Rangers were issued repeating carbines and they lived or died by them on their long patrols. These were standard spring-piston guns and they carried twenty 36-bore balls in their tubular magazines. A good dwarf could fire as many as ten balls a minute with one, and they were both very good. However with them outnumbered six-to-one even that rate of fire was likely to prove insufficient. Seeing as we're the only ones here, Engvyr reflected, and someone has to do it this is going to get real interesting.
He nodded to Taarven that he'd seen enough. The two dwarves edged back from their vantage-point and quietly crept back to their hobbled ponies. They had two riding-ponies each and a pack-pony between them. They gathered them up while discussing the situation in low voices carefully pitched to not carry in the mountain air.
“This is going to be all kinds of hairy,” Taarven said
Engvyr snorted in agreement and said, “Reckon if we go down along Goren's Creek through the cut we can get ahead of them before the Eyrie. Give 'em a warm welcome home.”
Taarven nodded. The Eyrie was a pass on the northwestern border of Dvargatil Baeg, and once past that the goblins were free and clear. “Reckon that's the best that we can do.”
They didn't discuss the obvious fact that they'd need better than usual luck to come out of this with their skins intact. But even if they failed and died in the attempt they had a point to make to the goblins: you don't come into Dwarven lands to murder, pillage and kidnap people without paying the price. The two Rangers were determined to make sure that price was as high as possible.
They cut over to the creek and began to work their way up the bed. It was early summer and the water was running less than a foot deep over bedrock with pockets of gravel and debris trapped in the bends, so the footing was good enough for their mountain-bred ponies. It did make for rough going and they had to portage the occasional rapids, but the creek cut across land the road went around so they were able to outpace their quarry.
“If'n we're too far off when we open up on them,” Taarven said, “They'll scatter and we might lose the captives. If we're too close they'll overwhelm us right off.”
Engvyr nodded. “We'll take out the crossbows first and then whoever else we can manage.” Too likely, he reflected grimly, what we'll see is us joining the men-folk in the packs, the choice bits at least, all neatly wrapped and ready to cook.
They joined up with the road again a few hundred yards short of the Eyrie and well ahead of their quarry. After they picketed their ponies in a hollow away from the road Engvyr slid his Infantry Long-Rifle from its scabbard, a memento from his days in the elite 3rd Rifles. He inspected it quickly then broke open the action, which was hinged a few inches from the trigger-guard. The stock acted as a lever to cock the piston in the compression-chamber mounted under the barrel.
The gun fired heavy 36-bore/325 slugs instead of balls and he slid one into the breech, closed the action and mounted the weapon's socket-bayonet. The twelve inch long blade looked a lot like a sharpened garden-trowel. In fact they were used for digging latrines and the like when making camp.
The fastest reload is a second gun, so Engvyr charged his carbine as well. He brought both weapons with him and they crept back to the road to lay their ambush. Taarven had a two-handed long-ax strapped to his saddle. He slipped it from its sheath and brought it with him for when the fight got too close.
Taarven set up on one side of the road and Engvyr on the other, as far back as they could be and still see clearly, maybe sixty to seventy-five paces from the road. It wasn't a high pass so there were scattered trees but they were sparse and ran to stumpy, wind-gnarled pines among the scattered boulders. They each picked out one of the low-growing trees and concealed themselves underneath. Engvyr would get two shots and Taarven might or might not get a second shot off with his carbine before the goblins closed the distance. Then they would be down to their hand-weapons, skill and luck.
While they waited, Engvyr loosened the quilted linen great-cote that he wore over his light, blued steel breastplate. That and the hardened leather uppers of their boots were the only armor the rangers wore, though the great-cote itself offered some protection.
The Goblins had no reason to suspect the Rangers presence but they were leery just the same, sending one of the crossbow carriers out on 'point' well ahead of them. Goblins don't travel by day when they have any choice and Engvyr wondered idly what was driving them so hard. It might be that someone was already on their back-trail. If that were so, whoever it was had lost the race to the border.
The Rangers let the point-man pass between them. They tracked him with their eyes but never moved a muscle else-wise, trusting their neutral-colored uniforms to blend in with the foliage and rocks well enough to avoid notice as long as they remained still. They knew that nothing draws the eye like movement when a man is on his nerves.
The main party of Goblins drew near, the crossbowmen forward and out on the flanks, each looking off to one side of the road. Engvyr drew a bead on the one farthest from him with the carbine, Taarven doing the same. If they missed their targets the goblins would have to turn to spot them, which might give them precious seconds. As if we would miss at this range, Engvyr thought.
When the goblins and their captives crossed the marker the Rangers had agreed upon Engvyr stroked the trigger and the carbine leapt against his shoulder with a loud Whack! His first target went over backwards, shot through the heart. Taarven's man went down with a shout, losing his crossbow and scrambling for cover.
Dropping the carbine Engvyr snatched up his rifle and turned just as the point-man came rushing back. The goblin was maybe twenty-five paces away and caught the movement. He was lifting his crossbow for a shot when Engvyr put a slug through his throat.
He heard a second shot from Taarven's carbine and saw one of the three goblins charging his partner drop like a pole-axed steer. The three charging Engvyr were almost upon him. He saw the rest herd their prisoners up the road towards the Eyrie and then he was too busy to pay attention to anything but saving his own hide.
If the goblins had come at him in a group he'd have been a dead man. But the shock of the sudden attack had panicked them and their only impulse was to close the range before he could fire again so they came in one after the other.
The first one to reach him took the bayonet in his guts as the Ranger exploded from cover. The impaled goblin grabbed at the rifle-barrel but Engvyr shoved him aside, clearing the weapon. He swept aside the next attacker's blade with the rifle barrel. Reversing the weapon Engvyr butt-stroked him in the face and felt bone crunch under the impact of the iron-shod hardwood.
The last goblin had a short spear and they dueled briefly, spear against bayonetted rifle, before Engvyr hooked the spear with the rifle-butt and slashed the goblin through the eyes. He finished him off with a thrust to the throat and then did the same for the one that he'd struck with the rifle butt.
He quickly looked around to check on the first goblin Taarven had shot, the one that had tried to take cover. That one's crossbow still lay in the road where he'd dropped it and the goblin was some distance away, lying in a pool of blood and not moving. He reloaded and shot him through the chest just to be sure.