The Chief

The road out of Akebono's eastern gate was well-worn and straight for the first kilometre, then curved into the treeline and became something less certain. Lyra walked at a pace that made clear she was not interested in being waited for. The brothers kept up without difficulty, which seemed to mildly surprise her, though she said nothing about it.

Hayate tried conversation first.

"Have you been in Akebono long?"

"No."

A pause.

"Where did you travel from?"

"Further north."

Another pause.

"Is it nice up north?"

Lyra glanced at him sideways. "Focus on where you're walking."

Hayate looked at Haruki. Haruki gave him a small shake of the head. Hayate faced forward and walked in silence for approximately two minutes before trying again.

"Have you cleared many goblin camps?"

"Yes."

"More than ten?"

"Yes."

"More than twenty?"

Lyra stopped walking.

She turned and looked at Hayate with the patient expression of someone who was going to say something once and expected it to be sufficient. "We have a job to do. There will be time for conversation after it's done. Until then --- eyes forward, ears open, mouth closed." She held his gaze for a moment to make sure the point had landed. Then she turned and kept walking.

Hayate looked at Haruki again.

"She's very focused" he said, quietly.

"Walk" said Haruki.

They stopped at the tree line a hundred metres from the camp and crouched low. Lyra had a hand up before they reached the edge --- the gesture of someone who did not need to explain why they were stopping because the reason was obvious to anyone paying attention.

She surveyed the camp without speaking. So did Haruki.

The settlement was larger than the one they had cleared yesterday --- more structures, better organised in the rough way that goblins organised things, which was to say chaotically but with evident intent. Haruki counted the visible goblins methodically. Fifteen. No shamans visible. No chief.

"Fifteen on the surface" Lyra said, her voice low. "No shamans showing. No chief." She paused. "The listing speculated a chief. The payout was set accordingly. That means either the intelligence was wrong, or they're not showing themselves yet."

"Which do you think?" Haruki asked.

She looked at the camp for another moment. "I think we proceed carefully."

She turned to the brothers. "I want to see how you fight --- properly, with those weapons, against something that will push you. Go in. I'll cover from here. Call out anything that changes and don't do anything reckless."

Hayate was already grinning.

"That second part was specifically for you" Lyra said, looking at him.

"I know" said Hayate. He was still grinning.

She looked at Haruki. Haruki shrugged in a way that meant he agreed with her concern and had long since accepted there was nothing to be done about it.

Lyra notched an arrow. "Go."

Hayate went.

He was three strides into the open ground before the sentence had finished, greatsword already off his back, moving with the particular energy of someone who had been waiting for permission and had not required much of it. Haruki ran after him, which was something he had been doing his entire life and expected to continue doing.

Something fired in the back of his mind as he ran. A calculation that hadn't finished yet --- the payout on the listing had been high. Higher than fifteen goblins and a possible chief justified, even accounting for the shamans. He had noted it yesterday and filed it away and now, running across open ground toward fifteen goblins with no shamans and no chief in sight, the filed note came back with more urgency than before.

The payout doesn't match the numbers. Something is wrong.

He kept running. There was nothing else to do with the information right now except hold it.

The fifteen goblins went down in under eight minutes.

It was not a difficult fight. The goblins were disorganised and reacted poorly to Hayate's opening charge, which was large and loud and drew every eye in the camp to him simultaneously --- which was, Haruki had come to understand, less recklessness and more a crude but effective tactical instinct. While the goblins were watching Hayate, they were not watching Haruki. Haruki used the space that created.

By the end Hayate had taken down eight of the fifteen, which was more than half and considerably more than his share by any reasonable accounting. Haruki had taken five. Two had run into Lyra's arrow range and had not returned.

Haruki straightened up and looked at the camp. No shamans. No chief. The unfinished calculation was louder now.

Across the clearing, Lyra lowered her bow and started walking forward from the treeline. Her expression was neutral but her pace had the quality of someone who had seen enough to form a preliminary assessment and was coming to deliver it.

She made it two steps into the clearing.

The tree line on the far side of the camp erupted.

Twenty goblins. Two shamans --- robed, staffs already raised, the air around them beginning to crackle. And behind them, moving through the press of its own forces with a weight that did not need to hurry, a goblin chief. Larger than any goblin the brothers had seen. Armoured in rough plates of scavenged metal. Carrying a sword that was sized for something bigger than a goblin and using it like it wasn't.

The force split without hesitation --- as if it had been planned, as if they had been watching and waiting for exactly this moment. Fifteen goblins and one shaman peeled left, cutting toward the brothers. Five goblins, the second shaman, and the chief drove directly right.

Directly toward Lyra.