Babysitting

“Outta da way!” Rottingbones Waaghcasta angrily cuffed the two goblins squabbling outside his hut, sending both them squealing and sprawling onto the muddy ground. “Don’t yuz got betta dings to do? Do do I hafta squish yuz?” The gobos quickly scrambled to their feet and hurried off as the Orc shaman spat in their general direction.

It wasn’t fair, the Orc Shaman thought. By Mork’s great green foot it just wasn’t fair. Why should he have to babysit these pathetic gobos and snotlings while the rest of his tribe added Dwarven beards to their belts?

It had been two weeks since he had been sent here, to the edge of the Borders, while the rest of the Scowling Death clan had marched into the mountains to crush back the stunty incursions. He had already of the news had arrived of great greenskin victories in Da Dark Landz and at Da Hills Before Da Bigger Hills. While there was no news yet from the approaches to Karak Kadrin, but he was sure that the power of the Waaagh would prove just as unstoppable.

Just then, a Goblin Spider-Rider drew up. Waaghcasta surveyed him, unsure which type of gobbo he disliked most: the scheming, conniving night gobbos (all too often deranged by their potent mushroom brews); their regular gobbo cousins (with their foul encampments and fouler-tempered wolves); or these semi-wild forest gobos, with their savage feathers and beads and spiders. It was probably these, he thought. He had never really liked spiders.

Now, boars—there was a mount for a warrior. He had never really wanted to be a shaman, dammit. Too much chance of one’s head exploding. No, he had wanted to be one of the Boar Boyz, bravely charging the foe with cries of…

“I said deyz a-COMIN !” The goblin’s warning was half squealed and half shouted, bringing Waaghcasta’s thoughts back to the here and now. “Pinkskins, ‘undreds of dem, wif bows and pointies and shiney steels and dem ridey-beasts dey uze.”

Damn, it must be the Border Princes—or at least some of them. Probably Mayhem the Spore-Killer, and his vicious Clan Calhew. Those Bretonnians truly hated greenskins.

“Sound da horns, and bang da drums den. Unchain da trolls! We gunna go get em!”

Waaghcasta barked orders at the growing thong of gobos now gathered to hear the news. He knew enough of the politics of the Border Princes to know that early victory was essential, before the bickering baronies could join forces, and especially before Bretonnia, the Empire, or the Elves could send aid. None of these pathetic gobbos would understand the intricacies of the situation—no sophisticate orc intellects (like his own) were at work here. Instead, they needed a more basic motivation.

“Weez gunna be feasting on roast ridey-beast, ladz, and pickin ours teethies wif deyr spearz! Free fungus for every shiney helm or pinkskin head!”

And so, at the head of a Goblin army, Rottingbones Waaghcasta marched to meet the enemy.