'd first introduced herself.

  "...holy mead," Aionel was saying. "You're a priest of Líf. You can make it, right?"

  Myn An's hands twisted together. "Yes, but…"

  "Then we use it. Drench the goblins. The holy fire will…"

  "It doesn't work like that." Her voice was quiet but firm. "Holy mead requires an altar. Requires multiple believers channeling faith through proper ritual. I'm one person. I don't have the goddess's full blessing here."

  "So you can't make it at all?"

  "I can make a small amount. Enough to fill a waterskin. But it takes time. Concentration. And it won't be as potent as what a full ritual would produce."

  Skuggi stepped into the conversation. "How long?"

  She looked at him. "For one waterskin? Ten minutes if no one interrupts me."

  "Make it. We're going to need it."

  She nodded and hurried away toward where her small shrine had been set up, just a wooden plank with a carved rune of Líf's tree.

  "One waterskin isn't enough to fight forty goblins," Aionel said.

  "It's not for fighting them." Skuggi turned to Gunnar. "It's for rescuing your family. If they're alive, if the hobgoblin has them, we'll need something that can hurt these undead things without getting into prolonged combat."

  A woman's voice behind them: "Where's my son?"

  They turned. A woman Skuggi vaguely recognized… one of the original refugees, middle-aged, worn down by travel and fear. Erik's mother.

  "Where's Erik?" she repeated. Her eyes moved between them, searching for answers. "He was supposed to be on watch this morning but no one's seen him. I asked around. No one knows where he is."

  Skuggi's stomach dropped.

  Erik… Astrid… Olga and the two of Gunnar's fighters. All missing.

  All gone at the same time.

  "He went with Gunnar's wife and daughter," Skuggi said. "To gather herbs. They haven't come back."

  Erik's mother's face crumpled. "No. No, he said he'd be safe. He promised me after yesterday he'd be more careful…"

  "When did you last see him?" Aionel asked.

  "Early this morning. Just after dawn. He said…" She stopped. Breathed. "He said the healer needed guards. That he'd volunteered. That it would be quick."

  Three hours ago. At the same time Gunnar said his family left.

  Skuggi looked at the goblins surrounding them. At the hobgoblin standing motionless, waiting for something.

  Waiting for nightfall, probably. When its forces would have better advantage. When the humans would be tired from a day of preparation and fear.

  But it already had what it wanted. Already had Astrid. The assault might just be a distraction, keeping the settlement focused inward while the real prize was secured elsewhere.

  "I'm going after them," Skuggi said.

  "You can't," Aionel said. "We need you here. If the goblins attack…"

  "They won't attack yet. Look at them. They're positioning but not advancing. The hobgoblin is waiting for something."

  "For dark."

  "Maybe. Or for confirmation that it has the healer secured. Either way, we have a window. If I leave now, I can track them. Find where they're being held."

  Gunnar grabbed Skuggi's arm. "I'm coming with you."

  "No. You're wounded. You'll slow me down."

  "That's my wife. My daughter."

  "And they need me faster than they need your presence. You stay here… Help defend the settlement. If I'm not back by dark..." Skuggi looked at Aionel. "Assume I failed. Do what you have to do to survive."

  Myn An returned carrying a waterskin. The liquid inside sloshed with weight. She held it carefully, like it might explode.

  "It's ready," she said. "But be careful. It's potent. If you spill it on yourself…"

  "I won't." Skuggi took the waterskin. Hung it from his belt opposite his knife. "How do I use it?"

  "Pour it on the undead. It will react to the necromantic energy animating them. Should burn them from the inside out." She paused. "It's not instant. They'll have a few seconds to act before it destroys them completely."

  "Good enough."

  Erik's mother grabbed his other arm. "Find my boy. Please. He's all I have left."

  Skuggi met her eyes. Saw the desperation there. The fear of losing the one thing that made surviving worth it.

  "I'll find him," he said. Made it a promise even knowing he might not be able to keep it.

  He turned to leave. Stopped. Looked back at the goblins surrounding them.

  Forty undead. One hobgoblin with intelligence and the ability to reanimate corpses. Three missing people… one healer, one girl, one impulsive young fighter.

  He walked to the back of the wall. Found a section where he would not be seen by anyone and slipped through the night by jumping to the nearest tree. The goblins watched but didn't move to intercept. They were focused on the settlement, on containment, not on one strange sound from a tree.

  He dropped to the ground outside the perimeter. Started walking toward the forest.

  Behind him, voices called questions. Aionel shouting something about being careful. Gunnar saying something about his family.

  Skuggi didn't respond. Just kept walking. Let his senses open up. Started searching for the trail.

  Three hours old. They'd have a head start.

  But he was faster. Stronger. Didn't tire the way normal humans did.

  He'd find them.

  And then he'd remind the hobgoblin why taking prisoners from someone like him was a mistake it would only make once.

  “???????? ??? ???????... ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ?????????...”

  “Monsters are mirrors... showing only the darkness we refuse to see in ourselves...”

  How was it??