Wil yawned. He was tired and his body hurt. His vision blurred and his head began to nod. He stumbled once, twice, then laid down on the cold ground. He closed his eyes and told himself that he would only rest for a short while. Right before he fell asleep, he remembered that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.
Wil slept fitfully the remainder of the night. Though he was tired and sore, he tossed and turned on the hard ground. At one point, he fell into a fitful dream. He dreamt that he was flying high above the trees of the Ardmore. Like a great bird, he swooped up and down in great loops until he spotted the goblin named Rugstak running through the trees. Wil watched as the goblin swung its long arms side-to-side pushing branches and saplings away from its body as it ran. The dream became stranger still because Rugstak suddenly turned into Byron, the guardsman clasping the magic sword in his one good hand. In the dream, the crystal caste sword blade glowed with a weird greenish light. Wil watched from above as Byron ran north towards the Soulless Mountains. Wil had never been to the mountain range, but he clearly saw their broken peaks in his dream. The guardsman ran to the entrance of a gaping cave torn into the side of one of the peaks. He stopped briefly and looked balefully at Wil, beckoning to him with the stump of his arm before disappearing into the cave. Wil saw the earth tremble then. The side of the mountain bloated outward and exploded open to reveal thousands upon thousands of leering goblins. Like maggots crawling among the remains of some dead thing, the goblins crawled upon the earth. There was no end to their number and shuddering, Wil realized that all was lost.