Selected Quote:What they saw was the two hugging, sobbing girls, the bloody and gored goblin corpses and encased in a pillar of ember, the mummified corpse of the last goblin king….
Something Amazing: The Dark Woods were set up very well. Dark, wet, mysterious. Goblins are also not commonly used, so another point there.
Theme Appropriateness: Low.
I thought the spear was what kept the goblins at bay, but it seemed to be the corpse of the mummified goblin king. Still, it appeared so late in the story, specially when the bulk of it is about the two girls trying to survive in the woods.
Conflict and Tension: Medium.
The girls in the wood was very well done. Externally we have their physical conditions, cold, lack of food, being pursued by goblins and being in uncharted territory. Internally, you have fear mixed with courage, annoyance, whining, and so on.
Maybe the fight with the goblins was too easy since they didn't react.
Something Confusing: I didn't understand why the two goblins seemed so in shock. For me that was a goblin cave that looked their home base. There were even more goblins talking there (and they ran away).
Also, Samina says goblin speech "was all grunts, yips and growls", so if communication with them was supposedly impossible, I was wondering how she did she know the names of the two she killed (Longrunner and Headcleaver).
Addendum: You have a lot passages with "she thought", so I think you intended those passages to be in italics to indicate internal thought. When you copy-paste from any word processor, formatting like bold or italics won't automatically transfer. You have to manually format it using the forum tools. You're not the first one that had this happening. Maybe we should put a warning when announcing the theme of the month.
I hope this critique was helpful to you!