The countryside around Lyre wasn’t quite as deserted as Cleres had been. They weren’t terribly welcome at the farmhouse they found, even after Sir Rault told them he’d get their Lord to waive this year’s taxes. But their barn was comfortable enough. The wolf disturbed the animals, but Gwen was happy enough to just pack up her dinner, and head out on patrol.

She was back in the morning but wasn’t that interested in breakfast. She was more intent in trying to explain something to them.

“I think she saw something”, said Zipper.

“Did you find where their army was?” asked Delta. She mimed troops with her fingers marching along her arm. “See soldiers?”

Gwen shook her head and tried to cover her fingers with her hands. “No soldiers see”, said Gwen.

“You didn’t see soldiers”, said Delta.

“See no soldiers”, tried Gwen again.

“Wait, wait”, said Zipper. “I got this.” She set up Delta with her fingers on her arms, and then put her hands up in front of the soldiers. She mimed looking around, but only seeing the screening hands. “See no soldiers.” Then she removed Delta’s fingers, but kept up the arm, and removed her hands. She looked around again. “No soldiers to see.”

Gwen snapped her fingers. “No soldiers to see.”

Delta looked intently at her. “Are you sure.”

“No soldiers to see”, repeated Gwen. Then she patted her wolf. “No soldiers to smell.”

“Thank you”, said Delta. She got up and headed to where Sir Rault was stretching and getting ready to mount his horse. “Sir?” she said. He stopped and gave her his attention. “Our scout reports that there aren’t any troops near the village.”

He looked a little distrustfully at the goblin. “Is she sure? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“That depends on their objective”, said Delta. “I think if they were here in any numbers the wolf would have smelled them.”

He looked more intently at the wolf. “That is a very good point.” He rubbed his chin. “We’re still committed to talk to them. But I will bear that in mind and see if I can understand what it means.” He moved to get on his horse, then stopped and turned. “Thank you. Good work.”

Delta saluted and returned to the rest.

“My guess is we scared them away”, said Zipper. “With our reputation and all.”

Delta smiled and shook her head. They broke out the tabards, mounted up and fell in line behind Sir Rault.

It wasn’t far at all to the village of Lyre. It also wasn’t much of a village. There were only a few buildings on the single street. The only stone one served as a general meeting hall, sometime tavern, and occasional inn for travelers. Judging by the horses tied up outside, it was where the Imperialist delegation had arrived at.

As they rode towards it, a couple of soldiers stepped from around the corner to see who was coming. At first glance, they just looked like normal troops wearing the traditional, if somewhat archaic, uniform of the Romitu empire. But as they got closer, their glinting bandoliers caught the sun, and their facial features could be better seen inside their helmets. They were orcs.

“Eh!” cried Fabrizio and went for his sword. Sir Rault reached out his hand to stay him.

“The Imperialists stronghold is in the Bright Republic, beyond Monttice. That’s mostly populated by orcs. They had several companies of them at the fight near Cleres. Don’t you remember?” Sir Rault said, admonishingly.

“It makes my blood boil to see them soiling holy Montihouse land!” growled Fabrizio.

“Then you aren’t fit to be part of a diplomatic mission”, he said shortly. Fabrizio quietened down to a sulk.

When they arrived, a man stepped out of the house. He was fairly tall and slight, and looked like he came from the eastern provinces. His fine, but serviceable clothes clashed with a plain grey wool cape he wore from his shoulders to his knees. He reached up to help with the reins as they tethered their horses.

When they had dismounted, he snapped his heels together and made a perfunctory bow. “Greetings!” he cheered. “Sir Rault of Straslais, I presume.”

Sir Rault returned the bow. “I am. And you are here to represent the… the followers of General Scioni?”

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He smiled again. “Indeed. Wolf Moss.” He bowed again. Then he brushed at his cloak, self-consciously. “Please excuse my personal affectation. I served for a long time in the Bavel Special Branch, Magical Crimes Division. Many fond memories. It’s been dissolved but can’t seem to bring myself to abandon the uniform.” He opened the door theatrically. “But, please. All of you come in out of the sun. Do refresh yourselves before we get to the matters of state we have to discuss.”

He held the door for them as they entered, watched curiously as Gwen entered on wolfback. He grinned suddenly and laughed in surprise. “And what do we have here?” he said in goblin. They all paused confused. It was clear that he spoke in goblin, but they had all understood exactly what he said. He continued, unheeding. “May Thule be far from you!” he said. Delta and Zipper looked at each other. The recognized this phrase as what Gwen had taught them as the first part of the ‘hello’ exchange.

After a moment Gwen replied carefully “May Thule and Yarltep be far from you.” Like with him, they both understood this as the reply they had been taught, but also the meaning reverberated in their heads.

“May Thule, Yarltep, and Hater be far from you!” continued Moss.

Somewhat suspiciously Gwen continued, “May Thule, Yarltep, Hater and Yog be far from you.”

Moss laughed and straightened up. “OK. I give up, my little friend. You and your mount are most welcome.” He held out his hand to her to dismount, but she didn’t move.

“Gwen’s legs are paralyzed”, said Delta. “She is more comfortable on her wolf.”

Moss withdrew his hand and looked apologetic. “Then that will do fine.” He straightened and turned to Sir Rault. “I applaud the diversity of your retainers!” They continued on with small talk.

“That was weird”, said Zipper.

“His Goblin was flawless”, said Gwen. “Your Goblin is flawless!”

“Magic” said Delta. “They’re supposed to be rotten with it. Most of what we’ve seen from them has been very practical applications. That’s got to be it.”

Gwen clutched at Delta. “Thank you. Thank you for binding me to your service. I would not be…” she started to choke up.

Delta put her hand on her shoulder. “We couldn’t leave you. We fight for hire. If we don’t take care of each other, no one else will.” She squeezed Gwen’s shoulder hard. “You are not bound. You serve willingly or not at all. You’ve earned your pay so far. I think you’ll keep doing so for as long as you want to stay with us.”

“I have nothing else”, said Gwen, quietly.

“Oh, let’s not get all maudlin!” said Zipper. “Quick, before this spell or whatever wears off, what’s the issue with ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in Goblin? Each time I try to work it out you give me a different answer.”

Gwen blinked. “This is a very strange spell. The words you use translate as ‘nod’ and ‘shake’.” She moved her head with them. “You cannot say that in Goblin. You have to repeat the action, alone or negated for agreement or disagreement. If ‘Will you eat some food?’ is the question, ‘I will eat’ or ‘I will not eat’ is the answer.”

“Good gracious!” said Zipper. “The food!” She got up and hastily availed herself of the ‘refreshment’ that had been set out.

“What can I get you?” asked Delta.

Gwen peered at the table. “Doesn’t matter much. It all tastes the same to me.”

“And no alcohol”, Delta asked, grinning.

Gwen shuddered. “No alcohol!” Then she looked curious. “The word is very different in your language. In goblin it is ‘mind poison’.”

Delta laughed. “Your word sounds better.”

Zipper had returned, with a large slab a bread laden with different things. She then looked embarrassed, took about half the meat off, and offered it to the wolf. “Here you go boy! How about you? Does this Imperialist magic extend so far as to talk to animals?” Apparently, it did not. But the wolf was happy with the meat anyway. “Ah!” said Zipper. “I can ask. What’s his name?”

“This should be interesting”, said Gwen. “His name is ‘joy stone’.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s a literal translation of something much more interesting.” She chewed thoughtfully. “How about Johnston?”

Gwen shrugged. “Sure.”

Delta had returned with two more trenchers of food. She handed one to Gwen who ate a token amount. “They sound like they’re about to get to business”, she said. “We should finish up.” The others nodded. “We must redouble our efforts to learn each other’s language”, she said. “It’s going to be hard going back to monosyllable grunts.”

They laughed, and then got up to leave. Delta passed her serving to Zipper. “Just carry it. Don’t eat it”, she clarified. Then she went and helped herself to two more servings, followed them outside and presented them to the orcs on guard. “Have you guys been taken care of?”

The two troopers looked at each other, hesitated, but only briefly. Then they took off their helmets, grinned, and accepted the food. “Had food”, said one. “But two food is two good!” Evidently the translation spell had worn off. Delta smiled good naturedly and left them to it.

They found some shade around the side of the building, and Gwen went to sleep. The orcs came around and they all got to swapping stories about the battle at Cleres from each side’s perspective. These orcs had been in a unit set to hold their right flank. They expressed disappointment that they were not in the force that was to power up the middle and split the enemy, but they were happy not to be assigned to the ones set to distract the cavalry, as they didn’t considered that to be worthy of medals.

Their focus on medals was pretty clear from the start. They each had several, and they frequently referred to them in their examples of what they considered worthy deeds. Sometimes they digressed further into the deeds performed by the person that gave them the medal did to get the medal from someone else.

They were delighted that Delta and Zipper were from the center force and considered that they must have extreme prowess to have survived the onslaught of their greatest forces. They wanted as much detail as they could, and Zipper was happy to supply them with it. When it came to their description of holding off the tortoise, they, literally, howled their appreciation, also declaiming how much they hated it when that sort of thing was done to them. One of them was moved enough to give Zipper a battle ribbon, because it was a very smart thing they did to an enemy too stupid to know what to do about it.

Delta, more somberly, told of the end of the battle, how it was clearly against them, and their surrender. The other orc nodded solemnly and, with great formality, chose another ribbon to give to her. “No honor in dying stupid. No honor in killing stupid people. Wise decisions make better fight for all.”