The pact was a fragile, newborn thing, and the world was a cold, hard place to be born. Rakka did not offer us a place at her fire, because her fire was a pathetic, sputtering thing that offered no real warmth. She did not offer us food, because the gnawing hunger in the eyes of her tribe was a more profound statement than any empty pantry. She offered us the only thing she had in abundance: the path to her misery.
She led the way, her new cleaver held loosely in her hand, the faint blue rune I had inscribed upon it a stark, alien symbol against the pitted, rust-colored iron. The weapon, once a pathetic piece of scrap, now hummed with a quiet, hungry purpose. It was a promise, and Rakka walked with the stiff-backed pride of a queen who had just been handed the keys to her enemy's castle, even if her own was crumbling around her.
Her ten warriors followed, their movements a strange mixture of their old, clumsy shuffle and a new, tentative discipline. They kept glancing back at my Gutter-Guard, at the five silent, olive-skinned giants who marched behind us with the heavy, inexorable tread of a glacier. My Hobgoblins were the living embodiment of the promise I had just made, and their presence was a more potent argument than any of my words.
The journey was short, a grim, ten-minute descent into a shallow, wind-scoured bowl in the mountainside that Rakka called home. The trail was treacherous, a narrow track of loose shale and frozen mud that threatened to send a careless man tumbling into the ravine below. The cold here was a physical entity, a beast with teeth of ice that gnawed at the exposed skin on our faces and hands.
As we rounded the final switchback, the camp came into view, and the full, breathtaking scope of their desperation hit me with the force of a physical blow.
It was not a camp. It was a wound in the earth, a place where fifty-three souls had gathered to await the slow, grinding inevitability of their own extinction. A collection of crude, wind-shredded lean-tos, made from scavenged branches and strips of hide, huddled together for warmth against a sheer rock face. A single, pathetic fire, fueled by damp twigs and what looked suspiciously like dried moss, produced a thin, acrid stream of grey smoke that was immediately snatched away by the howling wind. The air was thick with the smell of sickness, of unwashed bodies, and of a despair so profound it was a physical taste on the back of my tongue.
The inhabitants, the fifty-odd members of the Shivering-Tribe, were a portrait of misery. They were thin, their bones stark and sharp beneath their sallow, green skin. They were clad in rags, their bodies hunched against a cold that had burrowed deep into their marrow. Children with old, haunted eyes and wet, rattling coughs huddled against their mothers, their small frames trembling with a constant, low-grade fever. The wounded, casualties of their recent schism, lay on thin pallets of dirty straw, their injuries bound with filthy rags, the stench of infection a sweet, cloying perfume that hung over them like a shroud.
They saw us, and a wave of pure, animal terror rippled through the camp. They saw their chieftain, their last, fragile hope, returning not with food or victory, but with a walking nightmare. They saw Elara, a creature of grey leather and cold steel, her human features a terrifying anomaly. They saw Gnar and his Hobgoblins, giants from their darkest legends, their disciplined movements and superior armor a stark, brutal declaration of a power they could not comprehend. They saw me. And in their eyes, I saw the reflection of their deepest, most primal fear: the strange, the unknown, the thing that had come to finish the work the cold and the hunger had started.
Rakka strode into the center of the camp, the enchanted cleaver held firm in her hand. The gesture was one of pure, defiant authority. "These are not enemies," she roared, her voice a raw, powerful thing that cut through the whimpering fear. "They are allies! The Speaker for the Sky-Chief has made a pact with the We! We are no longer alone!"
Her words were a stone thrown into a still, stagnant pond. The ripples of confusion, of disbelief, of a fragile, terrifying hope, spread through the assembled goblins. They looked from their chieftain to me, their minds struggling to process this impossible, world-altering declaration.
I did not give them time to let their fear fester. I unslung the heavy pack from my shoulders and let it drop to the ground with a solid, reassuring thud. Elara and the Gutter-Guard did the same.
"Gnar," I commanded, my voice calm and steady, a point of order in their chaos. "Distribute the rations. Everyone eats."
Gnar nodded, his one eye scanning the pathetic, starving faces before him. There was no contempt in his gaze, only a grim, professional pity. He and his soldiers began to unpack the smoked meat, the hard biscuits, the waterskins. The sight of the food, the sheer, unimaginable wealth of it, shattered the last of their terror. A low, desperate moan went through the crowd, the sound of a hunger so deep it had become their only reality. They scrambled forward, not as a mob, but as supplicants, their hands outstretched, their eyes fixed on the Hobgoblins with a new, desperate reverence.
While the Gutter-Guard managed the food, turning a potential riot into an orderly, if desperate, breadline, I turned my attention to the wounded. Elara was already there, her own pain forgotten, her face a mask of grim, professional focus. Anya, our Alchemist, was still back at the Grotto, which meant we were the only medics available.
"The ones with the rattling cough first," Elara said, her voice low. "That sounds like lung-rot. It will spread."
We moved to the pathetic collection of wounded warriors who lay shivering under thin, greasy hides. I knelt beside one, a young goblin whose leg was a swollen, discolored mess, a crude spear wound festering near his thigh. His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps. I placed a hand on his forehead. He was burning with fever.
My Analysis skill flared to life, a cool blue cascade of data against the backdrop of his misery.
[Target: Goblin Conscript (Shivering-Tribe)]
[Status: Critically Injured (Infected Wound), Sepsis (Stage 2), Malnourished, Dehydrated]
[Probability of Survival (without intervention): 11%]
I took out a small, leather-bound kit. It was a new addition to my gear, a field surgeon's kit that Maria and I had designed and Leo had forged. It contained clean strips of linen, a set of fine, sharp steel needles, and a half-dozen small clay pots filled with Anya's salves and poultices.
"This is going to hurt," I said to the goblin, my voice gentle. He just stared at me with dull, uncomprehending eyes.
The work was brutal, bloody, and necessary. I used a sterilized dagger to lance the wound, the eruption of pus and black, stinking blood a foul testament to the depth of the infection. The goblin screamed, a high, thin sound of pure agony, and thrashed, but Gnar was there, his massive hands holding the patient still with an unyielding, almost gentle pressure. I cleaned the wound with a harsh, alcohol-based antiseptic, then began the slow, meticulous process of stitching the torn flesh back together. My fingers, accustomed to the delicate work of runic inscription, moved with a surprising, steady grace.
Beside me, Elara worked with a terrifying, pragmatic efficiency. She was tending to a goblin with a deep, gushing cut on his arm. She didn't bother with stitches. She simply took a small iron bar from the fire, heated it until it glowed a dull red, and pressed it against the wound. The sound of sizzling flesh, the high, piercing shriek of the goblin, the acrid smell of burned meat—it was a brutal, medieval solution, but it was effective. The bleeding stopped.
We worked for an hour, a strange, grim pair of battlefield medics. I was the surgeon, the slow, meticulous artist of healing. She was the butcher, the fast, brutal agent of cauterization. We moved from one patient to the next, a silent, efficient team. We set broken bones, we cleaned festering wounds, we dispensed Anya's precious fever-reducing herbs. We could not save them all. Three of the most grievously wounded were too far gone, their bodies already consumed by the rot. For them, Elara provided a different kind of mercy, a swift, clean end with the point of her dagger. It was a hard, ugly part of this new reality, but it was a necessary one.
When we were done, the air in the camp had changed. The oppressive scent of sickness had been replaced by the sharp, clean smell of antiseptic and the lingering, acrid tang of cauterized flesh. The wounded were no longer just dying. They were being cared for. They were being saved. We had not just given them food. We had given them a chance. We had given them proof that we were not just conquerors, but builders.
I washed the blood from my hands with the last of the clean water from my waterskin and walked to the fire where Rakka was waiting. The rage and desperation in her eyes had been replaced by a deep, thoughtful weariness. She watched her people, who were now eating their first full meal in what was likely weeks, a quiet, almost maternal look on her face.
"You are not what I expected, Speaker," she said, not looking at me.
"Expectations are a luxury we can't afford," I replied, sitting across from her. "All that matters is what works." I leaned forward, my voice dropping. "And what will work is a plan. I need to know everything about your brother. About Grob."
Rakka's face hardened, her expression turning to a mask of cold, personal hatred. "Grob," she spat the name like a mouthful of poison. "He is not a warrior, like Ufgak. He is a snake. He hides in the long grass and bites at your heel."
She began to speak, and I listened, my mind a blank slate, absorbing every detail. She described his camp, a fortified series of caves in a swampy marshland, a place of mud and mist and hidden dangers. She described his tactics: his preference for poison-tipped arrows, his use of spike-filled pit traps, his penchant for sending out small, stealthy assassination teams in the dead of night. She described his inner circle: a hulking, half-mad Bugbear bodyguard named Krolg, and a goblin shaman who dabbled in a strange, foul-smelling swamp magic.
As she spoke, I began to see the shape of the battle to come. This would not be a straightforward assault like the one on Grul's camp. This would be a game of shadows, of feints and deceptions. To defeat a snake, you could not just step on it. You had to lure it out of its hole.
"He has a weakness," Rakka said, a cruel, satisfied smile touching her lips for the first time. "Pride. He believes he is the smartest goblin in the world. He believes his traps are perfect, his defenses impenetrable. He will not expect a direct challenge. He will see it as the act of a fool."
"And that," I said, my own smile matching hers, "is exactly what we will give him."
The plan began to form in my mind, a beautiful, intricate, and deeply treacherous web of lies and violence. We would not sneak into his camp. We would not try to out-snake the snake. We would do the one thing he would never, ever expect.
We would walk up to his front door, announce our intentions, and challenge him to a war. We would appeal to his arrogance, his belief in his own superior intellect. We would offer him a formal battle, a contest of champions, a game with rules he thought he could control.
And while he was focused on the game, on the honorable, foolish warriors at his gate, my true weapon, my ghost in the shadows, would slip in through the back and gut him while he was admiring his own cleverness.
I looked over at Elara, who had been listening silently, her eyes sharp and focused. I didn't need to speak. I could feel her understanding through our bond, the cold, professional appreciation of a master predator recognizing a perfectly designed trap.
"This will be dangerous, Speaker," Gnar rumbled, his voice a low note of caution. He had been listening, his new, intelligent mind processing the risks.
"All war is dangerous, Gnar," I said, my gaze sweeping over the faces of my new allies, my exhausted but hopeful tribe. "But a war fought on your own terms is a war you can win." I stood, the decision made, the path clear. "We will give him a few days to hear the rumors, to let his pride swell. We will let him believe he holds all the cards."
I looked at Rakka, at the fierce, desperate queen of this miserable, frozen kingdom. "And then," I said, my voice a low, cold promise, "we will burn his entire world to the ground."