Padric did not need to be told their destination. The Red Caps had been making their way steadily towards Hog’s Wallow ever since the bonfire birthed its terrible predicant. The hunched goblin was given a robe, then helped onto a crude wooden litter and carried out of the gully, his followers saluting him in a frenzy. They were on the warpath, marching boldly with no care taken for silence or subterfuge. Padric and the others waited on the ridge until the raiders were out of sight then rushed back to where his pack and Deglan’s toad lay waiting. Decisions were made quickly; arguments flared and were snuffed in a few words and before Padric could make sense of it, Rosheen and the gnome were gone and he was chasing after the goblins, Faabar’s hulking shadow leading him through the darkness.

Padric had lost all sense of time, but it seemed they had been tracking the Red Caps for hours. His back was sore and cramping from running while bent low, his wet clothes steadily working a chill into his bones. Surely they were near the village by now. Surely they would find it abandoned; the people forewarned by Rosheen and fled for the safety of the Thegn’s fort. Fear had long ago given way to fatigue and now Padric just wanted an end to it. An end to fires and wizards and blind pursuits through the night.

The Red Caps seemed to be taking the most direct route, eschewing the winding game trails and sheep runs. They cut straight through the forest, over streams and gullies, ridge and rise, riotously bushwhacking towards their bloody purpose.

And still Faabar followed.

Padric was stone bruised and thorn scratched from a thousand unseen assailants by the time the goblins finally halted. They were on the edge of the forest; the stone-walled meadows that marked the beginning of the herd lands lay unprotected before them. Bwenyth Tor loomed off to the right, a mute and useless sentry. Hog’s Wallow was still some distance away, lost to sight over the rolling fields.

Damn fools! “Damn fools! You cannot stay here! They will be coming!”

“And we will be waiting,” Ardal said without turning.

Rosheen’s wings were tired from her long flight through the wilds and now she was forced to chase this mule-headed man all over his precious hamlet. The people of Hog’s Wallow were emerging from their houses, confusion and fear dispelling the bleariness of waking. Ardal had wasted no time when she rousted him from his bed and set about the manful business of dooming his neighbors. He strode purposefully from door to door, pounding until he was answered before moving on, spreading the call to fight, a woodcutter’s axe riding one shoulder.

“Every moment you delay brings them closer!”

But it was useless. The lout kept walking, summoning the townsfolk to meet before the alehouse, instructing the men to arm themselves.