The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

by Pirateaba

  Rags frowned. Most Chieftains knew almost exactly how many Goblins they had in their tribe, but Garen seemed very casual. But she was busy overseeing ways to move the injured, and plotting their next destination. She wanted to take the tribes away from Liscor, back to the cave perhaps, or somewhere else they could rest and regroup.

  She wanted to meet the other tribes, but Rags scowled when she heard one of her Goblin scouts reporting that they were dragging their heels, walking towards her tribe at a snail’s pace as word of her victory over the Red Fang tribe was done.

  Garen was all for letting the tribes disperse as Rags deliberated what to do. She glared at him: she’d been thinking and he was interrupting her. No one bothered her when she was thinking, not even other Hobs. But Garen clearly thought he was more important than anyone else.

  He was right, of course, but it was still annoying.

  “Let tribes go. They will come if you tell. But you are not Goblin Lord.”

  Not yet, and perhaps never. That was what Rags heard. She nodded reluctantly. With the Red Fang tribe, she would replenish most of the Goblins she’s lost, and as her tribe neared a thousand individuals, she would have trouble keeping track of them all. Managing the thousands of Goblins in all the allied tribes was beyond her, so it was wisest to keep the Chieftains apart rather than cram them together and risk a fight.

  Tell them to go, then. But not far.

  Garen nodded in agreement, and he sent two of his least injured riders to spread the message. Rags began moving her tribe north as the last Goblin corpses were buried, and then she and Garen found themselves moving at the center of her tribe, in a small space of their own.

  Rags was used to it, but the fact that Garen was still following her was annoying. She glanced at him a few times before deciding to bite the poisonous toad, so to speak.

  What do you want?

  He grinned at her, unabashed by the tone in Rags’ voice. Garen patted his mount, the gigantic wolf he rode who was limping at his side, and replied to Rags casually.

  “Am walking. Not good?”

  Rags’ brows snapped together. She glared at him, ignoring his growling mount.

  I am Chieftain.

  “Yes. But I am better Goblin. Older. Wiser. Stronger. Must teach you before you are better Chieftain than I.”

  She pondered this. Rags had never heard of a Chieftain being taught – they normally learned what they needed to from observation, or made up everything as they went along. It was a non-Goblin concept, something Erin might come up with. She didn’t entirely dislike it, but she had to make one point clear.

  I am Chieftain. You are not.

  She could have no fighting over her position, especially since Rags knew she would lose if he challenged her. Garen nodded.

  “Will not fight, Chieftain. Do not want to lead.”

  That was another odd statement, but Rags saw the truth of that once she saw the rest of the Red Fang Tribe. Her Goblins had been moving at a reasonably quick job for little over two hours when she heard a warning cry, and saw the Red Fang tribe approaching.

  Her first reaction was of disappointment. Not because there were less Goblins than advertised; there were actually around three hundred by her quick count, and nearly forty wolves not including pups. It was a vast tribe, made even stronger by the fact that they had six Hobs with them, the highest number she’d seen outside of her own tribe.

  And indeed, the Red Fang tribe was clearly a giant among the tribes of the area. They had quality armor on most of their warriors, and weapons to match. But Rags was disappointed because when she looked at the Goblins who were not warriors, she saw her own tribe, back when she had not been Chieftain.

  All of the non-warriors were thin and scrawny. The children were ragged or naked, and the Red Fang tribe didn’t look like it was carrying much food at all. They were clearly a tribe of warriors, but most tribes Rags had encountered had a simple scale of welfare. If one Goblin was fed, they all were. True, the Chieftain would be fed most, but tribes with a strong fighting force seldom had food issues.

  Yet this tribe did. Rags called a halt as she approached the tribe. Immediately, the Goblins bowed their heads and didn’t meet her eyes. She was in control.

  Garen sauntered over as Rags did a quick circuit of her tribe. He poked her, and she debated knifing him.

  “Should teach how to fight now. Be stronger.”

  She shook her head. This was far more important. She had just acquired three hundred new bodies; it was time to reorganize and rethink her tribe’s structure.

  Garen frowned, not understanding.

  “What? Why wait?”

  Rags sighed, but she grunted at him as she looked around at the tribe. They were all watching her intently, the Hobs especially for some reason. She hoped they wouldn’t be trouble. All of these Hobs looked even stronger than the ones in her tribe, and she would need each one.

  Food. Clothing. Weapons. Sleeping place. Must have things.

  “Food?”

  Garen’s brows rose dismissively. He shook his head, and then pointed at a Goblin, seemingly at random.

  “Chieftain wants food. Get food.”

  The Goblin stared at Garen and then at Rags uncertainty, but no harder than Rags was doing. She watched as he poked a few Goblins and they began to shuffle off. They had no direction, no weapons outside of the ones the Goblins were carrying, no way of retrieving their food—

  What are you doing?

  Garen looked blankly at Rags.

  “They get food. Kill something. Find something. Bring back.”

  What if they didn’t have enough food? What about logistics, and the need to find a food source if the tribe would stay in the area? Garen just stared at Rags, and then pointed again.

  “Hobs will take care of it.”

  Rags looked over. Indeed, one of the Hobs had intercepted the food gathering group and was trying to give them order. He gave Rags a look of long suffering and then she understood.

  Garen might be a warrior beyond warriors, and unbeatable among Goblins, a devious attacker and even a former adventurer who knew more about Humans and other races than even other Chieftains…but he was no leader.

  He had no levels in the [Chieftain] class, or even the [Leader] class. His idea of leadership was leading the small group of warriors he had handpicked and trained himself into combat, and letting the Hobs and other Goblins sort the rest out.

  In fact, Rags learned to her mounting indignation, Garen hadn’t even really grown his tribe himself. Goblins had simply wandered towards his camp like moths drawn to a flame and he’d let them stay. The only reason he even had a tribe was because he felt the general urge to, but he was incapable of leading any more than his few hundred, despite his overwhelming strength.

  It wasn’t a huge flaw in a person, but it was in a Chieftain. As the leader of the Flooded Waters Tribe, Rags felt for the Red Fang Tribe, so she sprang into action, much to Garen’s annoyance.

  The first thing Rags did was cancel Garen’s idiotic food gathering order and send out scouts from her location. Not to find food; she wanted a place to make camp at the moment, and her scouts would report any good food sources around.

  Next, Rags began identifying useful Goblins in the tribe while she ordered her tribe’s food stashes to be emptied to feed the hungry Red Fang goblins. She always brought as much food as her tribe could carry, and so Rags watched as it was devoured by the newcomers.

  The Hobs of Garen’s tribe looked on with relief as Rags began separating the Goblins, identifying classes, making the children and mothers and elderly stay together—she took the six Hobs who she’d decided were fairly competent and gave them the task of overseeing the different groups in her tribe.

  Rags had dedicated scavengers, hunters, warriors, and many other groups dedicated to doing one thing in her tribe. She’d set up her internal system so that at any given time one group of Goblins could be out doing something, another could be relaxing, and her warriors
could be ready to assist or protect the camp at any time.

  Garen had none of that. He wandering around as Rags struggled to find a way to manage his Carn Wolves. They were distrustful of her, but they seemed to realize that she was the new boss.

  At last, Rags’ scouts came back with a number of locations they’d spotted, and she picked out a large forest sitting at the base of one of the mountains as a good place to stay for a while. They’d also told her that there was a herd of Corusdeer nearby, and as far as she was concerned, that was an excellent source of meat.

  Normally Goblins helped mitigate the huge number of mouths to feed in their tribes by eating their dead. But Rags considered that having dead Goblins at all was a sign of failure, so she was extremely careful to find new food sources. By the looks of the Red Fang tribe, they’d been forced to eat their dead numerous times already.

  Perhaps it was time to grow food out of the ground like she’d seen Drakes and Gnolls doing. Rags knew it was possible; she didn’t know if it was possible in the snow, but it would be nice to have a reliable source of food. For the moment though, she wanted the herd of deer slaughtered. They could salt the meat; another thing Garen’s tribe didn’t do.

  Still, Corusdeer were dangerous. Normally Rags would hesitate to attack a herd, even with her Hobs. So she sent Garen instead. He frowned at her when she gave him the order, along with a large number of warriors armed with pikes and bows, slings, and crossbows to keep the deer at bay and strike them from afar.

  “Why? I am not hunter.”

  But he was strong. And more importantly, Rags had said so. She glared at him until he went, with strict orders to keep as many Goblins alive as possible.

  He came back after Rags had firmly established her camp, with designated places to eat, sleep, and excrete. Garen eyed the orderly camp Rags had made, and the way the young Goblin was organizing several groups each led by a Hob to go out and enter caves and other dens for more food.

  The former Goblin Chieftain dismissively tossed a Corusdeer’s carcass down at Rags’ feet. He’d beheaded the alpha stag in the group, and Rags was pleased to note that the group she’d sent with him was only down a few Goblins.

  Garen wasn’t even wounded. His skin was like armor, but the deer hadn’t even gotten close enough to gore him. According to the Hobs that had gone with him, Garen had ignored their hunting formation – closed ranks of pikes and stakes to hold the deer back and archers striking deer on the edges of the herd – and had walked into the herd, swinging his sword and cutting down Corusdeer even as they turned the snow into fog.

  No other Goblin could do that. Not even a Hob, or a Chieftain. Rags could see the admiration in the eyes of the other Goblins who had gone with them. She understood. She’d felt it herself; it wasn’t just seeing him fight like that which was amazing. She’d seen adventurers striding around in magnificent armor, slaying huge monsters. But this was different. Garen was a Goblin. He was one of them, a being who could fight like a hero.

  He was what Rags had dreamed of being, before those dreams had been crushed. But seeing him made her want to be strong again. She was strong as a Chieftain, but as an individual Goblin?

  “We talk now?”

  Garen was irritated, but he grew less so when he realized there was more hot food available and a comfortable place that had been cleared of snow to sit in. The forest was an ideal campsite for Goblins, so long as Rags made it clear to keep fire away from the trees.

  It was time to talk. Rags sat with Garen and they ate again, as she finally asked all the questions on her mind. Some she had worked out, but Garen confirmed the rest.

  Garen Red Fang. It wasn’t just his tribe’s name, it was his own. He had been named by the Shaman of the Old Fire Tribe, but he had wandered away from his tribe as soon as he had grown older, dissatisfied with working for his Chieftain and wandering to become stronger.

  And he had. Oh, he had. Garen had learned to fight by himself, and he’d leveled up as a [Warrior] quickly. Not only that; he’d become a Hob as well, and ended up terrorizing quite a stretch of land far to the north by himself, clashing with other Goblin Tribes and local monsters until he came to the attention of a Silver-rank team of adventurers.

  They’d hunted him down, and nearly killed him, but something strange had happened then. Intrigued by a Goblin who was intelligent enough to fend for himself and clearly independent, the leader of the adventurers had spared his life, instead just chasing him away.

  Garen had fled, but not far. The encounter with the adventurers had changed him as well; he grew curious of the Humans and other species who he’d only regarded as enemies and prey. Consumed by his desire to understand more, Garen actually disguised himself as a traveler, hiding his green skin and face behind robes and a crude mask and gone into villages and towns, listening to Humans talk.

  His first few tries had been hugely unsuccessful, but Garen soon learned to speak passably in the Human language, and no one would suspect a Goblin of being so tall, or peaceful. Garen managed to even enter cities, usually in secret and while the guards at the gates weren’t watching. But he was strong and clever enough that the few times he was caught, he could fight his way out.

  And so Garen had gone searching for the adventurers who’d spared him once before. He tracked them down, and after finding them, he’d challenged them a second time.

  He lost again, but this time he’d volunteered to join their group. After much debate, he’d been accepted, and so Garen Red Fang had become the first Goblin to ever journey with adventurers. With his team, they’d take on normal monster-hunting requests and even explored dungeons, eventually progressing to Gold-rank status.

  That was how Garen had gotten his sword, and become such a devastating warrior. He’d formed close bonds with the adventurers too, Rags gathered…until the day when he betrayed them.

  That was the only thing Garen wouldn’t talk about. The tall Hobgoblin had clammed up about it, sucking the marrow out of a bone and staring moodily into the fire. Rags had let it drop, because the next part of his story was more important still.

  After his betrayal, Garen couldn’t stay in the world of non-Goblins anymore. He’d retreated to the area north of Liscor, a land where Goblins were generally ignored aside from the monster-slaying requests posted with regularity in each village. He’d wandered around the High Passes, and even tamed a Carn Wolf when he began to desire a tribe.

  In the truest Goblin fashion, Garen had found the biggest tribe around and challenged the Chieftain to a battle. He’d even allowed the Chieftain to fight with as many warriors as he wanted, but apparently the Hobgoblin in charge had taken one look at Garen and fled, quite sensibly too. Thus, Garen had his tribe.

  Normally, the story would then become about Garen growing his tribe, thanks to his incredible abilities as a warrior. But as Rags had observed, Garen was a terrible Chieftain and he quickly realized that as well. So instead of expanding, the Red Fang tribe had established a local superiority, rivaled only by the Broken Spear Tribe and Ghostly Hand Tribes to the south.

  Until the day the Goblin Lord had emerged.

  This is where Garen paused, and Rags sat up. She understood why he’d done what he had, vaguely. He’d gathered his tribe, and the nearby ones, to form an alliance that would be able to defeat the Goblin Lord. The problem was that they were fractured, having no great Chieftain to lead them. Garen was strongest, but he couldn’t manage them effectively. But when he’d heard of an upstart Chieftain who’d absorbed several tribes and was using actual tactics and formations—

  Well, he’d tested her, with blood and death, and she’d passed. But Rags wanted to know why he’d decided this Goblin Lord was so wrong.

  She knew what all Goblins knew. Obey the Chieftain. But there was a sense—yes, a sense in her head that told her to obey a Goblin Lord. And a Goblin King? It was like the memory of the sun for someone who’d lived all their life in shadows. She wanted a King, so she couldn’t understand what was wrong wit
h a Goblin Lord.

  “He is wrong.”

  That was what Garen said. He stared into the fire, tossing the fragments of the bone into it.

  Who? Broken Spear Tribe Chieftain? Ghostly Hand Tribe Chieftain?

  Rags was sure she would have heard if either was expanding; she would have expected them to go after her weak tribe first. But Garen shook his head.

  “Neither. Different. Broken Spear Tribe Chieftain surrendered. Ghostly Hand Chieftain is dead.”

  That rocked Rags back in her seat. The Chieftain of the Ghostly Hand Tribe was dead? But she was a [Shaman] capable of powerful magic! And yet, apparently the Goblin who’d replaced her as Chieftain and started expanding her tribe was more powerful still.

  “I met him. Once.”

  Garen had gone south, evading adventurers and cities to meet this new Chieftain when he’d first heard of his power. But the Red Fang’s leader had left as soon as he’d seen the Goblin.

  “He is…bad. Bad Goblin.”

  It was a word Rags had never heard spoken of another Goblin, but she understood his meaning. Bad Goblin. One who could not be trusted, could not be part of a Tribe. Who must be fought against, even if it meant war between Tribes.

  So. I am Chieftain to fight.

  Garen looked up and shrugged fractionally.

  “Not yet. Goblin Lord is slow. Growing Tribes. Much time. Good. Need time to make you stronger.”

  Stronger? Garen nodded.

  “You are weak. Must be far stronger. I help.”

  That was how Rags found herself sparring with Garen in the middle of her campsite after they’d eaten. She blinked at him as he picked up a tree branch and faced her. She had a shortsword and her buckler, but he only had a piece of wood.