==========

  [Marrok]

  Marrok crawled over the rise, eager to see the camp, it was the second day since leaving for his hunt and he came back wounded but victorious. Not with any sort of prey but with the knowledge of a dungeon. A dungeon that would do exceptional things for the goblins of the weir wood. They would hone their skills and weapons on the easier monsters, recuperate and hunt, breed prepare for in the late summer he would attack, whichever town was nearest. Hopefully accruing enough marks on his tally to take his from legend to myth.

  Perhaps not. Marrok was a realist and he knew that it would be many more attacks until he reached 200. But he was close. He snarled at the pain in his body, more annoyed at its lack of function than at the pain itself. The goblins would have to rebreak his bones, having begun to heal all on their own.

  As he crawled forward, he reached the top of the hillock, watching the gently waving grass as he looked down at the camp. There were several fire pits going, with plenty of meat cooking and goblins relaxing. It sounded like a perfect evening. Summoning his energy, he wobbled onto his feet and marched back into camp, a vicious smile painted on his face.

  The first goblin to greet him was Forroll; she was shorter than average, with pretty eyes and small drop tusks, that peaked out of her lips, gleaming and sharp. She had light brown hair that complemented her pale green skin and of course, most importantly for Marrok, she was a scout commander, a damn good one at that, with no thoughts to try for his position – as far as he knew anyway. She was a pretty sort and if he didn’t value her head so much, he’d have bedded her by now.

  “Chieftain” she said, bowing. Marrok smiled slightly, and continued past, hiding the extent of his injuries as he made his way through to his tent. Forroll followed him, catching onto the pain in his eyes. He nodded to the other goblins, relieved when they didn’t raise a toast to him. What he needed most was to recover first, in secret and prevent the other goblins knowing how injured he was and then he would present them with the dungeon idea, well, present only in the meaning of telling them what to do. It was not open to discussion.

  “Forroll” he said as the tent flaps closed behind them,

  “I need food rest and healing.”

  “Got it” She replied heading out.

  Marrok shuffled over to the bed, a low timber structure packed with moss and leaves for cushioning, perched on the edge and levered himself onto the bed.

  It wasn’t too long before Forroll returned, carrying a bowl of food. Bread, cold meat – Marrok thought it smelled of venison – and some foraged greens, his stomach grumbled at the smell, and he tucked in with pleasure.

  She was followed by another female, Lethin. She was an old goblin, specialising in healing, and she came to stand by the bed frame, casting a critical eye over his injuries.

  Healing was one of the few non-combat professions that the goblins accepted. She earned her marks by proxy: any goblin that she saved would owe the next mark gained to her, thus allowing her to gain a suitable tally to greet the one God but also furthering goblin kind.

  Still, it was looked down upon despite the obvious value. Marrok himself had gifted ten marks to healers over his life and they had earned his respect.

  “The legs will need re-breaking, Chief,” she said, confirming his thoughts. “I’ll bind the ribs, and set the legs and then you can take a potion.”

  “No, save the potions; they’ll be needed in the future. I found something, something that will make us strong, strong enough to challenge them all.” He replied, coughing slightly.

  “Don’t be an idiot Marrok, we need you, we need your leadership here, already there’ve been a few fights, nothing serious, but with you off for a few days some of the young’uns have thought about challenging you. If we are to make use of this discovery of yours, we must spare one of the potions.”

  “No, I’ll be healed in a couple weeks, we can manage till then.”

  “You won’t have a couple of weeks, there’s no way we can hide your injuries while you have braces and bindings on. You are taking that potion.”

  “Save it”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “No”

  “Lethin…”

  “No, Marrok, you haven’t been here, it’s not good, we need you back now, take control and you can tell us all about the discovery you have once we’re stable again. Ok?” she said glaring at him. Marrok sighed, nodding slightly.

  “OK, I’ll break your bones now” she replied with obvious pleasure, hefting a hammer. He grimaced.

  *** 1hr later ***

  Marrok winced, letting out a low moan as he held in the scream. Having your bones broken again and again as a healer tried to align them was incredibly painful, and Lethin had not tried to make it more comfortable for him. He must have really annoyed her by refusing the potion, even though she won in the end.

  As the last brace went on, stabilising his legs he felt a glass bottle being shoved into his face.

  Sitting up, he reached over grabbed the flask and quaffed the potion in three big gulps.

  Healing energy flowed through his body. He itched, feeling muscle regrow and fill in the lacerations made by the vine-like tree branches and the cat. Watching as the skin knit itself together like a blanket. Bones popped and shifted as the broken ends merged together, fusing once again.

  Marrok felt increasingly exhausted as the potion used up his energy in addition to its own.

  As his injuries slowly faded, leaving behind scars he fell into a deep sleep.

  ==========

  [Forroll]

  Forroll watched as Chieftain Marrok fell into a deep sleep. He was damn stubborn, but he was incredible. It was why the Weir goblins had done so well. Goblins were not well liked by the other races. Though that might have been a kind way of putting it. Goblins were despised by the other races. Forroll thought it was for good reason, though she didn’t care. The tall ones only existed to be added to the tally. Their heretical belief systems confounded goblins and their extermination raids meant that goblins didn’t tend to live long lives. Goblins added them to the tally in order to meet the true God. It wasn’t their fault that the tall ones were wrong.

  But Chieftain Marrok had changed the way goblins approached things. He was on the smaller side, but it was his ferocity and intellect that had allowed the Wier goblins to survive.

  Forroll thought back on her past, she had been just a goblin tot when Marrok had first appeared. Janke had found him wandering in the woods, butchered but still alive. He had had a tally to be envious of even then, now though… she thought wistfully.

  It had taken many moons for Marrok to heal sufficiently but he was welcomed into the tribe. Despite his small stature, the tally that adorned his skin had ingratiated him with the Weir warriors quickly and before long he was leading the goblins out on hunts.

  It was in the brittle winter that trouble had first emerged. Frost trolls appeared in the woods and prey was driven far from the goblins home ground.

  Trade caravans had stopped coming and the goblins of the Weir were beginning to starve.

  Forroll absently tightened her arms around her belly as the memories of the aching cramps of hunger grew fresh in her mind.

  The lashing sleet and pounding snow that settled in thick blankets, burying the ground to a goblin’s chest height, had been deadly. Lankrik the chieftain at the time had told them to weather the storm and that they would last the winter before growing fat on the renewed trade.

  Marrok had disagreed, believing, and rightly so, that the winter would continue on far too long for it to have been manageable. Forroll thanked the true God for him, otherwise the goblins would have perished with many not achieving the tally necessary. The worst fate a goblin could imagine.

  He had slit Lankriks’ throat in battle for the next chieftain and pushed the goblins hard through the snow to the nearest human village. It was on the edge of the Weir Forest and the goblins had always left it alone because it was always host to numerous caravans with extremely dangerous guards.

  A challenge too mighty for the goblins.

  With the brittle winter’s hold on the land though, it was a target ripe for the taking.

  Forroll remembered the crunch of snow under her cloth-wrapped feet and the smell of ash and wood from the warming fires in the hearths of the villagers homes. Homes that, soon after, belonged to them.

  The slaughter had been glorious and many a goblin had added to their tally that night. She herself had added three. A young boy was first, taller than her, but that wasn’t a feat hard for the tall ones, he came up a head above an adult’s waist. Forroll was not sure what age that made him, but he was certainly not grown. He had frozen, cried and fallen silent with an axe in the head.

  A smile graced Forroll’s lips as she stood in the tent, hidden in the darkness of the extinguished lantern. She savoured the memory of the kill. The next one had been a woman, she had charged with a knife, protecting the boy, but it was too late, and she was dispatched just as easily.

  A few houses later, Forroll came across the most important mark on her tally. A large male human, tanned and scarred by a tough life. She remembered the scent of his blood and the huge bushy beard that adorned his face. He had held off many a goblin with his spear, killing Janke and a few others, until she had slipped in behind him, sliced through his ankles and buried her axe in his head as he toppled to the ground.

  The goblins had occupied the village for the remainder of the winter, eating up all the supplies and razing the rest to the ground before leaving in the spring.

  Marrok had saved them and, as chieftain, he led them on a array of ambushes that left the humans floundering. Now with the Wier woods tainted on account of that traitor - Forroll paused her thoughts to spit at the memory of that coward - they had breached the mountains and descended into new woodland. Woodland that could be their home to recover and recuperate before launching a raid of their own.

  Forroll hadn’t forgotten Marroks’ words. He had found something, something that could make them even stronger. The Wier goblins were no more, they would be forged anew in the coming months, into something different.

  Forroll was sure of it. She gazed down at her Chieftain, considering everything, before buckling up the tent flap and sliding into the bed with him.

  Soon she too slipped into the black.