Guglak spent his day in much the same way he spent all of his days. Yelling. He yelled at the goblins for not bringing in enough food, he yelled at them again for not building fast enough, he yelled more about them not gathering enough resources and he yelled once again because nobody had listened the first time. It wasn’t an issue job, Guglak thought, he had to sit at the top of the wall yelling down at everyone all day because they simply couldn’t get the work they were tasked with done. Guglak was often left in charge of Lord’s Rest while his master was away furthering the glorious and evil cause, unfortunately, Guglak was too old to be running around, his already small goblin frame grew smaller every day due to his arched back, his fingers cracked and were stiff around the stick that held him upright, but he was his master’s first follower and he was unwilling to let him down after coming this far.

Guglak was well respected amongst his peers, not only was he the first goblin to join, but he was also the oldest. Age was something goblins respected although it often left them confused, goblins followed the strongest of their kind and the weak usually died. So for a goblin to be so strong as to live long enough to become weak and frail was an achievement and their usual customs were set aside, it didn’t happen often so they were rarely worried about such things. The humans always seemed to respect their elders, Guglak liked that about them, it made it easier to yell at them without any snarky responses. Additionally, the humans for the most part were scared of him or rather the group of armed goblins behind him, although he liked to think that he was the scary part of his entourage. Lastly the stenjin, the stenjin was one of Guglak’s favourite new servants at Lord’s Rest while also his most disliked. Naturally, he loved the stenjin because they did everything he wanted them to do, and they did it better than everyone else. He asked ten of them to bring two legs to a building site, they returned with two logs each. The reason he disliked the stenjin was also the reason he liked them, if they always did everything he asked he couldn’t yell at them for being useless and that was one of Guglak’s favourite pastimes.

Guglak placed his green hands on the castle’s crenellations and stared into the distance, his bony fingers clasped together and his eyesight on the forest edge. A smile crossed his face, his teeth were a zigzagged mess before he started losing some of them and it would only get worse from here, but as with every goblin he easily got excited. Out of the forest came Zalrodal riding a horse and behind him the large black stone war-form, truly marvellous the stenjin war-forms. Other goblins soon followed with additional horses and sacks filled with what he presumed was more loot for him to take his share. The best part about his master returning would certainly be receiving more reasons to yell at more of his underlings.

Rigrig returned to Lord’s Rest riding one of the horses they had taken from the knights the day before. He had strapped himself to the saddle with a rope and hoped that it would continue walking where he wanted it to. He was the only goblin that had decided to use one of the horses, goblins usually preferred the larger wolves or wargs as riding animals but Rigrig was not one to be afraid of new experiences. Besides learning how to ride a horse would make him the tallest among the goblin cavalry and that was something to strive for, he would be the tallest and most capable of stabbing goblin that ever lived. Their group travelled through the growing village outside of the fortress, new houses were being built each day and he could hear the sound of hammering coming from the newly built smithy, perhaps he could get some new weapons to improve his stabbing potential.

The old fortress was in a much better state of repair now than when he first arrived at Lord’s Rest. The walls were filled with stone and well-positioned making them a formidable obstacle against any attacker, the wooden gates had been repaired and reinforced so that one could not simply walk past them, and the different watchtowers had been repaired and were now goblinned by members of the different goblin clans. Atop the gatehouse there waited for Guglak, like usual he seemed excited about Zalrodal’s return. Rigrig liked the old goblin, mostly because he had not been yelled at as of yet. Rigrig was often tasked with training the goblins to fight and so far his results had been fantastic. Rigrig considered himself to be a masterful teacher in the art of war, he knew everything from stabbing to stabbing. Guglak descended from the walls to greet his master and send the other goblins back to work. Most of them carried the loot and armour back into the dungeon proper while Rigrig went to the young goblin recruits.

There were about twenty of them, all still having the lighter green of youth about them. They greeted their teacher with smiles and waved their arms around as he approached them. Rigrig pulled out the head of one of the knights he had killed and showed it to the goblins, “iz headz of human warlordz in iron shell,” Rigrig informed the assembled goblins, “listenz me and you get one tooz.” The goblins cheered at the prospect of killing a knight themselves in the future. “Lez see if you still know how fightz,” Rigrig asked. “If you there too many humanz attacking, whatz do youz do?”

“Make trapz and shootz at them,” one of the goblins said.

“No,” Rigrig quickly said, “stab stab them. Next question, you see animalz on huntz what do you do?”

“Shootz it and surrounz it,” two goblins said in unison.

“Wrong, stab stab it. You have much to learn.”