Don’t Rely on a Goblin

The path cut its winding way through the forest, dappled by the light of the full moon that pierced the sporadic canopy overhead. The leaves swayed in the sighing breeze, shifting the light in mesmerising patterns and giving the scene an ethereal air. All of which was lost on the two unlikely companions who traipsed along, each about as subtle as a fist to the face.

“This wrong way!” complained the larger of the pair, temporarily raising one of his knuckles from where it dragged along the floor to scratch at his bulbous nose, from the nostrils of which thick clumps of hair sprouted.

“Me?” protested the second in a high-pitched screech. “It was you who said you knew where you were going!”

The first turned to regard his companion. At roughly a quarter of the troll’s height, the ginger-haired goblin cut a comical figure as he met the larger being’s gaze, matching him stare for stare, unwilling to back down.

It was the troll who caved first.

“Anyway, what name is Boom Boom?” he grumbled as he resumed his progress.

“It’s my name,” the goblin retorted, skipping to keep up as he swung his unwieldy blunderbuss up onto a shoulder for ease of carriage.

“Stupid name.”

“Oh yeah?” Boom Boom McBoom challenged. “You think Bristlenose is any better?”

As if in response, Bristlenose’s huge digit probed a hairy nostril.

Boom Boom swung his blunderbuss from his shoulder and gestured meaningfully.

“My name has meaning, too.”

High above the bickering pair, perched in the branches of the trees, a faerie watched them argue. With skin the colour of his namesake, Silvertongue’s wings fluttered in agitation and his fingers twitched out a sporadic rhythm, as if puzzling out some mystery just beyond his grasp.

Trespassers in the queen’s forest! He’d have thought the goblin king would have had more sense than to try it. Of course, it was always possible that the pair were acting of their own volition, trying to make a name for themselves without regard for the bigger picture, for the implications of their actions.

There was always the alliance, of course, but boundaries still existed. And faeries knew all too well how to deal with that which did not belong.

Silvertongue shifted his gaze to the undergrowth beside the path further down from the pair, where his keen eyes picked out the forms of his fellows, camouflaged amongst the foliage. Wasp and Fencer. Belladonna and Foxglove. The most notorious faeries in the enclave had turned out to deal with the intruders. And, amongst their number, the fearsome form of his queen.

On silent wings, Silvertongue fluttered from his perch, over the heads of the squabbling troll and goblin, who had stopped once more to continue their bickering, and joined his fellows. In truth he needn’t have bothered with such subterfuge. The intruders were making so much noise that he doubted they’d have noticed him even if he’d have shouted insults as he passed overhead.

He landed in an obsequious bow before his queen, his movements flowing and theatrical

“Highness,” he purred, his voice smooth and oily. “I see we are geared for war.”

He cast his gaze towards the fierce warriors about them.

“Intruders, Silvertongue,” Queen Diana snapped, her voice hard and uncompromising, barely checked rage edging every word. “I won’t tolerate it.”

“Not tolerate, highness, not tolerate,” Silvertongue assured her, “but maybe there is another way. A simpler way. A way that implicates none of us?”

In the silence that followed, Silvertongue risked a look up at his queen. Tall and imposing, with her face half concealed behind a skull mask, Diana’s mood was impossible to predict. Eventually she shook her head irritably, as if reaching a decision.

“Do as you will,” she said, casting a dismissive hand towards the arguing duo, “but I want these intruders gone from my domain.”

Diana raised her face to the moon, bathing herself in its pale light, and sniffed theatrically.

“I can smell it,” she announced, addressing no-one in particular. “Behind their arguments, fear lurks. It’s intoxicating. Powerful. Use it against them.”

Silvertongue felt the magic seep into him, channelled from the energy his queen had pulled from the intruders. He had experienced such gifts from Diana before but the touch of her power never failed to give him a thrill of excitement.

“Of course, highness,” Silvertongue oozed and, fully aware of the gaze of his fellow faeries upon his back, he fluttered back down the path to perch in a tree alongside the goblin and the troll, still engaged in their fruitless bickering.

“That! Same! Tree!” Bristlenose was bellowing, gesturing before him.

“We’ve walking in a straight line!” Boom Boom fired back. “It can’t be the same!”

“It green!”

“All the trees are green!”

Silvertongue exhaled and closed his eyes, letting their inane babble wash over him. His fingers twitched as he pulled the magic through him. Then he was pushing it outwards, sensing it touch upon each mind in turn.

That of Bristlenose was a simple, barbaric thing, all single-minded intention. Easily influenced and in control of a lot of muscle that could be brought to bear. And yet more tempting was that of the goblin. Cunning, yes, but equally as susceptible to his charms.

“This is a green tree!” Boom Boom stormed, pointing to the specimen before him. “And this,” he continued, gesturing to another, “is a green tree. They’re not the sa-”

He stopped mid-sentence and a glazed expression settled on his features. With eerie calmness he brought his blunderbuss up and sighted along the barrel towards the troll.

“Alright,” said Bristlenose after a moment as his brain caught up with the change of events. “It green tree! It not same tree!”

Without a flicker of emotion, Boom Boom squeezed the trigger. There was a click and nothing more.

“Hey!” Bristlenose protested. “You tried shoot-”

His words were lost in the roar of the backfire as the weapon exploded in the goblin’s hands. The recoil lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling in the dirt of the path several feet away.

In his tree, Silvertongue shook his head, cursing goblin incompetence. Still, even with the shot spent there were other uses for the weapon besides firing it. He clenched his jaw and sent his consciousness forth once more.

Boom Boom picked himself up off the forest floor, his movements stiff and wooden. His ginger hair, usually manic in any case, had taken on an even crazier appearance as the singed tips smouldered. He appeared not to notice and reached once more for his blunderbuss.

“Dat only have one shot, right?” asked Bristlenose, though uncertainty edged his voice. He held up a hand and extended a finger. “One shot take away one shot,” and here he pulled down his finger, “is…err…less than one shot!”

But this time Boom Boom did not level the muzzle towards the troll. Instead, he gripped the hunk of wood and metal in both hands and charged, swinging wildly.

Bristlenose watched with a bemused expression as the goblin came careening past, still swinging even as he tumbled into the first bush that impeded his progress.

Up in the tree, Silvertongue felt the last of his magic drain away and opened his eyes, not quite believing what had transpired. Shoulders hunched in failure, he fluttered back to his fellow faeries, landing once more in front of Diana.

This time he did not have the courage to so much as glance up at his queen.

“Alright,” he conceded, silently cursing the eternal ineptitude of all goblins, “we do it your way.

“All ways are my way,” Diana rasped, a savage glee in her voice. “Faeries; attack!”