Chapter 15 | Part 3

They ran.

Srietz led them through the twisted forest with a confidence that suggested intimate knowledge of the terrain. Left through a crystal formation. Right around a boulder that hummed with unpleasant energy. Down a slope that seemed to exist only when approached from a specific angle.

Behind them, the shrieks grew closer.

“Don’t look back,” Srietz hissed. “Looking slows you down.”

Drusniel looked back anyway.

The Coatly were bat-like, but wrong. Too many joints in their wings. Bodies that bent in ways flesh shouldn’t. They moved through the air in a rhythm that hurt to watch, their shrieks carrying not just sound but intent.

One dove toward them.

Drusniel’s magic surged without thought. A burst of compressed air, barely formed, catching the creature and hurling it backward. The Coatly shrieked—and this time, the sound carried something different.

An alert cry, then a targeting call: Here. Target here.

“NO!” Srietz’s voice cracked. “No magic! You just told every one of them exactly where we are!”

More shrieks answered from all directions. The air filled with wing-beats—wet leather sounds, too many to count.

“They hunt magic,” Srietz was running faster now, panic in his movements. “Every cast is a beacon. You might as well have lit a fire and screamed your location.”

Drusniel’s magic whispered again, wanting to be used, wanting to protect. He forced it down. The hollow feeling of suppression felt wrong, but Srietz’s terror felt genuine.

“Through here!” The goblin ducked into a crevice between two rock formations. “They don’t like enclosed spaces. Too hard to fly.”

They squeezed through. Elion barely fit, his body contorting in ways that should have been impossible. Behind them, Coatly screamed their frustration as prey disappeared into a space too small to follow.

“Keep moving.” Srietz didn’t slow down. “They’ll find another way. They always find another way.”

The crevice opened into a larger space—a cave, natural or carved, Drusniel couldn’t tell. Srietz led them deeper, his small form navigating darkness with certainty.

“You used to work for the thing that controls those creatures,” Drusniel said between breaths.

“Three years.” Srietz’s voice was flat. “Vexrath’s alchemist. Making compounds, creating poisons, improving things that should not be improved. Srietz learned much. Srietz learned too much. Srietz left.”

“They’re hunting you specifically.”

“Vexrath does not like it when property leaves.”

The shrieks were fading behind them, but not gone. The Coatly were still out there, hunting, patient.

And every bit of magic Drusniel used would bring them running.

End of Chapter 15.3 —> 15.4: The Goblin Who Counts Costs: The Bargain