The world was dead to her.

She had no idea of time, where she was or who was with her.

There was only grief.

After a while, she became aware of being held closely, in a comforting manner.

But the smell, the damp musty stench, broke through the grief like a horn blowing a warning in the fog.

It smelled like a goblin.

But the comfortable feel of the hold, the caress of her hair, the low hum.

A goblin?

She pulled back from the hold a little to see who it was, and when she registered that it was in fact a goblin, she froze.

Not from fear, fright or in readiness to fight, but because she couldn’t put the image together with the reality.

A goblin comforting a person?

How is it possible? Her baby had just been killed by a goblin yet here it was, comforting her.

“I failed you. Tried saving baby, but too slow.”

Tears?

“The other raid party will come soon. You must move.”

“What?”

“Other goblins coming. You kill them all here. No report back means more raiders come soon”

A goblin helping her?

She had heard one story from Emmet where he stayed his kill blow on a goblin because it was different. Emmet had insisted that the goblin was good, that regardless of the masses of evil the race inflicted on the world, there were good ones.

Was this a good one?

“Me lady, you must go. Now”

“Your name goblin. What is it?”

It looked at her, his eyes showing no brutality within the brown red irises.

“Karkit”

She was not sure this was real. Was this the very same goblin Emmet had talked about?

“You know Emmet?”

“Yes. Year ago, bit more, he saved me. Made promise to repay. But in my moment of trial, I fail” The goblin pointed to the house. “House burned. Family broken. Child…..”

Gail drew the baby closer. Holding the stillness to her breast.

She asked “What will you do now?”

He shook his head and bowed his head. “I not sure, I failed Emmet”.

“Karkit, I don’t know what you are, but you can repay Emmet. I will show you the way”

“How?”

“Meet me here in two nights. Alone. I will tell you what we will do.” She was saying the words but her mind was not following. Was she was making a deal with a goblin.

“What we do?”

“Karkit, my baby, Emmet’s baby, will not die without consequence to the ones who ordered it”

Karkit nodded his agreement. “Go; take people away to safe place now. Two nights me be right here waiting.”

Karkit released her, stood up and disappeared into the night almost instantly.

Suddenly she was alone and unsure of what had just happened.

She stood up, baby in arm and held it closely.

She turned towards the burning house and gathering family and servants. Feeling deadened and not entirely aware of what she was doing, she began the walk to the place she and Emmet had built up over the years since the war.

From there everything went into a blur, but she was being guided somehow by someone. The guide within helped her gather the people quickly, collecting the few things that could be salvaged from outside the burning house, insisting that they begin the walk to the neighbouring farmhouse about twenty minutes walk away.

She continued to phase in and out, one moment walking at night with people fearful of attack, the next in the house drinking. Yet another blink the funeral of her baby.

And then, without warning she had pure clarity.

Across a table from her farm hands she was talking and listening to herself at the same time.

“It is time to do something about the plague of goblins, but it is not the goblins that are the problem. It is Noble Gastro. You see, for all these years Emmet and I have been held accountable by Gastro for things he has deemed annoying. Things like standing up for good people, not paying excessive taxes, killing his little hoard of goblins whenever possible.”

Emmet had talked about this plan before, but he had lost the vision, as had she.

“But today, now that our inaction has caused my baby to be murdered. And not by a goblins hand, but by Gastro’s. I feel it is time to stand up and do something about it.”

Emmet had talked about attempting a bloodless coup, but the corruption was entrenched within the high society and digging out a good lord or finding a priest to stand up to it was too expensive to do.

It was going to require a civil war, an uprising of the masses.

“We are but a few people, mostly untrained to fight soldiers, we are without weapons, armour and money. My house is gone, my husband is away and we have only the good grace of this family for the shelter over our heads.”

But they agreed that a war was not the answer. In fact, they were at a loss to what the answer to ousting the evil was. So they dug in, stuck their heads into the sand and pretended it would fix itself.

“But we have to stand up now, no matter what. Today, we are going to begin to take back what was always ours. It begins with a message asking Gastro to return our taxes to us or face the consequences of his actions. When he laughs and rejects our kind offer, we are going to begin our quest to remove the money by force, one gold piece at a time if needs be.”

But the problem with Emmet is he is a soldier, a warrior who sees his foe before him and the answer to the attack is to kill quickly. But corruption is a hidden beast with many arms. It is not something a soldier can fight. And Emmet, as much as she loved her man, was not the right person to take this evil on.

“I have asked this family for shelter for the next few days, and we have arranged another shelter for the following nights in another farm. Our shelter will be repaid in kind later in gold and protection. But we need secrecy, stealth and determination to see this through to the end. I am asking you all here right now, do you want to take back the taxes, return the gold to the people and make right the wrongs this Noble has done?”

This Gastro, this murderer of children, this borrower of goblins, was about to be dealt too. Not with his immediate killing, but with a long protracted reduction of all he deems precious.

His land.

His power.

And his gold.

She phased out again somewhere, because now it was dark and the smell of burnt wet wood filled the air.

Karkit was in front of her.

She said “I want to hurt Gastro”

Karkit smiled that dreadful evil grin all goblins have when he said “Me too.”