Chapter 12: Blue Skies Ahead
The goblins moved with crude stealth through field after field, tramping over rows of crops they had no names for, but were more than eager to ruin. Cornfields with tall, leafy stalks? They snapped them like brittle twigs. Fields of green and plump cabbages? The goblins kicked them, crushed them, tore them from the earth, and ground them underfoot with the satisfaction only a goblin could appreciate. Shookle snorted, a nasty grin spreading across his face as he relieved himself on a line of lettuce. Guckle, not to be outdone, took his falchion to an apple tree, hacking away at branches, letting the fruit tumble and bruise.
“This is what wizards get for thinking they can grow things,” Giblet muttered, his eyes full of a fiery goblin hatred. “A wizard with a hoe is like a goblin with a book—makes no sense, no sense at all.”
For days, they kept to their spree of destruction, flattening what they could, trampling over anything that looked even slightly precious. And they’d laugh—a scratchy, vile sound—as they imagined the rage of the “farmer wizards” upon discovering their handiwork.
Four days later, the land opened before them. Fields lay behind, and open woodlands stretched out like an invitation. Off to the west, shadowy mountains loomed high and dark, cutting the sky like jagged teeth. Giblet’s eyes lit up as he pointed toward them. Among those peaks, rising like ghosts from the ground, were the Sacred Pillars. Tales had been whispered of these stone spires—the kind of tales that made you sit up straighter, even if you were a goblin. They were sacred, legendary markers of the land, and any creature with a shred of sanity knew their whereabouts.
They camped when they grew tired, hunched together under makeshift shelters, smirking as they remembered the trails of ruin they’d left behind. They hunted for meat when hunger gnawed—fat rabbits and clueless birds, all roasted over crackling fires as they drifted into rough, fitful sleep. For a fortnight, they trekked through those woods, feeling the slow march of time and distance.
Then, one afternoon, something unusual caught their attention—a shadow racing across the grass, a faint hiss overhead. Instinctively, they dove into the underbrush, barely daring to breathe. Shookle risked a glance up, his beady eyes squinting against the sun. There, above the treetops, two specks darted through the sky. As his eyes adjusted, the shapes became clearer. Two wizards—Blue Wizards—on broomsticks, gliding like hawks, their blue robes trailing like unnatural wings.
A murmur of rage rippled through the goblins. The Blue Wizards’ Bastion lay close. They knew this from the tales, from the stinging memories of pain and terror inflicted upon them by wizards in blue robes. Their faces twisted with hatred, and their fingers itched for their weapons.
“Curse those Blue Wizards,” Garlof spat, clutching his falchion with bone-white knuckles. “Flying around like crows, cackling to themselves, thinking they own the skies and the land.”
“Wouldn’t mind knocking them off those brooms,” Giblet muttered darkly. “See how they like falling for once.”
Their minds buzzed with thoughts of ambushes, plans of revenge—they itched to strike back.
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Chapter 13: The Bastion
They lay in wait, concealed among thorny brambles and clinging shadows, their eyes trained on the blue-robed figures circling the skies. The wizards drifted like ominous clouds, trailing the scent of their magic—bitter and sharp as the taste of old iron. An hour passed, the goblins counting each slow, maddening minute, their grip on their weapons tightening until their knuckles were white. Finally, the wizards turned eastward, vanishing beyond the treetops.
The goblins exhaled as one, though their muscles remained taut, their hearts still hammering. Memories surged up from the depths—the battle at Kelpie Bay. Bodies strewn like broken dolls, goblins twisted and torn by spells, and the jeering laughter of the blue wizards as they swept over the dead. The searing shame of defeat, the callous treatment at wizard hands... Those memories burned deep and fresh in their minds, as raw as open wounds.
As night crept over them, they dared not light a fire. It was fear—though none of them would admit it openly. The very word felt foul on their tongues. But they knew the truth. These wizards were not to be trifled with. The goblins huddled close, each taking turns to keep watch, their weapons clutched tightly against their chests as the hours crept by, their sleep shattered by every rustling leaf.
At dawn, they set off, moving as silently as shadows, keen eyes searching the skies, ears pricked for any sound that might betray a lurking wizard. Two days passed like this, a slow, grueling crawl across the terrain, ducking behind boulders, flattening themselves against tree trunks, slipping through the underbrush like thieves in the night.
Then they saw it.
A vast monolith of stone loomed before them, rising from the ground like the very fist of the earth itself. The Blue Wizards’ Bastion. It was a towering fortress, a cold, lifeless block of gray stone, fifty feet high with no windows save for narrow slits at the top. No banners, no carvings—just sheer, imposing walls that seemed to sneer down at them, mocking the very idea that a goblin might dream of besting a wizard.
The goblins stared, dumbstruck for a moment. Even Garlof, with his usual sneering bravado, seemed struck silent by the sight of it. This... this thing was wizard power made solid. The sort of power that had ground goblins into the dust without a second thought.
Yet something ignited within Giblet’s eyes, a gleam of mischief mixed with rage. His mouth split into a sharp-toothed grin as a thought flickered to life in his mind—a thought so wild, so delightfully devious, that he could barely keep it from bubbling over.
“We could... we could...” he began, his voice barely a whisper. He looked around at the others, his eyes gleaming. “What if we gave those wizards a little taste of their own ruin? Something to remind them that goblins don’t forget?”
The others’ eyes widened, and a grin crept onto each of their faces, vile and triumphant. Guckle snickered, a harsh, wheezing sound that nearly broke into a cackle. Shookle looked down at his wooden arrows , as if picturing it lodged in a wizard’s back, and Garlof’s fingers danced over the hilt of his falchion, already savoring the thought of battle.
“Yes,” Shookle hissed, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “We’ll strike ‘em where they think they’re safe.”
“Let ‘em feel the fear they make us swallow,” Garlof growled, his voice a low rumble.
Ideas poured between them, their whispers filling the air with foul excitement. They didn’t have a wizard’s magic, but they had cunning, and they had their own brand of viciousness. The thought of slipping into the bastion’s shadowy halls, of finding those wizards vulnerable, of seeing blue robes stained with fear—it thrilled them to the bone.
Their mortal enemies lay within reach, and a victory here would echo through the goblin tribes as legend. A tale of four goblins, sly and fierce, who dared to defy the Blue Wizards in their own lair.
Giblet’s cackle grew, low and dark, until the others joined him. Their laughter rippled through the trees, twisted and raw, as they set their sights on the towering bastion, ready to make their mark on wizard-kind.
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