6. The Wasted Plum

Runners arrive in Cadoth with sealed messages, and the baron’s officials mount step-boxes to proclaim emergency bans. A powerful-voiced town mouth announces that Oustrim has been invaded from beyond the Thrall Mountains, Hrava has fallen, and the king is feared dead. Assurance follows that the Oxbone Walls to the east stand firm.

When a foreign Untherdan woman interrupts to ask if goblins are responsible, guards swiftly fine her, underscoring Cadoth’s strict order. The crowd erupts in anxious talk: fears of a rally, boasts of archery, and warnings from elders recalling the Threshers’ War and the Daughters’ War, when fields emptied, sickness spread, and losses mounted.

A debate breaks out over the enemy’s nature. Some insist it cannot be goblins; others claim the threat is worse. A maimed veteran argues that goblins are enemies one looks down on, but what lies beyond the Thralls looks down on humankind, implying giants.

Kinch listens and reflects. Remembering the witness-coin’s vision of giants in Hrava, he recognizes the crowd is nearing the truth. He contrasts goblin plagues and the devastation of past wars with his current path, feeling a grim relief that his march is not toward goblins, yet bracing for giants beyond the Thrall Mountains.