by Bryan Huff
He tried to stand, but the light made his head swim and his knees wobble. Blinking rapidly, he staggered around, attempting to find his balance, and then promptly fell over.
Hob lay facedown in the long, wet grass, allowing himself a moment to recover. Then he groped for the boulder, and used it to hoist himself back onto his feet. He chanced opening his eyes a crack, and nearly collapsed again. But, this time, he held fast to the rock, and stayed upright.
Squinting hard and using a hand to shade his eyes, he peered around. The world was an over-bright blur, but the dark green of the forest was unmistakable. With any luck, the shade of the trees would allow him to see. Hob made a break for it, lurching out from behind the boulder, and running dizzily across a short stretch of grass.
He broke through the underbrush, and collapsed against the first trunk he came to, closing his bleary eyes. After a few quiet breaths, he opened them again, first one, then the other. To his relief, he could now keep them open. Although the forest was still too bright for his taste, he could see, and his dizziness was fading.
As Hob stood recuperating in the shade, he admired the world around him. To someone raised underground, it was a wonderland. He found himself at the edge of a small clearing, ringed by thick oaks and pines. They sheltered him, their limbs reaching overhead to form a canopy of dappled green. In the center of the clearing, a single beam of sunlight broke through, bright—but not entirely blinding—and beautiful. It spilled, golden, upon the forest floor. One of the forest goblins’ little footpaths ran through the beam, leading deeper into the woods.
Never had Hob felt so surrounded by life. Unseen creatures scurried noisily through the underbrush. A pair of red squirrels played chase up a tree. And the birds’ cheerful songs, which had begun in the early morning hours, were now in full, harmonious refrain.
Then, suddenly, all of it stopped. A few finches even scattered from a nearby bush. Something was coming. Hob ducked in behind his tree, just as Ed and Monty burst through the bush and into the clearing. Hob peeked out at them. They were following the goblin footpath.
“I’m just saying, you woke up awfully early for someone who was so tired and grouchy last night,” Ed yawned. “Couldn’t we have slept a bit longer?”
“When I’m up, I’m up!” said Monty. “Teenagers,” he added under his breath, “always sleepin’ their lives away.”
“We only got three hours,” Ed complained.
Monty stopped in the beam of sunlight, and stretched his back. It cracked audibly.
“This isn’t one of your usual city capers, lad,” he said. “There’s no sleepin’ in. If we’re not careful, we could die horrible deaths, dragged by our nose hairs over beds of rusty nails … or worse!”
Ed looked stricken. “And here I was, worried about getting lost in the woods and having to live off berries and stuff.”
“Berries?” Monty gasped. “That would be worse. If I don’t get some meat in me soon, I’ll waste away.”
The dwarf rubbed his belly, and it responded with an unhappy grumble. In terms of wasting away, though, it looked like he had a long way to go.
“But seriously, lad,” Monty went on, glancing around the clearing. “We can’t lose any daylight. Even now, there could be a goblin hidin’ behind every tree!”
Hob yanked his head in to avoid Monty’s gaze. Unfortunately, the quick motion only caught the old dwarf’s eye.
“Shh!” Monty whispered, as he moved in for a closer look.
Hob stood frozen behind the tree, holding his breath. He could hear Monty’s footsteps approaching. Crunch, crunch, crunch. There was nowhere for Hob to hide. The nearest trees were too far, and the underbrush too low.
Then he got lucky. Sensing Monty coming, one of the finches took flight from the branches above. It flew right past Monty’s head in a flutter of wings.
“Hah!” Monty laughed. “Only a wee bird.” Shaking his head, he turned to leave.
Hob let out a silent sigh of relief. And when Monty and Ed followed the goblin footpath into the forest, Hob crept after them.
The wind rustled in the treetops as the little procession picked its way through the woods, Ed and Monty breaking trail and Hob sneaking along behind.
Drawing on a lifetime of sneaking experience, Hob always stayed back just the right distance from his guides, darting from tree to tree to keep out of sight and treading lightly to avoid crunching on leaf or twig.
They walked all day long. And all day long, the trees around them grew older and more gnarled, and the forest around them grew thicker and thicker, letting in less and less light.
Finally, when the sun began to set, and the shadows turned an inky black, Ed and Monty stopped again for the night.
“Harder!” Monty barked. “And faster too!”
He and Ed had camped out by the bank of a small stream. Ed struggled to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, while Monty supervised. Hob watched from his latest hiding place in the trees.
The sun had now completely set, and darkness loomed around them. Yet, as Ed and Monty fretted over night’s arrival, Hob couldn’t help but welcome it. Even the shadiest parts of the forest had let in enough sunlight to bother him over time, and he’d grown tired of squinting.
“If you don’t like my work, why don’t you do it?” Ed complained, grinding his uncooperative sticks in frustration.
“Because, you’ve gotta learn,” said Monty.
“Gotta learn to rub sticks together?” Ed scoffed. “I’ll just buy a new tinderbox when we get back to civilization.”
“And what’ll you do until then?” asked Monty.
“I’ll make you do it for me.” Ed pushed the two slightly warmed sticks into the hands of the irritated dwarf, and reclined on the bank of the stream, hands folded behind his head.
“Typical,” Monty grumbled. “Old Monty’s got to do everythin’!”
Still, he went to work making the fire. After much grunting, groaning, and ranting about “stubborn youths,” he stepped back to reveal his masterpiece.
“It’s all in the wrists!” he boasted.
The wood was wet, and gave off more smoke than flame. But the fire was lit. And lit was as good as roaring, if you were as desperate for warmth as they were. It was turning out to be a frosty spring evening, and Ed and Monty were soon huddled over their tiny fire.
Hob wished he were so lucky. He could only sit curled up at the edge of the trees, far from the fire, silently shivering.
He’d been sitting like that for so long that his limbs began to go numb, when a voice gave him a jolt. He stood, searching for its source. Then he realized there wasn’t one! The voice wasn’t coming from the forest, but from inside Hob’s own mind. It was the Sorcerer’s voice, quieter and more distant than it had been in the Great Cave, but still strangely clear.
“goblins of the old forest,” it said, “tonight marks the beginning of your march. troops from nearby hordes gather at high-hole in the mountains. join them, and travel together to shadowguard!”
The Sorcerer was speaking to the forest goblins! Hob knew their tunnels and burrows ran beneath the forest floor. And if he was overhearing a message meant for them, he mustn’t have been far from the crow channeling it—likely perched before a large audience in the goblins’ main burrow.
“venture above ground only where there are no tunnels below. rest only when you can no longer walk. and let nothing stand in your way!” the Sorcerer finished.
Hob scuttled deeper into the trees, taking cover behind root and bush. Had Ed and Monty heard the voice too? Or was it only goblins who could hear the Sorcerer?
Hob peered back into the clearing. His companions weren’t searching for some strange, disembodied voice, but remained huddled over their little fire. Ed picked up a stick, and began prodding the embers absentmindedly.
The pair stayed that way for quite some time, sitting in silence.
Then the dwarf remembered someth
ing, and began fishing around inside his overcoat. He pulled out a small object. “Looky what I managed to save from those rotten goblins, hidden in my secret pocket!”
Monty held up a small wooden smoking pipe. It had a curved stem and a dome-shaped metal cap that snapped into place over its chamber to secure its contents for travel.
“You said you were quitting,” Ed groaned. “That thing’s poison, you know. It’s turning your lungs to soot.”
“I am. I am,” said Monty. “But I can’t quit without takin’ a last puff first, to make it official.”
With a flick of his thumb, he opened the pipe’s cap on its hinge, and used a small twig to light the chamber inside with flame from the campfire. He leaned back, and took one last puff, and then another, and then another, sending each little toxic wisp up into the sky.
Ed shook his head.
“Did I ever tell you, lad,” Monty went on, puffing obliviously, “about the time your old man and I got trapped inside the lair of a hairy-backed giantess, and fought our way out using nothin’ but—”
“—one of her giant toenail clippings as a sword?” Ed recited. “Yeah.”
“Hah!” Monty laughed. “Didn’t think you knew that one!”
“I know all your tall tales,” Ed told him, with a grin. It seemed he couldn’t stay mad at the old dwarf for long. “Everyone does. You two were famous.”
“I suppose we were, weren’t we?” said Monty, chuckling to himself. “Those were the days, lad, fightin’ off early goblins raids, huntin’ for treasures to help your old man in his quest, and slayin’ a beast or two along the way.” He went to take another satisfied draw on his pipe, but this time it produced only a dry sucking sound. “Dagnabbit!” he grumbled. “It’s out. This one doesn’t count then.” He snapped the metal cap back over the chamber, and returned the pipe to the pocket of his overcoat. “As I was sayin’, things weren’t so desperate back then. But now? Now, the goblin attacks get worse every day. Your old man’s gone. And time’s runnin’ out to finish his quest.”
“Not to mention we’ve got Captain Fist and her men trying to arrest us at every turn, and no wizard to help us!” Ed lamented. He jabbed anxiously at the fire with his stick.
“We’re almost to Valley Top,” Monty assured him. “The old coot will meet us there. That was plan B.”
Still watching from the bushes, Hob hung on their every word. He’d known they were going on an adventure. But he’d never imagined that Ed’s father and Monty had once been famous heroes, or that Ed and Monty were carrying on some kind of family quest, or that they were still going to meet the wizard—in Valley Top, of all places! Hob had just read about Valley Top in The Ballad of Waeward the Wanderer. It was the city on the mountainside, from which Waeward had begun his journey west. Hob wondered what business Ed, Monty, and the wizard had there.
“Either way,” Ed carried on, looking over at his friend, “I’d rather be out here with you, facing a million dangers, than stuck at home in a cage.” He paused. “Thanks for coming to get me. I know you’re risking your neck.”
“Least I could do,” said Monty. “Your old man risked his neck for me more times than I can remember, from the very first day we met.”
Ed paused. “Now, that’s one I’ve never heard,” he said quietly. “I was always ‘too young.’”
“Well,” said Monty, “I say fourteen’s old enough.” He stared into the fire for a moment, before looking back up at Ed. “It happened almost thirty years ago now, when my old clan and I were recoverin’ some dwarvish artifacts from an abandoned mountain hold. Even in those days, it was easy to cross paths with goblins up in the mountains, and a particularly nasty troop got the drop on us. I got knocked out early in the fight, and I woke up in one of their cages. The rest of my clan was gone. To this day, I can only assume they didn’t make it.”
Monty took a deep breath.
“Left to rot in a goblin cage, I didn’t know why fate had spared me. And, to be honest, I wished she hadn’t. Then your father came along. He was a young man then, not much older than you are now, huntin’ down artifacts that might lead him to a different sort of treasure. He rescued me, took me in, and hired me to help him with his quest. He became my new clan. And his quest became my own.” Monty paused. “And if I can’t finish the blasted thing with him, then it’s only right I finish it with you.”
“He’s not gone for good, Monty,” said Ed. “We’ll find him.”
“Mmm,” said Monty, nodding. “For now, though, let’s get some sleep. I’ll take first watch. And if any goblins show up, I’ll give every last one the chop.”
“I sure hope they don’t show up,” said Ed, peering out into the darkness, as he lay down by the fire. “I could use a break from goblins.”
Hob sank back into the bushes. Suddenly, his thoughts returned the Sorcerer’s message, and he was glad he’d heard it. The forest goblins, like those of the Gobble Downs, would be sending their troops off that night. That meant they wouldn’t be out patrolling the woods. Unlike his companions, Hob could relax, knowing that none would come.
He curled up between a couple tree roots under the bushes, and tried to get some sleep. Instead of obsessing over the threat of goblin attacks, his mind once again returned to the mysterious boy and dwarf. What had happened to Ed’s father? What was his quest—the one Ed and Monty were trying to finish in his place? Who was this Captain Fist trying to arrest them? And why exactly were they meeting the wizard in Valley Top?
No answers came, so Hob fell asleep still wondering.
Even without goblins to worry about, that night passed as slowly and fretfully as only a night spent outside in the forest could. Hob awoke many times to the scuffling of hidden creatures roving in the underbrush, and to visions, real or imagined, of eyes peering at him out of the darkness.
Once, he even sat straight up, gripped by fear that a bear was about to eat him! His bat-like ears had picked out the sound of some huge beast plodding and sniffing far off in the forest, and had funneled it into his dreams. He could only guess at what was really making the noise. Eventually, he tired himself out so much worrying about it, that—against his will—he drifted back to sleep.
When Hob awoke the next day—alive and uneaten—he wasn’t sure if he’d heard anything at all. He couldn’t tell what had been a dream, and what had been reality. The morning was quiet, but for the familiar songs of the birds, and the familiar grumblings of one old dwarf.
Monty and Ed were picking and eating spring blackberries that grew on a small bush across the stream, and Monty was complaining about it.
“I’m just sayin’,” he griped, “it’s too bad eggs and bacon don’t grow on trees!”
Hob’s own stomach growled, eager for any kind of food it could get. It occurred to him he hadn’t eaten anything since the hardtack biscuits two days before. Quietly, he scoured the bushes around him, and managed to find a few tiny, unripe blackberries to pluck and eat. They were small and sour, but better than nothing.
Ed and Monty departed moments later, having picked their own bush clean. Once they were out of sight, Hob emerged from hiding long enough to take a quick drink from the stream, and wash his hands and face. Then he slipped back into the trees, and followed after his companions.
The trio walked for hours, but seemed to make no progress. The forest continued to loom around them, just as dark and dense as it had been at the end of the day before.
Worse still, because Hob had to dart between hiding places behind Ed and Monty, for each step they took, he had to take three. And on the second day, this began to catch up with him. Hob grew increasingly weary and footsore, and increasingly hungry after the meager sustenance of the blackberries wore off. All of which made it difficult to focus on sneaking.
When he inevitably misplaced a foot on a crackling twig, he swore Ed caught a glimpse of him through the forest. But Hob slipped quickly behind a tree, and the boy just shook his head and carried on. A
fter allowing a more comfortable distance to grow between them, Hob carried on too.
In the early afternoon, things finally began to improve. Ed and Monty stumbled off the tiny footpath and onto a wide dirt road that cut through the forest on either side of them.
Hob stopped just before he too stumbled into the open.
“Well, I’ll be!” said Monty. “Old Foresters’ Road!”
“Where does it go?” asked Ed.
“All the way to the mountains, where it meets the road to Valley Top!” said Monty. “It used to be a popular route among traders and woodsmen, before the goblins started robbin’ them all blind.”
It looked as if the road might have once been smooth and wide enough for two horse carts to pass abreast, but it had become bumpy and overgrown. Trees crowded both sides of it and leaned out over top, their leafy boughs meshing together to form the ceiling of what looked like a long green tunnel through the woods. Here and there, slivers of golden sunlight pierced this emerald canopy, spilling in dappled patterns on the road, but Hob could see little sky and no mountains beyond.
Still, Monty seemed confident he knew which way to go. He and Ed turned right, maintaining a general northwesterly direction, and marched straight up the middle of the road. Hob continued to follow them, creeping through the trees alongside.
Spirits buoyed by the discovery of the road, Ed and Monty chatted boisterously as they walked.
“Why don’t you finish your giantess story?” Ed suggested.
“I thought you’d heard it already?” said Monty.
“I don’t mind hearing it again,” said Ed. “It’s different every time.”
“Hah!” With a laugh, Monty launched into his tale. “She was a hairy one, that giantess …”
On one hand, this helped Hob. It meant he didn’t have to try so hard to keep quiet. On the other hand, it made him uneasy. It was impossible to tell what else might be lurking in the forest, listening.