The petty satisfaction Sin-ak had felt for a moment dried up like a slug in the sun when he heard Heqht-jo make his oath three times. A subtle vibration emanated out from where they stood, the Universe taking witness of the pledge. He met the commander’s gaze for another second, but ultimately it was he who turned away. Heqht-jo kept walking and the pleasure slaves began to cry and plead as they saw the deadly expression on the powerfully-built goblin’s face. Sin-ak didn’t blame them. He had an idea of the torments they would experience for the rest of their short and tragic lives.
The first cries of pain began as the Witch Doctor left the tent. The memory began to fade and Richter knew that the Mage’s last thought was that the escaped hill sprite would die slowly. As the goblin’s mind filled with horrid perversions of how he would violate and torture his quarry, Richter was glad that he had ended the life of such an evil creature.
CHAPTER 13 – Day 140 – Kuborn 30, 15,386 EBG
Richter came back to himself. He blinked quickly as he got used to having only one set of thoughts in his head again. The chaos seed was somewhat shaken by the casual anger and violence that had existed in the Witch Doctor’s thoughts. Richter knew that since coming to The Land, he had done things that might be called morally ambiguous, but the pure joy the Mage had felt in wanton cruelty was something that he had never before experienced. After living through the memory, he felt much more comfortable with the fact that he had slaughtered dozens of goblins in the past. Richter just wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
The chaos seed got himself together and left the Dragon’s Cauldron. Though he had lived through nearly an hour of the Witch Doctor’s memory, only a moment had passed in the village. The rain still fell at the same steady tattoo. Richter walked through the light shower towards the catacombs and the war council. There was a bit of a chill in the air, and Richter could smell fires burning in the chimneys of the longhouses. As he walked, he summoned a mist light. Once he reached the hill that led down to the village, he looked out over his settlement and smiled. Mist lights floated in the air all across the land, providing a soft, fey light. His reverie was interrupted by the flap of small wings. A moment later, a weight settled onto his shoulder.
*Welcome back, my love,* he thought affectionately.
Alma nuzzled her small face against his cheek and wrapped her tail around his arm for support. She flapped her wings quickly to shed the water sending cold water down his back. The chaos seed grunted in protest, but couldn’t stay mad at her when she settled down onto his shoulders. Then she started sending him images. Richter continued walking towards the catacombs that led down to the village proper. The rain began to fall a bit harder, and his cloak grew heavier. His steps grew heavier with both water and responsibility while Alma showed him things that he did not want to see.
When Richter entered the conference room where everyone waited, his face was grim. He communicated what he had learned with a simple message, “We’ve got problems.”
Alma had done her job well. As promised, she had stayed high in the sky and had gone unseen by the goblins she had spied upon. The images she sent him automatically updated his Traveler’s Map and, in turn, Bea updated the information in the Knowledge Table. After that, the Scholar left. The only people remaining in the room were Hisako, Yoshi, Liddle, Terrod, Caulder, Randolphus, Sion, and Richter. As they poured over the large aerial view map, one thing became clear. There were a lot more than a hundred goblins.
“I swear, Lord Richter, I had no idea there were so many!” Liddle was almost babbling. No one blamed him.
“It is hard to say from these pictures,” Yoshi said, “but I believe we may be looking at a force of three to five hundred goblins. The fortifications are not complete, but there are still enough of them to cause us serious problems. There also seem to only be two entrances to this valley, and they have placed contingents at the only one we have access to. Attacking it will notify the main force.”
The sword adept’s assessment seemed accurate. The western end of the valley narrowed to a small pass, no more than thirty yards across. To either side of the western entrance were sheer rock walls hundreds of feet high. The other entrance was near the eastern end of the valley and set into the northern cliff face. It was only a cave in the rock face. Alma had only seen the side that emptied into the valley. It was the mouth of a tunnel that went under the mountain. Whether it let out in a hundred feet or in thirty miles, they didn’t know. The dragonling had flown above, but couldn’t find the other entrance.
The entire valley was about nine miles long and two miles wide. Mountains rose high enough along both sides that snowcapped the tops in places, despite it being summer. The goblin encampment was built on a slight rise smack dab in the middle. A waterfall fell from a cliff face along to the eastern side of the valley and fed a river stream that traced down the valley’s length before disappearing underground near the western approach. Copses of trees dotted the valley floor, but for the most part, it was hilly grassland.
The encampment was much larger than Liddle had said, though it was clear why the hill sprite had been wrong. Alma had spied the cages where the captives were being kept. They were screened off from the rest of the encampment and were almost next to the wall surrounding the encampment. There would be no way that someone kept there would have known about all of the tents and campfires that comprised the rest of the settlement. A wooden palisade, ten feet high, surrounded about 60% of the camp. A second wall, twenty feet high, surrounded an inner encampment and was complete.
Richter had had Bea upload several still shots from the hour that Alma had observed the goblins. That was why there was such discrepancy in the count of the goblins. Looking at each still from different angles, it was difficult to tell if a goblin was counted twice or if there were still more inside of the tents. Still, one thing was clear. There were a fuckload of them.
The encampment had been built around a cave that led down into the hill it was perched on. From the elevation Alma had been flying at, nothing more could be seen other than a large boulder with a black hole on one side. A large pit was not far from the cave. Richter had no idea how deep it was, but it was filled with at least a hundred bodies. Several members of the war council cursed as they saw it.
Several yards to the side of the abattoir was a large red stone. Its surface was irregular, like an uncut jewel, and it was about the size of a large bowling ball. The ruby jewel sat upon an iron dais. Large splashes of blood were on the ground surrounding the dais. If a series of cows had exploded, Richter thought, this is what it would have looked like. There was no doubt that this was the Bloodstone.