BOOM! Crack crack crack.

The deafening sound of thunder preceedes a fresh sheet of heavy rain, sloughing down onto the cracked, barren wastes. In the fleeting light from the blue-purple lighting that fills the skies, a caravan of wagons can be seen huddled together like pack animals against the predators of the night. When the rolling boom of thunder stops, evil laughter can be heard interspersed with cruel words in high, nasally voices. Short green figures surround the broken wagon fortress, pulling things out of the wagons and tossing them in a pile while others of their kind poke and prod at the sides of the sad, thin horses that are tethered by the covered wagons.

One of these green figures, larger than the others by a full head and wearing a leather jerkin in place of  the rags the others wear, leans over a cowering group of prisoners from atop his prized wolf mount. 

"Where food, humans?" it growls down at them, it's fanged visage made only crueler by starvation and the shifting light from the ever present storm. 

The prisoners, all women, just continue to sob and cling to one another for a long moment before one of them speaks. An old crone, wizened beyond her years by the life of a vagrant, struggles to make her voice heard over the howling wind. "Food? As if you don't know, goblin. In goblin stomachs, I wager. Or in the stomachs of goblin leaders. Isn't that where everything went? You took the sun and the green, and now you ask where the food is when you've taken the lives of our men, our horses? If the gods weren't dead, I would curse you by their names, greenskin. You can eat dust. It's all we have now."

One of the women, quieter than the others, grabs the angry elder and pulls her back down into the group, holding the trembling crones close. The heavy rains plaster thick hair close to her head, her thin frame shivering from the cold. She is, he notices, missing an arm. Red eyes narrow into gleaming pinpricks as he glares down at the girl suspiciously. 

"You...are you her? What is name?" 

The other goblins have noticed their leader's attention to the prisoners, coming back from their fruitless looting to encircle the women. Their feet, mostly bare, slap against the drenched ground and throw up mud to join that already caking their legs. Weapons are drawn, shortswords and daggers rasping as they leave their sheathes.

The girl presses herself closer against the elderly crone, shaking her head.

"She can't answer, she's mute!" The old woman snaps. "Do you think one of His would be here? Hiding in the wastes so close to the very place everything went wrong? By the Pit, leave us be! We have nothing for you!"

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The earth groans, rumbling beneath them all as the old woman finishes speaking, the howling of the wind rising in intensity until the wolf begins to whine and shake under it's master. The goblins curse and struggle to keep their footing on the rolling, muddy ground. 

"Foolish!" the goblin leader spits when the howling ends, leaning down to slap the old woman across the face viciously. "Never say that here! Bad words bring bad things! Even animals know." He reaches down to scruff the wolf's mane, patting the whining animal until it rises again. "We leave now, take dead. You leave too, away from bad place. Or Watchers find. You want goblins then, human."

The goblin leader whistles sharply and his underlings gather, pulling one of the wagons as they go. "North." he says, and within seconds they're lost in the rain, the huddling humans staring out into the darkness for a sign as fresh ruts in the ground rapidly fill up. 

Lightning flashes, casting the small, sodden group in sharp relief several times before they finally move. The younger women help the crone up, the woman without a left arm setting off back to the remaining three wagons.

Picking up the clothing and blankets the goblin raiders had tossed aside in their search for food, she is the last to climb back into the relative comfort of their wagons. The old woman looks at her, reaching up with a filthy, but dry, rag to wipe mud from her face. "How much further?" she asks quietly.

A glimmer of light shines from the young woman's eyes for a moment, a soft yellow hue that stands out in the darkness of the storm. She holds up her hand, smiling sadly. 

"One more night?" the old woman breathes, a hint of hope in her wrinkled features. 

The young woman nods, peering out of the wagon towards something far out of sight, towards the center of the storm. The wagon jerks and groans as, at last, the horses are teased by their driver into moving again.

 Outside the wagon, the storm continues to rage. The squeak and groan of wheels turning is lost amidst the booms and cracks of thunder. Behind them the rain has already washed away the blood from their friends. The girl just continues to watch, staring out of the wagon towards something only she can see. 

"One more night, and then...then it ends. Or begins." The old woman sighs, tucking herself down into a nest of blankets and drifting off into sleep.

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