"Okay," said Nurl, a frown solidly clamped to his ridiculously chiselled features, "anyone care to guess what the Hells this is all about?"

The three adventurers — Nurl, his Half-Elven flatmate Gort, and Borgus Rennan, 13th Level Mage — were crouched on the crest of a steep hill overlooking the long valley that ran between The Vampire Foothills Of Deathhausen and the staggering spire of Mt Crucible, former home of the Younger Gods before they got fed up with the majestic scenery and moved en masse into the shadier parts of Wisdom City, where all the fun was to be had.

"Maybe it’s a folk festival?" suggested Gort in his annoyingly bright and positive and maliciously pleasant Half-Elven voice.

"Folk festival my bottom," muttered Nurl. "You don’t get seven or eight-hundred Half-Orcs and Hobgoblins in one place because you want to explore traditional arts and crafts. You get them in one place because you want to explore some very traditional and exceptionally unpleasant ways of killing a lot of people. And what about this?" He held out a crumpled piece of paper, which fluttered back and forth in the high wind that coursed across the hill. "I found it nailed to a tree a couple of miles back."

Gort took the piece of paper and glanced at it, then passed it on to Borgus with a shrug. The Mage spent a few moments examining it, then looked up at his companions.

"It’s been a long time since I tried to read Hobgoblin, but I think this," he traced some symbols with a finger, "is a name — ‘Gralgar The Perpetrator’ — and this smudgy thing here could be the symbol for ‘Attack at dawn without mercy and kill everyone starting with the women and children because, wow, don’t they usually get off easy?’ Or… or, it could be the symbol for ‘Attack at dawn, with a little mercy, but not much because word gets around and we have a reputation to maintain, so women and children are optional but we are nevertheless expecting a top effort from everyone in the wholesale slaughtering and mindless carnage arenas.’ It’s hard to tell, considering that Hobgoblins only have about 12 words in their vocabulary and 11 of them are used to describe ways of killing people."

"What does the 12th one describe?" asked Gort.

"Basically, what to do to the people after you’ve killed them. But that’s only if it’s written on its own. That’s the problem with Hobgoblin — the meaning is entirely dependent on the context. In fact, the most famous piece of Hobgoblin writing, "The Ballad Of HLaarRRlllRrrllRllll", can be read either as a very moving poem about a young Hobgoblin who meets the Hobgobliness of his dreams and who decides not to kill her and boil and eat her head, which is the traditional Hobgoblin courting ritual, so his relatives kill him and boil and eat his head, which is the traditional Hobgoblin method of dealing with rebellious teenagers; or it can be read as a recipe for a moderately dull chicken salad with sesame seeds; or it can be read as detailed instructions on how to repair a General Alchemical toaster oven."

"Those Hobgoblins and their toaster ovens," Nurl said sadly. "You’d think the silly bastards would have learned by now. They haven’t even invented fire yet, let alone electricity. No wonder they always think the things are broken."

Borgus stared out at the hive of activity taking place in the valley below. "I don’t think we can just ignore this. That’s a veritable crapload of Half-Orcs and Hobgoblins to have just an hour’s ride from Wisdom City. Maybe it is some sort of innocent gathering; but then again, maybe we should just go with bitter experience and assume these mad, bloodthirsty lunatics intend to attack the city like every other time 3 or more of them happen to be standing somewhere together at the same time."

"I say we wait until nightfall," said Nurl. "We should have a better idea of what they’re up to, and maybe Wandering Xing-Lu and Phil The Berserk Accountant will have got here by then."

"I agree," said the Mage. "Five against eight hundred makes so much more sense than just three against eight hundred."

"They won’t know what hit them," said Gort in a teeth-grindingly well-adjusted and pleasant tone.

"Yeah," said Nurl. "And if we’re really unlucky they probably even won’t notice what hit them, either."

Here Endeth Part 1. Please send lots of money, or I promise I’ll write Part 2.