A Goblin Odyssey, or “Collected Sayings of the Furious Small”
She is young, barely able to speak, incapable of feeding herself. Not that many are, at the moment. The tribe is starving, and the chieftain has gathered everyone in the largest cavern, to behold the shaman consulting the bones. He hefts aloft a large skull and with some effort sets it sailing through the air. It soars across the room before landing with a crack. The chieftain looks from it to the shaman, who holds his gaze hesitantly before coughing, squeezing his eyes shut and humming deeply out of tune, then hastily picking up a femur. It too sails through the air, twirling gently in space before ending in the firm grasp of an angry looking goblin in his prime. The bone swishes in his hand, cracks against the chieftain’s skull, swishes and cracks, swishes and cracks. When it has been dyed red the whole tribe screams in exultation. The old ways die that new ones may rise, says new chieftain Gorr the Bone.
Soon the tribe is moving, through mountain and mire, forest and fen. She learns to forage for herself, barely surviving on a diet of bark, berries, bugs and bird’s eggs. The old drop in droves, even the shaman, and the chieftain nods sagely, repeating his motto. But one day a pack of four-legged beasts many times larger than a goblin attack, tearing the chieftain’s throat out, impervious to the blows of his mighty bone. The tribe scatters in terror, the creatures hunting them at will for days. But after the growth of a full moon a new chieftain emerges, sitting triumphant atop one of the beasts. Live fast, die young, says Rakk the Fang.
In the mountains the tribe runs into a row of huge carts on wheels manned by creatures three times the size of a goblin, drawn by beasts even larger than the tribe’s ravenous steeds. The chieftain and his warriors charge fearlessly into the fray but the strangers raise their weapons in response, letting loose a volley even faster than their newfound speed. The chieftain’s skull is pierced like a melon, and soon the tribe is in full retreat. For two days and nights the caravan pushes on, driving the tribe before them with a lazy supremacy that claims dozens. On the third night a new chieftain appears before the tribe, the loudest human’s head hanging from his belt, the knives of his followers all dripping. The unseen blade is the sharpest and the first cut always the deepest, says Feda the Keen.
It is a smaller, stronger tribe that finishes this perilous journey. She is still young, but a helpless runt no longer. Their new cave is not completely unoccupied, and is soon damp with blood on top of water. As the older goblins cut up and gnash away at the eight legged bodies she nibbles on huge eggs, hunger and revulsion fighting for control of her mind.
One of the older goblins laughs. “Any port in a storm, kid.”
He ponders this a moment. “A forest where naked trees float for shelter.”
He nods like a shaman. “Very. They eat easy prey off the shoreline and push pleasantly at one another, wagging happy on the waves.”
After the tribe has fully conquered this new home, life settles into a routine of running, fighting and eating. New wolves are found and tamed at the expense of a few limbs and lives, the land is scouted and foraged, raids are conducted and the young ones go out exploring. She is no different, but what she finds is.
She stumbles onto a small plot with vegetables growing in orderly squares near a circular wall of stones with holes in it and thatch on top, smoke sneaking up to the sky. She watches from afar as a group of people about her size flit about, hacking and prodding at the earth, jumping and laughing, singing strange songs. She stares mesmerized until a scream breaks her out of her reverie. One of their young is running away from her as fast as his legs will pull him. Before retreating she picks up a shiny little ball left in his wake.
She doesn’t sleep next morning, her eyes transfixed on the shiny bauble, her mind on the happy people. Before she knows it she’s back, watching them carefully. For months she watches, occasionally stealing a vegetable or a trinket, sometimes leaving dry twigs or pretty rocks in return. As the other young goblins earn themselves names like Foot the Fist, Tarr the Tooth and Ass the Large, she remains nameless, barely scraping by physically but slowly coming to understand the strange chirping ways of the happy people.
They talk about everything and nothing, much like her tribe, but they never really fight and none of them seem to die. They speak of loves and loss, nagging neighbours who could make paint peel, journeys through thick and thin with strangers turned friends, of wild-eyed wizards who turn their enemies into toads and their friends into something worse. Occasionally their conversation turns to her, and it seems most of them think her gifts and thefts are a welcome mystery to break up the day. Theories about her nature abound, their guesses ranging from fairy to firbolg, ghosts to a gentleman with deviant tastes. Only the youngest never changes his mind, firmly insisting they’re haunted by a hideous monster. She ponders this the next time she’s about to drink, carefully scrutinizing her scrunched face, large ears and jagged teeth in the puddle. She thinks she’s rather pretty.
It turns out the tribe is growing impatient of her anonymity. Late one evening as she watches she’s startled by a gnarled hand on her shoulder. Feda himself is grinning in her face, congratulating her on this find. Before she knows what’s happening they’re moving. She seizes up as the fighters swarm down toward the farmhouse, watches from afar as they break down the door, hears as through a haze the screaming.
Soon after silence falls Feda runs back to her with a bottle in hand, laughing to himself as he tells her the name she’s earned. He drags her through the doorway and the fighters stop carving up the happy people to laughingly greet Nott the Brave. Feda takes a swig before handing her the bottle, which she empties into her gullet. It burns her throat on the way down, even more so on the way up. As she falls to her knees heaving, Nott finds herself staring at her own scrunched face, large ears and jagged teeth in a surface clearer than any puddle. She spews once more and the image is banished in bile.
