“Let me show you something,” Brar said as he motioned us towards a table on the side of his tent. Walking over I could see a hide covering the table and realized there was a crude map sketched on the hide.

“This is a closely guarded secret and what I am about to share is even more so.” Brar was looking at me as he saw me studying the map. “Are you able to tell anything by looking at it?”

Looking it over I knew where we were. The colored stone with the painted yellow eye on it matched the banners on his tent outside.

“I see where we are and guess that the small stones over there are where we usually hunt the heroes? That would make this larger area to the east a city where the heroes come from?”

Brar grinned even bigger and nodded.

“Everyone out but these three.”

A few of the guards looked at Brar but no one said anything as they left the tent. Once they had all left Brar started chanting and a glowing ball grew from his staff till it covered most of the inside area of the tent.

Brar leaned back against the table and smiled.

“We can talk with no worries of being heard. So tell me who you really are, Zolb.”

I could see his eyes gazing at me. Something was off about the way he was looking at me and how he had asked that question.

“I am just a goblin happy to be in service to you and the king.”

Brar cackled and shook his head.

“That is a lie. Ask me how I know.”

I saw Turk and Dirk looking at Brar and me. Their eyes hinted that they believed they knew what Brar was really asking.

“How do you know?”

Brar tapped his staff against the packed dirt inside his tent while he looked at the three of us.

“It was how long you lasted after eating the hearts of those you killed. There are myths and legends of goblins, orcs, and others like you.” He took a small rock from the map and tossed it to me.

Catching it I inspected it and realized it was one of the ones from the hunting grounds.

“You are like that rock. Nothing about it looks special. It can be removed from this map and no one will notice if they do not know what is missing. The King knows what to look for and has trained me and a few others to find them. To find you. Creatures from another world.”

I heard the gasp from Turk and Dirk behind me. I saw the smile on Brar’s face get even bigger.

“In the old records are stories of those like you who will grow faster and stronger than anyone else. If you manage to stay alive you will be a champion for our side. You may be the first one of your kind in hundreds of years. The humans, the elves, the dwarves, and the other vermin races have slaughtered us for centuries. They have pursued us and almost wiped us out a few times. The King realized if we sacrificed enough small goblins to the heroes that perhaps it would tide them over. Give us enough time to hopefully find one like you. Once they realize we have a champion it will get bad. They will do everything they can to kill you.”

Brar laughed and pointed at me and my boys.

“They are your children?”

Realizing it was now pointless to lie, I just nodded.

“We died in our world. There were two others that came with us.”

I heard Turk and Dirk sigh when I mentioned them.

I found myself frowning as I thought of how quickly they had died. Those heroes we encountered slaughtered them faster than we could believe. They had smiled and laughed and chased us for a bit before giving up.

“In our world, there are stories about people who die in our world coming to other worlds. Each story is a little bit different and we believed we were tougher than we really are. It was much harder than we had imagined. The worst part is in our world we would almost always be on the other side of this battle.”

Brar nodded.

“That is why our race and the others are so thin. For so long the heroes and champions have always been on the other side. Knowing this, will you fight for us?”

I shook my head no.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I will fight for my boys and myself. To that end, I will fight for you and the King. If I thought we could find peace here with the other races I would pursue that. After how we were attacked on our first day by those heroes I know that will not be possible. We would be hunted by both sides. That leaves us with only one option. I will kill all those who would seek to harm my two sons and stand against us.”

Brar nodded and picked at his teeth with the nail of his finger.

“There are not many options. Do you promise then that you will help us?”

I stood there looking at Brar. I could tell he saw the danger of this situation. Perhaps I should not have been overly honest. My wife had always said I was too honest. Joining their side would be our best chance for finding peace in this new life. Knowing that we could grow to be the strongest meant they wanted us to be an ally. Making sure they could not control us would be the real battle.

I walked over to where Brar stood and handed him the stone back.

“My boys and I will do what we can to help secure a place for the goblins and orcs. We will grow as strong as we can to achieve this. What can we expect in return for our help?”

Brar smacked the table with his hand and laughed.

“Now that is how a goblin thinks! What is in it for me!”

I turned and watched as Brar walked over to a chest in the room near his massive chair and mumbled some words and the chest popped open. He dug through it and pulled out a leather pouch. Closing the chest he chanted again and a click could be heard. As he walked over towards us I felt someone tap me on the shoulder.

“Dad, are you sure about this?”

It was Turk. Always the defender. I knew he would do whatever was required to protect us.

Turning I smiled and nodded.

“We were ready to kill and train to get stronger. Now we know we will have the backing of Brar and others. I will do anything to make sure you two never have to worry about what we experienced in that tunnel or on our first day here.”

I saw Dirk poke Turk in the side and heard him whisper, “Perhaps he is hoping we will find an ugly woman and make a bunch of ugly children.”

I laughed and nodded.

“With how you two look, they will be really ugly if that is the case.”

I heard Brar cough behind me and turned around and saw him shaking his head.

“Goblin children are rare. Goblin children with two parents are even rarer. If you three are able to make something like that happen, you will have successfully saved us. With that said, I have this for you.”

Brar held out his hand and I saw a gold ring with a small red gem set in it.

“Take it. It will allow us to communicate over long distances.”

I picked it up from his hand and turned it over a few times inspecting it.

“Is that all?”

Brar chuckled and lifted his hand and pointed to a matching one on his finger.

“If you want you can have mine. They will only work between you and me. Eventually, you may receive other ones like this one.”

Pointing to his other hand he showed a gold ring with three gems set in it.

“This allows me to speak to the Goblin King. He already is aware of you and is personally interested to see how you three progress. In a year perhaps he will summon you depending on how things progress.”

I groaned and turned to stare at the map some more. All those sims I had played with the boys and other games had taught us how to read the battlefield and maps. I could see we were currently surrounded on three sides by different cities. It was a miracle we had survived that first day with all of the potential heroes who were coming out looking to make their name by killing a goblin.

“Boys tell me your thoughts.”

Even with my back to them, I knew Dirk and Turk were smiling. They still saw all this now as a game or some show. Hearing what Brar said they probably believed we were invincible but I knew the truth. We could still die a horrible death. They could still die a horrible death.

“Could we train in whatever we want? I want to learn magic.”

I turned and saw Brar grimace as he looked at Turk. A slight moan escaped his lips.

“I could arrange it. It would be difficult but I would assume one like you would probably learn quicker than most. Anything else?”

“Magical gear?”

I chuckled. Dirk had already told me he was hoping to find some magical daggers of +25 backstabbing he said. I tried to tell him those probably did not exist but then again I had no clue what might exist.

Brar groaned again and looked at me. His right eye appeared to be twitching.

“Children. They sometimes make things difficult,” I joked.

“I will count myself lucky that I do not have any. Managing the horde of fools in this camp is hard enough.”

“For now that ring is the only magical item I can give you. Prove yourselves and you will acquire some in spoils as well as gifts from the King. You have to earn it. Look around this tent. I earned it! Even though the blood of one of you flows through me from generations upon generations ago, I still have to prove myself each day to be worthy of it.”

I was caught off guard.

“You are a descendant?”

Brar nodded and took a deep breath.

“I was lucky. I survived early and proved myself. My bloodline did not matter as much as my ability to do what I do. The day I stop proving myself in this role is the day I may find myself dead, face down in the mud or my head offered as a sacrifice to some god of those filthy pink skins.”

I sighed. We were in the same boat and I knew Brar was sharing the truth of that.

“We will help as I promised. How can we prove ourselves?”

Brar walked over to the map and put his finger down on the spot where the city to the east was.

“When you have destroyed this town completely the King will know you are ready for the next step.”