I got my consciousness back when something hit my back. First thing that I realized, that my clothes are still wet and very cold and I’m being carried somewhere down the tunnel. It appeared that I’m lying on some sort of wooden cart. Turning my head around, I found out that Senka is on my left side and Widogast is on the right. Two small blue lights in front of the cart allowed me to look around more thoroughly. My hands and legs are tied up with rough ropes so I couldn’t move freely. Something was pulling this cart very steadily and slowly, turning my head up I saw two big arses with small curly tails in front of me. Those curly tails were the same as usual pigs had, but by the size of their bodies I couldn’t tell if these were normal pigs or not. They were covered in dark fur and their bodies were as huge as the strongest bull we had back in the Cold Valley. Not being able to see their muzzles, I decided to call them Giant Pigs, because of their tales. Then I heard a murmuring noise in front of the pigs, but I couldn’t see who is talking. I calculated that these two blue lights are coming from those creatures that caused murmuring.

‘What a waste of time… Grr… Today we got only two kids and some old grandpa...’ was the first sentence that I’ve heard clearly. The voice was very high and gurgling at the same time, I have never heard voices like that before.

‘Blah, blah, blah… You are nagging when we need to carry a lot of strong men, you are nagging when we need to carry kids…’ was the answer for the first voice. These voices both had high pitch and gargling noises during the gaps between words, it was pretty nasty. Imagine a normal human’s voice and leave it to rot on the hot summer sun and you will get these foul tones and gargling noises.

‘Oh, go to hell, Guck! I’ve always wanted to serve in the legion as all decent goblins do. But nooo! I need to carry these bags of shit to feed the royal goblins from the legion! They say Shmuck is not capable of fighting, they say Shmuck is nasty! Grrr! One time you fail and they never give you another chance, devils!’ was the first voice and I figured that his name is Shmuck and the other goblin is Guck.

‘What a strange name to have…’ I thought and grinned a little but immediately another thought stroke me, ‘Wait. I can’t smile right now, they are going to use us as food. These are not games that we played with Nimrod and other hunters. Our lives are at stake!’

I tried to reach my pocket, where I’ve always hid my knife, but couldn’t do it, my arms were tied too tight. Senka’ knife! I need to be very quiet or otherwise these two goblins will eat my flesh even before we get to the place where we are heading. Inch by inch, I took out Senka’s knife out from his pocket.

‘No wonder that Shmuck is not in goblin legion or whatever they are talking about if he is so dumb and can’t even find hidden knives…’ where my thoughts, while I was cutting the ropes on Senka’s and Widogast’s hands, they were still asleep. It was too difficult to cut my own ropes, so I decided to leave them as they were, ‘Think… Think… Think… I can’t fight them… I can’t run away from them… My arms move swiftly only in up and down directions… If I cut the ropes on my legs, goblins will definitely notice it… but even if not, where do I need to run and most important I can’t leave Senka here alone!.. ahh.. and that guy Widogast too… the only thing I can think of now… No! That’s too risky!.. But what else can I do? Nothing. That’s it. I can’t wait till they notice that I’m awake. Okay… We’ll see what happens next…’

After these thoughts ran through my mind I grasped Senka’s knife decisively and yelled aloud,

‘Go to hell, goblins!!!’

Swiftly I raised my hand above my head and with full force stabbed twice each hinder leg of these huge pigs with full force. They started squeaking and roaring, next thing I saw is how goblins are trying to catch up with the cart that is now accelerating down the tunnel with enormous pace. I had a fairly good glimpse of how Shmuck and Guck looked like. They were about a meter height and carried sticks with Azure lights inlaid into the wood. Their skin was green and had a slight yellow tint, clothes that they wore was made of black leather material that I have never seen before. No animal in our Valley had the same skin texture as they had on their clothes. I saw that their faces were crooked and covered with coating that resembled wooden bark and that’s it, after a few moments I lost them in the darkness.

‘Aaah?! What is happening?!’ Senka’s scream echoed through the tunnel. Apparently, cart hit him in the back and woke him up.

‘Don’t know… but I can’t see a thing… damn…’ sleepy Widogast’s voice mumbled from the right and then I heard how he started searching his pockets for something, ‘Ah, yes! Here it is!’

Clung! Clung!

And two Azure lights lit up in Wido’s hands,

‘Always have them somewhere in the pockets just in case,’ he waved his hands full of Azure crystals in front of our faces, ‘Goblins do not stand out in their intelligence, most of the time forgetting to check the pockets and if they do, take only valuable items. Azure is too common for them to care,’ Wido sighed deeply and continued, ‘Actually, it is not the first time I’ve fell into the goblin’s trap and as I can see you chose the most extreme way to get away from them…’

‘I had no idea what to do… this was the only thing that came to my mind, I didn’t want to wait till they start ripping our bodies apart…’ was my excuse.

‘Haha! They would definitely eat us… after we starve to death in their caves, usually they keep their hostages alive till someone shows up to pay the ransom, that is one of the ways how they keep getting valuable items and money from the outside, and if no one shows up, goblins eat their hostages. They are like mountain rats who has no morale or noble aims.’

‘So, you know how to get out of here, right? You said that you’ve been here already…’ Senka joined the conversation.

‘In fact… I was bailed out by elves that hired me. Hahaha! That is the usual deal, the only race goblins do not take as hostages are elves, so they hire people like me to scavenge these mountains, but now there are three of us and I wouldn’t forgive myself if elves payed the ransom only for my head. Haha!’ Wido seemed too joyful for the situation in which we were stuck, ‘the only way out that I see is to race these boars straight through goblins’ village and try to find another exit.’

Me and Senka looked at each other and figured that we have no other option.

‘Alright…’ I said.

‘I will take the reins and lead the boars and you both stay on each side of the cart and try to keep goblins away from us,’ after that Wido sat on the front end of the cart, caught reins and started laughing, ‘You two are the best thing that happened to me in past few years! It was a long time ago when my blood was so hot and my eyes were so widely open to see what happens next! Hahaha!’

I gave back Senka his knife and pulled out mine from the back pocket of my cotton trousers. It was glowing with blue light, I completely forgot that we rubbed Azure light dust into this knife before we took off to the tunnel. This blue shining blade gave me courage and confidence that everything is going to turn out well.

The tunnel started filling up with yellow light, we were already approaching goblin’s village under the Easter Montserrat.