The space would have been open, but for the people. There were ramshackle structures and a few scraggly trees, which looked surprisingly well tended and to have provided the wood for all the structures, but in the large open space at the top of the path, it was bare rock, or a thin layer of dirt.

Except that ostensibly open area was filled with dozens of the small green men—goblins, standing in front. There were indeed green, and small as children, but clearly were adults. They stood no higher than his stomach, with long pointed ears, almost batlike. Small red eyes, deeply inset and dark protruding brows. Flat, large, almost horselike noses, while their teeth were sharp as a predators’. Most wore only a loin cloth, though to his eyes, those were actually higher quality than the furs and leather worn by the orcs below. Several also had fine, elaborately embroidered scarves.

The sight of the orc corpses below had given him some insight, but seeing the goblins up close, it was obvious they were not related to the orcs. Orc ears were small, though their noses were smaller, but they had massive underslung jaws, with upward protruding fangs, but their other teeth were flat, like a humans.

The bodies below had not inured Robert to the strangeness of it, but he was a committed abolitionist and believed the Colored men were every bit as much men as white men. He simply hadn’t expected to have that claim tested by quite so many colors. Indeed, the goblins came in many different shades of green, as well.

But once he forced himself to look past the strangeness, he saw that they were poorly armed, cooking knives and clubs, hastily sharpened sticks, a few even only had piled rocks to throw. All of them were unarmored save for their clothing. And all were, he was certain, despite their strange faces and beady, red eyes, frightened. Regardless, there were many of them, enough to outnumber his entire force. If it came down to a fight with barely armed slaves who were barely up to his stomach, he knew the 54th would win, but it would be a cruel thing to kill such wretched creatures.

Behind them were ranged half a dozen or so of the larger orcs, each wearing poorly tanned hides and furs. Almost evenly divided between men and women, their minimal clothing made that obvious. He wished there were not women here. Battle was an ugly thing…to include women in it made it worse. Even Montgomery, who he would not grace with his dishonored rank, had realized that and that man was near enough an animal. But...they had the axes and they were larger even than Trip, they could not be captured safely and even if they could, he feared the consequences of keeping women prisoners when they had lost all of their camp followers. He trusted the discipline of his men, but better not to tempt them. Putting that matter aside, as there was nothing else to do with it, he focused on the nature and equipment of his enemies rather than their sex.

They were an unimpressive sight, except for their size and the size of the axes each of them held, contrasting pathetically with the photos of the various Indian tribesmen he had seen exhibited in Boston. Their badly tanned hides were clearly rotting in places, and lacked the beauty of buckskin as well as any of the decoration.

No, that wasn’t entirely true, they wore claws and fangs of great beasts, awkwardly and badly attached to their clothing, or on makeshift jewelry with leather thongs bound about some portion of their anatomy. It was the look of a people who cared not for their appearance. Even their weapons were unadorned, brutal steel and barely shaped wood. That seemed...unnatural. People tried to decorate themselves and their things.

He’d seen it in his own regiment, he’d seen it in the contrabands who had sacked and burned Darien, the only people he hadn’t seen it in...were the slaves who were denied control over even their clothing and equipment and so could not.

As his mind considered that, he saw one more figure, seated behind the others, but seeming even larger than the orcs. Had he perhaps misunderstood? Was there only one master here and the rest slaves? The flash of metal on his torso and the even more massive axe, which seemed, though it was hard to tell, far more impressive then the others, perhaps even to flash with an inner fire…it was hard to see through the ranks of goblins and orcs.

Behind the rows of threats, there were small buildings and a cave entrance, all of which could conceal reinforcements. The enemy lacked the numbers to cover the entire mesa-top and, strangely, had not chosen to place their defenses at the top of the path, where a few could block many.

He kept his eye on the ground, in case they’d tried to dig pits, or ditches, but it seemed bare rock. Regardless of the reason, they’d left sufficient room for his force to deploy, so he stepped forward and the men flowed after him, instantly forming battle lines on either side of him, rifles in hand, first rank kneeling, second rank standing awaiting the order to fire, or the moment the enemy attacked.

It was a fearsome sight, the wall of blue and black, bristling the steel of bayonets and their guns hungry for the blood of the enemy. The only question was...who was the enemy?

The enemy seemed to be waiting for something, but before Robert could figure it out, the large figure stepped up, revealing himself to be at least seven feet tall, wearing gleaming chain-mail and wielding an axe that was almost the size of Robert himself, negligently in one hand. It was, indeed, glowing. His other hand held a piece of meat, studied nonchalance, calm certainty of victory. An act, Robert thought, but a good one, for his men. One Robert had to match. Which became harder when he realized the meat was uncooked and the skin still on it was the green of a goblin’s skin. His eyes flicked to the corpse he hadn’t been able to see before lying by the large stone stool the monster had been using as a seat.

The goblins before him looked back at the monster behind and back to Robert and his own soldiers, weighing them and deciding they were more afraid of what was behind them than what was before them and Robert’s position meant he could not see the state of his own men...this monster was better at this than he. But he kept his back straight and showed no doubt in the courage of the 54th, how could he, knowing what they had faced just hours before?

The cannibal’s underslung, protruding jaw had massive tusks, far larger than those of the orcs under his command, indeed, looking at him, he realized that some of the fangs on the outfits of the orcs might have come from creatures like this. “Huh, so the elves called for help against the Vomiting Shitbirds?” the orcs and goblins chuckled like that was an old joke they laughed at out of politeness. Or fear. “No surprise, they never like to do their own fighting, or dying. Which clan called you in to do their dying for them?”

Trip to his side twitched in surprise at being able to understand, not having expected or been informed of the boon Robert had chosen to give him at the last moment, when he saw the horde of slaves arrayed against them and did not know whether it would be high rhetoric or similar experience which would be needed to reach them. But for now, Robert ignored that, and focused on the battle which had already begun, the battle of morale and rhetoric.

“You ask who we are?” He had to clarify for those of his men who could not understand the speech of this monstrous figure, but he forced his tone to make it mocking, astonished that they had not been heard of, despite the manifest absurdity of that. “We are the 54th Massachusetts! We are soldiers of the Union! We are the blade of abolition and the bane of the slaver. We are the proof of and fulfillment of the vow our predecessors made, that all men are created equal,” He didn’t know how the boxes were translating his words, but the goblins in front of him were certainly staring at him, though he could not read their strange, distorted features well enough to tell if it was hope, incomprehension, or disbelief that was plain upon them.

The monster towering above him stared and Robert couldn’t read his expression either, but the magical translation let him hear tone as well as words and that tone was confused. “What madness is this? You are numbers? You are numbers from the hills?” he laughed and a few sycophantic laughs followed, but only from the orcs, not the goblins. “You seek to free slaves by attacking us? Take yourselves north and fight the children of Maglubiyet in the foothills!” Everyone was confused by that, though Robert hid it with some effort. “Instead you seek to challenge the children of One-Eyed Gruumsh!” he slammed his fist and axe haft against his armored chest and every orc mirrored him. “Even as we recover our strength you sneak about and strike at us in ones and twos with your magics, you are no better than elves who seek to slay sleeping warriors, afraid to face them on the battlefield. I name you cowards!” he pointed his axe at the line of soldiers.

Robert felt more than heard the huff of indignation and anger from the men at his back. He laughed. “We are the men who volunteered to be the first against the walls of Fort Wagner. We are the men who did not break in the face of death. The only coward here is you, hiding behind your slaves and hill and words!” his sword flew clear of its sheath, while his other hand found the butt of his pistol.

At those words, Robert learned that even green skin could go white with anger, but he saw something else he recognized, not in features he still had not figured out how to read, but in the monster’s inset, sunken eyes, he saw the glimmer of triumph. “Then you should have no hesitation in facing me! Let us settle this ourselves! Leader-to-leader, orog-to-man! Hardly a fair fight, so bring along one of your feeble men, make it orog-to-men! I will smite you both down.”

“Goblins, stand aside, you will be free in just a moment,” Robert ordered sharply. They scattered the moment the massive ‘orog’ nodded and waved the goblin meat he still held in one hand. They mostly kept running, either into the small makeshift buildings, a few dugouts, or into the cave. Three peeked out and one, older than the others only went so far as the side of the mesa.

The massive monster stepped forward, and Robert spoke a single word. “Fire.”

The world exploded and smoke filled the air, too much for him to see the effect. There would be no time to reload, instead he spoke a second word. “Charge!” and matching word to deed, he rushed forward. Thirty men burst out of the smoke and found one orc, miraculously unharmed by the barrage and the ‘orog’ barely standing, swaying, unstable and in agony, but his eyes fixed on Robert and he tried to charge, only to take the first shot from Robert’s pistol directly to the chest, smashing him onto his back, though the chainmail stood up to the pistol shot, unlike the rifle shots which had ripped apart his torso. Robert continued forward and after a moment of concern for their limited supply of ammunition, he dashed forward, Trip at his side and stabbed the prone figure. The sabre rebounded from the chainmail, but that simply sent it curving upwards towards the throat and a moment later the creature choked on blood. A moment after that, Trip’s bayonet stopped its choking.

The charge had taken down the orc before he could even recover from the shock of the volleyed fire and every fallen orc took at least two stabs to make certain they were truly fallen.

“Reform!” Robert yelled and a moment later both ranks were lined back up and reloading their weapons. He swept along the line, making sure his men were all right. Most were. There were a few minor cuts, and bruises, none from the enemy, but thirty men running forward, with bayonets raised on uneven ground, with smoke swirling and their blood up could end with injuries even if the enemy never managed to make a strike. Especially if their fool commander was unwise enough to order them to charge before ordering the kneeling men in front to rise. He saluted them sharply.

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He took two steps towards the older goblin, examining its features. He was not sure if all the goblins he had seen were male, or if the signs of difference were more subtle than amongst humans, or orcs, more like cats than cattle in their dimorphism. He wasn’t even certain he was reading the signs of age properly. Yes, he had gray hair, but who said that was the same for goblins as for humans? He was wrinkled, but so was every goblin he had seen thus far. “Grandfather, are there more orcs here?”

The goblin looked at him in some confusion, then shook his head. “None here, master.”

“Please do not call me master. I was not lying when I said we keep no slaves.”

The goblin nodded, though Robert thought he was being humored. Still, he did continue, “There was a hunting party that went out this morning.”

“How many?”

“Five.”

A muscle jumped in Robert’s jaw as he considered, any of the groups he’d left should have the strength to deal with such a force, but he’d prefer to outnumber the enemy far more. After a moment’s hesitation, he looked at the old goblin, for the man’s voice had assured him that his assessment was correct. The boon of translation might be helping him here as well, granting him insight that would usually be obscured.

“You do not know whether to trust my words,” he said, finally, finally, finally grasping the slightest bit of the mind of a slave, he knew the goblin would deny it.

“I would never doubt the words of a brave and honorable a commander!” the goblin denied it.

Robert heard Trip’s barely controlled laughter and he supposed it was deserved. The words probably would have worked for the powerful the goblin was used to dealing with and they would not have noticed the mockery. For by the standards the orog had proclaimed, it was obvious that he was neither brave, nor honorable. The orog had thought he had foxed Robert, forced him to engage in single combat, or be revealed as a coward and a liar. And in a band of warriors like those who’d followed the orog, that probably would have been a fatal revelation as his own turned upon him.

But Robert’s own were soldiers. He had sacrificed his honor and theirs as well at Darien, to keep them under his command and give them, and him as well, the chance to prove their worth. Which they had. And now they killed monsters, without a single casualty. That was honor enough for a soldier. He could, and might, claim that he had never agreed to the orog’s terms and they had not been under the flag of truce, unlike poor Sergeant Merriman. He could, and might, argue that dueling was against the Code of Military Justice. He could, and might, argue that dueling was even more against the rules in time of war when the Union needed every man. He could and might argue that he was a godly man, and did not duel. But the truth was simple, his duty did not allow him to duel while he was responsible for the lives of a regiment. It definitely did not allow him to duel a monster which would likely kill him and then attack his demoralized men. And so he did not. Even if the implication stung his honor and pride.

“Why would you believe me or my words?” Robert pulled his gloves off and held up his soft hands. “You look at me and see a rich man, or rich man’s son. What do I know of slavery? Or freedom?”

“I am sure you are a most learned man!”

“There are things which cannot be learned, but only experienced and I have never experienced them,” he turned his head to Trip, who was still trying to suppress his laughter at the goblin’s overt praise and covert mockery. “But he has. Speak with him, Trip. Answer his questions. I will leave you to it and warn those below of the hunters so that you may speak freely. Second squad, with me!” he ordered and began marching back to the larger group, ignoring Trip’s attempts to protest.

He paused for a moment, “Grandfather, do you know the rites for these men?” he asked, waving at the orcs and orog?

“No, mast—” he flinched at Robert’s glare, which was the opposite of what he wanted, but he couldn’t control the reaction to the term.

“Call him colonel,” Trip suggested, “it’s what the rest of us poor ex-slaves do,” there was a hint of acid there, but not directed at the old man.

“No, colonel.”

“Then we’ll give them a Christian burial down below,” Robert’s eyes flicked to the half-eaten corpse beside the stool. “I assume you will have your own rites for him?” he nodded towards the corpse.

The old goblin nodded cautiously.

“Then we will leave you to them. Trip. Grandfather,” he nodded to the old man and turned back to the group, grabbing a squad, dropping the boon on the sergeant who was in charge of the remainder and having them secure the top of the mesa and await his return.

They made it halfway down before he heard gunshots. From below, not above. He picked up the pace, waving ahead Rawlins and the guards at the foot of the ramp, then his own squad took their place, while he continued on towards the gunshots...

He forced himself to march down the path, as running on such a narrow defile with a sheer drop to the side was an invitation to death, especially if the men behind followed suit. They had a clear line of sight to the base and no one could sneak up on their position given the open nature of the country and there was no way he was going to catch up to Rawlins’ men, running across open ground towards the fighting. That didn’t make it any easier to maintain his steady pace.

It wasn’t until the bottom that he left the defense of the path in the hand of the senior corporal, as he was missing a sergeant (promotions and reorganization would be needed once he knew who and what he had at his command) and sprinted after Rawlins’ men and towards the gunshots.

By the time he reached the area, the battle was over. One of his men was down, but Rawlins was over him and he seemed all right. Five more orcish bodies lay on the ground and the patrol was tense enough that they snapped their rifles around towards him as he approached, before diverting them.

“Report.”

“Got lucky, sir. We spotted them first. But they charged right away. We got the drop on ‘em while they were still dropping their prey,” he pointed to where, indeed, two deer and a number of smaller creatures lay. This set of orcs also had javelins and slings, as well as a few other tools and lengths of ropes, clearly this group was more equipped for hunting. And were skilled at it to, given their prizes. “But they got Charlie.”

“Sir, he’s stable, but unconscious,” Rawlins reported. “I still can’t figure out what the hand gesture is for the [Cure Wounds] spell, sir!” frustration filled his voice. Indeed, so far, of all the spells which required hand gestures, only the one for [Mold Earth] had been figured out before he’d brought Thomas and the other half of first platoon over to deal with what Merriman had found. The spells seemed to require up to three components, a vocal component which was just the name of the spell, thankfully. A ‘somatic’ component which was a hand gesture, which people were mostly still trying to figure out as only one spell’s description (which popped up when they focused on the individual spell name) [Burning Hands] actually described it for some reason.. And a ‘material component’ which was some sort of item, a sprig of mistletoe, a bit of copper wire, things like that. Most of which the regiment did not possess at this moment.

The spellcasters came in a number of varieties, which he still hadn’t absorbed, but some got to choose their limited use ‘leveled’ spells (though not their infinite number of per-day cast ‘cantrips’) once a day, he hoped when they did so, they’d be given the instructions for the somatic components of the spells they chose, as the vocal and material components were identified. But that wasn’t happening until tomorrow.

“Carry him back to the base camp, along with the food,” he ordered. “We’ll handle the bodies.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sharts looked nervous, moreso than most. He swiped a hand in front of his face. “Sharts?”

“Sir, the box won’t go away.”

“What does it say?”

“It said ‘Level Up’ but that one went away, this one says ‘Select a Fighting Style and then—”

“Don’t say it! I think that’ll be your choice. Examine them, then you can make a choice.”

Sharts looked nervous, then glanced at him, “S-s-s-sir, there’s a lot of options here.”

“Describe them,” Robert ordered after a moment. He wanted to push the choice back on to the Private, but leadership was his responsibility. As he listened to the man talk, his mind whirled—level up, what could that m—he’d had a level in his stupid box. Could that go up? His age could, obviously. And presumably his strength and such could rise as well, with proper exercise, but what would have brought Sharts’ level up, and not everyone elses?

It took a while, especially as Sharts’ stutter got worse when he was nervous, which he always was around Robert, ever since he’d used the man as a demonstration of the difference between target shooting and combat shooting. There were indeed several options, but most involved melee combat of various sorts, none focused on the use of a bayonet. Then there was one on thrown weapons, which seemed pointless. Another one which theoretically would help aiming of ranged weapons, but Sharts’ aim was excellent already. An ability to fight in total darkness, but only out to 10 feet seemed strikingly useless, but the last one would allow him to choose two ‘druid’ cantrips and gain them.

That was obviously the correct choice, but Sharts was a farm boy and deeply religious, telling him to take something magical into himself...

“I will ask that you choose that one. We need to figure out what the hand gestures are and I hope if we actually learn one it will tell us what they are.

Sharts nodded. Then we worked through the spell choices. This was equally painful, though Sharts instantly chose the [Control Flame] spell ‘to make sure nothing would burn again’ said for once without his usual stutter, which was a disturbing insight into the man’s history. The obvious one to go along with that was [Create Bonfire] as [Control Flame] only let him control existing flames, not create them, but given the new insight, Robert did not push him in that direction. Eventually they landed on the [Mending] spell to repair equipment. As hoped, they got the hand gesture for them. Sharts smiled broadly as casually put out a torch they’d lit to test it, then made a floating cross appear in it when it was relit. That was reassuring, as it meant they should get those components for everything.

Unfortunately, the [Mending] cantrip required two lodestones which they did not have as a material component. Even more unfortunately for Robert’s patience and Sharts’ nerves, the next portion of the ‘leveling up’ process was that Sharts got the spellcasting feature and two known spells which he had to select. He also had an opinion on one of these, he really wanted the [Goodberry] spell which created 10 small berries, each of which allegedly could feed a man for an entire day, to make sure he would never go hungry again. Though it had a material component of a sprig of mistletoe, which they rather lacked.

The second one, most of the options were about the use of bows, or traps, which were of limited interest, so he agreed to go with [Cure Wounds] which gave us the somatic component for that spell. Unfortunately, he was not granted any usage of those spells until the next day, but Robert put him to showing Rawlins, who managed to use his last spell for the day to cast [Cure Wounds] on the injured soldier, which at least closed his wounds and woke him up, though he and Merriman were being kept at the base of the mesa, under guard until they could be brought up and give more secure housing.

Once that was done, he asked Sharts to check and indeed, his level had risen to 2. And, he noted, his EXP had risen to 317/900. Which prompted Robert to check, his own had only reached 35/300. Strange.

He’d need to look into that, but for now, he sent a squad back to the clearing, to bring everyone else, except two squads, left to secure the field in case more of the regiment came through. Thomas was continuing the ditch and men were collecting water from the river, though someone had already gathered wood for a fire and had a few kettles and pots prepared, while others were dressing the recovered animals and preparing spits and pans for those who had such.

A couple of the salvaged axes were missing, which was fair enough, they had only a few hatchets, rather than anything intended for gathering significant firewood. But the salvage pile had grown as the hunting party’s gear was claimed as well.

Eleven corpses lay off to the side, with another half dozen or so up above. Tiredly, he added policing the fields for any dropped percussion caps, or recovered bullets, as supply was going to be a problem, before he looked up the path to the Mesa and grabbed another group to march up and retrieve the other bodies. Those needed to be dealt with efficiently.

Field fortification continued, as did setting up tents, all organized by sergeants as the rest of the officers were back in the field, gathering information...someone should have taken the initiative to follow the group Robert had brought, but that was something he’d work out later. They only had the smaller, dog tents for 2-4 men, though he hoped at least one of the larger Sibley Bell tents had come through, as trying to command things from the open, or a dog tent would not be pleasant to command out of. And given they had no earthly idea about the climate...

The soldiers were commendably cautious. No one was going anywhere alone and most people were moving about in groups of 3-5. After what had happened thus far today, that seemed very reasonable to Robert.

Between the marching, the fighting and the talking, and the dying, Robert found himself quite tired, though the sun wasn’t yet too low in the sky. He nodded to the handful on noncoms who’d organized everything and gave orders to prepare a camp below, the mesa, where at least they’d be able to see any threats coming thanks to the open ground. Then he headed up to the mesa again. If they were really going to base off it, the next thing he was doing was having a fence put in along the side of the trail and maybe broadening the thing as well. He doubted magical healing could fix ‘fell off the top of a mesa.’

But as he topped the mesa he saw the result of his abandonment of Trip.