The Goblin Corps Read Online Free PDF Page B

that ran down his chin.
    His companion returned a grin no less forced. Berrat was chieftain of his tribe, an influential figure in Tarahk Trohm. But Cræosh was widely considered to be the best choice for the position once Berrat…“stepped down.” The brown-skinned orc was determined that his rival would have no opportunities to replace him for a good long while. He had called Cræosh to join him not from any sense of companionship, but simply to keep a close watch on the warrior—and, frankly, to annoy him. They both knew it, the other orcs knew it, and there was actually a discreet betting pool among the patrol on when the one would finally challenge the other.
    It would not, however, be today. Even as Cræosh raised the horse haunch to his lips for a second bite, another orc—this one black-skinned and boasting a ragged, scarred hole where his left eye once sat—dashed from the concealing shadows of the trees. “Someone’s coming!” he called out before his boots had even skidded to a complete stop.
    Instantly, Berrat and Cræosh were on their feet. “Take four,” the chieftain commanded his rival. “Go see. I will follow behind, once these louts—” And here he took a moment to kick at a smaller orc who was gathering his gear too slowly for Berrat’s taste. Something snapped, and the orc let out a pained yelp, but he did indeed start preparing a great deal faster. “—are ready to go,” he concluded.
    “You, you, you—and you,” Cræosh gestured with the steaming chunk of horseflesh in his hand. “Follow me.” Those he’d selected—including Dækek, the monocular scout—fell in behind him. The haunch of meat plummeted to the ground with a sticky plop as Cræosh broke into a distance-eating jog that he and the others could, if necessary, maintain for a day and more.
    The sound of their footsteps, pounding in rhythm, was an earthquake thundering through the woods. Over a ton of orc dashed through the trees, sending small (and not so small) animals scurrying out of their path. The trees had begun to thin considerably as they moved south, and the Brimstone Mountains, though miles away, completely dominated the horizon.
    “There!” Dækek shouted, as his keen remaining eye spotted the intruder. Cræosh squinted even more than usual, attempting to discern…
    “It’s a gremlin!” he announced, voice harsh with disgust. “We came all this way for…”
    No, he realized, as they drew close enough to make out some detail. Not just any gremlin. This one looked as though he’d been to hell and back, and on a budget. His beige skin was bruised in a dozen places, lacerated in a dozen more, and thick blood matted his clothes. Although bald on top, as were most of his race, this gremlin had grown a full beard—and it, too, hung sticky with blood. His left tusk was missing, one of his spindly ears had been torn halfway from his head, and his right arm hung loose at his side, flapping horribly from the elbow down.
    Given his druthers, Cræosh would have been just as content to ignore the gremlin’s distress, if not kill him outright. But the strategically brilliant generals of Tarahk Trohm and Tarahk Grond knew that, come spring, the humans and elves and other such scum would attack. Where the gremlins quarreled, and the kobolds schemed, and the xenophobic hobgoblins drew back into Havicruess and locked the gates behind them—the orcs argued for order amid the chaos, for continued cooperation among the races of Kirol Syrreth. And so, for the sake of that order, Cræosh reluctantly went to the gremlin’s aid.
    Besides,
someone
must have done this to him, and Cræosh hadn’t had a good fight in weeks!
    The gremlin—barely four feet in height, and massing less than half of Cræosh’s three hundred pounds—sobbed audibly at the sight of the huge orcs looming over him, though whether it signified relief or terror, the warrior couldn’t tell. As though that sob had carried with it the last of his