They passed through a long tunnel until they reached an old glass statue of a goblin, the marker that defined the edge of goblin territory. It had stood there for generations, and was probably as old as the mountain itself. Nobody knew who had carved the statue. Being goblins, nobody particularly cared, either. A big rock would have marked the spot equally well.

Two large goblins stood guard, if boasting about their latest sexual conquests could be considered standing guard.

Jig shivered as they passed into neutral territory. He hoped nobody had seen, but he couldn’t help it. The underground inhabitants divided these tunnels among themselves. The goblins held the southern warrens. The larger hobgoblins took the warmer caverns to the west, farther from the entrance. Past the hobgoblins was the cold lake of the lizard-fish.

The lizard-fish were the worst, and goblins avoided them if they could. When food grew scarce, the chief would occasionally send goblins to the lake to hunt. This served two purposes. While the white-eyed creatures weren’t pretty to look at, they were edible, and food was food. Since several of the hunting party usually managed to prick themselves on the lizard-fish’s poisonous spines, these hunting parties also resulted in fewer mouths to feed.

Fortunately, the lizard-fish couldn’t leave the lake, and an uneasy truce kept the hobgoblins out of goblin territory. Simple fear kept the goblins from trespassing in hobgoblin territory.

Jig glanced back at the statue. That was a true goblin warrior, one who had supposedly killed no less than three humans before an angry mage turned him into a green stain on the wall. Made of molded, and in many places chipped, black glass, he was as tall as most humans, with huge fangs that nearly touched his eyes. The nose was round like a lakestone, and his single eye was narrow and mean. A glass rag covered the other eye, which stories said had been lost to a human’s sling stone. His ears were perked and wide, alert to the slightest sound. He was a real goblin, and even Porak paled in comparison.

Jig barely came to the statue’s shoulder. His only scar was a torn ear, and that “battle” had been with another goblin who wanted to rip off Smudge’s legs for fun. Jig’s arms and legs were like thin sticks, and his constant squint was nothing like the mean glare most goblins wore. On top of that, his voice was too high, and he had some sort of fungus growing on his toenails.

“Torches,” Porak ordered.

“This is dumb,” Jig grumbled as one of the others handed out torches. “Why not run ahead to warn any intruders that we’re coming? Maybe we should sing, too, in case they’re blind.”

Yellow nails closed on the blue-green skin of Jig’s shoulder, and he yelped. Smudge grew warm and scampered to Jig’s other shoulder.