The goblin chief, Eye Stabber Ha-Rashion, was livid. So much so that the return of the hobgoblins from the latest scouting party didn't bring relief—it brought death.

He'd driven his jagged dagger into the leader of the returning hob's belly before the fool could say more than a few words. The fact that the hobgoblin had returned at all was damning enough.

And worse—he had a strange metal arrow still lodged deep in his hip. A human weapon. The shaft was narrow, cleaner than any goblin-made thing. The wound stank, and the flesh around it was turning black. The arrow wouldn't come out.

That only infuriated the chief further.

They had been ordered to observe—to watch the humans and the fort and learn their weaknesses. Not to engage. But instead, the scouting party had drawn the humans out and gotten themselves slaughtered.

Four of his best hobgoblins. Gone.

And the humans? From what little he managed to glean before silencing the wounded idiot—not one of them had died. Not even injured, apparently.

The final insult, though, had been the story the hobgoblin tried to tell—babbling through blood and fear about how one of the humans had laid down across the enemy's own fortifications, using his body as a bridge so the others could escape.

That gave the chief pause. Not rage.

An idea.

Stolen story; please report.

His yellowed eyes narrowed as he slumped back into the crude stone throne that had been dragged into the centre of the overgrown area he now called a war camp. His fat hand stroked the hilt of his massive two-handed sword, the weapon humming faintly with the residual energy of his rage.

"So they protect each other... that much," he muttered aloud, thinking.

The idea was already forming—twisted, brutal, and clever.

If the humans valued each other that highly, maybe there was something more useful than a direct assault.

Something cruel.

Something they wouldn't expect.

Eye Stabber Ha-Rashion bared his jagged teeth in a grin that made the goblins nearby shudder.

"Fetch me the smallest, fastest goblins," he said, voice low and thick with menace. "We will not crush the fort. We will take a piece of it."

His grin widened.

"And watch it burn from the inside."

The camp buzzed with quiet tension as Ha-Rashion's orders rippled outward. Word spread quickly—not through yelling, not through drums—but through whispers and sharp nudges. This was not a call to war. It was a mission of stealth. Subtlety. Deceit.

Which was not something goblins were good at.

Still, when Eye Stabber Ha-rashion spoke, they listened. Or died.

Four runtlings had been selected: Scab, Retch, Flicker, and Nosebite. Each of them no taller than a hobgoblin's waist, jittery with nervous energy, and meaner than a bag of broken glass. They were stripped of their usual jagged armour and dressed in rags soaked in mud to dull their stench and colour.

The chief loomed over them at the edge of the forest, his enormous sword resting in the dirt behind him like a monument. "You don't fight," he growled. "You steal. You sneak. You find their holes. Their soft bits. You bring me one. One human. Drag it back here. I don't care if it screams. Let it scream. That will bring the others."

The four goblins nodded furiously, knobby heads bobbing like rats that had learned to obey the flame or die in it.

"And if you run?" Ha-rashion bent low, until his breath curled around their faces like smoke from a corpse fire. "I will find you."

That was motivation enough.

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