The New Babylon

After hearing Vorya past story Nathan stayed silent as he thought

‘ Wow, That’s the kind of story that made me remember why I was smoking so much’

Nathan then pated Vorya’s shoulder as he said.

“_ Tomorrow, we will prepare our men and weapons, the day after we will clean the filth …

_ I will be here when the killing start

_ You won’t … you said it yourself when you came with us, you wont risk your life for me, and I won’t accept someone who will run mad when the fight start. Unless you change your mind for this one fight.

_ I … I will follow the order, for this fight.”

Answered Vorya with determination in his eyes.  Nathan nodded and departed as he thought

‘ I know you will… Now how should I take care of this ? I have the advantage of range with my bows, javelins, and bolas, let’s put the prisoners on the front row. They will need shields, if want them to survive and join me afterwards.’

When the next day came, Nathan immediately gathered his officers.

“_ Mourzuk … you were the only one who kept a clear mind when we were scouting the enemies … what are your estimation of their numbers ?

_ I can’t say for sure boss … But they had a least 2 hobgoblin and maybe a hundred goblins at first glance.

_ With the range advantage and an ambush, it should be doable. Don’t you think ?

 _ Yes, it should be, at least if we manage to quickly dispatch their leaders”

Vorya then interrupted them

“_Take no offence but your troops are efficient at range than at close combat … You will need a good front line if you don’t want them to be submerged when the enemies will come too close.

_ That’s why we will use the prisoners to take care of the frontline, we will build as many shields as we can,, not just for the front line but to be used as a moving barricade for our shooters. I will also recruit more goblins who will be assigned to the hunting camp … That way we should be able to take back a few more experimented fighters with us.

Now about your roles in the assault, as the only hobgoblins of the group, Vorya and I will be in charge of stalling theirs, Steevie you will stay around us to kill them every time they distance themselves from us.

Mourzuk you will oversee the troops while we are busy fighting, and you Grom … I have an important mission to give you. You will circle them with a few men and trap their retreat route, never show yourself and kill them from a distance, kill as much as you can.

Everyone agreed while Nathan thought

‘For now, it is a relatively ok-tier plan … but well no plan is perfect, even more so when you have to fight with and against rather unpredictable troops… Now that we have kind off a war outpost, I should train them for group fight and teach them the concept of discipline.’

Everyone then worked on their roles, Vorya stood guard at the camp while Mourzuk directed the goblin to make shields and more arrows.

Nathan, Steevie and Grom recruited as much as 30 goblins he took back to Nubian’s camp for him to train them, after explaining the situation to him the goblin cheered in happiness

“_ Boss you can’t even start to understand how happy I am, now I don’t have to complete all this work while understaffed !

_ Well … if you're happy, but I must tell you one thing first … No cultist will leave this camp alive … never, if you find one, execute it on the spot and show his head to the others.

_ Yes boss … no problem

_ Oh, and you remember Yesus ?

_  Who ?”

Answered Nubian with a sceptical look

“_ The goblin who survived after being gutted one of our hunts …

_ Oh yeah ! This one. Sure, what about him ?

_ I want the goblins who took care of him while he was injured to come with us … you still remember what I taught you about how to take care of injuries right ?

_  Yes boss ! You want me to train some more goblins in the domain ?

_ Exactly.”

After resting for a bit and discussing the development of the hunting camp with Nubian he quickly walked back to the outpost as he thought.

‘So … I train my goblins in a secret place to go fight some religious madmen ha … It’s like terrorist group targeting the wrong people.’

When they came back to the outpost with a new addition of 10 goblins, they immediately started to work. Except for Nathan, who was quietly maintaining his iron short sword using a whetstone, which both were plundered from Goruk, and animal oil. After sharpening the iron short sword and his dumb slayer.

When the sun was setting some rafts manned by some goblins came from the hunting camp to deliver Shields almost as big as a goblin.

‘Perfect now we have some shields to protect our ranged units and the prisoners all made theirs, the others also made enough arrows and javelin to kill the enemies at least ten time.’

After everything was done, the feast started but before anyone could eat Nathan made a little speech.

“_ Comrades ! Tomorrow for the first time we will be warring against someone on our own accord, not to defend ourselves. Some of you may have doubts about the importance of our fight. But remember this …  We goblins need to fight if we want to evolve. Those cultists are savages who can not coexist with anyone of us, therefore they are the best prey we can find !”

The goblin cheered but Nathan thought otherwise

‘Hell ! Even with a confident façade I can’t believe they bought my bullshit. They really need to be educated; a military school should be one of the first thing I need to build with my future city. If I survive until then…’

When the first light of the sun started to shine on the outpost every goblin was ready and armed, and started their march

It took 2 hours to move all their supplies. When they arrived, Nathan ordered the goblin to plant the big shields on the ground. After he waited an bit for Grom to be ready he yelled

“Forward !”