Page 40 of The Daughter of the Scarred Elf

Inkeri yanked her sword out of a goblin’s chest. The steel of her blade dripped with sapphire blood. “Is that all of them?”

Ivar cleaned the specks of blood off his hands with a wave of his water magic.

The ground was bathed with splashes of blue and bits of guts and entrails. The corpses closest to Inkeri and Ivar had gashes from her sword or were drowned, while the corpses byHerja’s feet were black husks, and the ones near the two brothers were broken and twisted in strange positions. Kolfinna glanced around the hall. “Looks like it.”

“Is anyone hurt?” Eluf flexed his fingers and kicked a twitching goblin in the face. Its head snapped off its body and smashed into the wall, where it stuck among the splatters of blue blood.

Gunnar winced and brought a hand to his hip. “I fell in a weird position and my hips are killing me.”

“You were fighting fine just seconds ago.” Even though he said that, Eluf gave him a once-over, worry creasing his forehead.

“I doubt that’s the last of them.” Ivar jerked a thumb at the wide cutout in the cavernous wall that seemed to serve as the exit and entrance. “Looks like this place is bigger than we thought. I think we took care of most of them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more hiding somewhere.”

Kolfinna stepped over the mangled corpses to get a better view of what the goblins had been chewing on before their party had unceremoniously dropped from the ceiling. Her stomach twisted at the bloodied meat on the table. Red blood stained the wooden tables and bits of flesh was imbedded in the cracks of the wood. Most of the bloody shapes looked like animals, but a few of them appeared … humanoid.

Her stomach twisted and she fought the urge to vomit again.

“We have to keep moving forward.” Kolfinna turned away from the goblins’ feast. “From what I’ve read, goblins like to keep humans and children until they’re ready to …” She didn’t even want to finish her sentence.

Ivar’s mouth hung open. “Holy—” He cursed and looked at the tables of meat with renewed disgust. “You’re not saying that … that these creatures keep themalive?”

“Until they’re ready to eat them?” Inkeri paled.

Eluf had gone very still.

“There might be some humans left alive here.” Kolfinna nodded. “How many children have gone missing from the village?”

Gunnar licked his lips. “Eluf?”

“Fourteen.” Eluf clenched his fists together, dark eyes growing darker. “If there’s a chance we can save them?—”

“Ifthey’re alive.” Herja gave him a careful look. “We’ve already taken care of most?—”

“We don’t know that. For all we know, this could be the tip of the iceberg.” Eluf breathed out shakily.

Kolfinna watched the way his hands trembled just slightly. She too could barely tolerate the thought of children being kept in a goblin’s horde, starved and waiting to be feasted upon. Even thinking about it herself had her stomach twisting once more.

“But this place is huge.” Gunnar spread his arms out to the hall, which was at least twice the size of the royal palace’s throne room. “How many more halls and rooms are out there? What if we can’t find them?”

“We can still save them,” Kolfinna said. “We have to try.”

Everyone was staring at her and this time, instead of balking at the attention, she tried to use the moment to bolster everyone’s confidence—and her own. “I can feel the network of stone passages. So don’t worry about missing a spot or two. I can find them. Trust me.”

Herja whistled as she wiped bits of goblin flesh off her sleeves. “You can do that?”

“Yes.” Kolfinna tried to smile, but the smell of raw meat and burning flesh made it hard to not feel the grimness of the situation. Especially since she couldtastethe iron in the air.

Without another word, they all wove their way through the sea of corpses until they entered the hallway outside the feastinghall. The hallway split into three hallways, each of them lit with fire sconces.

“Our priority right now is finding the children,” Eluf said. “We’ll split up here. Scour every single room and every hall. Make sure not a single green-skin makes it out alive. Kill the bastards and save the kids. Understood?”

“What if we get lost?” Herja rested a hand on her hip. “If this place really is as big as we think it is, what if?—”

“Kolfinna will come and find us then.” Eluf nodded to her. “Isn’t that right? You can feel all the networks, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that you can find us if we get lost, right?”

From what she could feel of this place from the stone passages, the cave extended in many directions with different halls, some going deeper underground and others coming up close to the surface. She could navigate it without much problem, since she could, if need be, create a new path to the surface. However, just because she knew where everything was mapped out didn’t mean she knew where anyone would be located. She would still have to scour every nook and cranny of the place.

And this place was ginormous. It could very well take days.

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