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. Her manor castle, which
had been in her family for generations and had housed the
three of them in far happier days, had probably been
attacked and sacked and looted by goblins. She would
return to find the castle charred and gutted, a ghastly
skeleton. She didn't care. The castle was her home.
"It's where I want to die," she said to Michael.
She started walking.
*****
Brother Michael was astonished to discover the castle
had been left in relatively good repair, perhaps because the
goblins had decided to make it their base while they
despoiled the countryside. Noting from a distance that the
castle was still standing and was not a burned-out hulk,
Michael was more than half convinced that the goblins were
still around. A day's watching persuaded him that the
goblins had moved on, perhaps in search of richer pickings.
The castle was empty.
Inside, he and Nikol found a horrible mess; both gagged
from the stench, fled back outside to fresher air. Filth and
remnants of dread feasting choked the halls. The heavy
oaken furniture had been axed, used for firewood. Curtains
had been torn down. The ceremonial armor was gone,
probably being worn now by some goblin king. Yule
decorations and the tapestries had been desecrated, burned.
Vermin roamed the halls now extremely loathe to leave.
The villagers and manor tenants all had fled and had not
come back, either out of fear of the goblins or because they
had nothing to which to come back
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