Two days later, Purse was at muster clutching the dusk iron disk in his pocket. The time in which disks could be traded had passed, but a desperate goblin might chance the Chieftain’s wrath at the sight of four shares. He also didn’t want to draw attention to himself, a small and weak goblin like him earning more than most hobs was likely to cause trouble.

Purse stood with his back to a stone pillar near the edge of a large square cavern. They were gathering in a chamber on the border of Gold Hat territory known as Down Gate. At least two hundred goblins were present, though the chamber was only half full. Carved rectangular pillars were evenly spaced throughout the room with a staircase leading down in the centre. Purse watched a tremor wash through the crowd of waiting goblins. The Chieftain had arrived.

The crowd parted for her as she made her way toward the staircase at the centre of the cavern. She was large, even for a hob. She loomed over all but her largest lieutenants. Her skin was deep green and scars cris-crossed her bulging muscles. Her hair was grey but her stride belied no signs of age. An immense warhammer rested on her shoulder. Little more than a block of iron on the end of a staff, she did not clean it after use.

She had been Chieftain for as long as Purse had been alive. Admittedly that wasn’t long, however it was long for someone’s tenure as Chief. Most suspected she had earned a full Blessing. Atop her head was her infamous golden plumed helmet. It was heavily dented and no coloured feathers remained. The helmet of a Captain of the Guard, taken by the Chief on a solo raid to the surface.

Once she reached the centre of the room, beside the descending staircase, she upended her hammer, bashing it against the stone flagstones thrice. Purse doubted the necessity of the action. From the moment she had entered the room every goblin’s attention had been fixed to her. Purse wormed his was through the now tight press of bodies. He didn’t want to be too far back if she called for the dusk iron to attend her.

“Gold Hat!” roared the Chief.

“Gold Hat!” answered her raiders. The sound echoing in the cavernous chamber.

“The Lady has blessed you to be in this crew. For this is no ordinary raid.”

Excitement rippled through the amassed goblins, murmured conversation rapidly rising to a babble. The Chief allowed it go on for a moment before silencing them with another blow from her hammer.

“For too long those biting flies, the Blood River clan, have distracted the clans from our true enemy. While we fight over the spoils of raids past, the humans sit in their stolen city, laughing and growing fat. Kraghrun belongs to us, and we the Gold Hat clan, will remind the squabbling children who claim to be our equals how to raid like true goblins. Today we raid the surface!”

There was a stunned silence before the Gold Hat goblins erupted into hoots, hollers, and cheers. Among them, Purse of course joined in though his mind was turning rapidly. The Blood River goblins had recently absorbed a large influx of bodies after the collapse of the Cave Dog clan. As such the frequency and size of their raids against all nearby clans had increased. As their closest neighbour and longstanding enemies, the Gold Hat clan had taken the brunt of the newly bolstered clan to the teeth. That, in the Chieftain’s eyes, the humans presented a softer target than a retaliatory raid against the Blood River was worrying.

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There was also another problem. To raid the humans, a goblin had to go up. But they were gathered at the Down Gate, and the Down Gate only lead one way. Purse didn’t like where this was headed. The hammer whistled down to impact the flagstone again.

“The Stone Cleavers will grant us passage to and from the surface,” the Chief paused. Here comes the ‘but’. “In trade, we will bring them the poison sack of a gloomweaver.”

Shit.

Now the crowd was really babbling. With a far less excited, and far more frantic cadence than before. The Chief brought the hammer down several times. The flagstone didn’t look like it could take much more of a beating.

“That’s not fear I sense is it. Is this what my clan has come to? A crop of gibbering pink-bellied humans?”

Silence followed her words.

“Legbreaker. Guard the door.” An immense hob, the largest of the Gold Hats, strode through the crowd knocking goblins too slow to move aside. He wore no armour and carried no weapons, but Purse knew no one would be leaving the way they’d come. The hob rarely stopped once he was finished with the legs.

“For those of you with a little more green in your blood. There’ll be larger shares when there’s fewer survivors. So, make sure you’re one of them,” she said with a feral grin.

Purse could see a few of the goblins around him nodding, backs standing a little straighter. Now she was speaking their language. He himself was close to petrified. Holding a dusk iron for a gloomweaver hunt was a nightmare.

Dusk iron was offered when the raid required a unique role to be performed, and the bearer was rewarded well for doing so. In raids against another clan these roles were usually sabotage or infiltration. Hence, Purse had felt like he had been Blessed by the Crone when he saw it at Whiskers’ table. Sabotage he could do. Spider hunting was another matter.

Generally, a goblin hunt was a matter of overwhelming a beast with sheer numbers. Thirty goblins hanging off the side of a blind moleworm, stabbing it with every sharp object they possessed, was a common sight in the hunting areas of the undercity they called home. A gloomweaver was like a blind moleworm except that it had legs, was as quick as a stingfish, and its venom dissolved your insides until they spilled out of every orifice. And you’d better hope it hadn’t laid eggs nearby. The role of a dusk iron in all of this, Purse had no clue.

“Alright. Dusk iron to the front. The rest will follow.”

Purse froze. The front. He would be leading the raiding party into the bowels of the undercity, where he was supposed to be looking for a gloomweaver. He considered dropping the dusk iron then and there and disappearing into the crowd. It would be a complete violation of the rules and with no real way to ensure he wasn’t spotted. He was surrounded on all sides. One glance back to Legbreaker at the entrance was enough to convince him to end that line of thought. Setting his shoulders, he pushed forward.

Emerging from the crowd, Purse accidentally locked eyes with the Chieftain before looking at the floor as he made his way over. He was followed by two hobs, presumably the other bearers of dusk iron.

“We’re still dusk iron for the raid up top, right chief?”

Purse recognised the hob who had spoken as Lightfoot. Small for a hob, though he still towered over Purse. Lightfoot was known for his stealth ability. To the point where minor unexplained happenings in the clan – such as the disappearance of a shard mirror – were half-jokingly attributed to him. Whenever dusk iron was drawn he heard about it and was quick to make a challenge. Purse thought he might be regretting it now.

“Course you are Light,” the Chief smirked, “think you’ll make it that far?”

“You know me Chief,” was his only reply.

“That I do,” the Chief turned her eyes to Purse, “I don’t know you. You fight for this disk?”

Purse gulped. “Aye Chief, in a manner of speaking,” he managed to choke out.

“Ah, Whiskers then,” she studied him a moment longer. “So young. Your skin beautiful and unblemished. So,” she reached out to pinch his cheek, “tasty.”

Memories pushed to the surface, memories he forced back down.

“Thank you Chief. What is the role of the dusk iron on this raid?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, “you haven’t figured it out? Perhaps not so bright as you look.” She reached out and lifted his chin until he met her eyes. They were steely grey, old, tired, and hungry. They bore into him.

“You’re bait.”