Free Web NovelChapter 16: Justice For Su’ki
The journey back was strangely silent.
They had won. Five goblins lay dead behind them, their bodies dragged through the forest as proof that Su’ki’s killers had been found and punished. Yet none of the young kobolds felt victorious. The farther they moved away from the ravine, the more Ka’z felt as though they had been the ones who lost.
Each of them, except Za’r, carried a corpse. Ka’z dragged the goblin he had burned by one leg, its charred body leaving a dark trail through the wet earth.
Tu’ka carried his own kill across one shoulder with the same blank expression he wore during battle, while Ru’k struggled beneath the weight of another corpse and complained quietly whenever Lan’ka looked away.
Kurg dragged a smaller goblin by both arms, his body trembling every time its head struck a root or stone. Even West seemed disturbed, walking close beside Ka’z’s feet without his usual arrogance or attempts to bite anything that moved.
Lan’ka walked ahead of them with a stern expression, his injured shoulder wrapped tightly in leaves and cloth after Za’r had purged most of the poison from his body. He barely spoke. Something about the Ashmork Clan had clearly unsettled him, and the more Ka’z thought about the goblin leader’s final words, the more he understood why.
This was not ordinary hunting.
A hunt was simple. A predator attacked because it was hungry, and the kobolds fought because they needed food or safety. There was no hatred behind it. No planning. No promise that more enemies would come after the first battle was over.
This was different.
This was war.
A conscious struggle between two groups that wanted the same land, the same resources, and the same right to survive. People would die. Not monsters. Not nameless enemies from a game. People Ka’z had spoken to, trained with, eaten beside, and watched grow older.
Ka’z did not need to be a genius to understand that something was about to change.
"Who are the Ashmork Clan?" he finally asked.
Lan’ka glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes were colder than usual, and for a brief moment, Ka’z thought the older kobold would ignore him. However, after several seconds of silence, Lan’ka let out a long breath and returned his gaze to the path ahead.
"Evergreen Forest is known for five important features," Lan’ka began. "Four hills stand at the four cardinal points, and each one is home to a powerful magic beast that rules the peak. The fifth feature is the Grave of Roses, a high resource region at the center of the forest where magic beasts, wandering tribes, and even human adventurers gather to compete for resources."
Ka’z’s ears perked up at the mention of humans, and the same happened to his siblings. Even Ru’k stopped struggling with the corpse he carried, while Kurg raised his head with nervous curiosity. However, Lan’ka did not give them the chance to ask questions.
"Our home lies beneath the Southern Hill," he continued. "This region is peaceful because of the beast that lives above us."
Lan’ka looked toward the distant hill visible between the trees. Even from this far away, it rose above the forest like a dark wall against the sky.
Ka’z did not need him to say the name.
The Storm Wyvern.
Every kobold in the Vaal’kor Clan knew about the Storm Wyvern. They spoke of it during prayers, left offerings near the upper tunnels, and treated its presence as both a blessing and a warning. No large predators dared to settle near the Southern Hill because the wyvern hunted anything foolish enough to challenge its territory. Its shadow protected the kobolds, even if the creature itself had probably never noticed their existence.
"Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for the Western Region," Lan’ka said. "We have never traveled there ourselves, but the last time Tud’or went to the Grave of Roses, he noticed a sharp increase in goblin activity. From the little information he gathered, the goblins of the west have grown stronger. Strong enough to build their own village."
Ka’z’s expression twisted.
A village.
The Vaal’kor Clan was barely a colony. They lived hidden beneath a hill, relied on secrecy, and only recently began expanding their territory beyond the cave entrance. Meanwhile, the goblins had already grown powerful enough to build openly in the forest.
That meant they had walls around their territory, proper storage, farms and a proper army.
A population large enough to defend itself and invade other places
"Of course, we do not know how accurate the rumors are," Lan’ka added with a tired sigh. "But we know one thing for certain. The goblins of the western region are not weak."
Ka’z and his siblings exchanged uneasy glances behind him. None of them spoke after that. The forest seemed darker during the rest of the journey, and every distant sound made Kurg flinch. Ru’k stopped joking. Even Tu’ka’s eyes shifted more frequently through the trees, as though he expected another ambush to come from behind them.
By the time they reached the outer edge of Vaal’kor territory, the sun had begun sinking behind the distant hills. Orange light filtered through the trees, painting the forest floor in long shadows as the familiar watchtowers slowly came into view.
The border was crowded.
Soldiers stood near the wooden platforms with spears in hand, while civilians gathered behind them with tense expressions. Mothers held hatchlings close to their chests, older kobolds stood near the entrance with weapons they were barely trained to use, and several hunters waited near the path with their dire weasels beside them.
Everyone had been waiting.
The moment they saw Lan’ka and the children emerge from the trees dragging five goblin corpses behind them, the entire crowd erupted.
Cheers filled the forest.
Several young hatchlings jumped excitedly while pointing toward the dead goblins, and older kobolds rushed forward with tears in their eyes as they praised the group for avenging Su’ki.
Ka’z stopped walking.
For a moment, he simply stood there while the sound washed over him.
He had watched scenes like this in anime and games before. Heroes returning from battle. Villagers cheering. People celebrating because someone had protected them from danger. Those scenes always made his blood boil, but experiencing it himself was something entirely different.
It was intoxicating.
The fear, exhaustion, and nausea from the battle slowly faded beneath the warmth of the crowd’s attention. For the first time in both of his lives, people were looking at him with pride, not disappointment.
Ka’z’s chest tightened as he watched the kobolds clap and wave toward him. He wanted to pretend it did not affect him, but it did. It felt like something inside him had finally awakened, something that had been buried beneath years of failure and isolation in his old life.
The goblin corpses were handed over to the crowd.
The celebration immediately turned darker.
Several kobolds began tearing at the bodies with rage. The heads were separated from the corpses and carried toward the border towers, where soldiers nailed them onto wooden stakes as a warning to anything watching from the forest.
The message was clear.
Vaal’kor Clan had been attacked.
Vaal’kor Clan had answered.
Near the center of the colony, a funeral pyre had been built for Su’ki. Dry wood, old furniture, broken baskets, and fallen branches were stacked into a tall mound beneath the open sky. Her body had been carefully wrapped in cloth and placed at the center, her face covered so the colony would remember her as she had lived rather than how she had died.
The remaining goblin corpses were thrown around the base of the pyre.
When the fire was lit, flames climbed into the darkening sky.
The smell of burning wood mixed with the scent of blood and smoke as the kobolds gathered around the pyre. Some sang old songs in low voices, their words carrying through the forest like a prayer. Others danced around the flames, their movements heavy and rhythmic as they stomped their feet against the ground.
It was the Vaal’kor Clan reminding itself that even if one of them died, the rest would remember.
Ka’z sat alone on a fallen log near the edge of the gathering, West curled beside him with his head resting against Ka’z’s thigh. The fire reflected in his golden scales as he watched the kobolds dance around Su’ki’s pyre.
Lan’ka was nowhere to be seen.
Neither were Tud’or, Tong’a, O’nil, or the other important members of the colony.
Ka’z did not need to ask where they had gone. They were probably discussing the Ashmork Clan.
Around him, the kobolds laughed, sang, and raised their claws toward the flames as though they had won something important.
Ka’z watched them in silence. Then he looked beyond the fire toward the dark forest stretching past the border towers. He wondered if any of them truly understood what was coming.
