The goblin stands over a dead dwarf. He cannot bring himself to pull the dagger from the mountain-dweller’s lifeless chest or even take the man’s head as was asked. Instead, he drags the dwarf’s gem-filled saddlebags over to his purple-dyed Emu. He dyed the bird the horrible shade when he took it from the hitching post outside the roadside tavern. The tavern with a sign tacked to the door reading, “no goblins.”

Grindlynob understood, he hates goblins also. He’s small for his species and likes to paint, preferring oils and has a bit of a green thumb which, in his opinion, he has used to become a fair vegetarian cook.

Neither skills matter to his clan, which desire murder and theft above everything and now here he is with deep-red dwarf blood drying on his hands and tears of regret falling behind the visor of his leather helm.

He secures the bags to the back of the stolen emu and mounts. With a stiff kick he’s off and races a trail of dust back to the mountain his clan calls home. Back to the creature, he’s forced to call King.

***

Gobb is a grotesque three-hundred pounds of grey dimpled flesh shoved into a four-foot frame.

He sits a throne of skulls and between his legs a rotting war-pick leans that matches the chainmail pasted to his body, both are black with dried viscera.

His lair smells of piss, shit and death.

“Did you get dwarf’s skull,” Gobb grumbles his many chins wobbling.

Grindlyknob shakes his head, no, tossing the saddlebags, which clink heavy with gems, at the gnarled-warty-feet of his king.

Instead of praise, he earns the sharp end of the war-pick. It dangles from the top of Grindlyknob’s head. He keels over, glad he won’t have to live with himself after all.