2. Courage

"Help! Help! Help!" came the shrill cries, now claws scrabbled against Dorothy's door. She stood in her night gown, arthritic hands wrapped tight around the pan's handle, as each desperate rap of the wood slowly ebbed at her courage.

"Help! Help!" voices echoed in mockery. "Help, manling! Help!"

Dorothy could only guess that the bigger goblins, with their deeper voices, had chased and cornered the weaker one. Likely intent on eating him.

She realized if she did keep her head down, that she'd likely be fine. They weren't here to hunt humans, or manlings as they called them, they were just trying to feed on each other.

She sighed in sheer relief, but still found herself stepping forward.

The young goblin had begun to make a whimpering sound that reminded her of her boy when he was young. "Help, help," he begged far more feebly and with far less hope. "Pleasing. Help."

No doubt he'd meant to say please. They liked to mimic the phrase of men but often got the sounds or order wrong.

With great effort, unable to let go of her heavy pan, Dorothy stepped forward to shoulder the wooden bar up and off of the door. The length clonked down onto the floorboards.

"Help, help?" the fleeing goblin ventured more hopefully.

The other goblins grunted disagreeably and suspiciously among one another.

Dorothy opened the door just a crack, knowing well enough the goblins could see just fine by night. And far, far better than a tired old woman with bad eyes. "Leave 'im be," she tried to growl with all the force and threat she could muster. But her words stumbled and they came out at an awkward choke. She coughed to clear her throat. "Leave 'im be!" she repeated.

"Leave, leave!" the fleeing goblin eagerly agreed.

"Who you?" a deeper, strangled voice asked. "Out step, manling."

"Get gone out my land, goblin," Dorothy demanded. "'Fore I crack open yer skull."

"Hm."

"Hm," the other goblins agreed in an eerie chorus.

"Is womanling?" one ventured as if amused.

"Old womanling," another agreed.

"Trickery!" a third announced.

"Out step, womanling!" the deeper voice repeated. "Or we crack your skull."

Dorothy swallowed, and her throat was painfully dry. The little goblin by the door, barely taller than her hips, was trying to nudge through the gap. She had to keep her breath as steady as she could as her heart was beginning a hectic rhythm and she was worried she was going to faint. "Fine," she suddenly growled, swinging open the door.

Below, half a dozen figures, skin from dark green to night black-bodies hunched and wiry and bony as if they and Dorothy were of an age-stood arrayed in a half circle, below the three-step stair that led up to her home.

The biggest among them had a square head and broad shoulders and stood almost as tall as she did. The rest ranged as tall as her shoulders or her torso.

But she'd heard that goblins were stronger than they looked. And they all looked more than strong enough to beat a doddery old woman to death on their own.

Never mind six against one.

The goblins looked up at her as if they were afraid, or confused, and then they each and all began to raucously laugh.

Howling and jeering and cackling.

"Get gone," Dorothy said again, too softly to be heard. "Get gone!" she shouted, quieting their mirth. "'Fore I call for help."

"Help?" the bulky goblin asked in amusement. "You are... no clan. I smell no help. But you... no honor, too. I let you live, womanling. Be happy for this."

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"I--" Dorothy began, not really even sure what she might say, when the small goblin on the stairs suddenly leapt over the railing and set off running in a blind panic.

One of the other goblins hurled a rock, which crunched into the target's shoulder, sending his small frame into the side of the house before he went sprawling into the grass.

The thrower yelped with excitement, quite proud of himself, and the others all began to laugh once more.

In the excitement, while they all rushed forward to kick and scratch and jeer at their smaller kin, Dorothy was forgotten. Loud as they were, while the hunted goblin squealed, they didn't hear her creaking descent of the steps.

It was only when she swung her whole weight behind a desperate swing of her pan--the iron resounding out with such a resonant clang that the handle vibrated from her hands--that they all turned to notice Dorothy.

The bulky goblin, who she had struck soundly on the back of his skull, turned as if he were more confused than injured. "Oh. Honor you have, womanling. Courage! I accept your challenge!" he declared excitedly.

Dorothy bent, back aching in answer, and desperately scrabbled for the pan in the grass.

A kick to the jaw robbed her of her senses and vision, mind only roused back to the waking life when she crunched through the wooden railing behind her.

"Bad fight," the bulky goblin unhappily announced. "But still courage," he offered as commisseration.

He now hefted the pan in one hand, switching the grip to two handed, before he lifted it up as if to bring it down like a wood-cutter's axe.

Dorothy tried to paw back despite knowing it was hopeless, and her hand closed on a broken piece of railing.

The pan arced down. The wood lanced up. The bulky goblin paused mid swing, confused for a moment, before he saw the jagged end of the railing jutting from his stomach.

"Hm," he groaned, the pan slipping from grip and clonking against the grass. "Good fight, womanling," he decided. He was about to wrench the wood free when Dorothy's hands snaked out for the pan.

The goblin stomped down, crushing her left wrist under heel, while she snatched out for the impaled railing with her right.

Using all the strength she had left in her legs, Dorothy launched herself forward, twisting and driving the wood deeper now the pair of them lost balance and tumbled down onto the unforgiving earth.

Disorientated for a moment, the bulky goblin's dark eyes widened and he looked up at her for the first time with rage and fear.

The rock that had been thrown at the fleeing goblin was close enough at hand for Dorothy to grab.

The goblin reached for her throat, but she answered with a bludgeoning blow to the head.

He snarled, clamping down on her neck, but she swung again. Strength failing, she tried for a third then a fourth time, but the stone was slick with blood and it slipped from grip.

She feared that she'd now be choked but realized the goblin's hand had since gone limp and that he lay dead and bleeding beneath her instead. The squared skull cracked badly open.

"Oh," the now tallest goblin announced. "Womanling wins."

"Womanling wins," another whispered in bemusement.

"Womanling. Winner!" a third declared in amazement.

The taller goblin bared grimy fangs at Dorothy. "We go now, Womanling," he explained almost kindly, leaning down to take the hunted goblin with them.

"Leave 'im," Dorothy found herself saying. She struggled to her feet. "He's mine."

"Oh?" the goblin asked, turning back. "You is make clan, Womanling?" he reasoned.

She picked up the heavy iron pan, holding it ahead of her. "I might."

"Oh!" he replied, as if surprised but not displeased. "I will tell of this."

"Yes," another goblin agreed. "Very telling!"

"Yes," said a third, though the confused look upon his bony face suggested he had no clue what was happening.

"We take?" asked the taller goblin, pointing to the corpse before her. "I think. Fair. Yes?"

"Yes," Dorothy conceded.

"Kindness," said the goblin happily. "I am remembering."

"Be gone, then," she demanded, waving them away with the pan.

"Gone we go," he agreed, watching her for a long moment as if he might have violence in mind before scampering off and leaving the other to drag the body of their dead friend with them.

They howled and shouted and jeered distantly when they disappeared into the surround of shadowed trees.

Dorothy blinked. Her hand began to throb incessantly, and then she had a vicious urge to vomit.

Her stomach empty not long after, she wiped sick from her split lip, and wandered over to the fallen goblin.

A nasty gash marred his brow, but he was still muttering fearfully in a fitful sleep.

Dorothy weighed the pan in her hands, growing ever heavier, and pursed her lips in dissatisfaction.

She'd spent most of her life cooking and cleaning for her husband. But there was a time, in her very early years, when she'd worked for a seamstress.

Like as not, she might be able stitch up the goblin's head. She glanced at the pan once more, before eventually turning towards the broken steps to fetch some thread.