[https://scontent.fmnl8-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/313520736_1143570626272301_545225775092673846_n.png?stp=dst-png_p280x280&_nc_cat=107&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=ae9488&_nc_eui2=AeHCpqakgmF1qQqcvkS3ZPFOJ5coOB8f6t4nlyg4Hx_q3gaRGuKiJGc_BiqUzsRLraUTRrCA8IZYl8KC-zL3KJX9&_nc_ohc=bxUHiBqZ2BoAX9ErLmg&_nc_ht=scontent.fmnl8-1.fna&oh=03_AdStroCH78gwkFwq2PdgUnYccjB8s0P4umXHr6b9vm7CfA&oe=63B99AA5]
6
Smile a Small Smile
----------------------------------------
THE FIRST CHANGE DOS NOTICED since Viktor became boss, was the food. The dried fruits were made into a broth and the dried meat became simple toppings. Viktor insisted that whatever they ate should be fresh, and it was, because Viktor knew how to hunt anything. He also had stacks of herbs and spices inside his backpack, which he claimed was a ‘gift’ from the orc.
Dos doubted this, but when he asked Canyon, the old boss simply said, “Yeah, that makes sense,” like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Not that Dos complained.
Everything Viktor cooked tasted better than the restaurants Canyon took him to, he could even claim that Crab’s Locke would lose to this goblin’s taste buds.
“Let’s say
you are a goblin
and I am a goblin,
we are ugly and small
and we smile a small smile
at each other; our little mouths,
our dirty teeth.”
Dos sang the familiar notes, strumming the five strings of his guitar while Scaramouche supported him with his flute. He watched the bright sun shining against Mimic’s face, who was trying to imitate a bird, flapping her arms pretending to be wings.
It was originally a poem written by a boy named William, Dos tried strumming into it, then added a melody, and now it was a proper song.
The second change Dos noticed was the routine. They were to wake at sunup, and then break their arms. Literally. The push-ups, sit-ups and dead hangs were done to the extreme, to the point that doing planks were considered a rest.
“When tissues break, they heal into a better version of itself. Your arms will be thicker, denser, stronger.” Viktor would tell them. “You are goblins. You can heal wounds within fifteen minutes, so keep going and break your backs.”
Not that Dos could complain either. Their new boss did it the same as them, and then gradually, more than them.
“In the mornings
we are as green
as the living leaves
gliding in the garden
of Eden. As green
as the caterpillars crawling
on pillars of trees.”
After lunch, they have two hours of break, where they were given free time to do what they wanted to do. Canyon chose to find logs to chop, Viktor kept on with the workout, while the three of them played around the woods. Mimic was finding fruits and vegetables, then eating them. Scaramouche was the same but with bugs, and his really, really, creepy smile.
The third change was the newer goblins. Their main path was generally going nowhere but circling around these certain woods, where the trees were of multiple colors and the fruits are all spicy.
Sometimes they encounter them on their own, then they beat them up. Sometimes they were attracted to the smell of Viktor’s cooking, so then they beat them up. Sometimes they were caught in traps meant for animals, which pissed Dos because they were hard to set up, so he beats them up.
The new goblins were assigned to Canyon, whose job to give them world-friendly names, to teach them how to talk, how to fend for themselves, and how to fight. In short: Canyon beat them up.
“We are yellow
under the mellow sun, walking
like tourists to the caves of men,
vandalizing their portraits
in stone. In their faces, I scratch
a mustache. On their bellies,
you dye a butterfly.”
Dos had guessed that Viktor is building an army. After the break, they were trained for close-combat, before starting on "simple footwork", overly-complicated steps that Dos first thought was irrelevant (only Scaramouche was enjoying the entire thing), but when he noticed his own improvements during their sparring, scouting, and hunting, Dos learned to appreciate it.
He found climbing trees easier, the hard terrain paths became a breeze to navigate. In mock-battles, he found himself able to side-step attacks that would have hit him, or attacks that would have taken loads of effort to block. Everyday was a pain but everyday was a day of progress.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
They were taught a series of ways to attack with their fist, then how to combine these attacks into a series of blows that flowed naturally and efficiently. Like the great sea crashing against the shore one wave after another. Punch, pull, jabs, step, uppercut, when Dos applied these with an axe he found himself moving faster, moving better.
Mimic mastered it with ease. Soon the dark green stripes on her shoulder had spread onto her arms and her body, and then on her face. To Dos eyes' she looked magnificent, like a green tiger patterned with darker green strikes. Her yellow eyes looked more precise now, and Dos wondered if they were as sharp as his.
No detail escaped him, physical nor abstract. Mimic’s long flowing hair, the light green eyebags under the crow’s feet when she smiled. Or how she found beauty in how the sky paints dawn and dusk, so she always dragged Dos to watch it with her.
“I am jealous of the birds
and their wings; how they fly
and stare as you stand atop the palm
trees, how the sky is only bright
behind you. How you become blue
beneath the sunset, how the horizon
pales in comparison.
Soon they learned how to speak. Viktor began teaching them about war. Strategies, formations, how to build a fort, how to build a wall, how to find the most advantageous land to battle. Dos, Mimic, and Scaramouche were promoted to Lieutenant, Canyon was a Captain, with thirty goblins under them each.
Mock battles stopped being one-on-one battles, but battles between armies of thirty. Viktor would occasionally step-in as an advisor, and whenever he did the other team would be absolutely demolished. There was one time when Viktor challenged them into a three-versus-one army match. And when Dos army finally captured Viktor’s keep, and Viktor’s army retreated from the flatlands into a thick forest.
Dos of course, followed his opponent, for the game ends only when the opposing leader surrendered or was captured. There, his men were dwindled down with pre-prepared traps and guerilla tactics. Dos kept on, because the enemies were running. And so he ran and Viktor ran, and at the end of path which he expected to be a dead-end, was another keep.
A pre-prepared keep. The entire “defeat” and “retreat into the woods” was Viktor’s scheme all along. Dos couldn’t believe it. Scaramouche laughed until his throat was coarse. Mimic tried replicate it in her next mock-battles, she was only half-successful.
“For once the evening comes in its blanket
of black, we will sit like children,
sipping coconuts in their very shells
before wearing them as hats.
Then we’ll be brown beside the fire
like we are human once again”
and not a husk.
It’s been a year since Viktor became boss and their numbers were far more than a hundred now. The goblins they ran into were fewer and fewer, and for the last three months there had been none.
It was the biggest goblin population Dos had ever seen since he was born. And Canyon said that the army itself could decimate any mercenary company from the city. Hell, they were enough to overpower an orc tribe.
Even Dos agreed to it. Beyond the numbers, individually, every goblin was strong. Beyond the physical capability of their bodies—which were now dense in muscles and wound— they had the close-combat techniques drilled into their bones. They knew how to cooperate, how to work together as one unit, and when all else fails: how to work as one.
Viktor emphasized this, for at the end of the day, once the dust clears and the bodies have piled, you will have no army behind you to save your hide. Only pain and fear, only the strength of your back to stand up for itself.
Dos looked at Mimic again, flailing her arms and spinning to his tune. It was the last part now, the main chorus where the chords switched from strumming to plucking, and Scaramouche prepared his lungs for the long resonance of his upcoming part. The earth breathes beneath their foot and the birds sang their tune.
“Let’s say tonight,
I am human
as you are human
and we don’t need a fire.
We will smile a small smile
and you are warm as I am warm
between your arms.”
Dos finished, and Mimic clapped as Scaramouche bowed. Respectively, they parted as old friends and went back into their own armies. Dos let out a depressive sigh. For tomorrow, each of them were going to attack a tribe of orcs.
[https://scontent.fmnl8-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.15752-9/315312438_1341022673369440_7929462700702226116_n.png?stp=dst-png_p280x280&_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=ae9488&_nc_eui2=AeEG0GDdSKnPF3dEdqIA_ODGXbfae0IbRNpdt9p7QhtE2jLY7TTbXP1W_BDJ8QiASm8plczGVHI63CR4sTAgZhyR&_nc_ohc=aCHFJC3dyP0AX8aj7Pj&_nc_ht=scontent.fmnl8-1.fna&oh=03_AdSIEl3oglxdUhTf4tGvXklMsBkl8sGlcUe2iEGOn3Vjsw&oe=63B99501]
Wild Goblins I.
[Entry from the Library of Bluemin, Elementary Encyclopedia, courtesy of Sunspine]
Goblins are biologically incapable of surviving The Land Beyond the Walls. Their bones are fragile, their skin seems like paper, and they die far too easily. Too much sugar, salt, fat, or cholesterol can cripple a goblin instantly. Every single thing that is not liquid or gas can maim them in with a stroke powerful enough. With this point in fact, goblins do not age and are basically immortal. The only way to kill them is through fire.
Doctors of goblin biology also noted that goblins are able to see in the dark. They can regenerate like ten lizards in one body. A bone fixes itself in a day. Flesh, a few hours, and a wound regenerates merely in ten minutes on average. Of course, this varies from goblin to goblin. These regenerative properties make them good candidates for manual labor, like construction or waiting tables at taverns, should they be properly trained and domesticated.
A band of goblins are terrible mischiefs. A group of goblins will probably try to ransack a town. An army of them had never existed and has never been possible, as they are noted to always fight before the group gets too big.
The older the goblins are although, the more knowledge they possess, and sometimes the more strength they have. However, intelligent and/or strong goblins found in the wild are extremely rare, as most of them die on their own without the intervention of anything.
Goblins that are centuries old are essentially bigger, fat from all the nourishments they ate. At this point in their lives, their skin becomes gray and their large ear seemed small compared to their now bulbous heads. Most mercenaries and adventurers refer to these goblins as ogres.
Ogres are generally dangerous, in the same way that rolling boulders are dangerous. Smart ogres meanwhile, is a different topic altogether.
----------------------------------------