Investigate the wagon

Ambush or not, you cannot simply ride past this scene of ****. You climb down from Aegis and draw the sword of Saint Magdalena as you cautiously approach the overturned wagon. Food has been scattered in the road, including apples and other things that a bandit would would have taken. The horses still lashed to the wagon have been killed by numerous arrow wounds.

You pluck one of the arrows from the flank of a dead gelding and note its delicate construction. It is a bone arrow and smaller than a human archer would use. One of the lumps lying in the road lets out a grown. You tense, but there is no further reaction. You approach the body cautiously and see that it is of a man of middle age, shot several times by arrows and with a cut throat. Whoever did the work of finishing him did not do the job, for the man is pale and wounded, but still alive.

"H-help," he rasps. "Do you...do you have water?"

"No, sir, I am sorry," you say as you crouch beside him and rest a comforting hand upon his sweaty brow. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

He nods slowly, struggling to form words through his obvious pain and dehydration.

"They attacked us from the woods. They took...took my Tessa and my daughter Ruby. My son...does he..."

You shake your head. His son is clearly dead with more than one arrow piercing his neck.

"Who attacked you?"

"Goblins," he rasps. "Not...not supposed to be tribes this far...far..."

He falls into delirious muttering and a catatonia you suspect the poor man will not survive. You wish you had some water to give him, but more importantly, you wish he had not told you of his wife and daughter being taken prisoner by the goblins. Presuming his daughter chaste, you are duty-bound to try to save her. It is what a true paladin would do.

You get up from beside the man and search the area around the wagon again, this time searching for footprints. You find numerous smaller prints, some of them barefoot, from what must be the goblins. You also see the prints of two humans being taken into the woods. The goblins have made no effort to conceal them. You could follow them with little difficulty. The attack must be recent if this man still has some life in him.

Then again, you do not know how many goblins perpetrated this brutal attack, nor whether they are lying in ambush somewhere int he woods. You shake your head. You know goblins. Lusty beasts, known to ravish lone farm girls. If they took two human women, they'll be trying to have their way with them right now. The only decision that remains is whether you dare risk your journey to the High Abbey to pursue these goblin bandits.