Out in the moor

In the hall’s infirmary, with her hand hovering above my face, and my reflection in her eyes, she spoke. “O Frasmul, you’re awake at long last! I’m sorry for not recognizing you earlier, but you seemed so different.”

She put her hand on my bicep and copped a feel—“so much bigger, but somehow feeble”—she said as she put her hand to rest on my chest. I reached out for her hand, wanting to push it away. The least I could do for Frasmul was break things up with his beloved, but how was I going to explain the matter without revealing myself as a fake? Even more so, how was I going to reject her and then ask to marry her younger sister? I don’t know if this was the type of girl to kill me, herself, or everyone around her for such a betrayal, and I wasn’t prepared to find out.

“Enough of that Astvid,” a man interrupted the moment, grabbed her hand, and pulled her away from me. “You’re not married yet, so keep your hands home. Also, it’s chieftain Albaric now. Did I not tell you to expect a different man after all these years?”

“I’m sorry, Odrar. I was just worried.”

He patted her on her shoulder, and walked up to me. He reached for a handshake, and as I complied, he grabbed my hand firmly, and pulled me up on my feet. “There you go, chieftain. Pay no attention to my little sister for calling you weak. With me around, it’s no wonder she’d hold high expectations for her husband-to-be,” he said, smirking.

Aha. This girl is the type to have an older, protective brother who would beat me on the spot the moment I broke up with her. And when I ask for her younger sister’s hand instead? I’m a 100% certain he’d pummel me to death almost immediately. Is that a valid reaction? I mean, the insult is quite severe, so I think the punishment meets the crime.

“Odrar, that’s not true! The Frasmul I know was invincible in every fight. He even bested you when we were little.”

“It’s Chieftain Albaric, dear sister. People change,” he reiterated.

I guess for now, I’ll keep it to myself. This ordeal will be dealt with later. Thodbargild is our main priority.

***

Fed up with being inside the past couple of days, waiting on reinforcements and Wergnarinth alike, I head out into the wilderness to calm myself down. I was not out to hunt nor to think nor to strategize. I was just out for a walk. To gather myself. To breathe in some freshness. To take a break from…being an authority.

Coidunum, just like every other goblin town I have visited, was situated on a hilltop bordered by river. This stream originates from a mountain in Toretanian lands and leads all the way to the Esyces estate further to the south of the town. I traced its path for a while before deviating and walking through the green valleys that marked the region. Farmland dotted the area, and a few large trees lay about. In the distance, the greenery mellowed out and the farmlands ceased. It was moorland, and I decided to move in its direction for the time being. It was the same direction in which Thodbargild had set out on.

Since the Laiesyces was left leaderless in the wake of their chieftains’ kidnapping, their sons assumed control for the time being. Odrar was the current acting head of the Esyces, while Arnric’s son, my cousin, managed the Laie subtribe. Together with my uncle and I, we held a single meeting to mull things over. It seems like Thodbargild has a strategy whereby he imprisons foreign rulers, declares war on their tribe, strides into their capital, showcases his political prisoner, and makes the tribe submit to him out of coercion. At least, this is what he had done to subjugate the Toretanii. Who knows whether this was a step-by-step plan or something he did on a whim.

In spite of this knowledge, chieftains Sigvald and Arnric still accepted his visitation to their capital, thinking that one Goblin King could not best the two of them together. Kidnapping one Gnobble in a 1v1? Sure. But a 2v1? Surely not. Little did they know that Thodbargild himself had four Gnobbles in his service—an unheard amount from but a single tribe. Seeing as each Gnobble would require five Highgoblins to come into being, that meant that the Turacetae had some twenty other skilled goblins. If his Gnobbles were former Gobkin, the number could be lower, but I doubt that the children of the previous ruler were going to help out their usurper. Unless they too were coerced.

On the opposite side, our force consisted of me, a few Gobkin from the Laiesyces, uncle Aremfrid, and Wergnarinth. If Audbernrek joins us, we’ll have at least one Gnobble in our arsenal, and if my reinforcements from Casbriga arrive, we’ll have a few more Highgoblins to back us up. Thankfully, my army back home should consist of fully Kragnin-trained Crawgoblins by now, while the Turacetae mostly possess Goblin and Hobgoblin soldiers, so if it came to overall quality, we’d win. In terms of quantity… I wouldn’t count on it. The Turacetae and their Toretanian subject have the highest populations of all the five tribes, so combined, one can imagine a wave of untrained, unarmored cannon fodder.

Ugh. I promised myself I wouldn’t mull things over, and just walk in peace, but I just can’t seem to relax. It’s also because I feel guilty about Frasmul. I can’t trust him with this body for a second. Finally, my dream of being a ‘Great Man’ of history can be fulfilled, and after I beat Thodbargild in the dirt, I will also become the king I have wanted to be. Then I can do the things I actually desire to do, such as developing land, instituting laws, resolving disputes. This war and unification nonsense is just a bump on the road that I have ride over, so I can’t hand the reins to Frasmul in these delicate times, even if I knew how to.

“Look, I don’t know if you can hear me from my monitor, but I’m sorry about your girl. I don’t have what it takes to break up with her and then ask for her sister’s hand. It’s too shameless. I’m gonna have to marry her,” I voiced my apology out loud. Maybe Frasmul and I shared some mental link whereby he can hear my thoughts, but you can never be sure. If you can hear my thoughts, Frasmul, then call me by my real name the next time we meet.

My ears perked up, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I was in the moor, surrounded by drab flatland, excessive heaths, and puddles of stagnant water that mirrored the gray sky. It was a mound of wasteland by most means, especially compared to the neighboring flat, fertile valleys. Mosquitos buzzed around the puddles, but their racket was not what had alerted me.

Unable to discern the source of my sudden vigilance, I bolted onwards over the top of the hill and down its opposing slope. What I was met with was a beast breathing its last. It was a Zorian. A horse that served as the staple of transportation across Gobland. It was covered in blood, as flies were already circling its opened hind leg. I rushed towards it, removed its saddle, tore off some of my cloth, and wrapped it around its gash. Its raspy panting turned into pained brays as I put pressure on the wound to stop its bleeding.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m… I’m helping y-you.” But the cries swelled, raw and accusing, and I recoiled, hands slick with its heat and blood. “I-I don’t even k-know what I’m doing,” I whimpered through gritted teeth, baring them in a snarl of desperation. My grip was too heavy with borrowed strength, ignorance, and clumsiness to provide any relief, only twisting the wretched thing’s anguish deeper.

As its flailing turned to spasming, and its spasming to twitching, and its twitching to tranquility… from tranquility to a spasm, and from there to a stiff, unmoving posture—I knew the beast had succumbed to death. Its final moments in pure agony as I did nothing but torture its wound.

I knelt there, lamenting my useless hands, and the poor creature's stolen breath. Lamenting how I'd prolonged its suffering, and the rider's ruin—Zorians weren't cheap. I grabbed the creature’s saddle to find any clues to its owner. The saddle looked familiar, and as I took a closer look at the silver threads, I found the seal of Ausmul. One of my men. Gone, because I led them here blind.

I looked at the beast’s blood trail, and removed the cloth around its wound. An arrow-sized hole. Not good. The poor thing was killed by someone and its rider was nowhere to be seen. I returned my gaze to the trail of blood, but I could see nothing but my inability to save others. Sigvald, my uncle Arnric, the horse, and its rider.

“…Maybe that rider is still alive.”

***

Through the moor, and over the next hillock, I can feel the blood trail leading me to its origin. As I ran, my mind raced—If the rider lives, then maybe I can salvage myself—but self-doubt crept up like a dread lynx, and it hampered my grip on my blade.

A grunt echoed from a spike in landscape up ahead. It was a desperate cry of a man in strife, for it was followed up by the clashing of iron—two, three strikes a count. I ascended the hillock, and on its top lay a dead tree in the middle of the moorland. Its branches bare and naked, not a single leaf to cover it up despite the spring’s end being nigh, and summer’s arrival to grace us any day. Around the rooted piece of hardwood, two goblins dueled to see who would join the tree in the afterlife. Wergnarinth among them, pinned against the timber, defiance twisting his face as he kept his guard raised. The pinning one was a Gnobble—Thodbargild’s breed, donning a brimless cone for a helmet. He had spotted my friend who had acted as our scout, gathering intel for our plan of action.

“Wergnarinth!” I shouted, my blade drawn. The Gnobble’s ear twitched followed by his eyes, severing me in contempt. Wergnarinth’s knees began to buckle, and his guard faltered.

No time. I exploded towards the scrap with Kragnin surging through my veins, my energy flared up, and my senses heightened. My blade twists in an arc towards his neck, a hunter’s attack honed on lynxes and bushpigs. He met it with a lazy sweep, his blade ringing mine like a bell toll, the force jarring up my arm to my shoulder. I staggered, but pressed on—twisting into a riposte this time, aiming for the gap at his ribs, just like the warrior drills taught me. I was faster than he was, but he blocked it with anticipation. His elbow cracked my jaw, stars circling my head, and I reeled back, boots slipping in the moist dirt.

He lunged a thrust at my chest, and I met it with a sweeping parry, his guard thrown towards his flank. My turn to lunge. Landing my glancing hit, the Gnobble staggers back, but shrugs it off. Laughing, he dodges my follow-up, kicking me off to the side like a stray dog. Darn!—Shouldn’t I have the advantage as a Goblin King?!

He stepped forward in the offense with a flurry of strikes—arcing slashes and homing thrusts galore. I met part of his attacks with blocks and parries, while others met me with a thigh graze or a centered scratch. My footing gave way in the loose earth of the terrain, failing to adapt to it, whilst my foe did so out of pure instinct. Goblin instinct that I lacked.

He abruptly halted his flurry as he snatched me by my right arm, pulling the rug out from under me, dropping my weapon. “No nose for the kill,” he taunted, “just a brute wielding a heavy stick.”

Brute? Ok, I’ll show you brute.

Before he could stab me from my flank, my unoccupied arm flared with Kragnin and struck him in his eye at the speed of light. He barely let go of my right arm, and it singed like a bolt of lightning into his chest, tearing a literal path to his heart.

“If all I have is raw strength, then don’t underestimate how raw it can be.”

“…What folly,” he grunted as he regained his footing and his bloodied glower slit me to shreds. He planted his feet in the ground, leaning on the balls thereof, all the while maintaining his deep glare, he ruptured the earth as he erupted in a lunge meant to rob me of my life. I could see his movements, and I knew I was physically capable of dodging—I was plenty fast. However, my processing speed was still the same as when I was normal human—too slow for such an attack. I contorted my body, and he dug a hole in my side as I fell to my knee, cringing and wailing in pain.

My foe gasped for air as he sauntered back to me with great effort. “As I was saying… no nose for the kill. Just… a brute.” He lazily lifted his leg to boot me open from my turtled position, and in a wild effort, I bared my claws and hooked onto his leg, dragging him down. We wrestled for but a second before he overcame me—my wound rendering my core unfunctional as it winced in agony. With his falcata raised in the air, he struck… MISS—his weapon etched in the ground next to my head. I looked up, and saw that an arrow had pierced his leg. He collapsed in torment. Writhed in pain.

With my little remaining strength, I shoved him off. He barrel rolled once before lying flat, his pierced leg in the air. I dropped myself on him, and pushed the arrow deeper, and deeper, until he died of shock, flailing in desperation. Just like the horse. Serves him right.

“Nice shot… Wergnarinth,” I mumbled, and I caved in.