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…
“It isn’t me,” said the wizard. Not a question this time.
“It’s bad magic,” said Sings.
“It is?” He met the elf’s eyes with an expression of naked entreaty. It reminded Sings, for a moment, of a troll, all good nature and confusion.
Then Sings had it, and his heart broke a little for the human, because he realized that what the man was asking.
He knows he’s supposed to react somehow when I tell him these things, and he doesn’t know the right thing to say. Poor baffled soul. Worst case of magic I’ve seen in a while, and if Nessilka’s right and he’s able to kill people with that blue stuff as well as “make holes”, then nobody’s getting too close to him to teach him what’s normal.
“It’s killing people,” said Sings. “It’s bad. We don’t like it.”
The wizard nodded once, firmly, as if committing this to memory. “Sorry,” he said after a moment. “I get confused.”
“That’s okay,” said Sings. “If I tell you about the magic, can you tell me if you know anything about it?”
“Yes, sir.” He lowered his head slightly and pulled the goblin cloak tight around his shoulders. Sings-to-Trees had the feeling that no one had ever listened to him so intently in his entire life. The forest itself seemed to quiet down, out of respect for the intensity of the wizard’s concentration.
“It’s some kind of sound. It’s as if you can almost hear a conversation, but you can’t make out the words. It makes you try to get closer, no matter who’s in the way. People run toward it from miles away. In fact—”
He stopped there, because John had sat bolt upright. Some of the vagueness vanished from his face, replaced with dawning horror.
“It’s Lisabet,” he said, and it was clear he knew exactly what he felt about that. “That’s her power. She makes the voice.”
“Lisabet?” Now Sings-to-Trees was the one who didn’t know how to feel about something. “Who’s that?”
“My sister,” said John. “We have to find her, sir.” He didn’t look vague at all now, just very worried and very determined. “It’s very important that we find her at once. Before something terrible happens.”
TWENTY
Their bonds had been loosened and they had been given water. When the goblins were retied, the elves let them keep their hands in front. Nessilka debated requesting the teddy-bear again, then decided not to push her luck.
“Do you think he believes us?” asked Murray.
“No.”
“He has to know we couldn’t have killed all those people. And they’ve been dead for days.”
“He doesn’t have any way to know how long we’ve been here.” Nessilka sighed. “Think it through, Murray…”
He did. She saw his face fall. He scowled. Nessilka nodded.
“He’s caught us. There could be dozens of goblins in the woods, and he just doesn’t know it yet. We could have been transported here weeks ago. We could have been killing people all that time. We could have our own wizard with us.” She considered this. “I’d be surprised if they hadn’t heard that voice thing as they were approaching. That girl had a heckuva range.”
Murray considered this. “I think she might have been focusing it on us. When we were hearing it before, it didn’t give me that horrible headache, and we could move a lot faster.”
Knowing that your enemy has the ability to focus her powers was somehow not comforting. Nessilka rested her forehead on her knees. “Well, regardless. They don’t know how many of us there are. They may think we’ve got a wizard. Hell, maybe Blanchett here’s a wizard, they don’t know.”
Blanchett focused his eyes with apparent difficulty and said, “No.”
Nessilka forced a smile. “Glad to have to with us again, Blanchett.”
“The bear?” he said.
“Still on a mission.”
“I’ll wait, then.” He lay down on his side and, to all appearances, went to sleep.
Nessilka envied him.
A few minutes slid by, and then Murray said, “Sarge?”
“Mm?”
“It’s worse than that. It may not matter if he believes us or not.”
Nessilka glanced over at the tent. Late afternoon shadows stretched over the grass, but there was no movement. “It doesn’t?”
The other goblin gestured as well as he could with his wrists bound together. “Look, there are people who don’t like the war, right?”
“I’m not terribly fond of it myself, Murray.”
“No, no. I mean civilians.”
“Oh, them.”
“Well…Sings-to-Trees thinks the war is bad. And there’s probably more like him out there. Maybe not so many elves, but what about the humans? They’re doing most of the fighting and they’re probably getting tired of it.”
“The great grim gods know that I am.” Nessilka glanced at their guard. He had not moved an inch in the last two hours. She had to watch for a minute to make sure he was blinking.
“So…” said Murray. “Say you’ve got people getting tired of the war. Then you get a bunch of goblins showing up and wiping out a whole human village. Do you think those people are still going to be tired of it?”
Nessilka scowled. “That’s politics, Murray.”
“Well, yeah. Lotta people die of politics.”
She was suddenly very glad that she hadn’t told the elf captain about the rest of the regiment, or about Sings-to-Trees.
They sat in the sheep pasture while the shadows grew so long that they joined up to each other and became evening.
“Hey, Murray?”
“Yes, Sarge?”
“Maybe they’ll figure out we were right, and they’ll give us medals.”
“Very funny, Sarge.”
Torches were lit outside the tent, and someone started a campfire. When Nessilka looked back to their guard, she saw his pupils dilated as wide as a cat’s in the dark. It was an unsettling look. Goblin eyes didn’t do that.
She engaged in a few moments of recreational xenophobia, which didn’t help at all but did pass the time.
Someone came toward them with a torch. Nessilka was hoping for food, but it was Captain Finchbones again.
He did not crouch down this time, but said without preamble, “The human girl says that you and a wizard killed everyone in the village.”
Nessilka shook her head. “No,” she said.
Finchbones narrowed his eyes. “Where is this wizard?”
“Not us. Girl is wizard.”
What’s the point? They’re not going to believe a couple of goblins. If Murray’s right, it doesn’t even matter if they do or not.
“Ask the old man,” said Murray suddenly.
It took Nessilka a minute to remember what he was talking about—it had been that long a day—and then she sat up. “Yes! Old man! Old
man alive, in house. Old man saw us. Gave him water.”
And he may decide we’re responsible. Or he may be dead. But I suppose it’s better than nothing. At least he can testify we didn’t kill him when we had the chance.
Murray nodded. “We told the wizard girl he was alive. She didn’t like that.”
Finchbones shook his head slowly. “It’s very likely you are lying,” he said, “but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why you’d lie about this. It’s easily checked, anyway.”
He turned to the elf with the torch and issued a few short commands in Elvish. The man nodded and hurried away.
This left them in relative darkness. The elven captain’s eyes dilated in the same fashion as the guard’s. Nessilka hadn’t noticed that effect with Sings-to-Trees, but she supposed she hadn’t been paying attention.
What was Sings thinking, now that they hadn’t shown up? Would Algol wait until Thumper had healed, then take the group of them to Goblinhome? They’d practically walk by the elven camp if they did…
“I will get to the bottom of this,” said Finchbones. “I don’t believe you were alone out here, and I think goblins turning up in a dead village is too much of a coincidence. But there are a great many things that don’t add up, either.”
Like how three goblins caused herds of farm animals to trample themselves to death, say?
No, I suppose they’ll blame that on the hypothetical wizard we’re apparently working for. Sigh.
“We are rangers,” said Finchbones. “We can track a squirrel through a thousand-mile forest. We will find out where you came from, and what has happened here.”
Nessilka met his eyes squarely. “Good. Then will understand. Then will grant fairness as prisoners of war.”
If you can grandstand, son, so can I… She only wished she had the words to do it well.
His eyes did not look tired any longer. He nodded once, turned on his heel and left.
“Think he’ll ask her about it?” asked Murray.
“If he does,” said Nessilka, “I imagine we’ll know in a few minutes.”
Nessilka’s estimate was off by almost an hour. Possibly Finchbones had been subtle with his questioning, or maybe he’d sent someone to go find the old human. Nessilka rather hoped that the old man had pulled through.
Somebody ought to, and our odds don’t look good.
And then, just as the moon came up and sat on top of the hedgerow, the voice began again.
Oh hell… thought Nessilka.
Their guard’s head jerked up, and without a glance at them, he began to walk toward the command tent.
This is our chance! We can escape! We can get away! We…Yeah, no, I’m crawling toward the tent, aren’t I? Lovely.
The really obnoxious thing about this magic was how knowing what was happening to her didn’t change anything. She knew perfectly well that there wasn’t a conversation (oh but it was so close) that she’d never understand it (unless she got just a little bit closer, close enough to make out the words) that even if she did understand it (just a little closer) that it was coming from the throat of a deranged killer who’d destroyed an entire village, apparently as bait for a group of elves.
I wonder if they heard what she was actually saying before they died.
She tried to stand up, but the elves had hobbled her feet with such a short length of rope that crawling covered the ground more quickly. Murray shuffled along next to her.
“Sarge?” asked Blanchett, slow and puzzled, and Nessilka sank her teeth into her lower lip because she knew how hard it was for him to talk without the bear thinking for him but he was making it harder to hear the words and she could swear she almost got a full sentence that time, just about—
She put her arm in a gopher hole and went into it up to the shoulder. Murray crawled past her as she struggled to extricate herself. Then Blanchett went past with a very odd look on his face, except that he was going the wrong way—not toward the command tent at all, but veering off toward one of the other tents.
Nessilka managed to think: He’ll never get near the voice that way! Where is he going—oh, good thinking, Blanchett, good job—and then she found herself shushing her own thoughts, trying to listen to the voice that was almost there, just a little closer, just up to the back of the command tent now…
There were elves pushing up against the walls of the tent. One lifted his sword to cut through the fabric, and then the voice changed—Nessilka stifled a scream—and now it was the same as it had been in the church, now it was painful, now the conversation was a buzz that was going to pry the tiny bones of her ears loose and throw them like jacks inside the chamber of her skull…
Murray, a few yards ahead, sank down to his belly and tried to shield his ears as best he could with his arms tied together at the wrist.
I wonder if this is how those people died…
A mountain of flesh passed in front of her vision.
Something picked her up, one-handed, and tucked her against what felt like a wall of warty skin. Nessilka’s head was hurting terribly badly and if she could just hear what the voice was saying, the pain would stop, that must be what it was talking about, how to stop the headache, but still—what? Is something carrying me? How?
The creature reached down and grabbed Murray, too, and then began moving toward the tent. Nessilka approved of this, because it was getting her closer to the voice and it was moving much faster than she could.
Her captor came around the side of the tent, and Nessilka saw the girl.
She was standing a few feet from the front of the tent, and there was a ring of elves around her, all of them on their knees or curled on their sides, holding their heads. Finchbones had a crossbow and was struggling to raise it, but his hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t even get it off the ground.
There was another creature there as well, like the one carrying Nessilka. It was holding a struggling Sings-to-Trees around the waist, and in its other arm—
She wasn’t going to forget that human’s face in a hurry. For one thing, he was still wearing her cloak.
The girl saw the wizard and snapped her mouth closed. “John!” she cried, dashing toward him.
Nessilka’s brain felt like a crumpled ball of paper suddenly smoothed flat. The elves gave a collective moan of relief. Finchbones lifted the crossbow and fumbled with the bolt.
The large creature set the wizard down hurriedly. Sings-to-Trees, hanging limply in the monster’s other arm, babbled something to it in Elvish.
The girl threw her arms around the wizard—John’s—neck and said, somewhat muffled, “I knew it would work. I knew they’d have to bring you back if there was nobody else to take care of me.”
Nessilka twisted her head and looked up at the creature holding her. Had it been immune to the noise?
It looked back down at her. It had a wide, froggy mouth and enormous eyes. It looked like a toad crossed with a bull crossed with a small hillside.
“Graw,” it said cheerfully.
“They’re trolls, Sarge,” said Murray. “Sings-to-Trees talked about them. I think they’re friends of his.”
“Graw!”
“Where’s Blanchett?” whispered Nessilka. “I don’t want an elf shooting him if he’s wandering off!”
“Haven’t seen him, Sarge. Maybe he’s on the other side of the tent?”
Finchbones managed to get the crossbow loaded and raised it up. “Sir,” he said with a heavy accent, “must move back from her. Now.”
Nessilka felt a distinct stab of pleasure that the elven captain spoke this dialect rather worse than she did. Now who sounds unintelligent? Ha!
Wizard and girl both ignored him. The wizard said, “Lisabet…what have you done?”
“Nothing!” said the girl. “Well, I shouldn’t have had to do anything! They shouldn’t have taken you away!”
Finchbones tried again. “Sir. Move back. Now.”
John not only didn’t move back, he held Lisabet more
tightly. Any crossbow bold would go through both of them, and Nessilka was pretty sure the wizard knew it. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “Did she do something bad?”
Finchbones looked tired and grim. “Killed. Killed…village, entire. Many killed. Move back.”
“Lisabet!” The young wizard looked down at her.
“They wouldn’t bring you back! I told them I’d do it if they didn’t bring you back, and they didn’t listen!”
Sings-to-Trees put his hands over his face, looking grey.
“I had to go away, Lisabet! It’s—It’s so much better. They explain things and nobody’s scared of me. You shouldn’t have done this.”
Finchbones said something to one of the other elves. The elf said, “The captain is warning you. You must step away from the girl. She is extremely dangerous and we cannot guarantee your safety.”
Lisabet glared up at her brother. “So you’re glad you went away?”
The boy was a poor liar, Nessilka thought. She was another species, and even she could see the answer on his face.
“Fine!” yelled the girl. “Fine, if that’s how it is! I’m sorry I ever wanted you to come back!”
The girl pulled back. Finchbones jerked the crossbow up.
She opened her mouth and made the noise again.
Nessilka had to give it to Captain Finchbones. His hands were shaking badly and the shot went wild, but it went past her left shoulder with only inches to spare. And he did all this while everyone else was slamming their hands over their ears. The only reason that Nessilka didn’t cover her own ears as well was because her arms were firmly pinned to the troll’s side.
The trolls didn’t seem bothered by the noise. They were looking at the humans with baffled expressions. “Graw?” said one uncertainly.
Sings whimpered, and the troll holding him picked him up and cuddled him, saying worriedly “Grah! Grah-grah-aaah?”
We have got to stop doing this, thought Nessilka wearily, we know there’s no conversation, we know there’s nothing to understand, my head is going to come apart if I hear much more of this…
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