T. Kingfisher - Nine Goblins

Blanchett eyed the mug of murky brown herbs warily. “How do I know you’re not trying to poison me?”

Sings-to-Trees sighed and dipped a finger into the mug, then slurped the liquid off it. “There. Happy?”

“Well, now you’ve put your finger in it!”

Nessilka figured it was time to intervene. “Private, I know for a fact you haven’t washed your hands since the war started. You have no business complaining about anybody else’s fingers. Drink the nice gunk already.”

Blanchett rolled his eyes upward, possibly appealing to the authority of his teddy-bear. After a moment, he grimaced. “He says to drink it.”

“Listen to the bear. The bear is smart. Also, that’s an order.”

With a much-put-upon expression, Blanchett drained the mug.

“Huh. Tastes like rat squeezins’ with too much honey.” He considered. “Can I get the recipe?”

“Get outta here,” muttered Nessilka, aiming a swat in his general direction. Blanchett dodged with surprising agility and hobbled out in good humor.

“Thanks,” she said to Sings-to-Trees.

The elf waved dismissively. “He didn’t try to bite, kick, or gore. He’s already an improvement over most of my patients.”

She grinned. She couldn’t help it.

He passed her another mug of tea. “It might taste like rat squeezins’, mind you. Whatever a rat squeezin’ is.”

She rolled the liquid around on her tongue. “You’re probably happier not knowing. Anyway, tastes like mud and rancid sticks to me.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“That means it’s good.”

He nodded. “I remember. Took me awhile to get used to the goblin…err…courtesies.” He gestured with his own mug.

“Really, thank you,” she said. “It’s damn decent of you, feeding us and letting us stay here for a few days. We were—well, we’re not really cut out for the woods.”

“I’m glad to help.” Sings-to-Trees stared into his own mug, possibly looking for the elusive rat squeezins’. “Anyway, if the town really is deserted, I’d be glad of company.”

“Thanks for that, too,” Nessilka said.

“Hmm? For what?”

“For not immediately assuming that we ’d done something to the people in the village. You didn’t even ask. That…I appreciate that.”

He smiled faintly. “I’ve known too many goblins. They’re…crude, and sometimes they’re a bit wicked, but I’ve never known them to be vicious. It surprised me to hear there was even a goblin war.”

“We had to do something!” she bristled.

He nodded. The silence stretched out while he ran a finger over the tabletop. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry your people were driven to that. I wish there had been another way.”

“Heh!” Her laugh startled them both. “That’s the first time anybody’s apologized.”

Odd little words, “I’m sorry.” Nessilka found that she didn’t feel any better about the war, but she did feel a bit better about Sings-to-Trees.

“So—you said there was magic? Some poor wizard sent you?”

Nessilka nodded. “I think he was trying to escape the battle, but we all came with him. It knocked him out cold, anyway.”

Sings-to-Trees gave her a worried look. “What did you do with him?”

It was embarrassing, but she suddenly found herself afraid that she might disappoint the elf, which made her feel defensive. “There wasn’t much we could do,” she snapped. “We couldn’t very well take him with us, and when a bunch of goblins show up at a human town with a human body, people tend to shoot first and not bother with the question bit at all!”

He was silent. Nessilka sighed. She had to stop snapping at him. He took it all as patiently as he probably took having manticores vomit on him, but it wasn’t fair. He was one elf. She couldn’t make him stand for every elf that had ever been on the other end of a sword from her.

“Sorry. I feel guilty, and it’s making me cross. We put a blanket over him and Algol got some water into him. I didn’t know what else we could do.”

The elf nodded. “Honestly, I don’t know what else you could have done. Water and a blanket was a good thing. I could wish for a fire and food in him, but wizards…well, if one woke up to a goblin troop, it could go very badly. Poor guy.”

He pondered. “I can send a pigeon to the rangers and tell them to keep an eye out for a shocky wizard in that part of the woods.” He paused. “If you’d like to read it first—I wasn’t going to tell them about you, but I understand—”

Nessilka shrugged. “I can’t read Elvish, and it’d look awfully odd if you sent them a note in Glibber, wouldn’t it?”

“There’s that.” Sings-to-Trees looked into his mug, seemed surprised to find it empty, and began digging in a tin for more tea. “I wonder why the wizard picked that as an escape route, though,” the elf mused. “They don’t do well with surprises, most of them. I’d think one would want to go to a safe place, familiar surroundings. The middle of a forest under elven protection seems a little strange.”

“Maybe he was from around here,” said Nessilka, who’d been wondering something similar herself. “The humans from the town can go into the forest, right? As long as they don’t cut the trees or overhunt?”

Sings-to-Trees nodded. “There are fairly strict rules and quotas, and the rangers check up on those, but generally we find that as long as they know what they can and can’t do—and that there’ll be repercussions if they break the rules—the humans are pretty reliable.”

Nessilka sighed. “Maybe that was our problem. We didn’t make any rules, we just left.”

Sings-to-Trees shrugged. “It might not have helped. The goblin tribes go everywhere, but they’re usually pretty thin on the ground. You would have had a hard time enforcing the rules. Whereas elves—well—”

“You’re tall and impressive looking and you can put an arrow into a squirrel’s eye from a hundred paces,” said Nessilka.

“There’s that, yeah. We had charisma and numbers and mayhem. All you had were pigs and enthusiasm. It’s not your fault.”

She called up the goblin army in her mind’s eye, and had to laugh. Pigs and enthusiasm described it pretty well.

The silence that stretched out was companionable. Dusk had finished with the trees and was starting to work across the yard. Crickets chirped, and a few fireflies telegraphed their attractiveness to the world.

She gathered the mug up to head back inside. “I should probably go make sure they haven’t broken all your plates.”

The elf shrugged and followed. “I’ve learned not to get too attached to plates. Here—take a lantern if you’re headed to the barn for the night.”

She glanced over at Thumper, still asleep. Sleeping on a head wound worried her. She hoped the elf knew what he was doing.

“I’ll wake him every few hours. That’s part of why I want him where I can keep an eye on him.”

“Ah. Thank you.” She grinned, showing blunt tusks. “I seem to keep thanking you.”

Sings-to-Trees grinned back. “So few of my patients can. It’s a nice change of pace.”

Nessilka took the lantern down to the barn, where Algol and Murray were conscientiously overseeing the washing, and found, against all odds, that she was whistling.

It was still the small hours of the morning. The barn was smothered in shadow and in the rather thick smell of goblin digestion.

Someone was shaking her shoulder. Sergeant Nessilka opened one eye, saw The Enemy standing over her, and threw herself sideways before it could bring the lantern crashing down on her head. She snatched up her club and lifted it, eyes glittering in the orange light.