Zalrodal prepared his troops to attack Arberon, not in the raiding sense but in the conquering one. While raiding was certainly a lucrative enterprise it also didn’t really expand his influence especially considering that he owned but a single fortress lost in the mountains. All of his goblins were now equipped with the newest and best armour trolls could provide which if it weren’t for the fact that they were still goblins would be quite impressive. Perhaps Zalrodal should have spent some time training the goblins but there were other things to do and the best of the goblin fighters was much too insane to train his comrades, half of them would probably have ended up dead with stab wounds in the process. The Dark Lord gathered his goblin, troll and stenjin fighters along with some humans who were willing to guide them and fight with them in front of the gates of Lord’s Rest. The goblins were split into two contingents, one led by Rigrig while the other by the high-goblin Brerokz, the trolls were led by their leaders Drok’Ir and the stenjin were as always under Zalrodal’s direct command. He stood atop the rebuilt gates of Lord’s Rest and looked over his army, they were around 700 strong all things considered which was a force to be reckoned with around these parts. Of course, it didn’t compare to what a major power or an entire neighbouring kingdom could field but then again they probably wouldn’t bring out their full military might against a bunch of goblins.

The objective of the attack was a small fortress and town called Caredon, it lay a couple of miles on the other side of the Eberon and would serve as their first base of operation across the river. Migaal had been pushing for a show of strength for a while now what he didn’t consider was that Zalrodal wished to start gaining territory right away, which was a risky endeavour but nothing great could be achieved without some risk. Zalrodal’s scouts had reported that Caredon, consisted of a small village and an even smaller fortress. The towns only defenders were the knights stationed there to defend against goblin incursions and the village militia. The knights could not number more than twenty in that small fortress and the Arberonian king wouldn’t spare too many men while on campaign in the neighbouring kingdom.

The green horde under Zalrodal departed that morning towards Caredon, they marched in a disorganised manner more a mob than an actual army not that it mattered too much once they actually reached their destination but Migaal still seemed annoyed at the prospect of not marching in a manner befitting of a dark lord. The only ones that seemed to keep order were the stenjin, who marched in two neat rows their war-form counterparts leading the column. The journey to Caredon took the better part of two days and they stopped and made small encampments along the way, they fortified the river crossing with a small palisade and left some of the goblins there to guard it against any attack. If their borders were to expand they would have to be more serious about this whole defence thing.

On the third day since their departure, they arrived in Caredon. Zalrodal could see that the scout reports had not been entirely accurate, while it was certainly not a grand fortress the goblins had certainly downplayed the significance of this castle. It wasn’t some square with four stone walls but a proper fortification, battle towers and gates and would certainly be harder to take over than planned. But hard did not mean impossible and he had at least ten fighters for everyone the humans had inside. The goblins did quick work of anyone who was unfortunate enough to be outside the walls when they arrived, they either killed or captured depending on their mood, it was a difficult thing to keep an army from doing too much damage once they had begun.

The goblins set up a perimeter around Caredon while the trolls and humans set up a camp outside the walls. The stenjin were immediately commanded to build a trench around the city. It would serve them well once they expanded the fortifications and might guard them against arrows if the defenders even had any, for now, they had not retaliated. Zalrodal hopes the lack of arrows would continue as he made his way to the castle gates, Migaal had told him it was only right to offer terms and surrender when sieging a castle so that’s what he was doing. Although it was clear that no human settlement would willingly surrender to a goblin army, regardless he marched towards the gates, Drok’Ir and his stenjin war-forms in tow.

The exchange at the gates was a quick one as expected, Zalrodal offered the people inside the option to surrender and they refused before he was even finished, they would not surrender to goblins or Dark Lords no matter their number. While Migaal had expected that he had not thought that they would break all customs and shoot upon the messengers from atop the walls. It was a terrible thing to attack messengers regardless of them being lords of peasants and so Migaal wanted to start the attack as quickly as possible. It was a bad sign if they were going to be thought of this badly by anyone, they could not be presentable while running from a storm of arrows.

They attacked the fortress the next day, stenjin at the front soaking up the arrows as they struck their stone surfaces leaving only the smallest of scratches, fortunately, the humans had expended most of their arrows on the stenjin so that when the goblins arrived with ropes and ladders and climbed the walls they had little to stop them with. The weapons they had barely worked on them as they wore their new armour into battle. One of the goblin contingents under Rigrig had fought its way to the gatehouse leaving a trail of soldiers on the inside and outside of the wall where they had tossed them away. The gates were opened and the war-forms entered and the knights were squashed in their armour like tin cans, at least that’s what they would say if they knew what cans were.

With that battle, the forces of Zalrodal had gained their first fortress across the Eberon and would soon gain fame and glory enough to attract greater hosts of monsters to their side to conquer the rest. Once one kingdom fell then a second wouldn’t prove an issue, Zalrodal thought and soon he could contest with the dark lords across the continent and become ruler of all.