Operation Arcana

by John Joseph Adams

  He looked up to find the sky pitch black, thick clouds blotting out even the little starlight they’d had.

  It was snowing.

  “Stump! Hatchet!” Twig shouted. The two goblins stood and stared, their faces invisible in the darkness. The snow swirled around them, coming thicker and faster now. Blackfly moaned in time with Clover’s bellowing.

  “Stump! Hatchet! By the flow that bore you!”

  Twig saw their heads shake as they snapped out of their reveries, crouched in the sudden snow, now falling so thickly he blinked it out of his eyes.

  “We must have a windbreak!” Twig shouted. “Dig, damn you!”

  “The ground is frozen . . . ,” Hatchet said. “We cannot . . .”

  Twig snatched up a stone, scrambled behind Clover as the huge creature lay down, and lifted it over his head. His numb hands slipped on the slick surface, and he guessed the sharp edges were cutting him, but it didn’t matter. The hard ground was barely scratched by the first blow, but the second and third yielded more dirt, and the fourth still more. Twig grunted, giving in to the chopping rhythm and the slowly building a mound of earth, grateful for something to do, an action that took his mind off the still forms of White-Ears and Blackfly, Clover’s heaving sides.

  He heard grunting and turned to see Hatchet and Stump, stones in hand, digging alongside him. Slowly, the mound began to build. He thought of Stump’s wounded hands, but in the dark he could see no reaction on the big goblin’s face.

  At last the friction of the work broke through the numbness, and pain got the better of Stump, who dropped his stone with a curse. Twig paused, ready to go to his friend’s aid, but the big goblin rose and went around to Clover’s other side as she heaved and mooed, the ground steaming around her hindquarters, the high stink of her birthing reaching Twig’s nose.

  Stump gently lifted White-Ears, the ancient goblin tiny and frail in his arms, and tucked him in snugly against Clover’s side, then returned for Blackfly, nestling her beside him. Then he returned to his digging, chopping away with the stone as if his hands were whole.

  “They’ll be warmer,” he said.

  Twig didn’t answer, kept at his frantic digging, hoping Stump could feel his gratitude across the distance between them.

  Soon there was nothing but the scraping of the stones, Clover’s panting, the goblins’ grunting breaths, and the gentle whisper of the snow. By the time the three goblins had built the windbreak high enough to rise over the creature’s heaving sides, the snow had obliterated all traces of movement. Clover, White-Ears, and Blackfly were white lumps in the dark.

  The thick snow was a blessing, as it formed a roof over the crust of frost. Twig began to dig through it, grateful again for his numb fingers. It took some doing, but soon he found what he was looking for: clots of kine dung, the bottom of which looked just dry enough to burn.

  Stump squatted at his side. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Never you mind,” Twig said. He pointed at White-Ears and Blackfly where they lay curled against Clover’s side. The animal was spasming now, shuddering as she pushed her baby out. “She’ll be crowning soon. Get in there with White-Ears and Blackfly and keep them warm. Get Hatchet in there, too. It will help.”

  He expected Stump to argue, but the big goblin only nodded and rose, cuffing Hatchet and pointing to the white mounds that were White-Ears and Blackfly. Hatchet needed no convincing to lie down where it was warmest, and soon he was nestled in along with the other goblins, Stump alongside him.

  It took him a good while, but Twig finally cleared a patch of ground, lit a corner of the dung patty with the sparks from one of the stones, and set it to smolder on a flat rock, feeding it with more of the kine dung until a tiny flame struggled against the winter coming on in force all around them.

  Just as the fire came, Clover gave a great cry, heaved, and pushed out the calf. It came fast, pushing out of her in a torrent of the birth-blood, out into the world in a single pulse, as was the Black-Horn way. It scrabbled in the afterbirth, a wet, black, shriveled-looking thing, mooing plaintively.

  The herd moved closer, drawn by instinct to the baby’s cries, and Twig was hopeful they would do their duty, licking it to keep it warm, to clean its coat, to welcome it into the world.

  But the kine were weak with hunger—from the predations of the bloodsuckers, from the cold. Their rhythms were thrown into confusion, and their behavior along with them. They sniffed tentatively at the calf, as if it were an alien thing pushed into their midst, a stranger who might harm them. They mooed in bewilderment, reminding Twig so much of White-Ears that he nearly wept.

  A new mother always rose as soon as her calf dropped, showing her child the strength of the herd. But Clover stayed down, sides heaving, making no movement to welcome her new calf into the world.

  Twig gathered the calf, slimy and squealing, and dragged it around to its mother’s udders. They were smaller than they should have been, but she had been pregnant long before the Three-Foots had taken them, and there was still milk there.

  Twig pushed the calf’s mouth against the teat. The creature only bleated, eyes still closed, snowflakes mixing with the afterbirth that still coated its tiny body. It was shivering already. It wouldn’t last long.

  Since Twig had taken up his staff and gone to tend the herd, he had never lost a beast, and he would not now. Not to the Three-Foots. Not to The Gibberer.

  He jammed his fingers into the corners of the calf’s mouth, pressing until it opened. He squeezed the teat to start the flow of milk, then shoved it into the mewling creature’s mouth, pumping the milk.

  The calf choked, cried, tried to pull away. Twig held its head firmly in place. “Come on, curse you. Come on.”

  At last the tiny animal shuddered, closed its mouth and was still.

  Twig’s stomach churned. Panic crept up his spine. Clover mooed plaintively, as if she knew.

  He hunched over the calf. “Come on, little one. Come on.”

  Nothing. Only the soft patter of the snow, the flakes melting more and more slowly against the calf’s cooling hide.

  “Come on, damn you!” It could not be dead. He would not believe it. He made a fist and pounded it against the calf’s side, as his mother had taught him to do with stillborns. She had told him that it could revive them if done right, but Twig could never remember a time when it had.

  He paused, listened. Nothing.

  Stillborns were one thing; a death was quite another. He pounded harder, fist hammering against the calf’s ribs. “Come on! Come on! Come on!”

  It was no use. Tears stung his eyes, mixing with the snow, making cold runnels down his frozen cheeks. There was no more strength in him. He had nothing more to give.

  Twig bent double, resting his head on the baby’s side, began to weep.

  Stopped.

  A tiny sound, a faint kissing.

  Movement.

  Tugging.

  Suckling! The calf was suckling.

  Twig suppressed a cry of joy and moved to get the dung fire, gently pushing it around on its flat rock and building it as high as he could.

  “Stump.”

  The big goblin sat up. “I am sorry, Twig . . . I know —”

  “Shut up. It lives. Get the others and curl up with it. Close to the fire as you can stand.” The Three-Foots might punish them for building even a pathetic dung fire, but Twig was past caring now.

  Stump’s voice was incredulous. “It lived—?”

  “Quickly, you fool! It needs warmth now.”

  Stump roused Hatchet, and the two moved White-Ears and Blackfly up against the tiny calf. There was no doubt it was suckling now, tiny neck jerking as it tugged on Clover’s teat. The kine raised her head and sniffed at it once, huge eyes regarding Twig.

  He could almost imagine they were grateful.

  He huddled in with the other goblins, bundled around the calf and the dung fire, tiny threads of flame hissing defiance at the falling snow, already
losing the battle, providing a sliver of heat that only the calf could feel. The tiny windbreak they’d dug did its work, the wind whipping over them to torment the landscape farther on.

  The snow continued to fall, covering them all. Twig lay shivering, willing the warmth of his body outward, through Stump and the rest of them into the calf, willing it to keep suckling and breathing.

  Willing it to keep living all through the night, as the snow kept falling, falling without end, shrouding all in peaceful, beautiful winter.

  Twig could not remember falling asleep, could not imagine how he had managed it. Yet, sometime during the night, exhaustion had overcome cold and hunger and he woke with a sudden start as the weak sun bounced off the frozen crust, scattering diamonds across his eyelids.

  He blinked, struggled to rise, cracking the ice over the snow that near buried him. The others were barely visible, indistinct white shapes in decreasing sizes, down to the calf and its mother beyond.

  The calf. Clover was gone.

  “Get up!” Twig hissed, rolling onto his knees.

  The snow had stopped. The ground around them was an unbroken field of white. He scanned for the herd, saw them now, standing in a tight circle, heads hanging, more wretched than ever. But alive.

  He saw a horn-tip among them, recognized it instantly as Clover’s. If the mother had abandoned her calf, there was no chance it lived.

  Twig swallowed and turned back to the lumps of snow, knelt to dig the tiny body out as Stump and Hatchet rose.

  Twig bit back the tears and dug in the snow, his numb fingers scraping across the cold flesh beneath. Not the calf.

  Blackfly. The little girl’s eyes were closed and she shivered violently, but she lived. He lifted her up and she moaned, clinging to him, her forehead hot with fever. He let his eyes travel down her wounded leg to the tied-off stump of her foot.

  The flesh around the wound had turned black, the edges still ragged and rimed with frozen blood. But the spearshaft held the rag twisted tight, and the wound was sealed. The girl would live a little longer, at least.

  The calf was gone. Twig looked back to the herd and finally spotted it, standing and suckling, small black head darting and pushing at Clover’s udders. The kine had decided the little beast could be trusted, and they licked steadily at its coat, though it was long clean and dry, the thick hair shining.

  Twig gently laid Blackfly down and slumped forward in relief. Stump clapped him on the shoulder. “It will live.”

  “It will live.” Twig nodded. “By the current, it will live.”

  “You are the best of us, Twig,” Stump said. “When you go back to the flow, I will eat your eyes.”

  Twig knew he should say something, show gratitude for the honor Stump paid him, but all he could feel was exhaustion.

  “Hatchet,” he said at last, “see if you can find some—”

  “He’s gone,” Stump said.

  Twig turned. The big goblin’s face was creased in sadness. He met Twig’s eyes and jerked his chin in the direction of the Three-Foots camp.

  Twig stood and squinted, shading his eyes against the sun’s glare on the newly fallen snow. The Three-Foots huddled around their fire, big and blazing, snug in their thick furs. A smaller bundle showed where Hatchet sat, a warm leather blanket about his shoulders, pot of hot soup in his hands.

  On the opposite side of the fire, Three-Foots warriors were arming, tightening the straps on their leather armor, limbering their legs as they did before long runs.

  The Gibberer stood over Hatchet, meaty hands on his lumpen hips. He looked up at Twig, misaligned eyes narrowing, corners of the giant cave of a mouth rising in a smile.

  “He told them,” Stump said, spitting out the words. “The bastard told them.”

  The wide plain where the Black-Horns roamed, tending their herds, was an unbroken sea of waving grass. It changed color through the seasons, from green to brown to white and back to green again, but it was otherwise featureless. The Black-Horns found one another for generations by the stars, the Watcher, the Staff, the Horned-One, that unerringly spun through the heavens, a map that Black-Horns memorized from childhood.

  A closely guarded map. For the secret of star-walking kept the tribe safe and hidden from enemies. To divulge it was to give up the tribe for dead. It was unthinkable.

  Yet Hatchet sat, warm and fed, as the Three-Foots warriors finished arming and, with a final salute to the Gibberer, took off running with the speed they were famed for.

  It had never been about the kine. The Gibberer had what he wanted.

  “Maybe he lied to them,” Twig said through numb lips, “told them a false path.”

  But even as he spoke, he knew he was wrong. Hatchet had betrayed them all. For a warm blanket and a pot of stew, he had sold his family into death. Had he magic, had he the ability to join the chorus of the earth singing all around him, he might have been able to do something. But his magic was . . . Your magic is human arse, The Gibberer had said. It was an apt description.

  Twig turned back to Blackfly and White-Ears, his stomach twisting. If Hatchet had done what he feared, soon these might be all that was left of the Black-Horns. He swallowed hard and scrambled to them, suddenly desperate to hear their heartbeats, feel their breath against his face.

  Blackfly lay on her back, still burning with fever, head tossing. That was good. Movement meant life, no matter what affliction she now battled.

  But White-Ears didn’t move. The ancient goblin’s little body lay curled on its side, just as Twig had left him, the thick blanket of snow unbroken.

  Twig crawled to him, breath hitching in his throat, swatted at the snow covering the old Sorcerer. His numb hands suddenly felt heavy, dead, useless things, refusing to obey him. The thick crust of the snow resisted his touch, and at last he gave up and threw his shoulder into White-Ears’s back, sending the goblin rolling clear of the drift, until he lay face up.

  Twig reached him in a stride and put his ear over White-Ears mouth, willing the wind to silence, desperately trying to still the pounding of his heart enough to catch a faint whisper of the ancient goblin’s breath.

  But his numb ear could feel nothing, and the shriek of the wind would not let him hear anything.

  It didn’t matter. Twig knew the ancient Sorcerer was dead.

  Stump knelt beside him. “I noticed just after we woke. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t tell you. We will eat his eyes.” The honor would give them his knowledge, show them all White-Ears had seen in life, ensure that his years and wanderings did not pass from the world.

  Stump was speaking, but Twig could no longer hear him. The big goblin touched his shoulder as Twig slumped over White-Ears’s cold body, tears refusing to come, tired past even that emotion.

  Hatchet had given up the tribe. Their family, their herds, their legacy, all lost. Blackfly sprawled in the snow, slowly succumbing to fever. Stump’s wounded hands festered and froze beneath their filthy wrappings. The kine circled and starved, eaten alive by the bloodsuckers burrowing deeper into their flesh, no strength left to fight them off. The calf shivered and starved with them. Young and weak, it would not last another night. And now, White-Ears was gone.

  Try as he might, he could not save any of them.

  The Gibberer stood at Hatchet’s side, warm, fed, triumphant.

  Twig couldn’t even muster the energy to feel anger. He only lay, the heaviness of his body dragging him down over White-Ears’s corpse, as if he might push through him and down into the earth, swallowed whole by the chilly darkness.

  He welcomed the sensation, prayed the ground would swallow him up. It was better than this, better than living with his uselessness.

  Despair blotted out all sensation, all sight, all sound, all thought. It fogged his mind, surged through his limbs. Stopped all process, all movement.

  Twig was, at long last, still.

  And into that stillness, the song of the earth came rushing, calling out its joy at all of the circle of existenc
e, the winter that brought death so life could be renewed, the sickness that took the weak so the strong could prosper, dying and living and dying again.

  Twig took comfort from that joy, let the music trill in his ears, his mind, his bones. He raised his voice, joined in the chorus, sang of his loves and his losses and his despair, gave them all up to the rhythm of the music, seeing them for the trifles they were—seed blown on the summer wind, landing to sprout anew far from home when the seasons came round again.

  And this time, in his stillness, the song answered.

  It carried him, washed through him. He felt it in his pores, his veins, he felt the current of his magic eddying through it, currents within currents.

  He reached out experimentally, felt the individual notes of the life around him. Each rock. Each blade of grass. Each living root. Worms and insects and burrowing moles. The bloodsuckers.

  The kine.

  He reached out to the huge creatures, felt each one of them, their hunger and their fear. The calf’s cold, Clover’s aching fatigue, her knowledge that the child she had labored so long to carry was all but lost. He felt the wind burrowing against their hides, the bloodsuckers’ endless biting at their flanks.

  They sensed his presence, and he felt them draw close to him, seeking reassurance. His magical tide surged with excitement, and he felt the song recede, but he knew the stillness now, and calmed himself, retreating back into the song, letting it carry him.

  Twig rose, opened his eyes.

  White-Ears’s body lay beneath him. Stump knelt, wounded hands in his lap, head hanging.

  The kine had ceased their milling. They stood still, heads up and alert, staring at him.

  Twig Drew his magic, reached into the song, Bound it into a command.

  The kine tossed their heads and stomped past one another, flicking tails and brushing noses, until they formed a line twenty long, disciplined as any warband.

  As a single body, they lowered their heads.

  The song had changed, responding to Twig’s magic. The joyful trilling was gone. In its place was a warband’s reel, a trumpeting horn, calling the spears to the banner.