The goblins gathered at the mouth of the cave when Reed erged. Their wide yellow eyes blinked at the figure that stepped into the grey light—not the sa boy who entered.
Blood matted his shirt. Claws had torn it during the trials. His eyes no longer held the dull brown of a human but glinted with a faint sickly green. His veins had darkened, pulsing slightly beneath his skin. And behind him stood Shia, blade-drenched and smiling, proud.
The goblins parted, uncertain.
Then ca the elder.
Crooked, grey-skinned, with one cloudy eye and one sharp, intelligent one, he leaned on a twisted wooden staff and approached.
"You survived Drek’mar," he said in the goblin tongue.
Shia translated, voice low, careful. "He says no one ever cos back from that place. You did. That makes you... sothing else."
"I don’t need their belief," Reed said, voice rough. "They’ll follow or die."
Shia tilted her head. "A fine way to start a kingdom."
They called it a "domain," but Goblin’s Hollow was no more than a crater of despair. Rotten woods, poisoned soil, caves that stank of old corpses and desperation. The goblin tribe lived in pitiful clusters. Most were malnourished, too weak to hold a blade, and too scared to look Reed in the eye.
Reed sat on a broken slab of stone—his "throne." He looked down on them all, unblinking.
"Tell them this," he said to Shia. "The ti for hiding is over. If they want food, they fight. If they want safety, they build. If they want to live, they obey."
Shia grinned and turned. Her voice was commanding in goblin-speech, rhythmic, raw. The goblins flinched as she spoke, then murmured, then fell to their knees.
Reed stood.
"No gods," he said. "No kings. Only claw and blade. And ."
STRUCTURE FROM ASHES
The next day, the changes began.
The goblins were divided. Workers, foragers, scavengers, and fighters. Reed walked through each group personally. He spat on laziness. He beat a coward near to death and left him hanging from a tree by his ankles.
Training pits were dug. Every able-bodied goblin was taught to kill.
Reed himself took a squad into the woods. They ambushed wolves. They skinned them alive, Reed making each goblin participate. Blood soaked the soil, and the weak vomited.
"Good," Reed said. "Better to empty your stomach now than empty your guts later."
He brought the at back, had fires built from dead trees and bone. The sll of charred flesh filled Goblin’s Hollow for the first ti in decades.
And they ate.
Not well. Not clean. But together.
It didn’t take long.
One of the larger goblins, thick-ard and brutal-looking, stepped forward during the morning assembly. His na was Ghruk. He had a rusted iron club and a stitched face from old wounds. He raised it high.
"Not-Goblin not fit to lead," he barked in broken Common. "Weak blood. False power."
Reed stood without word.
Ghruk lunged.
Reed didn’t draw a weapon. He let Ghruk swing, dodged with brutal precision, and caught the goblin’s arm mid-swing. Then, with a twist, he snapped the elbow backward until bone pierced skin.
The goblins gasped.
Ghruk fell, snarling.
Reed stepped on his neck and looked at the crowd. "Any other opinions?"
Silence.
Then Shia tossed a dagger to Reed. He caught it. Without flinching, he slit Ghruk’s throat.
"Strength rules," he said, wiping the blade on Ghruk’s tattered tunic. "Not noise."
At night, Reed t with Shia in what they now called the war-cave, the only dry chamber deep enough for privacy. She lit a torch and rolled out an old hide—marked with blood, symbols, and crude drawings of terrain.
"You’re changing," she said, quietly.
"I know," Reed replied, scratching the side of his neck. The skin there had turned slightly grey-green, rougher.
"You’re thinking like a warlord."
He didn’t answer.
Shia pointed to the northern border. "Scouts say there’s an abandoned outpost. Old human watchtower. If we take it, we could control the high road."
"Too risky," Reed muttered. "They’ll see goblins coming."
"Not if I lead," Shia said, eyes glinting. "With a few of your new killers."
Reed considered her, then nodded. "Fine. Do it."
He looked back at the hide-map. His eyes lingered on a mark to the west.
"What’s this?" he asked.
Shia hesitated. "Cursed land. Even goblins don’t go."
Reed smiled, sharp and thin. "Then we go next."
That night, Reed stood alone at the edge of the Hollow, looking out into the strange fog that never lifted. His blood humd. Sothing inside him burned—an itch he couldn’t scratch.
Then ca the whisper.
"Reed..."
He turned. No one.
"Reed, son of man... thief of blood..."
From the shadows erged a figure. Not a goblin. Not human.
It wore a mask made of bone and robes woven from skin. Its fingers were long and wrong. It walked as if floating.
"What are you?" Reed asked.
The creature laughed. "You’ve taken the blood. Opened the gate. Your domain is marked. Your soul is claid."
Reed stepped back.
"You are not the first," it said. "But you might be the last."
Shia’s voice rang out from behind, "Reed!"
He turned. When he looked back—the creature was gone.
Only a single tooth remained on the ground, shaped like a key.
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