Eyes of Emerald

Chapter 46 - Fight

I gaped in disbelief. No wonder the Goblins had been screaming at us when we injured them. No wonder they sounded almost exactly like children. I could only blink in shock, while the battle raged on, fuelled by anger, around us.

            "How do you know?" Angel asked suspiciously and I managed to nod. Yes, how did he know? How did he work out that the grotesque creatures we had been fighting weren't Goblins?

            Wynn sighed, looking defeated. "The Shade told me," he said at last, looking at the floor as if he was embarrassed to tell. He would have had his head taken off if it wasn't for Ffi, who shot a tongue of flame at the Shade, which stumbled back, its hands covering its face.

            "Wynn, Shades can't be trusted." she growled, as if annoyed that she couldn't kill the Goblins. Iris nodded.

            "They're just trying to get to you!" she told him angrily, like she wanted to shake some sense into him. Through all this, my mind was buzzing and I wondered how on earth he'd got a Shade to tell him.

            What has Balthazar done to these poor children, even if the Goblins aren't them? Where are they? I wondered.

            "No, I'm...I'm serious." Wynn didn't sound argumentative, as he usually would when he was trying to get his point across. Instead, he sounded calm and guilty, which was worse. I felt the crushing guilt that came when you realised that you had murdered something innocent and pure. I was sure the others felt it, too, but concealed it better.

            "But...why?" Iris struggled to grasp the idea that those tiny children we had given away over the months had been turned into these savage, salivating monsters. They didn't even look human. They were vaguely humanoid in shape, with blisters and boils all over their body, sickly greenish-brown coloured skin and a temper ten times their size. "One of them almost killed me!" she exclaimed, as if it shouldn't be possible.

            "Because he's a sick -" I began angrily, before we were attacked.

            It was practically a miracle that we'd managed so long without being attacked. Celie didn't seem to be listening, she was shooting down the enemies close by with her bow - she must have been slightly preoccupied, because she kept missing. I wasn't surprised. We were all preoccupied.

            She looked as though she was torn between two different sides, as if she had to choose. She had grown up living with the terrible things that Balthazar had done to her family and people, there was no doubting that she would choose us. Was there?

            "No!" I yelled as Angel was cut down by a Shade. She lay, bleeding from a head wound, on the ground where she didn't move. The Shade raised its head and leered at me. I recognised him faintly - he was the Shade who had enraged us all before the battle.

            "Shifter." his words were pierced with malice and anger, and I snarled at him, before drawing a dagger and throwing it at him. It spun through the air and hit him with the blade, but it only bounced off his armour. He chuckled, his black eyes glittering as we all attacked.

            Ffi threw fire at him, which he deflected with his sword like it was a solid thing. Iris began to use her Witchy powers, creating a force that stopped him from backing away. His expression began to waver slightly, uncertainty creeping up on him as Wynn advanced, the blue eyes icy cold.

            "This is for the children." Wynn growled, before striking. The Shade laughed and brought his own weapon up to block, and suddenly they were engaged in a deadly dance, twirling and spinning and attacking each other. Iris tried to intervene, seeing that Wynn could have lost, but Ffi held her back and whispered something in her ear.