The Great Goblin was dead. They had witnessed his end at the point of a thousand spears and a hundred lances. He had been the strongest in any of the Goblin armies that assailed this dying empire. The Goblins marched on passed his fallen body, weeping and raging with bloodied weapons in their claws, following their leader into the city to break what they had once built, long ago. The leader of the Goblin armies strode through the destruction with an aura of wrath wrapped around him like the tattered dark cloak that billowed behind his midnight black steel armor.
It would be the last day the sun would touch down and settle over the horizon, the last evening for this empire to live. Its surviving citizens were being hunted down in the streets and butchered for the sins of their people. The few that hid in their homes were found and the homes were brought down around the families in stone, wood, fire, and death.
The leader of the Goblins stalked up the ancient pyramid that stood tall in the center of the capital city of this ridiculous empire. A set of spearmen rushed him in ornate golden and silver arms. The Goblin let them come to him and he drew his sword and let their blood and bodies drop down the steps he climbed over. A stone the size of a house smashed into the side of the pyramid, sending the statue of an Orc splintering into a shower of marble rain. The projectile left cracked steps and a rumble that shook the structure but the Goblin kept marching forwards. More boulder's rained down into the city, courtesy of his trebuchets.
When the Goblin finally crested the last step of the pyramid, he was met with the sight of this Emperor, sitting on his throne with the setting burning orange sun stopping at the Orc's back. The effect was lessened by the plumes of smoke that filled the air and clouded around them, the city was on fire. “Your Orcs are dead and dying,” spoke the Goblin to the Emperor of Orcs. “Your Trolls are feeding on your dead. Your Ogres are kneeling at my feet. And your slaves have risen against you.”
The Emperor of Orcs sat on his throne and stared at the Goblin impassively. "So they have, little Goblin. Do you feel proud?"
"Proud?" The Goblin snarled from beneath his half helm. "I am nothing but pride. You bound me once but you could never break me. I am Goblin!"
The Emperor of Orcs rose from his throne. "Yes, you certainly are, you little monster. That is all your kind has ever been. Monsters. Ungrateful little monsters. The rest of the world hunts your kind to extinction. While we found a better use for your ilk than pointless death. It seems our judgment was in error. There is nothing worth saving from your species.”
“Saving? Is that what you’ve been doing to us?” A spear of hot rage shot through the Goblin’s heart as he growled with every word he said. “You and I, we think of the word saving differently. You say you saved my people? By putting them in metal coils and binding them to your will! That was not saving Goblins! I am saving Goblins! No longer shall we bow. We’ll break the rest of the world before we bend again!”
“Your kind is already breaking all over the world. We Orcs spared your kind such treatment.”
“By treating us with cruelty and more of the same hate?” The Goblin said and he took another step forward, his boost stomping against the pyramid top. “You are no better than the rest. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and all the rest. You will die here tonight along with your empire! And tomorrow? The world is next!”
The Emperor closed his eyes and took a deep and steady breath as his people were put to the unyielding sword that would one day in the distant future be known as the first Goblin Uprising. “Monsters…”
The dream began to end. For that is what this was to a little Goblin laying down in the woods after falling and hitting his head. A dream about Goblins and some race of people who had long since been extinct called Orcs. The dream didn't last longer than a few moments but it was enough for the little Goblin to remember how the ending began.
The Goblin crossed swords with the Emperor of Orcs. Two monstrous beasts, one of green colored flesh and the other of a darker mix. Red eyes clashing against raging yellow. The little self-freed slave and the brutish master of all masters fought as fires raged through the night. When the morning dawn struck the white smoke from the deadened fires, a Goblin stood over the body of an Orc and he declared the vengeance of his people against the world, naming himself as the world’s first…
“Goblin Lord.”
"Brokentoe."
"Brokentoe!"
"BROKENTOE!"
Someone was shouting at him. The voice was deep and scratchy, the words fumbling over a tongue not used to speaking the language of the Humans. There had been eleven of them in total when they had left the tribe earlier before sunset. Now five figures turned as they ran to shout at the little fallen Goblin. Their red eyes shining through the night, brighter than the red of their blood oozing from their wounds along their green skin.
In the dead of night six Goblin lived when five had not. The raid had meant to be a simple ordeal and it was four of the Goblins first time out of the tribe and out of their forest. This night was supposed to be a bloodless one, claws big and small picking and taking from the fields. Small bodies creeping into Human shelters and retrieving things the tribe needed. Simple.
It had not been simple. There had been dogs this time. Hunting dogs and so many Humans that should not have been there. And yet they had been there. Too many times had thieves come in the night to the little farming community on the outskirts of the Zolilvel Kingdom, one of the thirteen Kingdoms of Dukon. None of these Goblins knew about any of that, all these hungry and starving little warriors and thieves knew of was their forest and their simple way of life in their tribe.
Knights had ridden down two of the Hobgoblins on horseback. Humans in shining armor, metal and protected from a weak Goblin's strikes. Truly trained warriors at arms who had been raised on the tales of hunting and slaying evil monsters to protect the realm, their families, and their people. There had been more Humans who had not been knights. Rugged and well garbed, with horses and without. One group of men had pulled a wagon with a cage in the back composed of rusty iron bars, slavers.
So five Goblins stopped when they noticed their sixth survivor had fallen and hit his head. He was the smallest of the group as well as the smallest in the tribe. The littlest Goblin, they called him Brokentoe. The little Goblin had tripped on a root and crashed into the base of a hedge tree. The Goblin laid there where he had fallen, dizzy and bleeding.
The five Goblins shouted and cried out for him. Four pairs of red eyes watched as the little Goblin failed to move beyond easy and short breaths. He was alive but not for long. The Humans and their dogs would be upon them soon enough. The last remaining Hobgoblin in the group with a blazing red scar across his bare green muscled chest stepped back towards the little Goblin. A claw scratched at his legs and the fifth Goblin starred up into the Hobgoblin's crimson eyes with his own burning yellow.
"Leave, leave!" The Goblin with the unnatural eye color snapped up at the hob. "Must go. Now, now!" The Goblin grinned with all of his teeth and crackled into a fit of laughter as the barking hounds grew ever closer.
The five Goblins looked to the mad Goblin among their number and then all the way back to the downed little Goblin who had yet to show any sign of waking. The Hobgoblin was the only one to stay and watch as the rest turned and kept running deeper into the woods. The hob could have done something, if only his feet had been working properly. The seven foot tall monster finally turned his back and ran the other way as the dogs broke through the foliage. They sniffed at the little Goblin and one of the dogs even started to chew on the Brokentoe's leg before the others went off after the rest of the Goblins.
The five Goblins left the sixth behind. The Hobgoblin sighed with a heavy heart because even if he would have gone back for Brokentoe… it would have done little good. Because as the Goblins ran back to the tribe, the hob turned and doubled back to lead the hounds and the Humans away from his people.
And so the smallest Goblin in the entire tribe laid beneath a growing hedge tree and he dreamed of a fantasy. A Goblin standing up to a fabled extinct race of oppressors and he smiled dumbly as the Humans found him. They pointed swords and someone tried to run him through the stomach. A hand clasped a steel covered arm and the blade stayed. Words were spoken and the little Goblin peaked open his eyes to stare up at the blurry faces. He looked past them all and found the moon shining down at him from beyond the treetops of the forest. The little Goblin who was called Brokentoe for a rather embarrassing incident once in the tribe, closed his eyes and let fate take charge. And this decision would one day change the lives of many.
Fate was working in mysterious ways for the lady whose twenty-second birthday was fast approaching, six years had passed since she had become of marrying age and she knew her father would press her once more on the issue. The young woman sighed as she picked up her glass of wine and drank. The library was quiet at this time in the night save for the soft and quiet footfalls of maids and servants busy at work, trying to clean the mansion before falling into bed in their quarters. The lady of the mansion glanced at one maid in particular who was sporting a pair of wide circular glasses on her face. The young woman bit her bottom lip as she watched the maid subtly reach into her uniform.
The lady sneezed and ducked as a thin dagger shot passed her head and quietly sank into the wall. That was the poorest attempt on her life yet. She smiled as she fixed her sliver hair and politely thanked the maid as she "blessed" the lady for her troubles.
The second born son of a lord turned over in his sleep, dreaming of the impossible chance he had for his marriage proposal to be accepted as his younger brother traveled away from the family estate and towards a rumored dungeon along with his newly formed adventuring team. Four young men and one young woman laughed and partied in the back of a horse pulled wagon. Each of them had their reasons of joining together on this venture. For fame and glory and riches, for an easier life, to be envied and wanted by men and women, to be loved, and to save a little sister from a bleak fate.
These five rode on into the night further and further away from the lordling amongst their number's family home. They celebrated him for coming with them and they toasted his family for sponsoring them on this gamble of theirs.
Another adventuring party arrived in the city where the dungeon had been unearthed. It had been a long journey but they had finally arrived at the city gates of Levine. This adventuring party was only three in number and not all of the members were strictly Human. A Human man removed his dark cowl and turned to regard his silent companions. A young woman with bright purple skin and a spiraling horn coming from just above her right ear smiled at him and tapped her staff against the ground. Another woman who was rather short and sporting a blonde beard across her womanly jaw scratched at her beard.
"Well what are we waiting for? We stand out here any longer and summer and fall will pass us by and the dungeon will be snowed in if the rookies don't block the halls with their bones!" She snorted and waddled on ahead. The other two adventurers followed her into the city of Levine.
A necromancer sat hunched over a desk in his study. He frowned and pulled at his long black beard that was beginning to turn gray. "Ridiculous," he muttered to himself. "One failed experiment and all of my plans are under threat. That is all it ever comes down to... no matter how well thought out a plan can be... all it takes is one mistake. One simple mistake."
The Human was not alone in his hidden lair. A pair of skeletons watched over their master with cold glowing blue eyes. They watched him roll up a scroll and pocket a wand before standing up and passing them by. The two skeletons turned and followed their creator through the cold dark halls of stone where their master dwelled. They were his guards, this was their purpose.
"It maters little. Ilyaxis, Akriel, should any interlopers seek to intercede and interfere with my business. See to them as any good host of death would, my loyal, faithful, trusted, enchanted guards."
A man traveled the world, a king without a kingdom left to travel and scheme across the world to one day reclaim his stolen throne. He stopped for just a moment to wait for his family to catch up with him. They needed to move on at a faster pace. Their time was coming, he felt in his bones and he could taste it on the wind. "Vengeance," he whispered as his rags caught the force of the wind. "It will be mine."
And at the end of the world? The last to be affected by a small Goblin's decision? Was an emperor standing in the middle of a ritual at the edge of the world, the last blood from the oldest and strongest family in this failing world closed his eyes and drew in his last breath, and finished the spell.
Fate was spinning and two witches watched it all unravel and spiral out of control because of a single choice that would doom many and save the rest. A witch watched from her mirror as a Dragon conferred with her. The other witch smiled and tapped her chin in wonder from her hidden cottage. They watched while a little Goblin slept as he was thrown into a cage in the back of a wooden wagon. A new journey, a new path in life was forced upon him, and he didn't even know it yet. The sleeping little Brokentoe dreamed of past fragments and of a better tomorrow that would not come.
Not yet, for the song has only started.
