Chapter 40

Frank spent a little more time with Brotlaavi before night fell. Brotlaavi and Frank had a strange time communicating through telepathy as the elder goblin guided Frank back to his humble tent in the camp. Frank, of course, made good use of his invisibility and teleportation the whole way over, and recorded much of the goblin's lives in the slave quarters. Frank even got Brotlaavi to vocalize a small introduction on camera in goblin, or as Frank learned it was actually called, the orcish language "Orgrauma". It was partly for fun, partly for human academics to get a feel for how orgrauma was meant to be spoken, and partly to prove Frank had made friendly contact with goblinkind.

Brotlaavi offered to make Frank some goblin food, but seeing how pitiful the rations were, Frank decided to have his host boil water and cook a couple packages of Frank's dried soup mix he had brought from Earth. He was able to polish off two goblin sized bowls while Brotlaavi could only handle one due to how malnourished he was. Before setting off to wait for the "inspection" party Frank told the elder he could give the rest of the soup to other goblins. Brotlaavi couldn't help but burst into tears at this, praising the human as a gift sent by Sanavrona herself. Frank backed away from such high praise, really it was an excuse to get an easy meal put together without compromising his presence too much. It also made for good diplomacy. Frank was no savior. Hell, he had walked into Brotlaavi's office ready to paint the desk with his blood if things didn't go smoothly. That being said, it did feel good to end up helping the pitiful green beings he previously anticipated needing to slaughter. He was glad Lauren's instinct about the goblin class structure was dead on the money.

Now that Frank was outside and the sun was setting, he realized he had a decent view of the burial mounds far away in the distance. Frank wasn't sure whether compasses would be "accurate" in this world, but sure enough the compass in his kit did point north, with the burial mounds to the west just like the map said.

They really were massive, bigger than any similar structure he'd seen pictures of on Earth. They weren't exactly mountains, but the biggest of them still stood out easily from a great distance. Frank wondered how they were put together, and how crazy they might look from inside. A construction project like that would have to take a whole lot of manpower, or at the very least be a big cultural endeavor for the people who built it. The pondering scout took out his phone and took a few pictures of the view with the sunset sky, minus the setting sun itself. Frank made a note that the sun on this planet seemed to set to the south, rather than the west like on Earth. It really hammered home the fact that Frank was on an alien planet. Blue plants all around, the sun setting in the wrong direction, and a bunch of little green men wandering around who were too busy to look up.

Before long, Frank caught sight of a group of roughly twelve fallen goblins, many carrying big bundles of thick rope. At first, he wondered if they weren't going to grab some livestock for slaughter. Then he realized there were too many of them for such a task, and a bunch of the yellow eyed bastards had that sadistic grin on their faces. They followed the path straight to the front of the stone edifice that made up the outside of the slave quarters. Whatever this building was before, it was the last refuge of this community of true goblins. Even if it was their only home, it was far from safe with filth like this coming and going as they pleased. 

It took Frank a great amount of restraint not to draw his pistol and start taking potshots at the approaching fallen. He kept repeating the same thing over and over to himself in his head.

'They're gonna get what's coming to them, soon. Soon, soon, soon.'

---

Mokki and his family had finished their dinner about an hour before sunset. They now sat and talked over the stew fire in the decently sized walled off cubby of the shanty town they called home. They were afforded a larger living space because Mokki's father was the camp stablemaster's assistant, and previously because they were a family of four. Still fresh in their hearts they bore the scars of the night roughly a month past where their mother had been taken by traitors and never seen again. She offered herself in place of her daughter, whom the traitors had tried to tie up and pull from their home.

Mokki had brought home good wine using the silver vik Brotlaavi had tipped him, and some sweets for his sister with the leftover change. She sat down happily enjoying them, washed down with a little too much wine. Of course they all indulged a little too much, it was an easy way to forget the pain of the empty spot in their home and hearts.

"Mokki, did you hear anything about the patrol that went out to the old portal station at the market square?" Vinta asked, her cheeks flushed from her generous helping of wine.

"No, sister. All I heard was that they've yet to return and it's got the other gob-captains worried there may be a problem, or worse a culling waiting to be brought upon their ranks. I know the orcs are cruel, but if there is a danger present why would they cull the traitor ranks?"

"Mokki! Keep your voice down, you never know who might be listening" Mokki and Vinta's father, Dontil, scolded his son with a sideways glance. He was the most downcast about the situation with his wife. He knew it was his duty to protect his family, but he was too scared at the time to risk leaving his kids hungry if he was killed by the traitors. He was frozen with fear at the time, but he resolved not to let it happen again. He had a plan, and he hoped it would lead him to his wife while his children slept, Sanavrona willing.

Now, with news from the orc section of camp that the goblin patrol hadn't returned and with the pressure of Lord Jaykra coming for a visit, he knew he would have a chance to put his plan into action. The fallen goblins would be itching for a release from the extra work and pressure they would be anticipating from the orc leadership, as well as fearing their tendency for wonton capital punishment. So they would come raid the slave quarters again as they had done a little over a month before, sometime before the first of the scout forces was sent to the world of the humans.

"Brother, did I tell you? I didn't get picked to be a serving girl for Lord Jaykra's visit! I'll be praying for the girls who fortune didn't favor, but I think we should toast to the goddess for smiling upon me in that moment!" she nervously filled her cup again, then passed the bottle to her father.

"No thank you, my sweet. I've had enough for the night. One to your health was enough." Dontil gently pushed away the offered bottle. Vinta, however wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

"Please, daddy? It wouldn't feel right for Mokki and I to finish this all by ourselves!" She pouted and made puppy dog eyes, begging her father to drink some more. In truth, she just wanted to see him happy as he had been so gravely different since their mother was taken. The void would never be filled unless her mother somehow came back, but Vinta wanted to do what she could to mend the family bond the three of them had with some good cheer. It didn't take much, Dontil couldn't refuse his daughter, drunk as she was.

"To the goddess, then. May she continue to smile upon our house, that we may be united once more." Dontil filled his cup, then passed the bottle to Mokki, who quickly poured for himself and set the bottle down once again. They drank to Dontil's toast after.

"To Sanavrona, queen of the great mist lands. May her people find their way back to the plains of her domain again, or to the mist trying." Vinta spoke her toast, and again they drank.

"To my family, my greatest blessing in this life has been that the goddess placed you all into my path from its beginning." Mokki cheerfully declared, and the three of them finished their cups, enough wine left in the bottle to pour one more for each of them.

Their bellies well soaked in wine, the family got to sleep sometime after, with Dontil asleep sitting against a cushion. He had not intended to fall asleep but failed to stay awake despite himself.

---

Some time later, screams echoed out from the shanty town and roused many awake. Immediately women, children, and anyone with a particular target on their back or a known grudge held by a fallen goblin with any amount of pull was running for any number of hiding spots and secret holes to hide from the kidnapping raid.

For some, it was too late and they'd been taken by surprise. For Dontil's family, their celebration would be their undoing. The fallen goblins came, one of the last group that still had rope to tie someone up with. They found Dontil's house and the three peacefully sleeping goblins inside. The lead goblin waved his friends over and pulled Vinta up by her hair.

"Yeah, this one will do nicely. Come on boys, lets get her tied up and get going!" He called as he dragged the confused girl screaming across the floor.

Mokki was the first to wake up, having been knocked around in his sister's initial struggle.

"Vinta? W-what is..." His head was pounding and his vision blurry. He couldn't understand why his sister was screaming, was it another night terror? He quickly sat up, a little too quickly, he ended up stumbling off his feet and caught himself on his hands and knees as he heard the familiar, nightmarish cackle of traitor goblins.

"No! Don't! I can't go with you! I won't! Mokki, daddy! Help! Help!" Her screams were suddenly muffled and Mokki finally put together the situation. He started shaking, he had to wake up his father! He began vigorously shaking Dontil who had barely stirred til then despite being so close to the struggle.

"Father! Father, wake up! They've come, they're taking Vinta!" Dontil stirred and fought off sleep, hearing the words that he had prayed he would never hear. Dontil stumbled over to a special hiding place they would have used to hide away Vinta if they'd been awake, he pulled a wrapped bundle out and clumsily began to strap a sword belt to his waist. This was his plan. A sword, shield, and a couple of dangerous potions meant for orcs.

He had to call in a lot of favors for this meager amount of equipment, and the potions he came across by pure opportunity as he had stolen them from an orc who had mistaken the tiny near black bottles for ink and decided the goblin could give them to the stable master as a gift from him to make his work easier. Luckily, Dontil had taken the strange pair of concoctions to one of the healers at the slave quarters, who identified them as a potion of rage and a blade oil meant to numb or even lightly paralyze those wounded by it. It was dirty fighting, and it was exactly what Dontil expected of an orc, or an elf. In fact, the healer was suspicious of Dontil and asked if he had come into contact with an elf when they realized how potent the liquids were for their tiny containers. It made sense that the orc had mistaken them for something else, and after marking the blade oil specially with some string, Dontil added them to his secret stash.

"Mokki, you stay here. Don't you dare leave until the peace speaker calls for a head count. You tell him I've gone after the bastards, that they've taken from our family for the last time!" Dontil barked these words at his son, halfway toward the entrance to their home.

"But father, you're outnumbered!" Mokki protested.

"It won't matter, do you know what I did before I was a stable hand?" He looked back at his son, a determined fire burning in his eyes. Mokki shook his head, tears in his. "I was a free goblin, I fought the traitors my entire life until I was captured during a raid. I was injured and spared because I knew how to care for a birik better than that damned stable master of ours. He requested my service rather than let me be executed. My plans to escape were halted when I fell in love with your mother. So for her, and for Vinta, please. Just. Stay. Here."

Dontil hurried off without another word, time burning like oil in a lamp. Mokki was left alone, the traitors having stolen from him again. Once again, he found himself with his face to the ground, praying desperately for his family.

---

The goblin party departed out of the southern gate, dragging their prisoners with gags, tied to each other in a long line. Goblins stood by with whips to motivate the slower and more tired among their number, or just because they felt like it. The slaves were used to this type of treatment in the camp. They were seen as lesser beings, unworthy of anything less than contempt by "blessed" goblins who had joined Hieras' legion. The only difference now was that they knew they would not return to see their friends and family again, they were being taken away in a raid, forced to march wherever the traitors were taking them.

Most of the captives were women, but a small number among them were men. The men were punched, kicked, and whipped by traitor goblins as they passed by to check the status of the line. These male goblins were goblins who took a stand during the raid and thought they would make a difference, or they were purposely taken so enemies of theirs could settle whatever score they had. Whatever slight a fallen goblin would perceive from a true goblin would be magnified tenfold into something spiteful and ugly by the dogma of the legion.

There were only two ways to get off easy for true goblins under that level of harassment: suicide or converting to the legion. Once you began training to become part of the legion, any grudges were forgiven as the goblin recruits were brainwashed through pain, suffering, and insults until they were ready to accept the "blessing" of their lord and become a hand to extend his reach. Or so the propaganda went, anyway.

Unknown to the kidnappers, Frank was following from the tree tops. He wanted to get his quest done, and get one step closer to going home. Knocking a bunch of trash like this from his path was just a bonus. He wanted to take them all down right where they were. If his aim was locked in and the goblins couldn't figure out what was happening in time, he could waste the whole group quickly and spend some time finding a safe place for the captives.

But the quest didn't quite call for that. He needed to know where they kept the people they took. The march was already going for a lengthy time, but suddenly a call was made from the front of the line and the kidnappers took the group toward the west. It was seemingly a random decision, and Frank couldn't find any obvious signposts from where he was.

He teleported down to the spot where the party changed course. What was special about this spot? Frank looked down the path, not hurried in the slightest since his quarry was still in sight. Then when he turned to his left and inspected the tree he saw it. A poorly etched symbol that resembled a skull with what seemed to be two goblin ears nailed to either side of it, heavily decayed. They weren't the pointy knifelike ears of the fallen goblins either, but the wider and slightly more rounded ears of the true goblins. While they still sported long ears that gave the green beings a distinctive shape, the difference between the two classes of goblin was apparent at a glance.

When Frank looked at the true goblins, he could tell why they weren't much good at combat. They were almost pathetic to look at with their wide eyes, submissive prey-like body language, and of course their defining trait being ears that were nearly as big as their heads that seemed to be very expressive. When talking to Brotlaavi back in the slave quarters, he saw that the goblin elder wiggled the tips of his ears when he was excited, tilted his ears upwards when he was focused or listening intently, and tilted them down like a sad puppy when he was distressed or expressing a sad thought.

The sight of these disembodied features, simple pieces of flesh that defined a whole aspect of goblin personality and body language sent a chill down Frank's spine. If this was their trail marker, how much more sinister could the hideout he was tracking them towards be?

Frank released a deep sigh and teleported in the direction of the captives, careful to keep himself hidden in the trees, unaware that he had been sighted by another presence on the forest floor, someone who was tracking the same party of goblins.

---

Dontil finally caught up to the raiding party. It was no easy feat while he was still fighting off the after-effects of the wine, but he couldn't blame anyone but himself for drinking it. He fought through and made a sprint for the southern gate. He was glad this was the one they left from, there was a hole in the wall not far from the gate that hadn't been covered except by a bunch of boxes to hide it. If they had left through the west or northern gate, Dontil would have had to go seek out one of the hidden tunnels the peace speaker had ordered be dug under the slave quarters.

These tunnels saw some use tonight during the raid, but not quick enough and, most painfully, not by his family. This extra motivation kept the former free goblin going as he made his way to catch up with the traitors who stole away his family and his people.

Dontil kept going at full speed, his days with the free goblins floating to the surface of his memory with little help. It was almost like the old days, tracking down traitors and killing them in ambushes across the forest. The difference was that this time, he didn't have the blessed clothing of free goblins or his kinsmen beside him.

He finally heard the sound of whips and screams in the distance, a sound he never thought he would be happy to hear. He just hoped they hadn't hurt Vinta at all, or he might dash the whole plan and just attack where they stood to get his daughter home, forgetting the possibility he might find his wife held captive.

He followed from a safe distance, easily able to keep an eye on the captives from the cover of the trees and brush. His heart was in his throat as the traitors whipped and beat his people as they surveyed the line to ensure nobody was escaping or falling behind. He wanted so badly to stop the injustice right here, but if there were more goblins wherever they were leading these to he had to make sure he remembered where so he could bring more brave souls with him to save them. 

Dontil was being careful not to breathe too heavily, he wore himself out quite well trying to catch up, and he was lucky the rope line moved as slowly as they did. Suddenly the front called out and they made a turn toward the west. Dontil saw the trail marker as he waited for the whole group to finish the turn. He took a few moments to massage his burning legs, his eyes on the path ahead. Something appeared in a quick blink of a moment in the corner of his eye, he froze, unsure what it was. He turned his head slowly and tried to figure out what he was looking at. It was large, bigger than a goblin but smaller than an orc. It stood tall, and had a large bag on its back. Was it an elf? No, the elves wouldn't come this far towards orc territory without an army.

It was then that the being sighed and turned around. Dontil got a good look at the being's face before it looked down the trail and disappeared in the blink of an eye! It was... it was the new enemy the orcs had marked for conquest, the humans! He had seen pictures drawn of them when the orcs sent around drawings and tried to familiarize the goblins with their new enemy. Of course to the goblins anything the orcs hated may as well have been just another thing to kill them when the orcs sent them forth alongside fallen goblins. But to think a human had come here, to the land of the elves, likely to fight the orcs! Where were his friends? How strong was a single human supposed to be?

The questions flashed through Dontil's mind as he returned to following the sound of marching goblins. Was this human responsible for the missing patrol? Was he the reason Lord Jaykra was coming to visit the border camp? Was this human responsible for the traitors launching a raid and stealing his daughter from under his ears? Dontil needed answers, he needed a safe place to hide his daughter after he saved her, he needed his pounding headache to stop, but most importantly: he needed to coat his sword in fresh fallen blood.