The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

by Pirateaba

  That was clear from the way Rags stood with her arms folded, staring up at him. She had not run, which would be the sign of an unworthy Chieftain, but she refused to take up his offer. The only other course of action would be to fight, and Rags was tensed for the Red Fang Chieftain to do just that.

  Was his entire Tribe nearby? If so, the only option Rags had was to retreat. But if it was just this group of riders…could they actually take down the Red Fang tribe here and now?

  Surely not. But Rags had the black crossbow by her side, and her Goblins outnumbered his by a huge margin. Maybe…

  The Chieftain moved. He kicked the wolf he rode gently in the sides, and it started to descend the slope. Rags’ Goblins stirred, but she held them back. Instead, she caught the eye of one of her Goblin warriors and slowly drew a circle on her palm. He nodded and stealthily moved off among her Goblins, grabbing others.

  Her warriors would circle around, trapping the Red Fang’s riders. They could capture this tribe as well, Rags was sure. But she was still vibrating with nerves, and as the Red Fang’s Chieftain drew closer on his wolf—

  Pressure.

  Rags stared up at the Chieftain as he moved with his Red Fang warriors. He was the only Hob among them, but each mounted Goblin projected that same aura of strength. They were all armored with unrusted chainmail and thick leather. And their weapons—

  They might be as strong as Hobs, each one. That was the sense Rags got. How high level were they? And their Carn Wolves were just as deadly. The great animals didn’t even flinch as the riders moved into the center of Rags’ tribe, and Red Fang warriors looked just as unconcerned.

  They advanced down the slope, heedless of the countless bows trained on them. The leader of the Red Fang Tribe sat on his Carn Wolf and stared down at Rags as she approached.

  The difference in their heights was beyond staggering. Rags felt like she was staring up at a giant. But it was equally difficult simply because up close, the Chieftain radiated danger. Rags didn’t have [Dangersense], but she was sure it would be screaming at her right now if she did.

  The Chieftain looked at Rags and spoke, his voice low and rumbling.

  Submit to my tribe. Or die.

  He spoke in the Goblin’s tongue, which was short and guttural, so much so that many Goblins preferred to just grunt and point if the problem was simple enough. Rags stared up at him, and felt her mind go blank.

  Submit? To his tribe? It was better than dying, which was how she’d gained control of the other tribes. And it was the sensible thing to do. The Red Fang Tribe—they were legendary. Rags knew her tribe was not their match. Even if they had only a fraction of their strength here, it was the smart thing to do.

  She should do it. Rags hesitated as the Chieftain waited for her response. She could do it. He would probably let her keep her tribe, and they could go back to Liscor. She could pay tribute, and she would be safe.

  It was the best choice. But Rags looked at the Chieftain and his sixty riders. They were in the center of her tribe and her ambush party was making their way around the rear. Could they…?

  Submit. It was the smart thing to do. The safe thing. But Rags looked up and remembered a Drake staring down at her with hatred in his eyes. She saw the severed heads and knew her answer in a heartbeat.

  Slowly, Rags shook her head. The Chieftain’s eyes narrowed.

  Then die.

  Rags didn’t even see him swing his sword. She only saw the Hob next to her move, and then the Gold Stone Chieftain was in front of her, taking the one-handed slash meant for Rags.

  The blow broke the Hobs’ shield and cut through his armor. Rags stared as the Gold Stone Chieftain fell, bleeding. The Red Fang Chieftain shook his head, and then raised his sword. And his warriors attacked.

  Rags screamed orders as the mounted riders suddenly leapt at her Goblins. Her archers fired and warriors rushed towards the riders, but too slow. The wolves bounded forwards and into the ranks of her Goblins, snarling, and the mounted Goblins stabbed with their spears and slashed downwards, turning the front ranks into bloody ribbons.

  The Red Fang Chieftain pointed at Rags and his wolf leapt forwards. Rags stumbled back, and more Hobs and Goblins rushed to protect her. One Goblin raised a crossbow—

  And the Red Fang Chieftain slice off the top of his head. It was a smooth swing that didn’t even slow as it cut the Goblin’s skull open. The Chieftain grinned with battle fury in his eyes as he cut left, right, left, right. Each time he did, a Goblin died.

  The Chieftain took an arrow from a bow to the shoulder and didn’t even blink. The arrowhead snapped off as it hit his skin, and Rags realized he has some kind of skill. He swung backwards and delivered a backhanded punch to a Hob that floored the other Goblin. His Carn Wolf seized a small Goblin and crunched the struggling warrior in an instant.

  All around Rags, her Goblins were screaming and trying to fight off the wolf riders who had charged into their ranks. Clay bullet sand arrows broke or bounced off the Goblin warrior’s armor and the Carn Wolves’ hide. Each Red Fang warrior fought with a ferocity and speed of a Hob, and their wolves were just as horrible to fight; Goblins struggled to even get close enough to strike in the face of those slashing paws, and snapping teeth.

  Rags moved backwards, looking around wildly. Where was her ambush group? Still getting into position probably. The attack had been so sudden they’d all been caught off-guard, and now the Red Fang’s Chieftain was cutting his way towards her.

  His Carn Wolf howled and rammed its way through the ranks of Goblins, trampling them underfoot. The Chieftain leapt from its back and dodged a bolt as it flew towards his chest. He grinned, turned, cut two Goblins in half, and then charged towards Rags.

  She dropped the black crossbow and drew her sword just in time. She raised her sword and braced the flat side with her hand as the Chieftain raised his sword high. He brought it down, and Rags saw whiteness and felt as if the sky had fallen on her head. But though her sword shook and bent, it miraculously held.

  The Chieftain grinned, and Rags barely managed to turn her blade to block the next strike. He locked blades with her—on purpose. Rags could feel the unyielding strength behind his blade; if he’d wanted to, he could have cut through her bronze sword and straight through Rags in a single blow.

  You are not true Goblin.

  Rags felt a shock as her feet struggled for purchase in the snow. The Chieftain stared down at her, looking almost disappointed. He stared into her eyes, red eyes intent on her face.

  You are too small to lead. Too weak. I will prove this.

  He turned, and his wolf bounded away into the darkness. He roared, and suddenly his riders moved away, cutting themselves free of her Goblins. Rags fumbled for her bow and then raised her hand to cast a spell, but too late.

  The Red Fang riders were already racing away as Goblins scrambled for their bows and tried to fire after them. Rags stared around, but saw no fallen wolves or dead Goblins from their tribe. Only her slaughtered Goblins.

  Sixty against close to a thousand, and yet they’d fought their way out without a scratch. Rags was in shock. She stared around and the dead and dying and at her hands. Her small hands. They still trembled at the memory of clashing with the Red Fang’s Chieftain.

  That was when the Goblin scout raced through her milling tribe, shouting for her. Rags turned, and he nearly fell in his panic. She caught him, and he gabbled his message. Rags felt her head go light with shock.

  Over a thousand Goblins, perhaps many thousands—the scout had no accurate number—were marching towards them. The Red Fang Tribe’s main host.

  They had to run. Rags looked around and began to shout. The Goblins abandoned the dead and seized the wounded, but as they did, more screams rang out.

  Rags grabbed at her sword, but the sounds weren’t coming from here. She looked over the hill and realized what was happening.

  The Red Fang Chieftain. He was killing the Goblins she’d sent to encircle him. In the dist
ance, she saw her hiding warriors break and run as his wolf riders fell upon them. The Chieftain was fastest, and he swung his sword at the leader of the ambush team. The Goblin fell, and the Chieftain rode on, swinging his sword. Once, twice. Goblins bled and died.

  Rags shouted, and her Goblins streamed out after the riders, but again, too slowly. Even as she watched, the Red Fang riders broke away from the combat, dashing over a hill and out of sight.

  This time Rags didn’t hesitate. She ordered her Goblins to grab everything they could and began marching the main body of her tribe away from where the Red Fang Tribe was. But she could sense the Red Fang’s Chieftain was still nearby. He had promised to show her how weak he was? What did he mean by that?

  She soon found out. The Red Fang’s Chief struck her tribe eight more times that day, until she finally realized what was going on. And then the next day, and the next. He forced her tribe on the defensive, making them fall back until the days became all the same.

  Retreating, fleeing, running.

  South.

  Back towards Liscor.

  —-

  They were being hunted. That was all Rags knew. She sat around the small campfire, head bowed, too exhausted for any other thoughts. Her Goblins lay around her, some passed out on top of each other.

  It was still light, but that hardly mattered. Her tribe was too exhausted to keep going, so Rags had called a halt. Even so, she’d posted half of her soldiers as a watch, in case the Red Fang’s Chieftain returned, which he would.

  He always did.

  Rags looked around. Her tribe. It was still mostly intact. Mostly. But over the course of a few days, they’d lost over a hundred Goblins, and half again as many were wounded. And not because the Red Fang Tribe had caught up with them, no. It was all due to the sixty riders and the Red Fang Chieftain.

  They kept on attacking. Rags closed her eyes and remembered.

  Flashes.

  The Red Fang riders charged out of a forest ahead of Rags’ tribe. Her Goblins screamed and scattered, but she reformed them. She’d been expecting this. Rags ordered them into a line and had her archers prepare to fire. As the riders raced at her, she pulled something out of her belt.

  A red gemstone. The gem of [Terror]. It had little effect on Goblins, but wolves? Rags raised it and activated the magic.

  Terror, pure terror, rolled over the Carn Wolves and made them halt in their tracks. Their confused riders pulled and yanked at them, trying to make the wolves go on, but they refused, trying to retreat.

  The Red Fang Chieftain stared at the gem in Rags’ hand and narrowed his eyes. As the first arrows and clay pellets began to bombard his warriors he raised his sword into the air and—

  Roared.

  The sound was deafening and bestial. It made Rags’ Goblins hesitate, and the fearful wolves froze in place. The Chieftain pointed towards Rags as her heart stopped again in her chest and shouted.

  Charge!

  The wolves leapt forwards, their fear forgotten. Rags screamed an order, and her Goblins warriors surged forwards to protect her unguarded archers, but too slow, too late. The first ranks were completely crushed as the Red Fang riders screamed into them, slashing, cutting—

  Pain and defeat. Again and—

  This time Rags had set up on high ground, but the Red Fang’s Chieftain didn’t even hesitate. He came up the gorge, so quickly her archers were barely able to target him. But that was fine. Rags waited. The steep incline was only passable in a few places. And in each—

  The camouflaged rolls of boom bark were hidden beneath rocks, but the explosions would just turn the stone into deadly shrapnel. She held her hand at her side, the [Firefly] spell hot in her mind as she waited. The Red Fang Chieftain ran on, staring directly at her. The Hobs at her side hid their arrows dipped in oil, ready to fire. Nearly, nearly—

  At the last moment, the Chieftain stared at the ground and suddenly pulled his wolf to a stop. Rags stared in disbelief as he studied the perfectly concealed ground where the boom bark was hidden, and then shook his head. He shouted, and his wolf riders turned with him, racing away. Rags stared at their backs, furious, confused, until she heard screaming from behind and realized he’d split his force in two—

  And now, today, she’d tried to make a stand and corner him. But he’d spotted every one of her ambush teams and torn into them and retreated before she could get close.

  That was the thing. The Red Fang’s Chieftain might be warlike, but he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t trying to fight head-on. If she could corner him and force him to fight, it might be a fair one. His fifty wolf riders might be strong, but even with the Carn Wolves they were outnumbered eight-to-one by her Goblins.

  But they didn’t do that. Instead, they launched devastating attacks on Rags’ Tribe, outrunning her archers and slaughtering dozens of Goblins before turning and running away.

  They were too well-armored, too strong individually, and they never fought Rags’ best warriors. Instead, they aimed for the weak spots, the archers, her unguarded flanks. And Rags couldn’t send her Hobs to counter, because of the Chieftain.

  If her Hobs strayed anywhere outside the center of her tribe, the Red Fang’s Chieftain would come for them. He was unstoppable. Arrows didn’t slow him or his mount down and he had already killed two Hobs by himself. He was a monster, and at his back his small group of warriors turned into an unstoppable force that bled Rags day and night.

  If they could have stopped, they might have found a cave to dig into, or some place to fortify which the riders wouldn’t dare attack. But even that wasn’t an option, because the Red Fang tribe was following in huge numbers, poised to strike down Rags’ tribe if they slowed.

  The main body of the Red Fang tribe and all the lesser tribes under their command were advancing slowly, backing up their wolf riders and forcing Rags to keep moving or risk being caught. They were blocking every escape route, forcing Rags and her tribe back towards Liscor.

  It was the neatest trap Rags had ever seen, and it was terrifying as well. She couldn’t do anything against these riders; her crossbow was the only weapon capable of hurting his warriors at a distance, and they could outrun her archers and outfight almost all of her Goblins.

  Even so, Rags might have had hope. A hundred dead was terrible, but it was only a tenth of her fighting force. They’d killed several of the wolf riders and the wolves in return. But that wasn’t the real consequence of these daily raids, no. It was the effect they were having on her tribes’ morale, and worse, confidence in her.

  Small Goblin! Fight me!

  The Red Fang’s Chieftain would roar that challenge with every new day, and his warriors would beat their shields and their wolves would howl. And each time Rags would turn and take her Goblins back, back towards her home.

  She couldn’t fight. It was suicide, and her Goblins knew it. But still, they saw their Chieftain retreating and saw too that she was unable to protect them or hurt their enemy, and they lost faith.

  Rags tried to project confidence, but that was hard because she had no idea what to do. She had to get back to Liscor. That was her home territory; she knew the landscape and could set a trap. But what?

  Luring the Red Fang riders to Liscor would be pointless. The city would close their gates, or send the Watch and the terrible Antinium out to crush both sides. The Red Fang riders would just run while Rags’ tribe was cut to pieces.

  They couldn’t hide in the caves either. It was no longer big enough for them, and if they pressed themselves in that small confine, she was sure the Red Fang Chief would walk in and slaughter them one Goblin at a time.

  So what else was there? Rags was sure going into the dungeon itself would be death; she doubted even her Hobs could defeat the stone golems past the broken wall. And if not them then there was only one thing she could think of.

  Erin. But Rags couldn’t even imagine the innkeeper defeating the Red Fang’s Chieftain, even with her friends to help. And besides—

  No
. No, this was Rags’ fight. She had half of an idea left, a wild guess. She just had to get back to Liscor to implement it, and soon. Because if she didn’t hurry, she wouldn’t have a Tribe by the time she got back.

  The second night after the continued attacks by the Red Hand tribe, Rags had woken up and realized some Goblins were missing. A few families had vanished overnight, as well as some stragglers.

  That was normal. Goblins left tribes if they were unhappy, to start their own tribes or wander. But the next night more had left, and then even more. The Goblins were losing their faith in their Chieftain, and so they were abandoning her.

  Not all of them; this was mostly just from the Gold Stone tribe, although incredibly, their Chieftain had persuaded most of them to stay. But the exodus was increasing.

  More Goblins left last night as well. Rags sat up and counted the empty beds. Twenty six this time. Almost exactly how many she’d predicted. Good? She didn’t feel anything was good right now.

  She stumbled over to the campfire, and found the stew cooking on the fire. It was full of rations, dried meat and leftovers. It tasted awful, but it was hot and Rags scarfed the food down. She only realized someone was behind her when she heard the heavy footstep.

  She whirled, and reached for her weapons warily. But it was only a Hob. He was one of the ones from the Sword Taker tribe, a tall Hob who used a huge hammer as a weapon.

  He was staring at her. Rags hesitated. Did he want food? As Chieftain, she had first rights to food, but there was more than enough in the pot. Was he waiting for her to finish? Some tribes had different customs.

  But then the Hob spoke and Rags understood.

  Chieftain. Fight.