The Goblarian II

After sitting atop the rampart for hours, Gheehae again thought of things going awry and held a deep nervousness. Feelings of trepidation had built in his stomach and rumbled, making him slightly nauseous. This caused his giant pointed ears to perk up and he listened attentively to find who or what had him disoriented. After a few moments, he heard them, two warriors of the barbarous Smigg host.

They were carrying a human woman and two small children across the dark wooded path from the Feanchiane Forest towards the castle. The hefty creatures were drunken and carrying on loud enough to alert the entire army, and if they didn't, the screaming lady wailing like a frightened banshee would no doubt arouse the ranks. The behavior displayed was frequent with these cruel and vicious brutes. Smiggs generally cared not about any disturbance, even though an imminent battle was close at hand.

"I'll handle this nonsense with haste, which will no doubt mean bloodshed! It must be done, however. I can't abide by the brutalization of innocent women and children!" Gheehae said while sighing with despair.

He had no great love for most humans, oddly enough though, the children made him feel a power he hadn't felt in years. The look they held in their eyes and upon their small, calm faces despite being in extreme peril was astonishing and almost nonhuman. To Gheehae, they appeared to be in deep thought and at least content while the captured lady screamed and cried with terror running through her veins. The thought of who and what they may be popped into his mind and he hurriedly leaped into action.

Hopping off the tower as nimble as a screech-cat even though it was hundreds of fathoms high, he caught a nearby tree branch and swung himself to a landing before the doors of the dungeon where the Smiggs were heading. Then closing his eyes and whispering to himself in the brilliant and difficult tongue of the Zubian language, in the blink of an eye, after a nebulous blast, he generated the illusion of himself as a Smigg.

The wizardly goblin patiently awaited the gruesome creatures to approach while the sounds of the lady hostage sobbing and wailing continued to rein out. The caretaker of the silent little humans knew the horrendous doom awaiting them and there was nothing possible to save herself, or the children, from the savagery of monsters.

The Smiggs were grotesque creatures wearing mismatched armor stolen from their past victories. This was their races' common apparel since they simply wore what they scavenged from opposing armies in battle. The few females of their host patched these together by whatever material they could find. On normal occasions, it was severely wonky; a terrible fit on the massive hairy beasts.

The Smiggs stood over two and a half meters tall and had an unbelievable girth. Coarse black and brown hair covered their bodies with long ears that looked as if they came from a mixed mutt. Their noses were rounded and boorish and they had sharp green and black colored tusks that popped upward over their cheeks leaving their fat black lips always open with foul-smelling drool always cascading down their chins.

"Go to yer posts! And let these rats go! We have a war to fight!" Gheehae shouted, donning the looks and dress of a Smigg lieutenant. He wanted to stop this without violence, yet realized his chances were slim. Any mind-altering magic he held was impossible to use now since his power had weakened from the immense energy used to invoke his alternate image. He needed the magical power that remained in him to complete his original intention which was no goblin casualties in the ensuing battle.

"Get outta my way, you rat-faced sewer-ant," one of the Smiggs muttered, "we're gunna have us some fun before the battle!" The beast then licked the side of the panicked human lady's face with his dark blue tongue with caused her to grimace and gag from the stench of his breath.

"There's no time! Go to yer posts, now!" Gheehae demanded. Standing firm and erect, trying to look official. As official as a Smigg could look anyway.

"Ah, move from that door before we bash yer melon into mush!" The other Smigg threatened while grabbing the children by their hair.

Gheehae had no choice. He didn't want to start a fight outside with additional brutes sure to hear and intervene. Plus, there was good change the captives could be killed on the spot if he started a fight, so he moved aside with a grunt while eyeing the two grotesque beasts with disdain.

Smiggs never listened to commanders at their first call and fought to solve disputes, which the larger more powerful leaders always won after enough body-smashing violence. This disturbance could draw a crowd of the vicious beasts to watch, therefore Gheehae decided to back off, as Smigg's did if their subordinates were committing a lesser offense. Capturing and torturing humans as hostages was among those lesser offenses even if it was just on the eve of a battle.

Finished, however, Gheehae was not. As the soldiers passed, he dropped the illusion of being a Smigg, ignoring the extreme soreness punishing his entire body, and in one amazing jump, he vaulted behind the dungeon entrance where he dropped into a small air shaft. It was just large enough for a goblin, yet too tiny for most creatures to fit.

He shimmied his way to the bottom and was inside the dungeon's prison chambers before the lumbering Smiggs reached them. He waited while perched up upon a ceiling beam, in a meditative stage, eyes closed, as peaceful as the air just before a crashing storm. When the brutes entered by kicking the busted wooden door into splinters, they tied the children in chairs with old rotting rope, gagged, and cursed at them.

The Smiggs got intense jubilation in the idea of forcing the kids to watch the debauchery with the woman they planned. They began screaming obscenities and smacked the defenseless lady while loosening their belts and chugging their putrid blackened swill. Gheehae struck swiftly and efficiently.

The Smigg in the center of the room raised his hand while screaming incoherently at the woman. Suddenly, his head split in half so fast by Gheehae's baselard that he still had time to strike her in the face before he fell into a bloody heap.

The second Smigg howled and drew his skeggox ready to attack as Gheehae released five shurikens, tiny stars sharp enough to slice a thin hair. They all struck the beast. Three of the projectiles tore into his heart ripping through his chain mail like it was a soiled cloth and one hit just over the belt, piercing the nasty creature's giant stomach. As his stinking entrails ran out onto the floor, the final star-struck between the monster's eyes.

Before the lights burned out from the Smigg, he stared at Gheehae for a moment and didn't believe what he saw. For a goblin, three-feet-tall, and no heavier than a teat-monkey stood over his friend's massive corpse. The small and mighty fighter looked him in the eyes with a stare ice-cold and uncharacteristic for a member of the goblin race.

"You should have walked away when I told you, foul beast," Gheehae said.

The Smigg fell dead, and Gheehae gathered up his shurikens from the creature's already putrid body now even more intense with the horrid smell of their black blood and guts and turned toward the woman. She was sobbing and incoherently mumbling while huddled in the corner of the dank dungeon. Gheehae approached her, and she sank back, crying out and begging,

"Please, don't, don't, the children. Take me. Please let the children go!"

Gheehae placed his hand on the woman's forehead and muttered under his breath in the old Zubian tongue. Immediately she quieted; for she had fallen vast asleep. Gheehae turned toward the little ones, a boy and a girl, with golden hair, the boy having massive brown eyes and the girl having small blue eyes, both of which being the age of five or six. Before removing their gags, Gheehae put his finger to his giant purple lips and whispered a soft and soothing, "Shhhhhh."

The children never cried out, and although they were surprised at Gheehae's appearance, they were calm as he removed them from their bondage. He now knew who and what these children were. He placed a long-fingered green hand on each of their arms and said clearly while staring into their eyes,

"You are looking at a goblin. Not one of the slaves who was made to do servitude for any slavers that capture them. Not one that commits horrible acts just to survive. I'm a Goblarian, a true goblin. I'm nearly one thousand years old. And I want nothing more than peace and prosperity for any creature willing to work for it in this tainted world. Remember my grotesque face and remember what I have done for you here. Take it into your hearts, for you were just saved from a torturous death at the aim of those foul creatures by a goblin.

None will believe you. This lady with you now will not remember it correctly. No matter. Keep the happenings of today in your minds. Do not forget. For someday, what you hold in your minds may be the only knowledge in creature-kind that my people, yes, the Goblarians, are not what you think. We are not what you were taught. And we will inherit lands and rights back again. Centuries ago, we were affluent and populous and we shall reach there again; after the humans and every other war-mongering race destroys themselves in these pointless and incongruous wars."