Page 21 of The Goblin and The Dancer
They rolled over and over, kicking and punching each other and pulling at one another’s ears.
It was actually quite a relief to finally have something on which to pile all of his pent-up feelings. Grik could be as bad as he liked and not feel a whit guilty. That was all the encouragement Grik needed. He was almost enjoying himself.
A feminine shout shocked him out of his savage enjoyment. He was suddenly, horribly worried for Rosanna and he looked around, berating himself for forgetting her even for a moment.
He hadn’t expected her to be defending herself all on her own.
Rosanna had removed one of her slippers and was beating a goblin on the head with it. She picked up another goblin and pushed it upside down into a crevice, leaving it to scream in rage and kick its feet wildly in protest.
Despite being occupied with an attacker himself, Grik, astonished and impressed, let out a cheer. “Go, Rosanna!” he yelled, before getting hit in the mouth.
The goblins seemed taken aback by the fierceness of their victims’ defense and looked on the verge of scattering. Most of them were outright running for the far side of the tunnel as if looking for a place to rethink their plan.
“Rosanna, Stinker—run!”
Grik, knowing instinctively that Paul meant him when he said “stinker,” dealt swiftly with his current attacker by biting him on the nose and scuttled over to Rosanna to extricate her from a knot of squalling goblins. Paul joined them, and they made a wild break for the far end of the cavern, Grik and Paul holding Rosanna by the hands and pulling her between them, shielding her as best they could.
The goblins regrouped in one last, ferocious effort.
One of them tripped Paul and finally brought him to the ground. Another goblin seized Grik by the neck and throttled all of the fight out of him, and a mob surrounded Rosanna and backed her into a corner by pricking her with knives.
It was over. They had been captured.
The three of them were thrust together and surrounded by an impenetrable wall of angry goblins. Only a few of the creatures did not join the guard. Several of these produced extendable two-pronged sticks with a lantern on each end from some bundles that had been lost in the shadows. The lanterns were lit and the poles extended to be held high over the goblin heads, slicing the darkness with harsh orange shadows.
Several more goblins went to retrieve a few of their fallen comrades, including the one that Rosanna had stuck upside down in a crevice. He kicked his legs as he yelled orders that made it quite clear he was the leader of this band—a leader who had been thoroughly demoralized.
After a noisy debacle, he was finally pried free with the tip of Paul’s pipe.
“It would have been wiser for you to surrender at once,” the goblin snarled as he straightened his long, tubular nose with tender pats, going cross-eyed as he tried to examine the tip of it. “How does it look?” he asked a goblin next to him.
The goblin leaned closer with the lantern to offer an opinion. Paul gave him a shove from behind, causing the creature to lunge forward and the torch to burn his leader’s nose.
The twice-injured leader let out a howl and punched first his mate and then Paul, one in the face and the other in his stomach. Then he gathered his dignity with a little wiggle and examined his prisoners more closely. “Ha! What a prize to take back to Ratiga, eh, boys? She’ll be pleased. We haven’t caught prisoners in a while.”
Their hands were twisted behind their backs and tied with cord. The goblins that had been thrown bodily through the air by the elvish soldier were particularly rough with Paul. No one enjoyed being hit with a stick as if they were the ball in some child’s game, and these goblins were no exception.
The three travelers were forced to march out of the wide chamber into one of the winding tunnels.
Chapter Six
As they walked, Grik tried to gauge where they might be. Were they still beneath La Caen? He didn’t think so; this was a veritable rabbit warren of caverns. He cursed himself silently. His little shortcut had caused them to wander into this forbidden territory, and now they had been captured—by his own kind, no less.
The tunnels beneath their feet were no longer smooth, but full of soft, white pebbles—like gravel but with a peculiar luminescence that lit their way. Which was just as well, since it was difficult to walk on the ever-shifting pebbles.
Paul, especially, was having difficulty walking, and the goblins sneered and cackled at his every stumble. Grik felt a little sorry for the elf.
But Paul didn’t look flushed and angry as he had with Grik; he looked somehow colder and prouder, and he held his head high.
They paused as the tunnel ended in a small chamber full of cave mouths at various intervals. It seemed to be some kind of hub for the goblins, for there were equipment piled in corners and guttering torches in regular wall sconces.
They argued for a moment over which tunnel to take. One of the goblins seemed to be worried about some kind of monster, though Grik wasn’t paying much attention.
During the pause, Paul managed to lurch towards Grik.
“What are they going to do to us?” Paul hissed.
“How should I know?” Grik mumbled.
