Broken branches, flattened grass, heavy hoof prints, and the tracks of wheels left behind in the dry mud. In short, the trail couldn’t have been more obvious if they had been following the path of an irritated rhino. It seemed that every opportunity the thieves had been given to go through the bushes rather than around, they had jumped at with reckless abandon.

The morning light was peeking through the trees by the time they came to the final crushed bush. Unfortunately, the only thing the light illuminated was how pointless the hours-long journey had been. From behind the safety of a nearby boulder, the pair spied the entrance to a small cave fiercely guarded by three small goblins.

‘Yeah, that makes sense,’ Holsley sighed. The cart and the horse stood tethered to a tree a few feet to the left of the entrance, but there was no sign of the gnome’s ale or pack or Holsley’s precious instrument.

‘Those green-skinned b—’

‘Yeah, this isn’t good,’ Holsley interrupted. He checked, as he often did in the light of morning, on the circles dotted along his little finger. One was still red from the charming spell yesterday. The young bard hadn’t rested enough to recharge his magical potential. Damn it. ‘This really isn’t good.’

‘Right,’ Merhim straightened, ‘let’s head back to camp then.’

‘No!’ Holsley grabbed his arm, then said, in a much softer tone, ‘I’m not leaving without my lute.’

‘It’s hopeless, eh.’ Merhim shrugged. ‘It’d be a few more days to Tressa, and we can talk to the guards. If we’re lucky, we might meet a couple on the road. Beyond that, there’s nothing we can do, kid.’

Holsley didn’t have time for guards. There was no way he was leaving here without that lute, and he knew Merhim didn’t want to abandon his belongings either. He just needed to think.

‘What would Marlin Mandrovi do?’ he whispered to himself.

‘Who?’ Merhim barked.

Holsley ignored him. Marlin would find a way to trick the goblins, but how? The young bard looked back to the cave entrance. Currently, two of the goblins were roughhousing, wrestling and rolling about on the dry mud while the third clapped his hands together and laughed at their buffoonery.

Goblins weren’t stupid, but they were childlike. Maybe that meant they were a little gullible, too?

‘What do you think is going to happen here, kid?’ Merhim snapped his fingers in Holsley’s ear to grab the young bard’s attention. ‘You think we’re going to rush in there and take back what’s ours, eh?’

‘Uh, well…’

‘There’s three of those unsightly blighters watching the door, which means there could be a hundred more inside. That means they’ve got a leader, a small army, and a bunch of weapons. We’ve got a dagger between the two of us!’

The gnome wasn’t wrong.

Obviously, they couldn’t fight their way in, but maybe they could sneak inside? Steal back what had been stolen from them. Holsley made a quick mental checklist of what he could do and the items they still had between them. Then, an idea occurred to him. He smiled excitedly.

It was exactly what Marlin Mandrovi would do.

‘I think I can distract them,’ he said. ‘I know a minor illusion spell I can use to change my voice. I can make myself sound like a goblin.’

‘What good would that do, eh?’

‘I can mimic the goblin who threatened you yesterday and lead those guards away from the entrance to say…’ Holsley looked about the woodlands around them until his eyes landed on an idyllic spot. He pointed at it with his finger. ‘To that patch of woods over there.’

‘Then what?’ Merhim straightened. ‘There’s still a hundred more in there! Goblins hate gnomes, hate gnomes, so if you’re suggesting I walk in and—’

‘What if they don’t see a gnome?’ Holsley grinned. ‘If you wore a disguise, you could sneak in while I distract the guards. You could find our stuff and sneak back out through the entrance with no one the wiser.’

‘Carrying four barrels!?’

‘Well, maybe not all the barrels,’ Holsley admitted. ‘They took your pack, though, right? Was there anything valuable in it?’

Merhim grimaced. ‘What little I had left. Every crown and noble my life has given me.’

‘Should be easy to sneak away with,’ said Holsley. ‘None of them are going to suspect another goblin walking around, especially if there are as many as a hundred in there.’

‘I don’t look much like a goblin, kid.’ Merhim gestured to himself, sweeping his jangling arms over his fanciful, though path-beaten clothes. ‘How do we change that?’

‘Do you still have your paintbrush?’ It was a rhetorical question. Holsley already knew that he did. The gnome had stashed it inside his jacket before sleeping last night. If the goblins were afraid of waking them, they wouldn’t have risked stealing it, and something told him they were.

‘I do?’ Merhim retrieved it from his pocket, and Holsley gave him a moment to let the penny drop. ‘Oh no! I am not doing that!’

‘Even if it means we might be able to steal back your ale?’ Holsley urged with innocent eyes. ‘Even just your pack and my lute would be worth it.’

‘Sarwolia, save me,’ the gnome muttered.

Holsley watched patiently as Merhim paced, clearly thinking through the disastrous-sounding plan.

‘Alright, fine,’ Merhim exhaled finally. ‘I’ll look around, but I’m only taking my pack and your lute. And the ale if there’s a good opportunity, eh.’

That suited Holsley just fine. Barrels of ale might be hard to lift without being spotted, but he was sure that if he could find where the lute and his pack were, they could be easily stolen without the goblins even batting an eye.

All it took was a tap of the paintbrush.

The gnome’s skin became goblin green, and he was already halfway over to looking the part. The real trouble, or so Holsley had thought, would come from finding suitable garments. It turns out, though, that he needn’t have worried. This area of the woods was riddled with the bits and bobs the goblins didn’t find appealing, and they had their literal pick of the litter.

Merhim stripped down to the essentials, and they constructed an outfit for him that was undoubtedly the height of goblin fashion. A potato sack from a hanging branch would serve as a tunic. A half-broken wooden spoon that the gnome could wield from inside his sleeve. A dirty bandage that could keep his hair and ears hidden. All this, mixed with green skin, made him reasonably convincing.

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Thank goodness it would be dark in the cave.

‘They’re going to stab me, aren’t they?’ Merhim said hopelessly. ‘You’re going to get me killed, kid.’

‘I actually think this could work.’ Holsley stepped back to admire his thriftiness. ‘Still up for it?’

‘I guess,’ Merhim said. ‘Don’t expect me to linger, though, eh. I’ll be in and out.’

With that vote of confidence, the pair proceeded with the plan.

In no time at all, Holsley had found a suitable tree and was advancing up its overgrown branches. Unlike Roland, he hadn’t been blessed with the natural dexterity necessary to climb things easily, so he took it slowly up the gnarled branches, always keeping an eye on where his feet were going next.

Holsley nestled into a seat on one of the higher branches. The great oak was still blessed with enough autumn leaves to keep him hidden, so he wasn’t worried about being spotted. From here, he could see the entrance to the cave, the goblins, and the goblin-like gnome crouched behind a boulder across the way.

There was nothing else for it but to act.

Holsley cleared his throat and, very gently, so gently that he was sure he could not be heard from afar, whistled a tune into his palm. It was quick, catchy, and clung to the air like dust to a sunlit shelf. After only a few seconds, two of his fingers shone with an enchanting blue glow. This was a very slight spell the elves had taught him, so slight that it didn’t require his playing of the lute.

They had called it the many illusions spell, for you could cast many illusions with it. Holsley would use it to make his voice sound like a goblin, but he could also use the slight spell to create crude images no larger than his palm. Unfortunately, the images he created were a bit rubbish. A skilled caster could make illusions that were indistinguishable from reality, but his were more like children’s drawings of the thing that he was conjuring.

Holsley placed his glowing fingertips on his throat and concentrated on what he wanted to sound like. The only tricky part was figuring out what he wanted to say.

‘Uh…Help! Help, please, I’m injured!’ The voice was undoubtedly in the right tone — a clear and convincing imitation of the high-pitched, guttural, nasally groan that was the goblins’ cadence.

It took a few tries before the guards’ pointed ears perked up. They had still been roughhousing when he started calling for them, and they only jumped out of the scrum when each was convinced that they had heard something.

They said something to one another and glanced over at the trees. Then, proceeding with caution and raising their rusted weapons, they stepped closer and closer towards the sounds of Holsley’s imitations.

They were a strange group to look at. More junk than goblin at this point, having scrounged a great deal from the people they had stolen from. The leader of the search, an overly rotund goblin that looked like he’d benefit more from rolling than walking, wore armour made from old pots and frying pans.

His consorts were similarly dressed. On the left was a small goblin wearing an old kettle for a hat. He had replaced his leg with the tip of an old spear and now hobbled as a result. On the right, a taller, sleeker goblin kept his head concealed underneath a powdered wig and wrapped himself in a leather coat that trailed behind him like a wedding dress.

However, the weapons they carried were most concerning to Holsley.

Rusted kitchen knives that were blunted beyond belief. To kill a person with those, you’d have to put a great deal of effort into it. Something, Holsley didn’t doubt, the goblins were overly eager for.

As he watched Merhim cross to the cave entrance and slip inside unnoticed, he suddenly felt very foolish. Was this a good idea? After all, he was sending the gnome into a den that was more likely than not filled to the brim with murderous goblins. If the goblins in there were like the goblins out here, then had he convinced Merhim to go to his death?

‘Gaggaknack!’ the goblin leader called out into the trees. Perhaps one of the most significant flaws in his plan to pretend to be a goblin in distress was the fact that he didn’t know the first word of their language.

‘Uh, Gaggaknack?’ Holsley echoed back, praying that the word was a goblin way of saying hello or something similar.

Whatever it meant, it seemed to drive the goblins on. Holsley kept leading them around the copse of trees by throwing his voice with the magic he was using. Whenever they reached one place they were sure he was in, he would throw his voice to another, and they’d start all over again.

It didn’t take very long for them to start squabbling.

They shouted at each other in their rather terrifying goblin language, and although Holsley couldn’t understand what they were saying, he could tell what was being implied. The larger one seemed to think that the other two were stupid, and that’s why they hadn’t found the injured goblin yet. The others, likewise, thought he was stupid, and it quickly became a game of slaps.

Intrigued, Holsley shifted further along the branch to watch. He didn’t need to throw his voice anymore as they were distracting themselves just fine. After a few slaps, the knives were levelled, and they began circling one another and hissing like stray alley cats. It was an intoxicating display that Holsley simply couldn’t pull his eyes away from.

‘I wonder how goblins resolve disputes?’ Holsley whispered aloud, leaning forward, unaware of the creaking branch beneath him. ‘Do they have courts of justice, or is everything decided through stabbing?’

Snap. Holsley straightened. That wasn’t good.

The branch he stood on jostled, dropping him by no more than an inch. In muffled horror, he looked back. Under his weight, the tree’s limb was bending and cracking. It was all happening so quickly, too. That bard had but a moment to think of a way to save him from a sudden fall. Too late. The branch broke, and he suddenly fell uncontrollably.

Holsley fell through the branches of the gnarled oak, most of which broke away with his weight while others actively slowed his fall. He felt like the coin in a game of Plinko, hitting every peg on the way down and never quite sure where he would land. Finally, his body found the ground, and he met it hard.

Pain raced across the surface of his body, but mainly along his back, and he had become momentarily paralysed. Holsley stared up at the canopy of trees, taking in the lambent light of a beautiful autumn day. The air was chill but not cold, and the light was bright but not blinding. It was exactly the kind of weather he enjoyed and would often go walking beneath.

‘Oh.’ That was all Holsley could manage when three diminutive figures loomed suddenly above him.

For a second there, he had forgotten that there were goblins. He must have landed right in between them. On instinct, the bard raised his hands and gave them an awkward smile.

‘A hooman?’ one of them gawped. ‘What’s a hooman doin’ ‘ere then?’

An idea occurred. A terrible idea. One that wouldn’t work in the least but was about the only thing he could think of that might just save his life. Quickly, he placed his fingers on his throat. The following words out of Holsley’s mouth were, ‘I’m not a hooman!’ made in the same tone he had been using to lure the goblins to this part of the woods. ‘I is a goblin.’

The goblins looked at one another, confused.

‘No,’ the overweight one said with a jab of his finger. ‘You is a hooman. Stoopid.’

Holsley carefully sat up, keeping his hands in sight. ‘No! I’m a goblin. I was, uh, uh, cursed,’ he said nervously. ‘B-by a wizard. He turned me into a stinky hooman and stuck me up a tree. I is a goblin, I swears it.’

‘The wizard,’ the three of them muttered it together in unison like it meant something. Had Holsley gotten lucky? Was there a wizard lurking in these trees, turning unsuspecting goblins into humans?

The taller goblin straightened his wig and stepped forward towards Holsley. ‘Prove it,’ he said through a mouthful of yellowed fangs. Holsley choked. Gods, his breath reeked of rotten meat.

‘Uh,’ Holsley thought on that for a second. ‘I hate gnomes. They are nasty, stupid things, and I hates them with a passion. I wish they was all dead.’

The terrifying trio looked at each other in a way that Holsley interpreted as that was a very goblin thing to say, but we’re still not convinced. Somehow, he was getting away with this. There was a silent debate between them then, made only with the wild flickering of their eyes, but eventually, they relented.

The larger goblin, waddling about in his constricting pot armour, approached Holsley with a stern eye. ‘We still ain’t sure,’ he informed Holsley, ‘so we is taking you to Stabby Toe.’

‘Stabby Toe?’ Holsley was so taken aback by the name that he had forgotten to keep his fingers on his throat. ‘Stabby Toe?’ he repeated in the croaked voice, just to make sure he’d been heard in the right cadence.

‘Our guv’nor.’

Holsley was threatened into a standing position through the poking of rusted weapons. When he stood, he was then marched towards the den’s entrance. He did so willingly, not wanting to contract a severe case of being stabbed to death, but kept his fingers on his neck so he could keep conversing with them.

‘Uh, so what are your names, fellow goblins?’

‘I’m Pot Gut,’ said their apparent leader — the rotund one covered in makeshift armour. Then he pointed to the taller one. ‘That’s Wiggy.’ Holsley supposed that was because he was the one wearing the wig. Finally, the finger pointed to the last goblin with the kettle headwear. He probably had a name like Kettlehead or Spear Leg or something. ‘That’s Kevin.’

Oh, never mind then.

These were almost all literal names, leaving Holsley wondering what a goblin named Stabby Toe could be known for.

‘Oh, uh, it’s a pleasure,’ said Holsley after he realised they were waiting expectantly for him to introduce himself. ‘I’m, uh…’ he thought for a moment. Ideally, he wanted a name that might strike some terror into these goblins, something that might make them think twice before killing him. He couldn’t think of anything. ‘They call me Gob Lin.’