***
With some fresh bread and cheese in her pack, Aneira set out from the inn to walk along parallel to the mountain ridge in the north. Heulwen and Merrion had reiterated their warning of the night before and told her to get herself as far from the village as possible and not look back.
Neither would tell her why, but they'd bundled up some food, helped her stow it with the few belongings she had, and ushered her out the door.
The sun had barely lifted from its embrace with the horizon and a chill still hung on the morning air. No time had been wasted getting her up and gone, but she had no intention to do as she was told. Whatever bothered them must affect the whole village.
There were several crop fields in the direction she headed and she could already see a young farm hand spreading seed in the rich dirt of the neatly ploughed furrows. As she saw him, a grin spread across her face.
When she was close enough for him to notice her, she waved. He waved back but didn't stop his job. The gate to the field was open near her so she wandered towards it and leant up against the fence post. After a few minutes the lad had reached her.
With a nervous shake of his hand he swept his blond hair out of his eyes and looked at her.
“Hi,” she said and gave him the warmest smile she could muster.
“Hi there. I've not seen you afore, in our village, I mean. You must be new.” Her smile grew even broader at the cute way he stumbled over his words.
“I'm just passing through. I slept at the tavern for the night. Now I'm on my way again.”
“That's probably fer the best. You'll be walkin' fast, I bet.”
“Well, maybe.” Just as she finished her sentence a new thought hit her. “I'm reasonably tempted to stay. There's food here, a warm bed, and well, nice people, like you, to talk to.”
The young lad almost dropped his handful of seed at her words and his face flushed.
“You see, no one's told me why I should be leaving and I'm wondering if, maybe, just maybe, there's more reasons for me to stay.”
“No, you should go.” His reply made her pout and widen her eyes.
“You don't like talking to me then?”
“No... It's... No, I like talkin' to you. It's just, you should go. It's not safe. Not fer someone your age.”
“You can't be that much older than me.”
“I'm not, but you need to leave.” His eyes went wider than before and Aneira knew something was making him scared.
“Why do I need to leave? I want to know.”
He looked away and shifted his feet from side to side.
“Come on, you can tell me. Who am I going to ever tell? I'm always alone.”
“Well, if you promise to leave when you know...”
“When I know I'm in danger, I'll leave the village boundaries. You have my word.” She beamed at him again, hoping he wouldn't notice the subtle way she'd adjusted the promise. He didn't.
“Alright, I guess it can't do no harm then. It started afore I was born. There's a group o' goblins up in the mountains, north. They came down and attacked the village, wantin' to eat us. There was no way we could win so the chief made a bargain with them. In return fer lettin' us live all year round, once a year they get to take five o' the villagers. The five are picked by council each year, whoever's the least 'elp to us.”
Aneira could hardly believe what she was hearing. The thought of them being so callous shocked her. The boy obviously noticed her face.
“Don't think we don't care about the ones sacrificed. If we had any other way o' savin' the village, we would. There just ain't enough men who know how to fight, and the goblins are crafty; sometimes they don't accept who we offer, then they pick the strongest and fastest, any they think might one day try and fight back. We all know a few die to save the rest.”
“But it keeps happening, year after year?”
“Ahhah,” he nodded, “Every year they come back for more.”
“So these goblins are due tomorrow?” The boy's head bobbed up and down again. “How many are there?”
He looked blankly at her.
“How many goblins are there in the mountains?” she said, clarifying the meaning behind her question.
“I dunno. More than we have people to fight.”
“How many able villagers are there, I mean besides you?”
“I dunno how to fight,” he said, blushing for the second time. “Why do you wanna know this anyway? You should get goin'. Like you promised.”
“I will in a moment, but before I do I have two more questions. Both are very important.”
“All right, but be quick, you've already wasted lots o' time.”
“Firstly, how many goblins come to collect the sacrifices each year? And what's the name of the lovely guy I just met?”
He furrowed his brow for a moment, not understanding her last question at all, but she didn't say anything. Eventually the penny dropped.
“Oh, my name's Gwain. And, er, I think last year there were 'bout twenty goblins in the village. Nasty things they are too.”
“Thank you, Gwain. I'm Aneira.” She stood on the ends of her toes and kissed his cheek. “I'll get going now.”
He nodded, overcome and unable to speak. She waved and walked off down the little lane between the fields. Despite her promise, she had no intention of leaving. These people had been lovely to her since she'd arrived the night before and, if she could, she wanted to help them.
The goblins were only asking for five people per year, which was probably as many children as the villagers had per year. With any luck, that meant there weren't many more goblins than Gwain had seen. It left her a little mystified as to why the villagers couldn't deal with the problem themselves. She estimated the goblin numbers to have to be at least thirty or so before the village would be unable to cope.
Aneira had dealt with small bands of goblins before and knew that even if she couldn't stop this year's sacrifice from happening, if she could find out where they lived she would be able to pick off a few at a time and hopefully whittle down their numbers to the point where the village could finish them off. This all assumed her luck didn't run out and she wasn't killed by the goblins in one of her guerrilla attacks, but she knew she was likely to be a better fighter than any warrior in the small village she'd just left behind.
Being alone had forced her to learn fast, and her archery was lightning-quick, even if it wasn't always perfectly accurate. On top of that, she could cause a lot of damage with traps. All she needed to do was find out where they were and sneak around them.
When the village was so far behind her none of its residents could be seen, she changed direction and headed north. The farther she went the more the ground changed from the soft dirt the village farmed into the rocky terrain of the skirts of the mountain. She slowed and kept her eyes peeled for movement up ahead.
As the day wore on, she made an effort to keep near the shelter of the trees and bushes dotting the landscape. If goblins did come into sight, she wanted to hide as soon as possible. It would not be good if they saw her. This led to a weaving pattern in her path as she wound her way around open spaces.
By the time the afternoon was almost gone she had covered less than eight miles of terrain north, and the mountains still loomed ahead. She noticed an old building off to the east that had blended into the mountain's rock-face until she'd got this close. There were very few roofs left, and several walls and rooms had crumbled away from neglect and weathering, but the ruin looked like it had once been a very large and impressive castle.
Eventually, she noticed a thick set of gorse bushes she could hide in the centre of to await signs of the goblins. By now she'd hoped to find them, but it seemed they would travel past this point sometime in the night. She shuddered when she thought of their intentions and settled down for the wait, using extra branches and dirt to further conceal her temporary hiding place.
Once she'd eaten some of her rations, she made herself comfortable t
o wait for the dusk to come and finish shielding her from sight. Hopefully, the goblins would carry torches to light the way and she'd see them pass nearby. Her viewpoint was near the top of the hill and it spread out for a fair distance around her, making an excellent vantage point, so it was likely she'd spot the goblins without needing to move.