Blacksmith's son he was, drunk as a skunk in Blueberry Moon Inn. Verse after verse of tangled words spat out of his mouth. Fiddling song on a drunkard's tongue it truly was.
He was no poet nor the sharpest pencil in the scribe's pack, that I could tell without fail. Yet his incredible story of foolhardy deeds of the 'goblyn slayer' caught my curious ear...
It was Ulf the Goblyn Slayer's [t]rusty sword that beheaded the last goblin. Dark blood streamed from the throat of the greenskin, making expansive puddle on the mud beneath him. Imp's grin-faced head plumped down the ground, making satisfying crush sound when hitting the lichen stones.
With a mad gloss in his eyes Ulf bend over the twitching corpse, picked up the head from its bone white iroquois hair and bound it to the top of his trophy banner looted from his previous victims. His breath still heavy from the recent struggle, he mumbled: "Got you filthy goblyn, got you good..."
The violent confrontration had been over just in a matter of seconds. Their ambush had been well planned, yet the only survivor was he, the Goblyn Slayer - if not counting the handful of goblins fleeing for their lives... Gump the tracker, one of the member of the paid retinue, had been pierced from his thorax with a rusty spear, easy death for him so to speak. Samuel, son of a farmer, the adventurous young lad had not been so lucky, being cut down by a pack of wolfriders in most savage way. Poor boy had been ripped to pieces in a blink of an eye, his mauled face frozen in a permanent scream of a horrific agony. The trapper, Werner, had tried to flee, but instead of getting out of the trouble's way he had been holed by a dozen of shortbow arrows. There he was, lying on his stomach in the edge of the forrest, his back like one of the porcupine's.
But what had been left of the one and a half dozen greenskins could only be described as a total butchery. In frenzy had the Goblyn Slayer rushed towards the nearest scouts, crushing the first one down with his grotesquelly shaped shield and cutting deep in the other's belly with his sword, spreading the greenskin's guts out. Gump the tracker had lounched his crossbow towards the nearest wolfrider, dropping it down and alarming the rest of the greenskins with this insolent act.
Young Samuel had trembled with his short sword in panic, loosing his cool and attracting the wildest part of the goblin pack towards him. As soon as the adventure had started for Samuel, it had ended for him in one messy way.
Pretty much as soon as the fight had started, Werner the trapper had ran for it, but a hail of short pointy arrows had stopped his short tempered attempt. Slowly had his steps died off and the breath escaped from his lungs, painting his thoughts with a grim thought of dying.
With the shaky hands Gump had reloaded his old reliable crossbow, picking up his next target. Ulf had moved with a fast pace towards his next victim, a boldfaced goblin warrior. Even before the goblin was able to think about raising his guard, its head had been parted from its torso, the goblin's mind slowly fading away with a rethinking thought, wether to raise jagged dagger to parry or hit the ground in terror...
A handful of greenskins had fled just a moment after the first of their casualties, leaving only three of the unlucky comrades to face the inevitable. Gump had launched his crossbow towards the escaping goblins, putting one of them down for good, and at the same time ignoring the true threat, menacing goblin with a long spear charging at him. The spear had pierced him with a force, penetrating his chest and killing him instantly.
Ulf had not noticed the perishing of his hired retinue, nor could he really care. The moment after he had slain the rest of the goblins and gained back his cool, had he took what ever loot he could find and left the scene, without giving a pitying glance back to his fallen friends. Live or rot, Ulf had thought...
Ulf was well known for his skills to hunt and exterminate pesky goblinoids. He was a hired sword, not the priciest one but still talented enough to make his living by killing. 'Goblyn b'gone' was his motto, his services popular amongst the farmers of the southern parts of Kislev, amongst those who were constantly tormented by the small goblin raiding bands.
So, Ulf "the Goblyn Slayer" is my UK Golden Demon '11 project. It's going to be full of old school spirit, kind of a tribute to my favourite fantasy artist and miniature designer...
