Goblins by Philip Reeve Page B

quite how that happened.”
    “We’ll pay you back, Henwyn,” promised Prawl. “Won’t we, Fentongoose?”
    “Well, I suppose. . . Yes, yes; as soon as we’re inside the Keep, we’ll pay you back tenfold. We are the Lych Lord’s rightful heirs, you see; look, I bear his token.”
    He fished inside his robes for the amulet; frowned; fished deeper. A look of horror came upon his face. “It’s gone! The Lych Lord’s token! The amulet! It’s gone! The string must have snapped when we were running from those beastly goblins. . .” He started bustling towards the steps. “Come on, we must go back and look for it.”
    “We shall do no such thing, Fentongoose!” said Prawl, grabbing him firmly by the collar of his robes.
    “But without the token, how shall we prove our right to the Stone Throne?”
    Carnglaze shook his head. “You don’t really think we’re going to get inside the Keep now, do you? Not after what just happened? It is over, Fentongoose. We shall stop the night at Southerly Gate, but when the morning comes I, for one, shall be starting for home.”
    The giant Fraddon, who had been listening to all of this, said in a sudden rumble, “Best not go to Southerly Gate tonight. The goblins could come back and sniff you out. I killed a king of theirs, and that’s apt to make them revengeful. Come to Westerly instead. Ned will tend your wounds, and give you food.”
    “Ned?” asked Carnglaze.
    “Food?” said Skarper hopefully.
    “Excellent plan!” said Prawl. “We can discuss all this at greater length over supper.”
    “Eight gold coins and some coppers and a button,” grumbled Henwyn. “Not to mention the price of a new cheesery.”
    “I knew that string was wearing thin,” said Fentongoose, still in mourning for his lost treasure. “I knew I should have put an extra knot in it. Oh, what a fool I am!”
    They set off in single file along a riverside path which the giant had made for himself, winding between trees and ruins. Darkness was settling over Clovenstone and, as it deepened, so the voice of the river seemed to grow louder and the white water of the rapids and the little waterfalls showed whiter still, and everything else was grey, except for the stars which winked at them sometimes through the treetops. And all around them they could hear the soft pitter-pat of small things falling, so that Skarper wondered if it was starting to rain. Then, as the moon rose and slipped its pale light down through the branches, he saw that the falling things were tiny, spiky balls which dropped from the boughs of trees where they’d been growing. When one of these balls rolled into a patch of moonlight it would twitch and split open, and two black-bead eyes would squint out from inside for a moment; then twiggy hands would reach out and make the gap wider and a tiny twigling would emerge and go scampering up the trunk of the nearest tree. So the wood makes twiglings just like the earth makes goblins , Skarper thought, and he wondered why, and what it meant.
    “We’ll ask Ned,” said Henwyn, when Skarper pointed out the new-hatched twiglings to him. “She’ll know.”
    “Who’s Ned?” asked Skarper.
    “Ned is a princess.”
    “Is he the one you came to rescue?”
    “ She . And yes, sort of. You’ll see for yourself in a minute. Look; we’re nearly there!”
    The river curved in front of them in the dark, narrower here, and laughing softly to itself. A broad slab of moorland granite had been laid across it as a bridge, and beyond the bridge there was a little path leading up through moonlit bushes, and beyond the bushes were some bare bean-rows, and beyond the bean-rows the towers of Westerly Gate rose dark against the sunset. A ship was perched upon the tallest one, and warm yellow light spilled welcomingly from all its portholes.

 
    “When everything was young and new,” said Princess Ned, “long before the first men were born, the world had its own ideas about who should live in