by Pirateaba
Garen held back from pointing out that only a few had rebelled against Tremborag. Most had just followed Rags as she was their Chieftain. But Tremborag was looking back into his precious armory. His body was quivering with rage, and Garen watched with interest the way it made his fat wobble.
“Tell me, Redfang—”
And here Tremborag turned. Garen tensed as he saw the depths of fury that spilled from the Goblin’s crimson eyes. The Great Goblin seemed to grow larger in front of Garen. No—not seemed—his appearance took on the other form Rags had seen in the Human town. He stared down at Garen.
“Tell me. Give me one reason why I should not kill you now. You brought that little Goblin here, that Rags. Why shouldn’t I kill you since she has taken more than you have given me?”
It was a question that would lead to one of the two’s deaths if answered incorrectly. Garen grinned fiercely, grasping tightly the hilt of his sword.
“If you could. I have my fang.”
“Your magic sword does not scare me. Without your wolf to ride, you are slow. And your warriors have left you. Why should I not kill you?”
“Because I have the key. And I know where the other is.”
Tremborag paused. He stared down at Garen and the two locked eyes. Then Tremborag stood on his two feet, fat, angry, no longer the being he had been before. Garen was disappointed to see that, but it was better than dying.
“You knew? Then why have you waited, Redfang? Tell me, and I will take it, no matter if it lies in the heart of Invrisil, behind one of the Walled Cities, or at the bottom of the sea.”
“It is in a worse place than that.”
Garen told Tremborag where the key was. He saw the Great Chieftain sigh.
“That is worse. Far worse. But I will take it all the same. As soon as I hunt down the small Goblin and eat her alive.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a quiet promise, and Garen knew that Tremborag meant every word. He said nothing. But he hoped that wherever Rags was, she was running far and fast. She could still be useful.
But what a waste. That was what Garen thought, and it was why he remained in the mountain. One kind of Goblin had left, the other stayed. Which group was right? Who was truly Goblin?
There was no one to care. The Goblins lived and died. The other races paid little attention to them, save for when the Goblins became a threat. No one remembered who the Goblins had once been.
Not even them. But some dreamed. Some looked back as the past called to them. But only the Kings knew the truth of it.
—-
Death. Death and blood and sometimes fire. It was what followed her wherever she went. Rags accepted that fact. It was her nature, the nature of Goblins. She led the Goblins following her through the mountain, fighting any groups of warriors they came across. But the Goblins of Tremborag’s tribe were lazy, secure in this place. The alarm hadn’t even begun to spread as she met with Pyrite and the Goblins she’d sent to them.
Some carried magical weapons. Others, bundles of supplies. But the largest group was leading hundreds of Human women, most naked or wearing practically nothing. Rags shouted at Pyrite to find clothes now—not for decency’s sake but because it was cold outside.
She began ordering the Goblins around her, taking command and organizing her Goblins, fighting for each second so they could flee before Tremborag’s forces awoke and overwhelmed them. Then they were running, dashing out into the snow as the Redfang warriors whooped and shouted, and their wolves howled, breaking a path through the snow—
When Rags woke up, her tribe was still on the move. This did not surprise her.
Goblins were perhaps unique among all the races of the world in that when they wanted to move, they could cover distances most armies could only dream of. Every Goblin learned to run away quick, and even if they weren’t as fast as a horse or Human in the short term, they easily outdistanced everything in the long term.
How it worked was like this: if a tribe had a wagon and animals to ride or pull it, some would sleep on such vehicles, waking up to give other Goblins a turn. The animals had to rest occasionally of course; when they did they were normally eaten if the Goblins were in a real hurry. Otherwise, other Goblins would just push the wagons, sometimes with the horses crammed on top of it.
On foot it was different. Goblins would just collapse where they were and sleep, before waking and running to rejoin the tribe. That way they slowed their pursuers by offering free targets and a snack if the pursuers were monsters or other Goblins. Either way, the tribe would keep moving. They could cook, eat, pee, and do whatever they needed do while marching.
And it worked well when it came to outrunning pursuers. So well that as Rags sat up in the crowded wagon, digging herself out from a pile of Goblin bodies, she saw the mountain was a good distance behind them.
How long had she slept? Probably at least six hours, Rags guessed. One of the benefits of being a Chieftain was that no one poked you awake and made you keep walking. It didn’t stop other Goblins from lying on top of you and farting in your face, but no Chieftain could prevent that.
Stretching on top of the piled up Goblins, Rags yawned and ignored the grumbling under her. Someone tried to shove her leg off their face—she stomped and then climbed off the wagon.
The instant her feet touched snow, Rags realized it had snowed again. How annoying! But when she looked up she had to smile. Because it was a wonderful day.
The sky was very blue. Rags stared up into the winter morning, breathing in and smiling faintly as the sun rose overhead, warming her from head to toe. It felt like it had been a very long season, full of cold and wet. But in a month or two it would be the shortest day of winter. And then the frost would end.
And a good thing too, because Rags had a tribe to lead. An even bigger one than before. Rags stared around. Goblins shambled past her, moving quick but all clearly on autopilot. She remembered what it was like, and considerately didn’t disturb them except to get pointed towards food.
The Goblin approach to ingenuity was always effective, if not entirely sane. That was how Rags found a cooking pot bouncing along on top of a wagon, over a burning pile of wood on top of the wagon. In fairness, the Goblins hadn’t set the actual wagon on fire, preferring to spread a layer of dirt to build a cooking fire on top of, but every now and then they had to put out fires caused by errant sparks.
All that meant was that Rags got a hot bowl of porridge seasoned with cinnamon, butter, and sugar of all things. She frowned, but ate three bowls greedily as befitted any Chieftain. Apparently, her Goblins had seized a lot of strange foods from Tremborag’s stores in their mad bid to escape the mountain.
Sugar was a delicacy. One Rags had only really tried at Erin’s inn. But it was also fairly useless to keep since it wasn’t filling like grain or meat. Thus, Rags wholeheartedly approved of using it now.
Belly full, Rags turned to the next important thing on her agenda: finding out where the heck they were. She walked towards the head of the tribe of sleepy Goblins and soon found the Hob who’d taken charge while she was asleep.
Pyrite looked pretty much like he always did, albeit wounded. Several deep slashes had cut into his flesh—two around his belly, one on his arm. But none were too bad, and his fat had shielded his internal organs from harm. Even so, Rags resolved to find Pyrite a healing potion once they had sorted out their supplies. She’d always had an emergency stash in her old tribe’s setup.
“Trouble?”
She asked Pyrite as she fell into step behind him. The Hob glanced at her and shook his head. He wasn’t eating anything for once. Rather, he had a stick in his mouth. He was chewing on that and spitting out pieces of wood now and then. Rags supposed he like to feel like he was eating even when he wasn’t.
“No one follows yet.”
“Good.”
They still spoke in the common tongue. It was just…easier. Some ideas were expressible in that language whereas the Goblin’s tongue always felt like
it had holes in its vocabulary. But even in this language, body language, facial expressions, and context made up a lot of the conversation.
Rags turned to stare at the winding trail of Goblins following in their wake.
“Spread out.”
The Gold Stone Ch—Pyrite just shrugged. He took the stick out of his mouth and pointed with it to each side. Rags saw riders on the infamous rust-red wolves pacing alongside the Goblins. Scouts. She nodded, feeling reassured.
“Humans?”
That was the next issue on her mind. Rags assumed they were around somewhere. Again Pyrite pointed and she saw they were marching separate from the Goblins. She frowned; most were riding in wagons pulled by the animals the Goblins had liberated.
“Slow.”
They were keeping pace, but what she meant was that they were taking away resources her tribe could use. It was a criticism as well, but Pyrite just shrugged.
“Cannot survive alone. Must take. Too hurt to move, many.”
Rags glanced again at the Human women. She couldn’t see much, bundled up as they were with whatever the Goblins had managed to take but—she believed him. She scowled, but made no further objections. She glanced at Pyrite. There was a lot she could have said. Thank you, for one thing. But Goblins didn’t really do that. So she just nodded at him.
“Tired?”
He shrugged.
“Walking.”
She nodded. Hobs were tough, and he was fairly tough even for a Hob. She could respect that.
“You keep walking. I…think.”
He smiled, once.
“Yes, Chieftain.”
Rags grinned as he put the stick back in his mouth. He always knew what to say, even if it was nothing. She walked next to Pyrite, the two moving in silence. It was easy. Rags just let her feet take her forwards while her mind wandered.
What did she have to do now? Well, she’d established that there was no immediate danger, so she had to start planning for the non-immediate danger. That meant Tremborag’s fury, the issue of them being exposed and in the wilderness where they might run into Humans, monsters, or something else, finding a new food source, a base, managing her new Goblin recruits, figuring out what to do with her tribe next…
Ah, it was good to be a Chieftain again! Rags smiled, even as she thought of all the things she had to do. It was hard work, yes, but she was certain that she could handle it. And if she couldn’t, probably no other Goblin could. She was Chieftain, and part of being Chieftain was believing you were the best.
By her calculations, they had only one or two more hours at most before Tremborag’s forces would be in hot pursuit of them, if they weren’t already. The Great Chieftain might have a vast following, but it was slow to mobilize for the same reason. Getting together enough supplies and warriors would be tough, and they wouldn’t be much faster than her tribe.
Then again, they didn’t have to be. They would easily be able to follow Rags’ tribe from the wake they’d left in the snow, and Goblin warriors could march longer than normal Goblins. It would come down to a battle sooner or later, and she had to find the best place for it.
Or did she? Rags frowned. What she really needed was a place to rest her tribe. Just for a little while. Her Goblins were used to rough travel, but the Human women were not. Plus, some of her warriors were injured and had to be exhausted after last night.
Last night. Rags remembered it clearly. She’d walked into the hall, afraid she’d be cut to pieces, that no one would follow her. She’d raised her sword and called for Goblins to follow her—
And they had. Oh, they had. Some had fought, but the majority had seen what Rags had. They had made a choice and chosen to be a tribe that lived and died free. They had chosen a Chieftain, rather than a faction under a Goblin who didn’t care for their lives.
They had fought.
And they had won. From the mess hall, Rags had taken her Goblins, now a sizeable force and rampaged through the unguarded halls of Tremborag’s mountain. That late at night they had been able to overwhelm what few soldiers were up. And such was the clamor of a Goblin mountain that the fighting hadn’t actually woken that many. They’d grabbed food, tools, even fought their way to the place where the animals had been kept.
It had been a nightmare trying to get the Redfang warriors to control their wolves and prevent them from going on a rampage or eating the other animals. For that matter, trying to get a horse in the presence of wolves to behave was a bad idea. But Rags had done it. And then she’d linked up with Pyrite, who’d met her with hundreds of Human women and the loot from Tremborag’s armory.
Rags had planned the entire thing. If she was going to break away from Tremborag, then she was going to do it in the most Goblin style possible. And that meant a raid. She’d sent Pyrite many of the warriors she was sure of, to help him free the captives and take weapons out of the armory. That was a prize too good to pass up.
Then they’d fled. They’d run into the snow, the mountain only now coming alive behind them. Some Goblins had tried to pursue them, but the Redfang warriors had covered their retreat. Out in the open they were ideally suited to engaging the enemy and retreating to join the others.
A victory. It was a great one, and now Rags just had to make it stick. And to that end…
She glanced at Pyrite. He was nearly down to the end of his stick. She watched, wondering what he would do when he’d chewed it to bits. Sure enough, the Hob spat the pieces into the snow as he passed. Then he reached into a bag at his side…
And pulled out another stick to chew. Rags gave up. She poked him and he looked down.
“Chieftain?”
“Who is…local? Who lives here?”
The language Humans and other species used was so much more precise, even if it wasn’t theirs. Pyrite considered this and found a Goblin to poke. That Goblin wandered off and poked some other Goblins who all did the same…in a few minutes Rags had a Hob and two yawning Goblins in front of her.
She recognized them. One was the Goblin with no ears. Another was the leader of the female Goblin raiding party who’d joined Rags. And the last was the old Hobgoblin who grinned at Rags and the others, looking not the least bothered by their forced march.
“Chieftain.”
The old Goblin said it first, bowing his head deeply to Rags. She saw Noears hesitate, then nod deferentially to her. The female Goblin hesitated, then copied Noears.
“Stop that. No bow.”
She pointed to the old Goblin. She was not Tremborag, to demand such things. But a nod was appropriate. He straightened and grinned at her.
“Where place to rest?”
She looked at the three. The female Goblin was first to answer. She knew the landscape and told Rags of a nearby place that might be good. Rags nodded. She called out to Pyrite. He listened to the female Goblin’s directions, found a messenger to poke, and in minutes the entire Goblin convoy was changing course.
It was easy. One Goblin poked another, both Goblins poked another, and so on and so forth. Within twelve pokes you generally had all the tribe’s attention. And the Goblins at the front were the only ones who had to know which way to go, so if you had a halfway intelligent Hob up there, things ran smoothly.
Only the Human women failed to get the message. Some of them who were awake looked alarmed as the Goblins seemed to turn right as one. They stopped in their wagons, some pulling at the horse’s reigns to wake the others up. That was pointless in Rags’ opinion, but then she saw some of the ones who looked like warriors were holding weapons under their blankets and clothing.
She frowned. Humans could be a problem. But to her surprise she saw Pyrite stump over to the Humans in the snow. He they let approach—some of the women clearly recognized him and others knew he’d freed them. It took Pyrite a few minutes, but the Humans followed the Goblins quickly enough when they realized what was going on.
And where had the Goblins gone? Their destination was already in sight, albeit camouflage
d against the horizon. They were walking towards a hill.
The hill was just a hill. It was a nice workout for the legs to climb to the top, and it afforded a good view of the surrounding landscape, but that was all. The Goblins being Goblins, declined to bother to summit the hill and instead camped in the lee of it, sheltered from the wind. Rags still made a few Goblins go to the top to keep a lookout, but she was more interested in just letting everyone get a few hour’s rest while she planned things out.
She had to figure out a way to deal with Tremborag’s forces. This wasn’t a good place for a stand, but Rags still wondered if she had to fight. She might lose a pitched battle even with the new weapons from his armory—especially since she had no idea how any of the magical ones worked. Obviously you could just use one as a weapon, but what if it’s magical effect was emitting an aura of flame, or creating some kind of special effect? One wrong swing and you’d fry your side.
How could she get rid of Tremborag’s retaliation force? Rags went through all the Goblin fallbacks. Fighting was no good, she couldn’t outrun them, she doubted she could hide their tracks or her tribe…bribing wasn’t going to work. Surrender meant death. But what if she—
“Chieftain.”
Rags looked up with a scowl as she sat in a patch of cleared dirt. Who was bothering her? She saw six Goblins waiting for her and immediately sat straighter.
These weren’t any ordinary Goblins. If the tribe Rags had led out of the mountain had factions—and if it did she’d get rid of them soon enough—these were it. More accurately, they were the factions from the mountain.
Six Goblins. Rags saw Pyrite, looking impassive as ever, Noears, the female Goblin leader, and the old Goblin. But two other Goblins had joined them.
One was a Hob that Rags recognized. He was – had been one of Tremborag’s warriors who sat at the high table. He was a good warrior as far as she knew, but not outstanding. He was at the bottom of the rung since he didn’t have a huge faction behind him, and she suspected he had joined her simply because he didn’t want to have to fight for influence with the others Hobs. He probably represented the Hobs who’d lived in the mountain.
