My name is Gobu, it is a short name, but that’s fine, for we goblins have no need for long ones.                                                                                                                    I come from a family of snail farmers, and I reside upon my parent’s farm-land, far off the city tracks and without visitors. Our work is greatly praised by the ruling five but, I take no pride in it. I tend to the fields only because my father is old and frail, I take no great passion from it.                                                                                                             My mother and father are slow moving creatures who spend their days inside, rocking in their wooden chairs. Knitting and smoking. When we are together we do not speak much.
Each day I wake as soon as the first muggy light hits the farm and I perform my chores. Taking care of the snails, tilling our fields and picking weeds. I work fast to finish early. So before my parent's wake I can sneak off south to walk. Always away from the village, I walk, uphill to the light. The mud we live in is always sifting and our forest paths are forever changing meaning each walk I must discover new ones. But I don’t think I mind, in fact, I believe I like it as even my small hikes feel like expeditions.
 The further I walk the more the world comes alive, I make out birds flitting above me like shooting arrows, or I’ll see a ripe red fruit swinging in the breeze and reach out for it. I’ve often longed for the luxury of taste beyond snails and gruel but it always lies just out of my reach. Most goblins would get tired walking as far as I do every day but my legs are far more powerful than the average city-dwellers and I can make it quite far up. But, I always stop before I get too close and I expose myself to the sunlight. Once when I was young and heartier I made that mistake and was left with a white marring on my face.
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It had been many summers ago when my father had first fallen ill. And I had just discovered the taste of responsibility and the freedoms that come with it. For the first time I was able to do as I wished wholly unsupervised. So of course I began my flights to the forest. Back then I was far more anxious and un-used to the unfriendly wilds, so I tread carefully, but I was equally foolish and I tread with a passion.
It was a particularly warm day and feeling particularly brave I decided to venture far further than I ever had. I had clambered up and away from the depths to where moss grew and the felled branches hadn’t rotted. I had been contemplating sitting down and eating when my breath was stolen by beauty. A lone yellow flower was sitting like an elegant lady in a small clearing. Glowing in the sunlight, it’s petals waved in the breeze like a dancers dress .
Wasting not a second I dropped my bag and raced over to grasp it. As soon as I burst out of the shadows the light turned on me! With a smiting hand, it slapped my face and I heard my own skin sizzling furiously. I lay in the moss screaming and trying to wipe the burn away. When the shock passed I dashed home weeping and spent two days bed-ridden with pain.
When a convoy passed to pick up our snails it returned to the city with the fresh gossip of my idiocy. “Does he not know that our skin is not suited to the light?” “I swear their brains have rotted being so far out alone”. Of course, I never heard their taunts, but I did imagine them.
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We goblins live in the furthest point of the lowest forest valleys. Far beneath the great oaks in the mulch of the dying leaves, the sun doesn’t shine on us and our sky is always dim and grey.                                                                                       Everything flows down to us; scum, filth, trinkets and corpses all hurtle down the hills to our lowly valleys. To us goblins such trash is treasure and anyone lucky enough to dig out a human can easily become a rich man. But sometimes travellers lose their way and wander down to us as well, gnomes, pixies and other such abominations, with them they bring stories. Of gods, battles, wars and heroes, most false , but, some true. Officially they are forbidden by the five under spreading of panic and propaganda act.                                                                                                                                      But that doesn’t mean that with pricked ears you cannot drift your way over to a particulary chatty merchant or drunk with a loose tongue. And I always lapped those tales up.
The lives and words of strangers always ignite a fire within me, such as the one that burns I voyage into the forest, a yearning for something beyond me. Re-imagining these tales while I mindlessly harvested and ploughed is what quickened my days. Most goblins are both small both in scope and mind, they are content to drift through their life’s and die without attaching any greater meaning to themselves. It is so ingrained that almost none ever bother worshipping our gods. But I always swore that I’d rid myself of the chains of my race and go beyond them.
Last summer, shortly after my burning, a certain tome fell into my hands. The goblin who’d found it could not read and sold it to me for three coppers with no appreciation for the wonders within it. Quickly the book became an obsession of mine. Whose pages I would devour to fill the gaps between work and sleep. It was a book of knights. Gallant men in giant suits of steel, who fought wars, slaughtered beasts and charmed princesses. The book was covered with rich illustrations of these valiant warriors and I, being a fool, could not help but imagine my green self amongst them.
Yes, there are warriors within the five families, but they are nothing like the heroes of my tales. They are ordinary goblins dressed up in cheap leathers brandishing badly forged weapons. Who ride on rats and spill blood for the pleasure of the five. I could never see myself as part of something so woeful and cheap.
But even self-absorbed fools like me are sometimes met with a good chance. For late that autumn when I was preparing the fields for the savagery of winter, my spade hit something with a sharp clang and I was knocked onto my back. My clawed fingers  scratched away the dirt and tugged at the object until finally, the earth spat it out. It was so incredibly heavy that it took both my hands and all my force to drag it back to our house. It was a plate of iron, strong and sharp, the sort humans moulded for themselves. It was the size of my arm and impressively thick. It sent my mind racing with the possibilities of what I could create with it. And for the first time in my life, I felt my heart dance with excitement.
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 I designed my suit of armour in the quiet hours of the night, Scratching on parchment for hours upon days for a whole moon before my sketching’s were complete. What I had designed for myself, I knew I could never truly replicate. I would never find the pieces or be able to forge them with the intricacy of my mind but that would not deter me in the slightest.
I began to skulk the back alleys of markets, sniffing out any human metals. I was quickly spending all my earnings on this obsession. I bought plates, strips, mail anything I could get my hands on.                                                                                       Then at night when the valley was silent I would work. Piecing it together was an arduous process for I had no real training and had to learn from bitter mistakes. Often I’d spend hours sticking the iron together only for it to break apart in my hands, the sharp edges would slice me and I could feel myself give up.
But for all the long winter nights that came next, I kept at it, until finally, it was complete. A goblin sized suit of armour, with a helmet carved like a fierce bat. It filled me with a powerful but brief joy. Because as soon as it was tangible and not just an idea ,the fantasy melted away. I was still not a knight and would never tryly be. The suit was pushed to a corner; to gather dust.

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My father died on the first day of spring. He must have awoken in the night and trudged out into the thawing fields in some sickly delirium for I found him frozen in the morning. There was no sorrow within me,. My mother however wept for hours, and would not move from her room not matter how much I asked her to. The pain she felt must have been too murderous to handle for when I returned in the afternoon with her supper she too was dead. Both my pillars had collapsed and I was alone standing in the rubble.
I calmly ate my own supper and then walked to the town informing our relatives of the loss. That night I cleaned my armour assembled it next to my bed.
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The funeral happened on the farm the following week, but I was not present for it. For the day before, I had marched, over our fields and was heading up, up and up. To the human world. My armour was on my back, causing me to stumble and sweat but the pain felt like achievement. I was carving my own legacy, leaving the pre-determined life of mine and weaving a new one.
What a pitiful fool I truly was.

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I met him when I was starving and on the cusp of death. Although my heart was filled with romance, it alone could not help my lack of food and direction. And my dreams could not make the iron weighing my small body down any lighter.  Especially since I refused to take off my armour at any time; I trudged, ate and slept in it and all though it made me shake and tremor and collapse into the mud I forced myself to carry on.
With this determination, I got rather far, all the way up, out of my miserable goblin valley and into the world of humans. Where everything sprawled upwards to the heavens: the trees the rocks and god sized beasts. A place where I was a small beast clambering over the roots but I felt like I belonged. I had come this far at a cost. And the fatigue and starvation threatened to extinguish me at any moment.
I’m not sure how much of a delirium I was in when I heard the gurgling of the stream. But I slowly waddled under the roots and through the sharp grass until I stood on its bank. It was a slow but sweet looking finger of water and at its sight my legs buckled and I collapsed into the mud. I had no strength to pull myself up, and no wish, I had made it this far. It would be fine to take a small break, at least I hadn’t died in the wretched valley.
A sharp kick and the shout of a stumbling stranger roused me back to life. I blinked wearily against the harsh setting sun and flicked my eyes to see who had found me. There was a loud rattling as they got up and then a hearty yet youthful chuckling as they crossed over and stood above me.
“My, I apologise, I didn’t see you there”, they laughed once more and reaching for my arm pulled me to my feet. “There that’s better”
With a drooping hand I wiped the mud off my visor and tried to focus my eye, I could only make out the stranger as tall and shining, but when they focused I jumped back. They were a knight, a true, honest to life, knight. In an elegant silver armour that glistened in the red sun, a green cape down to his feet, and a kind face with deep blue eyes topped with acrown of blonde hair. On his back rested a long straight sword, asleep in its seath.
I was lost, and could only think of the manners I’d taught myself, I went down on one knee to bow but almost toppled back into the mud again. The knight bent down and took my hand, “Come now, there’s no need for that. You look like death itself. I was just preparing to make camp here, maybe you’d like to join me. I have a fantastically plump pheasant for us to roast!”
My heart beating like a frantic war drum I nodded my head.
The knight laughed heartily, “haha excellent!”
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By nights fall, our bird had been eaten, our wine drank and our fire was settling down to quiet embers. I was full, quenched and extremely happy but controlling myself around Laurant was very difficult. I wanted to ask him so many questions and listen to every single one of his stories.
I learned that he hailed from a faraway earldom and that he was on a holy mission from one of the human churches. Who wanted him to eradicate some evil in the woods. I learned he had a wife at home, delicate and fair but no sons. He was not a great knight and certainly not from my book, but I looked up to him as if he were.
“So…Gobbu, that’s an interesting name, where do you hail from?”
“Down, from the valley.”
He nodded and puffed gently on his pipe, “I see. You were raised there?”
I nodded, “My parents were farmers, I’m afraid I wasn’t born a knight and that this weak armour was crafted by myself.”
“ There’s no shame in that, no one is truly born a knight, even royalty must dedicate themselves and train hard. Have you any training Gobbu?”
I shook my head. Laurant was silent for a moment and then got up, grabbing a stick from next to us, he threw it to me and unsheathed his blade. “Then allow me to show you the basics.”
I stood up, shaking with anticipation,
He got into his stance, “Now mirror me…no no, keep your legs bent… and always cover your face with the blade. Yes, that’s better already.
When I stood properly, holding the stick in front of me we moved onto attacking, “ You want to step to the side, bring the sword down, and thrust it forward…yes just like that, again faster…come on. Imagine your enemy in front of you and slice!
We stopped once the fire had utterly died and the darkness and howling wind surrounded us. “Well that seems to be plenty for today, let us rest now”. My body aching and my armour denting from sparring I was all but ready to collapse under his tarp and doze off. I had never felt so satisfied with myself, I had met a knight and he had allowed me, me of all people, to dine with him. Surely I must have been dreaming?
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I woke very early, to the sound of birdsong and smell of honeyed porridge. Still in my armour and with every muscle swollen and aching I helped myself to a cupful of the warm oats.                                                                                                                    We ate without conversation and when we were done Laurant began to talk again, “Listen here Gobbu, I enjoyed our together not matter how brief. But I’m now afraid I’m forced to keep moving.”
Oh no I thought and started to protest with a stammer,
“Sshhshh, “he continued, stopping me, “I have my mission to full fill, and it’s not far now. I only need to reach the valley. I understand fully if you refuse, but if you would accompany me I would be more than happy. Since I’m need of a guide to reach it.  But not only that ,I believe you would make a fantastic squire when we return to the earldom. Only of course if you’d like to train with me, perhaps someday you will even be a knight yourself.
What could I say but yes,y es a thousand times yes ?
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I think, I always knew what he was going to do, but my joy clouded my bitter thinking and I allowed him to sweet talk me.
I led him swiftly down the valley and when he asked for the goblin town, I was terrified that he was planning to leave me there to rot, amongst my scorning neighbours. But I dutifully showed me the way.
When we arrived he did not enter immediately but forced us to sit just outside my farmlands. I could not understand why we did not simply enter the city if he had business there; instead he made us wait until night had fallen once more.
“It’s small, isn’t it?  “He said, breaking the nights silence. “But size doesn’t stop evil right Gobbu?”
Evil? What on earth was he talking? But again I did not dare question him. In fact, I was so trusting of this knight that while we sat on the border observing the town I fell asleep.
This time when I awoke it Laurant was nudging me. A boar’s head helmet was on his head and his sword was out, sharp and gleaming wickedly.
“ Come it is time now, we must take them by surprise and destroy this place as quickly as god commands it”.
I was handed a torch dripping with oil and with a woosh, he lit it. I felt my stomach twist into unbearable knots as I now fully realised what we were here to do.
As soon as the fire started and revealed us to the city. I heard bells clanging and the town awoke. Before I knew what was happening we were charging. Both of us screaming.  At us charged the cavalry, hollering goblins on squeaking rats that. I closed my eyes and ran blindly anticipating a lance to pierce me at any moment. But I heard only a swing, thud and the cavalry fell silent. I opened my eyes to see Laurant chuckling, his silver armour covered in gore and a line of dead sliced under him. He turned to me,” Come now! I shall dispose of this filth and you my dear squire burn it. Burn it all!”
And I did, I will not deny it, he may have killed every single person, my neighbours, the vendors who had sold me my metal and my distant friends. But I burned their houses, set fire to the towers and brought the town into ashes.                                                                                           I only felt relief that morning, relief that I had survived, relief that I was to be made a squire and the final sweet relief that I was a goblin no more but a man.