A New Path
The snow crunched in rhythm under five pairs of boots, fur lined against the cold. Hobgoblins were hardier than other races, seemingly immune from pain. Many thought it thus, quite wrongly. Oh, they felt it keenly, as any man might, but their wills were iron, forged in the fires of endless hardship.
No witless savages were they. Not like the foul orcs, those shambling horrors who scarce noticed a rotting tooth until it splintered free or festered to poison. Gormixel had beheld such before, amazed that the gray and green things could chance to become even uglier.
Gormixel was not ugly by the standard of most races, although he cut an unimpressive figure for what he was. His own nose was large enough and with a fine divot down the middle, his nostrils lined over with refined marks like a sneer. His hair fell in thick, unruly waves when he deigned to let it grow unchecked. Yet that nose remained a deep crimson, matching the rest of his ruddy hide, far from the exalted blue that marked the chosen of his grim god. His eyes were orange and bright against his black sclera, but considered unremarkable. For piercings, he had less than many - brows lined with hooks of steel and even one of mithral, a prize from the mail of a dwarf lord slain.
Nothing marked the hobgoblin as favored in any way except by the fortunes of war and survival, for he bore many scars over a body that threatened to be short for his kind. He was closer in height to a man at six foot. It was what he kept within that height that told a greater story. Gormixel was the epitome of physical perfection. No hulking brute or lithe climber, he had loyal warriors who excelled him at either.
As a leader, he excelled in all fields to requisite degrees. Gormixel bore the power to sunder a helm of steel and the fortitude to maintain a wall of shields until the day’s contest drew to its end. In the pursuit, there was none to match his endurance across great distances. His earliest seasons as a warrior had been even so, hunting with arms of war, chasing quarry he might readily have entrapped or waylaid.
Gormixel thought himself the ideal soldier. He had every reason to.
The four escorting the leader of fifty spears came to an abrupt halt, the staccato command from the biggest one followed by a command to face inwards. As one, the hobgoblins snapped their heads towards the tent of their chieftain, spears held to the side as if to point the way.
The tent of a chieftain… mused Gormixel as his eyes fell upon it. A tent it was, aye, but sprawling, with side chambers stitched on like afterthoughts. The central hall loomed ample and jagged-edged, a shape these vicious folk took grim delight in. The annexes squatted low and bulbous. All of it foul to behold, sewn from the roughest pelts scavenged in these Sword Mountains. A lair worthy of some idiotic beast. We insult ourselves.
Gormixel strode past the outer guards and through the flap of the tent, ducking like a supplicant in order to make his way in. A few trusted retainers and the mate were in attendance, and none paid the new arrival any mind at all. It was the customary dismissive attitude the Crow’s Foot Tribe had come to expect from their chieftain.
The chieftain sat on a low tuffet. Before him was a round table with apertures wrought for bowls within. Gormixel spied the flicker of fire beneath his chieftain’s own vessel. A fine luxury, for hobgoblins savored their meals in the heat of cooking, not in the tepid aftermath.
He came to stand before this low table at a respectful distance, punched a fist to chest, and raised three nails forward - the salute of his tribe. The chieftain, whose name was Misselkik, spared not a glance away from the ritual of his meal. Misselkik possessed the noble azure nose of Maglubiyet’s favoured, the stains reaching even unto his forehead and along the crests of his lengthy ears. Many fine piercings adorned both his brow and beard, heavy and black…and besmeared with the bounty of the feast.
The cooking table was a handsome piece, black and polished to a sheen. The hiss of meat searing in the slanted bowl echoed through the chamber, mingling with the rich aroma of a robust supper. Misselkik ate with a two-pronger, spearing chunks of bear flesh and hearty winter beans…and writhing black scorpions.
Gormixel did his best to avert his eyes from the feast. Scorpions were a delicacy, especially this late in winter and so far from lands where they were common. They appeared and scented most scrumptious and toothsome, occasioning a most disquieting lapse in the valiant warrior’s steadfast discipline. Yet Gormixel sought to hide his hunger, his eyes fastened upon the chieftain’s in direct - respectful - regard.
“What tell of the foothills. Give report!” commanded Misselkik, his eyes captive to the exquisite banquet before him. Gormixel noticed that the chieftain also had eagle eggs cooked within that savory fry.
Gormixel spoke direct. “My losses: sixteen. Three neophytes among them. The enemy: seven. Dead to the last and staked high as warning.”
“A poor ratio. I am of mind to trust another for our next skipslash.”
“The men of Uthgardt are no paltry enemies. They were aided by a weaver of mysteries, some mage of considerable power.”
Misselkik speared one more scorpion and now deigned to regard the raid leader. The chieftain’s eyes were gold within the black - a yellow gold to match his beard-rings rather than a moon-like glow. “You give excuses? After I entrusted you with five guul’dar?” His fangs closed down on the struggling scorpion, half cooked and stinging like hellfire.
Gormixel knew his parameters as a leader of raiders. “I kept the guul’dar locked in their pens. Stupid, ill-fitted for a lurklick. Sixteen died in victorious battle, and now thirty stand far fiercer. Their taste for Man’s red blood awakened. I retain the beasts for a time as they are needed.” Already the plan had been worked out in his mind, the things commonly called ‘bugbears’ by humans were stealthy enough, yet easily confounded. Gormixel had known beforehand the enemy had a mage among them.
The chieftain chewed slowly as he weighed Gormixel in his eyes, reclining against the piled furs that passed for his paltry seat of power. In time, he uttered a sharp “tch” and dismissed him with a flick of his talons.
From along the back wall, Sikril, the mate, gave a scoff and a cruel grin. She was adorned like some harlot of men, piercings heavy yet made more for their shine than for pain. Her hair had been tied back high, laying bare her graceful throat and the swell of her bosom above a form-fitting vest of doeskin. Many called her comely, and in the flesh she was. She’d wielded her charms like a blade time and again, ever spurning Gormixel and those marked for lesser fates.
One of the chieftain’s enforcers now spoke up from behind, as though bidden. “Fail your way to victory then, Gormixel the simple. We will require some to stop the arrows of the wretched fairies, come our frolickflays in the spring.”
Gormixel recognized the speaker as Korvash, a master at fighting unarmed as well as with his hooked sword. A formidable warrior, and utterly devoted to his chieftain. The other enforcer simply rasped an ugly laugh. That one had always despised Gormixel and had slandered him often. The patient raid leader had long waited for the day he would take revenge. That time was now very close at hand.
“Then you are resolved to hunt the wisps of the woods once again, chieftain?” Gormixel crossed his arms. It was a disrespectful gesture, but it also kept his hands far from the edged club at his side. I stand utterly defenseless before you, old fool.
Misselkik’s head turned once more to the front, reclining upon the furs. The two enforcers drew close to Gormixel now, their hot breath on the raid leader’s neck. Sikril came forward, allowing a view of her low bodice to the seemingly beleaguered hobgoblin. Soft and yielding she was, her sole wars waged beneath the rough pelts of the chieftain she’d ensnared with such effortless guile.
The mate laid a lithe hand across her lord’s shoulders, her fingers tracing lightly over a chest that remained iron-hard despite the weight of his seasons. “Do you mean to challenge your chieftain’s decree, Gormixel?”
She had no right to speak his name directly, as he saw it. “I question the wisdom of this, yes…most of all, I see no honor in spending a season or more skulking through the forest, seeking out an enemy already beset by many others. The elves…” he called them by their true name then, “…are unworthy rivals. We remain a weak tribe because we choose weak opposition.”
Hulking Korvash ambled in front now…and delivered a powerful blow to the daring raid leader. The loud crack of flesh resounded over the sound of the low fire - a strike that would have felled most. Gormixel gave no report of the sound, although his face had already begun to swell, the cheek split wide open. He did not wipe away the dark blood.
As Korvash resumed his place behind, Misselkik spoke most nonchalant. “They are the ancient foe.” He leaned forward then and wiped his hands and beard clean with a cloth, meticulous as any of his race. “Then I take it you still harbor some delusion of wartoll with men, even unto the sea. Why? I will hear your reasons.”
Gormixel straightened, palms now upwards in seeming submission. He spoke his truest thoughts and feelings then. “For that they abase us at every turn. For that they rule the breadth of the coast and field massive hosts. They barter with all and gird themselves better than any. No tribe dares to march on them in force, not for centuries, and only at the behest of some wizard of the same or as abject bondsmen to assailants from below…or dragons.” A hand dropped to his side, the other knifed forward in accusation. “You fear to fight them.”
Misselkik’s yellow eyes bulged wide, frozen in shock for a heartbeat, too staggered to rise at the brazen defiance. Gormixel had no such hesitation, spinning round and reaching for Korvash’s shoulder-dagger. One hand seized the grip, the other thrust the hulking hobgoblin away, tearing through the leather thong.
In a fluid twist, Gormixel drove the serrated edge into the second enforcer’s visage, whose claws flew to the mortal gash. A ragged snarl bubbled from the wretch briefly, but he crumpled lifeless in moments, his name already forgotten with the sated vendetta.
Big Korvash heaved to his feet, his thick fingers curling around the hilt of the sword at his belt. The tent flap whipped open behind him, and one of Gormixel’s sworn men charged in, clamping a spear shaft taut against Korvash’s throat in a vise of steel. Khazruk stood shorter than the massive enforcer, but years at the forge had hammered him into a pillar of muscle. There was no escaping that iron hold…yet Khazruk did not come to kill. “Behold the rise of a true chieftain,” whispered Khazruk into the brute’s ear, holding him fast with a snarling grin.
Now did Gormixel draw forth his bladed cudgel as he turned about to confront the chieftain-no-more. It was a weapon apt for open strife as for the contest of honour. The narrow club curved ahead akin to some khopesh or Elven axe, whetted steel along the slaying brink with barbs of length sufficient to rend mail and flesh thereunder.
Misselkik had now ascended to his stature. He launched the elaborate table aside with a forceful kick and unsheathed axe and sword from his flank, his mate bolting down a fur-draped passage to the rear. The old chieftain lurched forward with a backswing. The following weapon never made its arc, as Gormixel’s club caught the old hobgoblin at the elbow, shattering the arm with one blow and sending him down to his pelts.
The old chieftain’s left shot forward with his sword - an easy dodge. Gormixel’s club caught at the wrist and left the hobgoblin sprawled and prostrate. Gormixel now leaned in with a panther’s speed and gripped the failed leader by his long, black beard, heaving him to his feet.
Gormixel searched for fear in those yellow eyes and found it. The old chieftain knew his end - inglorious, stripped of honor. With a contemptuous jerk, Misselkik was sent back to his furs of comfort. A fitting bier for such an unworthy. Gormixel planted his boot on the old hobgoblin’s chest and reared back to deliver a deathblow, but he did not strike. His orange gaze flicked to the tent’s rear, drawing all eyes thither.
Sikril, the mate, now came forward, her arm gripped by a true warrior. Vexa, as powerful in battle as she was erudite, heeled the weaker hobgoblina near to her pathetic mate and felled her with a boot to her knee-hollows. Sikril’s eyes already ran with coward’s tears, her ochre kohl now streaking black rivers over her delicate face. She had not seen the true horror yet.
Out from the same tunnel now came one known as Zogrek, a powerfully built hobgoblin who carried a long maul. Before him marched the progeny of Sikril and Misselkik. The last of a bloodline. The whelps wore masks of valor, yet their breaths rasped quick and shallow. Zogrek himself had trained them how to die a warrior, as did Korvax, the other mute witness to the coup.
With one fell arc, the maul sheared through the skulls of the trio, cleaving crania asunder and spewing black headmeat across the carpets. The three died worthier than their sire. They fell forward without sound, facing their enemy.
Sikril gave a piercing wail and began to rend her neck and chest, the black nails long and iron-hard. Gormixel gave her no regard nor would he ever do so again. His club descended and split the erstwhile chieftain’s breastbone wide, the black blood spurting across his arms and banded armor.
Gormixel turned round and held the edged club under a palm, posed as the conqueror. His eyes darted now to the stout smith, who relinquished his hold on big Korvash and stepped back with a bow.
Korvash fell forward, rasping for air. He was already kneeling before his new chieftain, and all present knew it. He raised his chin to behold Gormixel then. The hobgoblin there possessed not the golden circlets nor the dense beard of the leader of many years, nor was he as wide of shoulder. He appeared more the common soldier, yet the eyes that had seemed so unremarkable aforetime now held the steadfast surety of one who would guide the Crow’s Foot Tribe to glory or doom. Anywhere but mediocrity.
Korvash lowered his gaze. “Master.”
The overturned cooking-table had already threatened to ignite the rugs. With a point of finger, Gormixel bade an assembly without. This sprawling pavilion, rooted here for ages, would serve no purpose on a winter trek, burdened as it was by the gaudy relics of bygone splendor.
“Shall I bleed the hoor, Master?” rasped Vexa.
Gormixel affixed his club to his side almost nonchalantly. He kicked over a large candle-stand to a row of firewood. “She is no warrior to bleed. See to her wishes as bedwarmer to indolents.”
Vexa laughed. “That I shall. The gray orcs have an unholy desire for those fairer and mismatched to them. I’ll find her a chieftain from the hills. An ugly one.”
Sikril’s eyes went shut with pain, her wailing now replaced by quiet whimpers.
Gormixel and his chief enforcers now departed the tent - a massive bonfire that gathered the whole of the Crow’s Foot Tribe within minutes. No words passed for none were needed. The chieftain stood limned in orange, a shadowed demigod enthroned in flames. Korvash, Vexa, and the others now stood behind and on line. The seed of a new legion.
