Nine Goblins (8 page)

The bone deer picked their way across his
memory.
Attracted to mystical disturbance
. Hmmm.

He wondered what a mystical disturbance
looked like. He hoped it didn’t feel like this.

On the roof, the gargoyle mumbled something
deep in its chest, a gravelly sound of unease. Fleabane whined
again.

A leaf insect made its way slowly across one
of the porch pillars, its body shadowy green in the light from the
doorway. Sings-to-Trees watched it pick its way along, one spindly
leg at a time, until it was out of sight.

Still nothing had happened. Still the
crickets sang.

The gargoyle’s footsteps paced back and forth
across the roof.

Eventually, for lack of anything better to
do, Sings-to-Trees went inside, and barred his door against the
dark.

The next day was easier. The Whinin’ Niners
had finally gotten their heads around the fact that they were here,
in the woods, and not on the battlefield. Goblins are nothing if
not adaptable. Fewer bushes were engaged in combat. Everyone had
learned to recognize poison oak, and Thumper had remembered how to
spot a few kinds of edible berry. Most of them weren’t ripe yet, so
breakfast was a painfully sour affair, but it beat starvation.

They walked. They stopped occasionally to
drink at streams and soak their hot, sore feet, but never for very
long.

Nessilka kept a grueling pace to start. It
wasn’t just a desire to keep the wizard behind her, although that
was part of it. Mostly, it was the tracks that she’d found in the
mud this morning.

They’d looked a bit like hoof prints.
Actually, they’d looked a lot like hoof prints, except that most
hooved animals did not have claws. She’d always thought the two
were mutually exclusive, in fact, but unless they’d been stalked by
a deer wearing fighting spurs, she didn’t have a better
explanation.

She’d stamped them out—no sense causing a
panic—but she didn’t want to be anywhere near the owner of the
tracks when they stopped tonight.

Murray seemed pensive. He kept turned his
head and staring into the woods, a line forming between his
eyebrows, and muttering something to himself. Nessilka watched him
do this for the better part of an hour until the quiet muttering
started to get on her nerves.

“Okay, Murray, you’re a genius. What do you
think?”

Murray grimaced. “Sorry, Sarge.”

“Didn’t ask you to be sorry. I want to know
what you think.”

“I don’t like it, Sarge.” He made a grasping
gesture with one hand, as if trying to pluck an answer out of the
air. “There’s something—something about these woods. I can’t quite
place it. I’m not seeing the right thing. I’m a marsh goblin, I
don’t know quite what I’m looking for. But there’s something
that’s…off.”

“Thumper’s a forest goblin. Ask him.”

Murray started to shrug dismissively, and
then stopped. “Maybe you’re right. Hey, Thumper!”

Thumper dropped back to walk next to them.
“Mm?”

“Tell me what’s wrong with these woods.”

Thumper’s brow furrowed deep enough to plant
corn. “Wrong? There’s nothin’ wrong with it. S’perfectly good
woods.” He reached out and patted the bark of a passing tree.
“Lookit the size of this fellow! Probably half-rotted out. Ant
nests. Wasps, too, I bet. Come down in the next big storm and kill
us all. Wonderful old tree.”

Murray shook his head, making the grasping
gesture again. “No—no—almost—crud! Thumper, what kinds of trees are
these?”

“I dunno, oak mostly. Good oaks, not those
wretched little pin oaks. Some big pines, but not many. Saw some
cedar a while back.”

“Wrong question, wrong question…” muttered
Murray, plucking at the air again.

“What’s the right question?” asked
Nessilka.

Murray made a quick silencing motion that was
a little rude to use on a superior officer, but Nessilka wasn’t
going to interfere with genius at work.

“I’m not seeing something. I’m not seeing
something because it isn’t there…Thumper, how old is that
tree?”

Thumper shrugged. “Coupla hundred years. I’d
have to cut it down and count rings to say for—”

Murray’s hand shot out and grabbed the air as
if he’d caught a rope. “Cut it down! That’s it! They aren’t cutting
it down! Thumper, how long since this area was logged?”

“Logged?” Thumper shook his head. “This is,
y’know, peak forest, the old stuff. It hasn’t been logged in the
last thousand years.”

“Yes! That’s it! That’s what’s wrong!”

“You’d rather somebody cut it all down?”
asked Thumper stiffly. “Fine. What I’d expect out of a marsh
goblin…”

“No, no, no! That’s just it!” Murray was
practically dancing. “Sarge, they haven’t cut any trees! There’s a
human town right over there, practically, and they
haven’t cut
any trees!”

“That’s a little weird,” admitted Nessilka.
“Even we cut trees.”

“Exactly! They need wood for houses and
fences and wagons and firewood and all kinds of stuff! But, Sarge,
they haven’t touched this forest at all! Why not?”

“Maybe they think it’s haunted?” asked
Nessilka, thinking of the clawed hoofprints and the whooshers.

Murray shook his head. “I doubt it. Not when
it’s the only source of wood for miles. No. There’s only one reason
people don’t cut down a forest. Somebody already owns it. And who
lives in forests?”

Nessilka felt a cold prickling crawl down her
spine. “You mean—”

Murray nodded. “
Elves...”

They kept walking.

There is only so long that you can clutch
your weapons and wait for white-faced figures to leap from behind
the trees. For the Whinin’ Niners, this was about forty-five
minutes. Maybe there were elves. If there were, they’d probably
find out soon enough. In the meantime, poison oak was a more
immediate concern, and harder to spot.

Nessilka called a halt in the late afternoon.
“Okay, everybody take five.” She looked around the Whinin’ Niners,
and sighed.

Most of them were doing okay, but the two
recruits and Blanchett were about done in. The recruits were just
not used to sustained marching, but poor Blanchett was grey-faced
and sweating from having to cover the irregular terrain on his
crutch.

“Blanchett, sit down before you fall down.
Yes, that goes for the bear, too. Mishkin, Mushkin, sit. Murray,
you still want to try raiding a farmhouse?”

Murray nodded.

“Okay. Murray, you’re in charge. Algol,
Gloober, go with Murray. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’d
rather nobody saw you at all. Stealth is more important than clean
clothes.”

She wracked her brain for anything else
useful to say.

“Gloober, get your finger out of there.”

They waited.

“And good luck.”

The three saluted and moved off towards the
fields.

“Weasel, you and Thumper go see if you can’t
find something to eat, and keep your eyes peeled for anything that
might make a good campsite. The rest of us will wait here.”

The pair saluted. Nessilka watched them go,
the tiny little Weasel and the slab of muscle that was Thumper.

“Okay, troops,” she said, turning back to
Blanchett and the twins. “You three rest up. That’s an order.
Blanchett, will the bear mind if I borrow your helmet?”

There was a brief consultation. “He says it’s
okay, Sarge.”

“Good. I could really use some tea.”

Making tea in a used orc helmet recently
converted to teddy-bear sedan chair was an experience, but good
sergeants learn to improvise. The hard part was getting the helmet
clean. Who knew that Blanchett was using so much hair gel under
that thing?

She had just gotten the water boiling when
she heard a rustling in the bushes.

It was Murray. He and Algol and Gloober
emerged from the woods, looking thoughtful. (Well, Murray and Algol
looked thoughtful. Gloober had his finger up his nose again.)

“That was quick,” she said.

Murray tugged at his ponytail. “Sarge…I think
you better come look at this.”

“What is it?”

“There’s nobody there.”

She raised her eyebrows. “That’s good, right?
They stepped out. We can grab the laundry and nobody’ll be the
wiser.”

“No, Sarge, I don’t think they stepped out. I
think…”

He fell silent. Algol put a hand on her
arm.

“Sarge,” he rumbled, “you
really
better come look at this.”

“Okay. Gloober, stay here. Everybody, lay
low, keep quiet, don’t start any large fires.” She cast around for
the next most responsible person on the chain of command, and
sighed. Oh well, no help for it. “Blanchett, the bear’s in
charge.”

He made the bear salute. “He says he’s
honored by your trust, Sarge!”

Nessilka nodded.
He can’t be any worse
than some of the generals…

“Let’s go.”

Sings-to-Trees had finally finished every
small chore to be done around the farm, and by mid-afternoon,
too.

This was so unusual that he sank down into
the rocking chair on the porch with his eyes closed, because he was
fairly sure that the moment he opened them, he would see something
he’d forgotten, and then he’d have to get up again.

Fleabane ambled over and flopped down at his
feet. Sings-to-Trees dangled a hand over the arm of the chair, and
the coyote dragged a long tongue over his fingers.

The elf was content to slouch in the chair
for a few minutes, feeling the afternoon sun baking his face and
forearms.

Sometimes, even though he was fairly young as
elves go, the whole thing got away from him. Too many animals, too
many injuries, too many things that needed to get done right this
minute. He occasionally wished for an assistant. Unfortunately,
humans weren’t all that interested in sending their young to live
with an elf, and the other elves…he knew well enough what they
thought. He was like some kind of martyr, as far as they were
concerned. They were glad he existed, but nobody wanted to get too
close, for fear of getting unicorn crap or something worse on
them.

Sometimes he thought about giving it all up,
moving into the glade and taking up something respectable, like
glass-whispering.

In a few hundred years, when he was ancient
and his knees creaked like old floorboards, did he really want to
be tottering around the farm, midwifing unicorns and bandaging
trolls?

He opened his eyes with a sigh, and a troll
was looking at him.

Sings-to-Trees didn’t quite yelp, but he made
a choked noise. Fleabane’s tail thumped companionably on the
boards. The coyote liked trolls. They brought goat meat, and
Fleabane was desperately fond of goat.

The troll was sitting on the path, and
spilling over on the sides. He recognized it as Frogsnoggler—that
wasn’t the troll’s real name but it was the closest phonetic
equivalent to the complicated set of sounds that it used to
describe itself.

At least, he thought it was describing
itself. He had never been able to learn their language.
Fortunately, they understood his perfectly well.

“You gave me quite a start,” the elf said,
getting up. The troll’s silent approach didn’t surprise him—trolls
moved with eerie silence for their size—but seeing one out and
about before sunset was unusual.

“Grah!” said the troll, and smiled. Trolls
were always smiling. Their mouths were wide and froglike and
naturally suited to it. With its eyes squeezed tight against the
sunlight, Frogsnoggler looked comically pleased.

“What are you doing up at this hour, anyway?”
Sings-to-Trees asked, coming down from the porch.

The troll’s face fell. “Gragh…” it said
humbly, and held out its arms.

“Oh,
no
…”

Cradled against its chest, almost lost
against the clay-colored bulk, lay a battered grey fox. An ugly
leg-trap, all steel fangs and metal, hung grotesquely from one
small back leg.

“Grah?” asked the troll anxiously, holding
out the injured fox. “Grah?”

Sings-to-Trees got his arms under the fox,
who snapped weakly at him. The trap hit his chest with a metallic
clunk. Outrage choked him. “Bloody poachers!” he growled, shifting
his grip on the fox. The trap chattered again.

“Grah!” agreed the troll. Its low forehead
wrinkled in a frown. Immense tusks glittered briefly at the edges
of its mouth.

Sings-to-Trees took a deep breath, and let
the anger go. There were more important matters at hand. The fox
was a skinny little thing, panting in pain and probably dehydration
as well, and standing around with his teeth gritted didn’t do the
poor creature any good.

First things first…

He wasn’t strong enough to get the leg trap
off himself, but fortunately, brute strength was squatting at
arms-length. “Okay, Frogsnoggler, I’m going to need your help.”

“Grug!” It nodded vigorously.

“I’ll hold him. I want you to pull the trap
open—slowly!—and I’ll see if we can get the leg out without
something worse happening.”

The fox’s leg was badly cut but not crushed.
The little animal had been lucky. Sings-to-Trees tossed a towel
over its head to keep it from ripping his arm open, held the fox’s
torso firmly under his elbow, and nodded to the troll. “Carefully,
now…”

Frogsnoggler reached down and opened the
steel trap as casually as Sings-to-Trees might open a book. The elf
pulled the fox’s foot free, working as delicately as he could to
keep the wound from being torn even wider by the cruel metal teeth.
The fox panted in pain.

It took less than a minute, but several
subjective eternities passed for Sings-to-Trees.