The brothers felt like the air was getting hotter and hotter as the situation grew more intense. For the first time in their lives, they were clueless at what to do.
“I could go up there and talk with them,” Figwit tried fruitlessly as he squirmed on the floor.
“I told you, stay quiet!” Lemin scolded the wizard.
“Or what? You are gonna hit me with the mallet again?” Figwit protested.
Immediately after, Axel struck him with his mallet.
Figwit fell to the floor, finally knocked unconscious.
In the crowd, the princess looked stunned at the attack and retreated further into the depths of the wizard's cloak that she had kept with her.
Atop the tower, the gnome brothers yelled out.
“Stop!”
“Please don't hurt him!”
“This is but a taste,” Lemin cried in response.
Axel returned to his side and strangely began to sniff the air around him, looking in every direction for the source of something.
“Now, no one else has to get hurt. Let's be reasonable. I'm not as patient as your friend, and my friends are even less so than me,” Lemin said as the gnomes nodded in agreement.
Axel, however, broke through the negotiations. His voice interrupted Lemin's as he asked with a rather worried tone, “You smell something burning?”
“Not now Axel, this is almost over,” Lemin brushed off, quickly trying to get his speech back on track. Yet, behind him, the mass of goblins also began to smell the air and scan the horizon.
“Our demands are very reasonable,” Lemin said, taking a torn piece of fabric from his pocket. On it were strange foreign runes and symbols.
“First of all, we want a proper bed for every goblin worker. That means a frame, mattress, pillow, and blanket. Second, we want proper solid food served at least four times a week and we demand it to have meat, no matter how small.”
Lemin read off the points from the union's demands, his focus fixed on the fabric. He was so entranced by his duty to his fellow gomrades that he didn’t realize the goblins behind him were beginning to grow weary and scared. The air around them was getting hotter.
“Third, we demand better safety precautions during work as well as a permanent and dedicated goblin emergency rescue team. Fourth, we want to build a ride or organize games of our own in the park. With gold from it going directly to the green union.”
The goblins began to panic. Some of them scurried away as the air flooded with smoke from behind the wooden tower.
Above them, the gnomes began to cry, perhaps from the dangerous situation that their friends were in or perhaps from the smoke that they had not yet realized was coating their eyeballs.
“Fifth. We want control of the tools needed to build this park. Our labor, our tools.
Sixth—--”
“Fire!” Axel shouted as the tower set ablaze.
The great conflagration revealed itself to everyone in the platform as the walls and the park crumbled apart. The slow and insidious inner burning of the wood surrounded and trapped all of them. The smoke hovered their heads. It blotted out the night sky and the boiling air teared at their skin.
The green guard began to panic. They abandoned their posts and, amidst screams, every goblin began to run, looking for a way out. Wherever they went, the fire revealed itself. It transformed the wooden palisades into walls of fire.
Their cohesion broke, their organization ended, and Lemin stood next to the unconscious wizard. He was stunned. He looked at the burning fire all around him and at his panicking gomrades. Plans, directives, protocols – everything raced through his head for a way to escape. But ... nothing.
“Nothing would work,” he thought. They were trapped. They would die there when the fire closed in on them.
He looked at his friend, who had a blank stare and a fading glimmer in his eyes. Axel merely shook his head, sighed, and sat on the floor.
“It was a good try, Lemin,” Axel said in a resigned and defeated tone. He leaned back and looked at the smoke above them and waited for it all to end.
Lemin looked at the mess of cowering goblins behind them. They were huddled together, each trying to push another to the outer edges of the crowd. Some of them met Lemin's gaze, hoping their newfound leader would have some sort of escape.
Lemin saw the princess emerge from the crowd, still wrapped in the wizard’s cloak. She held the wizard’s unconscious head close to her. Lemin realized that she too had accepted her end.
They had come far from distant lands. Over hills and under trees. Across seas and deserts. Survived in the rank bog and swamp only for it all to end in a blazing inferno of rage and anger.
Lemin let out a laugh; a strange, sad, and incredulous laugh. He held his head, looking at the fabric in his hands that listed his demands for a better future. He could not help but laugh at his powerlessness.
He resigned himself. He closed his eyes and opened his arms and waited, like the others beside him, to be taken by the fire.
#
Suddenly, through the fire, through the smoke, and through the hopelessness of everyone, a noise broke from the burning tower. Everyone looked up. From the mist of the burning wood, the gnomes held and blew a large horn.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Now then!” Ini shouted as his brother stood by his side with the horn in his hands. “You wanna live, right? Then let's get back to work!” Ini raised his fist in the air.
The goblins gathered together. Below, on the floor, Lemin looked incredulously at the Princess. She merely smiled back at him and said, “Trust little ones.”
“Alright everyone, gather around the campfire and listen. We don't pay you to laze about like this,” Ini said. His brother placed the horn inside of his hat.
“Actually, we don't pay you at all. But regardless,” Ono completed, finally taking a step up to the railing next to his brother.
“Right! First things first. Axel, you are on wizard carrying duty. Pick him up,” Ini ordered as he took out a big stick with a carved pointing hand and pointed to the unconscious wizard on the floor.
“Huh?” Axel let out.
At his side, Lemin nodded in agreement and ordered in a low tone, “Do it.”
“Good. Now, my dear brother, how are we getting out of this roasting pickle?” Ini asked.
Ono stroked his chin as the fire behind them brothers quickly gained steam and threatened to char them.
“Well, we need to get everyone safe. I say, what if we bridge this pickle?”
“Ah! The maroon-canned move, a classic! I love it. Let's do it!”
The brothers turned to face the confused goblins. “Alright then,” Ini spoke up. “Your gobliness, you take the right side of the goblin mob. Tell everyone to drop their torches and ready up their tools. We don't need more fire. Then, set yourselves up on that quadrant over here, close to this quickly burning pyre that used to be our tower.”
The princess nodded and let go of the wizard’s hand. Elderly Axel carried him away.
“Green guard, to me!” the princess yelled, rallying the goblins to her side. The cloak of the wizard regally flowed behind her, reimposing her authority to save her compatriots.
“Now you, labor lemon leader Lemin.” Ono pointed to Lemin, who stood in attention to hear their plan. “You take the left side of the union.” Ono let out a quick chuckle. “And begin to pull out and remove the planks from ... that quadrant.”
“Why?” Lemin asked as he looked at the nearby untouched area of the platform.
“Just do it! Trust us,” Ono pleaded.
Lemin relented and finally moved to order his side.
“You, you, you, and you to that side. The rest with me!” the union leader cried out as he ordered and managed his team. He held them together with a singular collective purpose: the promise of salvation.
Atop the burning tower, the brothers watched the two teams assemble and begin to do their assigned roles.
Below the tower, the goblin carrying the wizard raised his voice and questioned the gnomes. “What about you two? Shouldn't you get out of there?”
“Nah, it's better this way. We can see everyone from up here.”
“Also, it was a cold night anyway,” Ini said as the fire burned intensely behind them. The flames were now mere inches from reaching the brothers.
Suddenly, Ono hit his forehead and admitted to his brother with an embarrassed tone, “Ini, we forgot to put out the campfire in the tower.”
“Ahh.” Ini answered with a relieved cry. “So that's why I smell burning. I was worried for a second.” Behind them, the wood began to crash and the flames towered over them.
On the ground, the princess brought the goblin workers to the base of the tower. Somehow it remained untouched by the flames that had started at the top where the gnomes stood.
“Alright, your gobliness. Now begin to hack and chop at the tower’s base. Just the size of a hand-deep cut into the tower’s front wooden wall should do the trick!” Ini ordered out as the princess nodded.
“You heard him! Chop!” Ivy yelled. She too grabbed and axe and struck the wooden wall. Her cohort followed suit.
“Oy, you there!” Ono called out to Lemin. He saw the open hole in the platform below where the planks had been removed. “No, no, no, no. You are not going through there. There's swamp gas down there. Gonna get blown up. No. What you need to do is take out that support log pillar that's in that hole!”
Lemin looked down and saw that one of the many protruding log pillars that supported the platform’s wooden base was jutted out. With a nod and a yell, he cried out, “Alright union! Remember, together strong. On me! Get the log out of there. Use the ropes!”
The work continued and the gnomes remained unmoved as they were flooded by a growing cloud of smoke.
Ini coughed. “Gah, I haven't choked like this since you made that strawberry pie.”
Ono looked at his brother in shock and admitted, “Ini ... that was meant to be a salmon roast.”
“Wha— -- How did you that?” Ini gasped at his brother’s culinary revelation.
“I ... I don't know,” Ono said. He looked at his hands and shuddered at his terrible and monstrous culinary ability.
“We got the log!” Lemin screamed.
The brothers nodded and yelled out the next step of their plan.
“Good job! Get everyone behind it, carry the log!”
“Your gobliness!” Ini called to Ivy. She stopped her chopping and looked at the burning top. “That's enough. Bring your group to Lemin's and help him lift the log!”
“March!” the princess yelled, bringing her group to join her laborer pretender. As every goblin stood together, they lifted and carried the log, waiting for the gnomes’ command.
“Ok everyone, here's the final step. We are re-brining this pickle we are in!”
“In gnope terms: You need to ram the log against the tower with as much force and speed as you can. Keep at it until the tower falls,” Ini screamed out. The goblins all nodded at the command.
“What about you two?” Axel screamed from below, still carrying the unconscious Figwit.
“We’ll be fine!”
“Yeah! Gnomes always land on their feet.”
“That’s cats you idiots!” Axel screamed out in frustration.
“Eh, potato, tomato.”
“Or salmon and potato,” Ono said. They firmly held on to each other, nodding to the goblins and yelling out, “Now!”
The goblins ran, screaming out to the heavens as they used their full force to bash the log into the weakened tower.
The tower creaked, cracked, moved, and remained standing.
“Again!” Lemin cried out. The goblins once more battered the tower.
“Once more!” the princess yelled as all brought the log against the pyre.
It broke off from the support at its base, but it remained.
“Do it!” Axel cried out from the sidelines.
Atop the tower, the brothers yelled, “Gah! I can feel the fire.”
“Don't let it get the hat!”
With a final effort, the goblins bashed the tower. Finally, it crumbled and fell onto the wall of fire on the other side.
The wood crashed, creaked, and splashed against the bog water in the open swamp. It cleared a path through the ring of fire. Without any orders, the goblin crowd flooded out from it.
They raced atop the fallen tower into the safety of the open air. Axel carried the wizard while Lemin and Ivy remained behind to help the last of the goblins cross into the bog.
“Where are little ones?” Ivy cried out.
Lemin looked around in the fallen tower and saw them at the edge, stuck beneath the broken railing.
“Right here,” called Ini.
“Told ya gnomes always land on their backs,” Ono completed with a forced smile.
Lemin sighed. With Ivy's help, he pulled the two brothers from the debris and brought them outside to the safety of the bog.
The mass of workers witnessed the dream of the gnomes disappear in flames. Its smoke rose into the heavens but did not cover the sky. As the group watched the giant ball of fire turning night into day, they could still see the stars above through the fire and heat.
The gnomes did not cry and despair. They sat on the ground, and as they saw the great pyre, they laughed and smiled.
Lemin looked at them and with a confused tone he asked, “Why are you laughing?”
They looked back at him with a cheerful tone and glow in their eyes and admitted, “Because we get to try again.”
“Every failure, every crooked nail just means the next one will be even better.”
The princess smiled, letting out a laugh as she joined in the gnomes' optimism.
At last, Lemin did too. He stared into the fire, watching the place he hated go up in flames. He thought about his gomrades’ safety, about the future and what it could be, and he too laughed with the gnomes, saying, “Yeah ... I guess we will try again.”
Out in the marshy swamp, the goblins, the gnomes, and the unconscious wizard sat around the giant campfire they had built and dreamed of what the new morning would bring.