With Grag in the lead the small group made their way to the goblin village. Paul had left the bigger goblin with the skeletons back with the carriage. If he woke up while they were gone, Paul was had not doubts he wouldn’t be able to escape the horde.

“Why do we want a goblin village?” Liora asked.

“If two goblins would last me two to four days, if I eat sparingly, imagine how long an entire village could feed me.” Paul smirked.

Grag trembled while walking in front of them. He slowed a bit and looked back at the two. “But you’ll spare me though?”

“Yes, Grag I will spare you.” Paul reassured him. “Just don’t try and warn the village we are here and everything will be fine.”

Once Grag showed them where the village was, Paul and Liora would come up with a plan of attack. After the plan was made, they would bring the horde down on the goblins. They would kill those they had to and keep the rest for food.

While it seemed simple enough, Paul had never encountered goblins before. Stories he had heard said they were weak and cowardly. Based on Grag, Paul would think the stories true.

Even the big goblin had only been three feet tall. It had been easy for Paul to take it down without having to kill it. The big ones might bully the smaller ones, but how brave would they be against Paul, Liora, and the horde.

Paul could hear the noises of activity behind a few trees and shrubs. He could also make out more goats and chickens. Grag got them close and Paul peered out at the village.

It appeared to be a small gathering of goblins. Grag was unable to count and couldn’t give them the number of goblins in the village, but it was more than the number of fingers and toes he had. He was ready to name all the ones he could think of, but Paul figured he could just get an idea of how many there wee from observing the village.

After an hour of observing the village, he decided there was somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-seven, a couple might have been counted twice. It was hard to tell them apart. Grag confirmed that other than the big one, Throk, everyone seemed to be in the village.

Meals seemed to be communal and it looked like they were getting ready to start. According to Grag the females would take care of the chickens, goats, and some foraging, while the males went out hunting and raiding other villages. When no0t engaged in any of these activities, the village stayed together to protect against raids against them from other tribes.

Despite being “ready” for a raid, the goblins didn’t have any guards posted or scouts out looking for enemies. Immediate food was more important than potential later danger. Grag seemed confused when Paul asked about defenses, which apparently, they had none.

The village was a collection of seven small buildings. Three of them were longhouse like structures made to house the goblins when they slept. One was the chief’s hut. Throk, being the strongest goblin was chief.

The other goblin being the strongest made Paul grin. He was getting more confident that he would easily win by the moment.

One building was a chicken coop, one building was a pen for goats and the last was a slave pen. The goblins didn’t have any slaves at the moment, but usually other goblins integrated pretty quickly into their captive tribes and didn’t stay in the pens longer than a month. Other slaves were usually traded off to the humans that came through the forest every once in a while, to check for slaves.

The goblins didn’t have a currency of any kind. The money they did have they collected from the dead bodies of people they killed. The chief kept all of the valuables, which were usually traded off to the humans for anything the goblins couldn’t make for themselves, or get from raids. Cheese was apparently a big deal.

Having seem enough Paul gripped Grag by the shoulder and led the goblin back to the horde. The walk back didn’t take as long as the walk to the village. They weren’t that far away. Paul was surprised the goblins hadn’t heard the horde shambling through the forest.

“What do you think?” Liora asked.

Paul snorted and shrugged. “What is there to think? They are weak and stupid.”

Grab frowned and blinked a few times at hearing that.

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“To maximize the number of captives, you should take half the forced to the other side of the village. I’ll keep half here. Then once the village is surrounded, we capture everyone that surrenders, try to knock out resistance, and kill the difficult ones.” Paul looked at Throk. “We could always wait to see if that one will surrender the village.”

“He might give up.” Grag said. “The others won’t take his word for it though. Without a show of force, they won’t give up that easily.”

“Why wont they surrender if their leader does?” Paul asked.

“If Throk surrenders and they don’t see him fight they will think he is just weaker than you.” Grag explained. “However, if they see you win, they will think you are strong.”

“What’s the difference?” Liora asked.

“In one case he is simply weak, in the other I am strong.” Paul answered. “Simple logic.”

Paul turned and looked at his army. Three hundred versus less than thirty. Victory was a given. They probably wouldn’t even have to kill a lot of the goblins in order to get them to surrender.

Seeing the horde should be enough. If seeing the horde wasn’t enough, that was fine also. Any goblins killed could simply add to the number of undead in the horde.

With a mental command Paul split the horde into two groups. Half would go with him and half with Liora. Three zombies would be left behind to guard Throk.

Paul cast a weak message spell on him and Grag allowing them to speak with one another over small distances. “Rember Grag, don’t warn them, or you will join them.”

Grag nodded his understanding.

“I will have a couple skeletons assigned to protect you. It might look better if it seemed like you surrendered for now. Prove yourself and I may do more than simply allow you to live.” Paul grinned as he walked back towards the goblin village.

Paul waited for Liora to take her half of the horde towards the far side of the village before moving his forces closer. He didn’t want to make too much noise and give himself away before he had a chance to attack.

The zombies were put in a row in front of two rows of skeletons. The zombies were slower, but they were also stronger. It would be easier for the zombies to punch the goblins, hopefully rendering them unconscious.

The skeletons were arranged in two rows right behind the zombies. They were kept in a looser formation than the zombies. They were weaker, but faster. The skeletons also had weapons, a few even had swords, though most had crude spears. The faster skeletons would also be better at chasing down and capturing, or killing, any goblins that got past the front lines.

It might have been overkill, but better safe than sorry. The undead lines crashed through the underbrush, announcing their arrival.

Goblins began screaming and yelling as they ran in circles. Most seemed confused about what was going on. There were eight through that went straight for weapons.

With guttural growls they made their way at the numerically superior undead. Paul could hardly resist. With his vampiric speed he ran straight at one of the goblins further from the rest and grabbed it by the throat, lifting into the air.

With supernatural strength he launched the small creature at two other goblins that were over twenty feet away. They lay their unmoving, it was unclear if they were alive or not.

With that the battle seemed to end. The remaining goblins with weapons simply staired at Paul with open awe. Others looked at the horde surrounding them and saw the battle was unwinnable.

Liora came floating towards Paul. As she went by goblins rushed to get out of her way.

“What now?” Liora asked.

“Kneel!” Paul commanded with a wicked grin.

With minimal resistance the goblins knelt down and before their conquerors. Paul laughed to himself as he walked over to the three goblins bunched together. They were dead. The top one’s body was twisted in awkward angles, but would still work as undead.

“Come here.” Paul said to the goblins.

They gathered slowly and cautiously. Paul counted eighteen. With Throk he would have nineteen. That should feed him for some time.

“You will obey or you will die and serve anyways.”

In full view of all the goblins Paul began casting. Calling upon his tether to the source, he tugged the mana. Bringing it to himself, he began to shape the mana into his spell. A dark inky cloud began to form in front of him, between his arms.

Paul began forcing the black cloud into the three dead goblins. A loud sucking noise came from the corpses as the cloud delved in. Dark mist began floating around the eyes and mouths of the goblins and they began to moan.

Their limbs twitched wildly, before their backs arched and their mouths opened. The slow build up of magic ended quickly and the corpses were still.

After a few moments all three goblins began to rise. With mental commands Paul had them pick up their weapons and face the still living goblins.

“You will serve loyally in this life or the next.” Paul said. “Understand?”

The goblins shook and their eyes shifted back and forth. As Paul looked over each one, they cast their eyes towards the ground.

“Good.”

Paul told them that no one was to leave the village until he said otherwise. Then he commanded his horde to patrol the village and to kill anyone that tried to come or go.

There were only nineteen goblins, but Paul needed them all to stay fed for a while. He figured if he was careful, he could probably feed off each goblin twice. The first feeding would severely weaken them. The second feeding would kill them.

Depending on how long it took for the goblins to recover from being fed on, he might be able to get more out of them than that.

One problem was that there were five goblin children. Obviously, it would take only one feeding to kill them.

He promised Grag he wouldn’t eat him. With how easy the village fell; Paul was wondering if it was even a good deal on his end.

That left him with roughly thirty feedings, give or take a few. That would give him enough food for a month.

He supposed he could go back to hunting animals after that. It wasn’t a big deal to think about immediately. He had a month of leeway to consider his next move.

There was bleating in the distance. Goats. Paul would also have however many goats the goblins had. Things were already looking up.