A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 185  The Shadows - Part 10

He threw some of the corpses into the fire that he was building by the cliff, whilst throwing others over it to act as bait.

As the fire grew, he realized that even the stuff that was meant to be acting as a bait would eventually burn, but that didn't matter to him now. He was gathering bodies at such a rate that his only concern was getting rid of them, and continuing to deal with what was coming in.

He was afforded a near thirty-minute window before any more monsters came, and during that time, he was able to clean up the clearing, and set up what he thought to be a far more optimal mode of defence.

When he was done, he dared to breathe a sigh of relief.

His little fire by the cliff was a menacing sight. With a mound of bodies rising up, burrowed in the half-cave that the Konbreakers had created, and the flames of the large fire burning in front of it, it seemed like a sacrifice of some sort. A thoroughly unsettling sight.

Beam's only worry now was that the smoke from the fire would lessen the effects of the lure, or even cancel it out entirely. But given how dangerous things had begun to get with the creatures continually evolving, he figured that it was the lesser of two evils. It was far too dangerous to use the corpses as a lure without a way to near certainly prevent the monsters from evolving, after all.

With his task temporarily complete, Beam was afforded enough time to sit down.

His clothes were a complete mess, with blood and gore soaking all the way through the fabric and coating his skin. The night was cold as well. When he wasn't doing battle with monsters, he felt the coolness in the air nearly too strongly. His fire did much to remedy that, but in the end, he was hesitant to stay by it.

Now that he had some means of protecting his pile of corpses, some way of slowing the enemies down, he wanted to hide himself once more. He went back to one of the trees on the edge of the clearing, somewhere close to the cliff, so he could act immediately if necessary. This time, he didn't go high at all, he merely sat in the first of the lower branches, huddled up with his knees to his chest and his sword leaning against his shoulder, as he breathed on his hands, attempting to warm them up.

 He watched and he waited for his next enemy, as his stomach growled and fatigue ravaged his body. He'd completely forgotten about the necessity of sleep, and as his eyelids drooped, he was beginning to pay for it.

Movement within the trees drew his attention back to reality as he fought off the urge to sleep. Excited movements, it seemed. Green flesh caught the moonlight a moment later, as the creatures ran along the edge of the clearing in excitement.

Beam sighed and slowly rose to his feet. He had been planning to get up anyway, since the pine wood that he'd put on was burning so rigorously, his fire needed topping up once more.

But what Beam saw come after the goblins made him pause. He lowered himself back to a crouch, as true adrenaline began to pound through his veins.

He hadn't noticed it until then, but apparently, his body no longer saw mere goblins as a threat – it had hardly begun to prepare itself for a fight. Only with the emergence of the shadowy figures that came trawling behind them did the hairs on the back of his head begin to rise.

Robed figures, clad from hair to toe in black, with hoods up over their heads so that Beam could not see their faces. Nor could he even make out their shoes, as the robes easily reached the floor. They moved as though hovering, standing directly behind the goblins. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The goblins seemed to notice that they were there, for they ran in front of the figures once or twice. Not only that, despite the corpse pile, they did not seem to be about to run away from the figures either, as though their movements had been limited to a certain range.

The shadowy figures stepped into the clearing, with slow and purposeful movements, movements that shifted them forward, without allowing the motion to show within their body.

They paused next to each other, as they regarded the fire that burned so furiously within the cliff. Hauntingly, slowly, they turned to look at each other. No words were said, but there seemed to be a silent form of communication, for as though in agreement, they began to walk forward.

A goblin ran past one of them, and in a sudden flash, it reached out a long arm, grasping it by the neck. The creature struggled for a moment, and then it began to relax, as though sedated. It was not dead – for Beam could see the slight movements of its fingers and limbs as it stayed within the shadow's grasp.

And then a dagger of darkness pierced straight through its chest. The creature cried out in pain, as the dagger moved, cutting out its heart, until it fell in a pool of blood onto the floor. The shadow allowed the body to fall after it. It hit the ground with a wet sound.

Its brethren regarded the death calmly, without a hint of anxiety. It only made them slow for a moment, as if out of curiosity, before they began to speed round once more, excitedly clacking, but still staying within range of the shadows.

A rabbit darted out of its burrow as the group advanced. Its burrow was nearer the cliff – nearer the fire that Beam had set. He felt apologetic upon that realization, seeing that it was he that had forced it to be chased out of its hole.

It ran with frantic movements, heading for the trees. There was a clear note of alarm as it picked up upon the presence of the goblins, and it darted to change direction. But with a motion of a shadowy arm, three of the goblins began to chase after it.

One came from one side, another goblin came from another, and the last came from directly behind. The animal tried to dodge and pivot one way, only to run into the ruthless mouth of another.