The exodus from the goblin camp was not the silent, ghostly infiltration of our arrival. It was a clumsy, shuffling, stinking parade of newfound purpose. Twelve figures, two wrapped in shimmering lies and ten wrapped in the ill-fitting armor of a new faith, slipped out of the palisade under the cloak of pre-dawn darkness. We were a pathetic sight, a war party whose collective arsenal consisted of one good axe, two decent daggers, a handful of crude spears, and an overabundance of misplaced optimism.
You have to be realistic about these things. I was leading a holy crusade composed of creatures who, forty-eight hours ago, had considered cannibalism a viable long-term food strategy. My second-in-command was a traumatized retail worker with a genius for murder. And I, their spiritual guide and military commander, was a failed economics student whose primary combat skill was the ability to give a monster a debilitating anxiety attack. The odds were not, as they say, in our favor.
Yet, there was a change. It was a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in the way they carried themselves. The Guttersnipes, my newly christened Gutter-Guard, no longer shuffled with the defeated, hopeless gait of the perpetually oppressed. There was a new energy to them, a nervous, twitchy purpose. They were still clumsy, still loud, still prone to bickering in low, guttural whispers, but they were trying. They were trying to be soldiers.
I had given them names, not just titles. It was a simple act, a basic psychological tool to foster individuality and a sense of personal investment. The System already knew them, but now, so did their comrades.
Gnar, the one-eyed War-Chief, marched at the head of the column, his scarred face set in a mask of grim determination. He was no longer just a survivor; he was a leader with a divine mandate, and the weight of it seemed to make him stand taller.
Behind him was Gruk, a squat, powerfully built goblin with a perpetually sour expression. He was the one who had cursed when the Bully Boy had kicked their fire. He was a grumbler, a cynic, but his strength was undeniable. He was the muscle, the anchor of their pathetic battle line.
Then there was Snag, the lanky one with the missing ear, who moved with a quiet, watchful intensity. He was the scout, the observer, his eyes constantly scanning the trees. He rarely spoke, but he saw everything.
Pip, the runt, trotted to keep up, his oversized spear a constant, clumsy hazard. He was a bundle of raw terror and desperate, dog-like devotion. He would flinch at every snapped twig, but his eyes were fixed on Elara's back, his tiny mind trying to absorb and replicate her every move.
The rest of the squad was a motley collection of goblin misery, each with their own brand of pathetic distinction. There was Mog, a fat, wheezing goblin whose primary motivation seemed to be the avoidance of any strenuous activity. Zib, a twitchy, paranoid creature who seemed to exist in a state of constant, low-level panic. Krunk and Bunk, two brothers, nearly identical in their brutish stupidity, who moved and fought as a single, unthinking unit. Fex, a wiry goblin with a nasty scar that pulled one side of his mouth into a permanent sneer, his cruelty barely contained. And finally, Rilk, a goblin whose defining characteristic was his profound, almost artistic cowardice.
This was my army. My Fangs of the Pack. My holy warband. It was like trying to build a war machine out of rust and broken pottery.
Elara moved at my side, a silent, lethal specter. She had shed the goblin illusion, the constant mana drain too costly for a long march. In the deep gloom of the forest, her own natural stealth was a far more effective camouflage. She was the shepherd to my flock of rabid, incompetent sheep, her presence a constant, silent pressure that kept them moving, kept them focused.
"They're a mess," she stated, her voice a low murmur that didn't carry more than a foot. It wasn't a complaint. It was a simple, professional assessment of the raw materials she had been given to work with.
"They're clay," I murmured back. "They just need to be molded."
"They need to be fired in a kiln for a thousand years," she retorted, but there was no real venom in it. I could feel her own analytical mind at work, assessing their strengths, their weaknesses, the sheer, daunting scale of the task ahead.
We found our training ground an hour later. It was a small, secluded clearing, a natural bowl in the forest floor shielded by a ring of ancient, moss-covered boulders. It was defensible, isolated, and far enough from the main camp that a bit of remedial screaming wouldn't attract unwanted attention.
Elara didn't waste time with pleasantries. She was not a teacher who used encouragement or positive reinforcement. Her classroom was the battlefield, and her lessons were written in pain and exhaustion.
"Line!" she barked, the single, sharp command cutting through their disorganized milling. "You stand in a line! Like a wall! A wall of angry, ugly teeth!"
They scrambled to obey, bumping into each other, tripping over roots, their attempts at forming a straight line resulting in a pathetic, wobbling crescent.
Elara sighed, a sound of profound, weary suffering. She walked down the line, her eyes cold and critical. She stopped in front of Mog, the fat one, who was leaning on his spear like a walking stick. She didn't speak. She simply kicked his feet out from under him. He went down with a surprised grunt, landing in a heap.
"The wall does not lean," she stated to the group at large. "The wall stands. Or the wall dies."
She moved on to Gruk, the grumbler, who was holding his crude wooden shield too low. She tapped it with the butt of her axe, a sharp, percussive sound that made him flinch. "Shield up! It protects your face, you idiot! Not your knees!"
Then she came to Pip. The runt was trying his best, his small body trembling with the effort of holding his heavy spear and his cracked shield. His stance was all wrong, his balance precarious. He looked like a child playing dress-up in his father's armor.
Elara stopped in front of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable blow, the harsh correction. But it didn't come. Instead, he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was a firm, calloused hand, but the touch was surprisingly gentle. She reached out and adjusted his grip on the spear, shifting his small fingers into a more stable position. She nudged his foot with her boot, correcting his stance, aligning his center of gravity.
"Like this," she said, her voice softer than I had ever heard it. "Feel the balance. From the ground. Up. You are a tree. The roots hold you."
Pip opened his eyes, staring up at her with a look of pure, unadulterated worship. She had not hit him. She had taught him. In his world, this was a profound, world-altering act of kindness.
For the next hour, she drilled them. Over and over again. The shield wall. It was the most basic of formations, a simple concept that was brutally difficult for their chaotic, individualistic minds to grasp. They had to learn to stand shoulder to shoulder, to trust the shield of the goblin next to them, to move as a single, unified entity. They had to unlearn a lifetime of selfish survival and embrace the communal strength of the pack.
It was a slow, agonizing process. They were clumsy. They were stupid. They complained. But under Gnar's snarled threats and Elara's cold, efficient instruction, a change began to happen. The wobbling crescent slowly straightened into a ragged but recognizable line. They learned to brace against a charge, to overlap their shields, to present a unified front of splintered wood and sharpened points. It was an ugly, pathetic shield wall, but it was a wall nonetheless.
The first test came late in the afternoon. We were on the move again, practicing our new marching formation—a compact column with scouts ahead and flankers to the side—when Snag, the quiet one with the missing ear, let out a sharp, hissing cry.
A pack of creatures had burst from the undergrowth. They were canine, but larger than any wolf I had ever seen, with powerful, reptilian jaws and coats of mangy, dark fur. My mind supplied the data instantly.
[Target: Gnarlfang Pack (x6) (Level 4)]
[Type: Beast (Pack Hunter)]
[Abilities: Pack Tactics (Damage increases with number of adjacent allies), Vicious Bite (Inflicts Bleed)]
The goblins' first instinct was to scatter, to revert to the chaotic, every-goblin-for-himself panic that had defined their existence.
"Wall!" Gnar roared, his voice a raw, desperate bellow. "To me! Form the wall!"
"Shields!" Elara's voice was a whip-crack, cutting through their fear. "Stand, you maggots! Stand or die!"
It was a near thing. Rilk, the coward, made a break for the trees, only to be dragged back by a furious Gruk. But they held. Shaking, terrified, they scrambled into their ragged line, their shields locking together just as the first Gnarlfang leaped.
The beast slammed into the wall of wood and hide with a snarl, its claws scrabbling for purchase, its jaws snapping inches from a goblin's face. But the wall held. The goblin behind the shield shrieked in terror, but his neighbor didn't break. A spear, then another, jabbed out from between the shields, clumsy but effective. The Gnarlfang yelped, blood welling from a half-dozen shallow wounds, and fell back.
The other beasts circled, their yellow eyes glowing with a predatory cunning, looking for a weak point, a gap in the line.
"Hold!" Elara commanded. "Do not break! Let them come!"
I stood behind the line, my role purely observational. This was their fight, their test. Elara was the field commander, her voice the steel that held their fragile courage together. She was magnificent. She moved behind their line like a master choreographer, directing their movements, calling out targets, her voice a calm, deadly instrument in the heart of the chaos.
"You two, on the left! Brace! It's coming! Spears ready!"
"Pip! Shield up! Higher! Good!"
The fight was an ugly, brutal scrum. A Gnarlfang managed to hook its claws over a shield and pull a goblin down, and its packmates were on him in an instant, a flurry of teeth and fur. But the line didn't break. Gnar and Gruk stepped into the gap, their own spears a desperate, stabbing defense, while Elara darted in, her axe a blur of motion, and clove the attacking beast's skull in two.
Slowly, agonizingly, the tide turned. The goblins, empowered by their small successes, began to fight with a new, savage confidence. They were no longer just defending; they were attacking. They learned to brace, absorb the impact, and then thrust with their spears in a coordinated volley. Another Gnarlfang went down, and then another.
The remaining three, their pack instincts screaming that this was a bad fight, that this strange, spiky creature was more trouble than it was worth, broke and fled into the forest.
Silence descended, broken only by the ragged, gasping breaths of the goblins and the pained whimpers of the one who had been savaged.
They had won.
It was a sloppy, costly victory, but it was a victory. They had faced a superior foe, held their ground, and triumphed not through individual strength, but through collective discipline. They had acted as a unit. They had been a wall.
That night, the mood around the campfire was transformed. The sullen, resentful silence was gone, replaced by a boisterous, swaggering pride. They were recounting the battle, embellishing their own minor acts of bravery into epic deeds of heroism. They were no longer just a pack of scavengers. They were a warband. They were veterans.
I sat by the fire, listening to their boasting, a small, genuine smile on my face. The plan was working. The clay was beginning to hold its shape.
Elara sat across from me, sharpening her dagger, a silent, watchful presence. Pip was huddled near her, not out of fear, but out of a clear, hero-worshipping adoration. He was trying to wrap a strip of leather around the handle of his spear, mimicking the way Elara maintained her own weapons. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, a flicker of something soft and almost maternal in her gaze before it was quickly masked by her usual stony indifference.
The night grew deeper. The forest around us was a wall of blackness, alive with the chirps and clicks of unseen things. The fire crackled, a lone beacon of warmth and light in a vast, uncaring wilderness. The goblins, their bellies full of roasted Gnarlfang meat, were beginning to drift off to sleep, their boasts giving way to snores.
It was in that quiet, peaceful moment that the world decided to remind me that no plan, no matter how clever, is ever safe from the intrusion of the unknown.
There was a rustle in the bushes at the edge of the firelight.
Instantly, Elara was on her feet, her axe in her hand, her body a coiled spring. I was right behind her, my hand on the hilt of the short sword Leo had crafted for me before we left. The sleeping goblins, their new training already taking root, scrambled awake, grabbing their spears, their exhaustion forgotten, replaced by a surge of adrenaline.
"What is it?" Gnar growled, moving to my side.
We stared into the darkness, waiting. The rustling came again, closer this time. It was not the heavy, crashing sound of a large beast. It was small. Stealthy.
A tiny figure stumbled out of the darkness and into the edge of the firelight.
It was a goblin. But it was a child. A tiny, emaciated female, no older than four or five in human years. She was even smaller than Pip, a creature of sticks and shadows. Her clothes were nothing but a collection of filthy, tattered rags. Her face was smudged with dirt, her large, black eyes wide with a mixture of terror and a desperate, all-consuming hunger. She had been following us. For days. A stowaway on our holy crusade, driven by a need that had finally overcome her fear.
She saw the roasted meat still sitting on a rock by the fire. A low, guttural sound, a sound of pure, animal need, escaped her throat. She took a stumbling step towards it.
Gruk, the grumbler, raised his spear. "A stray! Another mouth to feed! Kill it!"
Before anyone could move, before Elara could intervene or I could give a command, the child did something unexpected. She didn't run from the threat. She ran towards the perceived source of power. She ran towards me.
She stumbled across the clearing, her tiny, bare feet slapping against the packed earth, and she collapsed at my feet. Her small, filthy hand closed around my leg, her grip surprisingly strong, a desperate anchor in a sea of fear. She didn't look up at my face. She looked at the sword at my belt, at the strange, clean clothes beneath my illusion, at the aura of authority I projected. She looked at the Prophet's Speaker, the one who made fire and brought meat, and in a voice that was barely a whisper, a tiny, heartbreaking squeak, she said the only word she knew that mattered.
"Hungry."
The camp was silent. Every eye was on me. The Fangs of the Pack, my new, savage army, looked to their leader, their prophet, to see how he would deal with this unexpected supplicant. Gruk's spear was still half-raised, waiting for the command to strike.
I looked down at the small, trembling creature clinging to my leg. I saw the dirt, the sores, the raw, gnawing hunger in her eyes. I saw a life that had known nothing but cruelty and want. And in that moment, the Scholar, the strategist, the manipulator, fell silent. All that was left was the man.
I knelt down, slowly, carefully, so as not to frighten her. I reached out, not with a weapon, but with an open hand. I gently pried her fingers from my leg and then, just as gently, took the piece of roasted meat I had saved for myself and placed it in her tiny, grasping hand.
She stared at the food, then up at me, her large, black eyes filled with a profound, uncomprehending shock.
"Go on," I said softly, my real voice, not the goblin rasp. "Eat. You are safe here."
She didn't hesitate. She fell upon the meat with a savage, desperate hunger, her small teeth tearing at the flesh, her eyes never leaving my face.
Damn it, she was cute.