Mathias and Val stood around the still smoldering remains of a fire they’d found about a mile from their hunting lodge. Mathias’ first thought had been that there were other hunters in the woods, but the footprints around it told a different story.
He sighed as he looked at the claw-toed tracks around the camp-site. Goblins. He didn’t think that the vermin would be out here, an island at the tip of an isolated archipelago. He frowned as he wondered how they’d made the trip.
“Must be a tribe out here,” Val enlightened him.
“We’ll have to exterminate them. We have no armies to muster so far from civilization, and we can’t allow the creatures to establish a stronger foothold than our own,” Val nodded his agreement, and the two followed the tracks. They eventually led to a path so well worn and wide that you could ride a wagon down it with little issue. Mathias and Val glanced at each other nervously, but said nothing.
They stayed off to the side of the path, hoping to avoid any groups of Goblins that might go down it. It would take a lot to make such a well worn path through the wilds, and Mathias didn’t want to stumble into an enemy war party.
After following the path for a time, they began to hear the unmistakable bustle of civilization. Mathias sighed in relief. The language he heard coming through the trees was totally unfamiliar, but it was far from the bestial grunts Goblins spoke with.
“Thank the ancestors,” he said, but Val frowned.
“It might still be bad Mathias. It sounds like a lot of people, and who knows how long they’ve been here? Or where they’re from or if they’re hostile to outsiders,” Mathias nodded, but Val continued, “Settlers have warred with tribes of wild men before. They can be dangerous foes, especially if you have to fight them on the land they know,”
When they finally creeped up far enough to see the settlement, they stood stock still in shock and horror.
Where they’d expected to find a tribe of wild men who’d ended up on the island at some point in the past they instead saw a primitive city populated entirely by vermin! Mathias began to slowly back away, and when Val didn’t move, he pulled his collar to join him. As soon as they were far enough away that they thought they wouldn’t be heard, the two began sprinting away; it was imperative that they report this to Gan immediately.
The large surly man’s brow furrowed as he listened to their report. When they’d first returned so soon Gan had thought they’d gotten lucky on their hunt, but instead he received disturbing news.
A city of monsters only about a day’s march from the settlement? The thought unsettled him.
“This is unprecedented!” Val exclaimed, but Gan shook his head.
“Not entirely. There were tribes like that on the mainland once, and Goblin Kings likely come from such tribes, though it is impossible to say for sure,”
Mathias nodded. He’d heard of Goblin supertribes, and he knew logically that whenever a Goblin King mighty enough to bring down a human city arose, he would have to come from a tribe large enough to do it, but seeing and reading about it were two entirely different things. “Then this is grave indeed. We won’t survive when they attack. Not unless we take steps,”
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—
Reis paced back and forth through his field angrily. The Martials had come to him and told him of the ‘danger’ in the wilds. At first they’d tried to sway him to move to the settlement proper. He’d declined, and they pressed. He’d shouted at them.
“I’ve been pushed off of my farm before, and never again!” When they pressed the issue further, Mathias unwrapped his weapon from his shoulder, and they had backed down. He’d made it obvious they wouldn’t be getting him off of his farm without a fight, and he knew that they wanted a portion of his crop.
That was when they told him they intended to commandeer his heartvine once it was grown, for the war effort to come. He’d angrily told them to leave his farm, but now he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he knew damned well he wasn’t going to let anybody steal them from him, he would sooner salt the very earth.
It was while he was pacing that the Goblins arrived, Trekuta among them. He told them about the guild finding out about their tribe, and that they were going to try and take his heartvine, and Trekuta frowned.
“Let my Goblins secure the farm,” He suggested, to be met with a puzzled look by Reis. “They want to take your heartvine, which both you and I don’t want to happen. Goblins are wounded or die in the wilds often, and it could save many lives. They already know we are here, there is little point in pretending otherwise, and I think it likely they’re watching your farm, to make sure we don’t raid it and get the plants they want so badly,”
Reis grew thoughtful at the suggestion. He’d been keeping the Goblin presence on his farm a secret because he didn’t want the martials to find out about the tribe, and he didn’t want them to think that he was allying with Goblins. But when it really came down to it he supposed that he was allying with the Goblins, enough so that it was likely to lead to his execution, and he no longer had anything to gain by hiding it, and quite a lot to lose if he turned down Trekuta’s offer for protection.
When Reis accepted his offer, he immediately sent three of the Goblins with him to retrieve a portion of his throushk. A group of fifteen martials, led by Mathias, showed up in short order. Mathias started yelling at the Goblins to leave before a hateful glare from Reis shut him up.
Slowly, Reis walked to meet Mathias and his men, with the Goblins following behind at a distance. Mathias’ narrowed his eyes as Reis approached, clearly running a calculation in his head, trying to figure out what was going on. Reis suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. If he hadn’t met the Goblins himself it’s likely that his first thought would not be that a human was working with them.
“Reis?”
“Mathias,”
“What is this?”
“That’s a good question. You’re the one who came to my farm,”
“We saw the Goblins come onto your farm, we came to repel the attack,”
“There is no attack, Mathias,” Mathias was starting to get upset.
“You’re working with these vermin? They’ll kill you in your sleep!”
“Or they’ll stop you from robbing me,” Reis shrugged.
“Rob? There’s a whole city of monsters just a quick jaunt from the edge of your farm, we’re going to have to fight them!” He leaned to one of his men and said something to quietly for Reis to hear, but the man running back towards town left Reis with a pretty good guess of what he was doing.
“That’s not my problem,”
“It’s humanity’s problem, Reis! Do you think when a Goblin king rolls out of those woods he’ll spare your farm? Your life?” Mathias’ voice was full of frustration, like somebody who was trying to open the eyes of a child who refused to see the obvious.
Mathias and Trekuta’s reinforcements showed up at the same time, and soon there were near a hundred figures looming on his farm, ready to go to battle.