Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Ash crowns the hero. Kai is d*ck. Space is terrible.

“FOOL!” shouts the goblin-king.

 

I do not like him.

 

Snarling my long teeth, I throw a fistful of birdseed at his feet. “PICKINGS!” I shout, ushering the challenge of our people.

 

Shocked murmurs float around the palace court, coming from the brothers and sisters, who sit on the many gnarled roots. The roots of the forest make up the palace of the goblin-king.

 

- He is unworthy to be called so.

 

I point a long, crooked claw at him. “I challenge you to pickings!” I cry.

 

The fat goblin scoffs.

 

Physically, I am superior. I am young. I am strong. He is old and content with his spoiling. It bodes ill for our tribe.

 

“Sky-light ate brothers of hill-bump!” I point at him. “Sky-light will eat us too!” I proclaim.

 

He waves me off, getting up from his throne and stepping onto the birdseed. “Lies!”

 

“Truth!” I argue, raising my voice. “Wood-mother spoke of it!”

 

More murmurs come from the members of the court. The word of the wood-mother is held in very high regard here. I finish my argument. “- Unfit! Sky-light will come to us. Sky-light is angry!” Two dozen yellow, beady eyes following my finger. “- Because of you! Pickings!” I repeat, restating my challenge to take the throne with clear intent. “Wood-mother demands it.”

 

The members of the court rise to their feet. Each standing member signifies their approval, their vote, for my challenge.

 

Of the twelve members of the court, all twelve rise to their feet.

 

I narrow my eyes. He has no choice now, but to accept my challenge. To deny it would be to defy the will of the wood-mother, of the gods.

 

The goblin-king looks around at the court and then laughs, sitting down again, he kicks the birdseed back my way and waves for his guards.

 

“Dungeon,” he says, looking at me gleefully as two champions, twice my size, come to drag me away to the underground. The members of the council protest. He points at them all. “Dungeon.”

 

More guards come from the sides of the court and drag all of us away.

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“One death a day,” orders the goblin-king. He points at me as I am pulled towards the door, leading down to the deep-dark. “You last.”

 

The door closes behind myself and I am carried into the void, into the dungeon, along with twelve others.

 

Wood-mother forgive me.

 

- I have failed.

 

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It is dark.

 

…What is that noise?

 

My skin prickles.

 

It is as if the darkness were whispering to me. My hair stands on end. The air smells of strong-water.

 

Despite being underground for hours now, everything suddenly goes bright.

 

The world shakes with a resounding quake. A deafening roar blasts through the halls, as if a great-red-lizard were here in the dungeon, in the underground, screaming for its brood.

 

The walls crumble.

 

- A quake?

 

Everything is bright. So bright. The sun is shining through the soil, through the rock.

 

Impossible.

 

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