chapter fourteen
Aftermath
Unfamiliar stillness came, a silence so profound, resonating with the deepest emotions underneath in the absence of sounds. No jeers escaped gnarly mouths of goblin merchants. No hushed voiceless business, hidden in alleyways while avoiding goblin guards as though some crime were being committed.
Instead, there was only the pleasant hum of life happily returning to precious normalcy: a blacksmith’s hammer striking steel industriously, the distant clatter of potters’ wheels or sewing machines, and the soft murmur of voices exchanging relieved greetings and discussing next steps.
The goblin and troll corpses lay strewn across the kingdom, the smell of rotting flesh reminded the newly liberated of dreams for loved ones shattered. Their forms were as crumpled and
