With Tad by his side, Glum exited the antechamber and entered the Council Room. It was long, extending away from the double doors, and structured like an amphitheater. On the right a window stretched almost the full length of the wall, offering a panoramic view of Hangman’s forest with the tower of the Prison of Eternal Suffering jutting up. It was dizzying to see the treetops far away and below rustle in the wind which, a moment later, rattled the panes. Beside the window sat the Council Table, where the assorted War Masters sat. At the head of the table stood the Dread Lord’s throne, an intimidating jumble of bony ridges to form something like a skull. Moving to the left the floor raised in a series of tiers. It was strewn with cushions so the War Masters’ parties could sit or lounge as they witnessed the meeting. Some orcs stood or leaned against columns which stood between the seating and the table.
“Look at that.” Glum elbowed the boy in his ribs. “Certainly a better view than any from Drink Town.”
Glum spotted Gohta leaning against a column with his arms folded over his chest. He was lined up with Hohza, who was unfortunately positioned next to the head of the table. Based on Hohza’s reputation he expected his new boss to be seated further away.
The old goblin wavered a moment, chewing his lip, as he considered taking Tad somewhere less conspicuous. Sadly, before he could lead up to the highest seats or hidden behind a column, Gohta spotted them and waved. With a sigh of resignation, Glum snagged Tad by the sleeve and they headed towards the big orc and stood by his feet.
After a moment of waiting, during which he hoped the Dread Lord had found something better to do, a purple light flickered in existence over the throne. It pulsed like a heartbeat, with each thud making it grow. Soon it was as big as a head and smoky black tendrils coiled around it. Then it exploded into a column of purple and black ink which spilled into the form of a person sitting languidly in the throne. All of the War Masters, save Hohza, bowed their heads in greeting of the Dread Lord Withering Sorrows. Above, Gohta murmured “hail to the great and powerful.”
In person, the wraith was as intimidating as every tale of it indicated. A skeletal figure, tall and thin like an elf, that was draped in pitch. A glow of blue and purple caught the edges of the darkness, seeming to emanate from somewhere inside the creature. Their eyes shone as embers, pinpricks of purple sunken into against a face of black. One thing nobody had ever mentioned was the unsettling way they would occasionally wink out of existence; even a wraith had to blink its eyes.
“We have been invaded,” the Dread Lord announced. Its voice had a metallic, hollow quality like pipes knocking against each other. “A band of mercenaries approached Withering Fields several days ago and inquired about my treasures.”
The orcs and trolls cheered. Some War Masters thudded their chests and proclaimed their eagerness to represent the Dread Lord in repelling the invaders. There hadn’t been an invasion in these parts of the Dark Lands in some time; they mostly occurred out west, along the coast of the Shattered Sea. It meant that the Dread Lord was so powerful that he’d been honored with the World of Light’s attention.
Such attention inevitably resulted in the slaughter of many orcs, trolls, and perhaps goblins at the hands of well-trained elves, dwarves, sprites, and humans. As the warriors surrounding him greeted the opportunity to die gloriously in combat in honor of their Dread Lord, Hohza sat in quiet contemplation. Leaning forward, his arm propping his head up, he stared gloomily at the Dread Lord.
Glum turned and saw Tad was staring in wonder at the Dread Lord. While a Dread Lord’s subjects served their wraith master with every breath and worshipped with their hearts, there were few fortunate enough to know their ruler as a hero. Although Tad had not mentioned it, Glum had sensed the boy’s excitement at the prospect of seeing the Dread Lord again. The wraith had saved his life, after all.
Some years back, contact with the farming settlement of Terror Fields—not far from Withering Fields—had been lost. Rumors spread through the Dread Lord’s domain as to its cause.
Back then …
While eating his rat toad soup, Tad stared wide-eyed at the goblins around the table. Ears twitching excitedly, he took in their scary speculation about what happened at Terror Fields.
“Bearwulvs ate them,” one goblin commented as he shoved a mouthful of pulverized potatoes, lumpy and grey, into his mouth.
“Bearwulvs ate them as revenge after they ate the beets!” Another goblin laughed at his own joke. The beets from those farms were infamously bitter.
“Wasn’t bearwulvs. I heard it was orcs from Frail Consequence’s lands. They were disguised as bearwulvs to keep the scouts from spotting them. Then they killed everyone and took the food,” another goblin explained while reaching for the saltshaker.
The comedian goblin chuckled to himself before saying: “Frail Consequence can keep those beets!”
“You idiot! How could they have killed so many bearwulvs to disguise their forces like that? If they did, there wouldn’t be enough soldiers left to invade us!” The first goblin waved his hands dramatically as he spoke and his mouth opened wide to match his wild gesticulations. Bits of chewed food flew out of his mouth as he did.
“They don’t have to be real bearwulv hide,” the goblin argued. He was throwing a mountain of salt on his food. “Could have sewn them together from thousands of razor squirrel pelts! Just has to look convincing enough.”
The wooden spoon still in his hand, hovering just below his lips, Tad looked on.
Glum had heard his share of theories, and chimed in with his own bit of baseless knowledge: “Heard from a troll, you know, that one who acts all goofy on Rolling Hill?” He gestured towards the one who hogged all the salt with his tankard, some of his beer sloshing out from under the flopping lid. “I heard from him that it wasn’t anyone from around here.” He narrowed his brows and leaned in. “He says, and this is top secret, he says that it was invaders from the World of Light.”
The salt-loving goblin, his lips puckered from the obscenely seasoned potatoes, threw up his arms. “No way! Nobody from the World of Light has been here in forever. No even you, Glum, can remember that far back.”
“I can,” Glum answer under his breath. It was a regretful memory.
“Do you have any idea how big a deal it would be for an elf or dwarf party to make their way this deep in the Dark Lands? We’d have heard about it by now. Remember a couple of months back, when those dwarves tried to advance into the Dark Lands? What happened?” His tone was saltier than his food.
“Resplendent Crave drove them off,” Tad chimed in, his voice cracking in excitement.
“Drove them off? Resplendent Crave wiped them out! Poor fools barely got through their border!” He shook his head, smiling. “Would’ve liked to see a dwarf. I heard they build things.” He shoved another spoonful of salt with a side of mashed potatoes into his mouth.
“Build? Like the Machines Works?” Tad dropped his spoon as he asked, pulling himself up off his seat to lean forward. A little bit of his soup splashed onto Glum, staining his work shirt. He grabbed a napkin to dab at it.
“No. Dwarves don’t build things like the Machines Works! They mostly make buildings. Big stone ones. Or they scoop them out of mountains. They also make … what do they call that stuff?” Glum wrapped his thumb and index finger around his index finger on the other hand.
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The first goblin shook his head. “Jewelry? Yeah, they make jewelry. But how could anyone from the World of Light have made it so far into the Land of Darkness?”
Glum took a determined swig from his tankard. Then, everyone hanging on his next words, explained: “Wasn’t the elves, or the sprites,” he paused, looked around surreptitiously. “Or the dwarves.”
That left only one possibility!
“Humans,” Tad gasped, a bit of stew dribbling from his mouth.
Glum pointed at Tad, nodding his head. “The kid’s got it! Humans. Weren’t even disguised as bearwulvs. You’ve heard about them! Those monsters are probably what the wraiths used to make the bearwulvs in the first place! Yup, a band of humans can just stroll through the Dread Lords’ domains. Scouts will think they’re a pack of bearwulvs.”
“But … they came all this way for our lousy beets?” The jokester goblin frowned at the thought.
Shortly thereafter, notices went up around the Keep, including the goblin barracks, Drink Town, and strewn about the Machines Works:
Where are the Beets?
Many of you, my loyal servants, have noticed a disruption in the supply of produce from the farming settlement of Terror Fields, particularly their delicious beets. This happened because the selfish goblins there valued their pleasure over service. They chose to abandon their duties, causing their fellow goblins, orcs, and trolls in the domain of the Dread Lord Withering Sorrows to starve.
Many ridiculous rumors have spread concerning the abandonment of the farms: lost to a pack of bearwulvs; an invasion from our ally, Frail Consequences; and most preposterous is that it was due to some error on my part. These are all false lies and accusations and anybody spreading them should be reported for attempting to undermine the peace of the domain and our relations with other domains.
The farms are very safe.
It is important that the farms and their valuable crops are not lost while the deserters are hunted and punished. As such, the Logistics Corps has been tasked with an emergency harvest of Terror Fields and preparing the buildings and equipment there to sit for the winter for resettlement next planting season.
Be better than those who chose frivolity over duty! Volunteer for this important endeavor by contacting your local Logistics Corps Officer today.
Your Great, Powerful, and Wise Sovereign,
The Dread Lord Withering Sorrows
There were much shorter versions, meant more for the benefit of the trolls, orcs, or more inebriated goblins, which simply read:
The Dread Lord Withering Sorrows commands that you to go to Terror Fields and collect beets! Speak to a Logistics Corps Officers now.
Although Glum had valued his time in the Logistics Corps, he was wary of Tad joining the group, especially under such inauspicious circumstances. “It’s always better to be volunteered for something than to volunteer,” Glum advised the boy. “That way, if anything goes wrong, the blame goes on whoever forced you on the job!”
The next day, as they relaxed over some ciders at You’ll Be Working Soon after a shift, Tad stared at one of the notices about the situation at the farm. “So it wasn’t humans after all,” Tad said. “They just abandoned their posts. Why would they do that?”
Glum had a hard time believing in a mass migration. The only nearby habitable place would have been Withering Fields, and farmers wouldn’t leave farming to farm. Alternatively, they could have crossed into the domain of Frail Consequence, but defectors were typically tortured for valuable intelligence; even if they came from an ally’s domain. “I suppose so,” he said, then took a sip of his cider.
“It’s safe in Terror Fields.” Tad took a sip, his eyes still on the notice. When he put down the cup he gripped it tight and pensively traced circles on the table with it. The swishing of his drink made Glum nervous of it spilling over. Drink rations were carefully tracked, and the barkeeps weren’t willing to make allowances for sloppy drinkers.
“I’m sure it is now,” Glum mumbled. “Those bearwulvs are well fed and settled down for the winter.”
After flashing an unamused frown at Glum, Tad announced: “I’ll sign up for the mission!”
It took a moment for Glum to decide on a response. The Logistics Corps required precision and effort; which in Tad’s youth he’d repeatedly failed to deliver. The boy could benefit from serving in the Logistics Corps, but he was wary of this particular job. “You can’t,” Glum responded, his tone firm and final.
Tad leapt forward, slamming his hands on the table. The cider spilled. “Yes I can! For the Dread Lord! For the beets!”
Glum looked away. “I need you in the Machine Works! If it’s almost harvest season then it’s time to grease the beltways and clean out the chutes for food transportation.”
“You managed for decades without me!” Tad flung himself back into his seat as he waved his arm in frustration. “I might not get a chance to see the farm lands again!”
When had the boy ever expressed an interest in farming? Glum shook his head. “I refuse,” he stated. He hid his trembling hands under the table.
“You’re just being lazy! You can do those tasks without me. I want to make sure we don’t starve over the winter!” Tad pushed back his chair and stood up. He looked over the other bar patrons. Logistics Corps officers were easy to spot because they always wore those purple bandanas around their heads. Tad walked towards one.
“Tad!” Glum reached for Tad’s arm, but his fingertips only grazed the end of the boy’s sleeve as he stomped away. Glum spent the rest of the night alone at the bar, staring at Tad’s nearly-full cup and not bothering to finish his own.
Although the boy had been right, and Glum was able to handle the harvest season duties on his own, his work was slow and threatened to be merely done on time instead of ahead of schedule, a distinction he’d enjoyed with Tad’s help over the previous several years.
He grew to dread the repetitive clanking of the Gears Works without the accompaniment of Tad’s yammering. His work became sluggish without the threat of it being interrupted by Tad. Several weeks into the operation sluggishness became avoidance. One morning he lay in bed so long that a medic was called in to ensure he wasn’t dead.
News, rather than wild speculation, of the operation was difficult to find. Finally, lunch was interrupted by a Logistics Corps officer megaphoning the cafeteria. Although warbling out the paper cone, the message reached Glum: the campaign to reclaim Terror Fields had concluded successfully and the volunteers were returning home!
A big smile spread across Glum’s wrinkled face and for a moment his jutting tusks weren’t the only of his yellowed teeth showing. Tears even threatened to sneak through his squinted eyes. That elation was cut short as the officer continued: there had been losses, and staff would be re-assigned to compensate.
For the next week, Glum absorbed every bit of speculation he could. He sought and dreaded answers to questions like: how heavy were the losses, what happened, were there more injuries than deaths, did the orcs protect the goblins, were any taken alive, how heavy were the losses … how heavy were the losses … and answers from “complete loss” to “an orc stubbed his toe on a bearwulv carcass” were welcomed and weighed. Every time he head footsteps passing by the Gears Works he dreaded a manager poking his head in to discuss a replacement for Tad. He’d sigh in relief when the steps passed him by with only a “mornin’, Glum” of acknowledgment.
Then, one day, those footsteps drew near but very slowly. Glum halted his work. The wrench hung limp in his hands. The steps stopped, and the door was pushed open. Glum looked down from the rafters and saw a slight silhouette in the doorway. He waited a moment.
“Glum, I’m back,” Tad announced, his voice hollow.
Hidden up in the machinery, Glum cupped his hand over his mouth. The wrench dropped from his hand and banged against the metal platform. “Oh? Good! You’ve a lot of work to catch up on,” the words came out in a warble as his lips quivered in excitement. He crawled across the platform as spryly as though he was still 50. Poking his head through the railing he addressed the boy: “Got in a shipment of bolts a couple of days ago. I need you to pick through them and sort by sizes. They got all mixed up. You know how those inventory gobs can be.”
Tad had a purple bandana wrapped around his head, although the thick white line across it marked him as a novice. He pulled it off and let it drop to the floor as he shuffled to the supply room, each plodding step more hesitant than the one before.
After an hour without Tad coming to ask a question, Glum descended the machinery. He found Tad in the supply room with the bolts strewn on the floor. He was trying to complete the task through his tears, with parts falling from his hands as he dried his eyes. When Glum tried to hold him he cried out and collapsed in his arms.
They ended their shifts early and retired to Drink Town. Tad trashed every notice about Terror Fields they crossed along the way. Sitting over their ciders in You’ll be Working Soon, mercifully empty due to the odd time they were there, Tad told Glum about what happened at Terror Fields. He’d gotten to see new parts of the domain, ride on trucks, learn about farming, and made some friends.
Friends who he’d lost when the bearwulvs returned. He would have been lost, too, were it not for the Dread Lord who appeared and put them down.
The Dread Lord wasn’t just Tad’s hero; he was Glum’s, too.
Now …
Glum looked at Tad, who stared at the Dread Lord with reverent awe. With his lips slightly parted and his eyes wide, Glum recalled the first time Tad heard an Ottis the Odd Goblin story. The elder goblin placed a hand on Tad’s shoulder and nodded approvingly.
“Oh, yes, your new recruits,” the Dread Lord remarked. His head snapped to face them with those dots of light.
Suddenly, Glum understood the “withering” in the Dread Lord’s name. The old man’s grip on Tad’s shoulder tightened like a vice. He sucked in the air.
“Perhaps they can offer some insight into this matter, Hohza,” the Dread Lord hissed, tilting his head towards them.
It took Glum so long to unfreeze that by the time he could finish his breath Tad had stepped forward, clearing his throat as he did.