Silence greeted them upon their return to the old goblin camp, carrying the supplies they had received with them. One of the men was on the ground, being tended to by a couple of the others. There was a lot of blood on and around him as well. Chance hurried over to find out what had happened. A closer inspection revealed that it was the bald troublemaker, and that he had a large bite wound on the back of his thigh. The blood on Shag’s muzzle bore mute witness as to the cause of the wound.

“Look at what your feral dog did,” the man snarled at Chance.

“Wolf, not dog,” Chance corrected. “And not feral either. His name is Shags, and I am sure that he had a very good reason for it.”

Chance gave Shags a long look, one that the wolf returned impassively. He was stirring up trouble, Shags explained. I felt it best to nip things in the bud before it got worse. That was no picnic, let me tell you.

Snarl was leaning on his broom, grinning broadly, enjoying the whole thing. “It was a good bite,” he said. “Old hairless there was grumbling and complaining and trying to convince the others to return to their old ways when our old friend here just snuck up behind him and, SNAP, bit him. Oh, the shrieks that followed. I am surprised you didn’t hear them.” He cackled-laughed.

Chance knelt down beside the wounded man, to inspect the damage done. Despite all of the blood, the wound wasn’t all that deep or serious; Shags had obviously gone easy on the man, giving him more of a warning than anything. “Hrm, yes,” Chance said slowly, “It may have to come off.”

“What!” the wounded man shrieked while Snarl hooted in amusement and even a few of the men laughed. “Use your magic! Fix me up. I saw you do it before.”

Chance sighed. “If I do, this is your last chance, understand? Any more trouble and you will be sent away, by yourself. If you are lucky we might give you some food to take with you. I will not tolerate any more disruption.” Anger welled up inside Chance, anger that his efforts were being rejected, even undermined.

The man grumbled something that Chance took to be a grudging acceptance and so Chance opened himself up to the power and sent a flow of it into the man, fixing the wound.

Staggering to his feet, scowling as he did, the bald man looked around at the others. “We shouldn’t have to take this,” he muttered. “Right, lads?”

There was a shuffling of feet and none of the others really even looked at him, leaving him standing by himself.

“The thing is, Lahanal,” one of the others said eventually, “We are onto a good thing here.”

“Yeah,” a second agreed. “Better than we expected, or deserved. Sure, it is rough for now, but we can make something of it. Then we can send for our families in time, to make a real home.”

The man called Lahanal stared with sullen resentment at the rest. “We were free before,” he protested. “Here we live at the whims of those creatures.”

Daf snorted. “Free? Hardly. Unless you counted it as free to starve and to freeze. We were ruled over, just as surely as peasants are. All we had was the veneer of freedom.”

“You can go,” Chance told Lahanal, his voice low, and the man’s eyes almost bulged. “If you want, you are free to leave, to make your own way, but you will get nothing from us.”

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Lahanal stood there, looking round at the others gathered there, at their expressions, almost pleading in his look. Then he glared at Chance. “Fine, I will. And if none of you are willing to join me, then enjoy being slaves.” He limped away, towards the stream and the bridge over it, sullenly muttering.

“Shags, keep an eye on him,” Chance said quietly. “Make sure that he actually goes and doesn’t try to cause any trouble. But don’t do anything to him.”

He won’t even know that I am there, Shags promised and padded away silently.

“I would have kept him around, myself,” Daf said.

“It is better this way, I think,” Chance told him. “He wouldn’t have been happy here, and would have just continued to breed misery for everyone else. Besides, once his situation dawns on him, he might change his mind.”

Daf shook his head. “Lahanal is a fool, and a stubborn one at that, but don’t let his attitude fool you. He does know what he is doing. He can make it out there on his own, should he need to.”

Chance nodded slowly. “That is good. I’d rather that he not die out there because of me.”

Daf snorted “Lahanal brought this on himself. He was favoured by the old boss, which put him in a position of privilege and allowed him to get away with a lot. The loss of status left him angry and uncertain.”

“Still,” Chance responded and then gave a shake of his head. He looked across at the other men who were gathered nearby. “No one else wished to leave?”

“Where would we go?” one man called out. “You have dealt fairly with us and we are better off now than we were.”

Chance nodded. “Well, then, if you are all determined to stay, we have a lot of work to get done here, and little time to do it in. It is not long until winter arrives and we need to have you established before then. We need shelters built, gardens established, food stores put down, enough to last out winter. Snarl, if you can get a meal going, a proper meal, we will get started on the work.”

“Right,” barked Snarl loudly enough to cause a few of the men to jump, “Any of you little men know how to cook?”

One man held his hand up tentatively. “A little,” he admitted.

“You are the camp cook now,” Snarl told him, grinning. “We don’t have time to teach you everything that I know, but enough at least so that you don’t go poisoning everyone.”

Laughter greeted Snarl’s words from around the camp, a welcome break from the tension that had been present. Chance managed a smile as the designated man was all but dragged off by Snarl to start getting a cooking area organised, a fire established, and a meal prepared.

Daf and Chance began to organise the rest of the men, to start the preparatory work needed to build a proper camp for them. Some went to work pulling down the remnants of the old goblin camp, setting them aside to be used or disposed of later. Others cleared away the ground in preparation for buildings and tents to be erected, or marked out some simple garden plots so that they could start planting soon.

The work proceeded with speed, for the men were both larger and more focused than the kobolds had been and it did not take long for the first rough tents to go up, enough for the first little while at least, until the cabins were built. Chance kept busy among the activity, working harder and longer than any others, as if to show just how committed he was to the whole enterprise. After Lahanal’s words, he didn’t want to leave behind any thoughts he was simply using them as labour while he watched on.

Even with all of that, it still took a few days of hard work to get the basics established, the first few wooden cabins built from lumber harvested from the forests around, the first seeds and crops planted in the gardens near to the cabins and watered in, and larger farm beds dug up and staked out nearer to the stream. Nothing was planted there for the time, for Chance wanted to get hold of some grain seed. Having access to a source of grain going forward was crucial without having to rely on outside sources.

Shags had not returned straight away, instead loping back a few days after he had set out.

He is gone, the wolf reported Headed back off towards where we came from. I followed him until he was well enough away that he would be of no trouble.

Chance nodded. It was one more issue dealt with. “Thanks Shags.” He looked around at the progress that they had made. “I think that we have established things here. We can leave and know that they are set up. Time to hit the road again.”