Chapter 1: The Goblin's Truth
The war camp stank of woodsmoke and something roasting that had probably been walking on four legs that morning. Sir Aldric of Valemont tried to focus on that—the smell, the heat, the grit of ash beneath his cheek—anything to distract from the chorus of guttural laughter that surrounded him.
Rough hands seized his arms, and he was hauled upright with a casual strength that made his dented armor feel like a child's costume. The goblin women holding him weren't small. They weren't frail. Each one stood nearly as tall as his chest, with thick shoulders and arms like corded rope, and they grinned at him with rows of jagged yellow teeth. The torchlight caught the gleam of their eyes, and the sway of their heavy, pendulous breasts as they dragged him toward the center of the camp.
"Careful with the merchandise, Bertha. We don't want him bruised before Grunhilda gets a look."
"Shut it. He's a knight. They're tougher than they look."
"Pretty, though. Look at that jaw."
"Focus."
The one called Bertha squeezed his bicep, and he felt the strength in her grip. This wasn't the flabby, comic goblin of tavern tales. These women were built like siege engines, all muscle and hard fat, and they moved with a predator's grace that made his skin prickle.
Aldric kept his mouth shut. He'd learned long ago that a knight's words were weapons too, and he'd rather not waste them on the rank and file. Let them drag him. Let them laugh. He'd find his moment.
They threw him down hard onto a mossy rock, and the impact jarred his teeth. He bit back a grunt, refusing to give them the satisfaction. His gaze swept the camp as he regained his bearings. Sharpened stakes ringed the perimeter, and iron cauldrons bubbled over open flames, steam curling into the night sky. There were perhaps thirty goblin women in sight, all of them watching him with the same hungry, appraising look.
And then the crowd parted, and he understood why.
Grunhilda the Breaker was a mountain of green flesh, nearly as tall as Aldric himself, with a chest like a fortress wall and arms that looked capable of bending a sword into a horseshoe. Her face was proudly, aggressively ugly—a long hooked nose, a mouth full of jagged teeth, and a chin that jutted forward like the prow of a warship. Her hair was a wild gray mane, streaked with battle scars that crisscrossed her bare arms and shoulders.
She wore a crude leather harness that did nothing to contain her generous curves, and her heavy breasts swayed with each deliberate step she took toward him. The ground seemed to tremble beneath her weight.
Aldric met her gaze and held it. A knight didn't flinch. A knight didn't look away.
Grunhilda stopped in front of him, hands on her hips, and studied him like a butcher examining a prime cut of meat. The silence stretched, broken only by the crackle of flames and the low murmur of the goblin women behind her.
"So," she said finally, her voice a low rumble. "Another one."
"Another what, exactly?" Aldric asked.
Another one of you. Another knight who wandered too far from his lord's protection. Another pretty thing who thinks his sword makes him invincible." She leaned down, close enough that he could smell the roasted meat on her breath and the wild musk of her skin. "You're not the first, and you won't be the last."
Aldric's jaw tightened. "My men will come looking for me."
"Will they?" Grunhilda's grin widened, showing more jagged teeth. "You were alone, little knight. Three days from the nearest village, trailing a group of what you thought were raiders. The only tracks leading here are yours."
He kept his face blank, but something cold settled in his gut. She was right. He'd been tracking this war-band for days, sure he was closing in on a group of petty raiders who'd been terrorizing the borderlands. He hadn't expected a war camp of female goblins, and he certainly hadn't expected to be taken alive for... whatever this was.
Grunhilda straightened and gestured to her body, a slow, sweeping gesture from her scarred face down to her thick thighs. "Look at me, knight. Look at my body. My face. My scars. Look at these women around you."
Aldric did, and he saw the truth of what she was showing him. They weren't the withered crones of old tales, bent over bubbling cauldrons with malicious cackles. They were warriors, each one scarred and muscled, carrying themselves with the unmistakable confidence of those who had won every fight of their lives.
"In your stories, your artists, they always lie about us," Grunhilda continued, pacing around him in a slow circle. "They paint us as either hags with sagging breasts and warts on our noses, or as lithe, beautiful maidens in need of rescue. They never show us as we are."
She stopped in front of him again, planting a heavy hand on his chest. The pressure was immense, and he could feel the calloused roughness of her palm even through his padded tunic. "We are strong. We are fierce. We are built for breeding with powerful males, and we take what we want."
Her hand pressed harder, and he felt his heart beat against it. "So tell me, little knight. When you saw us, when they dragged you through the muck and you looked upon my face and my body... what did you see? Ugly beast or impossible beauty?"
Aldric's mind raced. This was no simple interrogation. There was something deeper here, a wound that went beyond questions of survival. She was testing him, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that there was only one right answer.
"I saw a warrior," he said carefully. "I saw someone who could break me in half without even trying."
Grunhilda laughed, a deep rumble that shook her chest. "Honest. I like that." She withdrew her hand, and he felt the absence of its pressure like a missing weight. "But that's not what I asked, is it? I asked what you saw. What you felt in that moment. The truth of it."
Aldric held her gaze. The truth. He could lie, give her what she wanted, but something told him she'd see through it in an instant. These creatures had survived for centuries by being smarter than the stories gave them credit for.
"I saw a woman who demanded to be seen," he said slowly. "A woman who refused to be what others expected her to be. I saw strength. I saw power. I saw..." He paused, searching for the words. "I saw something I didn't understand. Something I wasn't prepared for."
Grunhilda's smile was slow, spreading across her face like dawn breaking over a battlefield. "And now, little knight? Now that you've seen everything. Now that you know what we truly are. What do you see?"
She stepped closer, and he felt the heat of her body radiate through the air between them. Her heavy breasts brushed against his chest, and he saw the scars that crossed her collarbone, the callouses on her hands, the fierce intelligence burning in her dark eyes.
"I see," Aldric said, "a woman who has never been given the chance to be anything but what she is."
Grunhilda's grin widened, and she leaned down until her lips were inches from his ear. "And what am I, knight? Say it."
Aldric's throat was dry. This was a trap, he knew. Whatever he said would be used against him, one way or another. But he was a knight of Valemont, and he'd never backed down from a challenge in his life.
He lifted his chin, held her gaze, and said, "You're a queen without a kingdom. A warrior without a war. And I think you've been looking for a worthy opponent for a long time."
The goblin women around them fell silent. The only sound was the crackle of the flames and the heavy thud of Grunhilda's heart as she stared at him.
And then she laughed, a deep, raw sound that echoed through the camp like a war horn.
"Wrap him up," she said, turning to the others. "He's mine now. And tomorrow, we'll see if he's as honest with his body as he is with his words."
The goblin women cheered, and rough hands seized Aldric again, but this time, something had changed. He saw the hunger in their eyes, yes, but he also saw respect. And he knew, with the certainty of a man who had faced death many times, that this night was only the beginning.