What Roochu taught me will be revealed as it is relevant. Instead, I will briefly describe how my cousins were taught in those scant weeks before their annunciation to the broader warren.

Having been assured of the "hunger" in their remaining charges, the matrons were now expected to rein in the murderous impulses so recently displayed. Food was abundantly provided during this period to be rewarded as the goblins followed simple commands, and beatings given when such commands were ignored.

You humans have tamed wolves to such an extent that they are hardly the same creature; I have met a few of these "dogs" and find them quite biddable. What I have read of your training of them - reward and punishment - follows much the same pattern as the beldams used on the goblins-to-be. Words and gestures each commanded a unique response. Young goblins are not as agreeable as "dogs", but they are marginally more intelligent.

How could a single beldam control a half dozen unruly males, each nearly her match in strength? As in the pit, the answer was simple: they had not yet learned the power of cooperation. When the matron beat one, the others did not jump to his defense; they cowered, hoping not to be next.

Escaping was a more pressing problem, but in this, the males of the warren made their earliest appearance. I heard on one occasion the pattering of rapid footfalls as three fled from their nest and out the low entrance of the matrons' quarter. Peeking out from Roochu and my rooms, I saw a single muscled arm and clawed foot extend into the same entrance as the three were dropped and punted, one at a time, back towards their awaiting mistress.

Which isn't to say there were no malevents. The whelps continued to vie for position and resources among themselves, and some were seriously injured. But, under the stern gazes of the matrons, there were far fewer such incidents than in the pit.

The other issue addressed by the matrons during this time was the development among some of the youth of their earliest magic. They were shown how to not use it. I will quote my own mother on the subject: "When you eat something, it does not go to your belly. It does not sate your hunger or help you grow. What you eat, you do not also eat. And to eat is far better than to eat, for a youngling."[1]

Barely half the whelps were capable of eating at this young age, but all must know the dangers before they could be let loose among the goblin adults. Uncontrolled eating could devastate our food supply to no benefit.

But in tension with this was another important fact: the most powerful and long-lived goblin warriors all had one quality in common: a mastery of the inborn magic of our kind. Those few who never learned to eat would not last long on raids. The caution was for the beldams to teach now; use of the magic would come among the males later.

Six weeks after we had emerged from the pits, four dozen of us were guided, and then pushed, past the threshold that had delineated our whole lives up to this point. Roochu did not send me out early, this time, but assured that I was inserted in the middle of the long line.

On the other side of the entrance to the matrons' quarter was... merely another tunnel, no bigger or meaningfully different than that we had just left. I followed warily behind my cousins, noting immediately that we were not being halted at the entrance but taken elsewhere.

The tunnels twisted in every direction, vertical as well as to the sides, and branched and converged with little pattern. If the others had some instinct to the correct path, I did not share it - within three turns I would have been unable to retrace my steps. Fortunately we were on a crowded march, knocking against each other with sullen shoves and confused growls.

I was not ready for the blast of cold as I pulled myself past a narrow opening and suddenly found myself with neither dirt nor stone beside or above me, but only open air. Strong hands grabbed my shoulders and steered me into the broad half-circle that soon held every survivor of the summer broods. Tufts of grass interspersed with bare patches of earth in this small clearing. From the surrounding forest.

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It was not my cousins who drew my attention, but rather the many other goblins that surrounded us. I noticed their lean but muscled frames, the twitching noses and ears. Most had visible scars. They carried weapons, tied to a piece of cloth on the back or belted to the side, and every one had a bulging pouch, pack, or sack.

We stood naked, and the older eyes that beheld us were cruelly appraising. The males stood waiting. We soon saw what they were waiting for.

Three goblins approached, slowly, with the unhurried walk that I now recognize as certain authority. The first of the three was the biggest creature I had ever seen - bigger than any of the matrons. Not just tall, but broad, so much so that I doubted he could enter the warren at all with his impossible frame. Grine's[2] skin was lumpy and mottled, and he limped, stepping forward with his left foot only and catching it up with the right.

The Teller[3] stepped around Grine. His ears had the droopy, shriveled look of an older goblin, although he moved with no apparent difficulty and showed a full, sharp front row of teeth. His head moved rapidly, his nose twitching, as he swiftly took the measure of each of us. I realized I was likely taller than he, but his stance was of a male whose worth had never been determined by his size alone. According to Roochu, learning from the Teller was to be one of my primary tasks in the coming months.

Between them stepped Wolf[4], the leader of the warren. He stood halfway in height between Grine and the Teller, but not even the whelps could fail to understand that he was the most dangerous of the three. He wore pelts of his animal namesake, but his head was uncovered - undoubtedly to display the full tuft of fur that sprouted between his fully upright ears. From Roochu's description, I hadn't realized how wolf-like his head looked - most prominantly the muzzle that held the multiple rows of goblin teeth in a profane display.

According to Roochu, Wolf's status as the leader removed what might otherwise be an insurmountable barrier to my own ascendency. My uncles and cousins were prepared to see an unusual goblin as a source of power rather than a threat. But at that time, I was more concerned about surviving the coming days.

Wolf took a single step forward and spoke. There was a small growl sometimes when he paused, but his voice wasn't particularly wolf-like. "Summer ends. Here is new blood." He swept his gaze along us. "You are weak now. Soon, you get strong. Soon, the weak die.." A cheer arose from the gathered males, and Wolf waited for silence again before continuing. "The weak die by the Foe's hand[5]. The weak die by the beast's claws. The weak die..."

Wolf took two more steps foward as his he held up his hands, each holding a small curved knife. "... by my claws. I am the leader here. Bad goblins die." He looked from one to another of us at random. "I say this, and you listen: I kill bad goblins. " He pointed one sharp blade down our line in a sweep. "If you kill a goblin, I kill you. If you hurt a goblin, I hurt you." He paused again, and this time he looked directly at me. "Good goblins listen to Wolf. We fight Foes, we fight beasts. We eat. We are happy." It seemed like his teeth widened as he moved his gaze further down the line. "Bad goblins fight goblins. Bad goblins die." He took one, two, three steps back, until he was again standing between the Teller and Grine. "Yes, yes, yes!" he shouted.

"Yes!" came the answering yells of the older males, raising fists and weapons towards the air. And then again, "Yes!" They looked towards us, and it was clear what we were expected to do. "Yes!" we joined in with them. "Yes!" The pace of the shouting increased as it was clear we were participating. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" The shouts broke down into a loud cheer again, only this time we youths were a part of it.

Only when the clearing was quiet again did the Teller step forward. He took a central position among our number, then gestured to the rightmost goblin. "Come here."

The goblin who stepped forward was reedy with a nervous twitch, but otherwise seemed unremarkable. The Teller looked him up and down closely, sniffed him, even poked him in the chest with a single long finger. This caused the boy to flinch back, if only for a second, and got a few mean snickers from the closest full adults.

"You are Seegok," the Teller finally announced. "Bomo, take him." He gestured into the crowd, which parted slightly to reveal the goblin that was presumably Bomo. The latter gestured to the newly-named goblin, who come as he was called and was promptly introduced to a half dozen others. His new team.

So it proceeded over the coming hour, then two, as each of my cousins received his name. Fewer and fewer goblins were still watcing, as the ones who received their new member quickly took him elsewhere, with no further interest in the event.

When my turn came, the Teller took one sniff and his mouth opened in surprise. "Roochu?" He ended the name with a question signifier, so I responded with a nod. His eyes looked up, up, past my unusual height to my strangely rounded head. He reached up, tapping my forhead, and chuckled. "Noggin,"[6] he said, and the goblins still watching laughed loudly. "Yes. You are Noggin," he said. "Smeeze, take him."

And with the laughter ringing in my ears, I took my name to meet my new companions.