It had been a bad few seasons for Varrarg Breakleg and the Settled Feet. Well, years really. First there had been bad harvests in both the main mushroom caverns that left people starving. Then there had been an outbreak of the frothing madness in the Giant Rats, that some goblins had caught, and meant they had to kill any infected (rats and goblins alike) and hurl their bodies from the top of the walls towards the river, and three of those who’d tried that had been killed by terrible flying monsters. Then, when they finally started recovering from that, there had been the shitting plague which weakened most of the families, striking down the elders especially. That had lead to all the arguing between Big Tujit Nonose and Little Tujit Nonose, who both thought they should be in charge of the biggest family remaining in the clan. Though clan was overstating it, they’d never been that organized, even before the Orcs had come in and killed all the adult Nonoses. Ever since there ancestors fled the Old Masters in the Deep Dark, with only their Giant Rats, the clothes on their backs, the tools and chains of their slavery, and the spores for the mushrooms they grew down below, the (then) Fast Runners had been more a collection of people than a clan.

  She’d thought they were starting to come together under Breakleg leadership after the plague, except the Nonoses, but the other families...and then the Breaklegs had lost the lower caverns, the most productive mushroom growing ground to that monster, which had also cut them off from the lower rat nests. Then some orcs, running (though they’d never admit it) from their own defeat at the hands of a rival clan had seen the smoke from their fires above, scaled the great walls that defended them and massacred their would-be leaders and would-be warriors all in a single night, forcing them back into servitude.

  Now, new figures came, humans (or so the orcs had identified them) who’d snuffed out the orcs as easily as the orcs had snuffed out the Nonoses, who built a ramp up from the ground to their walls in a single day. Who commanded weapons that ‘Trip’ claimed were not magic, but that anyone could use. Who said they were here to rescue them. And who smelled even stranger than orcs.

  A young and stupid part of her, the part that had always wanted to go down into the forest and search for the wolves they could hear some nights, which legend said their ancestors had ridden into battle, wanted to believe them.

  But the world was not kind to those who hoped. Her own mate and most of her children and grandchildren had been lost with the lower cavern, along with the hope for her family to dislodge the Nonoses as the most numerous and powerful family in the clan. Another had been eaten in front of her by Gaturn the Orog, with her unable to do anything about it. Yes, one had been saved by the humans and even now was resting in the caverns beneath their feet, recovering from a beating delivered while he was surrounded by ‘clanmates’ too frightened, or disinterested to do anything about it.

  She’d give the lead human this, he wasn’t stupid, or a coward. He was smart enough to realize Varrarg didn’t trust him. Not that she was any more likely to believe another, even bigger human, even if they claimed he’d been a slave too. So what? Being a slave didn’t mean they were on the same side. If there was one thing slavery had taught her, it was that it was every goblin for themselves. And maybe their family.

  Even moreso than usual. Usually you needed to work together, if only to survive. Goblins needed salt from the dry lake, water from the spring, meat and milk from the rat pens and mushrooms from the farms in order to live.

  And they wanted the mushroom beer brewed by the brewers, their metal beaten into new shapes, or sharpened by the smith, earthenware from the cave of clay walls, tanned giant rat hides, the wood collected from the top of the walls, or even outside them occasionally, and the use of the huts at the top of the walls for privacy and ritual and the many more exotic mushrooms that grew only in various family holds, that made your head buzz, the rarer ones that might punish, or even kill a rival, and to find a mate, find good work for their children and compete in the various games which let you show off and filled the parts of the days which weren’t busy staying alive. Of course, you also needed to honor the ancestors who’d sneaked, raced and when it couldn’t be avoided, fought their way through the Deep Dark to bring them to this promised land, where no one had tried to kill or enslave them.

  Until now.

  Now, admittedly, her desire to honor the ancestors who had brought them here was significantly lower than it had once been. But even so, as a ‘clan’ they’d had to work together. As slaves, she had seen the truth of things as goblins betrayed one another to stay alive, or just get a bite of food. It was a miracle none of them had betrayed the secret tunnel down off their walls into the monster-filled woods. Though she supposed everyone who knew of it was keeping it secret for their own use if (when) things went wrong. And the orcs didn’t bother questioning their victims before killing them, or giving them time to try to bargain.

  She’d probed the human for information, of course, and was reasonably sure he was speaking the truth about these ‘guns’ that they were using. Those were of significant interest, as they didn’t rely on the strength of the wielder. Even a goblin could kill an orc, or a human, with one of them. Even when circumstances didn’t let them engage in their ancestrally preferred mode of combat, cutting sleeping throats. Not that they did much of that inside the walls, but the orcs had certainly expected it of them, it matched most of the stories of their ancestors and it had been what the handful of goblins who tried to resist had attempted and what the ones who’d tried to dislodge the monster below had tried. In neither case had it worked.

  But she was also sure they were outnumbered, after the culling by the orcs and though the man had inadvertently revealed the strange fact that humans couldn’t see in the dark, with his surprise that the goblins and orcs could, they were not stupid and were planning to set guards. Unfortunately, Varrarg had therefore revealed their one significant advantage. Strangely, the man had also pushed on some sort of strange obsession with floating blue square containers, but Varrarg could not assist him there, as she’d never seen or heard of such a thing. They had some earthenware, clay and leather containers, but they were all round.

  She considered trying to lie about that, of course, but without knowing what these ‘boxes’ contained, that seemed unlikely to be successful. There were more loud noises--gunshots and goblins who had been sticking their heads out of their hiding places ducked back, but Varrarg forced herself to follow Trip over to the side of the walls, where they looked down into the distance. Varrarg’s distance vision was not great, no goblin’s was, but she saw them emerge, carrying one wounded man and then dragging the corpses of the orc hunters. Unlike the orcs who had mostly abandoned their few wounded to the tender mercies of their fate, the wounded human was carefully cared for and after a few moments, she saw a flash of magic, the sort that the tales said the Old Masters had used and even whispered one of the ancestors had possessed, but this was clearly healing, as the figure then rose.

  Still, it made her nervous. More goblins had trickled out again and several were pestering Trip with questions about where they had come from and why they were here. This was a large group, all wearing fancy clothes of the same make and fighting under strange cloth markers of identity, which not even the more traveled orcs had recognized, though they had called them ‘banners’. Trip’s answer was as blunt and unbelievable as the ‘Colonel’s’ declaration of their intentions.

  They had died and all been transported here for some unknown reason and given power. Varrarg knew nothing of the gods, even their existence was just a vague recollection of old tales, gods their ancestors had cursed for abandoning them to the old masters. The only ones the Settled Feet respected were their own ancestors who had freed them...just like these humans had. Given their behavior, she was fairly sure she could survive a direct question and it would probably scare off the cowardly other families, or at least make them back off.

  “Trip, what do you want from us?” some of the others did back away at that.

  “We’re lost. We want a place to rest. Allies who know this area. What can be safely eaten? Where can we go? How do we contact other people?”

  “You killed the last of the Storm Claws, you’ve conquered us. Ask and we will answer you; take whatever, whoever you like we cannot stop you; go wherever you please.” the others nodded, no, they were bowing like the orcs liked. Would the humans like it too? They had no other models.

  “Get up! Stand up straight!” the man yelled, fury deep in his bones. Some of the goblins in the back fled, but those closest, within reach obeyed instantly, rather than risk his wrath. “Be men! That’s what I want from you. It’s a choice! To be men, not slaves! I did it. You can too!”

  Eager nods from most of the other goblins, but they’d have eagerly nodded if he told them to grovel on the floor. Varrarg nodded herself, “Yes, yes, you are right, it’s a choice! We do not need your size, or strength, or weapons, it is a choice!”

  Trip’s shoulders fell slightly, then straightened and the ‘gun’ came off his shoulder. Varrarg flinched, fearing she had been too obvious and was about to prove her point by means of painful death. Then she awkwardly caught the weapon as it was tossed to her. Varrarg shook as Trip approached her, pulling the blade that was strapped to his thigh free, but she couldn’t run. Both because she wouldn’t be able to before Trip reached her and because there was still a line of human soldiers at the top of the path with their ranged weapons and her few remaining family within easy marching distance.

  She held his ground, because there was no alternative and tried desperately to figure out how the weapon worked. She’d seen it used and loaded, but they’d put something over the snapping part of it before pulling the strange curved handle and that hadn’t happened, would it still work? As her mind raced the blade came up and snapped into place on the end of the weapon, which she had managed to point in his direction..

  “I was a slave. Now I’m a soldier of the 54th. Because I chose to be. What are you?”

  “Yeah, Breakleg, you’re a soldier! Take that and go kill the beast! Reclaim the depths your kin lost!” sneered Lornig Notchear from where he’d dashed off to hide.

  Varrarg flinched at the reminder, but Trip’s attention turned on Lornig and it was his turn to flinch. “Beast?”

  “Before the orcs, we held the whole of the walls. Down to where our ancestors filled the path to the Deep Dark. But a bit back something big broke in, it killed everyone in our best mushroom cave, and cut us off from the best rat nest. It’s too big to get any higher through the tunnels, but,” Varrarg’s eyes sparkled as she realized something, “if you want to prove yourselves, or just make sure we’ve all got enough to eat, clear the beast out!”

  As Trip opened his mouth to respond there was a sudden crash from the hut the Orog had claimed as his own and smoke began to spill from it. Almost instantly the guards at the top of the walls pointed their weapons directly at it, and everyone else, while Trip moved forward instantly, snatching the weapon out of Varrarg’s unresisting, startled hands. Another goblin came staggering and coughing out of the fog, while the human plunged into it. The fog continued to spread.

  The soldiers still outside were getting nervous. Which was making everyone else even more terrified than usual, as Varrarg grabbed the goblin, one of the Notchears, by his (not actually notched) ears “What did you do, idiot?”

  “I was just looking! I was just looking!” he whined pitifully, as if pity would stay her hands when he was obviously lying.

  Lornig pushed forward and got pushed back by a Oneeye. “What did you do?” she repeated, twisting the ear cruelly in her sharp nails. “I swear, I’ll make your ear match your name, boy!”

  “I just opened a bottle! Who would fill a bottle with smoke?”

  One of the soldiers called “Trip? What’s going on?”

  He got coughing in return, then the phrase ‘Turn Off Eversmoking Bottle’ came out of the murk and the smoke stopped growing and began to respond to the wind which was a constant presence atop the walls.

  A moment after that, Trip came out, waving smoke away and holding a fancy-looking bottle. “This was doing it. Didn’t actually have to cough, just thought I did, which was weird.”

  “How’d you know how to turn it off?” another soldier asked.

  Trip smirked and flipped it over, revealing a glowing rune on the bottom. It meant nothing to Varrarg, not did it answer the other man’s question in any way, but it must be some human magic. “That was the orog’s quarters? Mind if we search it?”

  Everyone eagerly indicated that was fine and they were certainly not even thinking of denying the soldiers their duly earned rewards. Or stealing anything they’d rightfully won through blood and smoke. Definitely not.

  “Good, good, was anything of yours stolen by the orcs? That’s not ours. Just tell us what it is, and we’ll return it.”

  That put them in an awkward position. Things had been stolen by the orcs, of course, but mostly food, or weapons, but they could claim anything they’d seen the orcs using...if they were willing to lie and no one else chose to betray them to the humans for it. And the way he’d laid it out, they definitely couldn’t claim anything they didn’t know about.

  Varrarg spoke up without hesitation, “There were some weapons, sized for goblins which belonged to the Nonoses, but they’re dead. Food and drink that’s probably all gone. Other than that, they stole the carving of our ancestors. A head sized shiny stone, carved like a goblin’s head.”

  “They didn’t give the weapons back when they rounded you all up to fight?” Trip asked, confused.

  “Didn’t trust us,” Varrarg said, leaving the unsaid ‘do you’ unsaid. She actually wasn’t sure the reasoning. They’d certainly been able to take the weapons, well, more tools than weapons, away from their strongest without any difficulty.

  “Come on in and grab ‘em, as soon as the smoke clears,” he said. That took a few minutes while they chatted more about the monster. Varrarg didn’t know much, just that it had killed the goblins down there that saw it, and threw rocks/growled at any who tried to sneak in.

  His questions about the lower caves she could address in greater detail. They were large, almost as large as the base of the walls themselves, and led down to the lowest rat nest, where all the waste from above was dropped down to the rats below (some goblins had tried climbing down there, but the walls were quite slick with waste and all they’d accomplished was feeding some of the rats on goblin, rather than goblin waste.

  There was also an entrance from above and the previously blocked entrance to the Deep Dark. But after a moment, she chose to reveal the other secret, there was no way to have him clear the monsters and not see the small tunnel that connected to their escape tunnel at the base of the walls. Fortunately for her grandson, you didn’t need to go into the main cave, and could just continue up the escape tunnel, which appeared too small for the massive monster, but still, that drew some glares from the others.

  No doubt some had thought she was trying to set them up the same way they’d been thinking about trying to set the orcs up, with the same goal. Get them inside and either block off the entrances, or hope they kill enough of each other that their depleted numbers could swarm the rest. Fortunately, the orcs had mostly ignored the actual children, viewing them as too weak to be worth interacting with, so the clan shouldn’t be doomed, even if the adults suffered heavy casualties in such an attack. Whether that would have worked with the orcs...well, anyone willing to really fight had most likely died the first night, but it certainly couldn’t work with the humans, there were simply too many of them.

  “So we’ll be able to come at ‘im from two sides. Good...I’m surprised you didn’t run into the woods with a path out? Threats against those left behind?”

  Varrarg shook her head, “That’s an absolute last resort, the forest ain’t for goblins. It’s full of monsters that eat us.” He looked skeptical. “Every so often, young bloods go running off, thinking they’ll find treasure, or meat, or something. Those that come back talk of furry creatures ten times the size of a goblin, with paws as big as a goblin’s torso, claws bigger than spearheads and a maw that can eat a goblin in one bite!” she could tell he was impressed by this description, until he started examining goblin sizes and then muttered something to himself that she couldn’t quite make out about ‘bears’ whatever those were.

  Regardless, he picked up a stick and passed it to her. “Can you draw the cavern?”

  She was confused, until he demonstrated by drawing the top of the walls. It was a strange way of describing things, as if you were flying above them. But she supposed it was sort of like the view from the top of the walls down at the world below. She’d always loved that view, one of the few times a goblin could look down at something that wasn’t another goblin.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  It took her a while to figure out the distances, but she could pace them easily on top of the walls and then drew it out, the massive central cavern, with its upper balconies of stone, carved by the ancestors when they first arrived, each filled with fungus. The smaller passages leading to the Giant Rat nests and the massive entrance they’d filled with the stone taken carefully during the process of turning the handful of caves within the walls into a proper warren for all their people, before those arts had been lost. She remembered her own father had known them, but there was no use to them, as the walls were fully hollowed out by then, except the rock which resisted even the strongest of goblins and broke picks.

  By the time the drawing was done, the smoke had dissipated and they headed into what had once been the home of the Nonoses. Varrarg gathered up the weapons and passed them back to various goblins, making sure to give personal belongings back, but distributing those which had belonged to the dead as she saw fit, claiming the best pick for her surviving grandson and the best knife for herself. And, she made sure she came out of the hut, holding the head-sized carved stone which went on the altar to their ancestors.

  It didn’t, couldn’t, show them all, but its ear was notched, it missed a nose and one eye was gone, marks of the great families of their clan, named for the injuries their ancestors suffered bringing them to this place. She hefted it above her head, with some difficulty and shouted, “Again! We outlast our enemies!”

  The surviving goblins whooped and cheered and she passed it off to a Oneeye, as the altar was right next to their family den. Meanwhile, Trip had turned up a small chest full of strange metal discs and a small number of shining stones, though nothing of interest to her. Though given the way he hefted it awkwardly, maybe there was enough metal weight in their to make something useful?

  Trip shook his head with condescending bemusement as he watched them, then became rigidly straight, one hand snapping up to his head, palm out. Varrarg turned and saw the Colonel and a number of other men had returned. “Sir, I inspected the leader’s quarters. Found this,” he offered the chest.

  “And it doesn’t belong to the locals?”

  “No, sir, they’ve reclaimed their belongings.”

  “Good,” the Colonel said.

  “Sir, there’s also bottle in there which produces large amounts of smoke. To turn it off, you just need to say the word on the bottom.”

  The Colonel blinked at that, then shook his head, not doubting Trip’s word, just generally annoyed by something. The men behind him were moving towards the orcish bodies, as the Colonel looked over them, smiling slightly, condescendingly at the group of goblins who had gathered and were now armed with their own weapons, such as they were. “Will you introduce me, Private?”

  “Of course. Colonel Shaw commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, Varrarg Breakleg, matriarch of the Breakleg family.” The man winced for no particularly obvious reason.

  She took advantage of the moment to examine him in greater depth than she had before now that she’d spent some time with humans and observing their reactions. There were differences, obviously. The Colonel was shorter and far paler than the more muscular Trip, or the soldiers. Looking at them side-by-side, if not for the greater gold decoration on the Colonel’s uniform, she’d have thought Trip the senior and stronger of the two. But she remembered the Colonel’s blade sliding easily into the throat of the almost defeated orog, ending its pitiful life as easily as it had killed of one of her grandsons when he talked back, using one hand to lift him by the face and then crushing his skull in an iron grip. The different skin tone, combined with the strange hair on his face made her wonder if he was to the other humans as the orog had been to the orcs, but he was smaller than they...though perhaps he had greater magical power than the others? Or he was better at deception than the others, certainly when she’d first seen him, she hadn’t seen the cold-blooded commander who ordered the deaths of the entire Storm Claw Clan and had cut the throat of their leader. Or maybe their skin lightened as they aged? It was only natural for the oldest still hale to lead as their cunning and strength were proven by survival...as she considered this, her warm red eyes caught on his. They were an unnatural and uncanny blue, as dangerous as the river, or the sky above. Ice blue. Death blue. Frightening. Not at all like the natural red of goblin eyes, or the cave darkness of Trip’s...

  “Ma’am,” he nodded his head to her. She carefully mimicked the gesture. “Can you speak for your people?” he asked.

  After a moment of thought, she glanced back at the crowd. No one objected, mostly because those who might were afraid they’d be responsible for taking over and taking to the man who commanded this host and had casually cut the throat of the massive orog. “Yes, I speak for the Settled Feet.”

  “Very well. You’ve had an opportunity to speak to Private Trip, which I hope has provided some insight. We are castaways in a strange land and seek a base of operations, local knowledge and local allies do you believe we can—”

  One of the soldiers interrupted, exclaiming something she could not understand in their strange language and waving the orog’s axe—which was now far smaller than it had been a moment ago. The Colonel looked over in annoyance.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. Yes, private?”

  More nonsense words.

  “What are you bl—” he cut himself off. “Ma’am, do you mind holding the axe for a moment?”

  She looked at him in confusion, but stepped forward unwillingly, as she was in no position to deny him.

  “It changed size to fit the soldier’s hand. He wants to know if it’ll change and fit yours,” Trip explained.

  The Colonel gave him a sharp look, then realized she couldn’t understand the soldier and flushed slightly. “Indeed. My apologies for not explaining.”

  She happily stepped forward and took the massive axe in both hands, it instantly shrunk down to a perfectly comfortable size for her. Everyone stared at it in awe and confusion. “Private, take it down to Corporal Searles and tell him what you saw.”

  Even though she couldn’t understand the words, that was obviously a man glad of his order, who snatched it up, flinching as it grew again and took off down the path with great speed.

  “My apologies, ma’am, as I was saying. Do you believe we can be allies?”

  She glanced around the top of their walls, where human soldiers were dragging off the corpses of the orcs they had massacred and down to where campfires were already burning at the foot of the ramp they had built to the top of their walls. There was only one answer possible. “Of course, of course.” Since they wanted to play at being allies, not rulers, she would go along with it. And get everything she could out of their sentiment and performance. “Ally, I was just telling Trip about the monster which has claimed our lower caverns. Can you assist us?”

  “We can discuss operations tomorrow morning, ma’am.”

  “And Trip mentioned how he’d become a soldier, can we do the same?” she asked.

  The Colonel glanced at Trip, who did not react in any way. “We are allowed to enlist volunteers, to make up our numbers, yes. But they would be under military discipline and expected to serve the three year term.”

  She nodded slightly.

  “And...the recoil on a rifle may be too large for someone of your stature…” she frowned, then controlled the reaction. She should have known that they would never share their weapons with—“so goblin troops would most likely need to be armed with pistols,” he drew his and flourished it, “like this one...indeed, that might also solve the kneeling problem for line fire, it always slows maneuvering, but goblins would not need to kneel—or perhaps they could and we could get three lines. Regardless, either way we will need additional materials to craft additional pistols and ammunition. Lead, iron and gunpowder. I will be giving orders tomorrow morning to attempt to set our supply system on a firm basis, if you wish to participate, you are welcome. Indeed, a feast is being prepared below, any who wish to join us are welcome.”

  She nodded and there were many nods at that as her fellows looked eagerly now down at the smoke rising from below. “But before we continue, if we are to be allies, then we should be able to understand one another. I can grant this ability to four of your people, which would you like to choose?”

  With some hesitancy, she chose herself, and the most influential members of the Oneeye and Notchear families. Then sent the idiot who’d messed up his theft of the bottle below to fetch the oldest of those who would have been Nonose children. The family was lost, as the adults could not pass on the name to the new children, but they were almost half of the children below and if they could truly reclaim the lower caverns, then the Breaklegs would need those children to truly recover. As she herself was missing most of her own youngsters, taking the others under her wing and firmly establishing herself as their leader and benefactor would give her a claim on the higher areas as well, given their historical control of the upper mushroom caves. If she could manage it, then she would have a monopoly on the main mushroom caverns and most of the giant rat caverns. To match the Notchears’ control of the salt lake and the Oneeyes control of the spring. The other families had their own specialties, but none were as critical as the four prime families were and would be.

  After a moment, they’d all been touched gently on the shoulder. As far as she could tell, nothing had happened, until she realized the low rumble she’d been ignoring was someone speaking. The men who were handling the orcish bodies were grumbling about the weight and those who’d been on guard duty were moving to assist them, in response to a quiet order from the Colonel, now that they were allies. That seemed...very trusting. But then again, he could just storm the walls if they turned on him.

  “Now, ma’am, before we go down, I must ask for you to fulfill your side of our alliance, what do you know of this area?”

  “Little,” she admitted. Again, lying was tempting, but if it led to casualties, or discovery, not wise. “We do not leave our walls unless forced, except for the young and stupid, who sometimes go exploring and more often run out to grab some fallen wood to prove their bravery. Some go out, but few return and speak of beasts and monsters. We do not even usually go to the river, for we have seen goblins dragged beneath the waves by strange, scaled creatures. The connections to the Deep Dark were blocked long ago and I have only the tales of our ancestors on the horrors that lurk in the depths.”

  The Colonel was looking more and more disappointed in the results of this alliance, so Varrarg sped on to what they did know. “But we do watch the river. There used to be boats on it sometimes, but that has not been true since before I was born. When I was a babe, we saw orcs frequently at the river, but we had not seen any orcs since I first mated, until they came, but they did not cross the river here, they came from the north.”

  “Orcs to the north and east, monster-filled forest to the west and south, monster-filled river to the east...and this Deep Dark?”

  “Endless caverns and tunnels beneath the ground, filled with the worst kind of monsters. Our ancestors escaped to this place, this one safe place in all the world for us...until the orcs,” and you. No safety anywhere.

  “No safety anywhere,” his words unknowingly echoed her thoughts, but then he smiled and went an entirely different, and insane, direction, “well then, we have work to do to tame these lands. How long is it until winter?”

  She blinked at that, then supposed they must be clinging to Trip’s story about magical transportation. “The snows have all melted and things are beginning to grow again, Colonel,” she said. Though what he heard was “It’s spring, Colonel,” he did notice the difference, as her mouth moved a lot more than would make sense for the words he’d heard.

  “Probably the best we could hope for. We’ll need salt to preserve what we can catch, water won’t be a problem,” he glanced towards the river, “but we have no livestock and…” his voice trailed off, “a problem for tomorrow. For now, a feast is being prepared, and all are welcome! Before it begins, we will hold the ritual burials for the fallen.”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry that you had losses saving us!” Lornig butted in, as nothing had gone wrong so far and he saw a chance to curry favor.

  The Colonel frowned slightly and Lornig quailed. “None of ours fell. These are ritual burials for the orcs. Obviously, if you wish to bury any of your own, we can make room below?” he glanced slightly to where Putric Oneeye’s body had been lying. His kin must have taken him below at some point while everyone was talking.

  “No need, no need, the Oneeyes will take care of their lost,” Kirric Oneeye said.

  He nodded politely.

  “I apologize for prying, but I must ask, have you ever heard of our Lord God and his only son, Jesus Christ?”

  Again, she wanted to lie, as he clearly, desperately, wanted the answer to be yes, but that would leave her open to questions she couldn’t possible answer. “I am afraid not, but I’m sure they’re both fantastic! We’d be happy to serve your lord and his heir!” Lornig got there first, though she was probably going to say almost the same thing. Though Lornig had clearly mistaken god for a name, rather than a class.

  “Jesus isn’t—this can be discussed at another time. Have you ever heard of the United States of America?”

  This time they confined themselves to shaking heads, which continued as he listed a dozen other increasingly confusingly named organizations, none of which they had ever heard of.

  “If we can reclaim your lower caverns, how many people besides yourselves do you think they can feed?”

  Everyone looked at her, as she was the only one who might know. Except...she didn’t, both for the reason she was about to give and because she had no idea how much humans ate. Orcs had certainly eaten more than goblins, humans probably would too, but how much more? She didn’t know. “It depends what they’ve done to it. Our mushrooms grow fast, but not that fast.”

  He nodded. “We obviously have sufficient water and wood, I doubt you have saltpeter?”

  “We have salt!” Lornig eagerly cut in, as his family controlled the salt lake. He was smiling broadly, and several humans flinched at the sight—did they not like the sight of goblin teeth? They were different, perhaps the sight unsettled them? Something to remember, she could keep her teeth behind her lips.

  “Different thing,” the Colonel muttered, then, as Lornig’s face fell in a comical manner, he managed a smile, “but good news indeed, it can supply us all?”

  “Oh, yes, there’s plenty of salt!”

  “Good, good, the other things we’ll need are iron, sulfur, copper and lead.”

  That got a chorus of confused looks, except at iron, and all the iron they had was carefully recycled by their one smith from the occasional item scavenged by brave goblins if something had been seen being dumped by a ship camped on the shore or lost in the river by the ships which used to pass by, or which their ancestors had brought with them from the Deep Dark. Again, it fell to her to give the bad news, as no one else would. “Sorry, no idea.”

  He nodded, “Better than I feared, worse than I hoped,” several goblins cringed, expecting a beating, or some other punishment, but he simply clapped his hands together, “well then, ritual burials and then a feast!” he smiled and headed back down, this time Trip followed him. After a moment, Varrarg did as well, which was the cue for the others to stream down, though they formed familial knots around the individuals who could now understand the humans. As they walked down, she was able to make out the camp they had set up in greater detail and only barely kept her jaw from dropping.

  The ramp being completed all had known about, as a goblin had been sent, crawling on his belly down to keep an eye on the ropes and call up when they were used, only for the humans to not need them, instead building a ramp and marching up. He’d barely made it back. She did wonder at the limited use of her goblins. She wouldn’t figure out the reason for it for some time and when she did, she almost laughed. They hadn’t been sent to their deaths in futile attacks, for the same reason they hadn’t been given back their weapons, because the orcs didn’t think they were ‘worthy’ of them, or of combat. They had truly only been intended as shields to delay the human advance and confuse the issue.

  The ramp was expected and not entirely impressive, being barely compacted dirt, compared with the stone path that circled most of the way done. But the camp below was already spreading out. The bodies of every member of the Storm Claws lay out to the north, near the edge of the walls, inside a ditch that had somehow been dug all the way from the north edge of the wall, around the areas which had campfires and rows of rising fabric huts. More fabric than she’d ever seen in one place. She’d been impressed by the fabric uniforms the humans were all wearing. You could have dressed a dozen goblins in one of their uniforms, you could have dressed the entire clan in one of their fabric huts. She herself, besides her breech-cloth, only wore the scarf woven from the hair of her ancestors and children that marked her as the family leader and that was more than most.

  The ditch continued on, south, to encompass an area as large as the top of the walls, then drove straight towards the river. As she watched, a man extended it further by simply pointing and the dirt leapt out, creating a trench deeper than a goblin’s height and a moment later, the mound she hadn’t realized was being created extended further. Both trench and...wall were almost to the river, where a party was filling containers and carrying them back and another was standing guard. Indeed, she saw guards on careful watch all over the place.

  Her eyes caught on the flapping banners which stood tall and proud over the camp. One had thirteen red and white alternating stripes filling most of it, but in the upper left hand quarter, it was entirely blue, except for a number of white stars. The other was mostly white with with an elaborate figure and symbol in the middle But what caught her attention were the squiggles around the figure, which the Colonel’s magic translated as words, somehow, despite her not being literate, or even aware of the existence of writing, besides that Trip had mentioned on the bottle mere moments ago. It was not only the existence of the words, but rather their content which startled her, “By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.”

  They were really committed to that bit. More men moved out of the forest, forming a single unit, which formed strange ordered patterns at a word from the Colonel and yelled commands from a number of other humans. He waited as the others gathered, before he finally spoke, lowering his head, as the others did the same.

  “Soldiers of the 54th, this day began with our deaths and it ends with the deaths of our enemies. For ourselves, we can only thank the merciful Lord for plucking us from the battlefield and giving us a second chance to serve his great works. For our enemies…” he raised his head, looking to the darkening sky above, “Oh, almighty God, we do not know the names, or homes, or causes of those we inter here. We only know that they sinned mightily and fought mightily and fell mightily. For all the wrongs these poor heathens did, they surely suffered greatly in never learning of your grace and mercy. I commend these souls to your care and pray they can find a gentler hand there then they did here on—this world. And we thank you for your care, that allowed us victory without loss of any soldiers of the 54th, your children and your servants. We beseech you, Lord, in this strange land, to shelter us from our enemies and strengthen us to serve your cause, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. In your name, we commit these bodies to the ground and to their fate. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Let it be so.”

  They chorused ‘Let it be so’ back to her as the first body was lowered, the Colonel stood at their strange rigid, frozen posture, with his hand raised to his head until the last body was lowered and then snapped his arm down sharply and relaxed. The others did as well as each was filled in by a single gesture from the spellcaster and an unmarked cross of crudely carved wood, bound together with string, which, to Varrarg’s eyes represented a fair bit of work with carefully harvested hair, was placed at the head of each of the graves. She noted a man with lighter hair and wrinkles...which suggested the Colonel was not merely an old human, or first they aged as goblins, then their skin lightened as well and the wrinkles went away...that seemed unlikely...regardless, the man who would have seemed aged as a goblin kept his head bowed far longer than the rest.

  Then the Colonel raised his hands, “And now, let us celebrate our survival! Tomorrow I will have new orders for you all, but for tonight, all those not on watch should enjoy the feast!”

  A few moments later he’d vanished and men began to eat, drink and make merry, in a manner which would naturally make a goblin nervous, but she forced herself to remain, take a piece of the offered cooked beast in her grip (noting the metal cups, or plates which many of the soldiers used, another indication of their absurd wealth, even the best off goblins ate off of wood, or stone, not metal). It was...delicious. Not necessarily better than giant rat, but she had been denied that since the orcs took over, as they demanded all the meat, leaving them with an uninteresting diet of mushrooms. And eating through the rats in the upper (accessible) pens far faster than they could breed, without the lower pens to replenish the stock, there would be great difficulties.

  As she hungrily wolfed down the food, she sought out the old man who’d kept his head down longer than the rest and began to speak to him about their strange beliefs, the better to understand and suck up to the new overlords of the Settled Feet.

  So, we meet our goblins. There are indeed standard D&D evil goblins in this world, and the Settled Feet have their own inclinations in that direction as I’m trying to indicate, but besides generally somewhat higher levels of greed and sadism and slightly lower levels of empathy, the main issue the goblins have is that their gods are...well, assholes, who’ve designed their culture to produce what they desire, armies which will raid, enslave and conquer. But these goblins have entirely lost touch with that culture, thanks to their time as slaves in the underdark. Who their old masters were...is a question for another time.

  Amen’s literal meaning is a bit tricky, but I went with ‘Let it be so’ as the goblins obviously don’t have their own Amen for it to be translated to.\

  Varrarg’s focus on fabric and metal as a measure of wealth seems authentic to me, given their very limited stores of cloth and the sheer amount of effort it took to make in the pre-industrial era (for more on this, see Bret Deveraux’s blog: calculating that simply making a single change of clothes per year for a family would be a full time job).

  Thanks for reading. Comments/critiques/corrections and ratings are always welcome and help keep me focused on this story!