“The goblins are definitely planning something, Father,” Yarid, the Prince of the elves, said to his father, Leonyx the King of the elves.
“Up to no good, are they?” King Leonyx replied; the king had to fight to keep the corners of his mouth from turning up sharply into a wide grin. “The goblins are up to something? Are the goblins going to get into some mischief? Are the goblins going to start making trouble and being naughty? Naughty little goblins, eh?”
Yarid frowned.
“Father, I am not joking. Take this seriously.”
“Oh, please, Yarid. Come on! I will not take this joke and farce of a concern seriously. The goblins are evil, but they are disorganized and stupid. They have not had a general or king with half a brain to command them in over a thousand years. They are no threat to us.”
Yarid tried to pace back and forth nervously in front of his father, but the two elves were currently standing atop the tall, high branch of a giant green tree that towered high up in the forest, and the branch did not have much room in which to pace. Still, Yarid took a few steps forward, his feet deftly and dexterously tracing the precise zigzag line of the branch. He reached the end of the branch and retraced his steps back, and he paced forward and back, forward and back.
“I’m sorry, Yarid, but I fail to see your concern,” King Leonyx said. “We elves have lived in these lands, near the forest and the river and Temple Mountain, the lands which we call the fae realm, since the dawn of time. For as long as any elf can remember, which is a long time, the goblins have laid claim to our land, even though no goblins have ever lived in these lands, and the fae realm has always belonged to faerie. Since the dawn of time, the goblins have wanted to take our land from us. Once every few hundred years, they attack us, and our soldiers repel them, and then peace lasts until the goblins try again... although the goblins have not attacked in a thousand years, and I became king three hundred years ago, so I never had to lead the war against them. No goblin army has ever breached into the heart of the fae realm; our soldiers always stop their army at our border. The goblins have given up, as far as I am concerned: they have not attacked us in over a thousand years! What has changed?”
Yarid was facing off the tree from the tip of the branch; he stopped abruptly in his pacing, and, like a dancer, spun his feet around in a perfect half-circle to face the King. “Concerning reports are coming in from the watch towers and border patrols to the north! Entire regiments of goblins who normally prowl the low hills below the mountains are missing from their appointed rounds. Where are they? And our elf scouts report that the goblin warriors who rule over the goblin villages to the northwest have sent their soldiers up, into the goblin mountains. Why?”
Yarid paused. Neither of the two elves said anything.
After a moment, Leonyx relented. “Well, why?”
Yarid was waiting for this moment. “Because the goblins are amassing an army in the mountains, with which they plan to attack us!”
King Leonyx sat down on the branch and dangled his feet over the edge of the branch. The green base of the forest below was dense with branches, trees, and bushes, so thick that only green could be seen and no brown dirt was there to be seen at all. But the dirt was there somewhere: the ground was several hundred feet below them. The sky above was overcast with white-gray clouds; no sun could be seen. The forest was filled by gargantuan trees, and the forest breathed with life. The fae could sense, and feel, with their Yellow magic, the living, breathing presence of all the plants and animals and insects surrounding them, from the supernaturally large butterflies that fluttered nearby, to the giant wolves and huge snakes prowling down low in the shadows beneath the foliage, to the giant hawks and falcons soaring above. Although the elves called it a forest, the land was warm and humid and rained frequently and this region had no cold season, giving rise to a jungle-like overgrowth and an explosion of flora and fauna within their fae realm.
“Preposterous! I know you are a devout young man, Yarid, and I know that you do not smoke crazy-leaf, so I don’t know where this nonsense enters your head,” Leonyx said. Yarid was two-hundred years old, but to his father, who was five-hundred years old, Yarid was still just a boy. Leonyx began to stroke his chin, and he peered at Yarid; the father and son both had the same bright blue eyes, in addition to sharing other traits, such as their thin, tall frame, long blonde hair and pale alabaster-white skin. Like all fae, both elves enjoyed eternal youth, and so they both looked like young men, but Yarid was even taller than his father, and, while Leonyx was skinny and wiry, Yarid combined his slim, slender grace with huge well-defined muscles that bulged from his chest, upper arms and upper legs, and even along his forearms, tummy and calves, causing Yarid’s figure to be more curvy and full-bodied than the sharp, narrow, angular lines that formed Leonyx’s body.
Yarid was shirtless and wore dark orange-yellow leather pants that fit tightly, showing his thick muscles. He also wore boots that went up to just below his knees; the boots were laced up with a bright yellow lace that showed in sharp contrast against the darker orange-yellow of the boots. He kept a gigantic iron longsword almost as tall as he was strapped to his back by means of iron chains he had wrapped around his shoulders and chest. The chains formed the shape of an X across his chest. The sword was held in place against his upper back by means of the chains being looped into the holes of several small hoops that had been forged into the sheath in which the blade was held. The sword was a magic sword that had been a badge of honor bestowed upon the faerie prince when he came of age, but it was very much a real longsword, and he had learned how to wield it in a very real way. Its handle was one foot long and intended to be held with both hands; the blade itself was five feet long. If he swung or thrust the sword with all his might while using his fae Yellow magic to enhance his muscles, he had the ability to pierce solid stone or carve a hole into the face of a mountain.
Leonyx wore a tight bright yellow vest and lemon-yellow pants that were puffy and baggy enough to hide his legs, although his lean, bony knees poked up from within them like twigs. Both elves wore golden crowns, shaped like a tiara or a diadem, little more than a thin gold ring encircled around their heads, although the bands of gold were thicker and more intricate in the front at their foreheads. Every so often, Yarid would reach up and smooth back the locks of his blonde hair, to push them back behind his crown, because his hair frequently came out and fell in front of his eyes. Both men had perfectly smooth faces, just as their bodies were perfectly smooth and supple: the fae could not grow hair on their body except for their long golden-blonde hair that grew from their heads and eyebrows. The elves’ ears tapered into long pointy tips, and their noses were also pointy, but the points of their noses were not nearly as long as the points of their ears.
Yarid’s hair was braided into a single thick, long, intricate braid of golden-blonde hair, as thick as his own wrist, in an ornate design in which his hair was braided into smaller braids and those smaller braids were themselves braided into one large braid. His braid of hair flowed down his back to his buttocks like a long tail, or like a thick long rope. If he were to let his hair out of the braid it would cover his entire back like a cape, but he had worn it this way for a hundred years, and he had no plans to change it. Yarid was careful to keep the chain tight around his chest, shoulders and upper back, so that his sword was held firm in place and his long braid of hair would fall behind his sword instead of getting caught in it, but Yarid’s hair did not caught up in his sword often: his braid of hair was so thick that it could not easily fit into the gap between the sword and his back, and the long handle of his sword poked up above the base of his head from which the braid descended down his back, so the hair could not easily wrap around the handle.
Yarid cared about his hair looking nice. Leonyx did not. In contrast to Yarid’s carefully maintained and well-crafted hairstyle, King Leonyx wore his long gold-blonde hair in a chaotic mess, hair loose, flowing freely down around his shoulders and back, with broken or frayed ends and many clumps that needed to be combed. It was so obviously unkempt that Yarid thought it was possibly intentionally done so, although he would never be rude enough to ask. Elves rarely asked rude questions of one another, because their fae Yellow magic forced them to always tell the truth, unless they kept silent and said nothing at all. I pray that your thoughts are more organized than your hair, my King, Yarid thought.
“You are correct. I do not smoke crazy-leaf,” Yarid said. “To do so would be a sin.”
Leonyx chuckled. “Each person has those sins they are ashamed of and would kill to hide, and each person also has those sins of which they are proud and brag about quite loudly. You are very tense, Yarid, and you are also very intense. I do hear the rumors about the many fae men and fae women whom you bed. For someone who is a lover to so many, you should be more relaxed. Otherwise, what is the point, really? Are you this tense and intense in bed with your lovers, too? I should imagine it wouldn’t be a very good experience for them.”
“Ew, gross, I’m not going to tell my own father about my love life!” Yarid said.
Leonyx snickered. “And I would be just as happy not hearing about it at all, yet the rumors swirl so loudly that my ears cannot escape them. I won’t ask you if I have any grandchildren by you; I’m sure I’ll hear about them in due course, if I do. One day, you know, you will have to take a bride, or a husband, a consort of some sort from among the fae, because this is necessary under our laws for you to ascend the throne. And that will be the end of your days as a lover boy. For elves, marriage entails the creation of a sacred fae covenant, a fae pact produced through a magic ritual that happens during the fae wedding, whereby the souls of the two spouses are bound to each other and wedded together for all eternity. Husband and wife, or husband and husband if you prefer, are honor-bound by their fae wedding pact to take no other lover while they are married, which means, for the rest of their lives.”
Yarid turned away from his father and stared off into the distance. Monkeys, birds, squirrels, and giant insects, all crawled about the treetops of the huge, giant, lush green foliage surrounding them. The animals frolicked and ran around in mindless, carefree oblivion, having no concerns more pressing than to find something to eat, or to run or fly about in circles for no reason. A gigantic butterfly, its wings decorated by warm orange-yellow swirling patterns on panels of black gossamer, flapped its wings vigorously and flitted across the sky; the bug went by so fast that it was there one moment, gone the next. This is his concern. Not goblins or wars, but me getting married. Typical.
“Yes, I know that,” Yarid said. “I have been preparing for the duties I will bear upon taking the throne for decades, and I am well-versed in the elf laws and customs that will govern me as king. But that is a problem for me if, and when, you are dead, when I assume the throne. For now, my King, you are alive. And right now, we have more pressing and urgent matters to worry about: the goblins.”
Leonyx pressed the palm of his hand to his face in exasperation. “Please! Back to this again? You will have to take the throne soon after all, because you will have pushed me to an early grave with anxiety! What is it with you? What is your true concern, Yarid?”
Yarid’s blue eyes gazed at his father. “Surely you know.”
“Do I? No, I do not. Please enlighten me with the incredible knowledge you have that I do not after having lived for three hundred years longer than you have.”
“The Crystal of the Elements!” Yarid said; he threw up his hands pointedly in frustration, and he ignored the look of bemused disdain that his father gave him in response. How can that not be the first thought in the mind of the King of the elves? “The Temple of the Elements lies at the heart of the elf lands, and, within it, is the sacred Crystal which God entrusted to the fae to protect. When God banished the dragons at the behest of the White magic prayers of Zebyx and Gargarez, he gave the Crystal of Light to King Gargarez of the humans, and he gave the Crystal of the Elements to King Zebyx of the elves. We keep that Crystal, after all these millennia, at the very heart of the inner sanctum of our most sacred temple, carved into the mountain that rises from the center of the faerie lands. It is our task to protect it, much as humans protect the Crystal of Light. Do you think that the goblins would like to destroy it? I think so! And, if our Crystal dies, then that leaves only the Crystal of Light left. If both Crystals are destroyed, then the covenant between God, man, and elves is broken. The sages say that this would harbinger the end of our world, because the dragons will return.”
Leonyx pouted, causing wrinkles to blemish the otherwise pure flat planes of his cheeks. “You are paranoid, and cynical. You remind me of my grandfather, your great-grandfather: all he ever wanted to do was talk of swords and axes and wars and conquests. And blood; grandfather did so enjoy talking about the blood of those he had slain in battle. For whatever strange reason of his, blood was the conclusion of every story he would tell me when I was a small elf child and I sat on his lap and listened to him tell stories of wars and battles he had fought. Back in his day, elves and goblins fought frequently. Those days are over. The goblins will never do this thing of which you fear. Our entire elf army stands in the way!”
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“I do not agree, Father.”
“You are wrong, Son! And, my boy, keep in mind that the elves have a treaty of alliance with the Imperium for our protection. If the goblins attack us with their forces from the north, they will leave themselves utterly defenseless to a reprisal attack from their northeast, from the army of the Imperium. The goblin leaders are stupid, but they are not suicidal. I almost think you are taking to the crazy-leaf, perhaps behind my back so as not to displease me. You can be honest; I puff myself, from time to time, although I take some shame to admit it.”
Yarid turned his back to Leonyx and gazed out into the blue sky, wanting to look anywhere except at his father. A gust of wind blew across the trees, scattering leaves and causing the nearby animals to howl and chatter and squawk. Yarid’s footing and balance on the long narrow tree branch he was pacing up and down upon was perfect; the wind did not budge him. But the wind blew Yarid’s blonde hair at the front of his forehead out of his crown and into his face. He carefully tucked his hair back in behind his crown.
“You do not take this threat seriously, my King. To rely upon the humans of the Imperium for protection when the mighty strength of a fae army is yours to command is lunacy. You ignore the goblins and the threat that they pose to us, even though you are honor-bound by a fae covenant that obligates you to protect our people from all threats at any cost to yourself as our King. The goblins are stupid and evil. I know this; everyone knows this. But that does not mean they are harmless. And their stupidity does not excuse your cowardice. You underestimate the goblins. That is obvious. I am fae and so I cannot lie, so do not ask me what, if anything, I intend to do on my own to counter the goblin threat. I am the prince of the elves, and I take my fae covenant to protect my people seriously; indeed, the very magic that flows through my blood forces me to honor my fae pacts.”
Leonyx sighed. “I will not ask you that question, my son. However, if it makes you feel any better, I tell you that I plan to leave soon to journey to Imperia to renegotiate certain aspects of our trade deals with the merchant guilds. While there, I will request a meeting with the human King, and make sure that his knights stand strong and ready to come to our aid if need be. Knock on wood, they won’t have to.” Leonyx reached down and rapped his knuckles on the tree branch he was sitting on. Yarid said nothing. “If this meeting that you requested with me has ended, my boy, then there is no longer any reason for me to be here. I retire back to my palace. Farewell.”
The King cast a Yellow magic spell of teleportation and vanished instantly. Yarid growled, but there was no one there to hear it. He could have descended hundreds of feet back down to the ground in an instant with his own Yellow magic of teleportation, but he needed to vent some rage. He began to climb down, limb by limb, branch by branch, as fast and agile as a monkey and as strong as a guerilla. When he was two hundred feet up, he looked down, gazed down at the ground, and suddenly let go. He dropped, head-first, crashing through the leaves and hurtling down to the ground, his arms crossed over his chest and making no effort to grab onto any nearby tree or branch. In the precise moment before he was going to crash into the ground, shattering every bone in his body and splattering into a mess of blood, he cast his Yellow teleport spell. He vanished.
Yarid teleported to a spot outside the front door of the stone cottage where he lived alone. The cottage was in the grassy plains in the northern part of the elf lands, and no other buildings were nearby, so that Yarid could be by himself, separated from his duties as a faerie prince, when he was at home. The cabin was a round structure made of large stone blocks stacked together, with a flat, thatched straw roof, and it served as the lone bump in an otherwise flat horizon if one looked at the plains from afar.
As soon as he appeared out of thin air, he sighed. Yarid took a moment to look around and survey the fae lands spread out in every direction. The plains were flat, so he could see far into the distance, and he could see much farther than any human thanks to his keen fae vision. To the south, he could see the lush elf forest, its trees towering like majestic green spires rising to great and proud heights. To the southeast, near the forest, a lone, single mountain rose up, its blueish-gray-white body tapering up into a sharp, high cliff. Yarid could not see it, but he knew that the elves had carved rooms and halls into that mountain, and the Temple of the Elements was located inside the mountain.
To the west a long river flowed. To the southwest, the elves lived in a series of settlements and towns and villages; the location was ideal because the elves could be close to the forest at the south and to the river at the west. Yarid smiled when he saw the many elf dwellings, mostly round cabins and cottages made of stone, wood, thatch and brick, built low to the ground. His fae people bustled about, living their lives, nothing but happy smiles on their pale-white faces framed by gold-blonde hair. Wind swept choppy ice-blue waves along the surface of the wide lake near the towns and next to the river. The east was a wide, desolate brown valley that that the river had carved as it moved through that land over the centuries. Yarid frowned; he knew that, to complete his survey, he must now look north.
To the north, the long flat grassy plains went on for miles but then evolved into lumpy blue-green foothills which dotted the landscape. Farther north, the hills gave way to a wide range of dark grayish-black mountains which loomed at the horizon, cutting up from the land like jagged crooked teeth, stretching all the way from the northwest to the northeast in a long row. The goblins lived in those dark mountains. The peaks were so high that Yarid could see nothing beyond them.
Yarid opened the door of his cabin, which he kept unlocked, and walked inside. The interior of the cabin contained one single circular room, which was large and spacious, but it had no windows. A single magical orb enchanted with fae Yellow magic floated in midair, its soft warm glow illuminating the rough-hewn gray stone walls, gray stone-tiled floor and tan-yellow-brown ceiling. Yarid took off the metal chains from across his chest and placed his longsword down flat across the surface of one of the only two pieces of furniture in the room, a long table-length wooden desk which had many drawers beneath it. The desk’s tabletop surface was bare of objects except for the sword, and its drawers were neatly pushed in and closed. The only other item of furniture in the cabin was Yarid’s bed. The room contained no chairs. Yarid liked to walk or pace or stand, and he hated to sit down; when he had to, he sat on his bed.
The cabin contained no ornaments made of elf gold, no royal banners hung from the ceiling, no suits of golden armor or treasure chests full of gemstones or other items of treasure were on display in the room, no thick colorful carpets covered the rough gray stone tiles of the floor. The cabin was just stone, straw, the desk, and the bed. His bed, a king-sized bed with yellow sheets made of soft silk and velvet, was waiting for him. It’s been a long day. Perhaps sleep, and dreams, would chase these fears of goblins from my mind.
But Yarid did not lie down in the bed to rest or to sleep. Instead, he began to pace back and forth, walking up and down the bare, rough surface of the stone floor in a perfectly straight line that bisected the circle of the room, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Eventually he stopped, and just stood, in the exact center of his stone cabin.
Yarid cast a Yellow magic spell of telepathy and sent out a message to three other elves: I WOULD SPEAK WITH YOU. PLEASE COME TO ME.
AS YOU COMMAND, MY PRINCE, came three prompt replies.
Within moments, three other fae appeared within the small, round chamber of the cabin, having teleported in using Yellow magic. Yarid smiled when he saw them.
The elves Rynn, Zalen and Zalyx bowed to Yarid; he nodded back to them in acknowledgement. Rynn was female, with long blonde hair, large blue eyes, and a shapely hourglass figure whose wide breasts and hips tapered to a narrow waist and slender legs; although she kept her body hidden beneath the folds of her golden-amber-yellow hooded cloak, Yarid knew exactly what she looked like naked, because she was one of Yarid’s many lovers. She was also the general of the elf army, and one of Yarid’s most loyal allies among the fae nobles.
Zalen and Zalyx were twin brothers; both were faerie pixie elves, which meant that they were shorter than the other elves and had huge translucent gossamer wings sprouting from their backs. Like all fae born with wings, they had the Yellow-magical ability to take flight and fly like a bird or insect. The twin boys had impish, mischievous smiles on their handsome faces above their lithe athletic bodies, although their eyes gazed at Yarid with a look of dark seriousness that belied the humor perpetually radiating from their bright smiles. They were both only forty years old, so Yarid considered them to be young fae: an elf was not considered to be a mature adult until at least age sixty or seventy or older, although elves hit puberty in their teens and started taking lovers in their teens or twenties, like humans. Despite being forty, their faces and bodies had the bloom of youth of a human who was aged eighteen or nineteen or twenty, as did all elves at any age.
The two faerie pixie boys were wearing tight-fitting leather sunshine-yellow pants, and nothing else: their feet were as bare as their chests. Yarid had tried to woo and seduce both Zalen and Zalyx in the past, but both faeries had resisted his charms and said no to him, at least for now. Elves did not die of old age and could live for thousands of years, so they viewed age, and an age difference between lovers, differently than humans, who were far more obsessed with age due to short mortal human lifespans. Nonetheless, Yarid hitting on Zalen and Zalyx had pushed right up against the limits of what was socially acceptable in the fae community. The twins did not hold it against Yarid: there were not many elves in their tribe whom the elf prince had not asked to sleep with him at some point, so everyone knew Yarid’s reputation as a horny sex-obsessed fae and had forgiven him for it. Still, Zalen and Zalyx standing right in front of him conjured up thoughts of the lust he had felt, and still did feel, for them. Don’t think about sex right now! Yarid thought. My mind wanders towards sex a lot, but this is about bigger things than me! Zalen and Zalyx are my best elf scouts, and I have faith they will learn the truth about the goblins for me.
“What are your orders, my Prince?” Rynn said.
“My father the King will do nothing. He does not regard the goblins’ strange recent behaviors as suspicious or a threat. He does not take them seriously.”
“But you do,” Zalen said. “And, my Prince, I’m guessing that if you care, then so do we.”
“I would hope that you would care,” Yarid said. “In any event, you two are the best scouts in the elf army, and the most talented among the scouts who are loyal to me. I want you to fly out north, up to the goblin mountains. See what is happening. Be on the lookout especially to see if the goblins are amassing an army. If they are, I need their troop locations and your best guess as to how many troops they have. If you find nothing, then so be it, and I will drop the matter entirely. Go now, and report back as soon as you have something worth reporting.”
The faerie brothers bowed in unison to Yarid. “We live to serve, my Prince,” they said simultaneously. Then they cast a Yellow magic spell that caused them to teleport away.
Rynn walked to Yarid and lightly placed the fingers of her left hand on his shoulder. He looked at her. His eyes met hers. Rynn was several hundred years older than Yarid, but, with her fae eternal youth, she looked like a young woman, barely older than a girl. The two of them had been mating for decades, and Yarid was attracted to Rynn’s fae beauty: her lustrous blue eyes and golden-blonde hair seemed to shine brighter than the other elves. But Yarid also liked also to the fact that she was never jealous of his other lovers, and that her desire for him was obvious and intense. Their love was something they kept separate from their political and military relationship as prince to commanding general; their personal lives were more special, in a way, not to be lowered to the level of mere politics. Rynn gazed into Yarid’s eyes, and, unable to resist, she took hold of his head in her hands and kissed him. It was a brief, short kiss, just her lips against his, but she could feel his anxiety even in the tightness of his lips as they kissed, and then she pulled back. She turned aside and gazed at the bare stone wall of his cabin, looking away from Yarid.
“Is it true?” Rynn asked. “Are the goblins coming? The elves have not been at war for a thousand years. Our soldiers, my warriors, are strong. But my soldiers have not been tested by real combat in a very long time. I fear for what might happen.”
Yarid walked up to Rynn and took hold of her left hand with his right hand. He felt the soft supple warmth of the skin of her fingers with his large, muscular, pale alabaster-white hand.
“I wish that I could say something to assuage your fears. Indeed, I wish there was anything to make my own fears go away,” Yarid said to Rynn. “But, for now, there is not. Perhaps it is all just a fever-dream. Right now, we know nothing, so no basis exists to justify our fears. We will learn more when Zalen and Zalyx return.”
Rynn turned around and looked Yarid directly in the face. “Until then, there is one thing that you and I can do to relax,” she said with a smile.
Yarid cocked an eyebrow at her, and then he, too, grinned. “Yes, I think we can,” he said. He and Rynn embraced, and began to kiss each other again, although these kisses were more passionate and savage than their earlier one. The two elves collapsed together into a heap on Yarid’s yellow-sheeted bed.
Two weeks later, Zalen and Zalyx returned to the faerie lands. The twins used Yellow telepathy magic to inform Yarid that they were back. Yarid then sent out a thought that summoned the twins, and Rynn, back to his cabin.
“What news?” Yarid asked.
Zalen and Zalyx looked at each other. It was Zalen who spoke first. “The goblins have amassed an army, and they are already on the march,” Zalen said. “You were right, Yarid. The goblin army is heading directly for us.”
Yarid’s face would have turned pale if it had not already been almost-perfectly matte white.
“And how many goblin warriors are there?” Yarid asked.
“Yes, the number of goblins matters,” Rynn added. “My army of five thousand soldiers can easily defeat a force of up to three thousand goblins, while taking few, if any, losses. I have archers who can rain death down from afar, and my swordsmen would clean up the goblin mess after that. We can handle and contain up to five thousand goblins with victory being certain, although that would come with casualties, and the thought of any elf dying fills me with revulsion and disgust. But with more goblins than that, victory is no longer certain, and the outcome will hinge on the valor of our troops, and the number of foes they face. I doubt that there could be more than five thousand goblin soldiers. The goblins do not have more soldiers available to them, even with all the goblins lurking in all the caverns and halls and fiery hells buried deep within the goblin mountains and the pits below them, too.”
“Your doubt is, perhaps, not quite doubtful enough,” Zalen said. Zalen said nothing else. Yarid and Rynn waited. They stared at Zalen. Zalen said nothing. Yarid and Rynn looked at Zalyx, but he pointedly looked away, carefully studying a speck of dust behind Yarid and Rynn.
“What do you mean?” Yarid asked. “Just say it! What is happening?”
“I hate to say this, my Prince, my Lady,” Zalyx said. “And my brother also hates to say it, so I will. The goblin army that is heading straight at us has nine thousand goblin warriors. Their supply lines are strong, and they are on the march. They cut tunnels from the mountains into the hills, so that they could get closer to us undetected, before emerging into the light of day. The goblins will be here in three days.”
