T. Kingfisher - Nine Goblins

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.