There were loud voices as Haghuf approached the side cavern where the human scent drew him. The pathetic whimpers from the prisoner alternated with attempts at bravado and insistence that he must be presented to someone in charge. Both drew only contemptuous jeering and prodding with sharp instruments from his captors. One such elicited a sharp yelp from the human just as Haghuf entered through the arched rock which served as an opening to the chamber.
The man alternately fought his bindings and tried to appear aggressive to the goblins, as much as a captive with arms and legs bound might do. He puffed out his chest, shouting threats one moment and in the next he would shrink from the prodding, looking pathetic. Haghuf had little taste for such sport, and had just about decided to retreat quietly and leave them to it when the human suddenly saw him standing in the arch, quiet and still as the stone.
‘You! Are you the leader here?’ shouted the man with all the authority he could muster. Haghuf didn’t answer right away. Slowly, he strolled towards the man, looking at him curiously as if he had never seen such a creature before. In truth, he had seen very few in his lifetime. He preferred to keep it that way.
Everything in the room seemed to stop as Haghuf examined the prisoner, crouching down slowly to look him in the eye as was the custom among goblins when engaging an enemy. The human’s chest heaved with quick, shallow breaths. He licked his lips nervously, caught up in the moment of suspense while he waited for an answer. Haghuf turned his head to look at the creature sideways, first one way then the other. Then at last he spoke in his low, gravely voice, slowly and deliberately in the man’s own tongue.
‘We have no leader. We are all one kind here.’
The human’s eyes darted from one goblin to another. His expression exposed his utter bewilderment at the concept of a leaderless race.
‘But surely someone must be in charge?’ he cried, almost desperately. Haghuf again took his time in answering.
‘We are not like you. We do not glory in having power over our own kind.’ Haghuf turned to walk away. Then as an afterthought added over his shoulder, ‘or imagining that we do.’
‘What shall we do with him?’ shouted one of the goblins.
‘Kill him,’ Haghuf answered flatly just as he passed back through the arch.
Haghuf chuckled to himself as he walked out of the side cavern. It didn’t matter to him whether the goblins behind him took his suggestion or not.
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Comments
As I said before, I am at a little advantage over everyone else here, because I proof-read your whole book, and so know the context of this passage. It will be interesting to hear feedback from someone who has only seen this extract, to see if it is enough to give an impression of the world this story takes place in, and the kind of people that inhabit it.
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Not that it is a bad thing though, elves in Riftwar books (if I remember correctly) were warlike and had beards, among other things, just as the different fantasy races in Shannara books were descended from present-time humans after a world-devastating war. So it's interesting to see new interpretations of old stuff.
There is some pretty intense stuff in the book, but I don't want to put too much on the internet until publication is at hand. I will be doing some short stories though, for some of the Goblin Pages projects that I'm working on.
"he pathetic whimpers from the prisoner alternated with attempts at bravado and insistence that he must be presented to someone in charge"
confused the shiznip out of me... at first I thoguht the goblins though he had to be brought to someone in charge because he was being trouble. When I reread, I realized that the human was whimpewring, and sometimes demnading to be brought to someone in charge. I'm not sure if it was just me that read it wrong though, so I would leave it if no one else said anything.
I like this. It's the point of view from the race that is usually described as so meanial that they are not worth paying attenting ot in most stories, save as villians or pathetic. So that is a very nice idea, through the eyes of the goblin. But what do your goblins look like though? My own goblins have little noses and wide mouths with large grins and teeth, and horns. They are sometimes mistaken for big gremlins (something that only a human could mistake for of course).
Some of your setnences get a lil' long but it's not too much a problem. Just something that if you keep in subconscious mind, it will fix itself.
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Art defines our reality, who we are, where we are going, as how sad defines happy... --It is our counter-existance.
The premise is that they are all actually descended from humans over many millions of years when pockets of humans have been caught underground by world cataclysms, and those who survived adapted and evolved. All the races of fairies, mermaids, and everythng else are jusy species of goblins, and there are cross breeds from different types with older histories.
They're quite fun to aprty with actually.
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Art defines our reality, who we are, where we are going, as how sad defines happy... --It is our counter-existance.
The Betweeners and Deep Dwellers mix a fair bit, but all goblins have trouble breeding. Children are rare and treasured. Cross breeding between species helps this a bit.
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