Free The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Book 1) by Aleron Kong

for?”
     “And so much more. Nightshade, deathflower AND shadowbane . We
will melt those foul smelling interlopers from the inside out.” With that
pleasant image, Sion immediately took out his mortar and pestle to begin
preparing the poison. Richter wasn’t sure at first, but the bloodthirsty
Disneyland reject was actually humming!

CHAPTER 8

    Sion worked through the night and
into the next day, storing his poison in small clay jugs covered in animal hide
that he took from his pack. Richter looked doubtfully at the small quantity of
poison being produced, but Sion assured him it would be enough. Finishing in
late afternoon, the sprite sat back massaging his tired arms. Richter decided
it was time to share the last of his plan, “Killing these lesser goblins, is
probably not going to change much. We need to kill the Chief, and it seems
reasonable to assume his magician may be responsible for the rabid wolves, so
he will have to die as well. Those two need to be our goal above anything
else.”
     “While I was collecting the
herbs, I was able to observe their camp. I never saw a red goblin come out, but
when they all began eating a few goblins went inside the cave with bowls of
food. All the other goblins ate after that. They were probably bringing food to
their chief and his pet magician. We need to get the poison in their retched
stew just before they prepare to eat their evening meal to catch as many of
them as possible. There will still be the patrols that are out of camp. They
won’t be sickened, but we will have a window to act. Now, it is time for you to
tell me the last part of your plan. How do we get the poison into the pot?”
     “Well,” Richter replied.
“Depending on your perspective, this is actually the easiest part. The pot is
right below a large tree. That tree grows out of the shelf of stone that cave
is set in. The shelf is well covered with foliage and small shrubbery that
leads all the way to edge of the encampment and into the forest.”
     Sion nodded, being well
familiar with the lay out of the camp.
     “Now,” Richter said with a
barely concealed smile. “When you climb out onto the tree branch…”
     An hour later, Sion was still
cursing the stupid human, and his own greater stupidity for agreeing to this
horrible plan. As much as he wanted to plant an arrow in Richter though, he had
not come up with a better plan of how the two of them could kill more than
fifty goblins. He moved along the escarpment not ten feet above the grunting
goblins, hearing a mixture of common speak and their own guttural tongue. He
moved slowly. Despite his justified faith in his concealment skills, one
stumble or one loose rock would mean if his death. If they were able to subdue
him rather than kill him outright… well it did not bear thinking about. Goblins
were the racial enemies of the Wood Sprites, and tales of their savagery kept
many a sprite child up late into the night.
     Keeping one eye on the goblins,
and the other on where to find his next hand or foothold, he moved along the
rocky shelf until reaching the tree. He climbed up the trunk and then out onto
its limbs, grateful for the added cover of the large leaves. He slowly crawled
out onto the branch above the stew pot. Looking down, he saw too many eyes
looking at the pot in anticipation, and dared not drop the jar of poison at
this point. He and Richter had agreed that the return of a patrol would provide
best distraction. Waiting on the tree limb, he attempted to ignore the burn
from the fire 20 feet below, and removed the stoppers from both clay pots. As
he slowly warmed, he vowed to repay the retched human for this. He had seen
that poorly concealed smile on his stupid, large face!
     Luckily, Sion did not need to
wait too much longer. There was a clamor to the south of the camp as a group of
seven goblins returned blathering loudly about whatever stupid thing they had
found on their patrol. Sion had never before been happy about the