The Hoblets of Wiccam Fensboro

It was a bad time to be a goblin in Ummat-Mor. Not only had the kingdom nearly been brought to its knees by a series of unsuccessful wars against the Iron Mountain dwarves, but two years ago, a new and dangerous threat had arisen in the north in the form of the Troll King. Rightly skeptical of his army’s ability to fend off the Troll King’s dark and terrible forces, King Weezabreth had not been tardy in rushing to the side of his distant demi-cousin, the Great Orc Gwarzul Headsmasher, Warleader and Skullcrusher Supreme of the Zoth Ommog sept.

Thus it was that Ummat-Mor had survived twenty moons of bitter warfare, albeit at a steep price. Perhaps the kingdom had not been sold outright to their larger, lighter-skinned ur-brethren, but many goblins felt things could not have been much worse if that had been the case. The mayor of even the smallest town now enjoyed the imposing company of an orc advisor, whose presence was inarguably helpful in collecting the steep war tax imposed by the goblin king at the suggestion of the Great Orc, and twice a year, bands of young male goblins were forcibly assembled and marched off to the north, seldom to be seen again.

This latter fact was why Bextor Fenwick took little pride in his lofty title, Lieutenant Commander of the armed militia of Wiccam Fensboro, despite having attained it at the tender age of nine. He was tall for a swamp goblin, nearly four feet tall, as a matter of fact, and he carried himself with the air of confidence borne by one who knows how to use his weapons. As befitted an officer of militia, he was a good marksman, and if his swordwork left something to be desired, well, he preferred a lance anyhow.

His mount, at the moment, was whining at him rather pitifully, having spotted a deceased squirrel lying near the foot of a large tree. Bextor, feeling rather hungry himself, sniffed at the air and recoiled at the overpowering rotstink.

“You’d think I never fed you,” he told the grey wolf, even as he loosed the reins and gave the beast his head. Upo snapped up the decaying morsel in two greedy bites, then growled low in his throat as Bextor urged him on with a kick behind his ribs. “That’s your second breakfast today, you insatiable monster, so don’t talk back to me!”

He was pleased to see that Gurfang, the orc with whom Wiccam Fensboro had been saddled for the last nine moons, was nowhere in sight as he made his way towards the two-story stone building which boasted the mayor’s office. Then again, it was only half past Sunup, and Galdrun Gurfang seldom rose before Sunhigh. This was understandable, since he spent most his nights drinking fermented cattail juice at one of the town’s two bordellos.

After sliding from Upo’s muscled shoulders, Bextor ordered the wolf to sit and stay, then climbed the flight of stairs and entered the office without knocking.

“Lieutenant Fenwick, I’m glad to see you,” declared Mayor Spitswiggle. He didn’t look very happy, though. His age-yellowed face was haggard and his eyes were red with fatigue. “We have a problem.”

“We have? What sort of problem.”

The Mayor did not immediately answer, instead he turned around and lifted a blown glass decanter containing a brown liquid. He poured himself a glass, then waved the decanter towards Bextor.

“Drink, lieutenant?”

“No, sir. Not before Sunlow.”

“Take it,” the older goblin informed him. “You may find you’ll want it in a moment.”

Bextor nodded and accepted the glass, but placed it on the desk in front of him, untouched, as he sat down. The mayor sat as well, rather heavily, and he leaned back in his chair to put up his unshod feet. He took a long draught from his glass, then wiggled his clawed toes and shook his head.

“Strong stuff, that. Sojo can brew, I’ll say that for the old hob.” The Mayor sighed, folded his hands on his chest, then looked Bextor right in the eyes.

“I don’t suppose you pay any attention to the war, lad?”

“Not any more than anyone else, sir.”

“Of course, of course. Well, I received a rather apalling message last night from a friend of mine in Sloughsley, down south, near the Zothian border. He informs me that the friend and champion of our race, the Great Orc Gwarzul, has decided that we goblins are not doing enough in our own defense. He has therefore decided what we need is some stiffening, which will presently come in the form of his soldiers.”

Bextor stared incomprehendingly at the old goblin.

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Let me put it more plainly. King Weezabreth apparently woke up dead one fine morning of late, and Gwarzul is now claiming stewardship of the kingdom. I imagine these two events are closely related. Ummat-Mor is to be occupied, in order to better defend it from the depradations of our trollish foes.”

“Even here?”

“Even here, in Wiccam Fensboro,” the mayor nodded sadly. “And worse, it appears that my new advisor will not be an amiable sot who will happily leave us alone as long as we keep him well supplied with drinks and female companionship. I am told that our old friend Gurfang is going to be relieved by one Sangrul Skullsplitter, who will be arriving tomorrow in the company of tenscore of his closest companions. Even worse, it appears this Skullsplitter is a captain of the Red Claw Slayers.”

“Red Claw Slayers?” Bextor gaped. He had heard of these dread warriors from Zoth Ommog, indeed, there were few in Ummat-Mor who had not. They were terrible warriors, fearless and cruel, savage trollkillers of great reknown.

He swallowed hard.

“Do you want me to raise the town?” he asked bravely. “I don’t know if we can stop them, sir, but I swear we’ll do our best!”

“Fight them?” Mayor Spitswiggle nearly fell out of his chair in astonishment, an expression of horror on his face. He scrambled upright. “Gods, no, laddie! Are you mad? You’d get us all killed, and that’s a fact!”

Bextor sank back in his chair, a little ashamed at his relief. If half the stories he’d heard about the Red Claws were true, his militia would be lucky to take down three of them before being wiped out to a goblin. He suddenly felt that the mayor had been right about the drink. There was no need to wait for Sunlow.

“Such a thought! Dear me!” The mayor wiped nervously at his brow, then pointed a long, green finger at Bextor. “I forbid you to even think it again, you understand?”

“Yes, sir, no problem, sir.” But another thought occurred to him. “Sir, what is the problem, then?”

The mayor harrumphed.

“I’m not saying that two hundred orcs underfoot won’t be a problem, by the gods, no. But it’s the hobs who are my immediate concern.”

“The hoblets?”

Mayor Spitswiggle looked to the sky, as if pleading for help.

“Does the frog ever see past the lilypad? Bextor, lad, you are not unaware that orcs are, shall we say, rather less than fond of hobs, unless they are hungry and looking for lunch, are you?”

“Well, yes, but so are we. I mean, no one would ever eat one, but no one likes them either. They smell funny. And they steal things.”

“Your common orc may not be fond of hobs, Bextor, but the Great Orc has taken this lack of fondness to new heights. Or depths, as it were. It’s even said that Gwarzul has ordered their extermination throughout Zoth Ommog. Furthermore, these Red Claw Slayers are notorious for sharing his enthusiasm for hob-slaying, which poses a serious problem since we have approximately three hundred of the little beggars living here in Wiccam Fensboro. Now, I’m not terribly fond of hobs myself, but I am the mayor of this town and I do not intend to allow a troop of hobophobic orcs to march in here and slaughter three hundred harmless citizens!”

The mayor’s voice rose as he was carried away by his own rhetoric, and by the time he reached the word “citizens” he was drawn up to his full four feet, two inches. He seemed surprised when he finally realized this.

“Ahem… even if they are Red Claw Slayers,” he finished weakly.

“So what do you want me to do?” asked Bextor.

“Call out twenty goblins you can trust, but not to fight. Warn the hobs, all of them, and tell them they must either leave or find somewhere to hide. If they are still here at Sunup tomorrow, chances are they won’t live to see Sundown.”

It was well past Sundown before Bextor felt that every hoblet in the town had been fairly warned. Not all of them were willing to abandon their low-slung homes and comfortable caves, and some seemed to fear a trick of sorts, but on the whole the hoblets were a sensible people who were not, for the most part, eager to risk their skins. A few, like Sojo the brewer, scoffed at the notion of flight, but even he was cautious enough to send his wife and children next door to the neighbors. However, there were ten families, some fifty hobs in all, who had nowhere to go and Bextor was loath to simply send them off into the Rancid Fens.

He knocked on a wooden door which was engraved with the symbol of Wiccam Fensboro’s college of magic. The college was little more than a small and rustic campus bordering the edge of the swamp, but it was here that many a famous goblin shaman had first learned his mystical trade.

“Who’s there,” called a voice from behind the door.

“It’s me. Open up.”

“Oh, hello, Bextor.” His older brother, Wiltor, greeted him with curiosity. “What brings you here, and so late, too?”

“I need your help. That is, I think I need your help. I’m not really sure you can help me, but maybe you know someone who-”

Wiltor held up a hand.

“Slow down. You haven’t been dabbling in spells again, have you?” Wiltor was an accomplished shaman, one of the college’s youngest instructors, and he frowned on the use of the mystical arts for petty charms, love philtres and the like.

‘No, it’s the hoblets. And orcs… Red Claw Slayers. They’re coming tomorrow, the mayor says. Here! He says they’re going to kill all the hoblets, but we can’t allow it. I just spent the whole day trying to help them find places to hide.”

“Ah,” his brother smiled. “That explains why so many of the little beastlies were rushing around town today. I was wondering if they were preparing for a festival or something.”

“Not exactly. Here’s the problem. I’ve got ten families who don’t have anywhere to go, and I don’t know who I can trust to give them shelter. Old Toadsburp said he wouldn’t have them, and Gritsgrot Smeespit said he’d personally hand them over to the Red Claws if I stuck him with any of them.”

Wiltor’s eyes narrowed as he put a long finger over his left nostril and dismissively blew snot.

“Can’t say I’m surprised, Bex, but don’t fret about it. We’ve got some old storage caves which aren’t being used right now. They might not make for the most luxurious housing, but they’re nice and dry since we used to keep the school’s herbs and whatnot there. How many of them did you say? Ten families?”

“Fifty-three, including the little ones.”

His elder brother punched him on the shoulder.

“Go get your hoblets, little brother. Bring them here. I’ll clear it with the Grand Shaman, and we’ll get them tucked safely away before those orcs show their ugly mugs.”

The walls of Wiccam Fensboro were not the most daunting defensive structure in Ummat-Mor. Though made of piled stone, they were only three feet high and were there more to delineate the town’s limits than to defend them. An orc could easily leap them without even breaking a sweat. Nevertheless, the gates were opened wide for the approaching warband, who could be heard grumbling and swearing about their long march through the Rancid Fens of Wiccam.

As the first orcs entered, the mayor raised his hand and a fanfare sounded, although unfortunately, two of the trumpeters appeared to be unaware of the key preferred by the other four. They were huge, these Slayers, almost twice Bextor’s height, and many of them bore wounds and other marks of recent battle.

The Red Claws entered in two columns which expertly flanked the town’s little welcoming party, then drew their swords, which they clashed three times on their shields as their massive, black-armored warleader strode arrogantly through the gates, accompanied by a pair of powerful orcs bearing banners. The noise was terrible, echoing like thunder off the stone walls, and Bextor was forced to steady Upo, who was growling low in his throat. One banner was red, with an inverted V sewn in white, the other was black and adorned with a red clawed hand. Zoth Ommog and the Red Claw Slayers.

Mayor Spitswiggle stepped forward to greet the dread warleader.

“Welcome to Wiccam Fensboro, Grun-Kor Skullsplitter. I am Jereel Spitswiggle, the mayor of this town. Your deeds and fame precede you, and we are honored to hold the privilege of hosting you and your orcs. We shall certainly do our best to supply all of your needs.”

“Yar, me guess you will, goblin.”

The huge orc captain grinned humorlessly, exposing three broken teeth across his upper jaw. His green face was leathered, and was marked by several runic tattoos inked in red. His yellow eyes were hooded, but ominously intelligent, and he was clad all in black except for a pair of high leather boots which had a strange blue cast to them. His armor was battered, his left arm was bound to his body by a worn and bloody bandage, but his apparent indifference to the wound only made him seem all the more frightening.

“Where the galdrun?” the orc demanded of the mayor. His harsh accent was atrocious, even barbaric.

“He’s, ah, indisposed, I’m afraid.”

“Me hear he be a sot,” the grun-kor nodded. “Me see him later. Me told you got a militia. Don’t see it.”

The giant warleader surveyed the surrounded goblins with an air of menace, and Bextor swallowed hard as Mayor Spitswiggle caught his eye. He felt very naked.

“Er, ah, that’s me, sir. That is, I’m the commander. Lieutenant Commander Fenwick, sir. My goblins are at drill, sir.”

Upo growled softly as the big orc took two strides towards them, and Bextor shushed him urgently, giving him a surreptitious kick for good measure.

“Gor-Gor’s stinking crack, what you got on your nose?”

His stomach fluttered as the orc frowned at him and he feared the scheme Wiltor had dreamed up the night before was about to go horribly wrong. “Everyone likes flattery,” his brother had insisted. “Every orc thinks that goblins are stupid and incompetent, and since they have nothing but contempt for us, they assume we want nothing more than to be like them. Play this right, and their leader should be amused enough that he’ll keep you around where you can keep an eye on him.”

It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was a plan. Of sorts. The problem was that Grun-Kor Sangrul Skullsplitter did not look amused.

“W-warpaint, sir.” In for a squip, in for a grot. He threw himself upon the winds of fate and pounded his left pectoral with his right fist as he extended two of his four fingers. “The armed militia of Wiccam Fensboro is proud to serve the united peoples of Ummat-Mor and Zoth Ommog in the company of the famous Red Claw Slayers!”

A wave of putrescent foulness swept over him as the orc captain bent down to take a closer look at him, and the hot stench of his breath was worse than any rotting squirrel. He held himself at rigid attention while Sangrul looked him over from head to toe, taking in the white clay striped horizontally across his nose, the knee-high mucking boots he’d borrowed from Greem Mirlocc, and the sleeveless leather vest that exposed his spindly green arms.

Bextor tried not to show any signs of fear as the orc stepped back and glanced back at his men. Knowing his danger, he tried to focus on the heartening notion that at least Sangrul had not yet drawn his sword. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Of course, the fact that the big orc’s biceps were larger than Bextor’s head seemed to indicate that a weapon would probably be superfluous should he decide to take offense and rip Bextor’s spindly arms off.

“See this goblin, skwakks?” Sangrul roared at his orcs. Bextor hoped the warleader didn’t notice his inadvertant leap into the air. “You see him?”

The feeling of two hundred pairs of orcish eyes fixated on him was not a comfortable one. Bextor wished desperately for a magical hole to appear that would allow him to sink down into the underground river which flowed sluggishly beneath the swamp. He felt his head swim, and tried to keep his shaking to a minimum.

“He be weak. He be wuss. He be afraid… smell it? But he also ready to represent and fight like a real kor!” No one was more surprised than Bextor when the grun-kor returned the chest-pounding Slayer salute, then abruptly strode towards him and lifted him into the air in a crushing, but affectionate one-armed embrace. “No fear, small kin-brother, we make true kors out of you and all you damn gobs.”

Great. Apparently his plan had worked just a little better than either he or Wiltor could have expected. Well, he’d worry about the implications later. For now, Bextor only hoped that when the orc finally put him down, the majority of his ribs would be unbroken.



The walk to the center of the Wiccam Fensboro was not a long one, but Bextor was glad he’d chosen to ride, despite the jarring pain that throbbed in his left side every time Upo put a paw wrong. The wolf had no trouble keeping up with the orc’s long strides, but Mayor Spitswiggle had fallen far behind, huffing and panting, by the time they reached Main Street. A crowd had gathered, watching with a quiet, muted mix of hostility and fear as the orcs marched smartly to the building commandeered for their barracks.

“Half-moon past, they take us off the front,” the grun-kor was telling him. The orc had become surprisingly loquacious after learning Wiccam Fensboro’s shaman school was considered to produce some of the best healers in all Ummat-Mor, and that Bextor’s brother was one of them. “Mulguth be Guldur’s big dog, he make General Horwah his bitch at the Sweeswot River. Me lose seventy-two kors when damn elf-liver boar riders wuss and run-leave us holding our vanks on the left flank, curse damn yellow skins. But rockheads don’t make us run, we retreat in form and me tell you something, they be leaving more than a few stone troll behind, yar.”

“Is that why you have so many replacements?” Bextor had noticed that many of the younger-looking orcs, like him, wore the white paint of the battle virgin striped across their faces.

“Yar. Me need a good moon to pretty up, school the skwakks, and maybe, if you gobs can hack it, raise up some missile auxies. How you like that, small one, you having a troop of auxie Slayers?”

I wouldn’t like that at all, Bextor thought wryly. Trolls didn’t use archers. They didn’t have to, since they usually returned fire by throwing very large rocks. Bextor reminded himself that he was supposed to be a wannabee.

“Really?” he gushed enthusiastically. “Do you mean it?”

“Show me you damn gobs can hack it, and you marching out like Slayers when me getting the word, yar.”

Knowing his goblins’ skill with their weapons, or lack thereof, Bextor wasn’t terribly worried on that score. Still, he made a mental note to order that everyone would thenceforth aim with their opposite eye, and perhaps switch swordhands as well.

As they approached the Temple of Morswot, which was the only building in Wiccam Fensboro with ceilings high enough to suit orcs, they passed the inn belonging to Sojo, the hoblet. He was standing defiantly on his porch with a determined look on his round little face. Bextor was inwardly cursing the stubborn hob, but forced himself to remain impassive as the orc captain wrinkled his nose and looked across the street. A harsh murmuring broke out in the mass of troops behind him.

“Me heard there be kobs about,” he snarled. “You, kobber, what you do here?”

“I live here, orc. I might ask you the same.”

The nearby goblins gasped. Every eye was upon the grun-kor as he walked slowly, dangerously, towards the hoblet. Although the porch on which Sojo was standing was elevated, the giant orc’s greater height brought them eye to eye.

“So ask, kob,” the orc commanded, with a dangerous tone in his rumbling voice.”

Sojo raised an eyebrow. Clearly he had not expected that response. He nodded bravely and folded his arms. “Okay, I will. What are you doing here, orc?”

There was a sudden flash of black and silver, and the hoblet collapsed, holding both hands to his throat. He made a brief choking noise, and then he was still.

“Killing kobs,” the grun-kor said with an air of satisfaction. For a moment all was quiet, and then the Slayers burst out in a terrifying explosion of cruel and sadistic laughter. To Bextor’s disgust, several watching goblins joined in. Most, however, only looked on in horrified silence.

The orc turned his back on his victim, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Galvebel, get me dagger. Then we burn this hole. This be a warning to any koblovers, hear? Kob disease, we fight with fire. Any house got a kobber in it, we burn. With everyone in it.”

Bextor closed his eyes. He did not love hoblets, but still, he had known Sojo all his life. He despised himself for what he was about to say, but he had little choice if he hoped to find a way to protect Wiccam Fensboro’s hoblets from these insane murderers.

“Grun-Kor Skullsplitter, sir!”

“Who say that?”

Bextor steeled himself and pointed to the inn.

“The old kob was an innkeep, sir. He served ale there, sir. A point of possible interest, sir.”

The orc captain laughed, and smote him a tremendous buffet on the shoulder which almost knocked him off Upo.

“Damn good, Drun Fenwick. Me got a possible interest, damn sure! Galvebel, afore you firing the inn, be finding those kegs.” The orc grinned approvingly at Bextor. “By Gor-Gor’s giant vank, little gob, damn if we don’t make a real Slayer from you!”

The first month of the occupation went by with, if not quite a minimum of turmoil, rather less violence than one might have expected. Three young goblins were killed in a drunken altercation with an unruly Slayer, and an uncharacteristically sober, newly-demoted Drun Gurfang’s first order of business was to instruct the town brothels to send out to nearby communities for reinforcements, in order to meet the twentyfold increase in demand for their wares. A family of five hoblets had been discovered in an otherwise abandoned house; the father was murdered on the spot while the mother and children were held in the local jail for later transportation to the salt mines of Zoth Ommog.

Why the overmuscled orcs might need hoblet children to work their mines was not a question that anyone dared ask.

Bextor’s campaign of ingratiation proceeded well, and he was often invited to join Skullsplitter’s daily staff meetings. The grun-kor clearly preferred to regard him as the town’s representative, and made a regular habit of consulting him first before imposing new restrictions on the townspeople.

But as informed as he was, Bextor was nevertheless surprised when a scarred grungalvebel interrupted him at spear drill, informing him that the grun-kor required his immediate presence. He was even more surprised to see Mayor Spitswiggle being hustled down the street by two large orcs, with his arms bound behind his back.

“Dirty runt lie to me, growled the orc captain, shaking an unrolled scroll as Bextor saluted him. “See how he like the mines. Better this place under military rule, anyhow. So, what you know about kobs in this town, little drun?”

“Being lied to, sir?” Bextor didn’t have to fake his confusion.

“Spitwiggle tell me they no kobs here; say they leave last year. But we find five on Lundy, and today another three. Pair of damn traitors hide them!”

“Grun-Kor, sir, it makes me sick to hear it! I had no idea!”

“It get worse.” The orc pushed the scroll forward and stabbed at it with a meaty finger. “The vergalvebel find this; he say it be this year’s head count. Say here there be three hundred kobbers in Fensboro! That lying koblover Spitswiggle say there wasn’t none! So where they be?”

Bextor thought frantically. He couldn’t allow the orcs to search all of Wiccam Fensboro. They’d surely find enough hoblets to justify burning down the entire town, and perhaps massacring every goblin in it for good measure. He bought himself some time by reaching for the scroll.

“That can’t be right, sir! May I see that, sir?”

He pretended to peer thoughtfully at the thin ratskin and nodded his head.

“I think I found your problem, Grun-Kor. Bubo Wickslow is the town publican this year. He’s not very good with numbers, and from what I hear, he can’t count past ten. See, there’s an extra zero there.” He laughed scornfully. “We always had a few kobs lurking about, but not so many as you’d notice them much. There were never more than thirty, to be sure.”

The orc captain stared at him incredulously. “You gobs got a taxer he can’t count?”

“Well, he was the only one to volunteer, sir.”

“By Gor-Gor’s almighty arse, me think you damn gobs be dumber than you look!”

“As you say, sir.” Bextor saluted crisply. “But sir, if you’ve already caught ten of the little stinkers, that means there’s at least another twelve of them out there somewhere. By your leave, sir, I’ll ask for volunteers and put together an anti-kob patrol to go house-to-house and search them out, sir.”

The orc captain shared a disbelieving glance with one of his staff sergeants, then looked back at Bextor and shook his head.

“Yar, Drun Fenwick. You do that. Dismissed.” But as Fenwick spun about and marched from the room, he pricked up his ears and heard the grun-kor muttering to his officers behind his back. “Five and three be ten? Thirty less ten be twelve? No wonder they so damn useless! Damn Korzork in chains, that mad orc Gwarzul got no idea what he got us into!”

“You be thinking he lie?”

“That little gob? No, why he do that? They just gobs, verkor, they can’t help it if they stupid.”

Bam-bam-bam! Bextor pounded on the front of the lowslung house. “Open up, or we’ll break down the door!” he shouted. He hoped the Bumblestumps had paid heed to the quiet warning they’d received the night before.

When no one came to the door, Bextor gestured to his troops. They had taken well to their role as would-be Slayers, some of them a little too well. Two of them in particular, Merfdel and Curdweed, were virulent hob-haters and had gone so far in their orc-worship as to brand the Slayer’s claw on their left arms. The two goblins leaped eagerly forward and began smashing their makeshift ram against the door. Three-four-five blows, and the door splintered inwards. Merfdel and Curdweed rushed in immediately, howling like battle-mad orcs, and were followed rather less enthusiastically by the rest of the patrol.

Bextor sighed, drew his sword, and entered himself. It was a small house, and he knew the fruitless search would not take long.

Sure enough, it was only a short while before Curdweed, looking very disappointed, appeared and gave his report. “I can smell them, sir, but the scent is fading. They were here, though, I’m sure of it. Shall we arrest the Bumblestumps when they return?”

“No, there’s no need for that. I’ll speak with them myself.” He tapped the side of his blade meaningfully. “There are other ways to teach them a lesson they will not forget, the dirty koblovers.”

Curdweed smiled admiringly, exposing sharp white teeth.

“I’ll bet you’ll do just that, Lieutenant, sir!”

Shows what you know, swampbrained idiot. Bextor had half a mind to skewer the wretched goblin right then and there, but he restrained himself and slapped his sword against his leather-clad shin.

“Right you are, Curdie, right you are!”



Despite almost three moons of success at leading the great hoblet-hunt astray, Bextor knew he could not afford to relax. He was treading in quicksand, and a slip at any moment might cost not only his life, but the lives of every goblin and hoblet in Wiccam Fensboro. In spite of his efforts, eight more hoblets had been discovered and the town jail was already full of goblins who had fallen afoul of the martial law that had been imposed following the mayor’s arrest. The town was full of dark whispers of imminent executions if the twelve missing hoblets were not found soon, and more and more alarmed goblins were slipping away into the deep fens to wait out the orcish occupation.

The orcs’ bad humor was understandable. The war was going poorly, so much so that the Troll King was now boasting the name Goblinsbane. Twenty thousand goblins were lost in a battle at the River Ouze, and another fifteen thousand were captured when Mulguth the Mighty cunningly slipped his army past the great goblin fortress of Ummur. Surrounded and short of supplies, Ummur itself fell two weeks later. Mulguth was now merely eighty leagues north of Wiccam Fensboro, and it was only a matter of days before the Red Claw Slayers would be ordered back to the front lines.

We can survive until they leave, thought Bextor. Surely, they must go soon! He was overseeing two lines of his archers as they practiced a rapid fire drill, and the results were satisfyingly awful. Barely one shaft in twenty hit the giant butts despite the hail of arrows flying more or less towards them. The butts were scarcely thirty paces away, and a more useless troop of missileers would be difficult to imagine.

He swallowed his smile, though, when he realized Vergalvebel Bonecracker was staring at him. The non-commissioned officer had a calculating look on his bestial face, which was worrisome since Bonecracker was clearly the most intelligent orc on Sangrul’s staff. He was the one who had discovered the tax rolls, and although the grun-kor had no difficulty believing Bextor’s story of goblin incompetence, the vergalvebel still seemed to harbor some reservations.

“We’re getting better, sergeant, don’t you think?” Bextor shouted at the orc, giving him a cheerful thumbs up. But the black-armored orc did not respond, did not so much as roll his eyes, he only rubbed thoughtfully at the twisted scar that gave an evil cast to his left eye.

“Report to the grun-kor when you done” he grunted menacingly, before stalking away.

Well, that went well, thought Bextor sarcastically, wondering if one of the rotters from the sweep patrol had finally figured out what he was doing and turned him in. He scratched at the raised claw on his left arm; the brand itched from time to time. He hoped it wasn’t an ill omen.

But the summons was merely a routine one which required his signature on scroll after scroll of ratskin. At least, he hoped it was only ratskin. Those strange blue boots of Skullsplitter had turned out to be made from flayed troll, of all things. Bextor had never imagined that orcs might be literate, much less so scrupulously organized, but according to the grun-kor, Gwarzul had imposed a whole host of bureaucratic innovations on his barbaric tribal warriors. None were popular with the Red Claws, but while they grumbled about them, they complied all the same.

He had learned to respect them, these Slayers, though the more he learned about them, the more he loathed them. Fearing them, of course, was always easy. Although he was required to be in their presence almost every day, he never got used to it and usually found himself shaking once he was safely away. He imagined the constant stress was lopping moons off his lifespan.

The shaking had just worn off following his latest escape from orcish company when he heard someone calling his name. “Bextor? Bextor… Bextor!”

It was his brother, and his voice sounded frantic. Bextor quickly dropped the whetstone with which he was sharpening his sword and rushed outside with the naked blade in his hand.

“I’m over here,” he called out as Wiltor ran past the large straw-and-mud hut which served as the temporary barracks for the town militia. Skullsplitter had ordered the entire goblin militia to move from their homes and begin learning formal military discipline, although Bextor had ensured that they had done little more than start. “Behind you!”

Wiltor nearly toppled over as he attempted to stop on the rain-softened ground and Bextor would have laughed, except for the worried look in his yellow eyes.

“You’d better come, right now! They’re on the campus! Hurry!”

“What? At the college? Who?”

“Orcs. Two of them, one of them is that mean, ugly one-”

“Oh, that helps.”

“Shut up! I’m talking about the clever one, the officer. I don’t remember his name, but he’s got a scar across his left eye.”

It had to be Bonecracker. That couldn’t be good. He’d been the orc who called him away from drill, and he’d probably known that Bextor would be busy signing forms for a while. “The staff sergeant?”

“I think so. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s been in the library for more than an hour. I came as soon as I heard. He’s looking for something.”

“I’ll bet he is.” Bextor whistled for Upo as he sheathed his sword. “Sergeant Muckwoggle is inside, tell him to find ten good goblins who can keep their mouths shut and then bring them to the college, quickly.”

Upo loped up to him and cocked his head curiously. “What are you going to do?” Wiltor asked anxiously as Bextor mounted the wolf and checked to see if his bow was still there. It was, thank Umm and his sixteen mudwives.

“Stop him, somehow. If I don’t, the game is up. And if I know the grun-kor, he’ll kill every last goblin in this town!”



The library was toward the back of the college, and Bextor urged Upo around the low wooden buildings at top speed. The big wolf nearly trampled a bewildered young hupu-in-training, but Bextor did not spare the poor goblin a moment’s notice, he was too busy scanning the area for orcs, or any sign that the hoblets hidden nearby had already been discovered.

But the sight that greeted him upon his arrival at the doors of the library assured him that he was not too late. Wuler Stillbog, the head librarian, was seated on the front steps holding what appeared to be a dislocated jaw, his two assistants were showing similar signs of ill treatment.

“Don’t go in there, Bextor,” Wuler warned him, with some difficulty. “They’re still inside.”

“How many?”

“Two, but you can’t-”

Bextor ignored his protests and slipped his bow from the saddle. He nocked an arrow and made a clicking sound with his mouth, ordering Upo to follow at heel. With the big wolf at his side, he entered the building cautiously. He made his quiet way through the first two rooms, then two more, following the scent of orcstink, which, more than the trial of upended shelves and dispersed scrolls, marked the path of his quarry.

Upo growled at the sight of the two orcs, whose powerful frames seemed to fill the small room on the east side of the library. They turned around at the sound, and Bonecracker grinned evilly as he recognized Bextor, standing at the entrance on the far side of the room.

“You think you fool me, puny gob?” The orc’s fleshy green face jiggled as the vergalvebel guffawed. He displayed a large scrap of torn ratskin in front of him. “You damn gobs be stinking little beasts, yar, but not so swamp-rot as you want we think!”

“It was the best I could do on short notice, Vergalvebel.”

“You think you protecting those damn kobs? Three hundred stinkers! Where they be, Drun Fenwick? You hiding they, dirty koblover! Me should know. You be traitor, and you never be thinking to smoke out no kobbers with those stupid damn patrols.”

“Just as you say, Vergalvebel.” Bextor drew back his bowstring and sighted the shaft. “But you should have left well enough alone. Another week or two, and you’d have been safely on your way to a clean death in battle.”

The orc scoffed, and his yellow eyes grew hard as he drew a dagger from his belt and effortlessly picked up a nearby table to serve as a shield for his large body. “Me seen you shoot, goblin. You can’t hit no troll at ten steps with that thing."

Bextor released the string, and the Slayer shrieked as the arrow took him in the eye.

“By the stinking muck of Reekmire, but you orcs are amazingly stupid,” he spat contemptuously as the big orc fell backward, his huge body shattering the wooden table over which he’d been leaning when Bextor entered. Bonecracker’s companion roared and charged, but Bextor’s second arrow punctured his unarmored throat. The orc stumbled and dropped to his knees, where he fell easy prey to Upo’s razor-sharp fangs. The wolf snarled and worried viciously at the mortally wounded orc until Bextor called him off and finished the thrashing monster with a quick thrust of his sword.

Bextor was examining the skin Bonecracker had been reading when Wiltor, Muckwoggle and the others rushed in.

“They’re dead,” Wiltor said incredulously, staring at the two huge bodies sprawled on the floor. “You killed them! How did you ever do that?”

“Never mind. We’ve got to think of a way to explain this. Skullsplitter is going to go berserk when he hears the velgalvebel is dead. He’ll burn down everything from the swamp to the roadway!”

“Can’t we just sink the bodies in the Fens?”

Bextor shook his head.

“Wiltor, think about it. If they start tearing apart everything looking for these two, what are they going to find? Hoblets! Everywhere! And once they do, it won’t take long to figure out how many goblins are involved in hiding them. Bonecracker was already suspicious, that’s why he was looking for the town archives. I can’t imagine he was the only one harboring doubts.”

Bill Muckwoggle nodded, and looked grim.

“We sure can’t fight them in the open. But maybe we’d have a chance if we attacked at night.”

“Come on, Bill, you’ve seen them drill.” Bextor shook his head. “Asleep, they could still kill us all.”

“I have another idea,” Wiltor broke in. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“Do you remember that old house, belonged to a goblin named Cattail? Tell the grun-kor that his two orcs were killed by hoblets hiding there.”

“But there aren’t any hoblets hiding there!”

“There will be.” There was a strange ruthlessness in his brother’s tone, and Bextor’s blood turned to ice as he began to realize what Wiltor was suggesting. “Don’t argue with me, Bextor, there isn’t any other way. At least they’ll have a chance to fight back, we can give them that much.”

Not waiting for a response, Wiltor turned to Bill Muckwoggle. “Take your boys and get these bodies wrapped in blankets while Bex and I get his story straight. Then scrub this place clean; don’t miss a single drop of orc blood, understand? Their noses are better than ours.”

Bill was obviously reluctant to obey, but Bextor decided that his brother was probably right and they had no other option.

“Do as Wiltor says, Bill. That’s an order, okay?”

“All right, then, if it’s an order,” the sergeant saluted half-heartedly. “The boys’ll lick it up with their tongues, if they have to, Bex. I mean, sir!”

Bextor winced at the nasty thought. “Do whatever it takes, sergeant. Our lives may depend on it.”

He swallowed hard as Bill saluted again and ran out to get help. He glanced at the two dead orcs and shook his head. Putting an arrow through a murderer was one thing, but how would he be able to sleep at night if he allowed the hoblets to be betrayed this way? He forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes. They were intense, remorseless.

“We’ll do it because we have to, Bex. Now let’s figure out what you should tell that orc captain, and we’ll worry about the future later.

Bextor nodded, but the thought of facing Skullsplitter nearly made him sick with fear. The huge orc was not going to be pleased to hear about his officer’s death; Bextor only hoped the grun-kor was not apt to kill the messenger.



Skullsplitter was apoplectic, to be sure, but fortunately his rage was directed at the sneaking, murderous hoblets and the traitorous goblin whose treachery had caused the death of his orcs.

“Where they hide?”

“In a house, sir, belonging to a goblin named Cattail. I, ah, I don’t know much about him, sir. He lives alone in a clearing near the swamp, in a big house. He is known to have had some doings with kobs in the past, grun-kor.”

“How many they be?”

“I don’t know, sir, but they are armed. They have bows, sir, the kobs do. It seems there was a window was open, which is probably how the vergalvebel caught their scent. He and the kor were investigating when the kobs ambushed them. The patrol that was accompanying them surrounded the house and prevented anyone inside from escaping, but they didn’t have the numbers to storm it. Several of them were wounded as well, one severely, while they recovered the bodies.”

“You done good. Who command the patrol?”

“Sergeant Muckwoggle, sir. He’s my best non-com, sir. He says there’s at least ten bowmen in the house, and he was prepared to fire it, but I thought it best to come to you first, sir.”

The orc’s nostrils were still flared with anger, but he nodded approvingly.

“Good on you, Drun Fenwick. You see why we don’t let damn kobbers live? They worse than rabid rats! Gwarzul got it true! Now, follow me, and you see how Red Claw Slayers deal with rebels, traitors and koblovers!”

Bextor was amazed at how even in a white-hot rage, Skullsplitter was able to roar a few succinct orders, and, in what seemed like a matter of moments, have two bands of twenty orcs fully armored and ready to go into action.

“Me want the goblin alive, rokkul!” he commanded. “Kill the kobs, but me be going to make example of the traitor. Me give a half-moon pass home to the kor be capturing him alive, but twenty lashes for all if he be killed.”

The orcs murmured at this, and Bextor didn’t wonder. He hoped Wiltor had remembered to tell old Cattail to vacate the premises.

The march to the swamp end was a fast one, and Bextor had to give Upo his head to keep up with the fast-jogging orcs. The house stood alone, it was a sprawling one-level house that had started out as a muck miner’s hut onto which rooms had been added over time. Constructed mostly of wood, it would burn easily, but that was clearly not the orc commander’s intent. Bill had somehow managed to reinforce his patrol and so the house was now surrounded by more than twenty goblins hiding ineffectively behind trees and small bushes. As Bextor watched, there was a quick flash of motion at a window and a goblin screamed as a shaft pierced his unprotected thigh.

Muckwoggle himself was bleeding from a shallow wound on his forehead as he rushed over to the orcs and gave a situation report. The tension in his voice was real, and Bextor marveled at the sergeant’s acting ability. Then a shaft thudded into the ground not two paces from his own feet! He leaped backward and found himself loudly cursing the hoblets with genuine vigor. He didn’t need to act anymore; certainly all their lives were in real danger as long as they were out in the open.

The orcs quickly formed two lines as the galvebels barked out their orders. All the kors and most of the galkors were battle virgins, Bextor was not surprised to notice. As one, they raised their round black shields, each marked with the red claw, as the grun-kor lifted his mighty meatchopper over his head. Bextor felt a rush of air on his face as the great blade came down, and his heart sank when the orcs rushed forward in silence, no doubt to avoid warning the house’s defenders of their charge.

With a sudden flash of insight, Bextor drew his blade and screamed, then sprinted after the huge orcs. About half of the surrounding goblins followed his example, shrieking and howling like a demonic horde escaping Hell. Their cries did not escape notice, and the windows were suddenly filled with hoblets, loosing shaft after shaft at the onrushing orcs.

Several of the Slayers fell, and Bextor tumbled over the thrashing body of one big orc who’d fallen directly in his path. He felt something smash into his forearm and he dropped his sword, discovering that he’d been hit. Oh, but it hurt! It hurt! Sporco, did it hurt! He dropped to the ground just in time to avoid a second shaft that whizzed by his head, and fumbled for his sword with his left hand.

It only took a moment, but by the time he managed to grip it properly and push himself to his feet, no more arrows were zipping through the air, instead, ungodly shrieks were coming from inside the house. Groaning like a wounded muccalar, Bextor stumbled into the house well behind the last of the orcs.

The battle, of course, was over already. It had ended almost as soon as it began. Not a single hoblet survived, and Bextor was depressed to see that he recognized every single one of the fallen. There were sixteen in all. Mr. Overdale lay beside his wife, his hands still gripping a sword much too long for him. But hoblet and she-hob alike, they died like wolves, fighting to the very end, not like their poor brethren in Zoth Ommog who were sent to starve in the salt mines, or worse. There was little dignity in this desperate end, but there was honor in it. And better still, there was not a hoblet child among the dead.

That was something, anyhow, Bextor thought as he staggered outside, retching at the bloodstink. He counted five orcs lying dead, pierced with arrows. Twelve more were wounded, as were nine goblins including Bextor and Muckwoggle.

“That were brave, little Drun,” Skullsplitter praised him reluctantly. The orc commander looked as if he had a bad case of nauseau himself. “Brave and… real brave. Like an real kor.”

“Maybe like a real short, real stupid one,” he heard one Slayer mutter to another. “We be in the damn house afore they know if he don’t be pulling that stupid stunt. Wouldn’t lose no kor, forget five!”

“Goblins,” the second orc spat, like a curse. An arrow was still sticking out of his shoulder armor. “What you expect? Good thing the grun-kor don’t be thinking to take them with us.”

Well, that was good news, at any rate. Not enough to make him forget what he’d seen, or the fire that seemed to be devouring his right arm, but still, good news all the same.

Then two orcs wrestled a prisoner out the front door, and Bextor’s heart stopped. It was Wiltor! He was wearing a wig or something, for his hair was long and white, but it was definitely Wiltor. What are you thinking, you idiot? He wanted to scream at his brother. You idiot, you moron, you crazy, stupid fool! Don’t you know what they’ll do to you?

It was bad enough that Wiltor had sealed his own doom, but what was worse was that the whole story would come out as soon as Skullsplitter discovered his identity. Bextor had witnessed two orc interrogations, and he had no doubt that if put to the question, his brother would crack in less time than it took for Skullsplitter to bite off a finger.

Bextor gritted his teeth, trying to decide if it would be better to run, or if he might still be able to stab his sword through the grun-kor’s armor with his wounded arm. But Wiltor had no intention of experiencing interrogation. He was a shaman, and not for nothing had he been at the head of his graduating class five years ago.

No sooner did he see Bextor standing near the grun-kor than he let loose the spell he’d prepared. A word, it was, nothing more than a word, and he smiled reassuringly at his brother just before purple flames burst forth from every inch of his skin, obscuring his green face in an instantaneous explosion of magical fire.

The orcs on either side of him screamed as they, too, were consumed by the ravenous inferno. Their armor availed them nothing, except to prolong their agony for a hellish instant. Even the grun-kor shouted and leaped back in alarm as they shambled towards him, shrieking unorcishly. It seemed like a long time before they finally fell to the ground and were still.

The eerie purple fire hissed as it burned itself out, and then it was over. In fact, Bextor realized, it was all over; there would be questions and answers, recriminations and perhaps even a perfunctory investigation, but Bextor knew these orcs by now. It was not only the hoblets who had bought lives with their silence. There was little time for an in-depth investigation, and no reason at all for interrogations. The crazy old hoblover dwelling on the edge of the swamp was a witch. Who could have known it?

“I need to have this tended, sir,” he waved his arm at Skullsplitter, who was exchanging angry words with the surviving galvebel.

“Then go, Drun Fenwick” the orc replied without looking at him. “Report at Sunup tomorrow.”

“Yessir,” Bextor saluted awkwardly, as he tried to avoid poking out an eye with the arrow sticking out of his arm. He whistled and quickly climbed astride Upo’s back, desperate to ride away before anyone could notice the tears beginning to race down his cheeks.

There was a dark air about the grun-kor when Bextor reported to him the next morning. For a moment, Bextor feared Skullsplitter was about to announce the long-rumored wave of executions, but the look on the orc’s face when he saluted him dispelled his worries.

“At ease, Drun,” he waved Bextor to a seat. “Me should say, Galdrun.”

“Sir?”

“You be promoted. Now you be outranking Gurfang, and me already send the scrolls south, so don’t be letting him round you damn flanks.”

“Thank you, Grun-Kor. I shall certainly do my best to prove myself worthy-”

“Be sitting, please, Bextor.” The orc captain smiled wearily. “Me want to think that despite differences, we being friends, Bextor. So, hard for me to say we march north tomorrow but me not bringing you goblins.”

Bextor was glad to be seated in Morswot’s temple, because he was sure the great frog god could hear the unvoiced praises of thanksgiving ringing through his head. Despite what he’d overheard the day before, he’d been convinced that Skullsplitter would change his mind and decide that a lousy troop of archers was better than none.

“We still got no healers, so me take twelve students from the college here. They need a guard too, maybe another ten goblins good enough. Me happy to have you to captain the guard, but you being the best officer here, me think it best for everyone if you take command of Fensboro. Anyhow, that arrow you take yesterday keep you from fighting.”

Bextor did his best to look disappointed. “I understand, sir. But grun-kor, without the presence of your orcs to support it, might it not be best to relax martial law?”

“Do what you like, galdrun. You got Fensboro now. Call yourself mayor, general or grand high queen, whatever. Still, best be sending everyone in jail south with the next tax payment.”

Bextor nodded, feigning acquiescence. He leaned forward and looked the orc in the eye.

“Sir, do you really think you can win? Your orcs are as ready as they’ll ever be, and I know how well you’ve prepared them, but can two hundred Slayers really make that much of a difference?”

Sangrul Skullsplitter leaned back and sighed heavily. He looked out the window towards something off in the distance. Towards the mountains of Zoth Ommog, perhaps?

“Bextor, Slayers make no difference at all. Mulguth be too strong. Maybe that why me leave you goblins here. We got orders, so we got to fight and we got to die, but no reason why you got to do it too.”

Despite himself, despite all that he knew about this violent, murderous orc and his countless evil deeds, Bextor was deeply touched. He felt oddly conflicted as he rose from his chair.

“Grun-Kor, may I shake your hand?”

The giant orc smiled wryly.

“Don’t see why not, Galdrun Fenwick.”

The orc’s clawed hand engulfed his hand for a moment, then Bextor saluted, bowed respectfully and turned to go. But, before he departed, a thought occurred to him and he stopped at the edge of the room.

“Grun-Kor, about that guard you mentioned. For the healers. May I suggest a list of my best soldiers?”

“Sure.” The orc captain reached for a stylus as Bextor thoughtfully tapped the brand on his unbandaged arm.

“Let’s start with Merfdel Stickswath and Curdweed Pizenberry….”

As the red-golden rays of dawn spilled across the swamp, Bextor stood at attention next to Bill Muckwoggle. Behind them was the entire armed militia of Wiccam Fensboro, less ten of the most irredeemable hoblet haters, all watching with barely concealed joy as the Red Claw Slayers marched away from their town. Bextor thought he had never heard music so sweet as the sound of the galvebels calling out the cadence.

“Me know a troll say her name were Joan.”
“Me know a troll say her name were Joan!”
“Sun catch her out and she turnda stone”.
“Sun catch her out and she turnda stone!”

Bextor looked over at Bill.

“Do trolls really turn to stone in the sun?"

“Can’t say as they do. I never seen one. Make it kind’o hard to fight during the day, you’d think.”

“Hmmm….”

The two goblins stood together in silence until the last orc marched around the corner and disappeared from view. Only then did Bill clear his throat and glance awkwardly at Bextor.

“Don’t mean to criticize, Bex, but considering who they took, I’m guessing it was you told them who to take.”

“What makes you say that?” Bextor asked innocently.

“I just happen to notice that you’re the only one with that claw thing on your arm who ain’t going with them.”

Bextor nodded. Three moons ago, he could never have sent goblins to certain death with equanimity. But that was a long time ago, and he was a different goblin. He felt hardened, as if his heart had grown a rind that surrounded it. Perhaps that was why he did not feel guilty now. Not in the least.

“I’ll tell you something, Bill. We’re going on a march of our own, as soon as I can see to the preparations. You see, those orcs are going to lose and they know it. Now, I don’t know how trolls feel about hoblets, I mean, they can’t hate them any more than the orcs do, but I’ve decided there won’t be a hoblet in the town by the time Mulguth gets here with his army.”

Bill shrugged. “I hear a troll sees a snack with what makes lunch for an orc.”

“Well, I just hope they don’t like goblin. Anyhow, we’re for the Reeve. We’ll need about thirty, maybe forty goblins all told, to handle supplies and act like guards. We’ll rope up the hoblets, make them look like prisoners and march them north, then go for the west as soon as we cross the river. They’ll be safe there, in their own lands. I couldn’t afford to risk Curdie and the others hearing about that, you understand.”

“Yep.” Bill nodded in agreement. “I guess you’ll be needing my help, won’t you?”

“It’s a long walk, Bill. We might not make it back, and even if we do, who knows what the trolls will do here while we’re gone.”

The other goblin shrugged.

“That’s as may be. I say we let the mayor out the jail and let him take care o’ the town. Somebody’s gotta help those hobs, and if the likes of you and me don’t, why, then I can’t see who will.”

Bextor didn’t answer, he simply clapped his loyal sergeant on the shoulder, and together they watched the sun as it climbed into the sky over Wiccam Fensboro. It was going to be a long walk, it was, but he didn’t care. Bill had the right of it. Some things you had to do because if you didn’t, no one would.

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