Nine Goblins (11 page)

Despite herself, Nessilka warmed to that
look.

Okay. Can’t speak Elvish. I know a fair bit
of Human, but there’s no telling if the humans here speak the same
as the ones where we’re from….

The elf cleared his throat. “Can you
understand me?” he asked, in fair, if oddly accented Glibber.

The Nineteenth stared at him. Nessilka
exhaled. “Oh, thank the great grim gods,” she said. “You speak a
civilized language.”

He smiled a little at that. “It has been many
years. But if you speak slowly, I think I can keep up. Now, you are
probably here to see your friend, yes?”

They all nodded.

“Please follow me.”

The inside of the house was one large room
with high rafters, containing a kitchen, a fireplace, and a bed.
The kitchen contained a very long wooden table, the fireplace
contained a broad hearth with a raccoon sleeping on it, and the bed
contained Thumper.

“Thumper!” The Nineteenth crowded around the
bed. Thumper cracked one eye, groaned, and closed it again.

“Report, Private!” snapped Nessilka.

“…no.”

“No?”

“…no,
Sarge,
” muttered Thumper.

She grinned hugely with relief. “I knew no
rock could make that big a dent in your skull. Rest, you big
idiot.”

“…where’m I…?”

“You’re—ah—safe.” She looked up at the elf,
who nodded. “Get some rest.”

“…can’t march….”

“We’re not gonna leave you, Thumper. No
goblin left behind and all that. Relax.”

It was not like Thumper to smile, but his
scowl had a relieved quality as he sank back into sleep.

The elf’s name was Sings-to-Trees and he
liked animals.

This was something of an understatement.

Many people like animals in the abstract.
Sings-to-Trees liked them the way saints like lepers. He lived with
them, he treated them, he patched them up and fed them and sent
them on their way. In return, they kicked him and bled on him and
oozed on him and had offspring in the middle of his bed, which was
admittedly something that saints have rarely had to worry about
from lepers.

“Your friend’ll be fine,” he told Nessilka.
“It’s nice having a patient who can actually answer questions. And
before you worry—” he held up a hand, “—I know there’s a war on,
but it’s about fifty miles thattaway. Your friend is hurt and this
isn’t the front, so I’m not planning on turning you in. But you
sure are a long way from home.”

Nessilka nodded glumly. “Tell me about it. We
didn’t plan to be here. There was a wizard, and you know how it
goes…”

He nodded. “I doubt anybody’s going to find
you. Other elves don’t come by here much. A little too much nature
for them, I think.”

“I thought all elves…y’know…were into
nature…” said Nessilka, with a vague hand gesture that could have
indicated either into-nature-ness or raving insanity.

Sings-to-Trees snorted. “Sure. Pretty nature.
Unicorns, griffins, hummingbirds, sylphs, those little
dragon-butterfly things…the animals that don’t smell bad, and look
pretty. But you get an eggbound cockatrice that needs its cloacal
vents oiled three times a day for a week, and suddenly everybody
has pressing engagements elsewhere.”

(“What’s a cloacal vent?” Mishkin asked
Algol, who told him. Both twins turned a little grey and gazed at
Sings-to-Trees with awed disgust.)

“And just try to get them to patch up a
troll. Trolls are
wonderful
.” He was pacing now. Nessilka
got the impression that this was a rant he’d been working on for a
long time, and he didn’t often get a new audience. “They’d let you
saw off their head without flinching. I
love
trolls. And
they keep you in all the goat meat you can eat, too. But if one
gets lost and goes wandering through some elf’s backyard, are they
understanding? Noooo, it’s all ‘Call out the guards, there’s a
rogue troll on the loose!’ Bah! Trolls are like
kittens
.” He
stabbed a finger in the direction of Wiggles for emphasis, then
paused.

“Which reminds me, let me get you some milk
for that little guy.”

“So how did you learn to speak Glibber at
all?” asked Murray, while Sings-to-Trees poured out a saucer of
milk for the kitten and Murray made tea. All eight of the uninjured
goblins had crowded around the long table in the kitchen. The wood
was scarred from countless claws and the edges had a distinctly
gnawed look.

“There used to be a lot of goblins here. Some
were my friends. I used to treat their pigs.” He smiled. “Sometimes
I’d treat them, too—I don’t know if the state of goblin medicine
has advanced much in the last hundred years—”

“No, it’s still pretty much “amputate at the
neck,” said Murray.

The elf nodded. “I was sorry when the tribe
left. They were company, anyway. Most elves don’t come out this
far. The humans aren’t bad, really. I help their animals sometimes.
Somebody comes up from the town every couple of days with cheese or
bread or some such.”

Algol, Murray, and Nessilka slid glances at
each other, then quickly away. Murray looked at the ceiling and
Algol looked at the floor. Nessilka ran a finger through a groove
on the side of the table, which seemed to be a tooth mark from
something with teeth the size of her thumb.

“Has anyone come up in the last few days?”
she asked quietly.

The elf’s forehead twisted. “There was bread
and cheese…no, that was a while ago. Now that you mention it, no.
Nobody’s dropped off food for almost a week.”

Nessilka nodded slowly. “We were just at the
village. Well, at a farmhouse. There’s nobody there.”

“You mean they left?”

“No…I mean, there’s nobody there. The wagon’s
there, but no people. No animals. A meal left in mid-bite.” She
shook her head. “We didn’t check the village, obviously, but we
didn’t see anyone.”

The elf shook his head. “That’s odd. That’s
really worrisome. Perhaps I should go look.”

Nessilka didn’t want to go anywhere near that
farmhouse again, but—well—he
had
fixed Thumper and he did
speak their language and he wasn’t turning them in. It would
probably be better if he didn’t get a chance to go off alone and
have second thoughts about that last bit, come to think of it.

“We’ll go with you, in the morning,” said
Nessilka. Murray made a faint noise of protest and she silenced him
with a glare. “We can at least show you where the abandoned farm
was.”

“Thank you. You’re more than welcome to stay
here for the night—your friend’s going to be on his back for at
least three days, even as hard as goblin heads are. I want him in
here, so I can check on him every few hours, but if you all don’t
mind sleeping in the barn…”

“With real straw?” asked Mishkin.

“And a real roof?” asked Mushkin.

“All the straw and roof you want.”

The twins cheered.

“We should probably get dinner started,
too.”

Nessilka raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure
you want to feed all eight of us? You’re helping Thumper already. I
don’t want to eat you out of house and home.”

Sings-to-Trees laughed in what he probably
thought was a maniacal fashion, but there was something so
inherently harmless about him that it looked more like he was
practicing a peculiar bird call. “Are you kidding? Finally, an
excuse to get rid of all of that zucchini! I planted two plants
this year, and now not even the trolls will come by for fear I’ll
throw zucchini bread at them.” He started for the door.

“Okay, then…Mishkin, Mushkin, go help the
nice man with his zucchini. Algol, take Weasel and see to moving
our stuff into the barn. Try to make as little mess as possible,
we’re guests. Gloober, if you stick your finger any farther in your
ear, you’ll go deaf, and I’ll have to learn sign language so I can
say, “I told you so.” Go help with the zucchini. Try not to put one
in your ear.”

Having thus disposed of the troops, Murray,
Blanchett, and Nessilka were left sitting alone at the long wooden
table. Nessilka swirled the dregs of her tea around her mug.

“What do you think?” she asked Murray.

“I think that it’s highly unlikely he and
Algol were separated at birth, but I still wonder.”

“Nah, I’ve met Algol’s mother. Lovely woman,
but goblin to the bone. Do you think we can trust him?”

Murray pulled on his ponytail. “We don’t have
much choice until Thumper gets better, do we? I don’t know. If
you’re asking whether I think he’s keeping us here until he can
call in the elves, I don’t think so. He really doesn’t seem like
the type.”

“The bear trusts him,” put in Blanchett.

Point in his favor,
thought Nessilka,
the bear is usually a pretty good judge of character. And that
I’m even thinking that is probably a sign that I need my head
examined.

Sings-to-Trees straightened up and watched
the goblins picking zucchini. The twins were an indeterminate shade
of grey-brown, and their lumpy, dirt-streaked skin blended
surprisingly well with the earth. If they hadn’t been cheerfully
finishing each other’s sentences, he would have had a hard time
spotting them.

He had been startled by the
goblin—Thumper—running across the field, but once the poor fellow
had hit his head, there wasn’t much help for it but to take him
home. He’d known the others were going to show up, of course. You
never got just
one
goblin. The surprising thing was that
there were any here at all, what with the war.

Sings-to-Trees had always rather liked
goblins. They reminded him of tiny trolls—ferocious looking, often
foul, but generally without malice. He had no particular opinion
about the war, except that it was probably a shame. In his
experience, people were usually people, even the ones who were four
feet tall and lumpy, and if you treated them well, they mostly
returned the favor.

He was quite sure the sergeant—the rather
imposing female goblin with the bun and the put-upon
expression—didn’t quite trust him, but in her position, he wouldn’t
have trusted him either.

Despite all warnings to the contrary, the one
named Gloober was trying to insert a zucchini up his nose.
Sings-to-Trees sighed and went to go rescue his vegetables from a
fate worse than death.

The goblins approved of the zucchini, in
goblin fashion. They sat around the table on barrels, crates, and
anything else that would hold them, complaining happily.

“This is terrible!”

“Worst zucchini I’ve ever seen! Looks like
baked dog turds!”

“And they’re gritty! Did you even wash
them?”

“What’s with this bread? I could use it to
fix my boots!”

“I think this butter’s about to turn.”

The Nineteenth polished off three bowls
apiece, five loaves of zucchini bread, and Mishkin and Mushkin were
licking the casserole dish clean. Nessilka opened her mouth to
explain the cultural differences to the elf and that he was
actually receiving a compliment, only to find him standing behind
Blanchett’s chair and beaming. Apparently he really did know
goblins.

“Okay, troops, take the man’s bowls out to
the pump and wash ‘em. And don’t half-ass it, either. I want those
clean enough to see my reflection! Murray, go supervise.”

Murray saluted idly and began herding the
goblins out of the house. Blanchett started to rise, and Nessilka
caught his shoulder. “Not you, Blanchett. I want to see if we can
do anything about your ankle.”

“Aww, Sarge…”

Sings-to-Trees knelt on the floor and caught
Blanchett’s foot in one hand. Nessilka revised her opinion of the
elf’s courage upwards. She’d have used tongs.

“Does this hurt? Does this? How about
this?”

After a few moments of prodding, he dropped
the foot and vanished into the kitchen, absently wiping his hands
on his tunic. “Just a moment…”

After a minute, Nessilka got up and began
wandering restlessly through the house, listening to the bang of
crockery from the next room.

It was a decent house. It didn’t look like
the kind of place an enemy would live. There were no swords crossed
on the walls, or severed goblin heads mounted over the fireplace.
The house was a little too clean and airy for a goblin, but it had
a comfortable, lived-in look, with battered furniture and faded
rugs.

There was a young raccoon in the hutch by the
fire. She hooked a finger through the mesh, and it licked her
hand.

Even the raccoons were friendly.

Nessilka felt that she ought to keep her
guard up, because she was in enemy territory, damnit, in the very
home of the foe, but it was hard when she was stuffed on the foe’s
zucchini bread and the foe’s baby raccoon was slurping at her
fingers.

Sings-to-Trees emerged from the kitchen, arms
full of pottery. Steam wreathed his face and plastered lank blonde
hair to his forehead.

“Your ankle’ll be fine,” he told the goblin,
slathering some kind of herbal plaster on it. It made Blanchett
smell very strongly of mustard, which was something of an
improvement over smelling very strongly of goblin. “Now drink
this.”

Blanchett eyed the mug of murky brown herbs
warily. “How do I know you’re not trying to poison me?”

Sings-to-Trees sighed and dipped a finger
into the mug, then slurped the liquid off it. “There. Happy?”

“Well, now you’ve put your finger in it!”

Nessilka figured it was time to intervene.
“Private, I know for a fact you haven’t washed your hands since the
war started. You have no business complaining about anybody else’s
fingers. Drink the nice gunk already.”

Blanchett rolled his eyes upward, possibly
appealing to the authority of his teddy-bear. After a moment, he
grimaced. “He says to drink it.”