Generally the noises of goblin digestion, snoring, and other indelicate processes were enough to drown out anything outside. This time, however, the gurgle of nine stomachs had nothing on the woods.
“Those aren’t normal,” said Thumper, the fourth or fifth time something went by with a swoosh outside, as if on enormous wings.
“It’s owls,” said Murray.
“It’s not owls,” said Thumper. “I’m a forest goblin, ‘kay? Those aren’t owls.”
“You can’t have been in the forest since you were little,” said Murray.
“They haven’t changed owls since I was a kid. Owls are silent, like. They sneak up on stuff. That’s not an owl.”
As if exhausted by speaking this many words all at once, he fell silent. Everybody listened.
Something that probably wasn’t an owl wooshed by again.
“We don’t like this, Sarge,” said Mishkin and Mushkin.
“Sarge doesn’t like it either,” said Nessilka, “but it’s out there and we’re in here, and it’ll have to come through me to get to you, so go to sleep.”
She was closest to the entrance of the cave, and she’d always had pretty good hearing. She was probably the only one who could hear the other noise—the soft, sucking sound of footsteps in mud, as something walked quietly up the riverbed, fifteen or twenty feet away.
Thhhhwuck. Thhhhwuck.
Swoosh.
She glanced behind her. Murray was the next closest, but he was half-deaf from his time in the Mechanics Corps and the daily explosions. She didn’t say anything.
Her hand tight on the handle of the club, Sergeant Nessilka stared wide-eyed into the dark.
Sings-to-Trees stood on his porch, a cup of tea in one hand, and frowned into the darkness.
He wasn’t particularly scared of the dark. He knew most of what lurked in it, and had occasionally removed thorns from their paws. And although he was careful never to rely on it, he was fairly certain that there was an understanding among the smarter denizens of the forest that he and his farm were off-limits. He suspected he’d been lumped in with the little birds that pick the teeth of crocodiles, something too useful to waste on a whim.
For the predators that went on two legs, there were always the trolls. A desperate man had come to the farm once, and he’d been much more desperate after the trolls got him cornered on the roof and the gargoyle sat on his head. He’d been positively grateful to see the rangers when they came to take him away.
Sings-to-Trees had lived out here for years, more or less by himself, and never had any particular cause to fear the dark.
Still…
There was something odd about the dark tonight.
The elf wrapped his fingers in Fleabane’s ruff. The coyote whined briefly.
He must feel it too.
Sings-to-Trees wished he could put his finger on it. The crickets all sang the usual songs and the fireflies had been out in force through the evening. The spring peepers had mostly stopped peeping, but that was nothing more sinister than the season passing. Early cicadas had begun to take their place.
It wasn’t too quiet. It was a healthy forest at night, so it was downright noisy. The stars were in the usual positions and the leaves were hissing the way that leaves always hiss in the wind.
Still, something was making him uneasy.
Fleabane sighed and flopped against his shins. The coyote’s hackles kept coming up, then easing back down. Sings-to-Trees knew exactly how he felt.
The leaves sighed. The crickets chirped. A lone firefly, still lovelorn, flashed its message to any other fireflies that might be looking for a good time.
The bone deer picked their way across his memory. Attracted to mystical disturbance. Hmmm.
He wondered what a mystical disturbance looked like. He hoped it didn’t feel like this.
On the roof, the gargoyle mumbled something deep in its chest, a gravelly sound of unease. Fleabane whined again.
A leaf insect made its way slowly across one of the porch pillars, its body shadowy green in the light from the doorway. Sings-to-Trees watched it pick its way along, one spindly leg at a time, until it was out of sight.
Still nothing had happened. Still the crickets sang.
The gargoyle’s footsteps paced back and forth across the roof.
Eventually, for lack of anything better to do, Sings-to-Trees went inside, and barred his door against the dark.
TEN
The next day was easier. The Whinin’ Niners had finally gotten their heads around the fact that they were here, in the woods, and not on the battlefield. Goblins are nothing if not adaptable. Fewer bushes were engaged in combat. Everyone had learned to recognize poison oak, and Thumper had remembered how to spot a few kinds of edible berry. Most of them weren’t ripe yet, so breakfast was a painfully sour affair, but it beat starvation.
They walked. They stopped occasionally to drink at streams and soak their hot, sore feet, but never for very long.
Nessilka kept a grueling pace to start. It wasn’t just a desire to keep the wizard behind her, although that was part of it. Mostly, it was the tracks that she’d found in the mud this morning.
They’d looked a bit like hoof prints. Actually, they’d looked a lot like hoof prints, except that most hooved animals did not have claws. She’d always thought the two were mutually exclusive, in fact, but unless they’d been stalked by a deer wearing fighting spurs, she didn’t have a better explanation.
She’d stamped them out—no sense causing a panic—but she didn’t want to be anywhere near the owner of the tracks when they stopped tonight.
Murray seemed pensive. He kept turned his head and staring into the woods, a line forming between his eyebrows, and muttering something to himself. Nessilka watched him do this for the better part of an hour until the quiet muttering started to get on her nerves.
“Okay, Murray, you’re a genius. What do you think?”
Murray grimaced. “Sorry, Sarge.”
“Didn’t ask you to be sorry. I want to know what you think.”
“I don’t like it, Sarge.” He made a grasping gesture with one hand, as if trying to pluck an answer out of the air. “There’s something—something about these woods. I can’t quite place it. I’m not seeing the right thing. I’m a marsh goblin, I don’t know quite what I’m looking for. But there’s something that’s…off.”
“Thumper’s a forest goblin. Ask him.”
Murray started to shrug dismissively, and then stopped. “Maybe you’re right. Hey, Thumper!”
Thumper dropped back to walk next to them. “Mm?”
“Tell me what’s wrong with these woods.”
Thumper’s brow furrowed deep enough to plant corn. “Wrong? There’s nothin’ wrong with it. S’perfectly good woods.” He reached out and patted the bark of a passing tree. “Lookit the size of this fellow! Probably half-rotted out. Ant nests. Wasps, too, I bet. Come down in the next big storm and kill us all. Wonderful old tree.”
Murray shook his head, making the grasping gesture again. “No—no—almost—crud! Thumper, what kinds of trees are these?”
“I dunno, oak mostly. Good oaks, not those wretched little pin oaks. Some big pines, but not many. Saw some cedar a while back.”
“Wrong question, wrong question…” muttered Murray, plucking at the air again.
“What’s the right question?” asked Nessilka.
Murray made a quick silencing motion that was a little rude to use on a superior officer, but Nessilka wasn’t going to interfere with genius at work.
“I’m not seeing something. I’m not seeing something because it isn’t there…Thumper, how old is that tree?”
Thumper shrugged. “Coupla hundred years. I’d have to cut it down and count rings to say for—”
Murray’s hand shot out and grabbed the air as if he’d caught a rope. “Cut it down! That’s it! They aren’t cutting it down! Thumper, how long since this area was logged?”
“Logged
?” Thumper shook his head. “This is, y’know, peak forest, the old stuff. It hasn’t been logged in the last thousand years.”
“Yes! That’s it! That’s what’s wrong!”
“You’d rather somebody cut it all down?” asked Thumper stiffly. “Fine. What I’d expect out of a marsh goblin…”
“No, no, no! That’s just it!” Murray was practically dancing. “Sarge, they haven’t cut any trees! There’s a human town right over there, practically, and they haven’t cut any trees!”
“That’s a little weird,” admitted Nessilka. “Even we cut trees.”
“Exactly! They need wood for houses and fences and wagons and firewood and all kinds of stuff! But, Sarge, they haven’t touched this forest at all! Why not?”
“Maybe they think it’s haunted?” asked Nessilka, thinking of the clawed hoofprints and the whooshers.
Murray shook his head. “I doubt it. Not when it’s the only source of wood for miles. No. There’s only one reason people don’t cut down a forest. Somebody already owns it. And who lives in forests?”
Nessilka felt a cold prickling crawl down her spine. “You mean—”
Murray nodded. “Elves...”
They kept walking.
There is only so long that you can clutch your weapons and wait for white-faced figures to leap from behind the trees. For the Whinin’ Niners, this was about forty-five minutes. Maybe there were elves. If there were, they’d probably find out soon enough. In the meantime, poison oak was a more immediate concern, and harder to spot.
Nessilka called a halt in the late afternoon. “Okay, everybody take five.” She looked around the Whinin’ Niners, and sighed.
Most of them were doing okay, but the two recruits and Blanchett were about done in. The recruits were just not used to sustained marching, but poor Blanchett was grey-faced and sweating from having to cover the irregular terrain on his crutch.
“Blanchett, sit down before you fall down. Yes, that goes for the bear, too. Mishkin, Mushkin, sit. Murray, you still want to try raiding a farmhouse?”
Murray nodded.
“Okay. Murray, you’re in charge. Algol, Gloober, go with Murray. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’d rather nobody saw you at all. Stealth is more important than clean clothes.”
She wracked her brain for anything else useful to say.
“Gloober, get your finger out of there.”
They waited.
“And good luck.”
The three saluted and moved off towards the fields.
“Weasel, you and Thumper go see if you can’t find something to eat, and keep your eyes peeled for anything that might make a good campsite. The rest of us will wait here.”
The pair saluted. Nessilka watched them go, the tiny little Weasel and the slab of muscle that was Thumper.
“Okay, troops,” she said, turning back to Blanchett and the twins. “You three rest up. That’s an order. Blanchett, will the bear mind if I borrow your helmet?”
There was a brief consultation. “He says it’s okay, Sarge.”
“Good. I could really use some tea.”
Making tea in a used orc helmet recently converted to teddy-bear sedan chair was an experience, but good sergeants learn to improvise. The hard part was getting the helmet clean. Who knew that Blanchett was using so much hair gel under that thing?
She had just gotten the water boiling when she heard a rustling in the bushes.
It was Murray. He and Algol and Gloober emerged from the woods, looking thoughtful. (Well, Murray and Algol looked thoughtful. Gloober had his finger up his nose again.)
“That was quick,” she said.
Murray tugged at his ponytail. “Sarge…I think you better come look at this.”
“What is it?”
“There’s nobody there.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s good, right? They stepped out. We can grab the laundry and nobody’ll be the wiser.”
“No, Sarge, I don’t think they stepped out. I think…”
He fell silent. Algol put a hand on her arm.
“Sarge,” he rumbled, “you really better come look at this.”
“Okay. Gloober, stay here. Everybody, lay low, keep quiet, don’t start any large fires.” She cast around for the next most responsible person on the chain of command, and sighed. Oh well, no help for it. “Blanchett, the bear’s in charge.”
He made the bear salute. “He says he’s honored by your trust, Sarge!”
Nessilka nodded. He can’t be any worse than some of the generals…
“Let’s go.”
ELEVEN
Sings-to-Trees had finally finished every small chore to be done around the farm, and by mid-afternoon, too.
This was so unusual that he sank down into the rocking chair on the porch with his eyes closed, because he was fairly sure that the moment he opened them, he would see something he’d forgotten, and then he’d have to get up again.
Fleabane ambled over and flopped down at his feet. Sings-to-Trees dangled a hand over the arm of the chair, and the coyote dragged a long tongue over his fingers.
The elf was content to slouch in the chair for a few minutes, feeling the afternoon sun baking his face and forearms.
Sometimes, even though he was fairly young as elves go, the whole thing got away from him. Too many animals, too many injuries, too many things that needed to get done right this minute. He occasionally wished for an assistant. Unfortunately, humans weren’t all that interested in sending their young to live with an elf, and the other elves…he knew well enough what they thought. He was like some kind of martyr, as far as they were concerned. They were glad he existed, but nobody wanted to get too close, for fear of getting unicorn crap or something worse on them.
Sometimes he thought about giving it all up, moving into the glade and taking up something respectable, like glass-whispering.
In a few hundred years, when he was ancient and his knees creaked like old floorboards, did he really want to be tottering around the farm, midwifing unicorns and bandaging trolls?
He opened his eyes with a sigh, and a troll was looking at him.
Sings-to-Trees didn’t quite yelp, but he made a choked noise. Fleabane’s tail thumped companionably on the boards. The coyote liked trolls. They brought goat meat, and Fleabane was desperately fond of goat.
The troll was sitting on the path, and spilling over on the sides. He recognized it as Frogsnoggler—that wasn’t the troll’s real name but it was the closest phonetic equivalent to the complicated set of sounds that it used to describe itself.
At least, he thought it was describing itself. He had never been able to learn their language. Fortunately, they understood his perfectly well.
“You gave me quite a start,” the elf said, getting up. The troll’s silent approach didn’t surprise him—trolls moved with eerie silence for their size—but seeing one out and about before sunset was unusual.
“Grah!” said the troll, and smiled. Trolls were always smiling. Their mouths were wide and froglike and naturally suited to it. With its eyes squeezed tight against the sunlight, Frogsnoggler looked comically pleased.
“What are you doing up at this hour, anyway?” Sings-to-Trees asked, coming down from the porch.
The troll’s face fell. “Gragh…” it said humbly, and held out its arms.
“Oh, no…”
Cradled against its chest, almost lost against the clay-colored bulk, lay a battered grey fox. An ugly leg-trap, all steel fangs and metal, hung grotesquely from one small back leg.
“Grah?” asked the troll anxiously, holding out the injured fox. “Grah?”
Sings-to-Trees got his arms under the fox, who snapped weakly at him. The trap hit his chest with a metallic clunk. Outrage choked him. “Bloody poachers!” he growled, shifting his grip on the fox. The trap chattered again.
“Grah!” agreed the troll. Its low forehead wrinkled in a frown. Immense tusks glittered briefly at the edges of its mouth.
Sings-to-Trees took a deep breath, and let the anger go. There were more important matters at hand. The fox was a skinny little thing, panting in pain and probably dehydration as well, and standing around with his teeth gritted didn’t do the poor creature any good.
First things first…
He wasn’t strong enough to get the leg trap off himself, but fortunately, brute strength was squatting at arms-length. “Okay, Frogsnoggler, I’m going to need your help.”
“Grug!” It nodded vigorously.
“I’ll hold him. I want you to pull the trap open—slowly!—and I’ll see if we can get the leg out without something worse happening.”
The fox’s leg was badly cut but not crushed. The little animal had been lucky. Sings-to-Trees tossed a towel over its head to keep it from ripping his arm open, held the fox’s torso firmly under his elbow, and nodded to the troll. “Carefully, now…”
Frogsnoggler reached down and opened the steel trap as casually as Sings-to-Trees might open a book. The elf pulled the fox’s foot free, working as delicately as he could to keep the wound from being torn even wider by the cruel metal teeth. The fox panted in pain.
It took less than a minute, but several subjective eternities passed for Sings-to-Trees.
“Got it…got it…There!” He reached out and patted Frogsnoggler’s flank with his free hand. “Well done!”
The troll beamed at him. “Grah! Grah-grah-hrragggh?”
Sings-to-Trees had no idea what the troll had said, but he could venture a guess. “I think he’ll probably be fine, but I need to treat this. Can you help me a little more? If the daylight’s not bothering you too much?”
“Grah, grah.” The troll waved a hoof-like hand dismissively.
“Then if you could take him…” Sings-to-Trees placed the fox back into the troll’s arms and went to get catgut and a needle.
Cleaning the wound and sewing the fox’s leg up was a tedious process for Sings-to-Trees, and an undoubtedly painful one for the fox, despite the sedative the elf poured down its throat. He was rather glad the troll was holding the animal. The fox kept snapping and trying to thrash, but it might as well have been held down by a mountain.
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