Goblin Quest (22 page)

On the battlements of Elvensea, Henwyn and his companions cheered as they saw the dragon start to fall. Then their cheers faded, as they realized that she was going to fall on them.

They scattered towards the landward end of the battlement, but could not go far because of the still-burning fires there. Henwyn ran back to fetch the smoke squirter, which he had set down beside the parapet after Skarper fell. He snatched it up, and ran to join the others cowering in the smoke with just seconds to spare.

The immense, scaly carcass landed on the battlement with a thump that cracked the paving and sent chunks of the parapet tumbling down the sides of Elvensea. Black dragon-blood spattered the stonework, and hissed in the burning buildings.

Skarper, clinging tightly to Mortholow's neck, cautiously opened one eye and then the other, and checked to make sure that he was still all there. He was. The dragon had broken his fall. But when he looked for Hellesvor he saw only the crumpled struts of the harness protruding from beneath the wreck. The elven woman had been crushed under her own dragon. Which seemed to Skarper to serve her right.

And then, while he was still getting used to the idea that he was not dead after all, his friends came running to help him down, and tell him what a hero he had been.

“The bravest thing I ever saw!” Breenge was saying. “The way he leaped upon that dragon's tail…”

“It was all part of his plan, of course,” said Henwyn, who knew it hadn't been but was pleased to see the proud Woolmarkers praising his friend.

“The way he climbed its body, and used the elf witch's own blade to behead it!” agreed Rhind. He shook Skarper manfully by the paw and said, “I am sorry I doubted you, goblin. You are worthy of your place in the Hall of Heroes!”

“My what?” wondered Skarper, who was still feeling a bit dizzy.

“The Hall of Heroes at Boskennack,” said Henwyn. “Didn't you know? By ancient decree, anyone who slays a dragon is summoned to join the company of heroes there, and aid the High King in keeping the Westlands safe.”

“What, with Lord Ponsandane and Kerwyn of Bryngallow and all them idiots?” asked Skarper.

“They are not idiots,” said Rhind. “They are the bravest men in all the Westlands. But none so brave as you, Skarper of Clovenstone!”

Skarper would have told him a few home truths about Kerwyn, Lord Ponsandane and the rest, but just at that moment there was a leathery rasp from behind him. One of Mortholow's wings, which had settled like a tent across the wreckage of her body, was moving. Everyone stood and stared at it, as it was drawn aside, and out from the shadows behind it, battered and dented and slick with dragon blood, came Hellesvor. Her armour of elven steel had saved her, and while the mortals talked she had managed to free herself from beneath her fallen steed.

Too angry to even speak, she stood and hissed at them, and raked them with her wintry eyes.

Rhind sprang forward, raising his sword. She smashed him aside with a blow from her armoured fist. Henwyn swung his sword at her and she caught it in her gauntlet and snapped it, leaving him blinking at the useless stub. Breenge and Zeewa loosed their bows, but she made a snake-quick movement of her head and the arrows slid past her, their flight feathers flicking her face. She snatched the bows and shattered them, flung Breenge and Zeewa aside and stalked on towards Skarper, who ran towards the edge of the battlement, and then could run no further. The parapet had collapsed when Mortholow fell, and he teetered among the rubble there, dislodging small shards of stone and watching them fall end-over-end down on to the rocks and roofs below.

“Goblin,” said Hellesvor, finding her voice at last. “Meddling, stupid, ugly goblin. Not even a mortal man, and yet you have laid all my hopes in ruins.”

“Sorry,” said Skarper.

Hellesvor picked up Prince Rhind's sword and swished it through the air. Severed sunbeams flicked from the bright blade. “At least,” she said, looking down at him where he cowered there on the battlement's brink, “at least I shall have my revenge. Prepare to—”

And then, out of the smoke at the battlement's landward end, a tiny shape came running. A tiny, furry shape, long ears blown backwards with the speed of its coming. The movement caught Hellesvor's eye. She turned her head, and gasped.

“Fuzzy-Nose!” cried Breenge, delightedly.

The rabbit jumped on to Prince Rhind, using his plump stomach as a trampoline to bounce itself up on to the ruined parapet. From there it launched itself at Hellesvor, somersaulting past the sword she held and landing with a furry thump in her face. She stumbled backwards, batting at the rampant rodent with her free hand while it scrabbled its paws at her eyes and nibbled at her nose with its long front teeth. With a cry of fury she caught it by the ears and flung it away from her. But while she had been struggling with it, Henwyn had run to fetch the only weapon left – the smoke squirter. As Hellesvor recovered and swung back towards Skarper, Henwyn came at her, emptying the white smoke into her face.

“Argh!” and “Ack!” choked Hellesvor, her eyes and mouth and nose full of the choking, freezing vapour. She still swung the sword, she still kept staggering towards Skarper, but she could no longer see where she was going. Skarper curled himself into a tight little ball there at the battlement's edge, and she bumped into him, tripped, and went tumbling over.

Henwyn threw aside the empty smoke squirter, and he and Skarper peered over the edge. Hellesvor's silver armour flashed and flickered as she fell, struck a rooftop, slid, hit another, slid some more, and went whirling clean off the edge of Elvensea, vanishing at last with a white splash into the deep blue water just off shore.

A sort of shudder ran through the stone of Elvensea; a sort of shiver, swiftly stilled. And then there was only the smoke, and the whisper of the dying fires, the call of the gulls and the lonely distant murmur of the surf.

“Is she dead?” asked Skarper.

“I think so,” said Henwyn.

“I thought elves are immortal?”

“But not indestructible,” said Henwyn. “And even if she does still live, that armour will carry her down into the deep. And she has no dragon any more, no sword. We have defeated her.”

“Fuzzy-Nose defeated her,” said Breenge, scrambling up and running over to where the rabbit had fallen. It was dazed, but it wriggled and twitched its nose as she picked it up. “Oh, Fuzzy-Nose, how brave you are!” said Breenge, kissing it. And whether it was the kiss that made it happen, or maybe Hellesvor's magic had all died with her, there was a sort of flash, a popping sound, and suddenly Breenge was not holding a soot-stained rabbit any more, but staggering under the weight of a large, nude, and very embarrassed sorcerer.

“Prawl!” everyone shouted.

“Eep!” said Prawl, as Breenge dropped him in surprise.

Henwyn handed him a cloak. Prince Rhind woke up and said, “What? Where's Prawl come from? Where did Hellesvor go?”

“Into the sea,” said Zeewa. “And we should go too; back to the Westlands, in case Elvensea decides to sink again.”

 

Henwyn did not think that Elvensea would sink. He had
a feeling that it was here to stay. The fires were failing now, and as his companions went down the winding paths to where the new ship waited, he went upwards, through the burned and blackened palaces. The hangings and fine furniture were all gone to ash, but here and there, on flat, empty places which the fires had not touched, he saw a blush of green, as if seeds that had slept a long time in the soil were waking and stretching up to feel the sunlight. Perhaps those were the real sleepers of Elvensea, he thought; the trees and grasses that would make it green again.

And what about the elves, the ones who had fled, rather than stay with Hellesvor and wage war against the coming of the mortals? Were they still out there somewhere, in some unknown land across the Western Ocean? He walked through the ruins of the pillared hall (there were still a few wisps of mist in the enchanted pool) and stood outside it, looking westward where the sun was sinking, wondering. Some of the hall's shining dome had melted in the fire's heat and spilled down its walls, coating them with metal. The metal was black with soot and ash, but when Henwyn rubbed his hand across it the black came away and the space he'd cleared blazed brightly with reflections of the sun. And he thought,
After we leave this place, the rain will wash it clean, and the sun will shine upon these heights, and maybe one day some elven ship, venturing from those far lands of theirs, will see the gleam, and know that Elvensea is risen again. And maybe the elves will come back here, and maybe they'll be a bit friendlier than Hellesvor was.

He found a roof slate, fallen from some lesser building, and with the stub of his snapped-off sword he scratched a little stone book of his own.
Greetings, elves
, he wrote.
Hellesvor wanted war, and we defeated her, but if you come to the Westlands, the men and women and goblins and dwarves and giants who live there will welcome you in peace. Henwyn of Clovenstone
.
P.S.
Sorry about the mess.

He left it in the hall, beside the magic pool, and went running down to join the others. He hoped the elves would come back some day. He had a feeling that they couldn't all be like Hellesvor. They were just a different sort of people, after all, and most people are all right, really.

 

 

The white ship sailed like a dream, her sails filled by a kindly wind that blew her across the calm blue sea.

“A fine ship,” said Captain Kestle, standing at the helm. “She needs a name, though. I was thinking of
Sea Cucumber the Second,
but there's nothing cucumberish about her.”

“What about the
Swan
?” asked Henwyn. “She is more like a swan than even Captain Gumpus's old ship.”

“But not the
Swan of Govannon
,” said Woon Gumpus, thinking sadly of his lost ship. “There was only one ship of that name, and she is gone for ever.”

“Then she is the
Swan of Elvensea
,” said Captain Kestle. “A lovely name for a lovely vessel. If only I had somewhere to sail her to!”

“To sail anywhere would be an adventure, in a ship like this!” said Woon Gumpus. “Look here, Kestle, you know all about sailing these things, which strings to pull and how to avoid large rocks and so on. And I can find you passengers! There are rich folk in Coriander and Porthquidden and Choon who will pay good money to sail in an elven ship. We'll show them the night forests of Musk, the deserts of Barragan. We'll visit the sea people. We'll show them Elvensea itself. What do you say?”

“I'll have to think on it,” said Kestle gravely. But there was a look in his eyes which made everyone feel sure that he had thought about it already, and that his answer would be yes.

Breenge and Prawl seemed to have come to an agreement, too. At first Breenge had been rather disappointed to find that her cute rabbit had really just been Prawl all along. But he had retained a few of Fuzzy-Nose's rabbity ways, such as a tendency to twitch his nose, and a liking for salad – and she began to decide that he was still quite cute, in his way, even in human form. And he had saved her life, after all; he had saved everyone's lives, hurling himself at Hellesvor like that.

“Oh, Breenge,” he said adoringly, as they sat together on a little sofa in one of the new
Swan
's cabins.

“Oh, Fuzzy-Nose!” she replied, with shining eyes.

“Oh, yuck!” said the sofa, tipping them both on to the deck and squeaking away on its casters to another cabin. Spurtle might have had the outward form and semblance of furniture, but he was still a goblin through and through, and if there's one thing goblins
hate
it's romance.

 

The
Swan of Elvensea
soon carried them to Far Penderglaze. Black badges of scorched gorse on the island's summit showed where Mortholow had passed. They passed the rest of the Autumn Isles, and swung north-east to Floonhaven. There, upon the cliffs, they saw the two tall figures of the giants waiting to greet them, and they were amazed, because they had not known till then of Bryn's discovery. At first they were inclined to be afraid of him, because he was so very big, but as they drew nearer they could see that the other giant was Fraddon. Fraddon was waving happily at them, and Bryn, who was so big that they could not stop staring at him, walked out and stood with one foot on the end of either wall of the harbour, beaming down at the pretty white ship as it passed beneath him.

“He is as big as I was, when I was young,” shouted Fraddon, introducing the young giant to his friends aboard the ship. “But twice as strong, and thrice as brave! He kept the dragon from burning this town, and many another, likely! What of the dragon, by the way? Have you news of it?”

“It is dead!” shouted Henwyn. “Skarper killed it”

“Shhh!” said Skarper, because the others had been teasing him all the way from Elvensea, calling him Dragonslayer and asking him if they could come and visit when he was living at the Hall of Heroes.

“Skarper has killed the dragon!” roared Fraddon, and before the
Swan of Elvensea
had even tied up at the quay the news had spread through the streets of Floonhaven. Bells were ringing, bright flags were unfurled, and the sounds of cheering voices echoed across the water, so loud that, far offshore, the people of the sea popped their ugly heads above the waves to see what was happening.

 

Half of Clovenstone seemed to be waiting on the harbourside as the
Swan's
passengers came ashore: Fentongoose, Doctor Prong and dozens of goblins, all with their own tales of the battle to tell. Then Etty and some of her miners appeared, and Skarper was able to give her back her father's amulet and tell her how it had helped to pull him back through the wall between the worlds from the super market. And finally King Floon and Queen Harwyn descended from their castle to invite everyone inside, and to declare a feast and holiday in honour of Skarper the Dragonslayer. Long into the night the lamps burned and the laughter echoed, and Henwyn, Zeewa and the others grew quite tired of telling their stories of the quest.

Towards the end of the evening, Skarper noticed that Henwyn was missing from the feasting hall, and went to look for him. He went outside into the summer night. The battlements of Castle Floon seemed low and humble and sort of cosy after the heights of Elvensea, and the moon made a silvery pathway on the sea.

Henwyn stood there, looking out over the harbour and the sea beyond. Skarper went and leaned upon the wall beside him, and they stood there together for a while in silence, until Skarper noticed another solitary figure leaning on a lower balcony, also staring out across the sea.

“Is that Prince Rhind?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” said Henwyn. “He is sad because his quest came to nothing. He did not raise the elves, only Hellesvor and her dragon, and you slew that. He so wanted to be a hero, poor man!”

“Like you did, when you first turned up at Clovenstone,” said Skarper.

“Yes,” said Henwyn, and sighed. “We are more alike than I wanted to admit, Prince Rhind and I. I did nothing on this quest either. Telling the story of it made me realize how useless I have been. I got eaten by a tree, and led you all on to the sea cliffs. It was Grumpling who saved us from the crabs. It was you who slew the dragon.”

“It was your idea to burn Elvensea.”

“But that is hardly something to be proud of!”

“Well, it was you who defeated Hellesvor.”

“That was Prawl. Even a rabbit was more use than me.”

“Without you,” said Skarper, “we wouldn't have had a quest at all. We'd have stayed in Clovenstone arguing and eating and burping and stuff, and Rhind would have raised Elvensea and Hellesvor would have burned half the world down, probably. Cos goblins are a bit rubbish sometimes, though we mean well. So we need someone to give us a shove and make us do things.”

“That was Princess Ned's job,” said Henwyn.

“Well, now it's yours,” said Skarper. “If you don't do it, some other big lunk like Grumpling will come along and start organizing us all. And you're the Lych Lord's heir, after all, so it's only right you should give us goblins a helping shove from time to time. A friendly kick up the tail, as it were. And I'll help.”

“You'll be in Boskennack,” said Henwyn. “When the High King hears of your dragon slayery, he will send for you, and you will go to dwell in the Hall of Heroes.”

“They don't have goblins in the Hall of Heroes,” said Skarper. “You're stuck with me.”

 

But a few days later, when the long line of happy, full-bellied, hungover goblins was weaving its way back across the heathland west of Clovenstone, they saw a cloud of dust upon the road ahead, and as it drew closer they saw the glitter of armour and bright horse-trappings in its heart, and pretty soon it turned out to be a band of riders bearing the banner of the High King, and led by their old friend Garvon Hael.

“Well met, my friends!” called the old warrior, reining in his horse and smiling down at them (and up at the giants). “News of your high deeds has come to Boskennack. The people of the sea told it to the fishermen, who told it the High King. I am come with his thanks.”

The goblins all looked proud. There had been a time, not so long ago, when important people like High Kings had thought of goblins as a bit of a menace, if not downright evil.

“Also, a command,” said Garvon Hael. “By the ancient custom of these lands, any man who slays a dragon is rewarded with a seat at the High King's right hand, a place in the Hall of Heroes, and the hand in marriage of a princess of the royal line (subject to availability).” He paused a moment, smiling at Skarper. “Skarper, I am to take you back with me to Coriander. You shall live at Boskennack henceforth.”

Skarper felt as dizzy as he had when he stepped off that crashed dragon at Elvensea. To be summoned to the Hall of Heroes was the greatest honour that could be bestowed upon a warrior of the Westlands. He thought of all the treasure there, the shining things with which he could fill his new nest. He thought of all the food – for the kitchens of Boskennack were famed far and wide. He didn't like the sound of marrying a princess, but probably most princesses wouldn't like the sound of marrying a goblin, so he expected he'd be allowed to skip that bit. It would be brilliant!

And yet his heart did not leap up, as he knew it should. He thought of Clovenstone: the weed-grown ruins, the damp rooms and draughty windows, the pervading smells of cheese and goblins. He thought about blackberrying in the ruins with Henwyn or Zeewa – there would be big, juicy blackberries at the end of a summer like this – and how sad it would be if he never got to prick his paws again on Clovenstone's fearsome bramble patches, and sit down afterwards with his friends on some patch of overgrown lawn to eat berries and talk of this and that.

“I'm only a hero by accident,” he said.

“That doesn't matter,” laughed Garvon Hael. “So are most heroes! You cannot refuse this summons, dragonslayer.” And he gestured at a riderless horse that one of his companions held by the reins. Its stirrups had already been shortened to fit Skarper's short goblin legs.

“The thing is…” said Skarper, looking round, wondering how he should say goodbye to his friends, and how long it would be before he saw them again. “The thing is… It wasn't me who slew the dragon. It was Prince Rhind!”

There was a bit of commotion among the goblins at that. Cries of “No!” and “What?” and “Was it?” and, “Anchovies!” Prince Rhind shook his head disbelievingly.

“It's true,” said Skarper. “Rhind got knocked out by Hellesvor, and it's blurred his memories a bit. It was him who chopped the dragon's head off, fair and square. He's the one who belongs in the Hall of Heroes, not me.”

“But the sea people said—”

“They must have been lying,” said Henwyn. “Or perhaps they got the wrong end of the stick. At any rate, Skarper is right. It was Rhind who slew the dragon. Wasn't it?”

“Yes!” said Zeewa, cottoning on. “Yes!” said Breenge and Prawl. “Yes,” said Spurtle (who was back in his own shape now). “I suppose it must have been,” said Rhind.

There was a gleam in the grey eyes of Garvon Hael that suggested he did not believe this for a moment. But he understood why it was being done, and so he nodded, and said, “Rhind of Tyr Davas, welcome. Are you ready to ride with me now?”

And Prince Rhind, blushing and shaking his head in amazement, but beaming too, said to Skarper, “Are you sure?”

Skarper nodded.

“Then yes!” said Rhind. And goodbyes were said, and he mounted the horse (whose stirrups had been lengthened again). Horses were found for Prawl and Breenge too, who were to go with him, and once all were mounted, the riders from Boskennack turned south again, for the High King had been keen to bring the dragonslayer to the Hall of Heroes before the story of his victory grew too old.

“Prince Rhind will fit in well at Boskennack,” said Garvon Hael, before he spurred his horse and followed them.

“Oh, he is very brave, really,” said Henwyn.

“I am sure he is,” said Garvon Hael. “But if we ever find that we have need of true heroes, we shall send word to Clovenstone.”

The goblins shouted, burped, hallooed. But Henwyn said, “Oh, we aren't heroes, not really.” And Skarper said, “We just sort of muddle along.”

And then they went on their way, goblins, giants and humans, laughing and singing under the summer sun, muddling along through the lengthening shadows and the lanes where the blackberries were ripening, home to Clovenstone.