Neither spoke. The stair descended, completely enclosed below until it pitched a sharp turn nearly at its landing and opened up. The corner was inconvenient for Rhode to make, but the homunculus twisted his bulk around it.

He was disgorged into the wide, marble and white-wood of the ground floor from a receded alcove. A lone soldier stood there, bearing a small lantern. Its bearer was battered about his fringes, but waited steady at attention. The glow of it was steady, but subdued.

“Ser Irving, if we can get going – do you need any help? May I offer you a hand?”

Corporal Bned was a younger man – with a full head of hair and short ears, but generally unremarkable. Rhode had conscripted him into his rolling band earlier in the night, much the same way a snowball gathers on its way downhill. The soldier was new to his rank, untested.

“Bned, right?” Rhode regarded the goblin. “I thought I left you with the group.”

“I can’t stay with them, Ser. They’re still vandals, and I am a man for my colors.”

Rhode regarded the auburn of the man’s doublet, and the broad slash of pauper’s black which cut down his right side. “Uh huh.”

He shook his head slowly. He ran his hand along the polished terminal of the banister. The graven bird resembled some kind of fat marsh Heron, but it sported a brutal, Jurassic maw. He scraped his fingers along its sawtooth beak. Now that he was paying attention, Rhode was able to catch the transition where Mimai changed from a distinct and specific person into an other. He frowned. Even though he knew it was coming, he felt his attention slipping off her.

Frustrating.

“I was sort of counting on you, man,” Rhode sighed. He rolled his eyes as the goblin offered his arm. “Naw, thanks. But I’m pretty heavy.”

“Of course. Then if you will follow me.”

The way north to the junction was throttled by a darkened archway. Spousal resumed beyond it, and the crossed passages into Ancestral on either side. There was something else there, sealed behind an imposing, iron banded double-door.

But Rhode was needed southwards and clockwise, so that apprehending portal fell out of sight and out of mind as he lumbered after Bned.

The [Brawn] seemed to surprise his minders with his pace, and one of them fell behind. Along the way, they were occasionally, or even frequently no longer alone. One by one, or by the squad, armsmen of various houses and colors were heading in the same direction. Some of them marched slowly enough to be overtaken. Others were answering their summons with urgent, clattering speed. Those hurried goblins were dropping shoulder pads. Their helmets were on crooked, and their straps were loose. They fumbled with spears and belt buckles as they ran.

“With respect, Ser Dreadlung,” one huffed.

“Egad! What did they make you so big for?” cried another. “No really,” he insisted to the cudgelwoman at his side. “Look at it, that’s ridiculous.” The goblin grew legitimately offended, even as his voice faded away. “Cut him in half to make two, and they’d still be huge.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

One just cackled as they raced by. “If you’re fightin’ us later, go easy on me, ya! I play dead for ye!”

But some reactions appeared less spontaneous.

“Not actually a Hero,” whispered a storeman to a scribe as they pulled away to a courtyard window. “Truly. Heard it from post, and they heard it from records. But the real Heroes are going to be even stronger.”

And some even less so.

“I don’t know. He kind of looks orcish to me. Is it weird nobody’s said that before?” declared a valet, somewhat loudly to no one in particular. If he was ignored, he pivoted to someone new. “Don’t you think he looks a little like an orc?” he tried again, chasing after a jogging squad.

Rhode stopped to glare at the grease-slick coiffed goblin. The man flinched and sputtered quiet.

“Ser?” Bned hesitated.

With a frown, the homunculus stomped ahead. “Not even twenty minutes, got a smear campaign going,” he grumbled, then shook his head. “Never mind. It’s not a problem, just seems petty.”

Obviously, Rhode had noticed the Reprobates’ Barricade some distance before he reached it.

A platoon’s worth of goblins were assembling just short of the obstruction, setting down their own lesser emplacement to face it. The light was strong with fresh crystals, along with a few more bizarre sources. A good thirty gobs were milling about, blocking the way. But Rhode had the benefit of seeing over their helmets on the approach. He excused himself politely, and gently directed guards and soldiers aside as if they were dainty pieces of breakable china.

Abruptly, one of the goblins spun about and craned his neck to see what he’d been manhandled by. He promptly let out a strangled and unintelligible cry and crumpled at the knees.

The disorder was only brief. It took some fair good distraction not to hear The Dreadlung coming, and chance to have missed any of the fellows who announced the creature had been inbound. His existence was barely even a secret anymore; the speed of rumor has always been quick.

Rhode lifted his hands reassuringly, but he made no particular effort to shake hands or solicit names. He pressed forward as the small crowd parted for him, and reached the low wall of overturned tables which delineated the soldiers’ side of the fortifications. The cover they had assembled was low, sparse, and shaky. But it was serviceable, and spears could be quick to position across it.

But the other side had carpenters.

“Hoy, Softy Grand!” called out Captain Handsome Fent of Maize-Well Fields Textiles Presents: Spear Squad 2. “Ser Irving!” he called again. His helmet waved, stuck out into the open from a partition –

A partition in the completely new, corridor spanning, floor-to-ceiling wall.

“Hey Fent. Just a second!”

Rhode stopped just up abut of a toppled fish descaling table. Several of the gobs were taking cover below, leaning against the ramshackle barrier. There were shards of broken crockery on the floor, and a lounge dart was stuck into the leg of an upturned smoking-chair. Nothing so serious.

Bned announced them to the commanding uniformed officer: a harried, middle aged gob wearing riding leathers and Viper liveries. But the man waved them on. He was not recognized as a knight within his order, and his authority would only last until a proper elf arrived to relieve him.

“I don’t know, man. You seem to be doing a pretty good job to me,” Rhode shrugged.

He laid his hand on a pornography cupboard to shove it aside; but in respect of his injuries, a handful of goblins scrambled to clear the way first.

“Hold fire!” Bned snapped. “We are coming through.”