Bear and the Goblin of Castle Hartland

Prologue

This is a story of long ago, of ancient days, when men still won glory.

The red eye of the Enemy had woken again. Out of the mountains at the edge of the world, where ravens fly to roost, descended ranks of dark-clad soldiers. Like when a torrent of fire sweeps across the dry landscape of summer; all is scorched black by the flames: so were the towns, the fields, and the forests, through which the Enemy came.

The Enemy soon fell mercilessly upon Hartland. This was in the day of King Pike. Many terrible battles ensued. Friend and foe fell in the thousands. The ravens forever circled in a black cloud overhead, and were quick to gnaw the dead.

But many friendships were forged in those battles; and there was much glory won.

After five long years the battles were over, the Enemy was destroyed: their ranks fractured, slain, and scattered. The red eye of the Enemy closed again.

So it was that King Pike, in the revelry of victory, thought to build a castle, a huge house with a great hall where his friends and kinsmen could gather to celebrate their liberty from war in feasting and drinking.

The building of the castle was a tremendous work: carpenters and masons came from every town in the kingdom. Trees were hewed and sawed into timber; stone was hauled from the earth and cut into bricks, slabs, and pillars.

Dawn soon rose and revealed in her brilliant light the greatest of houses, which was called Castle Hartland.

True to his word, King Pike hosted a magnificent feast, in the great hall where the pillars stood tall. Twelve pigs, twice the size of the stock we eat today, were roasted on spits until golden; and picked clean to the bone. King Pike then gave to all his guests gold rings as a token of gratitude, after which they listened to the poet, who plucked his lyre, and made a song of their victory. And long into the night, they shared in drunken revelry.

The goblin had come out of the mountains at the edge of the world, skulking in the shadows of the Enemy. As the remnants of house and home smouldered, and the ravens feasted on the dead, the goblin emerged, threw stones at the black birds, shooing them into flight, then dragged away the body, whatever its living allegiance, on which the goblin feasted and sustained itself.

That night, since the war was ended, and all its casualties burned or buried, the goblin was hunting rabbits on the heath below the castle. He heard the distant revelry, and saw beneath the stars the glowing light of the great hall. He scorned that house, for it marked the end of his easy pickings. Rabbit sufficed, but did not satisfy his cravings. No, the goblin hungered again for human flesh.

So it was that the goblin, under the cover of night, stalked across the heath, scaled the walls of Castle Hartland, and slunk his way through an open window, into the great hall. By this time the revelry had ended. The poet's lyre had fallen silent. All about the hall, on table, chair, and floor, lay man and woman sleeping, snoring, dreaming.

The goblin shifted through the shadows, approaching a man sleeping on the floor. He struck without pause, without conscious: he clasped one claw over the man's mouth to suppress any scream, and with the other he tore out the man's throat. He drank the blood, and feasted on the flesh.

The goblin slaughtered thirty in this fashion. Then he scurried back out the window, down the wall, and across the heath. He went home grinning for his bloodlust. Like the wilted stalk that suddenly glows green when, after a long drought, it drinks fresh water falling from the sky: so the goblin grinned with fresh blood on his hands.

Dawn rose the next day, and light filled the great hall, where the terrible slaughter was revealed. King Pike sat at a table in the great hall, surrounded by blood and death. In silence he braced his heavy head with his hand—made heavier by his pounding hangover—and he mourned deeply the loss of so many friends. Meanwhile, his knights followed the bloody tracks through the dead, examined the cruel wounds, and came to know their villain for a creature most foul.

The next night the goblin struck again, and brought slaughter to the bed chambers of Castle Hartland.

Every night the slaughter came from the shadows. The castle was gripped by fear. Soon men were known to be sleeping in broom closets, or atop the rafters, or beneath their beds with a blade in hand. Some fought against sleep, but fought in vain, for the goblin found them still, and found them fatigued. Poor fools.

For twelve long years the goblin haunted the castle. Songs were sung of the misery he wrought, and it was soon said that a dark lord had claimed Castle Hartland for his throne. But the deep vault, in which King Pike had stored the wealth of his house, a tide of gold and jewels, remained untouched, for the goblin—although he tried—could not pass the seal of the four winds.

Fear spread through all of Hartland, and was felt in the lands beyond. Many begged for Lord Wind to send holy fire to destroy the terrible fiend. He did not answer their prayers. In time, fear wormed into the hearts of the weak, some of whom, in a bid to stave off death, turned to blood rituals on stone altars. They were claimed by far worse than goblins.