Cat’s Eye had been a goblin marauder all of three days.

You see, three days ago he had been plying his trade on the roads between Harva and Hilltop when he had been stopped on the road by a gang of bandits. Goblin bandits. Fortunately for him, he was a goblin and not something else and so they had simply robbed him and forced him to join their little band as a slave. In a matter of minutes, he had been stripped of his treasures and forced into servitude.

He hadn’t wanted to join. Until that point, life had been good to him. Among the small but tight-knit underworld of Sommerdale, he was not only known as a traveling salesman, but also as a fence and occasional smuggler of stolen goods and illicit items. In his own way, he had been wealthy, especially for a goblin.

However, that had all changed after his encounter with the bandits. In a matter of minutes, they had taken everything from him and bound him, hand and foot, in rope. Then those goblin bandits had joined up with other goblin bandits and then the lot of them had ran into an even bigger band of goblins. Now his fellow goblins were beginning to use words like brethren and tribe and frankly, Cat’s Eye wasn’t sure what he thought about all that.

When he was being honest, which was rare, Cat’s Eye was the type of goblin to tell you that other goblins were stupid, ugly, and not to be trusted. They were a savage race in the strictest sense. None of them could read and in fact believed writing to be a form of witchcraft that civilized races had invented to pull thoughts permanently from your head. They also had little concept of currency and generally considered gold to be something useless that they could trade to more intelligent monsters in exchange for safety, weapons, and possibly a good meal. They also did not build anything outside of traps, huts, crude weapons, or the occasional siege engine.

Now, after three days of wandering, raiding, fighting, sleeping in the open, stealing from villages, burning houses, and meeting up with other bands of goblins, his little band of bandits had become a part of a much larger band of bandits that had begun to have delusions of grandeur. The words brethren and tribe had given way to ‘nation’ and if there was one thing Cat’s Eye was certain of, it was that goblins had no business forming a government. At least not a government run by goblins.

Which was why when he heard the word ‘Queen,’ he immediately knew that something was up. If there was one thing worse than goblin men, it was goblin women. There was an old adage among goblin men that the only reason goblins liked raiding and robbing and murdering so much was to get out of the house every now and again. Goblin women were mean, ill-tempered, manipulative, and had a penchant for chopping things off in the dark of the night because their mate failed to do the dishes.

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

These were the same reasons why, coincidentally, Cat’s Eye had never married.

So there he was, standing in the sun at the bottom of a valley as he and some other buffoon of a goblin watched a bridge. It was light duty. In fact, he was glad to have it as the last three days had involved him carrying rations and cooking gear for the platoon he’d been assigned to serve.

What if I just ran off right now? He pondered this as he looked out at the hills. He had a pretty good idea of where he was. He also had a pretty good idea of where the nearest fort was. The question was if they would let him in or if they would shoot him on the spot. For not the first time in his life, Cat’s Eye was at a disadvantage because of the idiocy of his kin. The other question was, of course, if he could make it. Yelden’s Stronghold was dozens of miles away. That was two days worth of goblin, wolf, and gnoll infested territory and all he had was a short spear and a dagger. It was not exactly an appealing idea.

There was also the problem of his fellow goblins. He and the idiot sleeping against the rock were not the only goblins there. Halfway up the hill, out of sight and hidden behind a rock were forty other armed and dangerous goblins that had been assigned to hold the bridge at all costs. In fact, when a patrol of Imperials had attempted to cross, they had set an ambush and killed the luckless soldiers to a man. Cat’s Eye had been forced to the front of that little fight and had managed to stab one of the soldiers in the ribs while his fellows swarmed around them. Not that his bravery had done him any good as he had simply drawn another guard shift while the officers divvied out the loot between themselves and their favorites. He was still considered a thrall after all.

So Cat’s Eye stood there, leaned against his spear as he looked out at the clouds and the hilltops as he dreamed of the days when he’d had money, freedom, and a gunny sack full of treasures. He glanced at the sun. He still had several hours until his shift was up. And even after that, he would likely be assigned to scrubbing cook pans or searching for firewood. Such was the life of a thrall.

He looked over at his fellow. The two goblin patrol that had just passed had barely even looked their way, but if they had, the bastard on shift with him almost surely would have been in for a flogging. Sleeping on guard was a serious offense. They were at war, after all, even if the Empire and the Republic didn’t know it yet. Whoever this ‘queen’ was had apparently already declared that their little collection of tribes was it’s own nation. A moment ago, while the patrol was filling their water skins, Cat’s Eye had hoped that someone would notice the asshole sleeping on duty and report him. However, he hadn’t been so lucky. So now he was wondering if he should just let his partner sleep, or if he should wake him up1.

After considering his options, Cat’s Eye decided it would be better to have an awake partner than a sleeping partner. However, as he got up, an arrow fell out of the sky and struck his sleeping partner right in the chest. He watched as the nameless goblin opened his eyes, looked down on the arrow, gasped, closed his eyes again, and died.

A split second later, a second arrow whizzed past his ear and thunked into a post on the bridge.

1Ratting on a fellow goblin was not only not in a goblin’s nature, it actually goes against everything in their moral code. This sociological and evolutionary development is a direct result of goblins not only being sociopathic, but also being generally stupid. For by goblin logic, if a fellow goblin were to tell on a goblin sleeping on guard duty, what is to stop that same goblin from selling you out for stealing eggs from the local farmer?