Part 2

Peregrin and his brother Berhin wander around the dark forest, killing goblins, when they encounter a man that needs help.

The Goblin was in front of me, running for his life. Berhin and I chased the Goblin around the dark forest. Brother climbed a tree and swung across the limbs like an energetic monkey.  I have no idea how he climbed that tree. His height should have been a major setback, but he refused to let it be a problem when it came to climbing trees. I dashed towards the Goblin, pushing myself to go faster. There was no more movement in the trees. Berhin stopped at the branch of one tree, waiting for the Goblin to come closer. The Goblin looked back at me. For all its wrinkly appearance, it looked young. I grinned at it. I took out one of my knives. It turned its head, and ran as fast as it could. Angling my knife while running was quite a challenge, but I managed. With a hard swing of my arm, I threw the blade at the Goblin. The knife was like a hungry shark as it targeted its victim. The blade hit the Goblin’s ankle, forcing it to collapse to the ground. As it tumbled to the ground, a figure jumped from the tree. Berhin was holding on to a rope as he descended towards the ground. Instantaneously, the rope covered the Goblin so it could not move. Brother tied the rope to a rock so it would stay put.

“Nice throw,” Berhin grinned. In gratitude, I smiled back. The bundle of rope slowly span in circles while the Goblin struggled in vain to escape.  We walked up to the Goblin. It screeched a terrible sound, like a pig in agony. It seemed as if that was its only way of communicating.

“Oh shut up!” I yelled as I pulled out another knife and stabbed its head.

 

                A lot had changed in the past five years. Berhin and I still stole money from locals, but not often. Instead, we liked to stay in the forbidden forest and kill Goblins. After we killed the first Goblin all the stress we had been feeling left us, and so, we kept attacking them. I hadn’t seen the hidden figure with the stick since the first Goblin. Over the years, we had equipped ourselves well.  I had 5 knives, a large pouch, gauntlets, and some new boots. We loved doing this, and, even though we had been warned so many times in our youth, there was something about killing Goblins that made us feel so good and we certainly were not going to stop any time soon.  We returned to the forbidden forest time and time again, unable to fight the attraction it held for us. Jamamros had left the house to build houses in another town. I think he still didn’t like us, and it felt like it had been ages since he had been in the house. Father still beat us and he pushed a lot of work on us, but Berhin and I earned enough money to buy a worker of our own to help with the increased workload.  He stayed with the other servants. We found him while he had been taken hostage by Goblins. After we had freed him, he swore that he owed his life to us. Though his purpose for entering the forest was unknown, we decided to keep him. He was owned by another person, so we made an offer to the man and he became ours. The best part was he was a human, so he could do a lot more work than the others, including me and brother. Plus, he was cheap. Father didn’t beat him as he was intimidated by his size. Father had bad memories of humans that he never spoke about. There was nothing new about mother. She was concerned about me killing Goblins, but I told her it was better than killing Halflings or humans.

 

                Usually before going home, Berhin and I walked around the town. It may have been boring at times, but it was better than home. We had both a good and bad reputation in town. Halflings would hide their pockets and pouches from us, so we wouldn’t get their silver, but, in doing that, they made themselves even more of a target because we knew they had something that was precious to us: money. Sometimes we wished that we could just tell them that we were not in town to steal; we were in there to relax and we really were not all that bad.  Was that so difficult to understand? Our passion for attacking Goblins gave us our other reputation. We were known as the Goblin Hunters, or so I had heard. We had done quests for people who wanted Goblins attacked or killed in return for silver, or something valuable.

We sat on a bench near the statue and relaxed. We stared at the sky. Clouds moved slower than a turtle crossing a road. The birds chirped their songs back and forth to each other. The sun was bright, but I knew the sun would set in a few hours. After spending 10 minutes on the bench, we stood up and walked to the outskirts of town.

When we reached the carriage, I saw a man in the distance walking along the road, looking into the forest. “That’s strange,” I thought to myself, “no one ever walks along the road for fear of Goblins attacking.” With a curious mind, I decided to go talk to him. Berhin and I got into the carriage and rode until we were right beside him. I stopped the horses and got off. Coming to a stop, the man fell to his knees. He was in tears and looked terrified.

“You need to help me,” he begged while he attempted to sniff away his tears.

“Slow down,” I spoke to him calmly. “Tell me what happened.”

 

The man took a few deep breaths to calm himself.  He held his stomach and bent over. Then he stood up firmly again, but the terror in his eyes was still evident.

“They took my son,” he said. He turned his head to the right and pointed towards the forest. His finger trembled as he pointed. “I would have gotten him myself, but…there were too many.” He looked down, as if he was ashamed. I placed my hands on his shoulders.

“We will get him for you,” I affirmed him with a slight grin. His tentative smile in return showed   confidence in us.

“If you do, I will pay you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Berhin and I ran into the forest in search of the boy. When we got inside, brother turned to me.

“You know, father will punish us when we get home past our curfew,” he stated.

“This shouldn’t take long,” I replied. Almost immediately we saw broken branches, and traces of footprints which led us to the boy. We saw the child trapped in a cage that was hanging from a branch of a tree. The cage was made out of very thick dark wood, and had a door on one side with a keyhole. The child saw me and begged to escape.

“Help me! Please!” I saw desperation in his eyes. If I were in his place, I would have had the same reaction. On either side of us, five Goblins jumped out. Berhin managed to dodge them, but I fell to the ground. One Goblin stood over me, with its feet on either side of my body. It lowered its filthy hand towards me and began strangling my neck. Slowly, it lifted me off the ground, and I panicked, with no hope of escaping the death grip. All my struggles were worthless. The Goblin’s eyes were filled with anger and hatred. Letting go of my neck, it threw me against a tree feeling like the broomstick across my back when Father hit me. Gasping for breath, I fell down, but slowly got up again. The Goblin   threw a punch, but I managed to roll backwards and kicked its leg. Awkwardly, it moved its leg, but despite my best effort, it looked strong and able to continue with the fight.

 “This one will be tough to take down,” I thought and indeed it was. The other Goblins we had previously faced were what we called minions. They were weak and easily controlled, if asked by another Goblin for assistance. In this case, we were facing something stronger than a minion. This was a Stalwart, the ‘brons’ of the Goblin race, being twice the size of minions and twice as strong. They weren’t fast, nor were they the brightest, the only two things I had to my advantage,

The stalwart backed up and lowered its body. It lifted its hands as it prepared to grab me. I rolled forward through its legs, but, as if planning for me to do that, the stalwart grabbed the tree where I was standing. Clenching it with both his hands, it began to pull. It roared as it pulled the tree from the ground.  I stood in shock and amazement. Never in my life had I seen anything pull out a tree from the ground. The stalwart lifted the tree high in the air, almost touching the sky as it did so. It slammed the tree down with great strength, but I was able to jump out of the way. Roaring, the stalwart lifted the tree back into the air and slammed the tree right where I was standing. Again, I jumped out of the way. As the stalwart was lifting the tree up into the air a third time, I grabbed a branch and held onto it with my very life. It lifted me and the tree high into the air. I was so high in the air that I might have been able to see my house, had I not been trying to save my life. It seemed that the stalwart was thinking about slamming the tree back down to the ground, but it couldn’t find me. It spun the tree around, examining it and let go.  I jumped off, falling towards the stalwart’s head. I pulled out a knife and waited for it. My stomach was churning, giving proof to the fact that heights are not one of my favourite things. The knife sliced into the stalwart’s head and stayed there. I tried to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge.  I felt the goblin stiffen. Berhin hit the stalwart’s leg with a heavy broken branch. The stalwart fell to its knees and I slid down its back to help Berhin take down the goblin. I picked up another branch laying nearby and began to attack. It took a little more force, but eventually the stalwart tumbled to the ground.

“I could’ve done that myself,” Berhin laughed, showing off his strength.

“Yeah, it would have tripped over you,“ I responded, imagining how painful that would feel.

“Help please!” The boy screamed, losing patience. The boy was crouching, wrapped up like a ball, shaking in terror. Berhin and I ran to his cage, trying to decide how we were going to get him out. The boy was almost the size of us. He looked a lot like his father with the same brown hair, nose and ears. One advantage of being a Halfling was our ability to easily pass through tight spaces. Quickly, I squeezed through the wooden bars and placed my hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He was trembling like a frightened dog. I couldn’t blame him. Even I, a Goblin hunter, was scared.

“Stand up,” Berhin ordered politely. “We’ll see if you can fit through the bars.”  Obediently, the boy stood up, his hand shaking as he used the wooden bars for support. I walked him over to a place where the bars were a bit wider.

“Try to squeeze through here,” I urged. He stared at the gap and then lowered his head as he nodded. He tried to control his shaking, but I knew it was difficult for him to stop. I knew he was still focused on the terrible experience that he had just been through. He pushed himself between two wooden bars, but he didn’t fit.

“It’s useless,” he said, helplessly. We all stood in silence, figuring out a plan to get him out.

A shriek spread through the winds of the cold evening. From behind Berhin, a goblin appeared, charging at us. Berhin pointed his finger up, gesturing that he had an idea. The goblin came closer, running as fast as he could to tackle us. Berhin stepped to the side. When the goblin reached him, brother moved his foot outward, and their feet collided. The goblin, now out of control, flipped over and crashed into the wooden bars. The goblin slid so far, his head got stuck on the other side of the cage.

“You just had to trip the goblin,” I smiled.  That was something only my brother would do. We stepped over the goblin to get out of the broken cage.

When we stepped outside of the forest, everything seemed much brighter, even for 5 o’ clock.

“We’re going to be late!” Berhin sighed. We found the boy’s father anxiously waiting for us. His son immediately ran into his arms and the father dropped to his knees and held him tight, like a child with his favourite teddy bear. Tears formed at the edge of his eyes. Watching this scene only made me think of how cruel our own father was. The man looked at us with his teary eyes. Standing up, with a sincere look of gratitude, he said “Thank you so much! I am very glad to have my son back!” Berhin seemed impatient.

“Do we still have that agreement for the money?” Berhin asked. I understood his impatience, but it was still rude.  “Yes, right.” The man reached for his pouch and grabbed twenty gold coins.  In our currency, one hundred silver coins was equivalent to one gold coin.  We thanked the man for the money, and he expressed his gratitude repeatedly for saving his son. We climbed into the carriage and went home after a long exhausting day in town.