“First prisoner,” Beleg smiled, his arms and blade splashed with dark stains of blood. “Nice job lad.”
“He’s yours to deal with as you see fit,” Kersath called out as he strode up in his graceful manner. The dark-skinned elf gestured at the two goblin bodies nearest Kre. “Three and four,” he announced proudly as he worked to get his arrows out of the corpses.
“That one is half mine,” Talimar called out from further back. “Though if you dig out my arrow and clean it off, I’ll happily give you the credit.”
“Three,” Kersath replied triumphantly with his lopsided wicked grin, as he walked away from the corpse still holding Talimar’s arrow. “What about that one?” he called, gesturing at the goblin that surrendered.
“That’s the boy’s call,” Ortho announced, walking up to the group. He was drenched in sweat, his beard fairly dripping with it. His own weapon, a heavy mace that seemed far too big for his use, was covered in goblin blood as well as gooey bits of… stuff… goblin stuff. Kre resolved at that moment never to use a mace or any other type of bludgeoning weapon so that he would never have to clean off… stuff.
“What are the options?” Kre asked, one hand still on his waistband though he tried to do it casually and as if it were just part of his pose.
Kersath leaned forward on his bow, tapping one of his recovered, still gruesome-looking arrows on the reddish blade of Kre’s weapon. “Kill it,” he advised. He offered no additional options.
“The goblin surrendered honorably,” Beleg countered. “It deserves fair treatment. It should pose no further problems now that it’s entire warband has been destroyed.”
“Honor?” Gnore spat. “A quick death be more’n fair.”
The discussion quickly spiraled into oratory chaos, with Kre and the lone living goblin at the center of the maelstrom. If the green creature understood what was happening, it gave no indication. It simply stared at Kre, fixating him with its disturbing eyes and toothy scowl.
“Release him,” Kre said at last, his voice cutting through and suddenly ending the argument around him.
Kersath shrugged and clapped Kre on the shoulder. Then the dark elf made a few guttural sounds and pointed off to the trees behind them using the arrow still in hand. The goblin’s eyes darted towards the direction indicated, then it slowly took a long sweeping look at the mass of dead bodies mixed in amongst the adventurers.
The goblin stood up from its kneeling position in a smooth, fluid motion as it lowered its arms. Kersath repeated one of the phrases he used before, punctuating it with another jab of his arrow towards the trees. This time, the goblin didn’t even look. It simply started at Kre once again, its eyes narrowing down to near slits. It was the same look Kre remembered seeing in one of the neighbor’s rabid rams when he got too close to what the ram believed to be his flock of favored ewes.
The goblin leapt forward, a look of murder in its blood-shot eyes and arms outstretched in hopes of strangling the tiny little man-thing that had defied it and caused the death of its comrades. It knew it to be a suicidal act, but it cared not.