A week had passed since the agreement with Blackeye and Runt was regretting the decision more and more with every passing moment. The plan had not even been enacted and the fears were gnawing at Runt. Doubts and concerns the plagued him the more he thought about his discussion with Blackeye. Things he thought he should have clarified, asked about, or accused Blackeye of hiding. Runt knew that his brother planned to gain something more from this, but what that was Runt couldn’t quite place. It worried him that on it’s face the plan seemed simple, the outcome easy enough to manage for the both of them. Fang would be killed by Blackeye, and Blackeye would take up their uncles post. It would be simple enough to claim as his, and as the person who had just killed the old holder of the title by tradition the role would have passed to him. But something about it needled Runt. It made each hour that passed torturous. A thought that clogged up his mind, a string of internal logic that nagged at him incessantly.

It wasn’t about why Blackeye wanted the role. To be one of the chiefs advisors was a prestigious position. One that many others had fought and died over. Fang himself had killed his sister to get the role, so it wasn’t the method that bugged him either. It was obvious why Blackeye wanted to subsume Fang’s place and increase his own standing. Ambition was a given for any goblin in the small tribe that Runt was born into. It would be strange if Blackeye didn’t want to kill to get it. He was next in line anyways, as the strongest of Fang’s living relatives any accident that befell the older goblin would transfer his title to Blackeye. Blackeye was strong enough to defend that title, and at most he would have to wait a handful of years for some tragedy to stumble upon their family with Fang’s name on it. But patience was not a trait goblins were known for. It made sense that Blackeye would like to speed up his ascension.

But Runt could not shake the feeling that there was something he was missing. Either something he and Blackeye hadn’t accounted for, or something about the plan itself that would endanger him. Or a missed opportunity for Blackeye to betray him that he had not identified and made impotent.

Runt knew that Blackeye would betray him, just as he knew Blackeye suspected that he would be up to something as well. Runt knew that if Blackeye’s plan went off without a hitch somehow Runt would be put into a worse position. Just as if his plan worked, Blackeye wouldn’t be completely at the top of the heap. Navigating a deal like this was to be a spider upon a mass collection of webs. Some your own, some that others inhabited. All of them fraught with dangers and traps, ready to snap up any unwary wanderers. You hoped that your traps caught enough of your enemies before yours did, but that meant any dealings could not be treated without an extreme degree of paranoia.

Perhaps if the goblins ever set aside their ambition, their greed, they could have done great things. Settled cities and formed empires. But a goblin’s worst enemy was often enough their own community. In the realm that Runt inhabited the dwarves, elves, humans and even orcs had cities that sprawled across continents, while his own people were delegated to the swamps and marshes of the world. Lands without worth, on the edges of forgotten spaces between empires. Harsh and inhospitable climates that only barely supported the life that inhabited them. Often, like with Runt’s tribe, kept afloat by other societies that bordered their own. Stealing through the night what the swamps could not provide. To many of the races that interacted with goblins they were simply seen as pests. None truly considered them an enemy, but nearly all treated them like vermin. Goblin society was kept in check by itself, not any of the others that inhabited the realm. While the orcs and humans often waged violent warfare against each other. Cities and continents burning under the banner of conquests, none could ever say they fought a war against the swamp dwellers. A campaign to force them away from a certain territory perhaps, or a way to exterminate the vermin that picked through their trash and killed their animals, but never a war. How could you fight a war against a race that built no cities? Traded no goods? Built nothing more sturdy than a tent?

Any time a goblin attempted to do something about their standing in the world, one of their own would drag them down. A farm built, only for a jealous rival to dig up all that was growing before anything useable could be harvested. A band strong enough to take territory, only to be torn apart with infighting before any major actions could be undertaken. Goblins had no uniting identity or nation to hold themselves together. They were strict individualists, only in it for themselves, and any communities they created splintered and faltered before anything could be done. The group that Runt was born into was one of these splinters, a group forced away by violence from a larger one. Small skirmishes and battles were still waged between the two tribes, both seeking to establish themselves in the swamp fully and wipe out the other. But none could remember why the original splinter had occurred, what difference of opinion led Runt and the families that made up his community pitch their tents elsewhere. Maybe in a decade one group would succeed in consuming the other, but as time would pass it too would splinter yet again and the cycle would continue. The camp they had set up and lived in was all that Runt had ever called home, and every few months it would be torn down and moved.

There was nothing permanent, nothing sacred, and that held true even for allegiances and deals that were made. In the week that Runt had been given he had been working. Mainly on treating his wounds with care, but with other preparations as well. Like many other of his kind his body was quick to heal from it’s most superficial wounds, but his fingers and ribs still needed to be handled with care. Every time he clenched his hand he could feel the strain. He felt bone grind again bone, his shattered digits only barely being kept together by the rags that surrounded them. The bumps and bruises that had covered him had slowly faded though, returning his skin to the healthy hue of the peaty swamp water that surrounded him. Some cuts and scrapes still littered his scalp, but there wasn’t much he do about them at this point. His ankle had healed to the point where he could walk with only the slightest of limps, and that was hopefully all that he needed. He knew that if he had to push himself in the coming hours everything had already gone awry. A little extra mobility in his fingers or speed upon his legs wouldn’t do much if their plan failed.

Their first part of the plan had gone off without a hitch. An idea to start another raid upon the humans was floated and most of the camp agreed, including Fang. Already the spoils from the last raid were beginning to rot and go bad. Food that had been fought over, that blood had been spilled to steal, had either been eaten or tossed aside. The animals of the swamp had long ago learned to stay away from the camp so hunting was hard, and what meagre plant matter they could scrounge would barely tide them over for a few days. The goblin camp was always on the edge of starvation. The cooling period of autumn was in full swing and that only made things worse. Already there were rumbles and a few smaller groups had slipped out to steal from the outskirts of the closest village. Small raids that brought back barely enough to keep the raiders alive in the next few days, especially as the vultures began to circle and snatch at whatever crumbs that they had found.

Runt rarely went along on these excursions. Long ago learning that no matter how much effort he spent of attaining something worthwhile, someone waiting back at camp would simply take it from him. He raided when he absolutely needed to, only to get the necessities that he couldn’t scavenge from his own kind. Nothing was worse then spending a night in a dangerous city, spilling blood and sweat to gather barely enough to make it through another week, then returning to the camp and having someone who had deigned to not join on the raid simply take what he had earned. So he had learned to spend the effort elsewhere. Joining the ranks of the vultures that flitted in and out to take what the could. It was much safer, and much more efficient to do so. You only missed out on one aspect of the raids, and that was something Runt had little use of in the first place. Glory.

It wasn’t a coincidence that many of the more palatable goblins names in his tribe were gained from participating in raids. What passed for warriors in his community often went on every raid, returning with stories and evidence of their exploits. Their space in the encampment entirely dependent on their successes out in the field. Goblins like Teeth, who claimed to have stolen a tooth from every human child that had crossed her path. Or Axebreaker, who stated that a human guard had once broken the blade of their axe against his skull, the gnarled scar upon his face proof that he had lived through it. Goblins that fed themselves with the tales they brought back from the raids. Using the rumours that grew from them to intimidate those that could be convinced to part with some of their own spoils.

Runt was to become one of these upon the end of this raid. And he was already nibbling at the idea he could float for the name he would be addressed by. Kinslayer, was apt and accurate, but perhaps a bit too fancy for his taste. Bloodletter was good as well, but didn’t quite have the right punch. In between bouts of panicked planning, name searching was how he occupied his time. Dreaming of a future just within his grasp.

Which was what he was currently doing as he trudged through the knee high mud that made up much of the swamp outside of their clearing. He was part of a group made up from the many disparate members of his family. Uncles, aunts, cousins and siblings all marched through the cold drizzle that surrounded them all. All were miserable, but aware enough to know the most miserable of nights were the best to raid upon. The rain would cover their tracks and their scent, and many of the human guards would be huddling over flames or simply waiting out the storm. It made the misery bearable to know that greater prizes potentially await. Green and vibrant plant life began to give way to clearer stretches of off coloured water. Pathways that wound through the edges of the swamp picked out by those who had walked them before and destinations barked out among the groups.

Runt’s ears flapped on either side of his head as he turned his gaze to the swamp around him, peering into the fog. Every so often a yellowed or reddish light would flicker back in his direction, others of his kind upon the same task he was. Other families and groups from their tribe settling upon their own paths and routes. But not all were his kind which was why they travelled with their families despite the danger they represented. Every so often another set of eyes would peer out from the gloom of late evening. Eyes that represented predators and other creatures of the night waking up for their nightly patrols. Eyes that rarely attacked groups, but did so often enough to warrant concern.

A crack of a log, and a loud splash caught his attention. The green skinned kin that surrounded him twisting at the noise as well. The sounds of something grunting and a large amount of mud being shifted, then another crack as the creature moved away. Something that had been disturbed by the goblins travelling close to where it slumbered, but dangerous enough to only be annoyed and not afraid as it lumbered away. Bets were quickly made, teasing chants whispered between the youths, before one snapped at the chance to earn some fame. One of Runt’s cousins, Flea, rushing off into the thick bushes towards the sound they had heard. A minute more of silent marching and then her almost silent return to the group.

Some grumbled, a small bet now lost, but others quizzed the youth. Whether or not she had actually completed the dare and scouted what the creature had been was up for debate, but the information could be useful nonetheless. This was a route the family used often, and they needed to know what had perhaps set up it’s den nearby.

“It was dark, so I couldn’t get a good look of it, but it was big, massive. Scaly I thinks too, big as one of those humie homes, maybe even bigger.” A groan passed through the crowd, Flea’s habit of embellishment shining through. Most already tuned out, knowing whatever was next was a lie, but Runt leaned closer, his ears twitching as Flea caught his attention. “I swear, you know I never lie,” she continued, that statement alone dropping Runt’s attention, his eyes rolling as he turned back to focus on where his feet were treading, “I swear it was a wyrm, or a dragon or something! Or one of those lizard things that Fang killed.”

One of the last older members of the family still listening rumbled with a nod, glancing at Fang who led the group through the storm. His namesake swinging from the rusted chain upon his neck, Runt’s eyes quickly picking out it’s details even in the sightless swampy night. The scaled leather that made up his crude cloak protecting him from the storm in a way that none of the others could even dream to share.

“Alligator,” rumbled the elder beside Runt, a worried look upon his face as he cast his gaze towards the reeds that surrounded them.

His newfound paranoia was shortly lived though as the group crested the peaty hill that marked the start of true human territory. The swamp before them was cleared of all vegetation, and wooden polled buildings sat above the mud that made up their world. Firelight flickered in shuttered windows, wind howling through the buildings dripping and pooling with water. Logs many a times wider than Runt stood tall rose like towers among the huddled hovels, capped with platforms that twisted and connected in ways that seemed to change every time the goblins paid a visit. Multilayered homes sat upon platforms that seemingly rose ever higher into the sky. Building merging with building until they eventually met swamp.

Mirefort, the city without streets. Built layer by layer above the swamp, avoiding the terror of such a muddy life by claiming the sky above it. To the goblins it was a familiar but still awe inspiring sight. To the humans that had built it, it was a crude, squat, and horrible place to live. A den of criminal activity, where the dregs of society filtered to. Mud sent to mud. An outpost at the edge of the world, inhabited by people who had nowhere else to go. Poverty and crime so rampant that the thousands who lived here had long passed below the gaze of their civilized rulers. A forgotten stain upon a society that had to end somewhere.

As Blackeye and Runt glanced at each other, their eyes flickering in the gloom a grin passed upon both of their faces. Fang would meet his end upon the logs that stretched out before them. And if Runt had his way, Blackeye would too.