CHAPTER 18. THE LAST TRIAL ON THE WAY HOME

“It’s actually not bad here. We could spend the night,” Vuk said, settling onto a large branch wrapped in moss.
It was already deep night, but the Cold Sun lit the forest well. Below, about a dozen wolves could be seen. They had settled down under the tree, waiting for their prey to come down to the ground sooner or later. The goblins, of course, had no intention of climbing down from the tree. But they couldn’t stay on it for long either. They needed to think of a way to get out of this mess. That was exactly what they were doing, all the while admiring their savior.
The giant tree really could, for a while, become a home even for goblins. Some of its branches were thick enough to serve well as goblin bunks, and its huge leaves would have kept off the rain no worse than a reed roof. It’s true, some leaves had large holes in them, as though something big had been gnawing on them. Mor noticed this, but forgot about it at once. Right now something else entirely was on his mind. Only one question kept turning over in his head: how to get home faster?
At first he wanted to find branches he could turn into something like spears and charge at the wolves. But the smallest branch that caught his eye looked more like a heavy club. He wouldn’t have had the strength to break it off. Then Mor decided to make his way to the edge of a branch and jump down. This tree’s branches were very long, and he was counting on the wolves not noticing. But he had to give up that idea too. Any of them could accidentally make noise, and the wolves had excellent hearing. Then, on the ground, the goblins would be completely defenseless. So they needed to find a way to make the wolves leave on their own. But how?
Mor raised his head, as if trying to find an answer somewhere up above, among the endless branches. Then he looked down. They weren’t sitting very high up, so they could see the wolves well. And the wolves, in turn, could see the goblins perfectly. From time to time one of the predators would raise its head and study its future prey for a long while.
“Listen, what if we climbed higher? High enough that the wolves stop being able to see us?” Mor suddenly suggested.
“But we need to go down, not up. And if we climb even higher, what good will that do us?” Nuk asked.
“What good? We’ll lose ourselves among the branches, and the wolves will think we’re not in the tree anymore. We got lucky with this Watchtower Tree. We can climb so high that the wolves won’t even be able to smell us anymore. And then they’ll clear off from here,” Mor explained his sudden idea.
“Are they really going to leave? I just wouldn’t want to waste our strength for nothing, when I want to eat more and more. Do you think it’ll work?” Vuk asked.
“I don’t know. But we need to get home faster. So let’s try it. I hope it works,” Mor answered, already sizing up the next branch above his head.
All three began carefully climbing up the tree. The Watchtower Tree seemed made so that goblins could climb it easily. Its branches were spaced at a convenient distance from one another. And now the young Bignoses made their way from branch to branch without difficulty, climbing higher and higher.
After a while they found themselves above the rest of the trees in the surrounding forest, but they kept going. The ground had long since vanished behind the leaves, and along with it the wolves had disappeared from sight too. With every new branch, a different world opened up before them. However hard they peered into the distance, they could no longer see any trees. They had all been left far below, and an unfamiliar emptiness spread out all around.
If it had been daytime, they could, of course, have seen the outlines of tall mountains far to the north. But right now night ruled, and the light of the Cold Sun pushed back the darkness only in the immediate area around them. Still, even that visible emptiness was enough to make the goblins suddenly feel like the only creatures in the whole world.
There were no stray sounds here from forest dwellers not yet asleep. No rustling of leaves could be heard, the kind made by some beetle or little spider unhurriedly making its way across them. In short, there wasn’t a single one of those forest sounds familiar since childhood.
This even frightened the goblins a little, but a light breeze reminded them that they were not, after all, the only living creatures in this new world beneath the stars.
Despite the fear that had come over them, they kept climbing, as though the sky itself were beckoning them. They were doing it more and more slowly, though. At the same time, the tree hardly narrowed at all, the way it usually does as you get closer to the top. This meant either that the top was still very far away, or that the Watchtower Tree differed from other trees not only in size, but in shape as well.
More and more often they came across bitten leaves and the remains of some large worms and beetles, the kind the goblins had never encountered on the ground. Vuk was the first to notice them, since he kept examining the neighboring branches in search of food. He showed them to Mor and Nuk. It was unclear whether these creatures had died on their own, or whether someone had first killed them and then eaten the tastiest parts.
Mor finally suggested they stop. He no longer had any doubt that at this height, not even the biggest wolf nose could catch a goblin’s scent. The brothers agreed readily, since they themselves didn’t much want to climb any farther either. Nuk was afraid that just a little more, and he’d knock into the Cold Sun hanging right over his head. And Vuk was terribly afraid of going blind in one eye, or even both, from the stars that kept shining brighter and brighter.
The goblins decided to climb down at the first rays of the sun, and to rest until then. But they didn’t get to rest for long.
After each of them had settled onto his own branch and closed his eyes, a sound came from above. It closely resembled the rustling they had recently heard in the cellar, when centipedes crawled along the walls. Only back then it had been more ringing, while now it sounded muffled. The sound would die down for a while, then start up again. Each time, it grew louder. The goblins quickly guessed that whatever was making it was getting closer.
The Cold Sun lit the nearby branches well, but the goblins still couldn’t see anything. Mor was already thinking about climbing down a little lower when he suddenly heard Nuk cry out. Nuk was a little higher up than the others, and he was pointing at the trunk of the tree. Looking closer, Mor couldn’t believe his eyes.
A huge caterpillar sat on the trunk. It seemed to him to be the size of two grown goblins, maybe even bigger. The caterpillar slowly crawled down and stopped in exactly the spot where the light fell on the trunk unobstructed.
Now all three could make out its powerful body, made up of many thick rings. It was almost as dark in color as the tree trunk, which was why the goblins had only noticed it at the last moment. Its legs were clearly visible, gripping the bark tightly. When it raised itself slightly, Nuk made out large curved claws, like hooks, on its four front legs, and warned his brothers at once. He also noticed five eyes: three large ones stared straight at him, while two smaller ones were set on either side of its head.
Without taking its eyes off Nuk, the caterpillar moved slowly, and did so in a somewhat strange way. Its back legs pushed the body forward, while its front claws dug deeper and deeper into the bark, keeping its head from moving at all. Gradually the caterpillar drew its hind part up toward its front, arching itself into a bow shape.
“Good thing it’s not a mosquito. Those fly, after all, while caterpillars just crawl. Only I don’t understand what it’s doing, or where its mouth is. All I can see at the front are eyes. Or is that not even its head?” Vuk said, studying the caterpillar with a certain amount of fear by now.
“Don’t forget, this is a local. Which means it must know how to crawl along branches very quickly,” Mor answered, also not taking his eyes off the caterpillar. Meanwhile, the two ends of its body had almost come together, while the middle rose up like a bent branch.
And bent branches straighten out afterward, Mor thought, and realized what the caterpillar was about to do.
“Get down, quick! It’s about to attack you!” he shouted to Nuk.
Nuk turned around, and at that very moment the caterpillar launched its attack. Holding on with only its back legs, it lunged forward, stretching its body out even farther than it had been to begin with. Its head was instantly right beside Nuk. The goblin ducked, but didn’t manage to get down to the branch below in time. The caterpillar opened its mouth, in which many small teeth appeared. It sank its teeth into Nuk’s arm and began drawing its stretched-out body back in.
Nuk shouted and struggled, grabbing at the nearest branches and leaves, but the caterpillar kept pulling him. Mor and Vuk rushed to help. They quickly drew level with Nuk, but then hesitated. Should they try to pull Nuk free, risking his arm, or attack the caterpillar — but then it might fall at any moment, taking the goblin down with it.
Mor told Vuk to hold onto their brother and keep the caterpillar from dragging him off too quickly. He himself climbed toward the caterpillar, still not having decided what he’d do. Climbing up two branches higher, he found himself right beside it. One of the side eyes noticed the goblin at once and fixed on him. Mor saw that the back legs also had large claws, which were now dug deep into the bark, holding the caterpillar firmly in place.
He understood that fighting it with brute strength was pointless. Meanwhile, the side eye kept watching him closely, while the three front eyes never left their prey. Nearby he could hear Nuk’s cries and Vuk’s panting, as it grew ever harder for him to hold onto his brother.
Mor stared hard at the eye and, after thinking for a moment, punched it with his fist. The eye closed instantly, and the head jerked to the side. Mor struck it again. It closed once more, and this time was in no hurry to open. Then Mor, settling into a more comfortable position, began striking the three front eyes. They closed one after another, then opened again, but Mor kept doggedly at it. Soon the pain forced the caterpillar to shut all three lids. It never opened them again and was, in effect, blind. One side eye remained, but it was looking the other way.
Now Mor was pounding away at the head and eyes with all his might, sometimes even accidentally striking Nuk’s arm. The caterpillar tried to dodge, but the arm clamped in its mouth limited its movements. In the end, it let go of Nuk and began crawling away.
Nuk immediately began examining his arm, while Vuk wiped his sweat-soaked face. Mor let out a breath of relief, glad it was all over. But this was only a respite.
The caterpillar waited until its swollen lids opened a little, then lunged at its tormentor. This time it did not try to grab him. Its head struck Mor square in the chest like a giant hammer. The goblin, who had let his guard down, didn’t have time to react, lost his balance, and plunged downward, flying past the frightened Vuk and Nuk.
Mor fell, striking against branches as he went, unable to catch hold of any of them, or even a leaf. He flailed his arms desperately, and after a while he finally managed to grab hold of a life-saving branch. His whole body burned with pain, but Mor managed to pull himself up and climb onto the branch. Only once he was securely settled on it did he let out an exhausted breath and begin to come back to himself.
Vuk and Nuk immediately rushed after him. But Mor had fallen quite far, and for now they couldn’t make him out below.
The caterpillar followed the goblins confidently. However fast they leapt from branch to branch, it steadily closed the distance.
Though the goblins kept glancing at it out of the corner of their eyes, right now they were more worried about Mor. The longer they went without seeing him, the more they feared he had smashed against a branch, or had reached the ground alive only to land straight in the wolves’ jaws. At last the brothers spotted Mor. A few more branches, and they would be right beside him. The goblins paused for only a moment to catch their breath and make sure their friend was alive.
Still, that brief pause was enough for the caterpillar to catch up to them. It deftly crawled onto their branch and was now slowly approaching, as though choosing who to knock out of the tree next.
The brothers could no longer continue their descent. The caterpillar watched their every move closely with all three eyes and was ready for another lunge. All that was left for them was to retreat.
“Who do you think’s going to fly next?” Vuk asked.
“Probably you. After all, I’m already wounded. So I’ll be easier to finish off and devour,” Nuk answered resignedly, and stopped, his back pressed against the tree trunk.
It became clear there was nowhere left to retreat. At that moment, the familiar rustling sound was heard from above again. The goblins had no doubt who was making it.
“And here come the helpers, hurrying along. Makes sense — there are plenty of us, after all. Quite the interesting choice we’ve got: stay here to be eaten by caterpillars, or climb down to be eaten by wolves. I don’t even know which of them we’d make the better meal for,” Nuk said, having resigned himself to his fate, with a bitter smile.
Meanwhile, the caterpillar was getting ready to lunge.
“No! We’re not just going to give up like that! If we’re going to fall, it’ll only be together with it. You climb over to Mor. While the wolves are finishing us off, you two will be able to climb down unnoticed and get away. Come on, Nuk, hurry!”
With these words, Vuk stepped forward, then pushed off sharply and, with a wild cry, leapt onto the caterpillar.
A moment later he was already sitting astride it. Now he needed to turn toward its head. And here Vuk was helped once again by the agility that showed up at just the right moments. He quickly spun around on the caterpillar’s smooth skin and rode it as though it were a riding ram.
The caterpillar no longer intended to attack anyone. It simply didn’t understand what was happening. The one it had considered its prey had suddenly ended up on its back and was now pressing down with the whole considerable weight of his body.
It began writhing and crawling away, trying to throw off its unexpected rider. But the desperate goblin had no intention of backing down.
He noticed several long, fairly thick hairs sticking up above the eyes on the caterpillar’s head. Without thinking twice, Vuk clamped its body tightly between his legs, grabbed one hair in each hand, and yanked them toward himself with all his strength, as though sharply reining in a ram at full gallop.
The caterpillar apparently felt intense pain, since its whole body began rising up right behind its head. Soon it was holding on to the tree with only its four back legs.
Vuk rose higher and higher above the branch, coming to look like a flying rider. But he had no intention of loosening his grip. On the contrary, he kept pulling the hairs with even greater force.
The caterpillar rose higher and higher, until its body had almost fully straightened out, as though reaching toward the Cold Sun hanging overhead.
Now, though Vuk was still sitting on the caterpillar, he looked like a fat lump at the top of a long trunk.
His legs began slowly sliding down the smooth body, but that no longer mattered. He leaned hard to the side with all his strength, trying to topple the caterpillar along with himself. And he succeeded — the caterpillar began to tip over, leaning lower and lower over the emptiness.
Soon the last claws let go, and the caterpillar plunged downward together with Vuk. They tumbled through the air and struck against branches, but Vuk would not let go of the tormentor of his brother and his friend, having firmly resolved to fall with it all the way to the ground.
The goblin’s body was quickly becoming covered in scrapes. The caterpillar itself was faring no better. And still there was no sign of the ground.
After yet another blow against a branch, they finally flew apart in different directions. Vuk just managed to see the caterpillar spin faster, strike hard against one more branch, and vanish into the darkness.
By now he himself wasn’t thinking about anything at all, and was waiting for the final blow. But suddenly his fall slowed sharply, and a moment later he lay sprawled on a wide branch.
The goblin didn’t understand what had happened, or how he had managed to stop his fall, when he hadn’t done anything at all to make it happen.
Maybe that was the fatal blow, and I’m already in another world? The world of the dead. Then it’s a strange one, because it’s no different from the world of the living. And my body hurts like a living one. Though, maybe that’s temporary. After all, I haven’t even gone cold yet. I suppose once the last warmth leaves my body, that’s when they’ll accept me into the world of the dead. And since I did a good deed at the end of my life, they’ll surely give me a delicious meal there. The ruler of the dead goblins himself will bring a keg of skauti and a huge chunk of mutton. Now that would be a life. Or rather, a death.
Vuk’s thoughts were interrupted by a muffled voice that, or so it seemed to him, sounded very familiar. But because of the noise in his head, he couldn’t make out the words. Meanwhile, the voice kept growing louder, and at last Vuk heard:
“Vuk, are you alive?”
Could the wolves really have already eaten him, and he still managed to find me so quickly? What a brother! Well, now we’ll never be apart again. We can’t die a second time, after all. Death only comes once, and it’s for life. Vuk thought.
“Vuk, you’re alive! Alive!” Nuk shouted joyfully, climbing down onto the branch. Mor appeared right behind him.
“When you two went flying past me, I thought that was it — you were about to be smashed to pieces. But then I saw the caterpillar keep falling on past, while you landed here. And now I understand why,” Mor said, pointing upward.
Vuk had already guessed that he wasn’t dead. Nuk and Mor looked far too alive, and besides, he himself still hadn’t gone cold in the least.
“Look what saved you. You’re a real lucky one,” Nuk said, and pointed upward too.
Vuk raised his head and saw a huge spiderweb, the size of several goblin cloaks. In the middle was a large hole.
“So I flew into a spiderweb, and it stopped me. Turns out the local spiders saved my life. I’ll have to thank them when I see them,” Vuk said with a smile.
“I wouldn’t recommend that. Judging by the size of the web, its owners are surely no smaller than the caterpillar. Maybe even bigger. We disturbed their trap, and they could show up here soon. So let’s climb down quickly,” Mor said, glancing warily upward.
“What about the wolves?” Nuk asked.
“Let’s climb down a little and take a look. We definitely can’t stay here.”
They began climbing down carefully. It wasn’t easy: Nuk’s arm hurt, and Mor’s and Vuk’s whole bodies ached. But branch by branch, they got closer to the ground.
Dawn was beginning to break. After a while, the long-awaited ground came into view. There were no wolves. Not by the tree, not anywhere nearby. Nuk climbed down first. He looked around carefully, walked off in one direction, then the other, listening to every rustle. All was quiet around them. The forest was only just beginning to wake. Mor and Vuk climbed down after him. The goblins were so glad to be standing on the ground again among ordinary trees, as if their dearest wish had just come true.
“Where’s the caterpillar, though? I saw it keep flying on. So it must have reached the ground. Maybe the wolves already ate it?” Vuk asked.
“Maybe they did. Or maybe they’re chasing it right now. In that case, I wish them luck. Let them catch that vile creature that almost bit my arm off,” Nuk said angrily.
“What difference does it make now where it went? We didn’t touch it. It attacked first. And that’s what it got. What matters is that, in the end, there’s no one around who wants to eat us,” Mor answered.
The goblins decided to rest a little under the tree, even though not long before they had dreamed of getting as far from it as possible. But from the ground, the Watchtower Tree looked calm and safe again, and still held them spellbound with its grandeur. They even managed to have breakfast. And, strange as it seemed — on caterpillars. Fortunately, these were of ordinary size, peacefully crawling through the grass in search of food, right up until they themselves became food. Even Mor, who wasn’t overly fond of that kind of meal, chewed the many-colored little bodies with pleasure.
“Mor, you said this tree is called the Watchtower Tree. So how did goblins use to climb it and climb back down alive, if monsters like that live there? We were lucky we only ran into one caterpillar, and help didn’t reach it in time,” Vuk asked.
“Most likely, they took weapons with them. Or maybe, back in those days, they used Ant Power too,” Mor answered.
“I never thought so many dangers would be waiting for us in the Goblin Forest. It’s supposed to be our forest, and yet it turns out — not entirely. Thanks to Vuk. If it weren’t for him, I don’t even know what would have happened to us,” Nuk said.
“Yes, Vuk. You’re a real hero. You risked your life for us,” Mor backed him up.
“Oh, come on. Everything turned out fine anyway. Besides, I managed to ride the caterpillar. I think there aren’t many goblins who could do that. So now I’ll have something to tell back home,” Vuk answered, genuinely proud of what he’d done. Though when he’d jumped onto the caterpillar, what he’d wanted most of all was to save his brother and Mor, not to earn praise.
“Well, time to get moving. Our lands will start soon, and from there it’s not far to the goblinum,” Mor said, getting up with effort.
Vuk and Nuk followed him.
For the next three days and three nights, the goblins trudged through the forest. They hardly stopped and slept little, trying to get home as quickly as possible. Fortunately, no more serious mishaps befell the goblins. It was as if whoever governed their fates had decided that the trial at the Watchtower Tree would be the last one.
That didn’t mean the journey was easy. They didn’t manage to eat every day. Even Vuk grew tired of caterpillars and worms. Still, there was no other food to be had for the time being. Again and again they came down to the river, hoping to catch even some half-dead fish near the bank. But all they ever saw were the splashes of tails far off. Such a catch remained out of their reach.
Once they spotted a forest rat. It was so big and fat that all the goblins’ mouths watered. Remembering their last encounter with rats, the travelers, trying not to make noise, kept moving.
“So when’s something familiar finally going to show up ahead? Summer’s going to be over soon, and we’re still walking. Maybe we’re too late? We’ll get there, and it’ll turn out the Hermits are ruling our home, with Warden Appo at their head. Now that would be funny. We ran away from him, only to end up coming right back to him. Mor, what if we’ve gotten lost, and we’re already close to the western border of the forest?” asked an exhausted Vuk.
“We can’t have gotten lost, because we’re not moving away from the river. It’s our guide. Following it, we’re bound to come out at our neighbors’. And then, you know yourself, all that’s left is to cross the bridge — and we’re home. Or we could swim across the river right now and follow the Road of the Four Clans straight to our goblinum,” Mor answered.
“Why would we swim anywhere, when we can barely walk as it is? That’s all we need, to drown with just half a day left to get home. And even if we don’t drown, something’s bound to happen to us in the water. That’s just our luck,” Nuk said, thoroughly gloomy.
“True enough. Better to keep walking. We’re bound to end up somewhere eventually. Say, what’s that clearing off to the side there?” Vuk was trying to make out the open space appearing ahead through the trees.
Gathering up nearly the last of their strength, the goblins quickened their pace and soon came out at fields, beyond which, in the distance, a goblinum could be seen.
“Can that really be our neighbors?” Nuk asked doubtfully.
“Yes. Look at that field there,” Mor said, pointing to the right. “That’s the corn they love to grow so much, and we love to eat. And there simply can’t be any other goblinums along our path. So we’ve made it,” he said, letting out a deep breath and lifting his exhausted eyes to the sky.
The goblins, feeling almost nothing in their legs by now, headed toward the goblinum. Finding the local Warden, they asked him for three riding rams, since they had no strength left at all to go any farther. Fortunately, the Warden turned out to be a kind and responsive goblin. Perhaps because what he saw before him wasn’t strangers, but fellow Bignoses — and from a neighboring goblinum, at that.
Before long, the three worn-out travelers were sitting on their life-saving rams. They rode quickly out of the goblinum and headed for the bridge. Seeing the state they were in, the Warden had given them corn for the road. And now they were biting ravenously into the juicy, faintly sweet ears, which seemed like the best food in the world. Once their hunger was satisfied, the goblins even grew more cheerful.
“Now that was quite a trip, in the end. We’re all in one piece — a bit battered, sure, but that’s nothing. It’ll all heal soon. And then we can go on another journey. Except next time, we’ll head west. Maybe there’ll be fewer bloodthirsty creatures out there ready to eat us,” Vuk said, smiling and looking very happy.
“Don’t forget about the Hermits. Very hard times lie ahead of us. Once we’ve made it through those, then we’ll set off on our next journey — even beyond the forest, like you suggested to me,” Mor answered.
“And will we make it through?” Nuk asked anxiously.
“Of course. Good must always triumph over evil, after all. I’m sure it’ll be the same this time,” Mor said firmly.
“You’re right, Mor. No Warden Appo, with his whole army, will be able to defeat us. But for that, of course, we’re going to need considerable strength. So the first thing we do when we get back is eat well. Then we’ll show them,” Vuk was in excellent spirits.
Deep in conversation, they didn’t even notice crossing the bridge, and then the Road of the Four Clans. Ahead, the valley was already opening up, and fields came into view, beyond which the outline of the goblinum could be seen.
“And there’s our home,” Mor whispered.