[TT] Celebrate with barbaric obstreperousness, with bonfires and war cries and cannibal stares the indestructible cast iron certainty of what we fuse in the name of that wild endeavor, the ecstatic bellicose enterprise, love

...

"GRAOOOOOOOO! GRAOOOOOOOOOO!"

The Goblins hollered and whooped as they danced around the raging flame of what had once been a wooden home, weapons of iron and rust lofted and waving with arms and legs aflutter. Beside this was now camp, made in shoddy measures among wreckage of blood and violence, broken fencese and slaughter livestock hidden in the shadows.

So it was the Goblin Clan had taken another village.

From the Forests they struck but to the Forests- they no longer had need to return. Instead this had become another lack of resistance: another night of feasts and debauchery. Just one more atop a now countless string for the Eastern tribe of Zaec'tra clan. Since they had slipped across the great White wall of the Human warriors not two seasons ago, things had only been marked with fantastic improvement. The times, it seemed, had only gotten more and more forgiving.

"Hah!" Grulo howled above the rest as he jumped up atop the pile of wood and boards still unburnt beside the raging flames, lifting his arms to loft a brutal looking mace. Its red-stained and rusted exterior had come from a large human in pearly white armor, whose size and strength made little difference to Grulo's knife in the dark. Any Goblin might agree, a sleeping prey was quite easily made dead.

Why fight, when you could simply win? Honor was all but the most foreign of concepts to a Goblin.

As the dark weapon raised higher still, mace glowing in the orange light of fire and flame, more howls rasped to greet Grulo's own. The clan was reaching pitch: Fevered with excitement- wild in their movements. Their gleeful screams and bellows ushered out into the darkness with no fear of consequence, clearly stating for all present to witness. The Forest was theirs! The Village was theirs! The fallen in battle were meat for the pots! The human men were meat as well- and their women? Well, Grulo felt little in the way of love, for Goblins rarely find the equivalent of such a thing when compared to those of noble flesh, but as a Chief to the Clan he knew more of lust than most.

Perhaps some of those last might become meat, but there was much to do before the cook pots were brought to simmer such as them.

Whooping again with excitement, others joined Grulo atop the pile of wood and boards, thick feet stomping and grizzled and scarred skin bright as day while dozens pitched and showered the hungry flames with further offerings. One unlucky soul even slipped, tossing his body towards the blazing coals and cinders- screaming in agony for terrible moments as Grulo laughed with the rest. By the time it had died, all had forgotten and moved on in their high-spirits, and who could blame them? One loss in such an evening of barbaric obstreperousness was nothing major. Not when there would certainly be more welps sired on the evening's close, and perhaps well into the early morning- should Goblin libido have much to say for it. The spoils of war upon the weeping of unfortunate souls.

Grulo considered none of this with any pressing detail or thought, but that did not make it untrue.

In the distance of the forest, his mind instead sought purchase on the smallest ledge of clarity. Of higher consideration and recognition, past the screams of human woman, or the cackles of lustful warriors- beyond the screams of prey thrown into broiling murky waters of iron cauldrons: There were further fires and glows in the forests beyond their territories.

No longer was it simply the Zaec'tra clan. Goblin numbers had grown. With every back-country village they took, with every weakened band of soldiers they ambushed and murdered in the dark of night: Their forces grew stronger by the day. Better weapons, more food, more women, more welps to grow and strengthen the tribes.

Soon they would have more numbers and force than the Orc armies that bullied and murdered their Kin along the Western plains. Soon they would have a horde to rival even the greatest of human cities. All that was required now, was a Goblin Chief to take it by force, and reap the rewards.

Standing alone, fires and shrieks of wild and brutal endeavors surrounding him: Grulo smiled wide with excitement. A terrible and twisted grin of rotten teeth, soured tongue and bloody breath, eyes glued to the glow of others in the far-off distance. Riches, strength, woman, and power: It could all be his, if he became the Chief of Chiefs.

Though Goblins do not love, but even one such as Grulo could understand lust.