Before the goblin could finish his prayer, my black arrow punched through his temple, pinning his head to a tree. Miniature skulls tumbled from his headdress like apples. His fellow goblins paused their attack on the villagers to turn and gawp. I couldn’t help but admire the shot myself.
I whistled high and shrill, hoping to draw the goblins away from their prey: a russet-haired girl from Gloamwood Pines and her old grandfather. Three gobs took the bait, beating the bush in search of the daring archer. I stepped out from the hollow under a fallen tree and put an arrow in the back of each green neck.
Any sensible goblins would have fled in terror, but then, any sensible goblins would be the first sensible goblins anywhere. The remaining three charged the family with a squeaking cry. My arrow sailed an inch from the girl’s head to put out the lead gob’s eye, but I had no clear shot at the other two.
“Moe?” I drawled. Out from the exploding brush rushed a black boar half the size of a horse. She trampled the first goblin without slowing, caught the second with her spiked ramp of a face and splattered him on a nearby oak. “Good girl.”
Shouldering my bow, I stepped toward the family, but the old man hobbled between me and the girl, flashing his gums. “S-stay away!”
“What’s wrong, granddad?” she said.
“Riftspawn! Blasphemy!” he called me, “It’s the Boar Spear, back from the dead.”
Well, the last part is true. The Boar Spear. Hugo Waldemar, actually. Back after almost a century, recovered from a pesky touch of death.
All those years ago, some stubborn woodcutter wouldn’t pay “another blasted coin” to pass through my woods. I was explaining that once Moe got done crushing his fingers, he’d never earn another coin again, when his wife, of all people, took his axe off the cottage wall.
“Funny,” I remember saying, before the air whistled out of my lungs.
Years passed, decades, but I was dead for those. The next thing I knew, I stood on a seamless marble road, stretching on for miles. Statues lined the road, the gods in all their incarnations. I never had much time for worship in life, so I didn’t stop to admire the sculpture.
Beyond the road and statues lay an endless, empty void. Images swirled, purple on black, a gallery of all the unsavory things I’d done before the woodsman’s wife got her bright idea. Doing those things, I’d had a grand time. Watching them made me uncomfortable, like a rock jangling around in the pit of my stomach.
Join me, said a voice in my head that sounded like a million giant snakes sloughing their skin on a slimy rock. Join me and unmake the world.
But I like the world, I thought at the voice. It bleeds when you squeeze it. Anyhow, that life ended with an axe in my back, so thanks but no thanks. With a mind-bending shriek, the void seemed to reach for me.
A crystal gate rose from the path and blew open. Golden light washed over everything, warm and sweet as honey. One by one, it snuffed out my old life’s work, every penny stolen, bone broken, every arrow in the back.
At last, I stood on a pure white path, surrounded by sunlight, and the statues of the gods smiled down, tilting their heads toward the gate. Toward a second chance. All was forgiven, just like that.
I stepped through the crystal arches. After all, you can’t argue with second chances.
“When I was a little boy, he was the terror of Gloamwood," said the codger. "Vigil help us now the Boar Spear’s risen from the grave!”
“Actually, I walked through a crystal door.” I patted Moe’s shoulder as she matter-of-factly disemboweled the trampled goblin just to be thorough. “The Vigil sent me.”
“Ascended!” said the geezer, “You? It can’t be!”
“Can and is, old father. Soon’s I collect my arrows, you can follow your glorious hero back to Gloamwood Pines. Or stay here. I’m sure these are the only goblins in the wood, so you should be safe.” I reclaimed all the arrows but one.
The goblin priest swung from the tree, a breeze rustling the black arrow feathers.
