T. Kingfisher - Nine Goblins

“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.”