CHAPTER 1. IN THE POTATO FIELD

The sun had only just begun its long climb across the sky, and already three goblins were striding briskly toward the potato field. Or rather, their brisk pace was meant mainly for any curious eyes watching, to show off their eagerness for work. This was, after all, their first day out in the field entirely on their own. But the moment they reached the edge of the street, they slowed sharply. And it was easy to understand why. First, goblins had an inborn dislike of work, same as any normal creature. And second, the very thought of spending a whole day under the scorching sun made their feet move slower and slower.
But there was nothing to be done about it. The work would still have to get done. Because it was these three, specifically, whom the goblinum’s Warden had sent to one of the potato fields for a task of real responsibility. They were to gather every beetle off every bush. These creatures — yellow, no bigger than a fingernail, unhurried-looking at first glance — possessed, to the goblins’ horror, an excellent appetite. Potato leaves were their favorite food. From the moment they were born, the beetles made straight for the fields, climbed onto the bushes, and began greedily gorging on the leaves. As everyone knows, no decent plant can develop without its leaves, unless it happens to be a magical one. But goblins, for as long as they themselves could remember, had grown nothing but ordinary potatoes. And so they knew: fail to gather these shameless gluttons in time, and there would be no harvest to speak of.
Potatoes, for goblins, had long since become one of their staple foods. They ate them all year round. So it was frightening to imagine what might happen if potatoes were ever in short supply. Hungry goblins, after all, turn mean. They start quarreling with one another, and might even wage potato wars against their neighbors. And that had indeed happened once before. There were, of course, other creatures as well — things that crawled, ran, and hopped. But more importantly, there was mutton. And mutton was far tastier than potatoes. But knowing the goblin appetite, it wasn’t hard to guess that the poor sheep would run out long before goblin bellies were ever satisfied. So potatoes, in the Goblin Forest, were the foundation of peace and calm. That was exactly why the three workers, sluggish as they were, kept moving steadily toward the field.
The sun rose above the trees, lighting up the fields brightly and hinting unmistakably that the time for work had come. Stopping at the edge of their plot, the goblins shifted from foot to foot, as though embarrassed to disturb the beetles, who had already been energetically breakfasting on potato leaves since the first rays of sun.
“Listen, Mor, maybe we should have a bite to eat first? Just to get our strength up. We didn’t get the chance to eat this morning, after all. I’m afraid it’ll be hard to work on an empty stomach,” said a short, plump goblin with fiery red hair that set him noticeably apart from the other two.
“No, Vuk. Better not to waste time, and start working while the morning sun is still gentle with us,” Mor answered, already preparing to inspect the first bush.
“That’s right, Mor. The sooner we clear out these vile beetles, the sooner we’ll get home. You’ll get your bite to eat a little later, brother. A bit of morning fasting will clearly do your body some good,” said the third goblin, named Nuk, without any malice, and followed after Mor.
“There you go again. And you call yourself a brother. Would it really be such a loss to you — three measly potatoes and a bit of dried mutton? A light breakfast like that would perk me right up, and I’d work all the faster for it. And I’m not a bit plump because I eat too much — it’s because I move too little. But now I’ve started working. So my body will soon take proper shape. You’ll be jealous of me yet.”
A little hurt, Vuk looked at his brother. Nuk turned, and without answering, went on with his work. Getting no reaction, Vuk hurried off to the rows as well.
Vuk and Nuk really were brothers, born of the same gobliness. And yet, anyone who didn’t already know it would hardly have believed that these two young goblins were such close kin. Vuk, as already noted, was short in stature and built rather like a keg of good skauti. Nature had given him powerful, if short, legs and strong arms, which nonetheless looked thin against his stout body. Despite his clumsy appearance, he was, in fact, a fairly nimble and hardy goblin. But the considerable laziness that often took hold of Vuk kept him, unfortunately, from showing his abilities to the full.
Nuk was the complete opposite of his brother. Active, a head taller, with long, hairy legs and a muscular body. One could quite fairly have called him handsome, if, of course, such a word could be applied to goblins at all.
So different were the two brothers. One well-built and handsome, like their mother; the other red-haired, like their father. But neither their differing looks, nor their constant teasing of one another, nor even their occasional quarrels, drove these two young goblins apart in the slightest. They loved each other sincerely, with true brotherly love.
The third goblin, named Mor, was about the same age as Vuk and Nuk. His looks could be called perfectly ordinary for a forest goblin. Not plump and not thin, not tall and not short. He was not especially handsome, but he was no monster, either. A large nose and big, jutting ears did nothing to spoil his looks. Nor could they have. All forest goblins had ears like that, after all, and a large nose was a defining trait of the clan to which Mor, Nuk, and Vuk belonged. That was why the other clans called them Bignoses. Perhaps Mor’s only distinguishing feature was his large eyes, which flattered his looks more than they spoiled them.
Yet for all his ordinariness, Mor possessed something most goblins lacked — good judgment. Perhaps that was exactly why the goblinum’s Warden had put him in charge of the three of them. This gave Mor no privileges at all. Quite the opposite. Now the responsibility for the field rested on him. But still, the choice said something: that this goblin could be relied on more than Nuk, and far more than Vuk.
“Well, let’s straighten our backs and rest a little. The beetles aren’t going anywhere — they won’t run off from us,” Mor suggested, straightening up with some effort.
“Of course they won’t. They’ve already managed to have breakfast. We haven’t. Still, what bliss it must be — bathing in the tender rays of the rising sun with a full belly of your favorite food. And here I am, about to suffer under that scorching heavenly light, on an empty stomach besides,” Vuk complained, making the most of the short break.
Mor and Nuk gave no reaction to his words, and before long went back to work. Vuk had no choice but to follow their example.
The work, though important, was fairly simple. Inspect every bush, gather the beetles into a basket, and once it was full, carry it off, dump out the pests, and stomp them flat. The main thing was to stay alert and not miss a single beetle, because it wouldn’t sit around moping alone — it would happily go on with its feast. That was all there was to it.
True, this simple task did have one drawback. The crushed beetles gave off a foul smell. So strong and sickening that even the goblins, undemanding as they were, tried to get as far as possible from the stinking mess as quickly as they could. One might have thought the beetles were taking this as their revenge on their tormentors for their untimely death.
Meanwhile the sun climbed lazily higher. The three goblins went on working diligently, despite the heat and the persistent vampire flies, which kept trying again and again to feast on young, hot blood. These bold tormentors of goblin flesh seemed to consist of nothing but a belly, which they filled with their one and only food. It took only an instant for a fly to sink its proboscis, sharp as a needle, into the flesh and begin drawing out the tasty red liquid.
The especially gluttonous vampires gorged themselves on blood until their bellies swelled to incredible size. After that they could no longer take flight. However hard they tried to flap their wings, they fell to the ground all the same. There, these once-fearsome hunters quickly became easy prey for the ants, who deftly dragged the defenseless, blood-filled little bodies off to their anthills.
Just then, Mor noticed one such glutton.
Watching an ant dragging a vampire fly many times its own size, he remembered a legend. Supposedly, somewhere in the forest there lived magical ants. They were said to know how to create — some kind of miraculous drink, or perhaps something else altogether — that granted them incredible strength. Thanks to it, the ants always defeated their enemies.
So now too, Mor watched the little laborer and couldn’t help wondering where it got so much strength. He didn’t believe the legend, of course. After all, Mor had never in his life seen any magic.
Stories like that were probably made up just to tell little goblins, he thought.
At that moment, a familiar buzzing sounded behind his back. And then came the pain.
“What pestering creatures these flies are! I fought off three, but the fourth still managed to latch on!” Mor shouted indignantly, trying to feel for the fly on his back.
But it had landed in exactly the spot he couldn’t reach.
“Listen, Mor, those last words of yours — that’s exactly what our neighbor says about his own gobliness,” Nuk said with a smile.
“Yes, but a gobliness is more of a friend and a helper than an insatiable bloodsucker like these cursed flies,” Mor replied, having finally managed to get rid of his persistent tormentor.
“That depends, that depends,” Vuk drawled with great profundity.
“What do you even know about that?” Nuk asked, surprised.
“About what? Goblinesses, or vampire flies?”
“Both,” Nuk clarified, already preparing himself to hear another piece of his brother’s wisdom.
“Maybe I’m no great expert on goblinesses, but I know one thing for certain: if I had a gobliness of my own, I’d always be fed. And once I was fed, I wouldn’t begrudge the flies a little blood. And then harmony would come. Just like that.”
“Nonsense,” Nuk said, waving it off.
“Why’s that? It really does work out to harmony,” Mor said, unexpectedly siding with Vuk.
“The gobliness will be pleased that she’s fed her goblin. The goblin will be pleased that he’s full. And the flies will be pleased that they were allowed to drink their fill of blood and weren’t swatted. Everyone’s happy.”
After such an explanation, even Nuk nodded thoughtfully.
“Of course it’s harmony. As they say — the goblins are fed, and the flies are unharmed,” Vuk pronounced with great importance, raising his index finger.
“If you’re so smart, maybe you can tell us how to get rid of the bloodsuckers?” Nuk asked.
“I know only one way — go home,” Vuk answered good-naturedly.
“And seriously, though?”
“Seriously, then — there’s no getting rid of them. They love blood, after all. And the biggest animals around here are us. Which means we’ve got more blood than anyone. That’s why the flies go after us. They’re not stupid — they can see who’s more worth attacking.”
“So what does that make us? You think we’re animals? Same as every other creature in the forest?” Nuk said indignantly.
“You’ve got it all wrong again. Of course we’re not animals. Well, more precisely — we are animals, just not the wild kind, but the better kind.”
And Vuk proudly jabbed a finger at his own chest.
“You could also say — domesticated,” Mor said with a sly smile.
“Yes, exactly! Domesticated. We live in houses, after all. And stone ones, at that. So we’re genuine domesticated animals.”
Having said this, Vuk was thoroughly pleased with his own logic.
“You’d do better to put those useless musings of yours toward the flies,” Nuk pressed, undeterred.
“Well, what can I do? I’m no wizard, after all. Though wait… We could smear ourselves with crushed beetles. They stink so badly that no one would want our blood anymore.”
At this suggestion, everyone just laughed and went back to work.
So, caught up in their cheerful chatter, the goblins didn’t even notice how quickly the time had flown. When Mor next wanted to stretch his stiff back, he saw the sun directly overhead. That meant it was time to eat and rest. As was only to be expected, no one was happier about this than Vuk.
The goblins sat down on the grass beside the field and set to their food with great appetite — food they’d taken from the cellar the day before. Each of them ate several potatoes and a good chunk of dried mutton.
They’d meant to quench their thirst with some invigorating skauti, but in the end they gave up the idea and settled for water instead.
No, skauti was a very tasty drink, and the goblins’ favorite. Though if they had known how to brew anything else, perhaps some other drink might have become the favorite instead.
Still, for all its merits, skauti had one small drawback. If drunk during a meal, for reasons no one understood, a goblin’s stomach would practically come alive. It would start rumbling, gurgling, and swelling up.
But even that wasn’t the worst of it.
Next, the skauti lover was inevitably in for two consequences of his stomach’s strange behavior. First came a violent release of gas with a sharp, long-lingering aroma of fermented potato, sharp enough to bring tears to the eyes and make the head spin. Then came a sudden bout of diarrhea, which had the goblin performing feats of remarkable agility for a good half a day.
After suffering through this, even the most stubborn goblin remembered for the rest of his life that skauti should be drunk either before a meal or after one — and preferably with as long a wait as possible in between.
In every other respect, skauti was a wonderful, invigorating drink.
It was made from potatoes, blue forest berries, and honey. All of it went into a large barrel, was covered with water, and sealed tightly with a lid. In the sun, the contents of the barrel would begin to bubble and foam. Very quickly the young drink would rage so fiercely that it tore the lid right off. Then it would be poured into another barrel and carried down to the cellar. There it would gradually settle down, turning into finished skauti.
That was how skauti was made now.
But in the old days, for richness of flavor, dried rat tails were always tossed into the barrel as well. They gave the drink a special, faintly sweet note.
The used tails weren’t thrown away. They were dried in the sun once more, and then eaten with great relish, crunched up and washed down with skauti.
And it was not uncommon to see a goblin, after a good swallow of the cool drink, carefully bite off a piece of rat tail, leaving on his lips a faint, sticky, delicious sheen of fat that glistened in the sun. In such moments it became perfectly clear that the goblin was experiencing true bliss. Incidentally, rat tails were the only food with which skauti could peacefully coexist in a goblin’s stomach.
And one shouldn’t think that goblins were such brutes as to kill rats just for a drink. Of course not. They simply cut off their tails and let them go. That was why tailless rats ran about the goblinum, looking at goblins with unmistakable hatred whenever they saw them. In time, the rats died out, and no one ever understood why. Since then, skauti had been made without rat tails, but it was no worse for it.
The sun had already begun sinking toward sunset, and the three goblins were still resting. Having eaten their fill, they stretched out on the grass and decided to doze for a while. Vuk closed his eyes first and was snoring almost at once. Nuk, too, was ready to drift off. Only Mor lay there with his eyes open. Sleep simply would not come to him.
The truth was, a strange feeling had been with him since morning. It kept seeming to him that they weren’t alone here. Of course, there were other fields around, with other goblins just like them working in them. But Mor wasn’t thinking about them. Those were his own kind. What he felt was the presence of someone else — a stranger. At times it even seemed to him that he was being watched.
Mor sat up and looked closely toward the forest. There stood a dense wall of green leaves. Nuk, who hadn’t yet managed to fall asleep, noticed his uneasy look.
“What’s got you on edge?” he asked.
At first Mor wanted to laugh it off. All sorts of things can seem that way… But then he decided to tell the truth after all.
“Have you ever had the feeling that someone’s watching you?”
“Sure. Every morning when I go to the table for a couple of potatoes, the same pair of eyes is watching me the whole time. I think you can guess whose they are.”
“No, that’s not it. That’s just ordinary curiosity. Besides, you know who’s watching you. I’m talking about something else.”
Mor turned his gaze back to the forest.
“I have this feeling that we’re being watched by eyes that very much want to stay unnoticed.”
Nuk was surprised, but he didn’t argue. He, too, began peering closely at the green wall of trees, as though hoping to spot the mysterious watcher.
Just then Vuk woke up.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “You’re staring at the forest like you’re waiting for some terrible beast to leap out of it and pounce on us.”
“Mor thinks someone’s watching us,” Nuk explained.
“Ah, so that’s it. Well, let’s just hope it’s not those two beauties from the next field over.”
Vuk cautiously pointed at two stout goblinesses who were bending laboriously over the potato bushes.
“If it really is them, then let’s hurry up and finish so we can clear out of here. I’m sure an acquaintance like that would have more in store for me than just morning fasting.”
“Can you think about anything besides food? Sometimes it seems to me food is the love of your life,” Nuk grumbled.
“Of course I can. But food is the foundation of all life, after all. Mine included. And I love life too much. So I’m simply obligated to love food.”
“Could you just be quiet already?”
“All right, that’s enough, both of you,” Mor said soothingly. “And you can relax, Vuk. No goblinesses are watching us. It’s someone else.”
“Come on, Mor. It’s probably just some hungry deer in the forest. Standing there waiting for us to leave, so it can come out into the clearing in peace and nibble some grass. It’s not a beetle, after all — it doesn’t eat potato leaves. And there’s nothing else around here worth watching, anyway. Except maybe those anthills.”
Vuk nodded toward the low mounds not far from the field.
“But what would deer want with those? Ants don’t store hay, and deer don’t eat beetles, caterpillars, and flies, even if the ants’ storerooms are bound to be full of them. So we’ve got nothing at all to worry about.”
“When, in the end, is your mouth going to close?” Nuk asked wearily.
“There, closed now.”
Vuk puffed out his cheeks demonstratively and fell silent.
“Maybe you’re right,” Mor said, much calmer now. “Maybe I really am worrying over nothing.”
They didn’t speak of it again, and before long they went back to work. The long rest had helped them recover their strength, and now the goblins moved from one row to the next without stopping. At last the final bush was cleared of beetles. All three were pleased with themselves. They had finished well before evening. Of course, many other workers had already finished their fields and gone home. But that did nothing to dampen their satisfaction. For a first day working entirely on their own, the result was very good.
Now they could head back to the goblinum at ease. And they’d have to be sure to stop by the Warden’s, too. They wouldn’t need to come back to this field for the next few days, but he might have some new task ready for them.
The goblins came out onto the road that led home. Just then the sun slipped behind the one cloud in the sky and, by the look of it, wasn’t planning to reappear anytime soon. The day was windless. Everything around grew a little darker, and a pleasant coolness crept into the air. It seemed as though nature itself had decided to make the road home a little easier for the tired workers.
Not a single sound reached them. The world seemed to have gone still. The silence even made Vuk uneasy. For a moment it seemed to him that some evil spirits had led them off the road and were now leading them to a place with no living creature in it. But glancing around and seeing the familiar fields, trees, and meadows, he quickly calmed down.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a noise coming from the direction of the forest. The goblins turned their heads at the same moment. Birds were circling above two tall trees growing not far from the forest’s edge. The trees stood so close together that their branches had long since grown tangled together.
“Those birds are probably what made the noise,” Mor guessed.
“So there are our invisible watchers,” Nuk said with a smirk.
“Not a deer, of course. But not some two-legged creature either,” Vuk reminded them of his earlier reasoning.
“Don’t birds have two legs, though?” Nuk asked at once.
“Obviously they do. I meant a goblin’s legs, not a bird’s. Why do you always nitpick everything I say?”
“All right, all right. I misunderstood. Calm down.”
Mor barely listened to their argument. He kept looking at the trees.
Could these birds really be the very watchers that had unsettled him all day? But why would birds be watching them — and for so long, at that? Mor wondered.
He looked closely at the forest once more. The green wall still stood there, screening everything happening inside it. Nothing suspicious could be seen.
All right, time to forget about it. I probably really did just imagine it, he thought.
And without looking back again, he walked on.
In truth, he had not imagined it.
From the forest, two pairs of eyes were watching the goblins closely. When the three friends disappeared among the first houses of the goblinum, the watchers cautiously climbed down from the two tall trees and set off quickly, deeper into the forest.
And if someone had happened to see them at that moment, they would have been very surprised. Because the watchers were not Bignoses at all.