My planet is infested with Goblins

Back at the Caldris Side

Colonel Alaric Veyne had been given eight hundred soldiers, a provincial road, and a problem nobody in Eastwatch fully understood.

By the time the column passed the last fortified checkpoint that is still considered reliably secure, the road ahead had already stopped feeling like part of Caldris. Farms became less frequent, carts disappeared from the roadside, and smoke from abandoned homesteads drifted above distant fields.

The east had not been conquered in any formal sense, but the absence of ordinary life made it clear that the province no longer controlled the countryside with the confidence it once had.

Somewhere ahead, goblin detachments moved between forests, villages, and roads, attacking where they found weakness and withdrawing whenever Caldris gathered enough strength to threaten them.

Alaric’s orders from General Cedric Halvern were simple enough to remember but difficult to execute: locate meaningful concentrations of the enemy, destroy them when favorable, secure important routes, and learn how the goblins operated without losing another force the way Second Company had apparently been lost at Brackenford.

The column behind him stretched farther than Alaric liked. Four hundred and fifty professional infantry formed the bulk of the force, divided into companies that marched with disciplined spacing around the wagons.

One hundred and forty crossbowmen had been distributed throughout the formation rather than grouped together, ensuring that either end of the column could answer an attack quickly.

Eighty cavalrymen remained closer to the main body while sixty mounted scouts ranged far ahead and along the flanks. Engineers, laborers, healers, quartermasters, and messengers filled out the rest, accompanied by several civilian hunters and woodsmen recruited from settlements that had not yet been abandoned.

The supply wagons carried enough food for an extended operation, along with crossbow bolts, bandages, replacement tools, tenting, and spare equipment. It was not an army large enough to retake the entire east, but it was more than any force Caldris had deliberately sent into the contested countryside since the goblin attacks began.

Alaric rode near the front beside Captain Joren Bale, commander of the lead infantry company. The road narrowed between thick stands of oak and pine, prompting the scouts ahead to slow.

Alaric raised one hand and the column compressed slightly as shields shifted outward and crossbowmen moved toward the edges.

Joren glanced toward the trees. "Every road looks like an ambush site."

"That is because we became too wary of the goblin threat." Alaric replied.

"The men heard what happened to Mercer."

"Most of them believe Second Company was wiped out."

Alaric kept his eyes forward. "Most of them believe a dozen different things. Half of those stories came from frightened refugees who never saw fighting in Brackenford."

Joren lowered his voice. "But the village is considered officially lost."

The loss of Brackenford hung over the column like weather. No official report from Captain Roland Mercer had reached Eastwatch, no soldiers from Second Company had returned, and distant witnesses claimed goblins occupied the palisade after the fighting ended.

Soldiers fill the remaining gaps on the story themselves. Some said thousands of goblins had swarmed the village. Others claimed Mercer had been betrayed by local villagers. One version insisted the goblins were dragging bodies east to eat them. Alaric had ordered officers to punish anyone spreading the more absurd rumors, not because he cared about gossip but because frightened soldiers made bad decisions.

He turned slightly in the saddle.

"Tell your lieutenants again. We know the goblins are organized. We know they use ranged weapons, ambushes, and terrain well.

We know they target wagons and horses. We know they retreat when a fight becomes unfavorable. Everything beyond that is speculation."

Joren nodded. "And if the men ask how many there are?"

"Tell them it doesn’tmatter. We’llkill every last one of them."

Honesty is more conducive for discipline than false certainty.

Several miles farther east, a mounted scout rode back at speed and raised a closed fist before reaching the main body. Alaric halted the lead elements and waited while the scout dismounted.

"Tracks near the road, Colonel. Small boots. Fresh enough that the edges have not collapsed."

"How many?"

"Hard to say. Fewer than ten. They crossed from north to south."

"Any sign of their presence nearby?"

"None yet."

Alaric looked toward one of the civilian guides, an older hunter named Pellan who had lived in the region since childhood.

"Take six men and look at it."

Pellan nodded and disappeared into the trees with a small group of scouts while the column remained still. Infantry shifted into defensive positions without being told twice. Crossbows were wound. Wagons stopped behind the protection of shields.

Nothing came from the forest.

Pellan returned ten minutes later holding a scrap of unfamiliar wrapping between two fingers.

"They crossed recently. Maybe this morning. There are marks farther uphill where someone stopped beneath the trees."

"Ambush position?"

"Could be. Could also be a resting place."

Alaric took the scrap, examined it, and handed it to a clerk accompanying the scouts.

"Keep it."

Joren watched the tree line.

"Should we send cavalry after them?"

"No."

"If they are only a few hours ahead—"

"That is exactly why we need to restrain ourselves. They are pretty close we don’t want our cavalry to be vulnerable to enemy counterattacks."

Joren looked toward him.

Alaric pointed into the forest. "Mercer’s men were attacked on a road after goblins learned their movements. Smaller patrols have disappeared after chasing scouts into woodland. If five goblins want us to send fifty cavalry after them, I would prefer to disappoint them."

The column resumed its march.

Their procedures were slower than traditional provincial movement, but Alaric had accepted the loss of speed before leaving Eastwatch.

Mounted scouts did not simply ride down the road anymore. They checked ridges, fields, bridges, and visible trails before the main body reached them. Hunters inspected places where goblins might cross without using official routes.

Engineers examined suspiciously cut trees and stretches of disturbed ground before supply wagons passed. Whenever the road narrowed, cavalry pulled closer rather than ranging ahead where they could be isolated.

The civilian guides proved their worth repeatedly. Near midday, Pellan pointed toward what appeared to be an ordinary wall of brush on the southern side of the road.

"There is an old charcoal trail behind that."

Joren stared at the vegetation.

"I see nothing."

"You are not supposed to. It stopped operating years ago."

Alaric dismounted and followed Pellan several paces into the brush. The narrow trail became visible only once they passed the first screen of branches. It curved away from the road and disappeared between two low ridges.

"Where does it go?"

"To an old streambed. From there, you could approach the road again half a mile east."

Alaric looked back toward the main column.

"A force could move around us without ever touching the road."

"If they knew the trail."

Alaric ordered both ends of the old path marked and sent scouts along it before allowing the column to advance. Local knowledge had become one of Caldris’s few advantages.

Goblins might move faster through the forest, but men like Pellan knew where the forest allowed movement in the first place.

Later that afternoon, the lead scouts signaled movement on the northern flank. The entire front of the column stiffened. Several crossbowmen raised their weapons before Alaric shouted for them to hold.

A small infantry group advanced behind shields while two hunters moved along the edge of the trees. Branches shook farther inside.

One crossbowman whispered, "There."

Alaric waited.

Two deer burst from the undergrowth and bounded across the road.

Several soldiers laughed, but the sound came out more nervously than humorously.

Alaric turned toward the nearest sergeant.

"Anyone fires without a confirmed target, you take his crossbow away and give him a shovel."

The sergeant grinned. "Gladly, Colonel."

Alaric addressed the men nearby more seriously. "The goblins do not have to shoot at us if we exhaust ourselves fighting every tree. Keep your discipline."

The march continued.

By late afternoon, the lack of an actual attack had become more unsettling than one might have been. The column was an obvious target.

Hundreds of men, dozens of horses, and a long line of supply wagons moved through roads bordered by exactly the kind of forests the goblins preferred. Yet no arrows appeared from the trees. No tree collapsed behind them. No scouts deliberately exposed themselves. The countryside remained quiet.

Captain Joren eventually voiced what several officers had already been thinking.

"Maybe they are afraid of the size of the column."

Alaric did not immediately dismiss the possibility, but he did not trust it either.

"They attacked Mercer because they believed they could hurt him. If they are not attacking us, it probably means they do not like their chances of victory."

"That sounds good."

"It means they are using their head. That is not good."

Joren looked at the forest again.

"You would rather they attacked?"

The answer came less than an hour later.

One of Pellan’s hunters noticed small impressions climbing a muddy slope toward a wooded ridge overlooking the road. The tracks were faint enough that most soldiers would have walked past without seeing them. Alaric halted the column again and personally followed a dozen infantrymen and several scouts uphill.

They moved slowly, shields raised and crossbows ready.

No resistance met them.

Near the top of the ridge, Pellan crouched behind a cluster of low branches and raised one hand.

"Here."

Alaric approached.

Someone had arranged dead branches and cut foliage into a shallow screen overlooking the road below. The position was nearly invisible from the main route. Behind it, the ground was compressed where several small bodies had remained for some time. Tiny scraps of food lay beneath leaves, and the same unfamiliar wrapping recovered earlier appeared near one exposed root.

Alaric stepped forward and looked down.

From the concealed position, almost the entire marching column could be seen between the trees.

The supply wagons.

The cavalry.

The infantry.

Even the distances between units.

Joren arrived beside him and swore quietly.

"How long were they here?"

Pellan touched one of the prints with two fingers.

"Not long ago. The soil is still damp where the boot lifted. An hour, maybe two."

Joren looked toward the road below.

"They knew we were coming."

Alaric studied the empty observation point.

"No."

Joren glanced at him.

"They already know we are here."

This had not been an abandoned camp or random trail. Goblin scouts had deliberately climbed the ridge, concealed themselves, and watched the column pass. They had seen its size, its wagons, its cavalry, its marching order, and its direction. If they had left an hour earlier, a messenger could already be carrying that information east.

One lieutenant stepped forward.

"We can pursue. The tracks may still be usable."

Alaric looked at the forest stretching beyond the ridge.

"With how many men?"

"Twenty scouts. Maybe cavalry around the lower ground."

"And when the tracks split?"

The lieutenant hesitated.

Alaric shook his head. "No pursuit."

He ordered the position searched thoroughly and anything useful collected. Then he doubled the flank scouts and instructed the hunters to inspect every ridge overlooking the road for the remainder of the march.

As he descended toward the waiting column, Alaric no longer saw the forest as empty space surrounding his soldiers. Every shadow between the trees could contain another pair of eyes. Every ridge could hide someone counting wagons. Every side trail could carry a messenger toward an enemy commander he had never seen.

The province had finally gathered enough soldiers to move east and hunt the goblins on purpose.

Before they had fought a single real battle, the goblins were already scouting their movements.

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