“Pointed ears and sallow skin,

We infiltrate the enemy,

Goblin smiles and souls of sin,

Deception gets the best of me.”

— The Ballad of Sir Joe, by “Golden-Voiced” Garbeaux.

This was a touch of genius, if I do say so myself. Globs of mud, a few sticks, and some old scrolls, dried in the sun, and we had our ears. That same mud could paint our faces, the kind of mud that spawns mosses, ferns, and the like. Admittedly, I had been suffering from sleep deprivation but a hat was enough to fool me. As I’m infinitely smarter than any goblin, it stands to reason that this more involved disguise would fool them.

“Eh, they’re about as smart as a Gabbo. Let’s give it a try,” said McGrue, “Plus I want to find the goblin McGrue.”

“And kill him,” asked Aimee, lip curled.

“As smart as a very tired Garbeaux,” I corrected.

“Sure, let’s go with that,” grumbled McGrue, smearing the mud on his face, “This ain’t right, but greater good and all that.”

Aimee chuckled, “Greater good?”

“Well yeah,” grunted McGrue, “A goblin me? There can be only one, dear.”

“Pardon,” I objected, “What isn’t right?”

“Greenface, Gabbo? Really?” McGrue rolled his eyes at me, “Orcs and goblins aren’t that far off from each other, y’know. It ain’t like they’re animals.”

“But you were extremely eager to kill all of them back at the grain pile,” I scoffed, incredulous, “How are you so concerned at this masquerade?”

McGrue fussed with his fake goblin ear, “C’mon, I’m McGrue. Shortest path to a goal should be my tortured middle name. I was eager because there’s one, no law against killing gobs, and two, a bounty on their ears.”

My eyes grew large, “The hell you say?”

“It’s true. I’m not wearin’ these, Gabbo. Set aside the fact that they’re unlikely to stay, I already got pointy ears. Gross green mud is good enough.”

Aimee stopped humming long enough to interject, “I like the mud. Feels like it’s exfoliating,” and she resumed rubbing the stuff into her skin.”

“Hrm,” grunted McGrue, “You look good enough to eat, love, Like a sexy salad.”

She curled her lip, “No thanks, Sargon. I actually hate that my disguise stimulates you. I’ve often heard drunkards go on about what they’d do to goblin girls. If they even thought of goblins as people it wouldn’t be so gross, but, well, y’know.”

“Eh, short legs, fat ass, hip high head; I get the appeal,” snorted McGrue, looking to me for approval. My response was a shake of the head and a stare of terror.

Predictably, Aimee fired up, gritting her teeth at him, “So you like them short now, do you?”

That put him back on his heels, “Tall, blonde and gorgeous is what I prefer, love! Don’t be cross,” McGrue whimpered. He reared on me, whispering harshly, “Dammit, Gabbo. Will you support me in this? We men need to support each other.”

“Bad idea,” I whispered back, “Just apologize.” Then, louder, “You look good in green, Aimee!”

“Whatever. Gar, I’m not wearing these stupid ears. Mine are pointed too,” and Aimee walked off, though there was nowhere to go. We were hidden behind a copse of trees where we slept for most of the morning.

“Oh, way to go, Gabbo,” huffed McGrue.

“Me?” I cried, “I’m not the one lusting after short women with sharp teeth. Y’know, goblin lasses stab just as many people as men during raids.”

“So they’re a liberated society. So what,” he asked, “I’m gonna check on her.”

I finished glopping on the sticky, clay-like mud, smoothing it out as best I could. Looking over, McGrue and Aimee were already embracing, “I guess she just wanted a little attention.”

They walked back, Aimee had her hand mirror out, “This is never going to work, Gar.”

I scowled, “Well I strongly disagree.”

“Who cares how you feel,” asked McGrue, “I’m not walking into the lion’s den looking like this. This stuff wouldn’t fool a blind, drunken ogre.”

“Okay, okay,” I thought to myself, “So it needs a trial run. No problem. We head back to the pile, parking the newly cobbled-together carriage near enough for a second retreat, and see if they buy it. If they don’t, we go back to the drawing board.”

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My companions looked to each other, rolling their eyes, shrugging, a few grunts of resignations, and Aimee spoke, “I don’t know. We don’t have another plan to get our reward from the king.”

“Yeah…” McGrue scratched his chin, staring down at the muddy ground, “Worst case happens we just trip Gabbo and escape while they eat him.”

“Sargon,” shouted Aimee, slapping him on the chest, “Stop kidding!” She turned back to me, “He’s kidding. Gar, let’s give it a try.

Knowing the pile’s location, we got our carriage much closer than we’d been before. Nobody was eager to repeat our half-mile dash from a death horde of sickly children. Even though I knew better, I was struck again by the lot of them looking like malnourished, discolored children, in varying states of jaundice. Our green faces were certainly far greener than any of the assembled mob, but as inattentive as they’d been before we disguised ourselves it certainly seemed like this would be enough.

Observing briefly, I approached alone, Aimee standing back a ways, overlooking the carriage, where McGrue waited. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to aid me in an escape and McGrue would just be waiting to follow, with the carriage, as I found the goblin village.

“Say there, fellow goblin,” I began, “The king sent me to help with the … harvest. Where are we taking this stuff?”

Looking down at a parchment tacked to a board, the seeming supervisor goblin groaned, “Great. Another idiot. You’re not supposed to come straight to the worksite. You get your wheelbarrow from human resources, they’re down in the tunnels, then you follow the ruts here.”

“Tunnels, right,” I squirmed.

This got his attention, “And another thing. Why are you speaking common? Only the human traders speak that around here,” he shook his head, “Did you get hit in the head or something?”

“Oh, uh,” I struggled, “Yes! My work crew got ambushed by a damned, dirty ranger. He killed the rest of the guys and conked me on the head!”

Finally, the goblin boss looked up, then squinted at me, “A ranger, huh?” He studied me as I stood there, tense, “Yeah, that checks out. Good thing you’re big or it would’ve killed ya.”

I sighed in relief, “Right. Ow, my head! So … where are the tunnels?”

“Whoa, that ranger must’ve bonked you hard,” said the boss, “Fleegle!”

Reacting to the boss’s shout, an especially short and sickly goblin dashed out, panting, “Y-yes boss?”

“New guy. Big guy. Got a noogie from a stupid ranger, forgot where the tunnels are and how to speak right. Show him,” growled the boss, fingering the whip on his hip.

“Sure thing, boss!” puffed Fleegle, grabbing my sleeve, “C’mon, stupid.” I followed the little guy back to the pile, “Push my wheelbarrow! If I’m gonna be losing productivity, at least I should get a break while I do it.”

“Ah, yeah, okay,” I smirked. It was working!

It was a bit of a hike, over a mile. After a short time my back started to pull, so I decided to just pick up the wheelbarrow, which was far too low for me, “Wow. You really are a big boy. Forget what I said about you being stupid.”

“Forgotten,” I chuckled.

“I knew it would be. Because you’re stupid,” he spat, “Need a better base. Split up the trip with a tunnel in between the pile and the village, but no, it’s gotta be our secret entrance.” He paused, gasping, then swallowed hard, “But at least it’s not the main entrance. Imagine opening that gate every time someone brought a load of grain. Work would slow to a crawl.”

“Right. Uh … at least there’s a lot of food? No need for cannibalism!” Speaking overly loud, I hoped to signal our position to my companions. It was hard to catch a glimpse over my shoulder while carrying the wheelbarrow and keeping pace with Fleegle.

“Yeah, this deal with the humans is definitely better. Last famine I ate three cousins. Cousins I liked, buddy. That was bad news. Do you remember?”

“Uh … before my time?” I said, hoping my tone was enough to explain away any confusion this might cause.

Fleegle laughed out loud, “You must have been born right after we struck the deal then. What are you? Five?”

What a stroke of luck, he’d given me my cover, “Ah, yeah, just turned five. No cousin eating here.”

“Lucky bastard. I’m only seven, but you’d hardly know it,” he shook his head, “You’re the biggest youngster I’ve seen, but my generation, we’re all small from that damned famine. Now I know how big a grain-fed goblin can be. Makes me wonder if that’s how we get hobs. You look like a hobgoblin, man. Or the king…”

“No. You think?” I attempted to laugh off his assertion, “So the deal with the humans is why we have so much grain?”

“You really are young. It’s just normal for you, isn’t it, all this food? Yes sir, we’re getting our numbers back up now, but nine out of ten goblins were eaten in my generation. We ate ourselves down to less than a thousand head. When the deal was struck I was one of the smallest. My sister was sharpening her kin-gutting knife when the first loaf of bread was baked. I came that close.”

The little goblin carried on like that, giving the impression that no one tended to listen to him on most days. Finally, we reached a crack in the side of a foothill, mostly overgrown, but with a clear rut in the soft, grassy earth, pointing towards a rocky path. The layers of slate were chipped down, subtly, to create an easy on-ramp, but leaving no clear trail for the naked eye to detect from outside. I stood, gobsmacked, taking in the well-lit, massive, cave system filled with goblins working, bringing in grain, grinding flour with mortar and pestle, and rolling bags off towards a second location, presumably the village.

“Can you believe they built this whole operation in like a year?” Fleegle shook his head, “I suppose this has just been here your whole life, but I watched it go up, kid. It was amazing. Just imagine if the human world knew what we were doing down here, how big our society really was. All they see is the log fort up top. We’re ten times that size now.”

“Imagine, indeed,” I muttered. There were as many goblins here as there had been people in Bagatelle during grainfest!

“There can be no doubt; LePhisto is the greatest king we’ve ever had. Those other kings? Petty chieftains,” he gestured towards a great statue carved from an ancient stalagnate, or natural column, of the cave. The statue portrayed what looked to be a goblin, but with massive forearms, fists, hands and feet. He appeared to be holding up the cave ceiling with his hands, “First time seeing the statue, huh? Great likeness. Too big though. He is about a head taller than you though. I saw him up close once, y’know.”

“Oh?” my voice quaked and I struggled to maintain composure, “Really? So,” I struggled. With a head like that he’d have to be more than a foot taller than me, “Like seven feet?”

“Oh, at least. He’s leading us to greatness, young one. Just you wait. The humans will never see it coming,” he declared, as if it were nothing, and I froze. This was bigger than I ever could’ve imagined. This was a job for the hero of the realm, but he was a corpse, and we dared tell no one. Truly, the worst was yet to come.