Clifford Simak - All Flesh Is Grass and Other Stories

"I don't see anyone."

"Just the other side of the standing stones. Snoopy, more than likely. I think we should go out to meet them. They won't want to pass beyond the stones. They know something's happened, but they can't know quite what."

"There's no danger now," said Diane.

"They'd not know that," Conrad said.

Conrad started down the slope and the rest of them followed. They passed between the standing stones and now it could be seen that a band of half a dozen little figures stood there waiting for them.

One of them stepped forward, and Snoopy's voice spoke to them in a scolding tone. "I warned you," he said. "Why can't you pay attention? I warned you to shun the castle mound."

Snoopy knelt on the ground beside the fire and swept an area clear of litter with his hand.

"Watch closely," he said. "I'll draw a map to show you the situation."

Duncan, standing to one side, bent over to stare at the smooth place on the ground, remembering how the goblin had drawn a map for them that first day they'd met in the chapel of the church.

Snoopy picked up a stick, stabbed a hole into the ground. "We are here," he said. He drew a ragged line along the map's northern edge. "There are the hills," he said. To the south he drew a snaky line. "That's the river." To the west he made a sweeping line, running south, then turning west and looping to the north.

"The fen," said Conrad.

Snoopy bobbed his head. "The fen."

He ran the stick along the line that represented the hills, curved it east, made a tight loop, and continued south of the snaky line that was the river.

"The Horde," he said, "is stretched out along that line. They have us hedged in north and east and south. Mostly hairless ones, with some of the other Horde members mixed in. They have us backed against the fen."

"Any chance of breaking through?" asked Conrad,

Snoopy shrugged. "We haven't tried. Anytime we want to, we can. We can filter out, a few here, a few there. They won't even try to stop us. We're not the ones they want. It is you they want. They lost you here; they know you couldn't have gotten out of this pocket. Perhaps they think you may be hiding in the mound. If that's the case, they tell themselves, the time will come when you must move out. They know you'll have to surface sometime and then they'll have you. And you can't filter out as we can."

"You mean," said Duncan, "that they've just been sitting there and you've been just sitting here?"

"Not entirely," said Snoopy. "Not us just sitting here, I mean. We've got dozens of magics set out for them, foolish little traps that will not really hold them, but that can hamper and confuse them, slow up any progress they might make. Some of the traps are mean as sin. They know they're there and don't want to tangle with them until they have to. If they start to move anywhere along their line, we'll know."

"You're sticking out your necks for us," said Duncan. "We had not intended that you should help us, of course. We were glad of the help you gave us. But we never expected this."

"As I told you," Snoopy said, "we can back off anytime we want to. There's no overwhelming danger for us. You're the ones who are in danger."

"How many of your people do you have here?"

"A few hundred. Maybe a thousand."

"I wouldn't have dreamed you could get together that many. You told us the Little Folk have small love of humans."

"I also told you, if you recall, that we have less love of the Horde. Once the word got started that here was a small band of humans marching into the face of the Horde, the news ran on all sides like wildfire. Day after day our people came flocking in, singly and in little bands. I will not try to deceive you. My people will not fight to the death for you. Actually they have but little stomach for fighting. They've never been a warrior people. But they'll do what they can."

"For which," said Duncan, "they have our gratitude."

"If you'd only pay attention to what we tell you," said Snoopy, testily, "you would be better off. I told you, specifically, to stay away from the castle mound. Don't go near it, I told you. From what you've told me, it was only by incredible human luck that you won free of it." He shook his head. "I do not understand this human capacity for luck. Our people never have that kind of luck."

"We had but little choice," Conrad pointed out. "If we'd not sought refuge in the castle, we'd have been massacred."

"If you could have gotten across the river…"

"There was no possibility of that," said Duncan. "The Horde contingent would have run us down. They were re-forming even as we ran."

"From what we found on the field of battle," Snoopy said, "you wreaked a deal of damage on them."

"Only for a time," said Conrad. "We could not have held. Even as it stood, Diane and the Huntsman saved us. The unexpected violence of their attack…"

Snoopy nodded his head emphatically. "Yes, I know. I know."

"This time," Duncan promised, "we'll pay a closer attention to you. We'll follow your counsel. What do you suggest?"

The goblin rocked back and sat upon his heels. "Not a thing," he said. "I have no suggestions."

"You mean nothing at all? No plan at all?"

"I've thought it over well," said Snoopy. "So have the rest of us. We held a council on it. We spoke for long, we thought extremely hard. We have nothing to offer. We fear your goose is cooked."

Duncan turned his head to look at Conrad.

"We'll find a way m" lord," said Conrad.

"Yes, of course," said Duncan, wondering as he said it if this might be some ghastly joke the Little Folk were playing on them. A joke or just the brutal truth?

"In the meantime," said Snoopy, "we'll do what we can for you. We've already found a blanket for the Lady Diane to shield her from the cold, for that flimsy gown she wore was no protection whatsoever. Without the blanket she would have frozen before the night was over."

Duncan straightened up from the position he had assumed to study Snoopy's map. The fire was burning high. Daniel and Beauty were standing companionably together, heads hanging, across the fire from him. Tiny lay curled up, half asleep, not far from Conrad. Around the fire sat and crouched a number of the Little People—goblins, gnomes, elves, sprites and pixies—but the only one he recognized was Nan, the banshee. She sat huddled close to the fire, her wings wrapped neatly about her. Her eyes, so black they seemed to be polished gems shining in the firelight, peered out from beneath a shock of disordered, coal-black hair.

He tried to read the faces, but could not make them out. If there was friendliness, he failed to see it. Nor did he see hatred. They simply sat there, staring, waiting. More than likely watching, he told himself, to see what the humans were about to do.

"These lines that hem us in," Conrad said to Snoopy. "Surely they cannot be made up of the entire Horde."

"No," said Snoopy. "The main Horde is across the fen, west of the fen, moving northward up its shore."

"Closing us in from the west."

"Perhaps not. Ghost has been keeping watch on them."

"Ghost has been working with you? Where is he now?"

Snoopy waved a hand. "Out there somewhere, watching. He and Nan have been our eyes. They've kept us well informed. I had hoped that there might be other banshees. They would have been useful.́But Nan is the only one who came. You can't count on them. They're an ugly lot."

"You said that the main Horde may not be blocking us on the west. How is that?"

"Ghost thinks that tomorrow or the next day they'll move farther north, leaving the west bank, directly across from us, free. But why are you so interested? You could not hope to cross the fen. No one in his right mind would try to cross the fen. It is mud and swamp and water and shifting sands. There are places where there is no bottom to it, and you can't know, until you come upon them, where those pits may be. One spot may be solid footing, but the next one is muck that seizes you and holds you. Once he sets foot into the fen, one has no chance of coming out alive."