"Give me a second," Kael said.
He pulled one bottle of gasoline from inside his backpack. The bottle felt small in his hand compared to the threat, but small didn't mean useless. He shoved a cloth he had on him at the bottle's mouth, and lit it by placing its head on the large enflamed metal barrel at the entrance. The flame caught fast, licking the cloth. Without hesitating for a second, kael hurled the bottle as far as he could inside the den.
The bottle crashed against the ground spreading its highly flammable content on the ground, and soon the flames caught to the floor and any goblin that was near it. The fire bloomed with a hungry roar, brighter than the braziers, cleaner and more violent, and it instantly changed the parking lot's mood. Goblins shrieked, stumbling backward, flailing. The smell became worse, fuel and burning cloth mixing with the already disgusting air.
The creatures were smart but not that smart to realize they were being attacked, some even began putting out the braziers as they thought that it was the cause of the flame. Kael watched it happen with a cold kind of satisfaction. It wasn't mercy. It was efficiency. If goblins wanted to blame their own braziers, Kael wasn't going to correct them. John looked at Kael like he wanted to say something about the insanity of throwing fire into a nest of monsters, but he didn't. There wasn't time.
Kael nodded at John and hurried inside while the goblins were shouting. The shouting covered their movement, and Kael used it like a blanket. His feet found the floor carefully, stepping where the shadows were deepest, moving in bursts, stopping, then moving again.
The sprint went soundless as he reached the first pillar, then rushed to the second without making a sound. His heart hammered in his chest, loud enough that he swore a goblin could hear it, but the goblins were too busy yelling at the fire, too busy blaming each other, too busy being goblins. John couldn't stay long and immediately hurried after Kael. John's movement was less controlled, more desperate, but still fast, and Kael could feel the moment where John's fear almost became a mistake.
The goblins managed to calm themselves down before John made it to the second pillar next to the vent, while Kael was already there. That was the worst moment. The noise died just enough, the attention sharpened just enough, and suddenly the space felt like it had eyes again. Kael pressed himself closer to the pillar, holding his breath, and he watched the goblins with the kind of focus that made his vision tunnel. One goblin lifted its head, sniffed the air, and Kael's entire body went rigid. Then it turned away and spat something into the fire.
If he were to sprint, they'll spot them. Kael worried that if John played it wrong, they'll both be discovered and be minced meat, he gazed at the hatch with both greed and worry. The hatch was right there. Salvation, maybe. Death, maybe. He can jump in, and if the goblins were to come at him, they'll immediately spot John, who will be bait. But even if that happens, he doesn't know if the inside of the vent is safe, and if they kill John, they'll immediately come after him. It was a risk without an obvious result. So he could only wait.
He hated waiting. Waiting was where betrayal lived. Waiting was where John could decide that Kael looked like a convenient sacrifice. Kael kept his crowbar ready, not raised, not threatening, just ready. He kept his eyes shifting, not just toward goblins, but toward John too, watching for the smallest sign. John's eyes were fixed on the vent, hungry. It wasn't the hunger of a man looking for glory. It was the hunger of a man looking for a way out to survive. The most dangerous hunger as it can bring everyone down with them.
Almost instantly, two goblins began fighting, perhaps because one of them got burnt, or maybe they thought that the other goblin was the cause of the fire. The rest of them began cheering, as if relishing and wishing to see blood. The change in atmosphere was immediate. Attention shifted. Bodies turned. The goblins made a circle with their posture, even if they didn't physically form one. Their excitement rose like a wave. Kael's eyes flicked between them and the vent, measuring the narrow window opening.
The two goblins wrestled on the ground until one of them pulled a sharp stone dagger. The dagger glinted in the dirty light, and the crowd's noise rose, as if violence was entertainment and not survival. Kael's jaw clenched. He wanted to move right now, but he couldn't until John moved too, because if they moved at different times, one of them would die.
John finally realized that if the fight ended, he wouldn't have another chance to make a run for the second pillar, so he too sprinted forward, making it to where Kael was. John's sprint was quick, but it still felt like the loudest thing in the world. Kael's entire body tensed, ready for goblins to turn. But the goblins only screamed louder at the fight, and the sound swallowed John's movement.
Kael nodded to John and hurried toward the vent, entering first and waiting for John to follow. The inside of the vent smelled like dust and old metal, a thin relief compared to goblin rot. Kael shoved himself in, shoulders scraping, and he reached back for John without looking.
The moment John followed the vent's hatch fell to the ground, making a god awful sound. Metal on concrete, loud enough to slice through noise like a knife. The sound seemed to hang for a beat, like the air itself went still to listen.
The whole group of goblins quieted down, realizing that something was wrong, and they would probably start searching soon. Panic gripped Kael's heart, but he couldn't do anything; the place they were in was tight and slightly hidden from view. But if a goblin were to come here to investigate, they'll be caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Kael held his breath so hard his chest hurt. John froze behind him, and Kael could feel John's fear like heat against his back. For a second, the only sound Kael heard was his own pulse and the faint crackle of distant fire.
Thankfully, by some godly miracle, one of the two fighting goblins managed to stab the other in the neck and howled a victory shout. The victory scream shattered the silence like a hammer. Goblins instantly snapped back into frenzy, howling and shrieking, crowd noise returning as if the quiet had never existed. Since the two fighters were more busy with their life and death battle, they didn't even hear the intruders. And with the fight having been completed, the other goblins also howled and screeched in joy, after all, they just got more meat to eat.
Kael didn't let relief soften him. Relief was dangerous. He moved up, slowly toward the inner side of the vent, and found a way up he stood up and climbed up the upper side of the ventilation system, waiting for John to follow suit. The metal creaked faintly under their weight, and Kael's fingers tightened on the edges, careful not to let his grip slip. He could feel dust smearing his palms, could feel the roughness of the vent biting into his skin.
Once the two of them were on the upper ventilation shafts, only then could they breathe a sigh of relief. Even that sigh was shallow. Even that relief was cautious. Kael's lungs burned slightly from holding breath too long, and he forced himself to breathe slowly through his nose, filtering the air as if it mattered. Down below, goblin voices echoed, muffled now, but still present, still alive, still wrong.
Up ahead, the path was dark, but it was far safer than going through that whole mob of goblins. The vent swallowed light, swallowed sound, and turned the world into narrow metal and confined movement. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't clean. But it was safer than being torn apart in the open.
"Make sure to slide forward, don't step with your knees and hands, slide them," Kael said in a hushed tone.
John nodded and began following Kael as the two of them crossed the ventilation shaft that moved right on top of the goblin den. John's breathing was still uneven, and Kael could hear it in the tight metal tunnel like it was amplified.
Kael kept moving, careful, steady, keeping their pace controlled. The vent carried them forward, inch by inch, above a nest of monsters that didn't know they were there, and Kael knew that one wrong sound, one wrong scrape, would turn this dark safe path into a coffin.