The Dark Lord gathered his forces at the edge of the forest, his troops already past the Eberon River. He had sent out scouting teams along the forest edge to find the best target for the next raid. The goblins were of course tasked to find a wealthy village from which they could extract great amounts of loot, but they had a second even more important task. Zal’Rodal had charged them to look for a village with a high amount of skilled labourers, smiths, tailors, fletchers, and anyone else whose production capabilities greatly surpassed his goblins. The plan for this raid included the taking of prisoners, who would either work for him or teach some of the not-so-stupid goblins how to do their jobs.
The goblin scouts came back with reports of a village that fulfilled all the requirements, the village was called Ebbing and was situated upriver not too far from their current position. The goblins had spotted a variety of stores within the village, he was sure that they had found a blacksmith based on their descriptions, apparently, they heard the ringing of metal on metal from a man banging on something with a hammer. Zal’Rodal ordered his troops to march out towards the village, the Stenjin in his company were pulling a number of shoddy wagons behind them, he was planning to carry off more loot than what the goblins could carry on their backs.
Ebbing was an unremarkable place as far as human villages went. It was larger than the target of his previous raid and was also part of the kingdom of Arberon. He was sure that his forces would soon have to fight against the Arberonian army if he continued raiding their villages, one more reason to get some proper equipment sorted in time for the fighting. Zal’Rodal spotted Ebbing in the distance, there were some separate houses scattered closer to the river while most of them clumped together around the village square. Plumes of smoke rose from the individual houses as evening approached. The villagers were slowly returning home carrying their tools on their backs, some of the villagers sat down in front of what he could only assume to be the local tavern. Perhaps they could steal something decent to eat and drink again.
Small border towns such as Ebbing held a special place in the hearts of goblins. For one the way back home to their bases was shorter after raiding such a town, and more importantly, nobody really bothered with protecting these small towns. Additionally, the towns were always built next to a forest or had an unharvested wheat field making for the ideal terrain to sneak up and catch everyone unawares. The Dark Lord and his minions did just that, they approached the village by moving through the forest, once they were close enough the Stenjin were asked to wait with their wagons while the goblins approached.
The raid on Ebbing was rather unremarkable, there were no defences ready to meet them, and there did not seem to be a retired adventurer ready to toss goblins through the air. Zal’Rodal stood ready and blew into a hunting horn that a goblin patrol had “borrowed” from some humans they found in the forest and the attack began. The goblins charged out of the woodwork, spreading out to attack both the houses by the river and the village plaza. The green horde rushed forward yelling their high-pitched war cries and flailing around their crude weapons as they raced forward. The first villagers to notice, and unfortunate enough to make the goblins’ acquaintance, were those who decided it was a good evening for fishing. However, this time the goblins did not slaughter the population but instead subdued the fishermen with ropes and nets or pummelled them with their cudgels till they stopped resisting.
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Most of the goblins ran past the subdued villagers leaving others to guard while they looted the houses. Zal’Rodal had implemented a loot-sharing policy making it irrelevant who ended up reaching the loot first, of course, exceptional service was still rewarded with extra loot but this way the goblins could organise instead of acting as an uncontrollable looting horde. The goblins came out of the houses with anything they considered to be of value, food, gold, jewellery, pots, and pans, most of the actual gold and jewellery ended up inside the pots and pans as they carried them towards the wagons. One goblin ran past Zal’Rodal wearing three hats stacked on top of each other. Another was dragging a loom behind him, determined to steal it despite not knowing what it did.
The villagers in the square did not put up much of a resistance either, linen tunics and kitchen knives were famously ineffective equipment against a goblin raid. Some of the goblins started carrying off the actual villagers instead of their valuables towards the assembled carts where they tied them up. The raid was turning out to be a resounding success, the only goblin injury was a sprained ankle and slight burn wounds as it fell onto the fire pit while jumping between the tavern’s roof beams. The Tavern itself had caught fire after the incident and was releasing a great cloud of smoke into the sky, but a little fire should be expected during a raid.
Zal’Rodal felt something tugging at his sleeve, he turned to see one of the Stenjin next to him humming quietly and tapping its feet on the ground. “There are strange things coming,” the Stenjin said pointing at a hill beyond the village. The Dark Lord raised his hand to his face trying to block out the light of dusk, he couldn’t see anything apart from a lonely tree upon the hill.
“What do you sense beyond the hill?” he asked.
The Stenjin tapped the ground again and Zal’Rodal saw that the other golems were doing the same. “There are four-legged creatures moving towards the village. I am not sure what they are,” the Stenjin seemed to think for a moment, “not deer I think.”
“How many do you sense?” the Dark Lord asked, hoping that these might just be peasants rushing home.
“There appear to be twenty-three such creatures,” the Stenjin said, “they will crest the hill soon.”
Zal’Rodal called his goblins to arms, they lined themselves up using the houses as cover and prepared their weapons. He would have to split his forces as some would have to stay in the forest looking over the prisoners. He commanded the Stenjin to stand in front of the troops, though they weren’t fighters their stone bodies were nearly impenetrable. Then he saw them.
First came the banner, a flash of yellow against the fading light. A black tower loomed on its fabric, unmoving. Then came the riders, emerging one by one, their silhouettes sharp against the dusk. The riders spread out atop the hill and observed the village and its burning tavern. These were not peasants returning home. Spear blades glinted in the sun as they put on shining helmets upon their heads. They were an Arberonian patrol coming to see the origin of the smoke. Zal’Rodal did not expect to face armoured soldiers on this raid or he would have convoked the goblin tribes in the forest. Now he remembered one of the goblin scouts had come back saying “Saw footprintz near the river. Not goblin. Not humanz. Looked… horsey.” Zal’Rodal had dismissed those words at the time, now he wished he hadn’t.
The goblins outnumbered the riders at least five to one, even so the odds were strongly against them. He ordered his goblins to scream and to raise weapons with both their hands so that their numbers would appear larger. Most of the goblins seemed excited at the prospect of combat, yet most of them had never fought anything but village yokels. He hoped the riders would leave and look for reinforcements, that would give them enough time to retreat into the woods. The banner carrier raised a horn to his lips and blew a long note upon it and the horsemen started charging towards them.
