Snow continued to fall for weeks with no end in sight, burying the town and its inhabitants. But the goblins continued living between the grey sky and pure white ground. Smoke and his followers struggled to finish their reconstruction, but they kept doing their work while hip-deep in snow.
After one month, the snow finally seized its assault against the tribe, and Smoke finished rebuilding the town. They left the buildings to its tenants and returned to their post, guarding the tribe against the threats looming to the east. Once they reached the wall, Smoke divided them into two groups, those that stand guard on the wall and those that will venture into the forest.
Smoke stood on top of the wall and looked at the forest. He could see hunting parties return with rabbits, foxes, muskrats, and deers, and some with nothing. The snow made it harder for them to hunt, but because of it, more deers were migrating from the mountains to the valley. The hunting became difficult, but there was room for mistakes.
The goblins surrounding the gate took the animals and cut the bellies and removed the internal organs. They collected the blood in buckets and passed it around. Goblins took turns drinking the warm iron riched blood.
One of the goblins filled a cup with rabbit blood and climbed up the wall. He offered the cup to Smoke, who was standing vigilantly on wall. "Thank you Spat," Smoke accepted the offering and drank it with satisfaction.
"Master Smoke, me ask chief thing but me scared. Me ask Master Smoke ok?" Spat twirled his long blond hair on his pinky.
"What is it you want to ask?"
"Me want know why Chief make goblins run?"
"Run?" Smoke put his fingers on his chin, "well its to train your endurance and stamina. The longer you can run the higher your stamina gets."
"Really? Me think goblins born strong, that it."
Smoke saw in the distance Stick and Rock running ahead of their followers. "Look over there Spat. Do you see Stick?"
"Yes, me see Master Stick."
"He was the runt of the litter. He was so weak that when he tried to claw his way on our first deer, his nails bent and broke. You will probably be much stronger than he was if both of you were at the same age. Now look at him and watch how he is ahead of the pack, second only to Rock. "
Spat stared at the two at awe. He could not believe Master Stick, the one who held back the Former Chief and stood up against the troll along with the current Chief, was born a weakling. "Master Smoke, you think Spat gets strong too."
"Of course." Smoke smiled.
"Master Smoke!" A goblin yelled at the bottom of the wall. Smoke walked over and looked down at the goblin.
"What is it?"
"Hunters come back. Say found boy slave."
Smoke climbed down the wall and walked to the gate to meet up with the hunting party. The leader of the party was Shuja. She was standing at the concession arguing with a guard. Smoke had the two separated and asked them why they were making a commotion.
"Master Smoke, she no bring boy slave. Maybe she lie."
"Shuja, no lie. Shuja saw slave boy. But Shuja can't bring slave boy because slave boy dead."
"Where did you find him?" Smoke asked.
"By creek with red cross on tree. Shuja trip slave boy hand. It buried by snow, Shuja can't dig out." Shuja looked down, "Shuja, sorry."
Smoke raised his hands, "That's more than enough." Smoke turned to Spat and asked him to relay a message to Sun. After Spat left, Smoke ordered four guards to follow him into the forest. They brought a sleigh to carry their shovels and clubs and to use it to bring the body back.
Smoke and his scouting party walked for hours until they finally reached the red cross Sun drew on the tree. Protruding out the snow on the base of the tree was a small human hand. Smoke and his followers started digging the corpse out from its grave.
After successfully taking the corpse out, they placed it on the base of the tree, leaning on its left shoulder. The corpse's head was missing. They believed the head was nearby, so they started to dig around the body, but no skull was found. Instead, the goblins found bits and pieces of fractured bones and strands of brown hair.
Besides the head, there weren't any other ways for the goblins to identify the body. But they knew it was their slave. One of the goblins in the party recognized the scars on its backs. They looked like the scars the female goblins left after having their way with the slaves.
Some of the trees in the surrounding area were broken in half as if someone cut them down with one swing. Whatever destroyed the trees must have been huge. Smoke didn't want to believe it, but there is a possibility that the creature that wrecked the place must have been a troll. Smoke brought a small notebook with him and wrote down what they saw.
They wrapped the body and carried it on the sleigh. When they got back, the sun was beginning to set. Goblins were waiting on the gate to see the rumored escaped slave. Many of them were female goblins that used the slaves to release their stress. When they saw the body, their hope quickly faded because they expected it to be alive. They mourned for the loss of their toy.
Sun was among the crowd waiting for the scouting party. Smoke ordered his followers to bring the body the meadow and to look for Salacity's former followers to identify the body. "How was the trip?" Sun asked.
"Pretty uneventful. I wrote down what we saw." Smoke took out his notebook and handed it to Sun. "Not sure what killed the slave, but looking at the scene, I can't help but think a troll killed him."
"Another troll, huh? You think it might be related to the one that attacked us?"
"Maybe? Should we halt our hunting?"
"It's been more than a month since the troll attacked us. I doubt another troll will show up. But just in case, we might need to upgrade our defenses. A moat at the front of the wall could help."
"But digging one deep enough to slow down a troll may take some time. Plus, we don't know if it is a troll, could be adventures that killed the slave to end its misery. It could be another monster we had never met before that followed the deers from the mountain."
Sun looked at the body, getting carried to the meadow, "Did you find the head?"
"No."
"Guys, can you stop for a minute." Sun and Smoke walked up to the body. "His whole head is gone. Reminds me of all the goblins that fought that troll. Most of them had no more heads."
"We couldn't even tell which one was which."
"But this one is a little different. Just look at the neck, it seems like it was cut clean. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't just smashing heads." Sun opened Smoke's notebook and read it. "You wrote down that the trees were cut down around it, is that right?"
"Yeah."
"When we were hunting for the first time when we encountered that goat. Our original plan was to lead it to the creek by using our bombs and the dense trees."
"Wait, you don't mean?"
"Whatever that thing was, it must have been huge and needed to cut down the trees around it to chase after the slaves. If our bets are right, it really could be another troll."