Nine Goblins

by T. Kingfisher

  The elf sighed. He had enough trouble without borrowing more. He scooped up the raccoon cub, rescued the kettle, and began putting books away before his patient got any more bright ideas.

  The sergeant’s head hurt.

  Somebody was singing under their breath. Thumper again, probably. “With a whack-whack here…” Gods, her head hurt. She wanted to go back to sleep. Sleep was good.

  “Sarge?”

  Oh, lord. They wanted her to wake up.

  “Sarge, we have a problem.”

  Worse and worse. They wanted her to wake up and be the sergeant.

  She didn’t want to wake up and be the sergeant. Being the sergeant was thankless, and they didn’t pay you very much more, and when something went wrong, you were the one that had to fix things. Responsibility was lousy.

  “Sarge…”

  On the other hand, if you didn’t see things were done right, it’d get done badly, and watching the resulting inefficiency was like being poked repeatedly in a sore tooth. It galled at her.

  Besides, if she didn’t get up, Murray would be in charge, and he hadn’t done anything bad enough to deserve that.

  She opened one eye. Algol was shaking her shoulder.

  “Ungghffff….”

  That didn’t sound right. She paused, licked her lips, tried again. Her mouth was dry. “Yes, Corporal?”

  “Um, we have a problem, Sarge.”

  Of course they had a problem. Everybody always had a problem. There was a war on, after all.

  She sat up.

  “Where’s the battle?”

  “We don’t seem to be there any more, Sarge.”

  “Don’t seem to…” Nessilka looked around.

  Most of the Nineteenth Infantry was sprawled on the ground. Murray was on the other side of what looked like a small clearing in the woods, except they’d been on a hillside, not in the woods. Where had the woods come from?

  “Did these trees grow while I was asleep?”

  Algol considered this dutifully. “I think they take longer than that, Sarge.”

  “Is the battle over? Did you carry me back the way we came?”

  Algol shook his head. “I just woke up, Sarge.”

  Murray came over, folding up a little glass and brass contraption in his hands. “We’re not at the battlefield.”

  “Thank you, Corporal Obvious,” said Nessilka, ignoring that she had said something similar about half a minute before.

  “No, Sarge, you don’t understand. We’re not anywhere near the battlefield. We’re miles off. There’s a break in the trees over there, and I got a sighting on a mountain. I think it’s Goblinhome.”

  “Well, that’s fine, then,” said Nessilka. “I mean, Goblinhome—”

  “Sarge, it’s at least fifty miles away. We’re on the wrong side of it.”

  She considered this.

  “The sea side?”

  “The human side, Sarge.”

  Sergeants don’t scream. They shout at people quite a lot, but they do not scream. Nessilka took a deep breath, and let it out cautiously. She didn’t scream. Okay. That was fine, then.

  “So what you’re saying is…we’re behind enemy lines.”

  Murray laughed. There was a slightly hysterical edge to it. “Sarge, we’d have to move about forty miles up to just be behind enemy lines. We’re practically behind the enemy nation.”

  “Ah.”

  There was a long moment, while Murray fiddled with his glass and brass thing, and Algol stared up into the trees, and Nessilka’s mind was an absolute blank. She was a sergeant by virtue of always being the responsible one. She’d had the same two weeks of boot camp as everybody else. At no point had they covered what to do when you are accidentally whisked into the heart of enemy territory.

  Still, you had to do something.

  “Alright,” she said finally. “Murray, Algol, get everybody awake and on their feet. Check for wounded. See who came with us.”

  They saluted and peeled off. Nessilka got to her feet, and looked around.

  It wasn’t a bad forest. Other than the fact that they absolutely weren’t supposed to be there, it was a perfectly nice forest. It was deep and green and the ground was covered in a soft mat of some little plant or other. The spots under the trees were deep with pine needles and leaf litter. Birds were calling from the canopy. The branches whispered and shifted gently in the wind.

  It was a nice forest. It had probably belonged to goblins once. It was a shame they couldn’t stay here for a bit. She sighed. Up in the trees, a crow went “ark!” and the call seemed to hang in the air for a long time.

  “Everybody’s up, Sarge,” said Murray. “Nobody’s bad hurt, but Blanchett’s got a twisted ankle.”

  “He says I can walk on it,” said Blanchett, nodding to the teddy-bear. “Probably not a full march, though.”

  “Tell him thank you,” said Nessilka absently.

  About two-thirds of the Whinin’ Niners had come through the hole in the air with her. Algol, Murray, Blanchett, Thumper, the recruits—gods, the recruits—plus Gloober, who always had a finger in some orifice or other, and Weasel, who was tiny and slender and of completely indeterminate gender, and who stuttered when you tried to talk to—for lack of a better word—her. (Nessilka was pretty sure she was a girl, but if Weasel wasn’t going to say anything about it, neither was she.) Everybody else was back at the battlefield.

  “And we found the wizard, too,” said Algol.

  “Oh, dear.”

  The wizard was in a lot worse shape than any of them. He was still unconscious, his breathing was shallow, and his skin was grey. This would have been normal in a goblin, but he was one of the pinkish humans, so it probably wasn’t a good sign. He had a thin, worried face, and badly bitten fingernails. He didn’t look like a lunatic killing machine, but then, who did?

  There didn’t seem to be any marks on him, and Nessilka was pretty sure she hadn’t run into him that hard.

  “It’s probably the magic,” said Murray. “I bet he was trying to cut and run—that thing in the air was an escape route. Maybe it takes energy to go through it, and when we all fell through it, it knocked him out.”

  “What do we do…”

  “…with him now?” asked the recruits meekly.

  The Nineteenth all looked at each other, while carefully not meeting each other’s eyes, which is a pretty neat trick.

  Nessilka sighed.

  They ought to kill him. They all knew they ought to kill him. He was the Enemy, and he was a wizard, and he’d probably killed a lot of goblins shooting that blue stuff out of his mouth. He’d kill them all if he had a chance.

  The problem was that it’s one thing to kill somebody when they’re charging at you with a sword, or shooting blue things, but it’s an entirely different thing to kill somebody who’s lying unconscious on the ground. The one is just war. Wars are like that.

  This, though….This felt like murder.

  Goblins are nasty and smelly and grumpy and have bad attitudes, but they’re not inherently bad. They’re pretty much like anybody else. They don’t kill people for fun, regardless of what the propaganda posters say. And this guy was a wizard, and wizards were scary, but you had to feel a little sorry for them, too. They probably hadn’t wanted to wake up one day with the power to unmake the world.

  Nessilka shook her head. “We’re not going to kill him.”

  Everybody relaxed imperceptibly.

  “We can’t tie him up, though,” Murray pointed out. “When he wakes up, if he gets his hands or his mouth free, he could magic us.”

  “So we’d better be a long way off when he wakes up,” said Nessilka. “Everybody, get ready to move out. Thumper, cut a crutch for Blanchett. Gloober, get your finger out of there. Algol, do we have any blankets?”

  “No, Sarge. We don’t have much. Nobody took their full kit into the battle. Murray’s got some mechanical stuff in his pack, and I’ve got a rope, but beyond that, it’s basically whatever w
e’ve got on our backs, and our field kits.”

  The standard issue goblin field kit is a pocket knife, two bandages of dubious cleanliness, a rubber band, a stump of candle, some dried fruit and a book of matches. It fits into the standard issue tin cup, which then fits into a small pouch. It was better than nothing, but not by much.

  “If I cannibalize a coupla things—” Murray patted his pack, which caused everyone to brace briefly for an explosion, “—I can probably rig another travel stove. We’ll be able to cook, anyway.”

  “Does anybody have a bow and arrow?”

  Nobody did. Archers were another unit entirely. The Nineteenth was strictly hand-to-hand.

  Weasel put up a hand shyly.

  “Yes, private?”

  “I c-c-c….” Weasel turned bright red.

  Nessilka put an arm around the small goblin’s shoulders and turned her around so that the eyes of the troop weren’t on her. “In your own time, private.”

  “I c-can use a s-s-sling, s-s-sarge.”

  “Good. We might actually eat after all.”

  “We’re almost ready, Sarge,” said Algol. Blanchett was experimenting with his crutch, under the watchful eye of the teddy-bear.

  Nessilka looked down at the wizard. No blankets. She sighed.

  She was going to miss it tonight, but she pulled her cloak off and laid it over the wizard. Poor sod was probably in shock, and if he didn’t stay warm, it was as good as having killed him. Besides, he was a wizard, and they had a hard time fending for themselves. “Algol, see if you can get a little water into him before we go. I’d rather not leave a trail of dead bodies behind us.”

  Algol nodded.

  “Everybody else—I want to get at least five miles away from here, and then we’re looking for a place to hole up for a bit that’s hidden and defensible. Let’s try not to leave a trail like a wounded moose, okay?”

  NINE

  It was a beautiful day in the forest. The birds were calling. The birds were calling a lot.

  Nessilka was getting a feeling that whatever they were calling was probably the ornithological equivalent of “Come get a load of this!”

  Travelling through thick woods with a troop of goblins is not unlike a nature hike with a group of grumpy toddlers with weapons.

  They fell into things. They fell out of things. They attacked bushes. The bushes frequently attacked back. They startled small animals, who startled them badly in return, causing them to fall over into more bushes. They stepped on things that were not good to step on, and stepped in things that squelched, or stank, or exploded with spores.

  Sergeant Nessilka watched as her troop discovered a patch of poison oak, and had to look away.

  Blanchett stumped up beside her, leaned on his crutch, and eyed the rest of the troop.

  “He says that’s poison oak they’re rolling in,” he informed her, pointing to the teddy-bear.

  “I think he’s right.”

  Murray emerged from the thicket, holding a sprig of leaves at arm’s length.

  “Leaves of three…” Murray was muttering. “Leaves of three…gods! Everything has three leaves! How do you tell?”

  “If you touch me with that, corporal, I’ll have you court-martialed.”

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  They rounded up the now-itchy troop and staggered on.

  “How far do you think we’ve come, Murray?”

  “Maybe a mile, Sarge. Probably not much more than that. We lost some time when Gloober stepped on the wasp-nest.”

  A tree had apparently offended Thumper in some fashion. He attacked it with his maces, and then with his teeth.

  “Algol, go rescue that tree. Gloober, if you’ve got poison ivy on that finger, you’re going to regret sticking it in there. Weasel—whoa!”

  Weasel turned scarlet and mumbled something.

  “Is that a pheasant?”

  “I m-made a s-s-sling, S-sarge.” She held out a strip that, in a former life, had been a section of rancid goathide loincloth. Slung over her shoulder was a very large, very dead bird, nearly as big as the little goblin’s torso and sporting a gorgeous rainbow of feathers. “I th-thought—”

  “Weasel, remind me to put in for a medal for you when we get home. Bird tonight! Can you catch another one?”

  The little goblin mumbled and shrugged and stared at her toes.

  “Do your best. Make someone else carry the bird.”

  “Sarge, there’s a break in the trees up ahead.” Murray was already digging in his backpack. “Permission to go scout the land.”

  “Permission granted. What do you call that contraption, anyway?”

  “What, the looky-tube-thing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The looky-tube-thing.”

  “Ask a stupid question…Yeah, go get the lay of the land. Everybody, take five. Gloober, I warned you about that finger!”

  Murray returned in about ten minutes, frowning. Algol supervised the application of mud to scrapes, stings, and welts. Nessilka was mentally composing a report to the Goblin High Command detailing the need for wilderness survival training for the troops.

  Heading One—Poison Oak, identification of…

  “What’s the good word, Murray?”

  Murray chewed on his lower lip. “Not much of a good word. We’re on the west edge of a pretty substantial forest. It runs a fair way, and it curves around to the north, so if we follow the edge, we’ll get closer to Goblinhome, but not very fast.”

  “What about striking out from the forest?”

  “Don’t recommend it, Sarge. It’s all farmland out there between us and home—absolutely flat for a long way, practically right up to the foothills. At least thirty miles of farm, twenty more of hills. You or I could make it in a coupla days, but with this crew—” He spread his hands in an eloquent gesture that expressed, rather better than words, the general competence of the Whinin’ Niners at anything resembling stealth. “Better part of a week, in the open, with cornfields and hedgerows for cover. You know I’ll follow you anywhere, Sarge, but I think it’s suicide.”

  Heading Two—Moving stealthily, practice thereof…

  “And if we follow the forest?”

  “Probably closer to fifty or sixty miles, although it’s hard to tell. Could be more. We’ll still have an open bit at the end—can’t tell if the woods go up to the foothills, but I don’t think they do—but we’d be under cover most of the way.”

  Nessilka nodded. She had a brief vision of herding the Nineteenth across open fields by night, hiding in drainage ditches during the day, barking dogs, men with crossbows, and shuddered. “I’m thinking we’ll go with your plan.”

  “One more thing. There’s a town—probably ten miles north, real close to the woods. We can probably go deeper in and go around it, and risk getting lost, but we might want to try raiding it.”

  “Raiding? Corporal, there are nine of us.” Nine goblins could, on a good day, probably disrupt a child’s tea party or decimate a chicken coop, but Nessilka wouldn’t have put them against anything bigger.

  “I’m not suggesting we try to pillage the town, Sarge. I had more in mind hitting a henhouse, and maybe somebody’s laundry. Have you seen Thumper’s loincloth?”

  “Thank you, I’ve been trying not to look.”

  “There’s a coupla isolated farmhouses on the outskirts. I think a small group could raid one.”

  “I’ve got no stomach for killing farmers, Murray, and if we do, we’re going to have hunters after us before you can say “glarguk.”

  “Great gods, no, Sarge, I’m hoping they won’t even see us.”

  She relented. “Okay, talk to me again when we’ve found a place to hole up for a bit. I’m still hoping to put miles between us and that wizard.”

  In the end, they found a kind of dirt cave in a mostly dried-out riverbed. If it rained, they might flood out, but the promise of even a muddy pool of water nearby was more than enough to recommend the campsite. They had made at leas
t three miles, which wasn’t as much as Nessilka liked, but it was better than nothing.

  Weasel had managed to bring down a rabbit. A rabbit and a bird weren’t much between nine people, but along with the dried field rations, it wasn’t bad, and everybody knew it could have been a lot worse. Both rabbit and pheasant were cooked on a spit, and were greeted with so many appreciative complaints—“Gah! Tough as an old shoe!” “You call this rabbit? Looks like a long-eared ferret. Tastes like one too!” “What was this bird eating, stinkbugs?”—that the little goblin was completely tongue-tied.

  “Okay, guys, tomorrow we’re doing a full day’s march,” said Nessilka once the last bones had been gnawed. Groans greeted this. She waved them off. “We’ve got a route back to Goblinhome, but we’re sticking to the woods for now.”

  “How far are we…”

  “…from Goblinhome, Sarge?”

  “’Bout fifty miles as the crow flies. We’re not crows, though, so we’re looking at seventy or eighty.”

  More groans. “Why can’t we take the short way?”

  “’Cos it’s through human farmland, and I don’t think they’ll be real happy to see us.”

  “Perhaps we could go in disguise?” asked Gloober hopefully.

  “We’re four feet tall and green. I think they’re going to notice.”

  Blanchett consulted with his teddy-bear for a few minutes, and then said, “He says it’s a good plan, Sarge.” The teddy-bear had one of the pheasant tail-feathers stuck behind one ear, giving it a jaunty look.

  “Err…thank him for me.” Nessilka wondered briefly what she’d have done if the teddy-bear hadn’t approved, had a brief vision of a mutiny led by a one-eyed stuffed animal, and squelched it. It had been a long enough day already.

  It was a long night, too.

  Goblins are good at sleeping on the ground. They had all been doing it for so long that they hardly cared any more—pack for a pillow, cloak if they had one. And tonight they had the luxury of cut pine boughs for a mattress, which was significantly better than camping on the hillside. No one was complaining there.

  No, the problem was the noises.