Chapter 8 Giants

They say it is thunder and lightning that disturb the peace of the stormy sky. This may be true, however, half of the thunders are the sounds of giant’s footsteps and quarrels, as giants are quite quarrelsome creatures and they like throwing things in the air, be it rocks, trees, or carts left by humans out of fear when they encounter a fellow giant of the bigger size. Some of them are like big children who want to play, but they don’t have anyone to play with, so occasionally they take an unattended human child from the parents and play with them until their cheeks hurt from laughter. They don’t know much about childcare and the fact that a little human child is fragile and needs to be fed, so these children rarely come back to their parents, leaving giants with an overall bad reputation. Sometimes, the sleeping giants snore, hidden far in the mountains, making snowfall in the form of avalanches or soil collapse in the form of land-slips. They also cough when they have a cold and then, the whole earth shakes. From time to time, they visit human villages in search of food and require their citizens to give them all the food stored for winter. But what choice have you got when you face sure death at the hands of someone many times your size? You give all you have and hope for mild winter and subsidies from the merciful king.

That was about all that Edwin, Lilet, and Gwidon knew about giants from their grandmothers’ stories and overheard legends. 

Edwin prepared one of his stinking heaps to locate the whereabouts of the giants and, after a day run, following its instructions, they found themselves in the mountains. 

‘If they smash us, they will smash us entirely,’ he sighed hopelessly, stopped at the center of the valley, whispered some words, which only Lilet could understand, and in the middle of a clear blue sky, created a bolt of lightning and a rumble of loud thunder. They waited. Nothing seemed to be happening, Lilet sat on the ground, Gwidon started walking around the valley. But soon, they heard another thunder and another, and it felt as if they were in the middle of a storm. From all around the valley, the shaking of the earth announced the arrival of enormous men. They carried weapons of various sorts, they wore clothes made of sewn-together skins of whole cows, bears, and wisents. Gwidon had to look up to be able to see their heads and thought to himself that they had to be twenty times bigger than him. For them, lakes were like ponds and rivers were like streams. Mountains gave them the shelter they needed, forests and lakes provided the food and all things which they found necessary to live. 

‘Who are you and what do you want from us?’, one of the giants looked at the three little figures in the center of the valley. 

‘I’m Edwin, the Great Wizard!’

‘I’m Gwidon, the Royal Knight!’

‘I’m Lilet, The Forest Witch!’

When the giants saw Lilet, they started making incomprehensible sounds, which were a mix of laughter, tongues clicking and lips slacking. They were used to forest witches, but they expected to see someone of Edwin’s age. Instead, they saw a young and beautiful woman. 

Lilet didn’t have to read their minds to be able to know what they thought. It wasn’t the first time she wasn’t being taken seriously due to her age and sex. She was only curious whether her powers allowed her to change giants into little helpless forest swines. 

‘Ban!’ the giant put a stop to the laughter and introduced himself ‘The Giant of Mountains.’

‘San! The Giant of Forests.’

‘Zan! The Giant of Meadows.’

‘Gan! The Giant of Caves.’

‘Tan! The Giant of Swamps.’

‘Fan! The Giant of Rivers.’

‘Han! The Giant of Storms.’

‘Nan! The Giant of Lakes.’

Lilet laughed at another name. They didn’t put much effort into coming up with a complex naming system. And even though they were named almost in the same way, giants were completely different, when it came to their height, physical appearance, and the tone of voice. San was the tallest, Zan had long blond hair, Han was short and hairy, Gan was very pale, Fan had very visible veins which crossed his face and showed the pulsation of his blood, Nan was the fattest of them all, and Tan was covered in mud. 

‘Welcome. Why only eight of you?’ Edwin asked.

‘The rest decided that it’s not worthy to raise their feet for a little human call. What do you want from us?’

‘There’s going to be a war with Goblins,’ Gwidon explained, ‘The kingdom is going to be attacked by hundreds of thousands of armed underground creatures.’

‘We don’t help humans!’ Zan said and began to retreat.

‘Wait!’, Gwidon cried, ‘We don’t need your help. We wanted to inform you about a contest.’

‘What contest?’ Nan was suddenly interested.

‘Goblins told us that giants are big, awkward, and stupid. They cannot win any war, any battle, and any tournament...’

Giants started to grout. 

‘... But we believe otherwise. We told Goblins that we need to question their offensive accusations and see with our own eyes. But we cannot do this just like that. We need to have a contest. The winner will prove that what they say is not true. The winner will prove that giants are to be feared and respected.’

Lilet watched as giants began to enthusiastically clap their hands and howl like animals. They seemed to like the idea.

Gwidon took a stick and on a piece of land devoid of grass he drew a table with all the giants’ names.

‘There are going to be three separate competitions. For each one, you can win a maximum of ten points. The giant who completes the task gets a certain amount of points. After the third contest, we will sum up the number of points and choose the winner.’

‘What is the prize?’ Han asked, calculating his prospective benefits.

‘For the third place, there is a supply of the kingdom’s sheep for the winter.’ Gwidon started coming up with rewards.

Giants were fond of food, so they thought it was a fair award.

‘For the second place, there will be a supply of golden rings, bracelets, and chains. And even though you, giants, don’t seem to be fond of jewelry, your women will be grateful for some beautiful trinkets. To win the heart of a woman is difficult, but once you obtain her gratitude, there’s nothing more precious.’

And even though Gwidon had never seen a giant woman, his assumptions were true, as some giants smiled in a mutually shared understanding.

‘And for the first prize?' giants’ eyes got wider from the greed.

‘For the first prize, there will be land.’

‘Land? We have a lot of lands.’ San complained, ‘We have mountains, lakes, forests, rivers...’

‘I’m afraid you don’t own these forests, lakes, and mountains. You only live there temporarily. There are no official documents stating that you have any rights to the land that you live on. For the first prize, you will be offered a land, which you will own. Thus, you will be the owner and the ruler of this land. In other words, the one who wins the contest will be the king of this land with the right to rule. He will gain power over other giants without land.’

Giants looked and one another. All their desires were about to be appeased. For some, the best reward was food, for others women’s gratitude and happy home-life. For others yet, it was the domination over other giants. It wasn’t a silly contest. The little human could offer them something which they couldn’t obtain otherwise, whether by plundering human villages, stealing from rich merchants, or occupying valleys, forests, and ravines. Suddenly, they became serious about winning this contest. Suddenly their competitive traits won over the inborn laziness and indifference towards human fate. 

‘The first contest will be about constructing the best weapon. You can use all the resources you have around you and all the magical powers that were given to you by your ancestors. The best weapon will be given the biggest number of points. I want to be presented with these by the end of the day.’

Eight giants disappeared in the forest and loud sounds of cutting trees, breaking rocks, and forging metal were heard all around them. Lilet all this time observed Gwidon, who was dead serious about this competition. Edwin during this time laughed with all his heart at the naivety of giants and witnessed everything with the enthusiasm of a child seeing a theatre play.

The sun began to set and giants came back carrying various sorts of weapons. Gan presented a sword able to cut the strongest armor, Tan brought a bow able to shoot in the air over a hundred arrows, San displayed a crossbow which could reach the target distant over 5 miles away, Han constructed a catapult, which could throw rocks as big as houses, Zan brought a machete carved from a rock able to smash everything to pieces, Nan brought a spear sharper than the sharpest knife, Ban constructed a kurbash with a long chain and a spiked metal ball at the end with the ability to destroy everything on its way. 

‘And you?’, Gwidon asked Fan, ‘What did you make?’

Fan reached to his pocket and presented a little slingshot made of wood.

‘And how are you going to win with this little tool against your giant friends?’

Fan smiled and took a few little stones and shot at Ban’s heavy kurbash. In a second, the device turned into a green plant of the same exact shape. 

‘That’s how,’ he smiled, ‘My little sling-shot is able to turn every single weapon into a weed.’

Giants roared when their hard work was in a second outwitted by their mate. 

‘You used weedrocks!’

‘That’s not fair! You didn’t even work!’

‘You used luck!’

Ban almost strangled Fan alive. His day’s work was torn into green and leafy pieces.

‘Magic is allowed. It’s all in accordance with the rules. Fan resorted to wit and won this tournament. He gets ten points! The rest are going to win eight points each as your weapons were equally effective. Congratulations! For the second competition, I wait for you at dawn. Have a good night and see you soon!’

In the morning, Gwidon, Lilet, and Edwin jumped on rested horses. They were waiting for giants to appear in the valley.

‘Today we will measure your physical abilities! The contest looks accordingly: you will run to the castle with your weapons and leave them there. Then, you have to return here and collect as many rocks as possible and bring them to the castle. From these rocks, you will each built a wall around the castle. In front of the wall, you will have to dig the deepest canal you can manage and in there pour water. Before dawn, we will arrive at the castle and assess who has built the highest wall and the deepest canal in the fastest way. We will count points and this time Fan may fall from the first place. It’s all on the cards.’

Villagers spread all over the kingdom were sure that the country was hit by an earthquake. All earth shook when giants run to and from the castle, firstly, to carry their heavy weapons, secondly, to bring rocks with which they would build their walls.

As Gwidon, Lilet, and Edwin were riding to the castle, they had to go around giants’ feet stomping on the ground to avoid being smashed flat. When they arrived, the giants’ work was almost finished. Fan and Ban seemed to be way ahead of their friends, as Ban’s weapon was destroyed, and Fan’s was surprisingly light to carry. They started building their walls faster and thus, reached higher. But Tan and Nan seemed to be far more experienced in the building of the canals and their work below the ground was impressive. They both built huge fosses deep and wide, and impossible to cross on foot. Gwidon smiled with satisfaction at the results. For giants, it was a child’s play of putting rocks together and digging in the mud. For them, it was protecting the castle with eight varied height walls and canals, something which human constructors would do for months, possibly even years. To make matters seem even better, at each wall, there was a powerful weapon constructed by the giants, waiting to be used. 

‘Stop! Your time is up. Now we will measure the walls and measure the depth of the canals to see who was able to build the highest wall and the deepest canal.’

Lilet used some magical thread to calculate exactly the giants’ work and this time it was Nan who won over Tan by only a few inches, placing himself in the first place along with Fan. The giants who lost were angry and disappointed. 

‘Nothing is lost, dear giants! Everybody will have his chance! There’s the third contest. This is why we informed you about the war with Goblins. You have prepared your weapons (Ban, you can construct another one in your spare time), and built your walls. When Goblins arrive, you will have the opportunity to kill them. But count carefully, as the giant who kills the biggest number of Goblins, will win the third contest, and thus, can still compete for the first prize. You can also drastically change your position when it comes to the second and third place. We need you to relax and wait for their arrival. We will come back in a couple of days, so gain strength!’

‘And where are you going, little humans?’ Ban asked a bit confused, watching the three companions move away from the castle.

‘For the dragon!’ Gwidon said in a matter of fact way, as if finding dragons was something ordinary in his knight’s service. 

Chapter 7 The Deal

Marva was patiently waiting by the river. The mermaid arranged the meeting and the princess started trembling with joy when she thought about the possibility. Could it be true that Prince Gustaw, the handsome, artistic, and sensitive prisoner of her palace’s prison, could fall in love with her?

‘Marva?’, she heard a squeaky voice, ‘Are you Princess Marva?’

‘Yes witch, where are you?’

‘I’m right next to you.’

Marva looked around and saw a head sticking from the water. It was the head of an elderly woman: wet, wrinkled, with weed falling from her hair and a moving alive fish attached to her ear. 

‘Oh, I imagined that you will be...’

‘Prettier? And you say it yourself? You’re not the most handsome type, my girl. Why did you want to meet me?’

‘I’ve heard that you can perform magic. The mermaid told me that you turned her once into a human woman. I want to be turned into a human woman as well. But a beautiful human woman, exactly the woman that prince Gustaw would instantly fall in love with.’

‘And you are willing to devote your royal background, all privileges that come with being the Princess of Goblins, your talent, and craft? For a man?’

‘For a man.’ Marva was desperate, ‘I’ve never been in love before.’

‘The price is great, my princess. But there’s a catch to the transformation. During the day you will be a lovely beautiful lady, whom Gustaw would adore, but at night you will change into old Marva.’

‘I will change back into a Goblin?’ Marva raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes, at night you will be your old self.’

‘Fine, then. I agree with your terms. I can be myself at night, it doesn’t make any difference. I’m myself at all times and it didn’t make Gustaw fall in love with me.’

‘If you ever change your mind, just find me here, by the river.’

‘I won’t change my mind. Should I wait for any magic trick? When will I change?’

‘They all say so, dear Princess. And then they come back like tamed beasts, mostly hurt. Wait until the dawn. You will see...’

The witch disappeared and Marva turned back from the river with an anticipating smile.

Edwin, Lilet, and Gwidon jumped on horses and run as fast as they could from the mines. Gwidon sat Gustaw on the saddle before him. On the way, Edwin and Lilet turned themselves back into humans, helping Gwidon return to his usual form, and ensuring that they were not being followed, stopped to rest.

‘Gwidon?!’, Gustaw was surprised, ‘What are you doing here? I thought you were the Goblin’s general. Who is this woman? Who is this old man?’

‘This is Lilet and this is Edwin, they have magic powers and they are with me. Gustaw, how much did you tell Goblins about the state of the king's army?’

‘Not much. To be honest, I don’t know that much. I didn’t even have to lie. I don’t know what Vandarok was telling me about most of the time.’

‘Quite fortunately, they don’t know yet that we are in a hopeless situation and there’s no chance we are going to win this war,’ Gwidon said, ‘As if that was a consolation...’

Lilet looked worried.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I know what I saw and I know how exhausting the war with the Turks was on us. Our troops are being decimated at the borders. We have literally no one to protect us in the kingdom. If we are to be attacked from the underground, it’s going to be the final battle. Final for us, I’m afraid.’

‘We should rush to the king and inform him as quickly as possible,’ Edwin jumped in the conversation, ‘I need to see my brother and we need to return this little ignorant boy back where he belongs...’

Gustaw ignored the comment. Edwin looked at him exactly like Erwin the Royal Wizard did with his white pupils when he passed him in the corridors of the castle. With constant surprise and confusion, even though he was almost entirely blind.

‘You are a beautiful woman, Lilet,’ Gustaw tried to start a conversation on a different topic, sensing that he is not able to win with wizards and knights ‘Have I ever seen you in the castle? I would definitely remember such a subtle face...’

‘We rescued you from the Goblins and you only start you amours?!’ Gwidon was suddenly overwhelmed with emotions, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?! You were kept hostage, for the love of God! You might have been killed! You could have revealed our most securely kept secrets!’

He didn’t pinpoint the outburst of fury to the fact that he didn’t like any man to be around Lilet. Especially, someone with a reputation of many women’s hearts breaker.

‘Oh, why so angry? I’ve heard that you are going to marry my sister, you should be in a different mood. Karina must be radiating with joy! The father promised you her hand and the kingdom!’

‘What?!’ Lilet was shocked by the last statement, ‘You are engaged?’

‘How do you know?’ Gwidon avoided looking at Lilet.

‘They already know! Goblins have their spies. But don’t worry, Vandarok wants Karina for himself. He won’t share his trophy with some insignificant knight!...’

Their way to the castle was awkward, to say the least. Lilet, hurt, didn’t speak to any of the men. Gwidon, ashamed and offended, rode his horse two meters in front of the group. Gustaw, patronized by the wizard, was trying to flirt with Lilet, but there was no reaction at all on her side as if she was blind to his usually admired appeal, which behavior he didn’t understand at all. Only Edwin didn’t take part in the lover’s conflict but sang a song, and even though he was a poor singer, he went on, screaming his lungs out:

I was once in love with a witch

She turned out to be a bitch

She turned me into a rabbit

It was in her habit

To hit me with all her might

As if she was a knight!

She boiled me in the pot,

She punched me quite a lot,

She used me just as much,

She had a devil’s touch!

She pulled my ears, I cried,

She almost made me die!

I was once in love with a witch!’

No one discussed the theme of the song, but it only thickened the atmosphere and, literally, no voice was heard when they arrived at the castle. The king was glad for getting his son back, but the news about Goblin’s strength worried him to the extreme.

‘It looks hopeless!’ Gwidon confessed, ‘Their weapons, their armors, this training... I’ve never seen such a well-prepared army. We are like a mouse against a bear, my King!’

The king was walking from one wall to another, pondering on solutions, whispering some ideas, recalling names. In the meantime, they decided to move from his chamber to the courtyard, because the stench caused by the remains of the prophetic heap of bones and entrails was revoltingly unbearable and no one wanted to stay inside.

‘You know how it is with mice, Gwidon, they might be smaller but they are more cunning than the biggest bears. I want you to go with Edwin and Lilet and collect others from the list I gave you. I believe that you will encourage them to help us. I have to pull some strings of mine and refresh some old friendships.’

‘And me, father?’ Gustaw acted in a brave manner, possibly because of Lilet’s presence. 

‘You will be a burden for them, my son. It’s better for you to stay in the castle.’

Gustaw looked disappointed. Gwidon smiled. Lilet glimpsed at Princess Karina passing in the courtyard, who greeted Gustaw, but seemed to ignore Gwidon. Lilet tried to magically wipe out the dirt from her clothes. The princess was a beauty and her blue dress was from a completely different fabric than Lilet’s dress. The princess herself was made from a different material, which made Lilet feel something she couldn’t yet define. Yes, Lilet might have been a beautiful witch, but she was far from being a princess with a kingdom of her own and an army for Gwidon to be in charge of. The witch looked at Gwidon from time to time to see whether he was attracted to the princess, but he seemed to be deep in his thoughts, which for Lilet seemed to be incomprehensible. She was poor at reading minds. Otherwise, she would have been more merciful to these eighty men she had turned into rabbits and ferrets nearby her home. She would have been aware that they had only come to watch her bathe naked in the lake and simply couldn’t resist but to admire the extraterrestrial beauty of the famously most dangerous witch. 

‘Before we go, I need to visit my brother! He might be aware of the whereabouts of one dear friend of mine’ Edwin announced, the king gave his nod of approval and Edwin ran back into the castle to find the Royal Wizard.

The camps were divided. Gwidon, Edwin, and Lilet rode away on rested and fed horses with everything the king was able to give them to make their tasks easier. The king, Erwin, two royal siblings, and the rest of the royal servants stayed in the castle to prepare for the raid. In the meantime, the majority of soldiers were waging bloody battles with the Turks at the borders and the Goblins were putting finishing touches on their plan of taking over the kingdom and spreading all over the human world.

Chapter 6 The Recapture

Lilet once again looked at her hut, waved her fingers and made her home disappear before the eyes of Gwidon and Edwin. 

‘I should have done the same!’ Edwin slapped his hand over his face, ‘Brilliant! Have you shrunk it?’

‘No, I made it invisible. I’m tired of losing pots and herbs. You know how difficult it is to find some of them in this area and in this season? And peasants think it is for free for them to take when I’m away! Unbelievable what these burglars can do when they don’t read prescriptions. And then you hear about the cases of overdosing or misuse of natural medicines. Cactuses growing on palms, children born with a third eye. And it’s easy to blame the witch and burn her in the fire. People don’t realize how dangerous this job is!’

‘And how exhausting!’, Edwin added to the complaining tone of voice of Lilet. 

‘You, guys, should start some trade unions,’ Gwidon suggested, ‘How are we planning to find Gustaw?’

‘Don’t you know where he is?’

‘I only know that he is kept in the underground city of Goblins. I was told that you, Edwin the Great Wizard, can find anything anywhere, and if you can turn a rabbit into a horse, I’m willing to believe it.’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I excelled at pinpointing unknown locations. I was honored by the king for finding his beloved pet, which went missing. But for that, I need the virgin’s blood!’

‘And where do you think we would get it from?’

Edwin looked at Lilet and raised his eyebrows encouragingly.

‘She’s not a virgin.’ Gwidon said with a tone of certainty.

‘Then maybe yours?’

Gwidon ignored the suggestion. From the pocket of his trousers, he took a standard human map.

‘Not far away from here, there’s a village of peasants. We should go there and ask. We come to fulfill the king’s orders. Villagers are loyal to the king. They should be willing to help us.’ 

The village consisted of fifty or so wooden huts, the central market, the common well, and the village major’s hut. There was also a church, but Lilet and Edwin decided to skip its sightseeing (supposedly both a little bit afraid of being captured and burned alive).

‘Villagers,’ Edwin started his speech in a ceremonial fashion, ‘I need you to help us and thus help the king. We are looking for a virgin. A real virgin! We need a few drops of her blood for searching purposes. No harm will be made to the girl and we are willing to pay with gold! We will be waiting in the mayor’s house for those willing to accept our deal.’

Almost twenty girls were sent to the mayor’s hut.

‘Girls,’ Edwin was looking at young innocent faces, ‘This is an important factor. I need the blood of a genuine virgin. Any other blood will blur the vision and the prophecy will be inaccurate. I promise to be discreet with your parents, but I need you to be honest. If there is a girl who cannot be considered a virgin, please, leave this place at once.’

Girls looked at themselves and as quickly as they came inside, all of them left. 

‘Why so empty?’ the mayor came down from his upstairs room.

‘Have you got any children?’ Edwin asked, disappointed, looking at the closed door. 

Among the child’s screams, Edwin managed to fill a file of blood, which he stored for future purposes. In the center of the market, he killed two goats and a cock, spread their intestines among the bones he took from his pocket sack and wooden twigs he picked up in the forest. He spelled some spells incomprehensible to village citizens, who fearfully paid attention to his every word, poured a few drops of child’s blood, and looked at everything in an insightful way. 

‘They keep him in the palace’s prison. He’s well and healthy. He is painting. The closest way to get there would be through the salt mines. There’s a hidden staircase. Not even Goblins know about it. Let’s go!’

They jumped on horses and left the village behind them, not aware that its citizens had already started packing their belongings. The heap of bones, intestines, and blood was left in the middle of the market and they knew that it would give an unbearable stench and poison the air in the nearest proximity. All of them were also afraid to touch it, remove it or even go near it, and when the next day the priest woke up to witness the village abandoned, it left him with a lifelong state of consternation. 

‘It’s really nice to have a wedding in this salt chapel,’ Lilet expressed her opinion when they were passing the altar.

‘Are you planning to get married?’ Gwidon asked, feeling something, which he couldn’t name at that time, ‘Any time soon?’

‘I would have to be asked, I suppose. These days you never know, people get married after a day of acquaintance and are happy, some are engaged for years and run from the altar at the last minute...’

‘I ran!’ Edwin confessed,‘I was almost married. But always the vocation for being a wizard was stronger. To be honest, I ran from the altar three times. Once I even disappeared. It was completely independent of me. I just felt that I would be a poor husband. Besides, you should get married for love, not for jewels or promises of career.’

‘Promises of career?’, Lilet laughed.

‘These were powerful witches, my dear. Some of them probably still bear a grudge for me. I was too involved in social life. Erwin just ran around playing his tricks. I tried to blend in the society and this complicated my course.’

‘Women are a distraction,’ Gwidon agreed, ‘You want to focus on your work, be your best possible self and they walk into your life and make everything you cared about before insignificant!’

‘Oh, poor you, my fellows!’ Lilet expressed her frustration ‘Do you think men are better? First, they tell you that you are the most beautiful woman they have seen and provoke a romance, and then you are a distraction! And how many of us are left with children or a pang of lifetime guilt, or broken hearts because you are so easily distracted? And aren’t you a distraction? Think about these women who stay at home while you play this game with the Turks. They just wait for the news that you, men, are running around beheaded and they became widows!...’

‘Hush!, We’re approaching the city of Goblins!’ Edwin stopped the heated discussion between Lilet and Gwidon. 

They arrived in the most marvelous city. It felt as if they were in heaven. They found themselves in the most meticulously constructed wonder, planned with every minute detail, perfection, and thought. Every street was an actual architectural designer’s dream, every building rose admiration, every tree was like a piece of jewelry melted by a giant sculptor. 

‘This is outstanding! I have never seen anything so impressive!’ Gwidon said honestly. ‘Where is this palace? We cannot go along this city looking like this, we should go undercover. If we meet any Goblins, they will kill us instantly.’

‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do!’ Edwin suggested.

‘Which means?’

‘Which means we have to turn ourselves into Goblins.’

‘Can you do this?’

Edwin rolled his eyes.

‘And what do you think I did when another witch asked me to marry her? I turned myself into the most hideous creature I could think of at that time.’

‘But not any Goblins, wizard,’ Lilet interrupted, ‘We need the highest rank Goblins to be able to win something here.’

‘The highest rank Goblins, you say... Let me think...’

The wizard was looking into his mind’s eye, trying to picture Goblins’ figures in his head. 

‘I know!’ he exclaimed and started whispering words and moving his fingers. 

After a moment, he magically changed himself into prince Vandarok. Lilet, following his example, turned herself into princess Marva and Gwidon was turned into the General of the Army. 

He watched his reflection in the underground mirror and couldn’t believe that his skin was green and he looked more like a reptile than a human being.

‘We should divide. I will check the army’s plans, you two will release Gustaw. We have no time to waste!’

‘Prince! Why do you return so late?’ the guard opened the door to the prison, ‘I thought you have already finished your questioning here.’

‘We’re here for the prisoner. I thought about it for some time,’ Edwin lowered his voice to let the guard in the secret of his actions, ‘We have decided to resolve to tortures.’

The guard smiled in a nasty way.

‘Finally! Maybe he will say something about the army of humans. We have been too kind to him. But the princess? She seems to be fond of him...’

‘I promised her to be merciful, but you know women. She has to see it with her own eyes. That is why she’s with me.’

Lilet smiled and felt intuitively that she looked even nastier with the smiling face. She tried to hide her teeth, but it didn’t help much.

They approached the cell in which Gustaw was napping. His locks fell gently onto his face, his feet were placed on a pillow, above the rest of his body. His cell was turned into a little art gallery, covered in his self-portraits. 

‘Prisoner, wake up!’, Edwin ordered and spat at Gustaw to achieve a more theatrical effect.

The guard giggled. 

Gustaw opened his eyes and saw Vandarok and Marva for another time during his stay. He wasn’t even surprised. 

‘Oh, your lovely sister,’ he smiled to Marva, and noticed that she behaved in an unusually cold way. When he saw her last time she seemed to be head over heels to see him and couldn’t take her eyes off him or stop smiling. Gustaw became anxious. Something wasn’t right.

‘What are you going to do with me?’

The guard giggled again.

‘Show me the maps!’ Gwidon was in the armory, looking through military plans, inventory of weapons, lists of higher rank officers, and the number of soldiers.

‘General, everything is perfectly ready. You yourself told me that our army is unbeatable. It hasn’t changed overnight.’, the soldier was trying to comfort the worried general. ‘We are going to smash them to pieces. Crush them like worms under our feet. We will make them lick the dirt from our fingernails and kiss the soles of our feet. Their women will be our slaves, you said it yourself.’

But Gwidon became uneasy for a different reason. Taking into account the preparations of Goblins for this war, the number of troops, the quality of weapons and armory, the evidence of training and high morale of all those living underground, they needed a miracle to win this war. They needed an actual miracle not to be swiped from the surface of the Earth. 

Prince Vandarok entered the prison first thing in the morning.

‘Where’s the prisoner?’ he looked at the empty cell.

‘You took him, my Prince’, the guard answered, ‘Yesterday you and Princess Marva came here and took him for tortures!’

Vandarok called for the princess.

‘She’s not in the palace! She’s nowhere to be found!’

Vandarok sensed deceit. He was betrayed by his own sister. 

Chapter 5 The Forbidden Fruit

Prince Vandarok cleansed his face in the water from the golden sink, he washed his eyes and double-checked whether his ears were clean. He looked at himself in the mirror and it wasn’t the prettiest sight. He was hideous. He didn’t think about it on a daily basis or hadn’t thought about it at all before he saw Gustaw. His grandparents told him that human beings can be deceitful in their beautiful appearance and, gods of the underground, they were telling the truth. He ordered his soldiers to capture the king’s son, the famous knight whose reputation preceded him like a horse’s head in a race.

But Vandarok questioned him for the fourth time in a row and had to admit: either he was a complete idiot, who didn’t have the faintest idea about the army, wars, and battles, or he was a genius, who could deceive everybody that he didn’t know anything, but in fact knew quite a lot. 

Gustaw played with his curly black hair, asked for tools for drawing and calligraphy, wanted to have gourmet meals put on his table, music played to soothe him to sleep, and knitting set provided to help him deal with boredom, migraines, and melancholic mood due to the lack of sun. And all this time, when he was asked about the number of troops, their positions in the conflict with the Turks, the weapons the army was in possession of, he shrugged his shoulders and answered:

‘I suppose they have a lot of everything. You know, horses, saddles, these things that you cut this metal stuff that protects your body...’

‘You mean swords, helmets, pauldrons, rerebraces, breastplates, gauntlets, poleyns, greaves...’ Vandarok started listing the knight’s armor parts.

‘Yes, these. They use it. It’s terribly heavy. When they dressed me in those I almost lost balance on a horse. I don’t know how you can fight in this...’

Vandarok gasped. They dressed him! As if he had been forced to take part in this battle. 

Gustaw was useless. But once captured, he couldn’t be got rid of so easily. He was the king’s son and the brother of his soon-to-be wife, Princess Karina. Vandarok only heard about her beauty, but he was the first one among his goblin ancestors who would boast a human wife. He had already imagined their nights together, she under him, he in the sweet embrace of her naked thighs around his waist, he overwhelming her with a rain of kisses which she would gladly receive. Or if she didn’t want to receive, she would have no other choice than accept. 

For once, Vangarok was sure that he would win this war. He collected an army of trained Goblins in the number of hundreds of thousands. He had trained them for months, making them resistant to pain, tiredness, and fear. He invested in the lightest and most secure armors, swords, bows, arrows, and machetes with precision so great it all formed a killing machine able to unleash hell. He had been building dames with the intention to flood human mines and the castle with neighboring houses. He administered the construction of catapults ready to destroy any fortification, wall, or tower within the distance of miles. What he had also done, and he was particularly proud of it, was taking a long journey to the East and bringing something unknown in the area. He brought gunpowder, able to blow anything in the nearest proximity with the help of fire. He was more ready for this war than any other war he had ever imagined taking part it, whether with the giants, elves, or dwarfs. 

But fighting for land and gold was a different matter. Now he was fighting for the sun and dignity. He wanted to equal human kings. He wanted to rule the race of humans. He wanted to be the head of the country, the church (what was the difference between the gods of underground and human gods?). He wanted to have sexual intercourse with a human princess every night before he fell asleep. He wanted his Goblin subjects to raise fear among the humiliated people. He pictured his hungry soldiers taking advantage of human women. He smiled imagining the children born from these relationships, progeny bound to populate this land and then the whole Earth. 

And now his plans were overshadowed by this brainless beauty, Gustaw. And Vandarok saw precisely how Goblin women looked at imprisoned Gustaw. He was perfectly aware that it was his own sister, Marva, who provided for him a knitting set, paints, and brushes for landscape painting. Apparently, Gustaw wrote for her a poem. A poem! In gratitude for her care and protection from hostile Goblins. An appreciation for her efforts.

If only Vandarok could raise such emotions in any of the Goblin women. If only he could trigger such a passion in any woman at all!

He decided to quit his negative thoughts. He had to focus on preparations and finally tear this human kingdom into pieces. 

Princess Marva finally swam to the rock that was situated in the middle of the underground lake. She sang to raise the attention of the mermaid. The half fish half woman was known for changes of locations, from human lakes, through goblin lakes, to giants’ lakes surrounded by the mountains. She was famous for her traveling style, which Marva nothing but admired.

‘Yes, Princess, is there anything you want from me?’

Marva was a good girl. She was modest and hard-working, she didn’t kill anybody’s husband, she had never stolen anything, was helpful and could cheer anybody up. She didn’t think that she was better than her subjects and definitely didn’t share the attitude of her brother, Vandarok, to life. First of all, she wasn’t for this war. 

‘I’m miserable, dear mermaid. I fell in love with the prisoners of ours. He’s terribly nice to me. He wrote me a poem. He is not like other Goblin men. He doesn’t talk only about war, duels, and using women. He is artistic. He paints. And knits. And he is beautiful!’

The mermaid laughed.

‘Marva, look at your reflection in the water. What do you see?’

Marva looked at her sad and greenish face, her swollen beetroot-like nose, her curved teeth, the hair that sprang from her cheeks and chin. She was hideous. 

‘I see a monster...’

‘Exactly, Marva. You have other qualities. You are a talented Goblin with a good reputation. You are respected and admired by your people. You balance the choleric temper of your brother. You fight for the good in the underground world where this good is rare. What makes you think that someone like Gustaw will fall in love with you?’

‘So you know!’

‘Marva, the only person imprisoned in your underground prison is the king’s son. The rest are working with hunching weapons. May I tell you a story?’

‘Yes, mermaid. I’m all ears.’

‘I was not always a traveling type. I spent time in one sea, I didn’t jump from lake to lake. First of all, I didn’t cross the oceans. I was pretty shy and lonely. One time, after the storm, I saved a prince. A human prince, mind you. He was the most beautiful prince I have ever seen. I fell in love. But I was a mermaid and I spent time underwater. I couldn’t be with him. So I had a deal with the underwater witch. She would turn me into a human and I could be with my prince. But there was one condition, I would lose my beautiful mermaid voice.’

‘And you agreed?’

‘Yes, I did. So I was a woman. A real woman with two sexy legs. And it was a beautiful romance. Until the prince fell in love with another beautiful talkative princess and I was left with nothing. No voice, no tail, no family to go back to. Nothing. Nada. I left everything for him and he didn’t leave anything for me. He only left me.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘That it is not worth to sacrifice anything for anyone. I begged the witch to give me back my voice and my tail. I made use of my time and now I appreciate it. I’m waiting for someone who will accept me the way I am. With my voice, my tail, and my love for lake hopping.’

Marva thought about what the mermaid had told her and weighed every word.

‘Mermaid?’

‘Yes, Marva?’

‘Can I ask you for something?’

‘Yes, of course. What is it?’

‘Do you still have contact with this witch?’