Krazgul Runeblade stood alone at the fire pit and told the goblins he would kill their king. Nobody cheered. Nobody even stood up. A dozen goblins crouched around the flames of their ramshackle village, chewing meat, watching him the way they watched a stranger. He was the biggest goblin among them, red-skinned, black runes burned into his arms. In each fist he held a dagger that drank the firelight. He wanted the king's seat. He wanted to lead a warband into the king's hall and take the title of warchief. But a warchief needs warriors, and not one of these goblins would follow a challenger who had killed nothing worth naming. An old goblin spat into the fire. "Big talk," he said. "Show us a kill, then we talk." Krazgul knew the kill they meant. Past the last crooked hut grew a thing the village feared. It was a monstrous flytrap, taller than a troll, its jaws lined with demon thorns. Four goblins had wandered near it and never come back. The old goblin pointed his bone at the dark where it grew. "Bring us its head," he said. "Or stop barking." Krazgul walked out of the firelight. A shape rose and followed him. His wolf, gray and black, wrapped in drifting smoke, padded at his heel without a sound. The beast had been with him since he left his old pack. It alone did not need convincing. The flytrap waited in a pit of dead roots. It smelled him and its jaws yawned open. A vine lashed out and caught Krazgul's ankle. Thorns bit deep. He fell hard. The plant dragged him toward its wet, stinking mouth. He cut the vine with one dagger and rolled free. The runes on his arms glowed. More vines whipped at him. He hacked them back, but there were too many. Then the smoke wolf lunged. It clamped its jaws on a thick vine and tore it loose. The flytrap twisted toward the wolf. That was the opening. Krazgul ran straight at the gaping jaws. He drove both daggers up through the soft base of the flower. Black sap burst over his hands. The plant shuddered, folded, and died. He sawed through the stem and lifted the heavy, thorned head. He carried it back to the fire and dropped it at the old goblin's feet. The thorns still twitched. For a long moment no one spoke. Then the old goblin stood. One by one, the others stood with him. "The challenger has a kill," the old goblin said. "Now he has men." Krazgul had his warband at last. But as the goblins pressed close to swear to him, he heard a new word pass between them, low and afraid. The king had heard of the challenger too. And the king was sending something to the village first.

The flytrap's head still rotted by the fire pit, but the goblins no longer looked at it. They looked at the old goblin who had tested Krazgul. He crouched apart from the rest, chewing, saying nothing. One kill had bought their oaths. Now a louder word spread through the huts. The king was sending a beast to crush them. And the old goblin's doubt was spreading too. "A flytrap sits in a pit," the old goblin said. He spat. "It waits to be killed. The king's beast comes to kill us. That is not the same." Around the fire, heads nodded. Spears leaned against huts, untouched. A warband that would not lift its spears was no warband. A new voice cut in. "Then stop waiting for it." Grizelda Hexwhisper pushed between two goblins. She was small, green, her coat sewn with charms and tiny bones. Krazgul had seen her at the edge of the village, muttering over a bowl of smoke, and had kept his distance. Even the old goblin leaned back from her yellow eyes. She tossed a handful of ash into the fire. The flames flashed blue and showed a shape inside the smoke. A troll. Blue, tall as two huts, a spiked club on its shoulder. "The king's gift," Grizelda said. "Coming from the dead woods. It will reach us by dawn." She looked at Krazgul, not the old goblin. "You wanted warriors. Give them something to fear more than the king." The old goblin barked a laugh. "He killed a plant. Now you want him to fight a troll?" Krazgul drew both daggers. The firelight died in the black blades. "I won't wait for dawn," he said. "I'll meet it in the woods." He whistled low. The smoke wolf rose from the dark and stood at his heel. He found the troll crossing a dry creek bed. It smelled him and swung the club. The blow splintered a dead tree where Krazgul had stood a breath before. He rolled under its legs and slashed the back of its knee. Black blood ran. The troll bellowed and stamped. A heel caught Krazgul's shoulder and threw him into the roots. The wolf lunged for the troll's throat. The troll grabbed it and hurled it aside. But its throat was open now. The runes on Krazgul's arms burned hot. He ran up a fallen trunk and leaped. He drove both daggers into the troll's eye and chest. The cosmic blades punched deep. The troll staggered, fell, and crushed the creek bed under its weight. Krazgul sawed through the thick neck and lifted the blue head. He carried it back and dropped it by the fire, beside the flytrap's. The old goblin stared a long moment. Then he knelt and set his bone knife at Krazgul's feet. "No more doubt," he said. One by one, the goblins took up their spears. Grizelda smiled. "Now you have a warband," she said. "The king will send worse."

The troll's blue head still sat by the fire when Grizelda Hexwhisper came running. Smoke trailed from her coat charms. "The king heard," she said. "His beast is dead, so now he burns us. A raiding party rides from the dead woods. They will reach the huts by dark." She fixed her yellow eyes on Krazgul. "If the village burns, your warband scatters. No warband, no warchief." Krazgul looked at the huts, the fire pit, the goblins gripping their new spears. He could not hold crooked walls against riders. So he would not try. "We don't defend the village," he said. "We ambush them before they reach it." A thick goblin shoved to the front. Grak Bonecrusher. Scars crossed his chest, and he carried no shield, only a notched axe he kept slapping against his palm. He grinned with filed teeth. "Finally," Grak said. "I was tired of sharpening spears for nothing." The other goblins stepped back from him. Even standing still, he looked like he wanted to swing. Krazgul led them to a narrow gap in the dead woods, where the trees pressed close. He set spear-goblins on both ridges. He put Grak at the mouth of the gap, where the fighting would be worst. "You hold them here," Krazgul said. Grak's grin widened. That was answer enough. The riders came at dusk, torches high, screaming for fire and blood. Krazgul whistled. The smoke wolf slid from the dark and spooked the lead mount. Riders piled into each other. Spears rained from the ridges. Grak charged into the knot of them, axe swinging, and three fell before they understood the trap. Krazgul went for the leader. The leader swung a torch at his face. Krazgul ducked and drove both black daggers up under the ribs. The runes on his arms burned hot. The cosmic blades punched through. The leader dropped his torch and slid off his mount, dead before he hit the roots. The rest broke. Some ran. The wolf chased them into the trees. The torches scattered and died in the dirt. The village stood. Not one hut had burned. Grizelda crouched over the dead leader. She pulled a folded hide from his belt and opened it. Marks covered it, a map and rows of runes. "The king's seal," she said. Her finger traced a path. "He didn't plan to burn one village. These marks are a muster. He's calling every tribe to him." Grak wiped his axe and spat. "So we killed a raiding party. Good." "No," Krazgul said. He took the hide and stared at the gathering mark. The king would stop sending beasts now. He would come with an army, and he would come soon. Krazgul folded the hide and slid it into his belt. His warband had held. Now he had to reach the king before the king's tribes reached him.

Krazgul spread the king's map on a flat stone by the fire. Grizelda Hexwhisper traced the muster lines with one blue nail. "Six tribes," she said. "Maybe more. They gather at the king's hall by the next full moon." Krazgul counted his own fighters. Forty spear-goblins. One berserker. One smoke wolf. Against six tribes, they were a handful of ash. Grak Bonecrusher slapped his axe against his palm. "Numbers never stopped me." He grinned with filed teeth. "We march. We kill." "We march and we die," Krazgul said. "Forty against hundreds." He studied the map again. One tribe sat closest, a day's walk through the dead woods. The smallest mark. He pressed his thumb on it. "We don't fight them all. We take the nearest tribe and make them ours." Grak's grin dropped. "Make them ours? They serve the king." "They fear the king," Grizelda said. Her yellow eyes brightened. "Fear can be turned." They reached the nearest tribe at dusk. The village was gone. Charred walls leaned over collapsed roofs. Embers still glowed in the dirt. The king had burned them for being slow to answer his call. A few dozen goblins crouched in the wreckage, blackened and shaking. A huge shape stood among the ruins. A war chariot, built of iron-banded wood and carved with old runes. Its wheels stood taller than a goblin. The survivors had dragged it from the flames and now guarded it like a last coin. An old goblin limped forward, clutching a broken spear. "You come to finish us?" he said. "The king already did." Krazgul sheathed one dagger and raised his empty hand. "The king burned you for being late. I killed his troll. I routed his riders." He pulled the troll's dried ear from his belt and threw it in the dirt. "Follow me, and you burn his hall instead." Grak stepped beside him, axe ready. He said nothing. His stance said enough. The old goblin looked at the ruin, then at the runes on Krazgul's skin. They were burning faint red. "Prove it," the old goblin said. He pointed at the chariot. "Our war-cart. Our ancestors' mark. No goblin here can pull it to battle. The beasts that drew it are dead." Krazgul whistled. The smoke wolf slid out of the dark trees. It was not one beast but many strides of grey smoke. Krazgul set his hands on the chariot's yoke. The wolf pressed to his side. Together they hauled. The runes on the wood flared to match his skin. The great wheels turned, then rolled. The burned goblins stared. Then the old goblin dropped his broken spear and knelt. One by one, the survivors followed. Krazgul had a chariot now, and a second tribe at his back. But he had also seen the king's work. The king burned his own people to make them march faster. That was the man Krazgul had to reach before the full moon.

Two tribes marched behind Krazgul now, and the war chariot rolled with them. But the king was not blind. Grizelda had warned him last night. The king sent scouts ahead of his muster. If they found the growing warband, the king would strike before Krazgul was ready. Krazgul could not hide a chariot and a hundred goblins. So he would not hide. He would hunt the scouts first. He called for the best eyes in the band. A lean goblin came forward, hood pulled low, a quiver of red-tipped arrows on his back. Ace. He had scouted every ambush since the dead woods. He spoke little and missed less. "Three riders," Ace said. "East, following the ridge. They move slow. They're counting us." "Then they die counting," Grak said. He hefted his axe and bared his filed teeth. Krazgul put a hand on his chest. "No. One gets away, the king learns our size. We take all three. Quiet." Ace led them along a dry gully. The ground sloped down to a pool of sludge, green and bubbling, thick as spoiled broth. The riders had stopped above it to water their mount. Krazgul crouched behind a burned log. He counted the scouts. Three, as Ace said. He drew both black daggers. The runes on his arms glowed low. "Two for me," Krazgul whispered. "You take the third. Grak, you move only if one runs." Ace nocked an arrow. He breathed out and loosed. The shaft took the first scout in the throat. The goblin clawed at it, then slid from his mount. Poison worked fast. Krazgul was already moving. He crossed the open ground low and fast. His daggers found the second scout before the goblin could shout. He drove the blades deep and dragged the body down into the reeds. The third scout bolted. He kicked his mount toward the ridge. Grak roared and charged, but the rider was too quick. Krazgul snatched a loose stone and hurled it at the mount's legs. The beast stumbled at the edge of the sludge pool. The scout flew from its back and splashed into the green muck. He screamed once. The thick surface pulled him under. Bubbles rose, then nothing. Ace lowered his bow. "Three," he said. "None left to count." Krazgul wiped his daggers clean on the reeds. No scout would reach the king. The muster would gather blind, still believing Krazgul led forty ragged spears. The king would not strike early now. But Krazgul looked at the drowned scout's mount, riderless and shaking. The king expected a report by a set day. Silence would tell him something was wrong. Krazgul had bought time, not safety. He had until the missing scouts were missed. "We march faster," he told Grak. "The clock runs now."

Krazgul pushed the march hard after the scouts died. By the second day, his warband dragged. Goblins stumbled on the road. The chariot's team slowed. Food was gone. Water was short. Grak Bonecrusher leaned on his axe like a crutch. Grizelda Hexwhisper came to Krazgul's side, her yellow eyes dull. "They can't fight like this," she said. "Push them more and you deliver the king corpses, not warriors." Krazgul knew she was right. A hundred spent goblins would break on the king's line. But stopping in the open was its own death. Scouts, raiders, anyone could find them. Krazgul needed a place with walls. He sent Ace ahead to scout the road. Ace returned by dusk. "A roadhouse," he said. "Big. Stone base, timber top. Lights burning. Travelers inside." A safe roof. Food. Water. But not empty. Krazgul could not rest a hundred goblins behind strangers who might run and talk. The inn sat warm and square against the dark. Smoke curled from its chimney. Lamplight glowed in every window. Krazgul walked to the door alone and shoved it open. The common room went silent. A dozen faces stared at the big red goblin and his glowing runes. Then a woman rose from the corner. She was no goblin. She was tall and pale, dressed in black, and she carried a black staff topped with a skull and a crescent. Raven. She did not reach for a weapon. She looked at Krazgul the way a butcher looks at meat. "Your runes are cosmic," she said. Flat. Certain. "I know that kind of mark. I hunt the one who made a thing like that for me." She lifted the staff a hand's width. The travelers near her shrank back. One knocked over his cup trying to get away. "Tell me who carved you." "I carved myself," Krazgul said. "I need this roof. One night. My band rests here." Raven studied him. "Then they'll see what the staff does." She brought it down soft against the floor. The lamps dimmed. The air went gray and heavy. The frightened travelers slumped where they sat, breathing slow, eyes shut. Not dead. Asleep. Raven's shoulders sagged. Her face lost something, like color draining from a cloth. "They won't wake till dawn," she said. "They won't remember goblins." She sat down hard. Krazgul whistled. His warband filed in. They tore into the inn's stores. They drank deep and slept on the warm floor. Grak snored within minutes. By midnight the whole band had rest in their bones again. Krazgul found Raven still awake, staring at nothing. "You spent something," he said. "Yes," she answered. "Your mark leads to what I hunt. I march with you until I find the carver." Krazgul nodded. His warband had food, rest, and now a witch with a staff that stole sleep from men. At dawn they would march for the king. And they would arrive ready to fight.

At dawn the warband marched again, fed and rested. Krazgul meant to reach the king's hall before the tribes finished gathering. But the road ahead told a different story. Ace came back from the point crouched low. "Riders," he said. "Royal patrol. A dozen. They hold the road where it narrows." Krazgul knew why. The king's scouts had gone silent too long. Now the king sent a patrol to learn what had swallowed them. If these riders turned back with a report, the king would march ready. Krazgul could not let one of them ride home. He studied the land. The road dipped between two low banks. Past the banks, a sickly pool spread across the hollow. Its surface bubbled slow and green. The smell reached Krazgul from fifty paces. Poison. Nothing drank there and lived. A plan formed. He would not meet the patrol head on. He would pull it into the hollow. Krazgul sent Ace up one bank with his bow. He hid the warband behind the other. Then he walked into the road alone. The patrol saw him. The lead rider lifted a horn to his lips. Krazgul charged before the sound came. His daggers burned black. He killed the horn-bearer first, then let the rest drive him back, back toward the green pool. The riders followed. They thought him cornered. Their horses balked at the pool's edge, hooves skidding in the muck. That was the moment. Ace rose on the bank and loosed. His first arrow took a rider through the throat. The man fell sideways into the sludge and did not rise. Krazgul whistled. The warband poured down both banks with spears. Horses screamed and bolted. Men went down in the poison, thrashing, then still. Two riders broke free and spurred back up the road. Those two mattered most. Krazgul ran them down on foot, faster than any goblin should move, runes blazing. He dragged the first from the saddle and drove a dagger home. The last rider nearly cleared the rise. Ace's arrow caught him between the shoulders. He slid off his horse into the dirt. When it ended, the hollow was quiet but for the bubbling pool. Twelve royal horses stood riderless. No man had escaped. Grak Bonecrusher waded out and hauled bodies from the sludge, grinning through the stink. Krazgul wiped his daggers clean. Raven walked up beside him, staff in hand. She looked at the drowned men, then at the green surface. "Two gone," she said. "The scouts. Now these." Her voice stayed flat. "The king will stop sending small groups. Next he sends the army." Krazgul nodded. She had named the truth. He had cleared the road and bought his silence, but silence had a short life now. The patrol would never report. Soon the king would stop waiting for word that never came and march himself. Krazgul turned his warband toward the hall. The time to pick his ground was gone. Now he had to reach the king first.