Tokki Tried to scramble away from the elf, but with his hands and feet bound he managed little more than rolling onto his belly and then crawling like a maggot.

The elf had no worries about having his prisoner escape him, so he let the stunted goblin exhaust himself before he grabbed him by a pointy ear to draw him to a sitting position. The goblin whined as he was pulled from by the ear and when the elf let go of it he tried to bite Arniths hand, which earned him a clout on the head.

“None of that you scamp, or I’ll beat some sense into you.”

Tokki growled and showed his pointy teeth to the elf, but gave up his efforts to escape.

Arnith observed his prisoner and wondered if there was any sense to his effort in trying to interrogate the seemingly feral goblin.

“Can you understand me?” Arnith asked, figuring that he would need to start from the basics.

He repeated the question a few times, but the goblin remained unresponsive, his eyes flickering about as if looking for a way to escape.

Arnith was frustrated about this lack of progress but then realized that he had been speaking in the elven tongue, and the court favored high elvish at that, which the lowly goblin had no way to recognize.

Until now the elf had never had a reason to speak in any other way in his short life, always being surrounded by courtiers or his noble-born family, even the servants and bodyguards had always spoken to him in high elvish.

Arnith was slightly amused by his foolishness for a moment and then made an effort to recall what he knew of other languages.

Though his formal education had been cut short, many of the mentors from his childhood had been renowned scholars and adept teachers, so he was not without some knowledge of the major tongues spoken in the elven empire.

After consideration he decided that the best bet would be to try the common trade tongue of the dwarves, The enclaves of the dwarves each had a unique dialect so over time there had developed a simple language that served to mediate between the dwarven holds, the language had become so successful that it was often used in commerce even when there were no dwarves present. Additionally, Arnith reasoned that the dwarves being a race that lived both on the surface and in the underground, the language may have a chance of being known to the goblins.

Arnith flexed his jaw, before attempting to speak in the consonant rich language of the dwarves.

“You know these words?”

The eyes of the goblin narrowed as he fixated on the elf, but when their sights met, the goblin turned to look down instead of meeting his gaze.

Progress! The goblin had recognized his words, now the problem was about cooperation.

Arnith gave a light kick to the shins of the goblin.

“Answer me!” The elf demanded.

When no response came he lifted his leg again to deliver another kick, guessing at the outcome of the leg rising, the goblin broke.

“Yes, Tokki knows words.”

“Tokki is your name?”

“Yes, my name Tokki.”

“Good, good.” The elf encouraged the goblin and probably himself.

“Now Tokki, Listen to me carefully. I have many questions and if you answer them truthfully I will let you live. Do you understand?”

“yes, Tokki undetand.” The goblin replied, but it was obvious he understood very little.

Arnith sighed before continuing.

“First I want you to tell me, where we are?”

Tokki took a moment to reply, it looked as if he was deeply concentrating on the question and finally answered with. “we are here.”

“Where is here?”

“Here is cave.” The goblin replied.

Arnith felt a migraine emerging and thought about giving Tokki another clout to the head, but he was afraid of damaging what little was inside it.

The interrogation continued for a while. The process of extracting any useful information out of the goblin being slow and frustrating, but over time bits and pieces began to come out that Arnith considered useful.

Though the goblin was cooperating mostly, his answers were held back and the occasional kick did little to improve their quality.

In the middle of the questioning, Arnith observed that the voice of the goblin had become coarse so he gave the scamp a drink of water and also a strip of dried lizard. The bribe turned out to be a good idea, as the goblin was much more obedient afterward.

Tokkis knowledge of the world was sparse, for him, the center of it was the barrow of his small tribe and what surrounded it, he had no idea where they were concerning the world at large, or he was unfamiliar with the concepts that Arnith used to question him about it.

What he did know was that his tribe, roughly a couple of hundred in number and was one of the dozens of such in the area, the skull-pole was the symbol of his tribe and they were called so, after it.

There was one large tribe in the area that held dominion over the rest. Sometime in the past a group of goblins known as the Red Mark tribe had conquered a dwarf hold or moved into one that had been abandoned and from the easily defensible base had held the goblins of the region under their thumb.

Periodically the Red Mark tribe would extort a tribute from its lesser neighbors and if obeyed they would leave the tribes to their devices. The deal was one-sided as the Red Marks would offer little protection to the tribes they demanded tribute from.

Life in the local goblin society was one of perpetual war over the few resources that the underground had to offer, though large scale battles were rare, skirmishes, and raids were common.

Though the species seemed to breed fast, it seemed that far more males were born than females and so the women were kept in the most secure parts of their settlements and were also the main objective of the raids. Breeding with the females was reserved to the most dominant of the tribe, a fact that when telling about made Tokki speak in a frustrated tone, probably he as a lower rung tribesman had little chance of ever getting let close to the females.

The reason why the goblin had been following the group at a distance seemed to be because the leaders of the foraging groups would often harass him and so he had become used to following from a distance when going out in search of food.

The primitive society of the goblins sounded abhorrent to Arnith, he had known them to be barbaric but the violent culture that Tokki described sounded was even more so. The elf realized that he had held a hope that it would be possible for him to join their society in some way, but now he knew there was no way for that to be possible, the goblins would most probably eat him the first chance that they got.

Arnith thought about what he would do now that he was in goblin territory, he could leave the area and continue wandering the underground, but he was reluctant to do so, cause he would never know if he would wander into some unknown danger or an area where there was no food or water for him, also he would rather not be alone. Having had a conversation, even one as one-sided as it had been, had been satisfying. He had been truly thirsting for the company.

First, he had to decide what to do with Tokki, he could not leave the goblin in case he would return to his tribe and inform them of his presence. He was sure that a hunting party would soon be formed to capture him in that case. He could kill him, but then he would be alone again.

Arnith turned back to the goblin.

“Now I will give you a choice Tokki, an opportunity really. I cannot let you return to your tribe, so either you can serve me and enjoy a good position in my tribe, or I will kill you. Serve me or die.” Arnith knew that he was giving the goblin no choice at all and a part of him protested the words he had spoken, but he would not beat around the bush and hide the truth behind sweeter words.

The tall elf towered menacingly over the goblin as the words moved through his mind and Tokki knew instinctively that this was not the time to hesitate.

“Tokki will serve, please not kill Tokki.”

The elf leaned down close to him; there was no escaping the terrifying bright eyes.

“Swear your loyalty to me and know that if you break your oath I will hunt you down, no matter how far you run.”

“Tokki swears master, Tokki Swears!”

Arnith took ahold of the tied hands of the goblin and pulled him upright. “Good, I will hold you to your oath.” Then he cut the goblins bindings.

Arnith took out another strip of dried meat and threw it to the goblin, who fairly jumped to meet the food halfway.

“We will have to find a secret place for us to live, where we can be safe and build a tribe; do you know a place like that?”

“Yes, master, good palace, secret place, nobody finds.”

Arnith was skeptical about the enthusiasm of the goblin, but his choices were limited.

“That is well, lead the way and be quiet.” He emphasized his intention by putting a finger to his lips and making a hushing sound.”

“Hushh hush, Tokki find path.” The goblin whispered back as he immediately began stalking out of the side cavern.

The pair made their way back to the pole, which marked the edge of the Scull-Pole tribe, and went through one of the more ventured passages. Arnith followed the goblin closely to make sure that he could grab him in case he tried to run or betray him, he had little faith in oaths given by goblins.

Tokki led him down the passage for some time, occasionally stopping to listen intently and sniff the air, he seemed tense.

The path divided a few times, but Tokki was sure each time in the choice that had to be made and finally, they came upon another scull-pole. “The end of Scull-Pole cave here, soon we at the Big Empty.”

What the goblin called the Big Empty was the largest cavern that Arnith had ever seen or imagined. From the cave mouth, there could be seen much as the floor of the cavern was often covered in glow moss and there could be seen several patches of glowing mushroom trees. The ceiling was so high up that the height was left to the imagination, only the presence of gigantic pillars that disappeared into the darkness told of its existence. Left to speculation was the location of the walls, they had entered the cavern from the floor somewhere in the middle of it.

Arnith was amazed by the majesty of the place, it was so large that it would not be hard to fit a whole city inside it, maybe a few.

The elf was brought out of his reverie by the insistent whisper of the goblin. “Master, we go quick, it is not safe here.”