Old Rhedyn gripped her grandson's hand tighter, hurrying him along.
"Why did we leave so soon?" Little Kai asked, pattering at the old woman's side. "You said we'd stay with Auntie for four days. It's only been two!"
"Uncle had news. The roads won't be safe. I'm hoping we can get home before trouble comes."
"What news? What trouble?"
"Save your breath. Not a time for talk. Come along."
They clattered across a sturdy bridge spanning a deep stream-bottomed gully. Down the far road came riding a man on horseback. His mare loped in an easy trot.
Old Rhedyn slowed and waved at the rider. "Warning! Danger on the road! Best seek shelter."
"What danger?" the man asked as he reined to a stop.
Little Kai bounced on his toes. Finally he might get an answer.
"The Red Goblins have come down from the hills!" Old Rhedyn said.
Little Kai froze, clutching his granny's skirts. How often she had warned him and his noisy cousins, "Hush or the Red Goblins will come and take you!" *
The man snorted. "Goblins! And fairies, too, I suppose? And a troll under yon bridge?"
"The Red Robbers," Old Rhedyn said. "Cunning and brash as goblins. They'll trick you out of horse, purse, and hat, or steal you away and demand ransom."
"The local boogeymen!" The man laughed. "I don't carry my wealth. It follows me, ill-tempered and much too big to stuff into a bandit's pouch." He whipped his horse back into a trot and went on his way.
"What did he mean, Granny?" Little Kai asked.
She seemed not to hear but hurried her steps again, muttering. "The fool! Drover captain, by the looks of him. Doesn't know what a prize he's dandling in their sight!"
In the distance ahead came the sound of yells and shouting and the roaring of monsters.
Little Kai clutched his granny's skirts again.
Old Rhedyn left the trail, leading him through the woods up the bank. She kept the road barely in sight, veiled by thickets and underbrush, still pushing on homewards, keeping to cover, following the rise and fall and twists of the trail.
When she heard cursing, she slowed. Peered through brush. Made her way down to the road. "Too late," she muttered.
A dozen men lay bound hand and foot, some with bloody brows, some twisting and fighting their ropes, to no avail. Manure piles steamed amid the churned dirt of the drovers' road. Even Little Kai could see the path the herd had broken up the bank and into the woods.
"Was it cows we heard?" he asked. "I thought it was goblins roaring!"
One of the drovers rolled over and glared. "Cows indeed. Three hundred of the finest black Welsh cattle, bound for London. Stolen by red-haired scoundrels, may the devil take them!"
As Old Rhedyn set to work freeing the drovers, Little Kai pronounced solemnly, "Those were the Red Goblins. You must have been too noisy! You should have hushed!"
.
* line taken from the folktale, told in Glamorgan Vale in Wales
"...among the stories of the Vale of Glamorgan, allusions were made to the mad pranks and merry tricks of the Red Goblins..."
prompt: prize
