T. Kingfisher - Nine Goblins

The tired elf squatted down in the mud in front of her—he was wearing very good boots—and said “I am Captain Finchbones.”

“Point to you, Sarge,” muttered Murray.

“Do you understand this language?”

“Yes,” said Nessilka. She licked dry lips and wracked her brain, trying to remember vocabulary. “Most. Need you explain some words.”

Finchbones nodded. “I wish to make sure there are no misunderstandings. Explain to me why you were in the village.”

Nessilka hardly knew where to begin. “We were in woods. We heard very strange noise.” Should she mention Sings-to-Trees? If they went to his farm, they’d find the rest of the regiment. Damn. “A magic noise. We had to walk to it.”

“Why were you in the woods?” asked Finchbones.

“A wizard—” Damn, what was the word for transported? “—moved us.”

Finchbones eyebrows went up at that. “A goblin wizard?”

“No!” That was all they needed, to have the elves thinking that they had wizards that could dump whole regiments behind enemy lines. “No. Human.”

“Why did a human wizard send you into my people’s lands?”

Murray muttered, “Careful, Sarge…” in Glibber. The elf behind him made a warning noise.

Nessilka sighed. There was really no answer that was going to paint them in a positive light. It was best to be honest. At least if they were prisoners of war, there were supposed to be rules about how they were treated.

“In battle. Ran at wizard.” Her hands were tied, but she managed a vague pantomime of attack with her head and one shoulder. Finchbones nodded. “Wizard moved. We moved too. Then we were in woods.”

Murray cleared his throat. Apparently he spoke this human dialect better than he spoke Elvish. “We think he was trying to run from the battle, but he brought all of us with him.”

Nessilka winced a little at all of us, but presumably that could apply to three people as easily as nine.

Finchbones shifted so that he was addressing both Murray and Nessilka. “Where is this wizard now?”

Nessilka shook her head. “Asleep.” That wasn’t the right word, but it was as close as she was going to get. “Left wizard asleep in woods.”

“Dead?”

“No!”

“Unconscious,” said Murray.

Finchbones nodded.

Nessilka tried to explain that they’d given the wizard some water and put a blanket over him, but she wasn’t sure how much of that came through, or whether Finchbones believed her.

She hated not being able to speak clearly. It made her sound stupid, and people thought goblins were stupid enough already.

“Who is in command?”

“I am,” said Nessilka. “I am—” She looked helplessly at Murray.

“Sergeant,” said Murray.

“Sergeant Nessilka. I am in command.” She licked her lips again. “I ask…fair. Fairness. Treatment of soldiers.”

“Prisoners of war,” said Finchbones.

Nessilka nodded. So did Murray.

Finchbones steepled his fingers. “And yet the people you have killed were not soldiers.”

“Did not kill people!”

Murray said, “The village was like that already. Already dead.”

“Days,” said Nessilka. “Many days dead. And we only three goblins.” She jerked her chin at Blanchett and Murray.

“You were found standing over a girl with a club,” said Finchbones grimly. “Making pancakes.”

Part of Nessilka was enormously gratified that the elf could see how insane it was to make pancakes while surrounded by dead bodies. This was largely mitigated by the fact that he thought they were her pancakes.

“Not us. Girl.”

“She is a wizard,” said Murray. “She made the noise.”

Nessilka stared up into Finchbones’ eyes, willing him to believe her. Because if he didn’t…Well, it was going to be unpleasant for the goblins in the short term, and for everybody in the long term.

Finchbones made a noncommittal noise and stood up. “I am not sure that I believe you.”

Nessilka sighed. “Wouldn’t believe either,” she said. “Hear magic noise, then believe.”

“By then it’ll be too late,” said Murray.

Finchbones lifted his other eyebrow. “You will be brought water,” he said. “Do not try to escape.”

Nessilka snorted. “Where we go?”

“There’s that,” said Finchbones, and walked away.

Sings-to-Trees had found the wizard, for all the good it was doing him.

He hadn’t been hard to find. The cervidian had dumped Sings directly in front of the young human’s campfire. It wasn’t a large campfire, but it was perfectly serviceable, and the wizard was feeding it twigs and making no attempt to hide the smoke or his presence in the forest.

Sings could tell it was the wizard, because he was still wearing Nessilka’s cloak. Badly cured goathide clashed oddly with the human’s military uniform.

Also, the wizard’s response to having a skeletal deer leap in front of him and a bruised and whimpering elf fall off its back was to say, “Oh.”

That was it. He didn’t even make eye contact with Sings-to-Trees. (This was all very well, as far as Sings was concerned, because he didn’t really want someone looking at him right at that moment. He was curled around bruises that would have felled a trained warrior, let alone a veterinarian.)

The cervidian rattled and stamped a hoof. The wizard fed another twig to the fire.

Sings sat up and said, “Are you the wizard?”

The wizard looked at his face briefly, and then back at the fire. “Yes?” He sounded unsure about it.

“Did you come through a—” Sings had to stop and translate mentally from the goblin tongue “—a hole in the air?”

“Yes?”

“There were goblins with you.”

The wizard nodded. “Lots of them,” he said. “I ran away. They came with me through the hole.” He gave Sings-to-Trees a brief, determined look. “I make holes.”

“Good for you,” said Sings. “Are you injured?”

“No?”

“The goblins said you were unconscious.”

The wizard nodded again. “Lots of them came through the hole. They were very heavy.”

Sings realized this was all the explanation he was going to get. “My name is Sings-to-Trees.”

“My name is John.”

“I live here, in the woods. A few miles away.”

John was silent for so long that Sings-to-Trees started thinking of another question, but then the wizard seemed to realize that something else was expected of him. “I live in the village. Elliot’s Cross?”

He looked worried. Sings said, “That’s a nice place,” and the wizard visibly relaxed.

Poor soul. He’s trying. People like this shouldn’t be in wars, even if they are good at it.

“Were you trying to get back there?”

“Yes? But lots of them came through the hole.” He furrowed his brow. Sings had an impression not so much of lack of intelligence, but of lack of ability to communicate. “When…when too many go through the hole…the hole won’t go far.”

“I understand, I think,” said Sings. Elliot’s Cross is what the humans call their village, isn’t it? He was trying to escape the battle and go back home, but when the goblins fell through, he only got partway there, and it took so much energy it knocked him out. Makes sense, I guess, as much as anything with magic makes sense.

“There’s some very strange magic happening in the woods here,” said Sings. “It attracted the cervidian.” He nodded to the stag. It rattled.

“Okay?” Again that inquiring lift at the end of the word. John darted a look at the elf’s face again.

Is he asking questions? He doesn’t seem hostile, he just seems confused…