T. Kingfisher - Nine Goblins

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.

“Got it…got it…There!” He reached out and patted Frogsnoggler’s flank with his free hand. “Well done!”

The troll beamed at him. “Grah! Grah-grah-hrragggh?”

Sings-to-Trees had no idea what the troll had said, but he could venture a guess. “I think he’ll probably be fine, but I need to treat this. Can you help me a little more? If the daylight’s not bothering you too much?”

“Grah, grah.” The troll waved a hoof-like hand dismissively.

“Then if you could take him…” Sings-to-Trees placed the fox back into the troll’s arms and went to get catgut and a needle.

Cleaning the wound and sewing the fox’s leg up was a tedious process for Sings-to-Trees, and an undoubtedly painful one for the fox, despite the sedative the elf poured down its throat. He was rather glad the troll was holding the animal. The fox kept snapping and trying to thrash, but it might as well have been held down by a mountain.

“One more…and…there we go.” He tied off the thread. “Okay. I’ll keep him for a few days and make sure it heals up clean, and he gets a couple of square meals.” He accepted the fox again. “Thank you and—oh, no!”

“Grah?”

Sings-to-Trees leveled an accusing finger at Frogsnoggler. “Why didn’t you tell me he was biting you?”

“Grah…” The troll shrugged and scuffed the dirt with one hoof, like a small child caught at mischief. Its left arm was full of tooth marks, most of which had skidded off the thick hide, but a few were filling up with blood.

“Stay right there. I’m cleaning those.”

“Gr aww …”

The fox went into an empty hutch, most recently home to an infant manticore. Sings-to-Trees put a bowl of water in with him, and draped the towel in the corner. He went back out to the porch.

Frogsnoggler had waited. Sings-to-Trees picked up the bottle of iodine, turned around, and sighed.