Goblin Quest (6 page)

“I BIN ROBBLED!”

Even so, they had almost reached the exit by the time they were finally caught. There was a doorway which led out on to the Inner Wall, and all the guards there had left their posts to come and see what the racket was about. The door stood unguarded, but four thick bolts sealed it, and as Skarper was opening the third of them he heard Zeewa shriek, then felt the rough paw of one of Grumpling's henchgoblins close upon his ear. Zeewa slammed her spear-shaft down on the goblin who had caught her, but his skull was thick, and the shaft snapped. Skarper's captor used his ear as a handle with which to lift him, kicking and struggling, into the air.

Goblins crowded round them. One had a torch. The flames cast their yellow light over a sea of ugly, inquisitive faces.

The sea parted as Grumpling came stomping through to stand before his captives, scowling. He pointed a trembling claw at Zeewa. “I knew it was asking fer trouble, lettin softlings into Clovenstone,” he said. “What's in her bag?”

“I'll show you if you like,” said Zeewa, and she twisted free of Grumpling's friends before they could snatch it from her. While they watched, she plucked another charcoal stick and a second sheet of parchment from the bag and began to draw.

“What are you drawing?” asked Skarper. “Not the Elvenhorn? He won't fall for that a second time. Well, not for long.”

But although the picture that was taking shape on Zeewa's parchment was long and pointy, it was not the Elvenhorn. With a few swift, simple strokes she drew a sword. She held the drawing up in Grumpling's face.

“She's got a sword!” shouted Grumpling, and he and all his goblins scrambled backwards, out of reach of the sharply pointed blade. “Where'd she get that from?”

“I am challenging you to a duel, Grumpling,” said Zeewa.

Grumpling, like most bullies, was a coward. He didn't like the idea of fighting the girl one bit, but he didn't want his Chilli Hats to see that he was afraid of her, so he stretched a big goblin grin across his face and said, “All right, softling.” One of his mates passed him a huge old broadsword, gleaming sharp. He tested its edge with his thumb. “Ouch! I mean, Ha! I'm gonna chop you up easy.”

“Not if I chop you up first,” said Zeewa. She was drawing again, her charcoal swooshing over the parchment. When she held up the new picture the grin dropped off Grumpling's face. For there in the girl's outstretched hand was his own head! He recognized it from that time old Fentongoose had made him look at a thing called a mirror and explained what his reflection was and why he didn't need to keep hitting it. There were his own handsome cauliflower ears, his noble cauliflower nose, his unripe-gooseberry eyes, and his mouth, open like a knife drawer, all sharp fangs and astonishment.

She was holding his head! How could she be holding his head? She must have cut it off without his even noticing! And how pale it was!

Grumpling went weak at the knees. “I don't … I don't feel too good, boys,” he croaked.

“Grumpling's head!” the other goblins were muttering. “She's beheaded Grumpling!” And their panic and amazement was so great that even the cleverer ones among them, who didn't usually have any trouble telling the difference between things and their pictures, were caught up in a sort of panic, and believed that they, too, could see their leader's head dangling from Zeewa's hand. A few were asking how come Grumpling still had a head attached to his shoulders. “That's just the ghost of his head,” others explained, and soon all their voices were drowned out in the rising panic as Grumpling crumpled to his knees and then collapsed backwards into the arms of his henchgoblins.

For a moment Skarper was afraid that their fright and confusion would turn into anger, and that they would rush Zeewa and avenge their king by lopping her into the tiniest pieces they could manage. But they were all far too scared of this strange Muskish girl who had produced a sword from nowhere – a powerful magic sword, no doubt, so sharp that she had been able to slice Grumpling's head off without them even seeing her move!

The goblin who had been holding Skarper dropped him and ran. Skarper wasted no time. He scrambled back to the door, opened that last bolt, and pushed his way out into the lovely, cool, moonlit, Grumpingless night.

“Come on!” he shouted back to Zeewa. But Zeewa was making one last drawing.

The previous year, when the dwarves had attacked Clovenstone, they had brought all manner of strange and cunning weapons with them. Some that had particularly alarmed the goblins were the little black metal balls they threw, filled with some mysterious powder, and which exploded with a bang and a flash upon landing. Fentongoose claimed that these were called “bombs”, but the goblins all called them “booms”, after the noise they made. It was one of these that Zeewa sketched, complete with its fizzing fuse. When she was finished, she set it down on the floor of the passageway, just inside the door.

The eyes of the Chilli Hats widened as they recognized it. “It's a dwarf-boom!” they wailed. “She got a dwarf-boom! Run! RUN FER YER LIVES!”

And run they did, dragging their possibly headless king behind them, to seek shelter from the explosion around a bend of the passage.

Zeewa grinned at Skarper. “Now let's go!” she said.

Skarper sniffed the air as they ran out on to the battlements. The moon was sinking. The ruined roofs of Clovenstone stuck up like rocky islands from a sea of mist.

“I can't wait to get back to the Blackspike and wash this stink off me,” said Zeewa, as they started down the long stairways of the Inner Wall.

“Wash?” said Skarper with a shudder. “Ew! There's not time, anyway. Not if we're goin' to get this Elvenhorn to Southerley Gate by the time the sun peeks up.”

Henwyn had had an uncomfortable journey to Southerley Gate, draped over the back of Prince Rhind's horse as the Woolmarkers galloped through the twilight. When they passed into the green shadows of the woods he had thought,
Perhaps the twiglings will come to my rescue
. But the creatures of the trees stayed hidden.

As they descended to the bridge across the Oeth (the riders dismounted, Henwyn's face bashing against the horse's sweaty flank as Rhind led it down that long stair) he had almost hoped that the old troll would be back in its lair under the bridge: a troll attack might give him just the diversion that he needed to stage a Daring Escape. But the troll was still in the uplands with Torridge, Cribba and Ken: they were cooking trout around a campfire and singing cheerful trollish songs, and had no idea of what was happening to Henwyn.

He spent that night bound hand and foot, dumped in the grass on top of a low hill about a mile south of Clovenstone's Outer Wall. The horses of the Sheep Lords were tethered nearby, and he could hear them shifting sometimes in the dark. Breenge slept in a little felt tent, above which the flag of the Woolmark flapped: a white sheep on a green field. Prawl, wrapped in his cloak, slept under the wagon. Rhind paced around the hill's summit, keeping guard.

The little cook, Ninnis, was awake too. She was the only one of the party who seemed to feel sorry for Henwyn. She had brought him a cushion to rest his head on, and a blanket to cover him, and, while Rhind wasn't looking, she had fed him one of the dumplings she had made to go with the stew she had served for supper. It was a bit embarassing for Henwyn, being fed like a pet, but he didn't mind too much, because the dumpling was delicious.

“It is a pity you had to go and start an argument before we'd eaten,” she said to Rhind. (She had been his father's cook since he was little, so she was allowed to speak to him like that, even though he was a prince.) “I'm partial to a nice cheese cobbler myself. I'd have liked to taste some of that Clovenstone Blue.”

“Cheese made by goblin paws?” scoffed Rhind. “It would be as foul and as squalid as everything else that goblins touch.”

“Oh, those goblins seemed friendly enough to me,” clucked the cook. “And the prisoner smells lovely, all covered in their cheese.”

“Smells like stale socks to me,” snorted Rhind.

“Well, you never did appreciate fine cooking, Your Highness.”

The cook sat comfortably on the seat of her wagon, but the prince was constantly on the move, one hand resting on his sword hilt, patrolling the edges of the little camp. The hillside sloped down gently towards a river, and the laughter of the distant water sounded very loud in the still and silent night. Beyond the river, the Outer Wall of Clovenstone showed pale as bone whenever the moonlight brushed it.

“If the goblins try anything before dawn, we'll see them coming,” said Rhind, when his sister came out of the tent to take her turn at sentry duty sometime in the middle of the night.

But they didn't try anything, and Henwyn started to feel resentful. Were his friends not even going to attempt to rescue him? He was ashamed at having let himself be taken prisoner so easily by these Sheep Lords, and the shame soon turned to anger. It was much easier to blame Skarper and the others for not rescuing him than to blame himself for getting captured in the first place.

But angry or not, he eventually grew sleepy, and sank into restless dreams. He was woken by a sudden shout from Breenge.

“Rhind! Awake, my brother! They come!”

Henwyn sat up and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, then remembered that his hands were tied. He blinked a bit instead. The little tent was shaking and bulging as Prince Rhind got his boots and armour on inside. There was a loud thump and a muffled “Ow!” from the direction of the wagon as Prawl woke and sat upright, forgetting that he was underneath it. Eastwards, beyond the spiky outlines of the Bonehill Mountains, the sky was red, and a line of fiery gold showed along the world's rim. Clovenstone still lay in darkness, but not deep enough to hide the two figures who had come out through Southerly Gate and were walking up the slope towards the Sheep Lords' camp.

The tent shuddered some more, and Rhind emerged. He stole around the hilltop, trying to look commanding, but the effect was spoiled by the way that his hair was all mushed up on one side from his night on the ground. He glanced at his sister and said, “Stay by the prisoner, Breenge. If those goblins try to trick us, kill him.”

Breenge nodded, and drew a knife from her belt (an awfully sharp and long knife, it looked to Henwyn).

“I say, er, steady on now, there's no need for unpleasantness,” said Prawl, as tousled as Rhind and as blinky as Henwyn.

“Be silent, sorcerer,” said Breenge.

“Sorry.”

The two newcomers were close enough now for Henwyn to see that they were Skarper and Zeewa, and his heart lifted at the sight of them. As they drew closer, Zeewa took something from her belt. Rhind must have thought it was a sword, because he drew his own and shouted loudly, “You were supposed to come unarmed!” But Henwyn knew that Zeewa didn't approve of swords, which she thought were clumsy, foolish things, and no match for the spears of her own Tall Grass Country.

“She is unarmed, Rhind,” he said. But by that time the first long rays of the rising sun were fingering the hill and even Rhind could see that the thing Zeewa held out as she strode towards him was no sword.

“The Elvenhorn!” he said, in a strangled sort of whisper intended for his companions. In a louder voice he commanded Zeewa, “Bring it here!”

“That's exactly what we are doing!” said Skarper grumpily. “We've spent the whole night getting it and bringing it here, too, when we should have been curled up snug in our own nice nests. Hello, Henwyn! Are you all right?”

“Yes,” said Henwyn. “A bit stiff, that's all. And covered in cheese.”

“Believe me, there are worse things to be covered in,” said Zeewa.

“Let him go, Rhind,” said Skarper. “Then we'll give you the Elvenhorn and you can be off on your quest, and good riddance to you.”

“Careful, my brother,” said Breenge. “Does not the old proverb say, ‘Trust not the word of a goblin'?”

“Does it? I haven't heard that one.”

“Well if it doesn't, it ought to. They're bound to try some trick or other.”

“Good point, Breenge,” said Prince Rhind. “I say, goblin. How do we know you won't just run off with the Elvenhorn as soon as your friend is free? Give us the Elvenhorn, and we'll give you your friend.”

“And how do we know you won't run off with Henwyn as soon as you have the Elvenhorn in your hands?” demanded Zeewa.

“Why would we do that?” asked Rhind, bewildered. “He's no earthly use to us, and he smells like socks.”

“Free him then,” said Zeewa. “And I shall give you the Elvenhorn. You have my word that there will be no tricks, and I am no goblin, but the daughter of Ushagi, Lord of Ten Thousand Buffalo and King of the Tall Grass Country, west of Leopard Mountain.”

“I've never heard of any King Ushagi,” said Breenge. “Or the Tall Grass Country either.”

But Zeewa had drawn herself up to her full height, the sunrise shone in her eyes, and although she was weary and still a bit pooey, she was so clearly a princess and a daughter of kings that there was no point in arguing. Quickly, Breenge sliced through the ropes that bound Henwyn's wrists and ankles. He stood up, and then immediately fell over again because his legs were all wobbly from having been tied all night. But he managed to stand again, and to stumble downhill to where Skarper stood waiting, and Zeewa came past him carrying the Elvenhorn, which she gave to Prince Rhind.

Rhind held the horn high in the gathering light, as if he were hoping some passing artist might notice him and stop to do a massive painting entitled,
Prince Rhind Finds the Elvenhorn
. (In fact, he was wishing he had thought to ask an artist as well as a cook along on his quest.) The light of the new day caressed the ancient instrument and glimmered in all the semi-precious stones that studded it, and it looked rare and wild and magical.

Then, before anyone could stop him, Rhind put the horn to his lips, and blew.

It made a high, thin sound, like a far-off sheep with indigestion, or the squeaking of a mystical kazoo. But, thin though it was, the sound travelled. It rolled away across Oeth Moor and Clovenstone into the far blue distances, and Skarper had the strange feeling that it would keep on rolling until it reached the very edges of the world.

“No!” shouted Prawl. “Stop! You're meant to blow it when we reach Elvensea, not here!”

Rhind lowered the horn. “I had to try it,” he said. “I mean, we want to know that it works, don't we? We want to be sure that they haven't palmed us off with just any old horn. I was just checking that it actually is magical.”

Echoes of the horn blast still seemed to hang in the bright air as if they were rebounding from mountains so far off they could not be seen.

“Seems all right to me,” said Breenge.

“
One blast shall part the waters
,” said Ninnis, in a strange, dreamy voice.

“And so our quest begins in earnest,” said Prince Rhind. “Soon all the world shall know our names. Our tale shall be told in song and story. The beauty and bravery of Breenge and the perspicacity of Prawl shall be legendary, and I shall be one of the heroes of the Westlands and dwell in the Hall of Heroes at Boskennack.”

Henwyn snorted. He had met the heroes of the Westlands, and a very disappointing bunch they'd been, but that spring the High King had summoned the old warrior Garvon Hael back to Boskennack to take charge of their training and knock some sense into them. Henwyn didn't think that Garvon Hael would have much time for Prince Rhind. “You will need to lose some weight and gain some sense before you enter the Hall of Heroes, Rhind,” he said.

Prince Rhind ignored him. He took from a pouch on his belt a baldric, much like the one on which his sister's war horn hung. It was made from green wool and decorated with the forms of running sheep. He attached the Elvenhorn to it, slung it across his chest, and mounted his horse, which Breenge had already untethered. Breenge followed suit, while Prawl hurriedly took down the tent and stowed it in the back of the wagon.

“North, to Floonhaven!” shouted Rhind. “North, to Elvensea!”

None of them said a word more to Skarper, Henwyn or Zeewa. “Not so much as a ‘thank you',” as Skarper would say later, “or a ‘sorry for being such rotten, thieving hooligans'.” Only Prawl managed to give them an awkward little wave as the company rode away, Rhind far out in the lead, cantering across the heather towards Clovenstone's Westerly Gate, from where the old road led north and west to the harbours of the Nibbled Coast.