After what must have been hours of being dragged across the ground, I could feel the rays of the rising sun against my hide. The goblins had taken away my weapons, tunic, and backpack, so I was forced to feel every inch of the rough dirt they pulled me over. My hide felt like it would scrape off at any moment, and my arms strained in my sockets as I was pulled along by the rope around my wrists. The heat of the sun didn't help at all, even with the bag over my head, I could still feel the light that burned at my eyes when I was strung up in the trees on the Dragon’s Maw Isle. I tried taking deep breaths to take my mind off the pain, but the bag blocked much of the air and I started getting light-headed, and the harder I breathed, the more my heart pounded, which flared the pain in my cracked ribs.

I had to get out. There was no way I could let myself be bound again. I squirmed and thrashed in my bonds, the rope around my legs seeming to dig into my scales as I tried in vain to separate them, to run, to kick, to do anything with even the slimmest chance of getting me away from my captors. The memories of my condemnation came flooding back, the branding, the insults flung from every direction as I was dragged out to the woods and strung up in the trees to waste away under the blazing sun. My thrashing intensified beyond my control, I tossed and turned over the ground while trying to scream, but the rope holding my jaws shut only allowed for a sharp squeal through my nostrils. Suddenly, the dragging stopped, and just as I tried to bolt up, a goblin's foot stomped into my stomach, knocking me down flat and forcing the remaining air out of my lungs.

“No more squirming!” said the goblin. “Not until playtime!”

The other goblins laughed heavily at the remark, and I lay still in apprehension after their previously expressed plans to use me as their punching bag. Just as I was starting to catch my breath, my nostrils wheezing to get enough air through the fibers of the bag, the goblins continued dragging me. Once again, I was overcome with a powerful urge to break free of the ropes, to be anywhere but here, to never touch a rope again, but I shoved it back down for fear of another stomping. Up ahead, I could hear the human prisoners whimpering and struggling as the goblins tugged them along. They should have been grateful, at least they got to walk wherever the goblins were taking us.

As the humans’ struggles grew louder, the loud crack of a whip rang out with an audible slice through skin. One human let out a high-pitched scream, and I could hear all four of them pick up their pace as the cracking of more whips sounded off with the sadistic laughter of the goblins. The human foot falls grew more rapid and further away, and the goblins with the whips continued laughing and ran after them, then the goblins dragging me in turn started running to keep up with their comrades. I squealed in pain as the ground tore even harder into my back, and couldn't help but resume squirming against my bonds, even as we passed from the rough dirt and onto grass that was far softer against my hide. The goblins’ laughter filled my ears as I slid through the grass and thumped repeatedly over roots and rocks that stuck out of the ground.

Finally, the goblins stopped running, and once again I did my best to regain control of my breathing as my bare back burned with pain. It sounded like the humans had stopped too, but then I heard them being shoved and pulled, their footfalls indicating that they were walking in a straight line. One of them whimpered out as they collided with something, and a goblin cracked a whip to their left to correct their course. We must have arrived at the goblins’ den, so the humans had to walk in single file to get through the entrance. Shortly after each human had been pulled through, I too was dragged in their direction, the dirt quickly going from dry to damp, and the heat of the sun immediately fading. As if the bag wasn't enough, the stench of the cave’s interior was practically suffocating.

The goblins took me and the humans on several twists and turns through the cave before they finally stopped. They pulled me over to a cave wall and tied a thick rope around my waist. One of the goblins that tied the rope stepped behind me, and I could feel the rope pull against me as it was fastened to something on the wall. My captors then untied the thinner ropes around my wrists and ankles, finally allowing me to stand up, and one of them snatched the bag and pulled it off my head. As soon as the fabric was removed from my nose, my nostrils were flooded with the horrible smell of rotting flesh and Haldrath knew how many weeks of accumulated body waste. I coughed and fell to my knees, throwing my hands over my nose and desperately wishing I could open my mouth to breathe through it instead. Did these goblins seriously never dispose of their waste?

As I looked down, the number of rats scurrying all over the cave floor, nibbling at little scraps of meat and fat, provided my answer. The goblins paid no mind to the rats as they forced the humans to a stop. They just kept chuckling and dancing around--the narrow confines of their den forcing them to do so while weaving between their other captives--as if they weren't in the middle of a dungheap. More goblins approached from deeper within the cave to welcome those that had just returned. These ones were slightly smaller, wore only scraps of cloth around their waists, and had drooping sacks of flesh hanging from their chests. Though they carried no weapons or armor, these goblins still wore the same stretched smiles, and their eyes gleamed with the same sadistic delight. They approached the warriors, and the two groups of goblins embraced each other in open arms. In seconds, every goblin not preoccupied by holding a prisoner in place was mingling with the unclad ones, sharing stories about their recent attack and laughing about those too weak to have survived it, all while I sat in the corner gagging on their cave’s stench. How could any creature possibly live like this?

The hobgoblin, the one the others had called “Nurdrag”, stepped into the middle of its goblin the minions with a still unconscious Gix carried in both arms. It was now wearing the armored coat it had claimed from a human guard, and all the goblins stopped their little celebrations to hear what their leader had to say.

“Well done, my minions,” the hobgoblin said. “Whether they'll admit it or not, the Insiders owe their success in this raid to us! Better yet, we have proven ourselves stronger than they thought by surviving the raid. Morgbol will think twice before thinking me fit only for suicide missions, now!”

The goblins jumped up and cheered, waving their weapons around and whipping their human prisoners when they didn't join in. The humans screamed and tried to run, but between the ropes that bound them and the bags still over their heads, all four of them quickly lost their balance and collapsed. The goblins laughed and started jumping over the fallen humans whilst joking about their clumsiness.

“Silence!” yelled the Hobgoblin, and its minions immediately jumped back and stood at attention, their toothy grins for once replaced with frowns and their eyebrows raised in a manner which my past observation of humans had led me to believe expressed apprehension. “The plunder is not to be touched yet, not before I choose my own play-thing!”

All the goblins backed away from the humans and used the ropes to tug them back to their feet. When they finally regained their balance, they were pulled against the cave wall, and the hobgoblin walked across them. It lifted Gix up and hefted him over one shoulder, and as it passed each human, it pulled the bags from their heads with its free hand, examining each of their faces as it did so. The first one had long medium dark fur that was tied behind the head in a braid. A fresh cut ran along their left cheek, and their bottom lip had become split, bruised, and swollen at some point during or after the goblins’ attack.

“Marred!” the hobgoblin grunted before walking to the next human. This one had black fur with multiple small braids along the sides of its head, which covered the ears and did not quite reach its shoulders, and it also had a noticeably sharper jawline and more prominent cheekbones than the others. The hobgoblin ran a hand along the side of the human's face before reaching their left eye, which had been heavily bruised and was nearly shut from swelling.

“Marred,” the hobgoblin repeated, more calmly this time. The next human had long pale hair--the kind that had a yellowish color when under a source of light--which flowed unbound and smoothly past their shoulders, and their face had miraculously been left without disfigurement. The hobgoblin stopped and stared at this one, running a hand through their surprisingly clean and kempt fur, then started feeling their smooth, softly shaped face. The human started breathing rapidly and darting their eyes from side to side. The other three stared fearfully in the hobgoblin’s general direction, not quite able to see it in the dark, and began writhing in their bonds, but the goblins held them firm. The yellow-furred human closed its eyes and gritted its teeth as the hobgoblin drew its rough gray fingers across its cheek, just barely refraining from digging its thick dark fingernails into the human’s soft pale skin.

“Humans find this pretty, yes? They would hate to see such beauty harmed. Perhaps I'll find some others once I've had my fun with you, see how they wail.”

The hobgoblin didn't even look at the next human in line before grabbing the third one by the fur and dragging them away from the others. The human screamed, and as the goblins cut their ropes to let their master take them, they grabbed at the hobgoblins arm and frantically tried to pull themselves away, all the while mumbling something. Perhaps it was a pitiful plea to the hobgoblin, or a prayer of mercy to their Sun God, but the sun wasn't shining on these humans now. The hobgoblin gave a deep pitiless laugh at the human’s futile struggle, and held firm with minimal effort.

“She's mine! The rest are yours to share,” they barked at their goblin minions.

The hobgoblin dragged their selected human off into another tunnel with Gix still over one shoulder, and the goblins waited quietly until their master was gone. As soon as the hobgoblin was out of sight, they all charged upon the remaining humans as one big swarm, leaping on top of them and using their talons to tear their thin white garments to shreds. One by one, each human was stripped bare and knocked to the ground by the swarming goblins. They all screamed and threw their arms over pairs of soft masses on their chests, only for the goblins to grab their arms and pull them away laughing. One human, the one with the side braids and the cheekbones managed to stumble away before they tipped and fell, then began desperately crawling in my general direction. Two goblins quickly followed after and had caught up in only a second. One of them jumped up and landed with its feet right between the human’s lacerated shoulder blades, knocking them flat into the ground and stretching the wound left by the goblins’ whipping, while the other held their legs together at the ankles. The human screamed and awkwardly swung its arms to fend off the first goblin, but failed to bend their shoulders far enough to hit it. The goblin clasped the human's head in both hands and slammed it into the cave floor, then lowered down and clamped its teeth around their strangely pointed left ear.

The pinned human released another piercing scream as the goblin bit down and pulled its head back, stretching the ear until it tore right off. As the human clutched their bleeding ear stub, drops of water streaming from their eyes, the goblin looked down at them, smiling with yellowed teeth, then tilted its head back and swallowed. Both goblins worked together to roll the human onto their back, smearing them with the goblin dung strewn about the floor, then the one standing by the human’s waist undid the strings on its vest of leather scales and let the armor drop, then tore off its loincloth and... breath of the Five, was that what a goblin’s genitals looked like?

I watched in horror at what the goblins did next, not just to this human, but to all three of the unfortunate souls trapped in this cave with me. Their screams filled the tunnel as the goblins held them down and took turns with them, viciously pushing and shoving each other to be next in line. I was held transfixed in utter shock of the brutality, and any thought that I might turn away and spare myself from the grotesque sight before me was drowned out by the neverending screaming and moaning that resounded in my ears.

As the goblins competed for access to their prisoners, those that were forced aside settled for piling over the humans, clawing and biting at their legs and upper bodies, hardly deterred by their desperate kicking. They were joined by those that had been there in the cave to welcome the warriors when they returned, which I was starting to guess were female. While the females paid no mind to what the males jealously fought over, they were no less brutal as they dug their nails and teeth into the humans’ skin and collectively pummeled them to the dirt with their fists. After what seemed like ages of this carnal torture, one of the goblins, a male not content with the upper body of the human nearest to me, made a lunge for the lower parts. The male currently positioned beneath the human’s waist looked up and lunged back at the challenger with furrowed eyes and an angry yell, slamming into his chest and knocking him right off his feet. The challenger sailed in the air before landing in a big pile of dung. The other goblins pointed and laughed, even as they moved in to take the place of the one who’d jumped up to meet the challenger. When this goblin turned back to see what they were doing, he raised his arms frantically and ran back at the crowd screaming in fury.

The challenger screeched and flailed his arms uselessly before thinking to roll over and standing up from his dung pile. When he got back to his feet, he glared at the other goblins with a loud infuriated growl and prepared to run back at them. Right before the goblin began his dash, however, he stopped and slowly turned his head in my direction. His bulbous eyes met mine, and his mouth slowly stretched into an unnaturally wide grin. My tail went straight and I slowly backed away in apprehension, and while I had no idea if this goblin had the same plans for me as it did for the dark-headed human, I instinctively tightened my genital sheath nonetheless.

The goblin chuckled sadistically as it made for me, his walking pace quickly turning into a rapid bound as he stretched out his bloody hands. I stepped aside at the last moment, sticking out one leg and successfully tripping the goblin. As soon as my enemy had hit the ground, I dove down upon him, rapidly swiping my claws at his back with a muffled but furious screech. No sooner had my claws made purchase than did the goblin roll away beyond the reach of the rope around my waist. I raised my talons, leaning forward to snarl in the goblin’s face despite the rope clamping my jaw, and raised my tail to my shoulders, swishing it rapidly, daring him to try me again.

This overzealous shriek immediately proved to be a mistake, as I heard goblins off to the side speaking in surprise, and when I looked over to them, they were pointing to me and beginning to walk in my direction. In the moment I wasted looking off to the side, the goblin right before me made another lunge and punched me where my ribs had already broken. I screamed and collapsed to my knees just as the other goblins arrived, and the one at the front wasted no time giving me a swift kick to the face.

I fell to the ground as the goblin’s heel dislodged two teeth from the right side of my bottom jaw. As the goblins started to surround me, I spat them out and tasted fresh blood from my wounded gums, but instead of pain, I felt a rush of energy. Standing back up and growling in defiance, I swiped my claws in retaliation to punches and grabs from every side, digging into the goblins’ soft, dirty skin and barely managing to sidestep lunges from those that weren't deterred so easily. The goblins around me cheered and continued taking irregular turns punching and kicking at me, but I didn't quite feel the blows that landed on my body, all I could feel was the burning desire to tear these goblins apart. I shrieked and swiped at every goblin that came close, even managing to dig my claws just under one goblin’s eye, sending him reeling back screaming. I did my best to bare my teeth and growled ferociously to ward off all the other goblins.

The goblins suddenly lurched back in shock, finally giving me a moment to stop and breathe. My breath was long and heavy, and though I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of the goblins continuing their assault and my tail high, rapidly swishing from side to side as a warning, I could feel my lungs and throat burning for more air, and the rush of energy I'd felt before was draining rapidly. I leaned forward to emphasize the movement of my tail, bent my knees in a defensive stance, and held my claws at the ready in hopes that I could hide my tired state.

The goblins stood still and stared at me, all breathing somewhat heavily, but not as much as I was. They all seemed hesitant to make another move, and while they waited, the only sound in the tunnel was the screams from the humans that the rest of the goblins were still having their fun with, but I didn't allow myself to get distracted by them. Finally, one goblin stepped forward and prepared his fists. I locked eyes with him and bared my teeth with a low growl, but he must have seen through my bluff, because he didn't slow down one bit.

“Slam! Slam! Slam! Slam!” the other goblins chanted together as the unfaltering one approached me. He stopped just out of my reach, braced his knees and lunged into me with a yell. I tried to hold up my hands to stop him, but my exhausted arms buckled as the goblin’s shoulder collided with my chest and knocked me back into the cave wall. The goblin brought a fist to my stomach, knocking the last bit of breath out of me, and followed with a series of punches to my chest and one upside of the jaw. The rest of the goblins closed in and joined in on the pummeling with incessant laughter that almost rivaled the screams coming from the humans. Realizing I no longer had the energy to put up any kind of defense, I fell to the ground and tucked my head into my chest, then placed my hands over the back of my neck as a desperate guard.

Punches and kicks rained down on my back, and I prayed to any god that would listen that my ribs and backbone would be enough to keep them from turning me into pulp. Every now and then a kick to the side would threaten to roll me over and expose my softer front, but a kick on the other side would always push me back before that could happen.

“Why stay still? Why stay still?” the goblins began yelling, and two of them bent down, reached under me, and hauled me back up to my feet. All the goblins started pushing and throwing me around. I screamed and flailed wildly, but I lost all semblance of coordination, and only succeeded at making the goblins laugh at my pathetic struggle. My entire chest filled with pain as more and more ribs cracked under my captors blows, and my arms went limp as I lost all drive to fight back. I continued being thrown back and forth for what felt like ages, until it seemed I would die of old age before this beating was over. As my head whipped around, my vision blurred, and the goblins’ incessant laughter began to fade. I didn't notice when I fell to the ground, but when my senses finally regained some clarity, I was flat on my back and the goblins seemed to have walked away. My body hurt all over, and as I tried to move, just to see if I was still alive, all I could manage to do was twitch my fingers and toes. I tried to breathe, but taking too deep of a breath triggered more pain in my ribs. I kept my breathing slow, and did my best to focus on it and tune out the pain. As my breathing became steady and my pounding heart began to slow, my vision began to fade again, and despite my best efforts to keep my eyes open, everything went black.

. . .

“You fools!” I jolted awake to the sound of the hobgoblin angrily shouting. As I jolted from the noise, my ribs screamed and my head throbbed so hard I had to stop myself from clasping it, lest the goblins find out I was awake and decide to have some more “fun”. With my eyes still closed, I slowly turned my ear to the hobgoblin. “That kobold may be my only key to taming my new pet! Did I not make it clear that I would need it after you’d had your fun?”

I slowly opened one eye and looked about the tunnel. The hobgoblin was standing in the middle of the tunnel in nothing but a scrappy loincloth, fully revealing his tall and strong but slender build. Half a dozen goblins stood around him with panic on their faces and hands raised in an attempt to placate him. The three human prisoners that had been left to the goblins were now against the wall, their hands bound above their heads, their worn-out faces streaked with that water that leaked from their eyes, and their naked bodies covered in bites, claw marks, dung, blood and other fluids I'd rather not describe.

“Master, please!” one goblin said with a trembling voice. “It was only a game!”

The hobgoblin swiftly bent down and snapped out a long arm to grasp the goblin around the throat. With one smooth motion, he stepped forward to slam the goblin into the cave wall and pushed him up the wall until he had him pinned at eye level, his legs kicking uselessly as his master stared him down and the rest of the goblins scattered into the connected tunnels.

“Your ‘game’ could have cost me control of my new hunting pet! Perhaps you'd like to be the one to deal with all the scratching and biting,” The hobgoblin held out his other arm, revealing shallow bite marks and long cuts that had been shoddily stitched back together. The goblin looked at the wounds with wide eyes and shook his head frantically. He tried to sputter out some plea, but not a single word escaped his tightly grasped throat. The hobgoblin lowered his wounded arm and threw the goblin to the ground.

“Then you'd better hope it's still alive!” the hobgoblin said through his teeth, glaring at the goblin through furrowed eyes. I had to hold in my excitement. Gix was alive! Not only that, but he was well enough to be trying to fight back. There may have been a chance that we could get out of this yet!

Even as he struggled to start breathing again, the goblin scrambled to his feet and ran over to me. I closed my eye just before the goblin could have noticed I was watching and waited quietly, desperately trying to think of the best way to handle what was about to happen. The goblin placed one hand on my chest and one on my shoulder, then shook me. My eyes shot open and I screamed loudly as pain flared in my cracked ribs. The goblin retracted his hands as soon as I confirmed I was still alive, and I instinctively rolled on my side to keep my back to him.

“See master? It's not dead!” the goblin said excitedly. The hobgoblin grunted.

“There could be a lot of room between that and useful. Bind its hands!”

I didn't resist as the goblin rolled me onto my back and tied my wrists together. If this hobgoblin needed me alive to help tame Gix for his own use, that was more time I could use to find a way out of these rank tunnels. The hobgoblin approached and removed the end of the rope around my waist that was attached to a metal hook in the wall, then gave me a tug.

“Get up!”

I complied with the hobgoblin’s order and followed as he led me down the tunnel he'd previously walked off to with Gix and the light-haired human female in tow, barely keeping my footing as my vision started to swim. I could just barely hear the goblin following along at first, but when the hob didn't acknowledge his presence, he quietly slipped away into a small crack in the wall that only creatures as small as him or me could fit through. The hobgoblin brought me to a hide flap covering a wall in the cave. He pushed the flap aside to reveal an opening to a small chamber in the tunnel wall and took me inside. Immediately, I noticed that this room smelled strikingly better than the rest of the cave. Not even remotely close to the neat bricks and tidy halls of my tribe’s warrens, but anything was better than the rest of this hole of filth. Now that I’d stopped moving, my vision finally cleared.

Inside the hobgoblin’s chamber was a modest living space with a sleeping mat made of hide stuffed with straw off to my left, and a low table with a small dirty rug and a sack to the right. The hobgoblin’s new armor and his club were stowed right by his sleeping mat, and next to the table was a brown ceramic pot with a lid, probably where the hobgoblin kept his waste. In the back of the room, the human whom the hobgoblin had taken for himself was tied at her hands and feet and gagged, her white bed clothes torn to shreds on the cave floor and much of her skin covered in raw wounds, only her face left untouched. Like the others, her face was streaked with that water that leaked from the eyes, now partially dried, and she breathed very shallowly as she lifted her head with trembling eyes to the sound of the door flap opening. To her left, Gix lay curled up, with a rope around his neck binding him to a hook high up on the wall. When I entered, his head slowly raised, and when he saw me, he perked right up and tried to walk toward me, briefly forgetting his short tether until it stopped him just after his second step. I had to restrain my urge to run forward and embrace my raptor, knowing full well that the hobgoblin wouldn’t take kindly to any sudden moves. Just as the door flap fell back into place, the hobgoblin leaned down and looked me in the eyes, then untied the rope binding my jaw.

“Do you speak our tongue?” he asked.

“Um... a little,” I said, averting his gaze and hoping my slightly shrill accent wouldn't bother him too much.

“Good, I was worried I'd have to waste my time teaching a new language to a slave. This is a remarkable pet you've given me, I've never seen anything like it before, but I can tell this beast is fierce. You, kobold, clearly know how to control it, but it will not listen to me. You’re going to fix that.”

I looked over at Gix and tried to think of the best way to answer the hobgoblin’s demand. Under normal circumstances, land raptors were only social out of necessity, forming packs to hunt down larger prey, and even then it was only with others of their own kind. Surface rangers like me needed to use our attunement with nature to form our bonds with them. But I knew I couldn’t just give this hobgoblin bad news if I wanted him to let me live, so I’d have to stall.

“Well, you see… to tame a land raptor…” I trailed off, trying to think of the techniques one would use to tame an animal by mundane means, but very few creatures I encountered were tamed so easily.

“Yes? Spit it out!” the hobgoblin grunted impatiently.

“Um, the process is…” I stumbled again, trying to remember what the goblin word for “arduous” was. The hobgoblin gave me another impatient glare, and I knew I’d better say something. “... time… um… it takes time. You have to show the creature you are taming that you can be trusted.”

“Go on.”

“To build trust, you give him food, and spend time around him so he gets used to your presence. When he is… how you say?... happy with you around, you can teach him specific commands by giving him meat when he does them, and speaking the name of the command so he joins the word with the action and the reward.”

The hobgoblin nodded.

“Yes, that sounds like what the lesser goblins do with their dogs.”

He walked over to the sack by his eating table, still clutching my rope with his good hand, and took some morsels out of the sack. He then carried them over to Gix.

“It safer to leave meat on ground instead of handing it to him directly,” I warned.

The hobgoblin gave an irritated snarl and glared down at me.

“Do you really think I'm stupid enough to just give my hand to the mouth of a beast?”

I shrank back and tucked my tail between my legs, not so much as glancing at the bite marks and freshly stitched claw wounds that answered the question for me as I turned my gaze to the ground. The hobgoblin hadn’t even bandaged his wounds, not that there was much clean fabric around here for that purpose. After a few seconds of waiting in silence as the hobgoblin’s gaze weighed down upon me, he gave a short huff and turned back to Gix. I slowly turned my eyes to the left and saw the bits of meat dropping on the cave floor just in front of my raptor. Gix looked down at the morsels and began sniffing around them, before looking back at the hobgoblin and hesitating. He looked at me and back to the meat as if to ask if it was okay to eat. I immediately gave him a slight nod to let him know it was safe, hoping the hobgoblin wasn't looking down to see that I was still being deferred to, and Gix slowly bent down to start eating up the meat.

“Your purpose has been served,” the hobgoblin yanked me back and started walking out of the chamber. I stumbled in surprise and fell on my back, screaming as I once again impacted my broken ribs. Gix snarled and tried in vain to lunge against his tether, swiping his foreclaws at thin air. As the Hobgoblin pushed aside the door flap and dragged me back out into the rank tunnels of his minions, I scrambled to get my feet back under me and pushed myself back off the ground before turning around to walk alongside of the hobgoblin, only for everything to blur over as I stumbled again and fell to my knees.

“Oh, mighty one,” I said, even as my head throbbed like a foot stamping on my thoughts. “You sure there no other way I can help?”

“If I need any more advice to tame my pet, I will come out to ask you, but the last thing I need is for my beast to continue to see it's old master. It must know that it is mine, now.”

The hobgoblin brought me back to the part of the tunnel with the other human prisoners and put my rope back on the hook before clamping my jaws shut and retying the ropes that bound them. Without another word, he turned back down the tunnel to his chamber and left me here with the stench and the rats. It was a complete wonder that the goblins even stayed alive with so much vermin roaming their tunnels and not so much as a young goblin to chase after them and keep their numbers down. I sat down on the cave floor and tried to slow my breathing to manage the incessant throbbing that still pumped in my head, but the squeaking of the rats and the giggles slowly filling the tunnel as the goblins began to return to their little playroom only turned it up. It got even worse when the goblins arrived and started to untie their other prisoners and repeat the horrific game they played before. I closed my eyes, but with my hands still bound I couldn't cover my ears as the hideous laughter and screaming picked up again. I tried to stifle my pained grunting as my head flattened under a boulder of noise, until the screaming was suddenly pierced by sharp giggling coming from right in front of me. I opened my eyes to see five goblins standing over me with their horrid grins and vile glares. I jumped back against the wall as the one in the middle reached for me.

“Ready for another round?” he asked. Just as I coiled my legs to ready a counter-attack, I felt as though my bones were softening under my own weight and it took all the effort I could muster just to stand. Just before the goblin could grab me, another one grabbed his arm and pulled him back. This one had bruises around its neck, it must have been the same goblin that had been strangled by the hobgoblin just a few minutes before.

“No! It's too hurt, the master will kill us if it dies!”

All the other goblins immediately jumped back, then turned away and returned to fighting over access to the humans without another word. If I could find a way to escape, I’d have to be sure to make the bruised goblin’s death quick and painless if I could. With one look to make sure none of the other goblins had their eyes on me, I began clawing at the rope around my waist, but it was too thick and my hands were still bound too tightly for me to twist them into a good grip. I tried turning and clawing at the length of rope attaching me to the wall, but even with a proper grasp, my talons just slid off the dense fibers with hardly a scratch. I grunted as I continually tried and failed to get better purchase on the rope when I felt something soft brushing against my ankle. I looked down to see one of the rats crawling about my feet, and even as I jerked my foot away in disgust, I finally remembered how I'd escaped my binding in the Dragon’s Maw Isle, by charming the birds that flew around me and had them peck away my ropes until I could climb down.

I crouched down and placed my hands against the cave wall, then closed my eyes and concentrated. No matter how hard I focused, I couldn't get my mind to pass into the earth, though whether it was because of all the screaming distracting me or if I simply hadn't been passed out long enough to start preparing a new spell, I wasn't quite sure. I took my hands off the wall and sat down, trying to get some rest in hopes that this would be all I needed, and that the goblins’ brutal game wouldn't keep me from regaining the energy for my spell.

The screaming continued for what must have been hours, but eventually the goblins spent themselves and started losing interest one by one. The last ones to get tired were the female goblins, who continued to enjoy running around the humans, scaring them back and forth throughout the cave’s narrow confines before piling upon them with tooth and claw. When they, too, finally grew bored, they put the humans back in their ropes and collectively dragged them back to the hooks on the wall. Finally, I was left in relative silence, only mildly disturbed by the continued moans and sobbing of the humans. I kept my breathing slow and steady, and my headache gradually lowered to only a dull throb. I kept still, even as rats slowly began crawling closer. I was going to need them.

Doing my best to avoid going all the way to sleep, I repeatedly counted to twenty in hopes that I would be able to keep track of the time this way. Even so, the hours dragged on and it became more and more difficult to just keep still. Waiting wasn't always the best habit, especially on enemy ground, but I had no other choice. Despite my best efforts to stay awake, I slowly dozed off. I opened my eyes to the sound of footsteps approaching from elsewhere in the cave. A tall figure in long robes with a small mantle that rose into upward points at the shoulders entered the tunnel. They had a slender frame, the reptilian snout and scaly ridges that ran from the brow across the side of the head that showed them to be a male tragesi. His robe was bound at the waist by a studded belt with a pentagon-shaped clasp split into five differently colored triangular sections, and though the tragesi were a fellow child race of the dragons, I knew that this particular tragesi was not a fellow of mine, he was the one who had me branded. Faintly glowing yellow eyeballs with black slit pupils stared down at me as the wyrmpriest pointed a taloned finger at my face.

“There you are, heretic!” his ridged tail swished behind his legs and he bared his small conical teeth as if ready to sink into my flesh. “Now you will pay for your crimes against the Five!”

“What? How’d you find me? And why come all this way?”

“Silence!” yelled the wyrmpriest. “You can never hide from the one true goddess!”

The worm priest reached out to wrap his boney fingers around my neck and pul me up off the ground, both with much greater force than his scrawny arms seemed capable of. As I gasped for air, I barely noticed that I was being pulled higher and further than the rope around my waist would have allowed, and suddenly felt searing daylight burning my eyes. I shut my eyes and screamed as I was returned to my place in the trees and the sun. I shook violently against my bonds, still feeling the rope on my waist and the one binding my wrists, and though the wyrmpriest had disappeared, there was still a tight grip clenching my throat that shook my head back and forth. My eyes shot open, and I was back in the darkness of the goblin cave, with a goblin kneeling over me, both hands around my neck and shaking me violently.

“Wake up! Wake up! It no fun to beat a sleepy scaly!”

Another goblin came in from the side and pushed the first goblin away. I fell to the ground, struggling to breathe as my throat reopened, but still felt the remnants of the force that had held it closed. My vision was foggy, and I felt myself being forced to rapidly take deep breaths that strained my ribs like hot irons expanding inside my chest.

“Don't be stupid, Haglagg! Did you not see what master Nurdrag did when you idiots hurt it too much two days ago?”

“But I'm so bored! And it's just the right size to tackle alone when everyone else is sleeping!”

“Then let's go pick out a human together. Master won't be mad at us for enjoying a play thing he left just for us!”

As my vision started to clear, the two goblins walked over to the humans and shook the dark-furred one with the torn ear awake. I turned away and continued trying to get my breath back, but my throat felt like it was still halfway closed and breathing only through my nose was proving less than efficient. I reached up to my snout and plucked at its rope with my talons. Luckily, this rope was made of much thinner strands, and once I found the knot it was easy to undo. As I pulled the rope away, I started taking long, slow breaths through my mouth, and I finally managed to get my breathing under control, eventually reaching a point where my throat only felt a little bit pressured. One of those goblins said my beating happened two days ago, perhaps I'd finally rested long enough. I put my hands on the ground and focused, shutting out the whimpering and sobbing coming from the human. My mind drifted down my arms and into the cold stone, and once again I felt my way through the ground and into the roots of the plants above ground. From there I sought out the animals that fed on the plants, as well as the animals that fed on those animals. I sifted through the different species until I could find just those that relied on one another to survive. Deer grazing in herds to watch each other's backs, wolves hunting in packs to team up on bigger prey, and bees living together in hives to pile their gathered resources into amounts that none of them could ever acquire alone. From these creatures, I reached out to grab this realization of working together to benefit the group–not unlike how we kobolds banded together in our tribes to survive the many dangers of the world–and the notion crystalized in my soul.

I retraced my way back to my body with my newly prepared spell in tow. When I opened my eyes, I looked around the tunnel for rats, quickly spotting one not too far away from me. I reached out my hands in the rat’s direction, but hesitated. With my hands bound together, how could I be sure I’d get the spell right? One slight mistake in my hand motion as I cast the spell, and I’d need another eight hours to prepare it again. I tried biting through the strings, and the damp threads slowly gave way to my pointed incisors. When I'd gotten through the first strand, I pulled my head back and tore right through it. The strands unraveled and fell away as I parted my hands, though I caught them to make sure they wouldn’t make any sound hitting the cave floor. Even so, I checked to make sure the two goblins were still occupied with the human. Seeing that they had not so much as turned their heads to me, I looked back to the rat and channeled my gathered magic into my hand before waving it at the rat and releasing my spell.

“Charm animal,” I whispered. The rat perked its head up and looked at me with wide, attentive eyes. I grabbed the rope at my waist and tugged at it to show the rat that I was stuck and wanted to break free. The rat stood at attention, staring at the rope but unable to reach it. I bent down and scooped up the rat in cupped hands, then lifted it up to the center of my waist. The rat placed its paws on the rope and started chewing, taking a much longer time to get through it than I had the one on my wrists, and the further in it got, the harder it became to chew through the rope’s wider portions.

My tail curled as I began to worry that the goblins would turn my way at any moment, despite the reassurance that they were still quite distracted provided by their foul chuckles and the human’s pained sobbing. By the time the rat had gotten halfway through the rope, its chewing had slown to a measly crawl, and its jaws couldn’t seem to tear the fibers as easily anymore. I put the rat back down and tried to pry the damaged rope apart with my fingers, but even split halfway, the damn rope held strong against my feeble digits. Oh, what I’d give to have just half the strength of the least mighty darastron warrior the dragons were so proud of making!

If the rat was too tired to keep chewing the rope, I might have to take another rest so I could charm another one to finish the job. Except there was no way I had the time for that, the more time I wasted, the more time the goblins had to notice I was trying to escape. No, I had to break out now. The charm spell would wear off in a few hours, and I could only hope that the rat’s jaws would have had enough rest before then. With my ears focused on the goblins to continue ensuring they hadn't gotten suspicious, I waited. Hearing every groan and cackle to remind me that they were still in the same tunnel, the tip of my tail curled until it hurt. I slowed my breathing to keep myself calm, and when perhaps an hour or two had passed, I decided it was now or never.

I picked the rat up again and let it chew on the rope. With renewed vigor, the fibers gave way to the rodent’s teeth, and when it finally got through the thickest part in the middle, the chewing steadily got faster. When the rope finally broke, I immediately made for the nearest opening on the opposite side of the tunnel from where the goblins tormented their human, with the rat still in my hands. I walked through the tunnel as fast as I could without breaking the smoothness of my stride that kept it quiet, weaving around the occasional pile of goblin dung as I went. The cave twisted and turned, and I spotted a few more of those openings in the walls that only small beings could fit through. We had things like these back in my tribe's warrens, but ours were more carefully constructed from bricks of stone, and as I slowly entered the opening near me, I found that it just went into the wall and through the earth until it reached another natural tunnel. Our side tunnels sometimes ran from one major hallway to another, but most of them ran alongside the main halls, with slits for spears and crossbows in case any adventurers made it into the lair.

I kept a hand on the wall to keep my balance, and when I had gotten a good distance from the tunnel where I'd been bound and didn't hear any more goblins walking about, I sat back against the walls of this narrow tunnel to plan my next move. Before I could rescue Gix from that hobgoblin’s grubby clutches, I’d need to know how to find my way out, and I'd need a way to eliminate the hobgoblin, but there was no way a naked kobold stood a chance against a fully grown hobgoblin without so much as a decent knife to his name. If I could find my weapons and catch the hobgoblin off guard, however, killing him would hopefully be much easier, “hopefully” being the operative word. Just as I stood up to go search the cave for my stolen equipment, a distinct growl rose up in my stomach, and I suddenly realized how long it had been since I'd had anything to eat. I looked down at the rat still sitting in my hand, which shuffled around but made no move to jump away, still under the calming effect of my spell. I tightened my grip around it and brought it up to my open jaws. The rat immediately started up a squirm as my threatening gesture broke the spell, but before it could butter even a single squeak, I clamped my jaws around its neck, crushing it's tiny throat. With a swift twist of my head, the rat’s neck bone was snapped and its body fell limp. I stuffed the rest of it into my mouth and reared back my head to swallow. This briefly conjured a mental image of what one of the goblins had done to that dark-headed human's ear, and I almost gagged because of it. Forcing the memory from my head, I focused on getting the rat down my throat. I had enough to deal with as its little paws scraped the inside of my throat while the rest of its furry body scrubbed it out, followed by its long, hairless tail sliding against my inner tunnel.

I had to hold back a cough when I finally finished swallowing the rat. These creatures were definitely better when cooked. I got up and continued walking through the tunnels, always staying to the side and ready to jump into one of the small openings if I heard any goblin coming. This was a flawed plan at best, these goblins would know their own tunnels far better than I would, but it was still the best option I had at the moment. The cave was quiet except for the scurrying of rats, the one goblin had mentioned the others being asleep, but if two were up and about right now, others could be, too. Nevertheless, I kept alert and made sure to check every opening along the tunnel walls for a goblin ready to jump at me. Just ahead, I spotted the hand of a goblin poking out from around the corner on my right hand side. I slowly crept along the right wall and approached the spot where the tunnel veered right.

When I stopped to listen, I heard only snoring from around the corner, and when I slowly poked my head around the wall, I saw a goblin lying near the corner with eyes closed, mouth wide open in an endless string of snores, and one hand stretched above his head and plopped just around the corner. As I looked through the tunnel ahead, I saw that the cave floor was lined with sleeping goblins, and they had all manner of weapons, from their jagged blades that could generously be described as swords to simple spears and knives tipped with sharpened flint, strewn about the floor with no regard for any unwelcome guest who might take them. So nice of the goblins to stop just short of putting the means of their doom right within my grasp. Except the only way to get to their weapons would be to step over the first few goblins’ unconscious bodies.

Sure, I could easily step between their bodies and tangled limbs, but only a fool would walk right into the middle of a cluster of enemies if he could avoid it, even if they were asleep. Instead, I took the rope that had previously bound my wrists and gently lifted up the nearest goblin’s head, then wrapped my rope around his neck. Yanking my hands apart, I closed the loop titley and squeezed the goblin’s windpipe flat against his neck bone. The goblin’s eyes shot open and fluttered rapidly as his body spasmed and his arms flailed desperately but with no direction. By the time he thought to reach for the rope itself, he was far too weak to pull it away, and he soon fell limp. I continued squeezing even after the goblin stopped struggling, just to be sure he was really dead. He was the first of many kills to come.