Tales of war were told of and by orcs and trolls. They were shouted by War Masters around roaring bonfires the night before a great battle to prepare soldiers for dying in the name of their Dread Lord. They were sung drunkenly by soldiers in their off time, with percussion accompaniment provided by the banging of tankards.

In the refined quiet of a goblin drinking hall, a grandiose yarn of a goblin warrior was met with little enthusiasm. Instead of his tale being urged on with cheers from an eager audience, Tad the goblin found himself tolerated by polite coughs and the occasional clink of a glass as a guest took a sip from his cider. When he approached the epic crescendo of his tale as Ottis the Odd Goblin—a classic folk hero in the Dark Lands—took up his War Master’s blade, Tad found his audience shift from politely ignoring to active heckling.

“How far could he have taken it up,” Blunt, an older goblin, asked. The word “up” was a hiccuped belch as he twisted around in his chair to face the stage. “Unless that orc War Master,” he added, his voice an inebriated warble. “Was heading into battle with a knife, perhaps for buttering a roll? There’s no way a goblin could even get an orc’s weapon over his head! Did you say they were attacked during dinner? Then this would make sense!”

“I got it. I got it,” Huff, a broad goblin with a jutting chin, called from across the tavern. He tipped his glass of cider toward the stage, pointing at Tad. “He calls together a goblin team to build a pulley to help him lift the sword, then they swing it around from the end of a pole and lop off the enemy soldiers’ heads!” He spun his index finger in the air. “You know, like a little whirligig guillotine.”

“No!” Tad threw up his arms in frustration. “Guys, just try and listen to the story,” he pleaded to his audience in vain.

“Oh, inventories and forms,” Blunt said. He waved his hand dismissively at the stage. “If I’m going to listen to an Ottis story, tell me one of the classics! You know the one about The Plunger and the Mallet?”

A trio of younger goblins, who had been engrossed all evening in sewage diagrams looked up from their sprawling maps and called out: “How about Ottis and the Grinded Gears?”

Blunt tipped his glass towards the trio, this time some of his dark cider splashed out of the glass. “Yes! Ottis and the Grinded Gears is a good one!”

Tad sighed. He knew both of those Ottis tales. He knew a couple dozen Ottis tales by heart, and enough of about half as many more to tell them without anyone knowing he made up the rest. “Okay,” he said, defeated, as slumped in his stool. “Ottis and the Grinded Gears it is.” It was a funny one, with the hapless goblin mistakenly affixing a helical gear to a track meant for one with spurs.

After the tale ended and was met with more cheers than Tad could have ever dreamed for his original Ottis Tale, the deflated storyteller slinked into a booth. He sat across from his boss, Glum. Tad looked down and wrapped his hands around a freshly poured, cool glass of cider. In the dim glow of the lanterns the liquid in the glass appeared black. As Tad lifted to the drink to his mouth, the floral bouquet tickling his nose, he saw its deep purple laced with blue sparkles. This wasn’t a cheap cider; it was made from the moon berries of the North Lands. He drank deeply and let the bubbly brew race down his throat. “Thanks, boss,” Tad said, sullen. He placed the glass back down on the table and glanced at the stage.

A goblin was up there, holding up two large screws. It wasn’t uncommon to solicit the drunk denizens of the tavern for help with work issues. Apparently, this goblin was dealing with two screws that were identical, according to the catalog, yet were not interchangeable.

Glum, an elder goblin with a bulbous nose and a perpetual squint, shrugged his shoulders. As he did, his cloud of white hair rustled at the nape of his neck. “You did your best, kid. Maybe … maybe the Dark Lands just aren’t ready for tales of Ottis the Warrior.”

Tad traced his fingertip along the lip of the glass. His lips jutted forward in a pout. “I want to hear tales of Ottis the Warrior,” he grumbled.

“Maybe the problem is you using Ottis?” Glum’s cane, a giant screw that went up to his waist, was laid across the table. The elderly goblin absentmindedly rolled it back and forth, threatening to knock over the glasses.

“How could I tell a story about anyone other than Ottis,” Tad asked with a laugh on the edge of his voice.

“Well I hear that up north, where the Machine Works don’t reach, the goblins are mostly farmers.” Glum pointed at Tad’s drink.

Tad tapped his fingernails against his glass. “The moon berry orchards?”

Glum nodded. “Supposedly, some are even warriors. The North Lands are contested by several Dread Lords. They need all the help they can get to defend those vineyards.” He paused and drummed his fingers against his chin as he thought. “Although, those warriors might just be small orcs.”

“Hmm.” Tad returned to tracing the lip of the glass. “It just … wouldn’t be the same if I made up some new goblin.”

“I know.” Glum leaned back in the seat. “But Ottis is a Machine Works goblin. He’s not someone who can just pick up an orc’s blade and take on an enemy army. Same as I wouldn’t trust some northern goblin to keep the pressure in check in the Steams Works.” He looked across the tavern at the big clock.

This bar was called “Work Never Ends,” and to keep to that theme there was a towering clock with a banner above it which read “You’ll be Working Soon.” Beside the clock was a portrait of the Dread Lord Withering Sorrows staring sternly at the tavern patrons; an inky skull with pinprick lights of red where their eyes would be.

“We should be getting back to the barracks.” Glum rubbed at his lips with the back of his shirt sleeve while Tad guzzled his cider.

Every goblin knew to be wary as he wandered Drink Town and doubly so when drunk. The other denizens of this place, orcs and trolls, were several times larger than any of the diminutive workers. They’d care little about crushing one of their short brethren underfoot save for the mess it might make on the soles of their feet or boots. So it was that Tad and Glum were watchful as they departed the bar You’ll be Working Soon. They strolled side-by-side and chatted as songs of warriors and victory were belted out of the orcs’ bars. Whenever they passed the doors to one of the orcish establishments the heat from inside warmed them against the cold night air. They didn’t linger in the light and heat, though, and instead scurried out of view of the orcs as quickly as possible.

“Orc fight,” Glum said to Tad out of the corner of his mouth. He lifted his cane, the head shaking in his uneasy grip, and tipped it at a commotion ahead.

There, in front of an orc bar named The Rusted Blade, there was a semi-circle of drunken orcs watching two others face off. Tad wandered in the direction of the battle, ignoring Glum’s hissed protests behind him. Leaning against a barrel stood up on the bar’s porch Tad set to watch the fight.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Glum tried to pull Tad off the barrel, pulling at his elbow.

“Research for my Ottis tale.” Tad swatted at the old goblin’s hand. Glum ducked down with Tad.

A lanky orc with tusks that jutted like daggers was one of the two fighters. He held a wooden tankard instead of a weapon and sloppily drunk from it with ale, glistening with the blue moonlight, spilling down his chest. The orc he was facing was one with broad shoulders and a squared jaw that sprouted mis-matched tusks on account of one being broken, shameful for an orc. He stood tall, his hands by his sides. The lanky one, having emptied his drink, casually tossed the tankard away and it got caught in the muddy ground.

“What good is a War Master without his War Party,” the lanky one taunted the other. “Where is that fat waste of a soldier?” His voice was ragged, like he’d been yelling all night.

“Gotta is not a part of this, Yurzan,” the other orc replied, his tone leveled.

Yurzan let off a hearty laugh, raising his arms up to welcome the audience to join in his mirth. After a moment’s hesitation they did with uncertain chuckles.

“What kind of War Master can’t tell when he needs even the odds,” Yurzan didn’t have to yell so loud be heard among his fellows’ mocking laughs.

The other orc looked about the crowd that surrounded him. “I can see your War Party is too small, Yurzan, or have you forgotten you’re no War Master?”

“Shut it, Hozza!” Yurzan pointed at the other orc. Even in the dark, Tad could see the spittle spray from his mouth.

“Hozza!” Tad repeated in a whisper. Few orcs were notorious enough to be known to goblins, and this, the War Master trained by an elf, was one of them.

“I’ve still so much more to say, Yurzan, to you and any who might listen.” Hozza’s posture was almost relaxed. Not that an orc would ever shake in fear the way Tad or any other goblin he knew would. He at least expected him to look ready to fight; the fight was clearly ready for him.

Baring his teeth like a mad animal, Yurzan lunged at Hozza. Hozza stepped aside and his attacker stumbled past him. Hozza gave the lanky Yurzan a smack across his back to push him over. Yurzan swore, loud and sharp, as he fell over. The mud in the orc’s face cut off his curse.

After pushing himself off the ground and swiping muck from his eyes, Yurzan roared: “I’m going to gut you and let you bleed out here, so that my men know what happens to anyone who tries to steal Bigrummar’s War Party!”

Hozza cocked his head to the side with a bemused smirk on his face. He hitched his thumbs in his belt and stared down Yurzan.

One orc from the audience began to speak but then coughed and looked down at the ground. Another one cowered as he half-heartedly explained to Yurzan: “Yeah, Hozza there, he ... he didn’t.”

“What?!” Yurzan tromped towards the crowd with his arms outstretched. “What is it you lot won’t not say?”

“Strike now, while the enemy is distracted,” Tad muttered. Ottis the Warrior would seize such an opportunity! As though sharing his thoughts, Hozza’s muscles flexed, in preparation to act, but a halt rippled through his body and left him shuddering from the effort of resisting his impulse.

“He uh ... he didn’t try to recruit us, is all,” a third orc answered as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Then what could he … ?” Yurzan tilted back and laughed. “Oh, you fool! You weren’t being treasonous again, were you? Is that what these guys meant by you trying to win them to your side?”

Hozza responded with a mucous-filled sniffle.

Yurzan rolled his shoulders and bent his neck one way, then the other, accompanied by a disgusting chorus of cracks and pops. He held out one hand, palm up, with his fingers splayed open. Someone in the audience slapped a blade, a rough-hewn wedge of stone with a rag wrapped around the blunt end, into Yurzan’s hand. He slowly curled his fingers around the makeshift handle. “Now I need to make an example of you in the name of the Dread Lord Withering Sorrows!”

“Hail the Dread Lord,” an orc milling about the front door called out. He threw one fist into the air. Several other orcs nearby repeated the gesture with a couple even echoing “Hail!”

In an instant Yurzan closed the distance to Hozza. He swung wildly with the blade. Mid-stroke his hand was stopped as Hozza caught him by the wrist and then wrenched the knife out of his attacker’s hand with a twist. As the knife fell into the mud, Yurzan looked at Hozza in disbelief for only a moment before Hozza smashed their skulls together.

Stumbling backwards, the lanky Yurzan pointed at Hozza and commanded “get him!” It took no time for Hozza to find himself beset by the War Party. As the lone orc was wailed upon by the others amid cries of “For Bigrummar!” and “For the Dread Lord!” Yurzan managed to wander back into the bar, rubbing his head as he did. Finally, one of the attackers informed the others “Yurzan is back in the bar” and they all retreated into The Rusted Blade.

Left behind, Hozza lay face up in the mud. His breathe misted over his face as his blood reflected the moonlight.

“Oh no,” Tad gasped.

“Not much of a fighter, this Hozza.” Glum shrugged his shoulders. He pointed his cane away. “Come on, Tad. It’s late.”

“Yeah, sure, boss.” Tad pushed himself off the barrel. He’d only made it a step before the sound of the barrel caught his attention. He watched as it wobbled, flopped over, and then rolled toward a wheelbarrow laden with emptied kegs from the orc bar. The barrel knocked one of the barrow’s legs out from under it and it crashed down, spilling the wooden casks across the porch. They bounced and rolled toward the goblins. Tad and Glum were frozen in place as they watched the calamity cascade towards them, both looking for a direction they could head to keep from getting squashed but found themselves penned in by the railing posts.

“Glum! Glum,” Tad shouted in a panic. He pushed his elderly manager along, the tip of his cane scraping against the rickety wooden deck. If they could get to the end, Tad figured her could shield Glum from harm. How many barrels could a young goblin sustain to the back? Just as they got to the furthest posts, the rumble of the rolling barrels growing ever louder, and Tad braced himself … something happened. He felt the railing shake and the floor bump and the crashing of barrels, each accompanied by a moan of pain.

But save for splinters slapping against Tad before falling to the ground, he was unharmed.

The goblins looked back. There was Hozza, slumped over, with a pile of wood and metal beside him.

Glum squatted beside the orc to listen closer to his labored breathing. “He’s alive,” he announced with some surprise.

The others gathered on the bar’s porch did their best to appear uninterested.

“If you fellows would be so kind I could use a trip to the doctor,” Hozza said, his voice rattling like a pipe on loose mounts.

“Doctor?” Tad scratched the back of his head. There were some medics stationed in the Machines Works. “Does he mean a medic?”

“No. The elf doctor,” Hozza struggled lifted his hand toward the hill overlooking Drink Town. Atop it was a shack with windows spilling golden light. Everybody knew the tales of the mad doctor who lived there. He was a friend of the Dread Lord and it was said he conducted cruel experimented on orcs and trolls who the Dread Lord didn’t like.

Wait, this was the only elf in the domain. Was he the one who trained Hozza?

“All the way up there,” Tad wondered aloud.

“Research, right kid?” Glum arched his back and stretched his arms. He set his cane on Hozza’s chest. “Ever tell you about my stint in the medic squad? It was thirty years ago, during a conflict at the Southern border. Got pretty good at dragging orcs.” He directed Tad to Hozza’s other side. “They were usually deader than this!”