The Iron Teeth: A Goblin's Tale - From RoyalRoadl.com by ClearMadness

It Echoes Onward 5

Although Blacknail stopped every time he heard a twig break and studied every bush for signs of slavering monsters, he and the others made it back to the goblin lair without an incident. None of them were picked off by giant wolves, not even Khita. Blacknail didn't understand how she had survived so long.

The base was much the same as they had left it, which was unsurprising since less than a day had passed. After doing a quick patrol to make sure nothing suspicious was going on, Blacknail retired for the night. He was feeling lazy after so much walking.

When he woke up the next morning and went to grab some breakfast, there were signs of new construction going on. Over by the clay-works the hobgoblin Imp was busy constructing a building of his own. It looked like a smaller version of the longhouse Gob had built, except round. Out in front of it, Ferrar was busy digging a small pit, while goblins piled clay up beside him into a huge heap. As was normal for a project involving goblins, it was chaotic mess as goblins ran about in every direction. Half of them were so dirty they looked like mobile piles of mud. Only around Imp was there any sense of order. The hobgoblin's presence cowed the nearby goblins.

"What are you doing? Why do you need so much clay?" Blacknail asked Ferrar as he wandered over to take a look. Was the goblin going to fill the hole with clay and bathe in it? Blacknail knew Ferrar really liked clay, but that seemed silly and impractical.

"Building a furnace," Ferrar answered as he continued to dig energetically.

"Out of clay?"

"Yes, fire hardens it. Fire is great! You use clay and fire to make more clay and more fire. You can never have enough! I need more fire!" Ferrar explained as he gestured energetically at the empty hole in the ground and the pile of clay beside it.

This seemed dumb to Blacknail, but what did he know? He was only the smartest hobgoblin ever to live.

"And you can use it to make food?" Blacknail enquired in a firm tone. It was important to keep everyone's priorities straight. He was the leader.

"Yep, that too," the goblin replied absent-mindedly without looking up.

Blacknail rolled his eyes and looked over at Imp for a few moments. The hobgoblin was still busy building the hut and ordering goblins around. Feeling assured that none of his nearby minions were slacking off, going crazy, going crazier, or planning to kill him, Blacknail yawned and went to find some that were. He wanted some excitement.

Eventually, he gave up and decided to head back to Shelter. He had promised to deliver some goblins to them, and that sounded like it would be pretty amusing. After rounding up Khita and a pack of goblins, he headed out back into the forest. Khita was basically part of his disguise. Most of the people in the village seemed to like her, for some reason. However, they also planned to solve their goblin problem by importing more goblins, so they obviously weren't that smart.

After the walk through the woods, Blacknail and Khita met up with Tannin inside the gates. As promised, they brought a pair of leashed goblins with them. Blacknail had chosen them because they both looked big and lazy. Thus they were large enough to fight off other goblins and not energetic enough to get into trouble. They had both volunteered – after being grabbed and leashed - when they had learned that they would be getting free food without having to do anything to earn it.

"So these are the critters, eh?" Tannin mused as he studied the goblins. He looked and sounded skeptical.

"Yes, I trained them myself," Blacknail replied. He had smacked them aside the head and told them to behave. That counted as training.

"Do they obey commands?"

"A few simple ones, like sit and come."

"And having them around will keep other goblins out?"