“We have been proven fools,” grandmother snarled. “We have had time upon time to prepare, and we have squandered it. We have become soft. We have become weak. Now the moon blushes with the moon mother’s embarrassment. We disgrace her.”

Some in the moot bowed their heads in shame. The light of the fire pit danced in their eyes, sending shadows streaking across their temples like crowns of onyx.

It was a dark night in the centre of the village — far darker than a full moon night should be. The moon had lost her lustre. The soothing glow of the mother’s smile was paled. It hid behind a flush of pink. Pink that would soon turn to crimson.

We held the moot between the houses, where not so long ago we had feasted and danced to usher in a new harvest. The entire village had turned out then as well. That night every man, woman and child embraced in singular joy, their smiles stretching from one face to the next. There were no smiles to be shared this night.

“The moon is not yet red,” Kastor said, through lips cracked with age. “We can still act.”

“Act?” grandmother challenged.

“Yes. Defences. Weapons. Traps.” His eyebrows draped like the leaves of a weeping willow. “At the time of my first red moon, we erected palisades, dug spike pits, mixed tar fo—”

“At the time of your first red moon the men and women could fight! Their grandfathers and grandmothers had not failed them, as you have failed your family.”

“How dare you—”

“We have all failed in our duty. Our children and grandchildren do not know fear. They do not know that it is fear that shall keep you alive.”

“Did you come here just to lecture us? I thought maybe the wise Sar S’mar Ystra proposed this moot to help her clan, not to act as doomsayer.” It was Fana no Ridat Sama who spoke, the daughter of Sar S’mar Ridat. Her family had long clashed with Ystra Sama, but the Ridats still remembered the bloodshed from their youth. That made them valuable allies in this discussion, and scathing critics.

I could see grandmother’s jaw work as she bit back her vehemence. A Sar S’mar would always put the good of the village before her own pride, though.

After a long breath, grandmother pronounced. “There is only one thing we can do, and that is everything.”

“Speak plainly, Ystra.” Fana beat grandmother’s words from the air.

It took a great deal of effort for Sar S’mar Ystra to endure such an insult from a Kor S’mar — effort that strained the syllables of her next words. “All work must stop. We do not weave, we do not build, we do not plough a field or even bake a loaf of bread until the wave of the red moon has past.

“We train. We train day and night. We forsake all else, and prepare our minds and bodies for the task of fighting, and surviving. We do this, and we pray it is enough.”

“What nonsense is this?” a petulant Kor S’mar called from the safety of his father’s elbow. “You would have us win the war only to starve by our own hand?”

“There is food aplenty in the forest; we will not starve,” another Kor said.

“True, but if we give up on the harvest we have given up on the village,” a third added.

“Why not give up on the village?” an emboldened Yar — not much older than myself — said. “If the goblin horde is as vicious and as terrifying as they say, then why stay? We could move on. We could rebuild somewhere else.”

This proposal garnered favour with the Yars, with many of them nodding their agreement. I could see my sisters among those enticed by this idea. Their pale, willowy hands were intertwined — hands that knew no callouses. They were hands that could not bare the weight of a sword.

For her part, grandmother received this suggestion like a slap to the face — as did the vast majority of Sars. “Have you no honour? Have you no pride? You would allow the goblins to chase us through these hills for the rest of our days? You would have your children inherit not walls and a roof, but instead worn-out sandals and a basket to carry on their backs? Shame on you.” She spat into the fire.

The Yar shrank in on herself, swallowed by her humiliation like the sun was swallowed by the celestial serpent, whenever the moon mother wished to bathe in the night’s sky.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Let us not turn on one another. We are friends! We are neighbours! Please, let us all remember that.” Father was his usual perpetually jovial self. If the talk had shaken him, he hid it well. “I think perhaps we are all being too hasty.”

“What are you suggesting, brother?” Gan, a close friend of my father’s said.

I saw father’s ring finger tap his qualms upon his palm — he was weighing his words. “The Sars protected our village and our way of life countless times in days gone past.”

“Just so,” Kastor said, his chest billowing with pride.

“But,” father let the word hand, “these are days long past. There has not been so much as a sniff of a goblin for decades. Perhaps the threat is over. Perhaps our brave parents and grandparents taught our ancient enemy a lesson they will not forget in our lifetimes.”

I was not alone in being aghast. Outrage spread like wildfire throughout the gathering, with calls sounding, “But what about the red moon?” To my horror, though, there were some who paused to consider my father’s blasphemous words.

Father did his best to hush the naysayers. “All I’m saying is, I have seen the sky light up a thousand colours. The moon too. I have stood in this very spot and seen lilac stripes from horizon to horizon. I have watched the moon rise and hang in the sky so yellow and bright you would think the sun had mistaken the night for day.

“Now, I look up and I see a touch of pink to her. What is a pink moon, I ask you? What does it mean to a simple farming man, such as myself? It is not red, that much I know.”

“I have seen this blushing moon more times than I have seen reason to take pride in you, my son,” grandmother hissed. “I do not ask questions, for I know what the mother is telling us. The blushing moon heralds the red. To deny that is to deny the nose on your very face.”

Father swallowed the insult like a hunk of dry bread. “The goblins have been quiet all these years. I see no reason why they would come now, mother.”

“I am Sar S’mar Ystra no Ystra Sama, and you will address me as such! I am a veteran of the goblin wars, and I am telling you the goblins will come. We are all doomed if we listen to another word of your foolishness!”

There was a time when that would have been that. The word of a Sar would have halted the discussion in its tracks, and her will would be done without further question. That time has passed, though. As grandmother looked across a plain of uncertainty, I am sure she felt that too.

“You are Sar S’mar Ystra no Ystra Sama, and we are grateful for you and all you have done,” father said, as calm and as cold as a winter’s morning. “You are also a tired old lady, who is scaring the children.”

“Impudent whelp!”

“I see no reason to abandon our harvest and our homes based on ifs and maybes. Perhaps if the moon grows redder still, we may reconsider our options. For now, I see only a beautiful sky, with a moon mother who smiles on us.”

I could not believe my eyes and ears. Father denied the evidence right before him. Worse, the people were taken with his fantasy.

“Your plan of action is inaction?” grandmother growled through a wolf’s snarl.

“My plan is to think on putting food on our tables and keeping our fires going, so we might chase away the evening chill.”

“And if the red moon does come?”

His smile was wistful. “Then perhaps it will bring nothing more than a new light.”

Grandmother made to strike father, but a shared gasp from the crowd halted her; she had their favour no longer.

With a final look of contempt, grandmother left the assembly. I followed close behind. As I broke the circle, I could just hear my father apologising for his heroic mother’s behaviour.

Grandmother did not break her stride until she reached her sanctuary: the small clearing by our house — our training ground.

“Sar S’mar Ystra no Ystra Sama,” I said, “they do not know what they say. I am so sorry they have dishonoured you.”

She did not look back at me when she said, “Sword and shield. Now!”

“Perhaps we can convince father that—”

“Now!”

I nodded, and fetched my training equipment.

I cannot say why, but these tools with which I practiced daily suddenly felt like silly toys in my hands.

“Raise your shield,” grandmother said.

“Grandmother, do you not wish to discuss—” She swiped the front of my shield with her own training blade.

“I will not warn you again, Yar.”

Her tone sent a ripple of nausea through me. Sparring with her at that moment was more terrifying than facing any goblin.

I set my feet into a defensive stance, and braced.

When she came, it was with the fury and experience of a tortured lifetime. I did not feel her weak right elbow causing the blade to glance awkwardly. Her step was not hampered by a trick hip that prevented decent sleep. She was powerful, young, and invincible.

I parried where I could, took the blows on my shield where I could not. Twice I tried for a lunge, and both times I was left so open I feared grandmother would crack my ribs. I did not try again.

“You’re holding your shield too high! The goblins won’t come for your head, they’ll stick you in the gut; they’ll tear at your hamstrings; they’ll cut off your toes if you let them!”

She took a foot out from beneath me and shoulder-barged me to the ground.

I toppled like a felled tree. The wind was knocked from me in an instant.

Before I could even begin to regain myself, her blade was at my throat. Her eyes shone with promise from its haft.

I was not sure she would be able to stop herself, but stop herself she did.

Sheathing her sword she said, “Even you are too weak.”

“I’m sorry, grandmother.”

For the first time ever, I saw her eyes glisten with tears. “No, I am sorry.”

We sat on the ground together, and looked at the blushing moon that would soon turn to red.

“Why do the goblins come at the red moon, grandmother?”

She rolled her eyes. “Silly child, they do not come at the red moon. The goblins come when they see fit. The moon mother is kind enough to warn her children of their coming. She paints the moon red as a sign of the blood that will be spilt.”

“It is impossible that father is right.” I didn’t dare frame it as a question, but I knew grandmother could hear my hope.

“Believe me, I wish it were possible. But the moon mother does not lie to her children.” Her face was turned to that perfect, pretty, pink moon. “The goblins always come.”