Lord of the Foresaken
Chapter 46: SIEGE OF GOBLIN’S HOLLOW

Chapter 46: SIEGE OF GOBLIN’S HOLLOW

The air reeked of blood and burning flesh as Reed crested the final ridge overlooking Goblin’s Hollow. What had once been a hidden sanctuary now stood exposed like a festering wound against the mountainside, besieged from all sides by armies bearing the colors of six different lords. Smoke billowed from structures Reed had personally helped build mere weeks ago, and the desperate screams of the dying carried on the wind.

"Gods’ mercy," Kalia whispered beside him, her knuckles white around the grip of her sword. "They’ve brought everything."

Indeed they had. Siege towers loomed against the eastern wall, while battering rams hammered relentlessly at the northern gate. Arcs of magical fire rained down from the coalition’s battle-mages, countered sporadically by the primitive but effective shamanic defenses Reed had helped establish. Three separate armies had established camps around the perimeter, methodically strangling the settlement.

Reed felt the dual fragments within him pulse in response to his rising rage. The Warden and Sovereign fragments, impossibly merged within his flesh, resonated with a power that made the very air around him shimmer with distortion.

"They’re dying in there," Eris said flatly, her assassin’s eyes calculating losses with cold precision. "Your little experiment in governance is about to end, Reed."

"No." The word emerged as something more than speech—a declaration that bent reality around it. "Not while I draw breath."

From below, a battalion of armored soldiers assaulted the western barricade where the goblins’ defense appeared weakest. Reed could make out the distinctive silhouette of Shia, the goblin matriarch, directing her forces with unprecedented discipline. Gone was the chaotic scrabbling of typical goblin warfare—in its place, a coordinated defense that spoke of Shia’s rapid evolution as a strategic mind.

"The fragment in her is changing her," murmured Thorne, the ranger who had joined their party after the encounter in the Venom Marshes. "Just as yours changed you."

Reed didn’t answer. The Harvester-bearer’s attack in the marshes had nearly destroyed them all. Only by fully embracing the merged fragments’ power—letting it remake him in ways he still didn’t fully understand—had Reed managed to counter her dark magic. They had escaped, but not before witnessing horrors that would haunt their dreams forever: the undead thralls of previous victims tearing themselves apart at their mistress’s command, the living darkness that consumed flesh and soul alike.

Now, barely recovered from that ordeal, they faced this.

"We go in through the tunnels," Reed decided, focusing on a nearly invisible fissure in the mountainside. "The ones we built as emergency exits."

"They’ll be watching for you," Kalia countered. "Specifically for you. This isn’t just about conquering a goblin settlement—this is about hunting you down."

Reed’s smile was terrible to behold. "Good. Let them look."

Lord Commander Hadrian Voss lowered his spyglass with a satisfied grunt. Three days of siege had weakened the goblin defenses considerably. By morning, they would breach the inner sanctum, capture or kill the abomination that had merged fragments, and restore the natural order as the Dewan Lords had commanded.

"Report from the eastern approach, my lord," his adjutant said, snapping a crisp salute. "The goblins have withdrawn to their second line of defense."

"As expected. Their numbers thin while ours remain strong." Voss adjusted his ornate breastplate, emblazoned with the crest of the Coalition of Lords. "And still no sign of Reed himself?"

"None, Commander. Our Seer believes he may have perished in the Venom Marshes. No one survives an encounter with the Lady of Thorns."

Voss frowned. "I want to see his corpse before I believe that. Double the night watch and—"

The command tent exploded in a shower of blood and canvas.

Where the commander had stood moments before now crouched a figure wreathed in shadowy light—a man whose outline seemed to flicker between solidity and something else entirely. Around him, six elite guards lay in pieces, their armor having offered no more protection than paper against whatever force had torn through them.

Reed rose slowly, fragments of viscera sliding from his clothing. The shadows around him condensed and expanded with his breathing.

"Hello, Commander," he said to the wide-eyed adjutant, who alone remained alive. "I believe you’ve been looking for me."

Within the Hollow’s heart, Shia sensed the change before she saw it. A pressure in the air, then a whisper of power that made her own fragment—the modest Trickster she’d been gifted by Reed—pulse in recognition.

"He’s here," she told her lieutenants, goblin warriors who had grown leaner, sharper, and more dangerous under her leadership. No longer the scavenging tribe they had once been, her people now moved with deadly purpose.

"The signal fires," she commanded. "Light them now."

Green flames erupted across the settlement’s highest points. To the besieging armies, they might have appeared as desperate flares. To those who knew better, they marked the beginning of a carefully orchestrated counterattack.

Shia felt a grim satisfaction as she watched her warriors move into position. Reed had taught her more than mere tactics—he had shown her that power wasn’t just about strength, but about timing, coordination, and the willingness to become something else entirely.

On the eastern wall, the first siege tower suddenly collapsed, its supports inexplicably rotted through in an instant. The soldiers who had been climbing its ladders plummeted to their deaths, their screams cut short by the wet impact of flesh meeting stone. The second tower followed moments later, then the third—all consumed by a creeping darkness that ate through wood and metal alike.

Reed moved through the coalition camp like a vengeful spirit, each step leaving behind cooling corpses and ripples of reality distortion. The merged fragments within him had evolved beyond their original functions; the Warden no longer merely protected boundaries but warped them, while the Sovereign didn’t just command but fundamentally rewrote the rules of existence around him.

"Their command structure is crippled," Eris reported, materializing beside him with blood-slicked daggers. "The lords’ personal guards are falling back to defensive positions around their masters."

Reed nodded. "Kalia?"

"In position with the eastern goblins. They’ll launch their sortie when we give the signal."

Around them, the coalition camp descended into chaos. Soldiers who had expected to fight primitive goblins now faced enemies that defied comprehension—shadow-walkers who passed through solid walls, warriors who shrugged off mortal wounds, and always, at the center, rumor of a man who could not be killed.

Reed felt his consciousness expand beyond his physical form as he drew more deeply on the merged fragments. He could sense every combatant on the battlefield now, perceive their intentions before they acted, manipulate the very fabric of space around them.

"It’s time," he told Eris. "Find Thorne. Tell him to release the beasts."

Lord Albrecht Denwyr, senior commander of the coalition forces, watched in growing horror as his carefully orchestrated siege collapsed into butchery. Reports flooded in from all fronts—impossible reports of soldiers disintegrating into ash, of weapons turning against their wielders, of the very ground swallowing entire battalions.

"It cannot be just one man," he hissed to his war council. "No single fragment bearer could do this."

"It’s not just him anymore," said a voice from the shadows.

The lords turned to find Reed leaning against the tent pole, looking deceptively ordinary save for the faint luminescence that seemed to emanate from beneath his skin. Behind him stood Kalia, her armor spattered with blood not her own, and Thorne, whose hands rested on the hilts of twin hunting knives.

"You see," Reed continued, as if explaining something to children, "you were right to fear me. The merging of fragments was forbidden for a reason. But your mistake was thinking that killing me would solve the problem."

Lord Denwyr found his voice. "Abomination. The Dewan has declared you anathema. Your very existence violates the natural order."

"The natural order," Reed echoed with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "Let me show you what I’ve learned about nature’s true design."

He raised his hand, and the air within the tent grew dense, charged with potential. The lords reached for weapons, for talismans, for their own fragments—but found themselves frozen in place, unable to move as Reed’s power enveloped them.

"I could kill you all," Reed said softly. "Part of me—a growing part—wants to. But instead, I’m going to send you back to your masters with a message."

He stepped forward and pressed his palm against Lord Denwyr’s forehead. The nobleman’s eyes widened in absolute terror as knowledge poured into him—visions of what Reed had become, of what he could do, of the futility of standing against him.

"Tell them Goblin’s Hollow is now under my protection. Tell them that any force sent against this place will not return. And tell them that the age of hoarding fragments is over."

With a flick of his wrist, Reed released them from his hold. The lords collapsed to their knees, several weeping openly from the mental violation they had endured.

"Go," Reed commanded. "You have until dawn to evacuate your forces."

By midnight, the siege was broken. The coalition armies retreated in disarray, leaving behind their equipment and their dead. Within the Hollow, goblins and humans alike worked to repair defenses and tend to the wounded.

Reed stood atop the highest point of the settlement, looking out over the moonlit valley where campfires marked the enemy’s withdrawal. Beside him, Shia surveyed her domain with newfound confidence.

"They will return," she said matter-of-factly. "With more forces. More fragments."

"Yes," Reed agreed. "But we’ll be ready. What we’ve built here is just the beginning."

He felt the fragments within him pulse in unison, hungry for more. The merging had awakened something primal and terrifying in Reed—a desire not just for power but for transcendence. Each time he used their combined abilities, the boundary between himself and the fragments blurred further.

Kalia joined them, her expression troubled. "The prisoners talk of a new weapon being developed by the Dewan. Something specifically designed to counter merged fragments."

"Let them try," Reed said dismissively.

"They also mentioned a name you should know," she continued. "Someone who has volunteered to lead the next assault personally."

Reed turned to her, suddenly alert. "Who?"

"Your brother. Prince Tarrant has convinced the Dewan that only blood can stop blood. He claims to know your weaknesses better than anyone."

The fragments within Reed flared with such intensity that shadows danced across the walls. For a moment, his form seemed to lose cohesion entirely, becoming a swirling vortex of dark energy before resolving back into human shape.

When he spoke again, his voice carried harmonics that weren’t entirely human.

"Then let him come. Family reunions are always so... illuminating."

Below them, in the heart of the Hollow, something stirred in the chamber where Reed conducted his experiments—the place where he’d first achieved the impossible merging of fragments. A faint pulse of power, then another, emanating from an object carefully hidden beneath layers of protective wards.

A third fragment, waiting to be claimed.

Waiting to be merged.