Goblins by Philip Reeve

Author:Philip Reeve [Reeve, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2012-04-05T06:00:00+00:00

At first, everything went brilliantly. The goblins Knobbler had left behind were all up in the top of the tower, busy rummaging through the possessions of those who’d gone on the raid. There was no one about at all in the middle section as Skarper hurried up the stairs from the bumwipe chamber to Breslaw’s hatchery. When he paused outside the hatchery he could hear the old goblin’s slow and heavy breathing, and when he stooped and peeked through one of the holes in the door (for it was very old and wormy) he saw Breslaw asleep on his nest of old tapestries in the far corner, an empty wineskin on the floor beside him.

Quietly, Skarper lifted the latch and slipped inside. He stood by Breslaw’s nest and reached over the sleeping hatchling master to remove a small stone from the wall behind him. It made a little stony rasp as it came free, and Breslaw stirred and muttered, “Eh, what’s that?” before mumbling off into his dreams again.

In the space behind the loose stone his secret treasures gleamed: an old gold ring; a couple of jewels prised out of sword hilts; and the misshapen orb of stolen slowsilver, faintly shining. Skarper lifted it out. It was as big as a duck’s egg, surprisingly heavy, and faintly warm to the touch. Hopefully I can just scrape off a little bit to burn and see the secret writing by, he thought. And the rest I’ll keep for me. It would be a good start to his new treasure hoard.

He put it in his pocket and carefully replaced the loose stone. Then he let out his pent-up breath and turned to go back to the door, but his tail whisked against one of the training cudgels which stood propped in a row against the hatchery wall. It fell and hit the cudgel next to it, and that one hit an old halberd, which toppled against a blunted battleaxe, and the whole row of weapons went crashing and clattering down. The last in the line was a three-pointed spear, and as it fell it hit Breslaw’s food bowl, balanced on a high shelf. The bowl dropped, and Skarper leapt forward and caught it just before it hit the floor, but the shelf had been struck too; it came away from the wall at one end and a cascade of old eggstone shards came clattering down, pummelling Skarper like angry little stone fists and dancing on the wormy boards around him.

He stood there for a few seconds in the silence after the noise had finished. Slowly he started to hear the sounds of the tower again. The goblin voices still hooted and laughed way up above, and they did not seem to be coming any closer. Was it possible that they had not noticed the din? Perhaps it had not been as loud as he’d feared. . .

He looked round.

Breslaw had lifted his head off the mound of tapestries, and was regarding Skarper with one bleary yellow eye.

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