Chapter 17 The Battle

 Have you ever seen battles? Apart from the movies, I mean. They were usually long and excruciating. There was no pop music accompanying the bloodshed, no triumphant sounds of the symphonic orchestra in the background noise of the metal bangs of swords and screams of pain. Soldiers were waiting in the mud and dealing with hunger. There were loneliness and deprivation due to time spent far away from home and a sense of comradeship between strangers thanks to months in camps and days on the battlefield. There were orders to follow and rules to obey. 

But this was to be a different battle. All kingdoms’ soldiers were abroad dealing with the Turks. In the castle, were only those who didn’t have anything to do with war. This battle was to be a battle between a masterfully prepared army designed and trained to defeat the greatest soldiers and the strongest weapons, and a crowd of completely unprepared individuals who weren’t able to cooperate. Their secret weapons were the purpose, hatred, honor, magic, and madness, all of which the Goblin army wasn’t prepared to witness. 

It was before dawn when the sound of a horn announced the arrival of Goblins. Prince Vandarok dressed in his best armor engraved with golden symbols and wearing a golden helmet opened the flood of marching creatures covering their hideousness behind beautifully crafted swords, shields, and helmets. There were hundreds of thousands of them. Like ants they surrounded the castle’s fields, making it impossible to divide their forces. 

Princess Karina stood by the window of the observation tower. She checked the progress of Erwin the Royal Wizard distributing the magical cauliflower soup to the women crowded behind each wall built by these enormous creatures brought by the Great Wizard, Edwin. With fear, she assessed the number of Goblins so much bigger than she was expecting as if the civilization kept underground was bigger than the whole of humankind. 

‘This one is mine,’, she whispered carefully looking at Vandarok and his golden helmet. 

She was also wearing armor and a helmet taken from the royal armory, but silver in color, ornamented with a white tulip. This made her look like a petite knight. Having covered her long blond hair, she drank far too much of this cauliflower soup but she had no choice and the health consequences were far too insignificant to take them into account. 

Meanwhile, from another tower, Edwin was sending waking up messages to other participants of the battle. 

‘Dear Giants, the contest has begun! The one who kills the highest number of Goblins will be crowned a king and will be given the land to rule over other Giants. Although we seem to have the contest leaders (he pointed at Nan and Fan), nothing is yet lost and all of you have a chance. Remember about the second and the third prize! You can use your crafted weapons and hide behind your walls. Good luck!’

Edwin looked at the faces of Giants and saw the spark of competition. The endless sea of Goblins was just a sea of potential winning points. 

‘This is going to be fun’, said he to himself.

He also climbed on the roof and placed the egg there.

‘IF YOU MAKE UP YOUR MIND,’ he yelled,’ IT’S WAITING FOR YOU!!!’

He sensed that the Dragon was hiding in the castle’s forest out of curiosity, still uncertain about the human plan, but his presence Edwin took as a good omen. 

Lilet placed the bowl with the Golden Fish on the ground.

‘River or lake?’, she asked ‘If I’m going to set you free, I need to know which one would suit you.’

‘But I haven’t made your wish come true yet, are you sure?’

‘I trust you will.’

‘The river, then. It will allow me to travel and finally go back to the sea’

Lilet poured the water with the fish into the river.

‘Goodbye!’

‘Goodbye young witch!’, the fish waved her tail, ‘But if you change the rules and show me kindness, I might show this kindness to you in return!’, the Golden fish whispered to herself and happy with her freedom swam away. 

Goblins approached the first wall and laughed to themselves.

‘This is going to be a piece of cake!’

But the smile of San appearing over the wall made them reconsider. 

Goblins didn’t even know what had hit them. It was ridiculous! Behind each wall that they were trying to cross there was a crowd of mad human women: all dressed in their usual garments with helmets made from pots and carrying any cooking tools they could as weapons. And these women, the women that Goblins were trying to rape in their war songs and poems of motivation, these women were attacking them instead. Attacking was too small a word. They were mauling Goblin knights with all their rage and slaughter knives, and those who managed to survive the first attack were facing another and another behind yet another and another wall. To make matters worse, behind each wall there was a Giant who smiled madly at the sight of approaching Goblins, stomping on them, smashing them, and counting aloud among their screams.

‘Two thousand and thirty-eight!’ howled Tan triumphantly.

‘Three thousand and sixty-nine!’, Han laughed to his face and with his machete sent another bunch far into the air ‘Three thousand and ONE HUNDRED!’

All of which was making it impossible for the Goblin crowd to get to the castle. 

Prince Vandarok was clever enough to ignore women and move in a circular motion around Giants' feet. With his best knights, he moved forward cunning as a fox and unstoppable. 

‘There are not enough of them. A few Giants and some angry women won’t put a stop to our unified forces. They will all get tired eventually. Goblins! Create units to disable Giants. Kill or tie them to grounds!’

Orders were passed and soon the tactics changed and bows were turned at Giants.

‘SHIT!’, swore Fan feeling the stab of an arrow in his ear with a rope attached. Another set of arrows was soon to follow. 

Meanwhile, Lilet was walking around the castle’s forest and whispering words of encouragement for bushes and trees to awake, for mice and rodents to unite, and insects to rise. Goblins might not see this but by the forces of nature, they were divided into smaller units. Roots rose from under the ground and like mean shoelaces kept them from walking forwards. Bushes appeared in front of them, bringing them together and squeezing them like canned sardines. And then bees, flies, mosquitos, and ants started to bite them and fly under their helmets into their eyes and nostrils. All of a sudden, small rodents which were sent into the crowd turned into armed knights. When attacked, they turned back into animals and hid between the enemies, but when striking, turned again into the knights, causing confusion among Goblins. These knights were those men whom Lilet had turned into forest animals and now used to her enthusiasm to fight Goblins. 

‘Well well well, who do we see?’ The Army General (the actual one) crossed Lilet’s path, having observed the witch's actions from behind the bushes, ‘A young bitch!’

Lilet opened her mouth and stretched her arms to whisper a spell, but the Army General wasn’t stupid and threw a rope with metal hooks at the ends, which tied her arms and legs and threw her to the ground. 

‘So much for your magic, witch!’

With the help of his fellows, he hung Lilet upside down on a tree. 

‘What should we do with her, boys? See, it’s such a young beauty. Such firm breasts!’ he cut open the white dress given Lilet by the Golden Duck, exposing her breasts, ‘Such warm bosom!’ He made another cut this time even wider exposing the witch’s legs and buttocks ‘I will be the first to pleasure her’ he licked his lips and brought his face to smell her between the thighs to the applause of his comrades ‘And you, my friends, can follow!’

What Lilet saw, hanging from the tree, were Goblins’ eyes hungry from desire and nasty smiles filled with blackish teeth and tongues smeared with dark blue saliva. They had never had a human woman but all they could dream about was possessing one. Lilet looked around to find a possibility to escape. 

All of a sudden, they all heard a roar coming up from the sky.

‘What is that noise?’ Goblin knights turned their heads up.

‘I’m afraid it’s a dragon!’ one Goblin knight shouted terrified.

Another swift murmur made them turn around again.

‘Where is that bitch?! She was hanging here a second ago.’

Lilet was nowhere to be seen. But the tree on which she was hanging started to behave in a strange way. Its wigs and branches elongated and grabbed the Army General and his team, tying their legs and hanging them all upside down. The tree opened its trunk and Lilet came from the inside all dressed and as fresh as a daisy. 

‘Do as you please’, she said to the tree and walked away continuing her magic.

‘What does this bitch mean?’ knights looked at the startled Army General.

The tree seemed to gasp for a second, as if in a moment of thought. Its twigs grabbed the Goblins’ pants and took them off, exposing their buttock. Then the tree started turning its branches from one side to another, like during a hurricane, smashing Goblins to the ground to the left, and then to the right, making sure that their buttocks hit the spikes of forest thorns and nettle growing just below it. Loud thuds, screams, and sounds of vomiting filled the air. 

At the same time, from the sky, Goblins were burned like grilled sausages by the fires of the Dragon, which was getting closer and closer to the egg placed on the roof of the observation tower. His eyes sparkled at the possibility of raising his own child, something unthinkable in the world of dragons. Something unprecedented. And the more he thought about it the more deadly the fire was getting from his lungs, roasting Goblins in their golden armors like meat casserole in the oven.

But there were hundreds of thousands of Goblins, numbers not even decimated by the power of one dragon. Tan, San, and Han were already put to the ground. Two walls were smashed by the Goblin’s colubrine. All storage of cauliflower soup was already used and women were losing their strength.

Edwin was standing in front of the castle protecting it with all the spells he knew, throwing rocks at Goblins, raising floods of mud, blowing them with the wind, drowning them in quicksand, and gassing them with stenches. Erwin was back at his chamber trying to make more of the magic potion. 

The king was whispering to himself in panic.

‘Where are they? They should be here by now…’

‘Who?’ asked Edwin, trying to send a rain of tar on Goblins’ faces.

‘My friends, my neighbors’ armies! Where is Gwidon?’

‘This is actually a good question! Where the hell is this boy?!’

And just as they were mentioning it, another flood of knights appeared from the distance. Gwidon in charge of thousands of sleeping mountain knights was approaching, making Goblins turn back and focus their attack on the behind. Now it was a spectacle of war at its best. All of them were trained in the art of Warcraft, all beautifully dressed, with the best skills and years of experience. To die in such a battle was an honor and soon Goblins noticed one thing. They were the only ones dying as the sleeping soldiers seemed to be already dead.

While Gwidon with his army and Lilet with her magic and the power of nature were covering the back, Prince Vandarok managed to cross all walls set up by Giants and run to the courtyard. Edwin grew tired and his spells were not as effective as before, causing leaks and allowing Goblins to enter the castle and fight its dwellers.

The king started lamenting.

‘I promised them my daughter’s hand!’

‘Don’t cry, my King’, Vandarok jumped from the wall onto the courtyard and approached the king ‘Soon there will be no space for your tears as I will cut them along with your eyes!’

‘Maybe you should attack someone your rank, not an old and helpless man’, a silver soldier with a tulip ornament appeared in front of Vandarok, ‘And by the way, father,’ he whispered to the king, ‘I’m already married!’

Vandarok was about to laugh at the size of the soldier but then he heard a scream, felt a smell reminding him of… no he wasn’t quite sure… of cauliflower soup? And felt the power of this tiny body that smashed him again and again to the ground. 

The battle was full-on. The king’s friends actually sent their small armies, which surrounded Goblins from the outside. From the inside, women and Giants were protecting the castle but with diminishing success. The wounded Dragon and Giants hurt and tied to the ground madly tried to set themselves free. The sea of Goblins moved in endless waves to and back flooding the castle. The day was coming to a close, the sun began to set. 

Erwin came from his chamber carrying a big pot with cauliflower soup to a terrible sight. His brother Edwin was lying in the courtyard, unconscious surrounded by Goblins. The king was running towards the observation tower to seek hideout. Thousands of wounded and dead lied on the castle’s grounds. The Dragon was howling from pain trying to secure his egg. Five Giants were killed. Gwidon was running to wounded Lilet who fell on the ground holding the arrow which hit her stomach as if she wanted to hide it. Then other arrows followed because she was defenseless. And then, there was the last scream of Princess Karina who with the final hiss of her sword chopped off Prince Vandarok’s head and fell powerless on her knees. 

‘We won!!!’ she took her helmet off, exposing her blond hair, took Vandarok’s head, and raised it for Goblins to see ‘This is your Prince! This is your fate if you don’t start to retreat’. The blood was dripping from her mouth, she felt deep wounds in her chest from Vandarok’s hits. Her beloved David lied on the courtyard’s floor with his arms chopped off. 

Cries of Gwidon announced the death of a young witch dressed in the white dress, now red from blood from the dozens of arrows that stabbed her body in merciless sequence and to Goblin’s satisfaction. 

‘Not her!’ the knight held her body, crying from desperation. 

Erwin watched the whitening face of his brother, whom life seemed to abandon, and sensed that this victory was false and they had lost too much. He dropped the pot with the cauliflower soup and returned to his chamber.

He was looking for it for a while. The black stone hidden on the shelves among mummified lizards and cut fingers. 

‘There you are!’

Erwin grabbed it and threw it into the fire. 

‘If all else fails…’ whispered he to himself. 

Nothing happened. Not a bang, not even a tiny explosion. But when again Erwin came back to the courtyard, he was to witness a completely different sight.