Arthur Daigle's Blog - Posts Tagged "will-bradshaw"
William Bradshaw and For a Song
Here is the first chapter of my new novel, William Bradshaw and For a Song. It is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats.
Chapter 1
“I want to be clear, you’re not giving me a mohawk, shaving me bald, trimming words into my hair or doing anything else stupid I’d be stuck with until my hair grows out,” Will said as he sat on a large flat rock. His hair was getting long, and he needed it trimmed before his goblins started making rude jokes. That meant risking a trip to the barber. Most barbershops weren’t located in caves, but then very few barbers were goblins.
“Sir, you insult my creative talents with these meager requests,” the goblin barber said. He was half Will’s height and had a long, drawn out mouth like the muzzle of a dog, large hands, messy hair and raggedy red clothes. The goblin combed Will’s hair while waving sharp scissors around, nearly hitting Will’s right ear. “A little off the sides? Where is the art in that? The excitement? The daring? You need, nay, must have a haircut worthy of a king, and that means dreadlocks.”
“No!” Will took a wedge of cheese out of his coat pocket and held it up. A small goblin leapt screaming out of the darkness in a mad bid to seize the cheese, but Will lifted it higher and the poor goblin landed face first on the cave floor. “You see this cheese? You’re getting it only if you do exactly what I say. Cut one hair more and I’ll cram it into the mouth of the first goblin I meet.”
The barber rolled his eyes and went to work on Will’s hair. “I don’t know why I bother. I went into hair care for the thrills, and all I get are outrageously boring requests.”
“Why are you living this far north in the kingdom?” Will asked. Locks of brown hair fell onto his black pants, green shirt and black vest. “You can’t get many customers here.”
“It was regrettably necessary,” his barber said. “I was living in the south when I came across some human merchants resting for the night. They’d fallen asleep and clearly needed help. Tilt your head down.”
“What did you do to these people? Watch my ears.”
“You’ve got two of them,” the goblin scolded. “It was obvious they hadn’t been to a barber in ages, and being a generous soul I decided to offer my services for free.”
Will covered his face with his gloved hands. The gloves were black with green fingers, and currently a bit wet. “Let me guess, they didn’t appreciate experimental hair care.”
The goblin barber stopped working and looked off to one side. “My first hour’s work was quite conservative, but then I saw how bushy their eyebrows were. Something had to be done. I thought it was quite tasteful. You wouldn’t believe the response when they woke up! I was surprised how long they chased me, but they’ll wander off eventually. There we go, dull as dry toast, but done to your specifications.”
Will sat up from the rock and studied his reflection in a pool in the cave. He was a young man with gray eyes and brown hair, in good health despite many attempts on his life. He brushed cut hair off his black shoes and the bronze fire scepter hanging off his belt.
“Thank you,” he told the barber. He handed over the promised payment, avoiding another goblin’s desperate attempt to steal the cheese. The barber wolfed it down and welcomed in a goblin client with hair reaching down to his heels.
“Surprise me,” the hairy goblin said, and the barber shrieked in delight.
Will left the cool cave and went into the snowy landscape outside. There were young trees bare of leaves, dirt trails, small hovels built by goblins and an abandoned tollbooth left long ago by dwarf miners. Ten inches of snow covered the land and hid its worst flaws.
This land of ruin was the Kingdom of the Goblins, and Will ruled it as King. He didn’t want the job and had been tricked by lawyers into leaving Earth and coming here. The kingdom was once a dwarf strip mining operation. Nearly a century ago the dwarfs had run out of ore and left for greener pastures, leaving the land a disaster of epic proportions. Few could live here, but goblins thrived in places others ignored.
Outside the cave he found Domo waiting patiently for him. Domo was a leader among goblins, a thankless task given how few goblins felt like being led. Domo had gray skin, ratty black hair and wore yellow robes. He carried a red walking stick made from an enemy flagpole, but owned nothing more.
“Ah, Will, looking sort of respectable again,” Domo said. “I’d ask who you’re trying to impress in this dump, but I suppose there’s a chance your girlfriend might visit. How’s everyone’s favorite fairy godmother?”
Will went through his pockets and took out her latest letter. “Helping children in need and as happy as could be.”
“That’s lovely, but it begs a question. Getting your hair hacked down to an acceptable level makes sense if she’s planning on visiting, but there are barbers in the human villages south of your slovenly domain. You could have gone to one of them instead of coming within spitting distance of the wastelands.” Domo tapped his walking stick on the ground and asked, “You mind telling me what that’s about?”
“I had to be here anyway.” Will looked to the north where goblins dug their way through the snow toward him. “You see, Vial got this idea.”
“That statement pretty much ensures a bad ending.” Domo wasn’t being rude. Vial the goblin alchemist was responsible for endless property damage across the kingdom. There were times his skills were badly needed, and Will was glad to have him, but you could count on Vial ruining rare peaceful moments with explosions. The little guy couldn’t help himself.
Will swung his fire scepter like a golf club. “Vial said we keep getting in world ending kinds of trouble. Generally, that means he has to make one of his large bombs.”
“That’s fair,” Domo conceded.
“Problem is it takes him a while to make them. That leaves us in danger until he’d done. He figured why not preempt the crisis, make a large bomb right now and stash it away until we need it.”
“Stash a bomb?” Domo sputtered. “His bombs blow up everything in a hundred feet when they go off, and they aren’t too picky about when they go kaboom!”
Will bent down so he could look Domo in the eye. “That’s what one of them can do. He didn’t stop at one.”
“What?”
“In my defense, I sat him down and talked to him the second I found out what he was doing and convinced him storing highly unstable explosives wasn’t a safe idea. He didn’t seem too bothered by the fact they could go off and kill him, and us.”
Domo grabbed Will by the shoulders. “How many bombs did he make?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The room was full when I saw it.”
“So if one went off, it would take the others with it,” Domo said.
“And probably what’s left of the Goblin City. I suggested he test them in the wastelands. I figured he couldn’t hurt anything since there’s nothing here.”
“Aren’t the wastelands healing?” Domo asked. One of Will’s earlier victories was against the Staff of Skulls, a horrifying magic weapon sworn to conquer or destroy Other Place. They’d destroyed it with the Bottle of Hope, and after the battle the bottle went on to cleanse a portion of the wastelands until it became a beautiful forest.
“The forest is spreading, but not fast. It may take years for the wastelands to heal. Until then it’s a safe place for Vial to experiment with.”
Vial and his lab rat goblins finally reached them through the deep snow. Vial looked like a twisted version of a university professor, with his lab coat, glasses, black pants and doctor’s bag filled with explosives. He had short red fur and a wide smile. That smile was proof something was going to blow up.
“Ah, My Liege, a pleasure to have you present for this monumental occasion.” Vial waved to his fellow lab rats in their white lab coats and patted one of them on the back. “This is an exciting day, and my fellow practitioners of alchemy have outdone themselves! It amazes me the thought of using all my bombs at once occurred to you before me, but I suppose that’s why you’re King.”
“I’m glad we could do this,” Will said. Specifically, he was glad they could do it away from the few parts of the kingdom that weren’t a total wreck. There weren’t many of those and he was keen on preserving them, along with his sanity.
Domo studied the flat, worthless, rocky land where Vial had come from. Dwarf smelters had produced this tragedy by dumping slag on the ground, covering countless acres with stone. “How does this work?”
Vial pressed his fingertips together and smiled. “It’s quite simple. We placed explosives across the landscape far enough apart that one bomb detonating would not set off others. Normally I’d dig the bombs in, but the depth of rock we’d have to excavate made this difficult, so the bombs were placed on the surface.”
“You could have asked digger goblins to make the holes,” Will suggested.
“I tried, but the ones I asked wet themselves when I explained the job.” Vial looked puzzled when he added, “Thirty or forty holes shouldn’t have taken them long.”
“You don’t know how many bombs you made?” Domo asked him.
“Why would that matter? Returning to the original question, once we placed the bombs we set their timers, allowing a generous amount of time to leave the blast radius. The bombs are staggered to detonate in sequence so we can better determine which designs work best.”
BOOM!
The ground shook, and a cloud of smoke rose in the distance. All eyes turned to see debris rain down around a newly formed crater.
Vial was positively beaming with joy. “That was beautiful! Far more energetic than I’d anticipated, and with a lovely—”
BOOM! BOOM!
Vial frowned and checked a notebook in his lab coat. “Those were supposed to be separate explosions. The timers must be a tad off.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Explosions went off fast, shaking the ground so hard that Will had trouble keeping his footing. Huge chunks of rock flew like cannonballs and shattered on landing. Great cracks opened up in the ground, the ragged breaks growing until they joined together.
“Hmm.” Vial shrugged and turned to Will. “It’s not going quite to plan, but we should be safe.”
“Should be?” Domo demanded.
“Alchemy isn’t an exact science, and we ignore the few rules there are. The only way you learn is by ignoring instructions with skulls printed next to them.”
Will edged back. “How far should we run?”
Vial clapped a hand over his heart. “You wound me! Why, the very thought that I’d put your life at risk is—”
CRACKA-BOOM!
Four bombs went off as one with devastating results. Already impressive crevasses widened until a grown man would have trouble jumping over them. A section of ground hundreds of feet wide trembled wildly, broke apart and sank into the earth. The giant crater grew wider as the edges snapped off and slid into the hole.
BOOM! Another explosion went off far away with similar results. Stony ground shattered under the force of the blast and sank from sight. One large slab of rock tilted up at a steep angle before gravity pulled it down and it disappeared below ground. More blasts cracked open the earth until the whole landscape convulsed and began a slow, noisy and violent descent.
“In theory, mining tunnels and chambers under the wastelands could collapse if enough force is applied,” Vial said. A crack formed near his right foot and extended well beyond the goblins. Vial studied the crack with rapt attention. “Fascinating.”
Will grabbed Vial and ran, shouting, “Last one out doesn’t get out!”
Will led the goblins in a screaming escape. Cracks in the ground grew so fast they seemed to chase them. More explosions followed. Will hazarded a look behind him and saw vast sections of land sinking as if some horrible monster was dragging them down. Two bombs were swallowed by the abyssal hole and detonated inside it, throwing up clouds of dust and small rocks.
They kept running until they left the wastelands entirely. Will set Vial down and bent over as he gasped for breath. The other goblins caught up with him and dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Will recovered enough to say, “I didn’t need that.”
“None of us did,” Domo told him. “Vial, you Grade A nutcase, you nearly got us killed!”
“How would that be different than normal?” Domo was going to club Vial, but the alchemist added, “In recent years we have been invaded by men and animated skeletons, fought immortal madmen, defeated the richest man alive, and did battle with both a walking city and an army of elves. Hardly a month goes by where we don’t face life ending threats.”
“Those weren’t our fault,” Will said. He frowned and added, “Not entirely our fault.”
“Need I remind you how many disasters we faced last year that were entirely our making?” Vial asked. “The goblin music festival drew international condemnation. The dirty limerick competition nearly started a war. Our adopt a highway program ended with four highways destroyed and two more traumatized.”
Not finished, Vial said, “The Kingdom of the Goblins is known for disasters of epic proportions. We would suffer more invasions except potential attackers worry they’d be caught in our latest catastrophe. Do we really expect matters to improve in the future?”
“No,” Will said. “I guess that’s the way it is.”
Vial wasn’t wrong. Will had led his goblins to victory many times since becoming King. They’d faced an invasion by Kervol Ket and his human army. The Staff of Skulls had been a terrifying threat they’d stopped only with help. They’d ended the Eternal Army’s march of destruction, again with help, and after that survived attacks by the billionaire Quentin Peck. Sarcamusaad the Walking City had been even worse.
They’d won every time, an impressive track record, but the strain was incredible. At best Will could count on a few weeks of peace before some minor peril rose up, and big threats were only months apart. It was a daunting situation, but he refused to let it break him.
“We’ve beat enemies who should have crushed us like bugs,” Will told the goblins. “We’ve fought the strongest, biggest, most dangerous threats this world has to offer, and we’re still standing. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it, we’ll beat it, we’ll move on to the next one. We’ll survive, because surviving is what goblins do, and I’ll be there with you because I’m your King.”
“That speech was very nearly inspirational,” Vial told Will. “Have you been practicing?”
“Every day and twice on Sundays.” Will looked out over the wastelands, which was actually worse after Vial’s bombs. Before it had been like a parking lot, flat and barren, but now part of the wastelands resembled the cratered surface of the moon. It was a reminder of what failure looked like if he wasn’t careful. “I’m heading back to what’s left of the Goblin City.”
“We need time to analyze the results of this test,” Vial said.
Domo waddled over to Will and held out a hand. “That doesn’t include me. Take me with.”
Will took Domo’s hand and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the Goblin City and the many goblin scarecrows in and around it. This morning there had been a scarecrow by the gatehouse, and barring a disaster (ha!) it would still be there. Will swept his cape over Domo and himself, vanishing into it and leaving his now empty uniform behind.
Whoosh. Will reappeared where he’d planned, wearing the uniform that had been hanging on the scarecrow. His ability to tap into the space warping magic of the goblins was improving, and he could trade places with goblin scarecrows anywhere on Other Place by falling backwards into his cape or sweeping it over himself. As in this case, he could bring friends with him on his journey. He could also use his cape as a shield and let attacks vanish into it to reappear at a scarecrow.
“That was an interesting escape from certain death,” Domo said. He looked around and frowned. “Looks like we’re back in time for another.”
The Goblin City was a place of constant activity, not unexpected when it housed thousands of goblins, but today goblins raced about in a panic. Some carried hammers, saws, nails and crowbars. Others had ropes and some dragged heavy chains. Goblins were so small and weak that they stood no chance in a fair fight, so when danger reared its ugly head they gathered together for protection. These goblins were in groups no smaller than forty, and some over a hundred.
Will approached the nearest group. “Guys, what’s up?”
The group had been running for the city and skidded to a halt. One goblin blinked and asked, “Who, us?”
“Yes, you. What’s happening?”
“Nothing. Yes sir, it’s a fine day. I’ve never seen a day this fine.”
Will saw two goblin mobs run into one another and merge into a single larger group that headed south. “Really, because you guys seem scared.”
“Us?” a second goblin asked. “Why I never! You’re stereotyping us. This has been the most peaceful day in the history of the kingdom.”
Will marched up to the goblins, who flinched as he approached. “Most peaceful day in the kingdom? There hasn’t been a peaceful day here since I became King. Not a one.”
“He’s got us there,” the first goblin said.
Mr. Niff ran by screaming, “Don’t panic! Do not panic! Just get tar and cement, and we’ll be all right!”
“Niff,” Will called.
Mr. Niff ran in circles around a tree stump. “Remain calm!”
“Over here, now,” Will ordered. Mr. Niff snapped out of whatever had seized hold of him and walked over to Will. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Mr. Niff asked as he tried to keep from hyperventilating. Mr. Niff had blue skin and wore black clothes. Niff was the bravest goblin in the kingdom, always ready to run to the rescue and never smart enough to know whether it was a good idea to do so. He was a competent fighter and armed with a magic dagger he’d stolen from an elf warrior. This made his current state of panic unusual. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s a perfectly peaceful day in the kingdom, with singing birdies, happy wombats and—”
“We already tried that,” a goblin told him.
“Oh.” Mr. Niff stared at his feet. “Would you believe we’re throwing you a surprise party?”
“A party involving tar and cement would certainly qualify as a surprise,” Will replied. He walked up to Mr. Niff and kneeled so they were eye to eye. “Niff, you know I like you, and I forgive a lot, more than I should. Keeping that in mind, I’d like you to tell me what’s got you and the other goblins worked up.”
Mr. Niff looked miserable. “After you left to get rid of Vial’s bombs, we kind of had visitors.”
“And what did these kind of visitors want?”
“Your head or a vital organ. Possibly both.”
Just then a voice called out in the distance, “Hurry up! We can’t hold them much longer!”
That was London, one of Will’s troll bodyguards. London and Brooklyn were troll youngsters, bigger, tougher and massively more aggressive than Will. They enjoyed fights, the bigger the better. If London was worried there was a serious threat.
Will followed the sound of London’s voice to a clearing outside the Goblin City, and found London and Brooklyn struggling to seal three large oak barrels. Someone or something inside those barrels was trying to break out, and it took all the trolls’ impressive strength to hold them in. They’d pound down the lid on one barrel, only for a second to come loose. Goblins brought ropes to tie the barrels shut, but the ropes kept snapping.
“Boys,” Will began as he walked over. Mr. Niff and Domo followed with hundreds more goblins behind them. London and Brooklyn looked shocked by his arrival. The brothers had fine green scaly skin, with London a shade darker, and wore cotton trousers. Both had serious underbites and fish fin ears, and muscles that would put a professional bodybuilder to shame.
“Boss, you’re back early,” London said.
A barrel nearly opened, and Brooklyn slammed it shut. “That’s not a good thing.”
“Who or what is in those barrels?” Will asked.
“We got invaded by lawyers while you were gone,” London replied.
That was bad. Lawyers were as dangerous as wizards and far more cunning. All the races of Other Place avoided lawyers, even goblins. Legal contracts could force men to obey them, and even rewrite the laws of nature for short times. Lawyers were responsible for abducting Will from Earth, marooning him on Other Place, and he had no desire to get close to one.
“Three of them, girl lawyers,” Brooklyn added.
“They were going to do nasty things to you. One threatened to open a branch office in the kingdom. You got to stop that sort of thing before it starts. Lawyer infestations are harder to get rid of than pixies.”
“You jammed old ladies into barrels?” Will demanded. “I don’t care if they are lawyers, you don’t do that!”
“Young lady lawyers,” London corrected him. “Feisty ones.”
“Give us a couple hours to seal the barrels and dump them in the river,” Brooklyn said. “By the time they get out they’ll be in the ocean and the only ones they can kill are sharks, who stand a fighting chance.”
“I appreciate you trying to protect me, but this isn’t how to fix the problem,” Will said. He headed for the barrels as his friends edged back. “We’re going to try and settle this peacefully, an opportunity that’s probably long gone, but we’ll try. I’ll let these women go and give them a chance to explain what they want. Don’t attack them or do anything stupid unless I tell you to.”
Mr. Niff turned to Domo. “He tells us to do stupid things?”
Domo waved his walking stick. “All the time.”
A barrel shook until it tipped over, and Will heard a muffled voice scream, “When I get out of here, you’re in for such a suing!”
Will hesitated. He took a deep breath and reached for the barrel. “Do the right thing, even if it’s hard.”
With that Will pried off the top of the barrel, and an enraged woman came out like a shot. He opened the other two barrels and tried to help the ladies out, but they ignored his assistance and clustered together.
The ladies were roughly Will’s age, wearing gray jackets, black skirts, high heel shoes and carrying briefcases. Their clothes were wrinkled and a bit dirty from being forced into the barrels, and they looked furious. They were also cute, which surprised Will. His experience with the legal profession always resulted in pain and indignity rather than an opportunity to ask someone on a date.
“You treacherous, backstabbing, louse ridden, stinking, illegitimate son of a road kill squirrel!” a lawyer yelled at Will. This one had blond hair cut very short.
“That’s a bad start to the conversation,” he replied. “Hi there, William Bradshaw, reluctant King of the Goblins. I had nothing to do with what just happened to you, and I’m very sorry.”
She marched up to Will and held a finger under his nose. “You’re sorry? We are way past the point where sorry would make things better! I am an official representative of the Ann Sheal Ruin law firm, and buster, Fine Ann doesn’t take this kind of garbage from anyone.” The woman took out a business card and held it in front of her like a knife. There was an awkward pause before she said, “You’re supposed to take that.”
“I’d really rather not, Ann.”
The lawyer rolled her eyes. “Ann is the name of our firm’s founder, a woman with an incredible force of personality who started the only all women law firm. I’m Cybil, you jerk.”
Will clapped his hands together. “Well, Cybil, I’m glad we cleared that up. Now I understand you wanted blood before you were stuffed in those barrels. Would you mind telling me why?”
Cybil sneered and pointed to one of her fellow lawyers. “Tell him, Patty.”
Patty was the youngest of the three and had brown hair worn in pigtails. She jumped when Cybil called on her and said, “Eep!”
The third lawyer snatched Patty’s briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. The woman held it up for Will to see, but pulled it back before he could read it. “This, you creep, is a lawsuit. The Coral Ring Merchant House had contracted to buy a load of salt from Quentin Peck. The salt was loaded and ready to go in the city of Nolod when you, yes you, sank the ship carrying it!”
“That’s right, Meg,” Cybil said. “The salt dissolved before it could be salvaged. The Coral Ring lost a major contract because of you. The cost came out to eight hundred guilders, and the damage you did to their reputation makes it harder for them to get business. We’re suing you for ten thousand guilders plus legal fees, and those are going to be high!”
Will showed no great concern at the threat of being sued. “Peck was trying to kill me. I was fighting back and had my goblins sink one of his ships. I’m sorry your client was hurt by our fight, but I can’t pay that much.”
“Yes, you can,” Cybil said menacingly. “You think you’re in the clear because you’re a king? Kings aren’t above the law. We can seize your assets, garnish your wages and shave your dog.”
“I haven’t got a dog,” Will told them.
Cybil snapped her fingers. “Patty, get him a dog so we can shave it.”
“Eep!” Patty’s pigtails flew up when she jumped like that.
Cybil marched up to Will and held out the lawsuit. “The mighty can fall, king or not. You have been served.”
“I know it’s supposed to work like that, but in my case it doesn’t,” Will said. “Seriously, you don’t want to—”
Too late. Cybil cried out in surprise as the lawsuit burst into flames in her hand. She barely managed to drop it before the fire scorched her fingers. The three lawyers looked amazed, as did the goblins and trolls.
“I tried to tell you.” Will took out his king contract tucked in his belt and unrolled the lengthy and confusing document. “Lawyers with Cickam, Wender and Downe drew this up when they tricked me into being King of the Goblins. It keeps me on this world and in this kingdom unless my life is in peril. If I can direct your attention to this part here?”
The lady lawyers gathered around the king contract. Meg pointed at it and said, “Article 140, subsection 11, paragraph 2, line 51: The King of the Goblins can’t escape by losing the kingdom in a game of chance, including poker, blackjack, backgammon, go fish, Monopoly or Clue.”
“No, this part over here.” Will read the contract aloud to them. “Article 140, subsection 12, paragraph 7, line 11: Any suit filed against the King of the Goblins is automatically sent to the nearest branch office of Cickam, Wender and Downe. Bring it on.”
He rolled up the contract and explained, “I’m sympathetic, really, but if you sue me it goes to the lawyers who got me in this mess. They win every time. Trust me, I know. I think if we sit down and talk this over, we can come up with a solution that helps your client.”
Meg stared at him like he was speaking Latin. “Are you being reasonable?”
“I’m trying to. It usually doesn’t work, but I figure one of these days it might.”
Cybil was having none of it. “You think you’re getting away that easy? Patty, let him have it!”
“Eep!” That seemed to be the extent of Patty’s vocabulary. She kept staring at Will.
Cybil took a rolled up parchment from Patty’s briefcase. Will wasn’t sure what good that would do after her last lawsuit combusted, but nothing could prepare him for what happened next. The parchment rustled and coiled around Cybil’s arm before reaching out like a snake or octopus tentacle. Goblins shivered at the sight. Even the trolls looked queasy.
“This is a living contract,” Cybil explained, her tone smug. “We stole the idea from your lawyers.”
“Hey, they aren’t my lawyers!” Will shouted.
“Whatever.” The contract continued reaching for Will as Cybil spoke. “Living contracts are sentient legal documents that can track their victims across kingdoms, never slowing, never stopping, immune to bribery and totally ignoring pleas for mercy. It’s going to make your life a waking nightmare.”
“That train already left the station,” Will said. He watched the contract move closer inch by inch, and he was honestly considering running for his life when a disturbing thought occurred to him. “If you stole the idea from Cickam, Wender and Downe, that means they already have living contracts. And if they want to keep me on the job—”
Snap! Will’s king contract unrolled so fast it sounded like someone swung a bullwhip. It shot through the air and wrapped around the enemy contract like a constrictor snake. The contracts fell to the ground and thrashed about so violently they knocked two oak barrels aside. Trolls, goblins and lawyers alike stared in shock at the bizarre battle.
“Okay, this is weird even by my standards,” Will admitted.
The contracts lashed out at each other. The fight wasn’t entirely physical as clauses and subclauses lit up as they were invoked. Violent as the battle was, Will’s contract was larger and far more aggressive. The smaller contract tried to slither away, but the king contract grabbed a rock and bashed it again and again until its whimpering enemy gave up and inched its way back to Cybil. Victorious, Will’s king contract slithered back to him and rolled up so one particular section was facing him.
Will retrieved the contract, reluctantly, and read aloud the part it seemed to want to show him. “Article 150, subsection 1, paragraph 1, line 1: This contract is now fully sentient and self aware. It has a total mastery of the law, is homicidally aggressive and has a borderline personality disorder. Well, that’s disturbing.”
“This, this isn’t over!” Cybil shouted. “You haven’t heard the last of us!”
“Obviously not since you’re still talking,” Will said. Cybil fumed and marched off with Meg following her. Patty kept staring at Will, not moving, not speaking. Hoping she was the reasonable one of the group, he walked up to her and smiled.
“I’m sorry the Coral Ring got hurt because of my fight with Peck, and I want to help. Give me time to think on this and we’ll get back together to work out a deal where they get compensation, just not ten thousand guilders. Okay?”
Patty nodded, still not saying anything as Will left. Once he was gone, she asked Domo, “Is he seeing anyone?”
“Yes, and she’s vindictive.”
Patty took a business card from her briefcase and handed it to Domo. “Let me know if they break up.”
Will headed back to what little was left of the Goblin City, but he stopped when he saw something high in the sky. It was a clear, cold day, and he could see for miles. At this distance he couldn’t tell what it was, but it was big.
Domo waddled up to him and saw what had his attention. The goblin squinted and said, “Huh.”
“Is that a good huh or a bad huh?” Will asked.
“It’s a huh,” Domo replied. “Huh rules out good or bad and just signify weird. That’s a harpy, which is weird because there’s not enough wild game to support a flock after the mess the dwarfs made.”
“So what’s she doing here?”
* * * * *
Gretchen the harpy slouched low on the thick, dead branch she was perched on. There weren’t many perches to begin with and fewer now that the flock was getting ready to move. It was hard work to fly so much lumber to their mountaintop roost. With only days to go before they left for fresh foraging grounds, the flock was breaking up the thick branches for firewood. Economical as that was, it meant there were progressively fewer perches as time went by, and harpy’s clawed feet had trouble standing on flat ground. It made the whole flock irritable.
Territory so far north was poor, with few animals or plants even in summer. The flock had stayed a month longer than intended, completely gutting the mountains and hills of edible plants and game large enough to merit catching. They had to migrate to the next part of their large (and largely worthless) territory.
“Good morning, Gretchen,” Tiffy said happily. Tiffy was Gretchen’s cousin, and annoyingly cheerful.
“Nothing’s good about it,” Gretchen snapped.
Harpies as a rule were foul tempered, and Gretchen was worse than most. Her face, chest, upper arms and upper legs were similar to a human woman, although more muscular and leaner. The resemblance ended there. Black feathered wings sprouted from her back. Her teeth were sharper than a human’s and could chew through leather. Her legs below the knees and arms below the elbows were scaled and ended in talons like a bird of prey. Her dirty dress was made from badly tanned animal skins.
“Let me top you off,” Tiffy said as she refilled Gretchen’s cup of coffee. “Nothing’s worse than cold coffee.”
“Lots of things are worse, and you know it. Just go away.”
Gretchen sipped coffee from her battered tin cup. Harpies couldn’t afford to have many possessions when every extra ounce made flying harder, but the flock had to have their morning cup. She owned her cup, a steel dagger that needed to be sharpened, an equally dull hatchet, and a leather bag loaded with food for the journey.
The rest of the flock kept their distance from Gretchen. Most of them were in equally foul moods since migrations were risky. Many of them had fledglings to carry, making it that much harder. But one day their fledglings would fly. Hers never would…her poor, crippled daughter.
“Sister.” It was Maggie, leader of the flock and Gretchen’s older sister. Maggie’s hair was going gray, and she was the most experienced harpy in a thousand miles. “We must talk.”
Gretchen gazed out at the snowy land far below their roost. “I know what you’re going to say, so save your breath. I’ve always seen to my daughter’s needs, no charity required.”
“Sister, the migration begins soon. You are not strong enough to carry Celeste. She’s grown too much. The flock has discussed the matter.”
Gretchen screamed, a horrid noise that made rocks vibrate. She threw her cup of coffee across the roost as she stumbled into the center of the assembled harpies. “The flock has discussed this? The flock? I’m a member of this flock! I wasn’t part of this discussion!”
Other harpies fell silent. Most stepped back. This day had been coming for years, and Gretchen had fought it every step of the way. She screamed at them. Harpies covered their ears from the wretched noise, but they didn’t back down when she stopped.
“She’s my daughter, not yours!” Gretchen screamed. “She’s done as much as any here to feed the flock, foraging and hunting. I won’t have this!”
“You could barely carry her to this roost, and that was a year ago,” Maggie said.
Gretchen hesitated. “She can walk.”
“Three hundred miles?” Maggie asked. “In winter? Alone?”
“I’ll go with her if you won’t!”
“No.” Maggie clumsily walked up to Gretchen, a risky move. “Sister, out of love for you and Celeste I have let, yes let, you keep your daughter. Other flocks would have placed her with a foster mother once she had teeth. I pushed this day back as far as possible, but Celeste can’t stay with us any longer. It’s not fair to the flock or to her.”
Gretchen’s muscles tensed to attack. Slowly, ever so slowly, she unclenched her fists and looked down. “What would you have me do?”
Maggie picked up Gretchen’s coffee cup and handed it back. “I have made inquiries among our friends. There is a kingdom where Celeste might take refuge. The leader has taken in an exiled dwarf, a minotaur and two young trolls. UMLIS live in peace within his borders. I believe we can place Celeste with him.”
“Can he protect her as the flock would?” Gretchen demanded.
“I don’t believe that’s going to be a problem.”
Chapter 1
“I want to be clear, you’re not giving me a mohawk, shaving me bald, trimming words into my hair or doing anything else stupid I’d be stuck with until my hair grows out,” Will said as he sat on a large flat rock. His hair was getting long, and he needed it trimmed before his goblins started making rude jokes. That meant risking a trip to the barber. Most barbershops weren’t located in caves, but then very few barbers were goblins.
“Sir, you insult my creative talents with these meager requests,” the goblin barber said. He was half Will’s height and had a long, drawn out mouth like the muzzle of a dog, large hands, messy hair and raggedy red clothes. The goblin combed Will’s hair while waving sharp scissors around, nearly hitting Will’s right ear. “A little off the sides? Where is the art in that? The excitement? The daring? You need, nay, must have a haircut worthy of a king, and that means dreadlocks.”
“No!” Will took a wedge of cheese out of his coat pocket and held it up. A small goblin leapt screaming out of the darkness in a mad bid to seize the cheese, but Will lifted it higher and the poor goblin landed face first on the cave floor. “You see this cheese? You’re getting it only if you do exactly what I say. Cut one hair more and I’ll cram it into the mouth of the first goblin I meet.”
The barber rolled his eyes and went to work on Will’s hair. “I don’t know why I bother. I went into hair care for the thrills, and all I get are outrageously boring requests.”
“Why are you living this far north in the kingdom?” Will asked. Locks of brown hair fell onto his black pants, green shirt and black vest. “You can’t get many customers here.”
“It was regrettably necessary,” his barber said. “I was living in the south when I came across some human merchants resting for the night. They’d fallen asleep and clearly needed help. Tilt your head down.”
“What did you do to these people? Watch my ears.”
“You’ve got two of them,” the goblin scolded. “It was obvious they hadn’t been to a barber in ages, and being a generous soul I decided to offer my services for free.”
Will covered his face with his gloved hands. The gloves were black with green fingers, and currently a bit wet. “Let me guess, they didn’t appreciate experimental hair care.”
The goblin barber stopped working and looked off to one side. “My first hour’s work was quite conservative, but then I saw how bushy their eyebrows were. Something had to be done. I thought it was quite tasteful. You wouldn’t believe the response when they woke up! I was surprised how long they chased me, but they’ll wander off eventually. There we go, dull as dry toast, but done to your specifications.”
Will sat up from the rock and studied his reflection in a pool in the cave. He was a young man with gray eyes and brown hair, in good health despite many attempts on his life. He brushed cut hair off his black shoes and the bronze fire scepter hanging off his belt.
“Thank you,” he told the barber. He handed over the promised payment, avoiding another goblin’s desperate attempt to steal the cheese. The barber wolfed it down and welcomed in a goblin client with hair reaching down to his heels.
“Surprise me,” the hairy goblin said, and the barber shrieked in delight.
Will left the cool cave and went into the snowy landscape outside. There were young trees bare of leaves, dirt trails, small hovels built by goblins and an abandoned tollbooth left long ago by dwarf miners. Ten inches of snow covered the land and hid its worst flaws.
This land of ruin was the Kingdom of the Goblins, and Will ruled it as King. He didn’t want the job and had been tricked by lawyers into leaving Earth and coming here. The kingdom was once a dwarf strip mining operation. Nearly a century ago the dwarfs had run out of ore and left for greener pastures, leaving the land a disaster of epic proportions. Few could live here, but goblins thrived in places others ignored.
Outside the cave he found Domo waiting patiently for him. Domo was a leader among goblins, a thankless task given how few goblins felt like being led. Domo had gray skin, ratty black hair and wore yellow robes. He carried a red walking stick made from an enemy flagpole, but owned nothing more.
“Ah, Will, looking sort of respectable again,” Domo said. “I’d ask who you’re trying to impress in this dump, but I suppose there’s a chance your girlfriend might visit. How’s everyone’s favorite fairy godmother?”
Will went through his pockets and took out her latest letter. “Helping children in need and as happy as could be.”
“That’s lovely, but it begs a question. Getting your hair hacked down to an acceptable level makes sense if she’s planning on visiting, but there are barbers in the human villages south of your slovenly domain. You could have gone to one of them instead of coming within spitting distance of the wastelands.” Domo tapped his walking stick on the ground and asked, “You mind telling me what that’s about?”
“I had to be here anyway.” Will looked to the north where goblins dug their way through the snow toward him. “You see, Vial got this idea.”
“That statement pretty much ensures a bad ending.” Domo wasn’t being rude. Vial the goblin alchemist was responsible for endless property damage across the kingdom. There were times his skills were badly needed, and Will was glad to have him, but you could count on Vial ruining rare peaceful moments with explosions. The little guy couldn’t help himself.
Will swung his fire scepter like a golf club. “Vial said we keep getting in world ending kinds of trouble. Generally, that means he has to make one of his large bombs.”
“That’s fair,” Domo conceded.
“Problem is it takes him a while to make them. That leaves us in danger until he’d done. He figured why not preempt the crisis, make a large bomb right now and stash it away until we need it.”
“Stash a bomb?” Domo sputtered. “His bombs blow up everything in a hundred feet when they go off, and they aren’t too picky about when they go kaboom!”
Will bent down so he could look Domo in the eye. “That’s what one of them can do. He didn’t stop at one.”
“What?”
“In my defense, I sat him down and talked to him the second I found out what he was doing and convinced him storing highly unstable explosives wasn’t a safe idea. He didn’t seem too bothered by the fact they could go off and kill him, and us.”
Domo grabbed Will by the shoulders. “How many bombs did he make?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The room was full when I saw it.”
“So if one went off, it would take the others with it,” Domo said.
“And probably what’s left of the Goblin City. I suggested he test them in the wastelands. I figured he couldn’t hurt anything since there’s nothing here.”
“Aren’t the wastelands healing?” Domo asked. One of Will’s earlier victories was against the Staff of Skulls, a horrifying magic weapon sworn to conquer or destroy Other Place. They’d destroyed it with the Bottle of Hope, and after the battle the bottle went on to cleanse a portion of the wastelands until it became a beautiful forest.
“The forest is spreading, but not fast. It may take years for the wastelands to heal. Until then it’s a safe place for Vial to experiment with.”
Vial and his lab rat goblins finally reached them through the deep snow. Vial looked like a twisted version of a university professor, with his lab coat, glasses, black pants and doctor’s bag filled with explosives. He had short red fur and a wide smile. That smile was proof something was going to blow up.
“Ah, My Liege, a pleasure to have you present for this monumental occasion.” Vial waved to his fellow lab rats in their white lab coats and patted one of them on the back. “This is an exciting day, and my fellow practitioners of alchemy have outdone themselves! It amazes me the thought of using all my bombs at once occurred to you before me, but I suppose that’s why you’re King.”
“I’m glad we could do this,” Will said. Specifically, he was glad they could do it away from the few parts of the kingdom that weren’t a total wreck. There weren’t many of those and he was keen on preserving them, along with his sanity.
Domo studied the flat, worthless, rocky land where Vial had come from. Dwarf smelters had produced this tragedy by dumping slag on the ground, covering countless acres with stone. “How does this work?”
Vial pressed his fingertips together and smiled. “It’s quite simple. We placed explosives across the landscape far enough apart that one bomb detonating would not set off others. Normally I’d dig the bombs in, but the depth of rock we’d have to excavate made this difficult, so the bombs were placed on the surface.”
“You could have asked digger goblins to make the holes,” Will suggested.
“I tried, but the ones I asked wet themselves when I explained the job.” Vial looked puzzled when he added, “Thirty or forty holes shouldn’t have taken them long.”
“You don’t know how many bombs you made?” Domo asked him.
“Why would that matter? Returning to the original question, once we placed the bombs we set their timers, allowing a generous amount of time to leave the blast radius. The bombs are staggered to detonate in sequence so we can better determine which designs work best.”
BOOM!
The ground shook, and a cloud of smoke rose in the distance. All eyes turned to see debris rain down around a newly formed crater.
Vial was positively beaming with joy. “That was beautiful! Far more energetic than I’d anticipated, and with a lovely—”
BOOM! BOOM!
Vial frowned and checked a notebook in his lab coat. “Those were supposed to be separate explosions. The timers must be a tad off.”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Explosions went off fast, shaking the ground so hard that Will had trouble keeping his footing. Huge chunks of rock flew like cannonballs and shattered on landing. Great cracks opened up in the ground, the ragged breaks growing until they joined together.
“Hmm.” Vial shrugged and turned to Will. “It’s not going quite to plan, but we should be safe.”
“Should be?” Domo demanded.
“Alchemy isn’t an exact science, and we ignore the few rules there are. The only way you learn is by ignoring instructions with skulls printed next to them.”
Will edged back. “How far should we run?”
Vial clapped a hand over his heart. “You wound me! Why, the very thought that I’d put your life at risk is—”
CRACKA-BOOM!
Four bombs went off as one with devastating results. Already impressive crevasses widened until a grown man would have trouble jumping over them. A section of ground hundreds of feet wide trembled wildly, broke apart and sank into the earth. The giant crater grew wider as the edges snapped off and slid into the hole.
BOOM! Another explosion went off far away with similar results. Stony ground shattered under the force of the blast and sank from sight. One large slab of rock tilted up at a steep angle before gravity pulled it down and it disappeared below ground. More blasts cracked open the earth until the whole landscape convulsed and began a slow, noisy and violent descent.
“In theory, mining tunnels and chambers under the wastelands could collapse if enough force is applied,” Vial said. A crack formed near his right foot and extended well beyond the goblins. Vial studied the crack with rapt attention. “Fascinating.”
Will grabbed Vial and ran, shouting, “Last one out doesn’t get out!”
Will led the goblins in a screaming escape. Cracks in the ground grew so fast they seemed to chase them. More explosions followed. Will hazarded a look behind him and saw vast sections of land sinking as if some horrible monster was dragging them down. Two bombs were swallowed by the abyssal hole and detonated inside it, throwing up clouds of dust and small rocks.
They kept running until they left the wastelands entirely. Will set Vial down and bent over as he gasped for breath. The other goblins caught up with him and dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Will recovered enough to say, “I didn’t need that.”
“None of us did,” Domo told him. “Vial, you Grade A nutcase, you nearly got us killed!”
“How would that be different than normal?” Domo was going to club Vial, but the alchemist added, “In recent years we have been invaded by men and animated skeletons, fought immortal madmen, defeated the richest man alive, and did battle with both a walking city and an army of elves. Hardly a month goes by where we don’t face life ending threats.”
“Those weren’t our fault,” Will said. He frowned and added, “Not entirely our fault.”
“Need I remind you how many disasters we faced last year that were entirely our making?” Vial asked. “The goblin music festival drew international condemnation. The dirty limerick competition nearly started a war. Our adopt a highway program ended with four highways destroyed and two more traumatized.”
Not finished, Vial said, “The Kingdom of the Goblins is known for disasters of epic proportions. We would suffer more invasions except potential attackers worry they’d be caught in our latest catastrophe. Do we really expect matters to improve in the future?”
“No,” Will said. “I guess that’s the way it is.”
Vial wasn’t wrong. Will had led his goblins to victory many times since becoming King. They’d faced an invasion by Kervol Ket and his human army. The Staff of Skulls had been a terrifying threat they’d stopped only with help. They’d ended the Eternal Army’s march of destruction, again with help, and after that survived attacks by the billionaire Quentin Peck. Sarcamusaad the Walking City had been even worse.
They’d won every time, an impressive track record, but the strain was incredible. At best Will could count on a few weeks of peace before some minor peril rose up, and big threats were only months apart. It was a daunting situation, but he refused to let it break him.
“We’ve beat enemies who should have crushed us like bugs,” Will told the goblins. “We’ve fought the strongest, biggest, most dangerous threats this world has to offer, and we’re still standing. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it, we’ll beat it, we’ll move on to the next one. We’ll survive, because surviving is what goblins do, and I’ll be there with you because I’m your King.”
“That speech was very nearly inspirational,” Vial told Will. “Have you been practicing?”
“Every day and twice on Sundays.” Will looked out over the wastelands, which was actually worse after Vial’s bombs. Before it had been like a parking lot, flat and barren, but now part of the wastelands resembled the cratered surface of the moon. It was a reminder of what failure looked like if he wasn’t careful. “I’m heading back to what’s left of the Goblin City.”
“We need time to analyze the results of this test,” Vial said.
Domo waddled over to Will and held out a hand. “That doesn’t include me. Take me with.”
Will took Domo’s hand and closed his eyes. He concentrated on the Goblin City and the many goblin scarecrows in and around it. This morning there had been a scarecrow by the gatehouse, and barring a disaster (ha!) it would still be there. Will swept his cape over Domo and himself, vanishing into it and leaving his now empty uniform behind.
Whoosh. Will reappeared where he’d planned, wearing the uniform that had been hanging on the scarecrow. His ability to tap into the space warping magic of the goblins was improving, and he could trade places with goblin scarecrows anywhere on Other Place by falling backwards into his cape or sweeping it over himself. As in this case, he could bring friends with him on his journey. He could also use his cape as a shield and let attacks vanish into it to reappear at a scarecrow.
“That was an interesting escape from certain death,” Domo said. He looked around and frowned. “Looks like we’re back in time for another.”
The Goblin City was a place of constant activity, not unexpected when it housed thousands of goblins, but today goblins raced about in a panic. Some carried hammers, saws, nails and crowbars. Others had ropes and some dragged heavy chains. Goblins were so small and weak that they stood no chance in a fair fight, so when danger reared its ugly head they gathered together for protection. These goblins were in groups no smaller than forty, and some over a hundred.
Will approached the nearest group. “Guys, what’s up?”
The group had been running for the city and skidded to a halt. One goblin blinked and asked, “Who, us?”
“Yes, you. What’s happening?”
“Nothing. Yes sir, it’s a fine day. I’ve never seen a day this fine.”
Will saw two goblin mobs run into one another and merge into a single larger group that headed south. “Really, because you guys seem scared.”
“Us?” a second goblin asked. “Why I never! You’re stereotyping us. This has been the most peaceful day in the history of the kingdom.”
Will marched up to the goblins, who flinched as he approached. “Most peaceful day in the kingdom? There hasn’t been a peaceful day here since I became King. Not a one.”
“He’s got us there,” the first goblin said.
Mr. Niff ran by screaming, “Don’t panic! Do not panic! Just get tar and cement, and we’ll be all right!”
“Niff,” Will called.
Mr. Niff ran in circles around a tree stump. “Remain calm!”
“Over here, now,” Will ordered. Mr. Niff snapped out of whatever had seized hold of him and walked over to Will. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Mr. Niff asked as he tried to keep from hyperventilating. Mr. Niff had blue skin and wore black clothes. Niff was the bravest goblin in the kingdom, always ready to run to the rescue and never smart enough to know whether it was a good idea to do so. He was a competent fighter and armed with a magic dagger he’d stolen from an elf warrior. This made his current state of panic unusual. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s a perfectly peaceful day in the kingdom, with singing birdies, happy wombats and—”
“We already tried that,” a goblin told him.
“Oh.” Mr. Niff stared at his feet. “Would you believe we’re throwing you a surprise party?”
“A party involving tar and cement would certainly qualify as a surprise,” Will replied. He walked up to Mr. Niff and kneeled so they were eye to eye. “Niff, you know I like you, and I forgive a lot, more than I should. Keeping that in mind, I’d like you to tell me what’s got you and the other goblins worked up.”
Mr. Niff looked miserable. “After you left to get rid of Vial’s bombs, we kind of had visitors.”
“And what did these kind of visitors want?”
“Your head or a vital organ. Possibly both.”
Just then a voice called out in the distance, “Hurry up! We can’t hold them much longer!”
That was London, one of Will’s troll bodyguards. London and Brooklyn were troll youngsters, bigger, tougher and massively more aggressive than Will. They enjoyed fights, the bigger the better. If London was worried there was a serious threat.
Will followed the sound of London’s voice to a clearing outside the Goblin City, and found London and Brooklyn struggling to seal three large oak barrels. Someone or something inside those barrels was trying to break out, and it took all the trolls’ impressive strength to hold them in. They’d pound down the lid on one barrel, only for a second to come loose. Goblins brought ropes to tie the barrels shut, but the ropes kept snapping.
“Boys,” Will began as he walked over. Mr. Niff and Domo followed with hundreds more goblins behind them. London and Brooklyn looked shocked by his arrival. The brothers had fine green scaly skin, with London a shade darker, and wore cotton trousers. Both had serious underbites and fish fin ears, and muscles that would put a professional bodybuilder to shame.
“Boss, you’re back early,” London said.
A barrel nearly opened, and Brooklyn slammed it shut. “That’s not a good thing.”
“Who or what is in those barrels?” Will asked.
“We got invaded by lawyers while you were gone,” London replied.
That was bad. Lawyers were as dangerous as wizards and far more cunning. All the races of Other Place avoided lawyers, even goblins. Legal contracts could force men to obey them, and even rewrite the laws of nature for short times. Lawyers were responsible for abducting Will from Earth, marooning him on Other Place, and he had no desire to get close to one.
“Three of them, girl lawyers,” Brooklyn added.
“They were going to do nasty things to you. One threatened to open a branch office in the kingdom. You got to stop that sort of thing before it starts. Lawyer infestations are harder to get rid of than pixies.”
“You jammed old ladies into barrels?” Will demanded. “I don’t care if they are lawyers, you don’t do that!”
“Young lady lawyers,” London corrected him. “Feisty ones.”
“Give us a couple hours to seal the barrels and dump them in the river,” Brooklyn said. “By the time they get out they’ll be in the ocean and the only ones they can kill are sharks, who stand a fighting chance.”
“I appreciate you trying to protect me, but this isn’t how to fix the problem,” Will said. He headed for the barrels as his friends edged back. “We’re going to try and settle this peacefully, an opportunity that’s probably long gone, but we’ll try. I’ll let these women go and give them a chance to explain what they want. Don’t attack them or do anything stupid unless I tell you to.”
Mr. Niff turned to Domo. “He tells us to do stupid things?”
Domo waved his walking stick. “All the time.”
A barrel shook until it tipped over, and Will heard a muffled voice scream, “When I get out of here, you’re in for such a suing!”
Will hesitated. He took a deep breath and reached for the barrel. “Do the right thing, even if it’s hard.”
With that Will pried off the top of the barrel, and an enraged woman came out like a shot. He opened the other two barrels and tried to help the ladies out, but they ignored his assistance and clustered together.
The ladies were roughly Will’s age, wearing gray jackets, black skirts, high heel shoes and carrying briefcases. Their clothes were wrinkled and a bit dirty from being forced into the barrels, and they looked furious. They were also cute, which surprised Will. His experience with the legal profession always resulted in pain and indignity rather than an opportunity to ask someone on a date.
“You treacherous, backstabbing, louse ridden, stinking, illegitimate son of a road kill squirrel!” a lawyer yelled at Will. This one had blond hair cut very short.
“That’s a bad start to the conversation,” he replied. “Hi there, William Bradshaw, reluctant King of the Goblins. I had nothing to do with what just happened to you, and I’m very sorry.”
She marched up to Will and held a finger under his nose. “You’re sorry? We are way past the point where sorry would make things better! I am an official representative of the Ann Sheal Ruin law firm, and buster, Fine Ann doesn’t take this kind of garbage from anyone.” The woman took out a business card and held it in front of her like a knife. There was an awkward pause before she said, “You’re supposed to take that.”
“I’d really rather not, Ann.”
The lawyer rolled her eyes. “Ann is the name of our firm’s founder, a woman with an incredible force of personality who started the only all women law firm. I’m Cybil, you jerk.”
Will clapped his hands together. “Well, Cybil, I’m glad we cleared that up. Now I understand you wanted blood before you were stuffed in those barrels. Would you mind telling me why?”
Cybil sneered and pointed to one of her fellow lawyers. “Tell him, Patty.”
Patty was the youngest of the three and had brown hair worn in pigtails. She jumped when Cybil called on her and said, “Eep!”
The third lawyer snatched Patty’s briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. The woman held it up for Will to see, but pulled it back before he could read it. “This, you creep, is a lawsuit. The Coral Ring Merchant House had contracted to buy a load of salt from Quentin Peck. The salt was loaded and ready to go in the city of Nolod when you, yes you, sank the ship carrying it!”
“That’s right, Meg,” Cybil said. “The salt dissolved before it could be salvaged. The Coral Ring lost a major contract because of you. The cost came out to eight hundred guilders, and the damage you did to their reputation makes it harder for them to get business. We’re suing you for ten thousand guilders plus legal fees, and those are going to be high!”
Will showed no great concern at the threat of being sued. “Peck was trying to kill me. I was fighting back and had my goblins sink one of his ships. I’m sorry your client was hurt by our fight, but I can’t pay that much.”
“Yes, you can,” Cybil said menacingly. “You think you’re in the clear because you’re a king? Kings aren’t above the law. We can seize your assets, garnish your wages and shave your dog.”
“I haven’t got a dog,” Will told them.
Cybil snapped her fingers. “Patty, get him a dog so we can shave it.”
“Eep!” Patty’s pigtails flew up when she jumped like that.
Cybil marched up to Will and held out the lawsuit. “The mighty can fall, king or not. You have been served.”
“I know it’s supposed to work like that, but in my case it doesn’t,” Will said. “Seriously, you don’t want to—”
Too late. Cybil cried out in surprise as the lawsuit burst into flames in her hand. She barely managed to drop it before the fire scorched her fingers. The three lawyers looked amazed, as did the goblins and trolls.
“I tried to tell you.” Will took out his king contract tucked in his belt and unrolled the lengthy and confusing document. “Lawyers with Cickam, Wender and Downe drew this up when they tricked me into being King of the Goblins. It keeps me on this world and in this kingdom unless my life is in peril. If I can direct your attention to this part here?”
The lady lawyers gathered around the king contract. Meg pointed at it and said, “Article 140, subsection 11, paragraph 2, line 51: The King of the Goblins can’t escape by losing the kingdom in a game of chance, including poker, blackjack, backgammon, go fish, Monopoly or Clue.”
“No, this part over here.” Will read the contract aloud to them. “Article 140, subsection 12, paragraph 7, line 11: Any suit filed against the King of the Goblins is automatically sent to the nearest branch office of Cickam, Wender and Downe. Bring it on.”
He rolled up the contract and explained, “I’m sympathetic, really, but if you sue me it goes to the lawyers who got me in this mess. They win every time. Trust me, I know. I think if we sit down and talk this over, we can come up with a solution that helps your client.”
Meg stared at him like he was speaking Latin. “Are you being reasonable?”
“I’m trying to. It usually doesn’t work, but I figure one of these days it might.”
Cybil was having none of it. “You think you’re getting away that easy? Patty, let him have it!”
“Eep!” That seemed to be the extent of Patty’s vocabulary. She kept staring at Will.
Cybil took a rolled up parchment from Patty’s briefcase. Will wasn’t sure what good that would do after her last lawsuit combusted, but nothing could prepare him for what happened next. The parchment rustled and coiled around Cybil’s arm before reaching out like a snake or octopus tentacle. Goblins shivered at the sight. Even the trolls looked queasy.
“This is a living contract,” Cybil explained, her tone smug. “We stole the idea from your lawyers.”
“Hey, they aren’t my lawyers!” Will shouted.
“Whatever.” The contract continued reaching for Will as Cybil spoke. “Living contracts are sentient legal documents that can track their victims across kingdoms, never slowing, never stopping, immune to bribery and totally ignoring pleas for mercy. It’s going to make your life a waking nightmare.”
“That train already left the station,” Will said. He watched the contract move closer inch by inch, and he was honestly considering running for his life when a disturbing thought occurred to him. “If you stole the idea from Cickam, Wender and Downe, that means they already have living contracts. And if they want to keep me on the job—”
Snap! Will’s king contract unrolled so fast it sounded like someone swung a bullwhip. It shot through the air and wrapped around the enemy contract like a constrictor snake. The contracts fell to the ground and thrashed about so violently they knocked two oak barrels aside. Trolls, goblins and lawyers alike stared in shock at the bizarre battle.
“Okay, this is weird even by my standards,” Will admitted.
The contracts lashed out at each other. The fight wasn’t entirely physical as clauses and subclauses lit up as they were invoked. Violent as the battle was, Will’s contract was larger and far more aggressive. The smaller contract tried to slither away, but the king contract grabbed a rock and bashed it again and again until its whimpering enemy gave up and inched its way back to Cybil. Victorious, Will’s king contract slithered back to him and rolled up so one particular section was facing him.
Will retrieved the contract, reluctantly, and read aloud the part it seemed to want to show him. “Article 150, subsection 1, paragraph 1, line 1: This contract is now fully sentient and self aware. It has a total mastery of the law, is homicidally aggressive and has a borderline personality disorder. Well, that’s disturbing.”
“This, this isn’t over!” Cybil shouted. “You haven’t heard the last of us!”
“Obviously not since you’re still talking,” Will said. Cybil fumed and marched off with Meg following her. Patty kept staring at Will, not moving, not speaking. Hoping she was the reasonable one of the group, he walked up to her and smiled.
“I’m sorry the Coral Ring got hurt because of my fight with Peck, and I want to help. Give me time to think on this and we’ll get back together to work out a deal where they get compensation, just not ten thousand guilders. Okay?”
Patty nodded, still not saying anything as Will left. Once he was gone, she asked Domo, “Is he seeing anyone?”
“Yes, and she’s vindictive.”
Patty took a business card from her briefcase and handed it to Domo. “Let me know if they break up.”
Will headed back to what little was left of the Goblin City, but he stopped when he saw something high in the sky. It was a clear, cold day, and he could see for miles. At this distance he couldn’t tell what it was, but it was big.
Domo waddled up to him and saw what had his attention. The goblin squinted and said, “Huh.”
“Is that a good huh or a bad huh?” Will asked.
“It’s a huh,” Domo replied. “Huh rules out good or bad and just signify weird. That’s a harpy, which is weird because there’s not enough wild game to support a flock after the mess the dwarfs made.”
“So what’s she doing here?”
* * * * *
Gretchen the harpy slouched low on the thick, dead branch she was perched on. There weren’t many perches to begin with and fewer now that the flock was getting ready to move. It was hard work to fly so much lumber to their mountaintop roost. With only days to go before they left for fresh foraging grounds, the flock was breaking up the thick branches for firewood. Economical as that was, it meant there were progressively fewer perches as time went by, and harpy’s clawed feet had trouble standing on flat ground. It made the whole flock irritable.
Territory so far north was poor, with few animals or plants even in summer. The flock had stayed a month longer than intended, completely gutting the mountains and hills of edible plants and game large enough to merit catching. They had to migrate to the next part of their large (and largely worthless) territory.
“Good morning, Gretchen,” Tiffy said happily. Tiffy was Gretchen’s cousin, and annoyingly cheerful.
“Nothing’s good about it,” Gretchen snapped.
Harpies as a rule were foul tempered, and Gretchen was worse than most. Her face, chest, upper arms and upper legs were similar to a human woman, although more muscular and leaner. The resemblance ended there. Black feathered wings sprouted from her back. Her teeth were sharper than a human’s and could chew through leather. Her legs below the knees and arms below the elbows were scaled and ended in talons like a bird of prey. Her dirty dress was made from badly tanned animal skins.
“Let me top you off,” Tiffy said as she refilled Gretchen’s cup of coffee. “Nothing’s worse than cold coffee.”
“Lots of things are worse, and you know it. Just go away.”
Gretchen sipped coffee from her battered tin cup. Harpies couldn’t afford to have many possessions when every extra ounce made flying harder, but the flock had to have their morning cup. She owned her cup, a steel dagger that needed to be sharpened, an equally dull hatchet, and a leather bag loaded with food for the journey.
The rest of the flock kept their distance from Gretchen. Most of them were in equally foul moods since migrations were risky. Many of them had fledglings to carry, making it that much harder. But one day their fledglings would fly. Hers never would…her poor, crippled daughter.
“Sister.” It was Maggie, leader of the flock and Gretchen’s older sister. Maggie’s hair was going gray, and she was the most experienced harpy in a thousand miles. “We must talk.”
Gretchen gazed out at the snowy land far below their roost. “I know what you’re going to say, so save your breath. I’ve always seen to my daughter’s needs, no charity required.”
“Sister, the migration begins soon. You are not strong enough to carry Celeste. She’s grown too much. The flock has discussed the matter.”
Gretchen screamed, a horrid noise that made rocks vibrate. She threw her cup of coffee across the roost as she stumbled into the center of the assembled harpies. “The flock has discussed this? The flock? I’m a member of this flock! I wasn’t part of this discussion!”
Other harpies fell silent. Most stepped back. This day had been coming for years, and Gretchen had fought it every step of the way. She screamed at them. Harpies covered their ears from the wretched noise, but they didn’t back down when she stopped.
“She’s my daughter, not yours!” Gretchen screamed. “She’s done as much as any here to feed the flock, foraging and hunting. I won’t have this!”
“You could barely carry her to this roost, and that was a year ago,” Maggie said.
Gretchen hesitated. “She can walk.”
“Three hundred miles?” Maggie asked. “In winter? Alone?”
“I’ll go with her if you won’t!”
“No.” Maggie clumsily walked up to Gretchen, a risky move. “Sister, out of love for you and Celeste I have let, yes let, you keep your daughter. Other flocks would have placed her with a foster mother once she had teeth. I pushed this day back as far as possible, but Celeste can’t stay with us any longer. It’s not fair to the flock or to her.”
Gretchen’s muscles tensed to attack. Slowly, ever so slowly, she unclenched her fists and looked down. “What would you have me do?”
Maggie picked up Gretchen’s coffee cup and handed it back. “I have made inquiries among our friends. There is a kingdom where Celeste might take refuge. The leader has taken in an exiled dwarf, a minotaur and two young trolls. UMLIS live in peace within his borders. I believe we can place Celeste with him.”
“Can he protect her as the flock would?” Gretchen demanded.
“I don’t believe that’s going to be a problem.”
William Bradshaw and For a Song chapter 2
Chapter 2
The next morning, Will walked through the shallow snow to a small canyon. Goblins hadn’t noticed him yet, and his only companion was a small wombat waddling after him. He sat down on a low rock ledge blown clear of snow and took a thin book from his pocket. The wombat stopped next to him and sniffed his feet.
“Hey there, boy,” Will said. He held up the book for the small animal to see. “Funny you should show up. I got this from the goblins just yesterday. The Joy of Raising Wombats, which probably wasn’t a best seller, but it might help now that there are a few of you guys wandering around the kingdom.”
Will had learned only last autumn that some goblins rode wombats, a relatively inoffensive animal that shared goblins’ desire to avoid death. Goblins and their cowardly mounts ran from every fight, which goblins considered proof of intelligence. These same goblins had imported dozens of wombats to the Kingdom of the Goblins in the belief they were helping Will. He hadn’t made up his mind whether this was a good thing or not.
The wombat nibbled on Will’s boots as he read. He reached down and scratched its back while he steadied the book with his other hand.
“Let’s see, you’re herbivores, you’re marsupials, you’re licking my fingers,” Will said. “Stop that. You dig burrows. See, I didn’t know that.”
“Hey, it’s the King!” a thin goblin shouted. The goblin hurried over to annoy Will, a popular pastime among goblins, when he cried out and disappeared into the earth.
“That would be one of your burrows.” Will scratched the wombat’s back and the little animal rolled over to get its belly rubbed. He obliged it while continuing to read. “If predators show up you run into your burrow. That’s sensible. If the predator is small enough to go in after you, it can’t hurt you because it can only attack your…okay, this can’t be right.”
The wombat made a contended sound as Will stared at it. “You have a nearly indestructible rump? Be honest, you guys got out of line when God was handing out blessings.”
“I’m all right,” the thin goblin said from inside the burrow.
“Boss!” It was Mr. Niff, running through the snow straight for Will. He stopped long enough to help his fellow goblin out of the burrow. Mr. Niff looked down the hole and said, “He’s got the place nicely furnished. Wait, I’m forgetting something, besides my name. Oh, right, I’ve got a message for you.”
“If it involves whatever you guys were doing with that dung heap and teddy bear, I’d rather not know,” Will said. The wombat crawled onto his lap and rubbed against his stomach.
Shocked, Mr. Niff shouted, “Hey, that bear was rabid!”
“That was cotton stuffing coming out of a tear,” Will said. He closed the book and put it back in his pocket. “Alone time is officially over, so tell me what’s up.”
Mr. Niff frowned. “Builder goblins say Hugh Timbers is throwing a fit. They need you to calm him down or get him drunk. Either one is good.”
Will got up and carried the wombat with him. “That’s new. Hugh is a pretty levelheaded guy. Where is he?”
“He’s in what’s left of the Goblin City.” Mr. Niff followed Will to their slovenly capital, saying, “It was bad, boss. He was going on about quality, workmanship, not trapping the toilets. Then he started yelling at walls.”
Will walked back to the Goblin City. The city consisted of an outer wall and gatehouse, and next to that a large maze. Inside the wall was, well, nothing. Once it had poorly built houses and shops abandoned by dwarfs. The goblins had done considerable damage to these structures over the years before deciding that Will wanted them to expand the maze into the city. He didn’t, but once goblins get a stupid idea into their heads you’d need a crowbar, iron chains and team of oxen to pry it out. They’d demolished every building inside the city to make room for the expanded maze.
Will entered the city through the gatehouse. There were piles of rubble where buildings had been brought down, and holes leading to the tunnels and caves below the city. Goblins scurried by, babbling and hooting as they went about their business. But there was a disturbance near the maze, and goblins gathered around to watch.
“It was right there!” Hugh Timbers yelled. The dwarf had been a resident of the kingdom ever since the Eternal Army destroyed his home. Simply dressed in leather clothes and boots, the barrel chested dwarf had brown hair with hints of gray. He pointed at a bare patch of ground and shouted, “There was a wall thirty feet long and ten feet tall on this spot not one hour ago!”
“Morning, Hugh,” Will said. He set down the wombat and joined the dwarf at the now empty space. “Is there a problem?”
Hugh looked like he was going to give an angry response, but he took a deep breath and calmed down. “Sir William, I went fishing this morning and passed a wall newly built on this site. I returned an hour later to find the wall gone. This is not an isolated event. I have noticed other walls missing from the maze in the last month.”
“Maybe it went on vacation?” a goblin offered. “It deserves one, what with all the work walls do.”
“Yeah, they have to stand around all day,” said another goblin.
Hugh’s face turned red and he scowled at the goblins. Will stepped forward and said, “I’ve seen goblins put up walls and take them down again. They don’t have a plan for the maze, so new walls can seal off parts of the maze and have to be removed.”
“Sir, I have also seen this and struggled to maintain my composure at such wasted effort, but this is different.” Hugh bent down and ran his hand over the ground. “The spot is clear of dust or debris that would be present if the wall was taken apart. It is as if it were never here to begin with.”
“And?” a goblin asked.
“You don’t mind losing a part of the maze?” Will asked. Goblins loved their maze, spending endless hours building and improving it. The maze was gradually expanding into the ruined city, with walls reaching out into the courtyard.
A goblin with a tail shrugged. “I’m sure the wall is happy wherever it went.”
“You know the old saying, if you love something, let it go,” a stubby goblin added.
“Has anyone asked—” Will began, but stopped in mid sentence when the air shimmered and dirty paper plates rained down from the sky. The goblins were warping space with their collective stupidity and craziness, an ability they could barely control and didn’t bother trying to. He turned to find a brick wall twenty feet long and ten feet high running between him and Hugh. “This looks too small to be the wall you’re referring to. Has anyone asked Milo about this?”
Milo the minotaur was another resident of the kingdom. He’d applied for a job as monster in the goblins’ maze and was trying to turn it into a tourist destination, a hard task when the maze was so confusing and complex that visitors could be lost in it for months.
“I have been unable to find him,” Hugh said from the other side of the newly appeared wall. He walked around it to rejoin Will and explained, “Milo spotted humans exploring the maze and ran after them. I believe he intended to ask them to take a survey about their experience, but they fled at the sight of a seven foot tall monster with a bull’s head.”
Mr. Niff folded his arms across his chest. “That’s rude.”
“Milo is in charge of the maze, as much as anyone can be, so this is his responsibility,” Will said. “We’ll sit down and discuss the matter once he gets back, and maybe find a solution.”
Hugh frowned. “As you wish, Sir William. This situation troubles me greatly. Walls are meant to be permanent.”
“Very little around here makes sense.” Will studied the debris filling the courtyard. “The piles of broken bricks are smaller. I guess the guys are using them to build the maze, but there aren’t many left. Work is going to stop when they run out of building material.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Domo said as he entered the city through a massive hole in the outer wall and picked up a stray brick. “We would have run out of bricks months ago if we were only recycling what little is here. Builder goblins are importing bricks from across the border.”
Will’s eyes snapped open. “Please tell me you aren’t raiding Kervol Ket for bricks! We’re getting along these days!”
“No, no, no,” Domo said as he waved his walking stick from side to side. “We’re getting some of them by dismantling old dwarf roads in the kingdom. There aren’t many of them left, so we had to get the rest from Silyig Kingdom, our neighbor to the east.”
“Whose leader is going to declare war on us for robbing his kingdom,” Will pointed out. “Can’t we go a few months without a war?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Mr. Niff asked.
“It shouldn’t be,” Will replied. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about these people if they live next door?”
Domo rolled his eyes. “The obvious answer is because you’ve never asked who’s in the neighborhood. The less obnoxious answer is because you focus your attention on whoever is trying to kill us this week, leaving very little time to do anything else. Silyig’s people aren’t going to invade us, ever, so you can safely ignore them.”
Feeling hopeful, Will asked, “Is that because they’re civilized people, possibly nice, and don’t judge goblins harshly?”
“There’s that optimism of yours again,” Domo chided him. “They aren’t going to invade because they can’t. Silyig started as an oligarchy, then became a monarch, then an empire, eventually turning into a fallen empire. These days Silyig is a kleptocracy with a side order of irony.”
“It’s a country of mob bosses posing as nobles,” Mr. Niff added cheerfully.
“Anything is legal there as long as their emperor gets a fifteen percent cut,” Domo added. “They’re too busy stabbing each other in the back to threaten people outside their borders.”
“I’ve never met a mob boss,” Will admitted, “a fact I’m proud of, but I’d think they’d mind us carting off tons of bricks from their land.”
“Speak of the devil,” Domo said. A mob of goblins pulling a small cart loaded down with a cubic yard of loose bricks entered the city through the gatehouse. Builder goblins scurried over and carried off the bricks for the maze. Once the cart was empty, the goblins towed it out again.
“Anyway, with all the fighting they’ve had over the years, Silyig has a heaping helping of ruined castles, forts, villas, outposts and the like,” Domo continued. “Nine of them are within a few miles of the border. Builder and digger goblins cross into Silyig and dismantle them, then bring back the bricks for us to enlarge the maze.”
Surprised, Will asked, “No one notices you doing this?”
“Goblins are careful not to be seen while they work, and eight of the nine ruins are unoccupied,” Domo explained.
“That’s a relief.”
Mr. Niff smirked and said, “We’re breaking down the ninth one. The bandit chief living there can’t figure out why his castle gets smaller every week.”
“That,” Will began, but he paused and looked off into the sky. It was a clear day and he could see for miles, making it easy to spot the harpy circling high overhead. “Well look who’s here. I’m guessing our new friend didn’t come for the nightlife or fine dining, so what brought her back?”
Domo frowned. “I haven’t seen a harpy in these parts for years, and only then because she was passing through. She might be scouting the kingdom to see if it’s worth bringing her flock to spend the winter.”
“Exactly how bad would that be?” Will asked him.
“Harpies eat meat and some plants. They have large territories they move through, emptying each part of food before going to the next. The Kingdom of the Goblins is still recovering from our days of being a dwarf strip mine, so they’d have a hard time keeping fed here. They move far and fast, so they might poach livestock from Kervol’s kingdom to keep the dinner pot full.”
“They’re not too popular with humans,” Mr. Niff added.
“I guessed as much,” Will replied. “Is there anyone they do get along with?”
Hugh shrugged. “Harpies trade animal hides to dwarfs in return for steel daggers and axes. I would see them once or twice a year when I was still welcome among my kin. Meetings were brief and profits were slim, but such events were peaceful.”
“They don’t bother goblins,” Domo said. “Harpies live in poor quality land, same as we do, but they fly high and nest in mountains. We can’t get close enough to annoy them, and they don’t seem to care about us.”
“That’s a start we can build on.” Will walked away from the others and waved at the harpy. He gestured for her to come down and called out, “Welcome to the kingdom! Let’s sit down and talk!”
The harpy didn’t react for a while, then flapped her large wings and headed north until she disappeared from sight. Will frowned and said, “That could have gone better. I wonder why she left.”
Mr. Niff smiled at him. “Maybe it’s your breath.”
Will looked at Domo and said, “That harpy had a wingspan of twenty feet, maybe twenty-five. That’s not enough to keep someone so large in the air. How could she fly?”
“She’s filled with gas, like a dirigible,” a goblin said.
“No, it’s flatulence!” declared another. “She’s rocket powered!”
“It’s magic,” Domo said.
“Flatulence is magic,” the second goblin replied.
Domo smacked the offending goblin over the head with his walking stick. “Harpies are magic creatures. They can fly even though they shouldn’t be able to, and they can scream like an opera singer who stepped on a hedgehog.”
Will was going to ask more questions when he heard screams coming from the maze. He turned to see two men run out of the maze and head for the gatehouse. Not three steps behind them was Milo the minotaur in his black frock coat and black pants. The men and minotaur ran past Will and the goblins as if they weren’t there.
“Did you find the maze easy, challenging, impossible or mindboggling?” Milo yelled at the fleeing men.
“Impossible!” one yelled back as he ran out the gatehouse.
Still hot on their heels, Milo asked, “Would a reasonably priced map have helped?”
“Yes!”
“Are you going to require therapy after your visit?” Milo called out as he chased the men into a nearby forest.
Will stared at the spectacle for a few seconds. “That’s it, I’m out of here.”
Will left the city and goblins behind and headed for the nearby human town where he took his meals. After more than a year on the job he’d learned to appreciate his goblin followers and accept the admittedly few perks his job had, but there came a time when he’d had as much as he could deal with and needed human company. Regular trips outside the kingdom gave him a chance to spend time with men and women who were, for the most part, normal. Spending an hour or so a day with them did wonders for his sanity.
This was Will’s second winter on Other Place. So far snowfall was light and temperatures were moderate. His uniform was reasonably warm, and he stayed comfortable as long as he kept moving. He worried what would happen if a major storm hit. Deep snow would make it hard for him to go for food and could be a real danger to his smaller goblins.
It didn’t take him long to cross the border into Ket Kingdom. The rubble, graffiti and random traps were gone now that he was among men. Farmhouses were scattered about with bare fields and orchards. He saw few animals except birds picking through the fields for stray grains of wheat.
Not far ahead was a human community of roughly a hundred buildings. Legally this land belonged to Kervol Ket, but for tax reasons they pretended to be part of the Kingdom of the Goblins. The town had no name to better avoid royal attention. A few people walked the streets and waved when they saw him.
“How’s it going?” a smiling farmer asked.
“Chaos, confusion, mayhem,” Will replied. “Same as always. You seem cheerful. What’s up?”
The man’s smile widened. “You’ll see soon enough. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“What does that mean?” Will asked, but the man left without answering. Will didn’t like surprises, as they often meant bad things were about to happen, but he got along fairly well with these people. They’d warn him of danger.
He went into the town’s inn, a large, warm and pleasant place. The building was packed with families chatting and gossiping. Will took one of the few empty chairs and was surprised when a teenage girl walked up and curtsied.
“We’re serving fresh bread, sugared plums and broiled trout, Your Majesty.”
Will blushed. “There’s no need for titles. Call me Will like everyone else.”
“It would be inappropriate to address a king that way, especially one who saved my life.” The teenager set his table with a wood spoon and fork as Will stared at her. “My family lost our home to the Eternal Army.”
Will’s face flushed in embarrassment. “Oh, oh God, I am so sorry! I tried to stop them as fast as I could!”
“You stopped them in time,” she said, her tone respectful. “The Eternal Army would have caught up with us when we were fleeing, but they turned away at the last minute. We found out later they left because you’d issued them a challenge.” She looked at him in awe. “They marched to fight you, and you made sure they’d never hurt anyone again. You are due respect, Your Majesty, from me and everyone else.”
The teenager curtsied again and left. Will’s face felt warm from blushing, and he blushed even more as men and women in the inn watched him and smiled. The girl brought him a filling meal and enough leftovers to cover his lunch.
Some of the inn’s patrons chuckled. Will grimaced and asked, “You knew she was going to do that, didn’t you?”
“She’s been asking when you’d come all morning,” a woman told him.
Will finished as much food as he could and went to the bar. The innkeeper was there, a bear of a man dressed in simple cotton clothes. He glanced up when Will approached and pointed to the girl waiting tables. “Quite the crowd you’ve got. What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion.” The innkeeper gestured to the crowded inn and explained, “Not much work to do in winter after you’ve fed your animals. It’s hot in here from the kitchen fire, so people stop to warm up and talk with their friends.”
Trying (and failing) to sound causal, Will said, “I see you hired a waitress. When did that happen?”
It was the innkeeper’s turn to be embarrassed, and he looked at the floor. “I’m not sure. She and her family are refugees who lost their homes last winter to the Eternal Army. Her father and brothers hired on as farmhands with the farmers, and she showed up here last week asking for work. I told her a dozen times I can manage my own inn, but she kept after me. I don’t think I hired her…pretty sure I didn’t.”
“They’ve been wandering around for an entire year?”
“Way I hear it they lost everything, home, barn, tools, money, animals. There’s nothing for them to go back to and no way to rebuild. They’ve been going from town to town, taking what work they can find.”
Will’s embarrassment turned to shame. He’d stopped the Eternal Army with considerable help, but not before they’d burned out tens of thousands of people. “I knew life would be hard for the refugees, but I didn’t realize they’d be hurting for so long. I should have done more. I failed them.”
“Try telling her that. The girl’s been on cloud nine since she learned you eat here. Surprised she didn’t ask for your autograph.”
This felt strange. Races across Other Place considered goblins vermin, and since Will was their King most people held him in contempt. He wasn’t used to anyone showing him gratitude, much less hero worship. It was nice, in a weird sort of way.
He tried to think of how to help the girl and her family. He only had a little money, and no chance to get more. Land in the Kingdom of the Goblins wasn’t good for farming (he’d tried), and there wasn’t good timber they could harvest. There was the section of the wastelands healed by the Bottle of Hope. Could they live there? Could he ask for help from the trolls or the purple puppet people? He didn’t think so. They’d already done a lot for him and had problems of their own.
The innkeeper saw Will’s conflicted expression. “They’re hurting, but it’s getting better. They’ve got a roof over their heads, food to eat and a chance to rebuild. You’ve done a lot, but you can’t be everywhere and do everything. Good folks are doing their part to help, too.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do for them.” Will loaded his food into a small sack and turned to leave. Before he went, he asked the innkeeper, “Hey, have you seen any harpies in the last few days?”
That was a mistake. In seconds a crowd of angry men surrounded Will. One man demanded, “You’ve seen harpies? Where?”
“I saw one yesterday in my kingdom and another this morning, but it was so far away it might have been the same one.” Will saw the news spread through the inn like wildfire, drawing in more people. “I understand humans and harpies don’t get along, but both times the harpy left with no harm done.”
“Go fetch the mayor,” a rancher told his wife. He looked worried and said, “There ain’t been harpies in these parts for years, and we’d just as soon keep it that way. The thieving, stinking, loudmouth bird women steal livestock. No disrespect intended, but it went well for you because you didn’t have anything they could take.”
“They don’t just steal chickens and piglets, bad as that would be,” a farmer added. “My daddy told me how whole flocks of them would break into barns at night and kill cattle, then carry off the parts they wanted.”
Worried, Will asked, “When was this?”
The rancher spat “Thirty years ago. They showed up out of the blue and stole every animal they could until our parents chased them off. Looks like we’ll have to do the same.”
Will held up his hands and tried to calm the crowd. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I saw a harpy or at most two, and it was in my land, not yours. I’ll look into the situation and see if we can solve it peacefully.”
The crowd’s foul mood didn’t improve. The rancher put a hand on Will’s shoulder and said, “You’ve been a good neighbor, better than any of the men who had the job before you. When the time comes to drive them off, let us know and we’ll help. Longbows are the only things harpies fear.”
“Okay,” Will said slowly. He exited the inn and headed back to his kingdom. Clearly the situation was worse than he’d first believed. It would take some effort to prevent violence between the harpies and humans. He needed advice from Domo and Gladys the magic mirror to form a plan. Hopefully the harpies had been just passing through.
Will traveled only a few minutes before he got a funny feeling like he was being watched. Back on Earth he would have written that off as paranoia, but after surviving multiple attempts on his life he didn’t take chances. He grabbed the edge of his cape with one hand and his fire scepter with the other. Will was still close to the town and its farmland, so there was no cover on the harvested fields for an attacker to hide behind. He looked up on a hunch.
“This is getting repetitive,” he muttered. A harpy flew high overhead, hard to see because she was keeping the sun to her back. At this distance he couldn’t tell if it was the same harpy from before or a new one. He was curious why he kept seeing them and the townspeople didn’t. After all, they had livestock harpies could prey upon. They should be more common in Ket Kingdom than his land.
Will continued home. He didn’t try to interact with the harpy or show that he’d seen her. After ten minutes he stopped and bent down like he was tying his shoes, and he stole a glance up. The harpy was still there, roughly the same distance from him and farther from the town and its livestock. This was starting to feel personal.
“Let’s see how far she’s willing to take this.” Will kept going, crossing the border into his own lands. He tried to act casually when he looked around. Sure enough, every time he saw the harpy. She kept after him for thirty minutes, maintaining the same distance between them. Thankfully she wasn’t attacking, but this made him nervous.
“The boss is back!” It was a mob of Will’s goblins. They poured out of a young forest bare of leaves and hurried over toward him. The harpy veered off and headed north.
“You look spooked,” a goblin with claws said. “Or possibly gassy.”
“I’ve got a puzzle that needs solving, and sooner would be better than later.” He leaned down and asked, “Boys, have you ever had harpies living in the kingdom?”
“Visit, yes,” the clawed goblin said. “Stay, no. Harpies haven’t lived here since the first day lawyers and wizards created the kingdom. The only harpies who passed through complained there wasn’t enough to eat. We offered them goblin stew, but they said they weren’t that desperate or stupid.”
“More for us,” a squat goblin said.
“Then something changed, because they’re taking an interest in us.” Will stood up straight and said, “Come on, guys, we need to see Gladys.”
Will needed a few minutes to reach his bedroom under the Goblin City. The rough-cut room was filled with furniture he’d received last year as a gift from a grateful king he’d helped. Gladys was in a corner, a mirror six feet tall and made of bronze with eagle motifs in the frame. The mirror’s surface was black, so Gladys was probably asleep.
“Gladys, have problem, need solution,” Will said.
Gladys appeared in the surface of the mirror. She looked like a middle-aged woman, overweight and wearing ridiculously bright pink clothes. Her blond hair was curly, and she wore way too much makeup. “You’re going to have to be specific about the problem. We’ve got so many I’ve started numbering them.”
“Harpies are visiting the kingdom, and one followed me back from getting lunch. I mentioned this to the farmers and they freaked out. I need to know how many harpies are here, and I need a solution to this that doesn’t result in anyone stopping an arrow the hard way.”
“Harpies, huh?” A bookcase appeared behind Gladys in her mirror, and she took out a book. “Surprised they’d bother coming here. A flock needs a lot of food each week to keep fed, and there’s no way they’ll find it here. They might want to nest here and raid farms to the south, but that’s risky. How many did you see?”
“Three, but only one at a time and never close enough to identify them.” Will tapped his scepter on his palm. “Can you see any in the kingdom or in Kervol’s land?”
“Checking.” Gladys disappeared from the surface of her mirror and was replaced by an image of a barren farm field. Gladys could see through scarecrows the goblins had set up, each scarecrow a copy of Will’s uniform. Will could also trade places with these scarecrows if he had to. Gladys showed one image after another, going through dozens of them in seconds. “The scarecrows aren’t pointed up, so there’s a limit to what I can see, but so far Kervol is in the clear. Not one harpy in his land.”
“How about us?”
“I found five.” Gladys displayed five images, each showing a harpy flying overhead. She zoomed in on them to get a better look. Will saw that the harpies had hands and feet like hawk’s feet, with sharp talons inches long. They wore leather clothes, and two carried hatchets. “They’re in the southern half of the kingdom, with three of them close to the Goblin City. Are we still calling it a city when there are no buildings?”
“I don’t know, or really care. You mentioned flocks earlier. How many harpies to a flock?”
“Some flocks have fifty members and others only a dozen. Bigger flocks need more food, which means they have either good quality territory or a lot of poor quality land. Maybe they’re thinking of adding us to their territory, stopping by to eat everything in sight before moving on.”
Will frowned. “Five harpies are too few to be a flock. Wait, what’s that one doing?”
One of the harpies had been circling but went into a dive and landed next to a scarecrow. They watched as she approached the scarecrow, stumbling as she walked. She reached out and grabbed the scarecrow near the waist.
Indignant, Gladys said, “She’s going through the scarecrow’s pockets! That’s tacky!”
The harpy came up empty handed and flapped her large wings, slowly taking to the air. Magic or no, it took her time to gain altitude. The others continued flying around the kingdom. Oddly enough, they never went south to Ket or came close to one another.
“This isn’t too bad,” Will said. “There are only a few of them. I don’t want them to get hurt or hurt anyone. Do you have suggestions on how to deal with them peacefully?”
Gladys reappeared in her mirror. “Not many. Harpies don’t get along with men, ever, so they’re not going to like or trust you. They live in the wilds and stick to themselves, so they might not have even heard about you. They’re not here to trade with us because we haven’t got anything worth having. I know you won’t like it, but threats may be the way to go. You’re strong enough to force their respect, and they’ll listen to that.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it.” Will waved his left hand in the air. “So what are they here for? Are they scouts for a larger group? Are they raiding or colonizing the kingdom?”
Gladys closed the book and put it back in the bookcase, which vanished from the surface of her mirror. “I don’t have answers for you yet. I’ll keep watching and see if there’s a pattern to their behavior. And Will?”
“Yes?”
Looking worried, she said, “There aren’t a lot of good reasons why a harpy would follow you. She might have been planning to rob you, or hoping you’d lead her to a settlement or house she could raid for food. Harpies can be dangerous, especially to lone travelers. Keep your guard up and don’t go anywhere by yourself until this is settled.”
“Is there a way this could end well? I’d really like it if we didn’t have another conflict.”
Gladys faded from the mirror, returning it to a solid black. “They could leave, and soon. That’s as close to a happy ending as we’re going to get.”
The next morning, Will walked through the shallow snow to a small canyon. Goblins hadn’t noticed him yet, and his only companion was a small wombat waddling after him. He sat down on a low rock ledge blown clear of snow and took a thin book from his pocket. The wombat stopped next to him and sniffed his feet.
“Hey there, boy,” Will said. He held up the book for the small animal to see. “Funny you should show up. I got this from the goblins just yesterday. The Joy of Raising Wombats, which probably wasn’t a best seller, but it might help now that there are a few of you guys wandering around the kingdom.”
Will had learned only last autumn that some goblins rode wombats, a relatively inoffensive animal that shared goblins’ desire to avoid death. Goblins and their cowardly mounts ran from every fight, which goblins considered proof of intelligence. These same goblins had imported dozens of wombats to the Kingdom of the Goblins in the belief they were helping Will. He hadn’t made up his mind whether this was a good thing or not.
The wombat nibbled on Will’s boots as he read. He reached down and scratched its back while he steadied the book with his other hand.
“Let’s see, you’re herbivores, you’re marsupials, you’re licking my fingers,” Will said. “Stop that. You dig burrows. See, I didn’t know that.”
“Hey, it’s the King!” a thin goblin shouted. The goblin hurried over to annoy Will, a popular pastime among goblins, when he cried out and disappeared into the earth.
“That would be one of your burrows.” Will scratched the wombat’s back and the little animal rolled over to get its belly rubbed. He obliged it while continuing to read. “If predators show up you run into your burrow. That’s sensible. If the predator is small enough to go in after you, it can’t hurt you because it can only attack your…okay, this can’t be right.”
The wombat made a contended sound as Will stared at it. “You have a nearly indestructible rump? Be honest, you guys got out of line when God was handing out blessings.”
“I’m all right,” the thin goblin said from inside the burrow.
“Boss!” It was Mr. Niff, running through the snow straight for Will. He stopped long enough to help his fellow goblin out of the burrow. Mr. Niff looked down the hole and said, “He’s got the place nicely furnished. Wait, I’m forgetting something, besides my name. Oh, right, I’ve got a message for you.”
“If it involves whatever you guys were doing with that dung heap and teddy bear, I’d rather not know,” Will said. The wombat crawled onto his lap and rubbed against his stomach.
Shocked, Mr. Niff shouted, “Hey, that bear was rabid!”
“That was cotton stuffing coming out of a tear,” Will said. He closed the book and put it back in his pocket. “Alone time is officially over, so tell me what’s up.”
Mr. Niff frowned. “Builder goblins say Hugh Timbers is throwing a fit. They need you to calm him down or get him drunk. Either one is good.”
Will got up and carried the wombat with him. “That’s new. Hugh is a pretty levelheaded guy. Where is he?”
“He’s in what’s left of the Goblin City.” Mr. Niff followed Will to their slovenly capital, saying, “It was bad, boss. He was going on about quality, workmanship, not trapping the toilets. Then he started yelling at walls.”
Will walked back to the Goblin City. The city consisted of an outer wall and gatehouse, and next to that a large maze. Inside the wall was, well, nothing. Once it had poorly built houses and shops abandoned by dwarfs. The goblins had done considerable damage to these structures over the years before deciding that Will wanted them to expand the maze into the city. He didn’t, but once goblins get a stupid idea into their heads you’d need a crowbar, iron chains and team of oxen to pry it out. They’d demolished every building inside the city to make room for the expanded maze.
Will entered the city through the gatehouse. There were piles of rubble where buildings had been brought down, and holes leading to the tunnels and caves below the city. Goblins scurried by, babbling and hooting as they went about their business. But there was a disturbance near the maze, and goblins gathered around to watch.
“It was right there!” Hugh Timbers yelled. The dwarf had been a resident of the kingdom ever since the Eternal Army destroyed his home. Simply dressed in leather clothes and boots, the barrel chested dwarf had brown hair with hints of gray. He pointed at a bare patch of ground and shouted, “There was a wall thirty feet long and ten feet tall on this spot not one hour ago!”
“Morning, Hugh,” Will said. He set down the wombat and joined the dwarf at the now empty space. “Is there a problem?”
Hugh looked like he was going to give an angry response, but he took a deep breath and calmed down. “Sir William, I went fishing this morning and passed a wall newly built on this site. I returned an hour later to find the wall gone. This is not an isolated event. I have noticed other walls missing from the maze in the last month.”
“Maybe it went on vacation?” a goblin offered. “It deserves one, what with all the work walls do.”
“Yeah, they have to stand around all day,” said another goblin.
Hugh’s face turned red and he scowled at the goblins. Will stepped forward and said, “I’ve seen goblins put up walls and take them down again. They don’t have a plan for the maze, so new walls can seal off parts of the maze and have to be removed.”
“Sir, I have also seen this and struggled to maintain my composure at such wasted effort, but this is different.” Hugh bent down and ran his hand over the ground. “The spot is clear of dust or debris that would be present if the wall was taken apart. It is as if it were never here to begin with.”
“And?” a goblin asked.
“You don’t mind losing a part of the maze?” Will asked. Goblins loved their maze, spending endless hours building and improving it. The maze was gradually expanding into the ruined city, with walls reaching out into the courtyard.
A goblin with a tail shrugged. “I’m sure the wall is happy wherever it went.”
“You know the old saying, if you love something, let it go,” a stubby goblin added.
“Has anyone asked—” Will began, but stopped in mid sentence when the air shimmered and dirty paper plates rained down from the sky. The goblins were warping space with their collective stupidity and craziness, an ability they could barely control and didn’t bother trying to. He turned to find a brick wall twenty feet long and ten feet high running between him and Hugh. “This looks too small to be the wall you’re referring to. Has anyone asked Milo about this?”
Milo the minotaur was another resident of the kingdom. He’d applied for a job as monster in the goblins’ maze and was trying to turn it into a tourist destination, a hard task when the maze was so confusing and complex that visitors could be lost in it for months.
“I have been unable to find him,” Hugh said from the other side of the newly appeared wall. He walked around it to rejoin Will and explained, “Milo spotted humans exploring the maze and ran after them. I believe he intended to ask them to take a survey about their experience, but they fled at the sight of a seven foot tall monster with a bull’s head.”
Mr. Niff folded his arms across his chest. “That’s rude.”
“Milo is in charge of the maze, as much as anyone can be, so this is his responsibility,” Will said. “We’ll sit down and discuss the matter once he gets back, and maybe find a solution.”
Hugh frowned. “As you wish, Sir William. This situation troubles me greatly. Walls are meant to be permanent.”
“Very little around here makes sense.” Will studied the debris filling the courtyard. “The piles of broken bricks are smaller. I guess the guys are using them to build the maze, but there aren’t many left. Work is going to stop when they run out of building material.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” Domo said as he entered the city through a massive hole in the outer wall and picked up a stray brick. “We would have run out of bricks months ago if we were only recycling what little is here. Builder goblins are importing bricks from across the border.”
Will’s eyes snapped open. “Please tell me you aren’t raiding Kervol Ket for bricks! We’re getting along these days!”
“No, no, no,” Domo said as he waved his walking stick from side to side. “We’re getting some of them by dismantling old dwarf roads in the kingdom. There aren’t many of them left, so we had to get the rest from Silyig Kingdom, our neighbor to the east.”
“Whose leader is going to declare war on us for robbing his kingdom,” Will pointed out. “Can’t we go a few months without a war?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Mr. Niff asked.
“It shouldn’t be,” Will replied. “Why is this the first time I’m hearing about these people if they live next door?”
Domo rolled his eyes. “The obvious answer is because you’ve never asked who’s in the neighborhood. The less obnoxious answer is because you focus your attention on whoever is trying to kill us this week, leaving very little time to do anything else. Silyig’s people aren’t going to invade us, ever, so you can safely ignore them.”
Feeling hopeful, Will asked, “Is that because they’re civilized people, possibly nice, and don’t judge goblins harshly?”
“There’s that optimism of yours again,” Domo chided him. “They aren’t going to invade because they can’t. Silyig started as an oligarchy, then became a monarch, then an empire, eventually turning into a fallen empire. These days Silyig is a kleptocracy with a side order of irony.”
“It’s a country of mob bosses posing as nobles,” Mr. Niff added cheerfully.
“Anything is legal there as long as their emperor gets a fifteen percent cut,” Domo added. “They’re too busy stabbing each other in the back to threaten people outside their borders.”
“I’ve never met a mob boss,” Will admitted, “a fact I’m proud of, but I’d think they’d mind us carting off tons of bricks from their land.”
“Speak of the devil,” Domo said. A mob of goblins pulling a small cart loaded down with a cubic yard of loose bricks entered the city through the gatehouse. Builder goblins scurried over and carried off the bricks for the maze. Once the cart was empty, the goblins towed it out again.
“Anyway, with all the fighting they’ve had over the years, Silyig has a heaping helping of ruined castles, forts, villas, outposts and the like,” Domo continued. “Nine of them are within a few miles of the border. Builder and digger goblins cross into Silyig and dismantle them, then bring back the bricks for us to enlarge the maze.”
Surprised, Will asked, “No one notices you doing this?”
“Goblins are careful not to be seen while they work, and eight of the nine ruins are unoccupied,” Domo explained.
“That’s a relief.”
Mr. Niff smirked and said, “We’re breaking down the ninth one. The bandit chief living there can’t figure out why his castle gets smaller every week.”
“That,” Will began, but he paused and looked off into the sky. It was a clear day and he could see for miles, making it easy to spot the harpy circling high overhead. “Well look who’s here. I’m guessing our new friend didn’t come for the nightlife or fine dining, so what brought her back?”
Domo frowned. “I haven’t seen a harpy in these parts for years, and only then because she was passing through. She might be scouting the kingdom to see if it’s worth bringing her flock to spend the winter.”
“Exactly how bad would that be?” Will asked him.
“Harpies eat meat and some plants. They have large territories they move through, emptying each part of food before going to the next. The Kingdom of the Goblins is still recovering from our days of being a dwarf strip mine, so they’d have a hard time keeping fed here. They move far and fast, so they might poach livestock from Kervol’s kingdom to keep the dinner pot full.”
“They’re not too popular with humans,” Mr. Niff added.
“I guessed as much,” Will replied. “Is there anyone they do get along with?”
Hugh shrugged. “Harpies trade animal hides to dwarfs in return for steel daggers and axes. I would see them once or twice a year when I was still welcome among my kin. Meetings were brief and profits were slim, but such events were peaceful.”
“They don’t bother goblins,” Domo said. “Harpies live in poor quality land, same as we do, but they fly high and nest in mountains. We can’t get close enough to annoy them, and they don’t seem to care about us.”
“That’s a start we can build on.” Will walked away from the others and waved at the harpy. He gestured for her to come down and called out, “Welcome to the kingdom! Let’s sit down and talk!”
The harpy didn’t react for a while, then flapped her large wings and headed north until she disappeared from sight. Will frowned and said, “That could have gone better. I wonder why she left.”
Mr. Niff smiled at him. “Maybe it’s your breath.”
Will looked at Domo and said, “That harpy had a wingspan of twenty feet, maybe twenty-five. That’s not enough to keep someone so large in the air. How could she fly?”
“She’s filled with gas, like a dirigible,” a goblin said.
“No, it’s flatulence!” declared another. “She’s rocket powered!”
“It’s magic,” Domo said.
“Flatulence is magic,” the second goblin replied.
Domo smacked the offending goblin over the head with his walking stick. “Harpies are magic creatures. They can fly even though they shouldn’t be able to, and they can scream like an opera singer who stepped on a hedgehog.”
Will was going to ask more questions when he heard screams coming from the maze. He turned to see two men run out of the maze and head for the gatehouse. Not three steps behind them was Milo the minotaur in his black frock coat and black pants. The men and minotaur ran past Will and the goblins as if they weren’t there.
“Did you find the maze easy, challenging, impossible or mindboggling?” Milo yelled at the fleeing men.
“Impossible!” one yelled back as he ran out the gatehouse.
Still hot on their heels, Milo asked, “Would a reasonably priced map have helped?”
“Yes!”
“Are you going to require therapy after your visit?” Milo called out as he chased the men into a nearby forest.
Will stared at the spectacle for a few seconds. “That’s it, I’m out of here.”
Will left the city and goblins behind and headed for the nearby human town where he took his meals. After more than a year on the job he’d learned to appreciate his goblin followers and accept the admittedly few perks his job had, but there came a time when he’d had as much as he could deal with and needed human company. Regular trips outside the kingdom gave him a chance to spend time with men and women who were, for the most part, normal. Spending an hour or so a day with them did wonders for his sanity.
This was Will’s second winter on Other Place. So far snowfall was light and temperatures were moderate. His uniform was reasonably warm, and he stayed comfortable as long as he kept moving. He worried what would happen if a major storm hit. Deep snow would make it hard for him to go for food and could be a real danger to his smaller goblins.
It didn’t take him long to cross the border into Ket Kingdom. The rubble, graffiti and random traps were gone now that he was among men. Farmhouses were scattered about with bare fields and orchards. He saw few animals except birds picking through the fields for stray grains of wheat.
Not far ahead was a human community of roughly a hundred buildings. Legally this land belonged to Kervol Ket, but for tax reasons they pretended to be part of the Kingdom of the Goblins. The town had no name to better avoid royal attention. A few people walked the streets and waved when they saw him.
“How’s it going?” a smiling farmer asked.
“Chaos, confusion, mayhem,” Will replied. “Same as always. You seem cheerful. What’s up?”
The man’s smile widened. “You’ll see soon enough. I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
“What does that mean?” Will asked, but the man left without answering. Will didn’t like surprises, as they often meant bad things were about to happen, but he got along fairly well with these people. They’d warn him of danger.
He went into the town’s inn, a large, warm and pleasant place. The building was packed with families chatting and gossiping. Will took one of the few empty chairs and was surprised when a teenage girl walked up and curtsied.
“We’re serving fresh bread, sugared plums and broiled trout, Your Majesty.”
Will blushed. “There’s no need for titles. Call me Will like everyone else.”
“It would be inappropriate to address a king that way, especially one who saved my life.” The teenager set his table with a wood spoon and fork as Will stared at her. “My family lost our home to the Eternal Army.”
Will’s face flushed in embarrassment. “Oh, oh God, I am so sorry! I tried to stop them as fast as I could!”
“You stopped them in time,” she said, her tone respectful. “The Eternal Army would have caught up with us when we were fleeing, but they turned away at the last minute. We found out later they left because you’d issued them a challenge.” She looked at him in awe. “They marched to fight you, and you made sure they’d never hurt anyone again. You are due respect, Your Majesty, from me and everyone else.”
The teenager curtsied again and left. Will’s face felt warm from blushing, and he blushed even more as men and women in the inn watched him and smiled. The girl brought him a filling meal and enough leftovers to cover his lunch.
Some of the inn’s patrons chuckled. Will grimaced and asked, “You knew she was going to do that, didn’t you?”
“She’s been asking when you’d come all morning,” a woman told him.
Will finished as much food as he could and went to the bar. The innkeeper was there, a bear of a man dressed in simple cotton clothes. He glanced up when Will approached and pointed to the girl waiting tables. “Quite the crowd you’ve got. What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion.” The innkeeper gestured to the crowded inn and explained, “Not much work to do in winter after you’ve fed your animals. It’s hot in here from the kitchen fire, so people stop to warm up and talk with their friends.”
Trying (and failing) to sound causal, Will said, “I see you hired a waitress. When did that happen?”
It was the innkeeper’s turn to be embarrassed, and he looked at the floor. “I’m not sure. She and her family are refugees who lost their homes last winter to the Eternal Army. Her father and brothers hired on as farmhands with the farmers, and she showed up here last week asking for work. I told her a dozen times I can manage my own inn, but she kept after me. I don’t think I hired her…pretty sure I didn’t.”
“They’ve been wandering around for an entire year?”
“Way I hear it they lost everything, home, barn, tools, money, animals. There’s nothing for them to go back to and no way to rebuild. They’ve been going from town to town, taking what work they can find.”
Will’s embarrassment turned to shame. He’d stopped the Eternal Army with considerable help, but not before they’d burned out tens of thousands of people. “I knew life would be hard for the refugees, but I didn’t realize they’d be hurting for so long. I should have done more. I failed them.”
“Try telling her that. The girl’s been on cloud nine since she learned you eat here. Surprised she didn’t ask for your autograph.”
This felt strange. Races across Other Place considered goblins vermin, and since Will was their King most people held him in contempt. He wasn’t used to anyone showing him gratitude, much less hero worship. It was nice, in a weird sort of way.
He tried to think of how to help the girl and her family. He only had a little money, and no chance to get more. Land in the Kingdom of the Goblins wasn’t good for farming (he’d tried), and there wasn’t good timber they could harvest. There was the section of the wastelands healed by the Bottle of Hope. Could they live there? Could he ask for help from the trolls or the purple puppet people? He didn’t think so. They’d already done a lot for him and had problems of their own.
The innkeeper saw Will’s conflicted expression. “They’re hurting, but it’s getting better. They’ve got a roof over their heads, food to eat and a chance to rebuild. You’ve done a lot, but you can’t be everywhere and do everything. Good folks are doing their part to help, too.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do for them.” Will loaded his food into a small sack and turned to leave. Before he went, he asked the innkeeper, “Hey, have you seen any harpies in the last few days?”
That was a mistake. In seconds a crowd of angry men surrounded Will. One man demanded, “You’ve seen harpies? Where?”
“I saw one yesterday in my kingdom and another this morning, but it was so far away it might have been the same one.” Will saw the news spread through the inn like wildfire, drawing in more people. “I understand humans and harpies don’t get along, but both times the harpy left with no harm done.”
“Go fetch the mayor,” a rancher told his wife. He looked worried and said, “There ain’t been harpies in these parts for years, and we’d just as soon keep it that way. The thieving, stinking, loudmouth bird women steal livestock. No disrespect intended, but it went well for you because you didn’t have anything they could take.”
“They don’t just steal chickens and piglets, bad as that would be,” a farmer added. “My daddy told me how whole flocks of them would break into barns at night and kill cattle, then carry off the parts they wanted.”
Worried, Will asked, “When was this?”
The rancher spat “Thirty years ago. They showed up out of the blue and stole every animal they could until our parents chased them off. Looks like we’ll have to do the same.”
Will held up his hands and tried to calm the crowd. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I saw a harpy or at most two, and it was in my land, not yours. I’ll look into the situation and see if we can solve it peacefully.”
The crowd’s foul mood didn’t improve. The rancher put a hand on Will’s shoulder and said, “You’ve been a good neighbor, better than any of the men who had the job before you. When the time comes to drive them off, let us know and we’ll help. Longbows are the only things harpies fear.”
“Okay,” Will said slowly. He exited the inn and headed back to his kingdom. Clearly the situation was worse than he’d first believed. It would take some effort to prevent violence between the harpies and humans. He needed advice from Domo and Gladys the magic mirror to form a plan. Hopefully the harpies had been just passing through.
Will traveled only a few minutes before he got a funny feeling like he was being watched. Back on Earth he would have written that off as paranoia, but after surviving multiple attempts on his life he didn’t take chances. He grabbed the edge of his cape with one hand and his fire scepter with the other. Will was still close to the town and its farmland, so there was no cover on the harvested fields for an attacker to hide behind. He looked up on a hunch.
“This is getting repetitive,” he muttered. A harpy flew high overhead, hard to see because she was keeping the sun to her back. At this distance he couldn’t tell if it was the same harpy from before or a new one. He was curious why he kept seeing them and the townspeople didn’t. After all, they had livestock harpies could prey upon. They should be more common in Ket Kingdom than his land.
Will continued home. He didn’t try to interact with the harpy or show that he’d seen her. After ten minutes he stopped and bent down like he was tying his shoes, and he stole a glance up. The harpy was still there, roughly the same distance from him and farther from the town and its livestock. This was starting to feel personal.
“Let’s see how far she’s willing to take this.” Will kept going, crossing the border into his own lands. He tried to act casually when he looked around. Sure enough, every time he saw the harpy. She kept after him for thirty minutes, maintaining the same distance between them. Thankfully she wasn’t attacking, but this made him nervous.
“The boss is back!” It was a mob of Will’s goblins. They poured out of a young forest bare of leaves and hurried over toward him. The harpy veered off and headed north.
“You look spooked,” a goblin with claws said. “Or possibly gassy.”
“I’ve got a puzzle that needs solving, and sooner would be better than later.” He leaned down and asked, “Boys, have you ever had harpies living in the kingdom?”
“Visit, yes,” the clawed goblin said. “Stay, no. Harpies haven’t lived here since the first day lawyers and wizards created the kingdom. The only harpies who passed through complained there wasn’t enough to eat. We offered them goblin stew, but they said they weren’t that desperate or stupid.”
“More for us,” a squat goblin said.
“Then something changed, because they’re taking an interest in us.” Will stood up straight and said, “Come on, guys, we need to see Gladys.”
Will needed a few minutes to reach his bedroom under the Goblin City. The rough-cut room was filled with furniture he’d received last year as a gift from a grateful king he’d helped. Gladys was in a corner, a mirror six feet tall and made of bronze with eagle motifs in the frame. The mirror’s surface was black, so Gladys was probably asleep.
“Gladys, have problem, need solution,” Will said.
Gladys appeared in the surface of the mirror. She looked like a middle-aged woman, overweight and wearing ridiculously bright pink clothes. Her blond hair was curly, and she wore way too much makeup. “You’re going to have to be specific about the problem. We’ve got so many I’ve started numbering them.”
“Harpies are visiting the kingdom, and one followed me back from getting lunch. I mentioned this to the farmers and they freaked out. I need to know how many harpies are here, and I need a solution to this that doesn’t result in anyone stopping an arrow the hard way.”
“Harpies, huh?” A bookcase appeared behind Gladys in her mirror, and she took out a book. “Surprised they’d bother coming here. A flock needs a lot of food each week to keep fed, and there’s no way they’ll find it here. They might want to nest here and raid farms to the south, but that’s risky. How many did you see?”
“Three, but only one at a time and never close enough to identify them.” Will tapped his scepter on his palm. “Can you see any in the kingdom or in Kervol’s land?”
“Checking.” Gladys disappeared from the surface of her mirror and was replaced by an image of a barren farm field. Gladys could see through scarecrows the goblins had set up, each scarecrow a copy of Will’s uniform. Will could also trade places with these scarecrows if he had to. Gladys showed one image after another, going through dozens of them in seconds. “The scarecrows aren’t pointed up, so there’s a limit to what I can see, but so far Kervol is in the clear. Not one harpy in his land.”
“How about us?”
“I found five.” Gladys displayed five images, each showing a harpy flying overhead. She zoomed in on them to get a better look. Will saw that the harpies had hands and feet like hawk’s feet, with sharp talons inches long. They wore leather clothes, and two carried hatchets. “They’re in the southern half of the kingdom, with three of them close to the Goblin City. Are we still calling it a city when there are no buildings?”
“I don’t know, or really care. You mentioned flocks earlier. How many harpies to a flock?”
“Some flocks have fifty members and others only a dozen. Bigger flocks need more food, which means they have either good quality territory or a lot of poor quality land. Maybe they’re thinking of adding us to their territory, stopping by to eat everything in sight before moving on.”
Will frowned. “Five harpies are too few to be a flock. Wait, what’s that one doing?”
One of the harpies had been circling but went into a dive and landed next to a scarecrow. They watched as she approached the scarecrow, stumbling as she walked. She reached out and grabbed the scarecrow near the waist.
Indignant, Gladys said, “She’s going through the scarecrow’s pockets! That’s tacky!”
The harpy came up empty handed and flapped her large wings, slowly taking to the air. Magic or no, it took her time to gain altitude. The others continued flying around the kingdom. Oddly enough, they never went south to Ket or came close to one another.
“This isn’t too bad,” Will said. “There are only a few of them. I don’t want them to get hurt or hurt anyone. Do you have suggestions on how to deal with them peacefully?”
Gladys reappeared in her mirror. “Not many. Harpies don’t get along with men, ever, so they’re not going to like or trust you. They live in the wilds and stick to themselves, so they might not have even heard about you. They’re not here to trade with us because we haven’t got anything worth having. I know you won’t like it, but threats may be the way to go. You’re strong enough to force their respect, and they’ll listen to that.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it.” Will waved his left hand in the air. “So what are they here for? Are they scouts for a larger group? Are they raiding or colonizing the kingdom?”
Gladys closed the book and put it back in the bookcase, which vanished from the surface of her mirror. “I don’t have answers for you yet. I’ll keep watching and see if there’s a pattern to their behavior. And Will?”
“Yes?”
Looking worried, she said, “There aren’t a lot of good reasons why a harpy would follow you. She might have been planning to rob you, or hoping you’d lead her to a settlement or house she could raid for food. Harpies can be dangerous, especially to lone travelers. Keep your guard up and don’t go anywhere by yourself until this is settled.”
“Is there a way this could end well? I’d really like it if we didn’t have another conflict.”
Gladys faded from the mirror, returning it to a solid black. “They could leave, and soon. That’s as close to a happy ending as we’re going to get.”
William Bradshaw and For a Song chapter 3
This is the third and final chapter of William Bradshaw and For a Song that I will be posting here. The full book is available on Amazon.
Chapter 3
The next day brought a major snowstorm that dropped visibility to fifty feet and stacked snow up an inch per hour. Will worried this might cause trouble for the smaller goblins, but his concern was baseless. Most of them went underground and traveled via tunnels, and those who stayed above ground put on snowshoes.
More enterprising goblins scooped up snow and made snowmen. In true goblin fashion, they proceeded to trap them so the snowmen would fall on anyone setting off trip lines. Vial and his lab rat goblins booby-trapped their snowman with explosives, which went off prematurely and splattered its makers with slush. Will had to free a small goblin who’d accidentally buried himself inside a snowman, but otherwise the event was peaceful.
That ended when London and Brooklyn ran screaming through the horde of snowmen and flattened them. Will fixed them with a stern glare, and the trolls looked down.
“It’s been hours since we hit anyone!” London protested. “Boss, you’ve got to start another war or we’ll get out of practice.”
“It has been a while since we were almost killed,” a feathered goblin said.
“No wars,” Will said firmly. “We’ve been having far too many of those.”
“Start a little war,” Brooklyn pleaded. He took a sheet of paper out of his trouser pocket and offered it to Will. “Here’s a couple guys we could pound on and nobody would mind.”
Will read the paper and handed it back. “I’ve never heard of any of these people.”
London grinned. “That way they won’t see it coming.”
Bored goblins gathered around Will and implored him to pick a fight. The fact that they could be killed for no reason didn’t deter them in the slightest, and Will knew from experience that logic and common sense were totally worthless in such a discussion. He was saved from a long and fruitless argument when Domo and Mr. Niff arrived with armfuls of mail.
“Neither snow nor rain nor enraged dragons with marital problems can stop the postman from his appointed rounds,” Domo declared. He stopped in front of Will and began going through the stacks of letters.
“I’m curious why the mailman hands my letters to you instead of me,” Will said. “Trusting goblins doesn’t come easy to outsiders.”
“It was hand it to us or go deeper into the kingdom to give it to you,” Mr. Niff explained. He smiled and added, “The guy has stepped into enough pit traps that he won’t test his luck anymore.”
“Most of this is hate mail and death threats,” Domo said as he sorted the mail. “Duke Thornwood wishes you a slow and painful death.”
“Yeah, season’s greetings to you too, pal,” Will snarled as he tore up the letter. Goblins scooted in and gobbled up the shreds of paper. He went through more of the mail, asking, “That one’s never written to me before. Is there a reason why he’s homicidal?”
“It’s nothing personal, boss,” Mr. Niff assured him. “Thornwood wants half the people on Other Place dead and the rest to suffer.”
Will shredded another letter. “There ought to be a law against someone that screwed up ruling anyone. The dwarf corporation Geo Speculations wants to dump their trash in our kingdom. The Esteemed King Landcrest wants to exile his political prisoners here. Someone named Pippiloo Pondscum wants my travel itinerary so she can have me beat up people for her. That’s three more for the shred pile.”
“Can we keep the last one?” Brooklyn asked.
Mr. Niff belched up a stamp. “Too late.”
Domo held up a smaller stack of letters. “Now here are the interesting ones. The law firm of Takeda Money & Runn is suing you for—”
Foom! The lawsuit burst into flames and was reduced to ashes. Not deterred, Domo reached for another letter. “This one—”
Foom! This time the entire stack went up together. Goblins clapped, and Mr. Niff said, “Wow, four lawsuits at once!”
“And that leaves us with the last one,” Domo said as he handed Will a letter.
This letter wasn’t cremated before it reached Will. Curious, he opened it and read it aloud.
“Let’s see, some kind soul wants my help transferring a million guilders out of his homeland. All he needs is my name, date of birth, signature, power of attorney and right leg.”
There was a snap like a whip crack as Will’s king contract shot out. It tore the letter apart while growling like an angry dog, even beating the offending letter against a tree stump for good measures. The contract rolled up again, briefly stopping to show Will a few lines near the end.
“Article 150, subsection 8, paragraph 4, line 2: The King of the Goblins can’t escape his contract through mail fraud, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes or Fonzi schemes.” Will frowned and asked, “Does anyone else think that crosses the line from thorough to paranoid?”
“Lawyers are involved, so no,” Domo told him. He looked a bit nervous and tugged at his robes before saying, “I understand you paid Gladys a visit after the harpy showed up.”
“Harpies, plural. We’ve got at least five of them in the kingdom, and one followed me home from the human town.” Will slid his king contract under his belt and searched the skies. Was the weather bad enough to ground the harpies? “Gladys sounded worried and suggested I keep you guys close.”
London frowned. “Not sure what good we can do, boss. The birdies fly high and we can’t fly at all. I guess we could throw stuff at them if they come close to the ground.”
“It’s not fair the way they stay too far away to rough up,” Brooklyn complained.
“There is something we can do,” Will said. “Spread the word to the goblins that harpies are in the kingdom. Ask them to look for a nest, roost, anything that looks like they’re moving into the neighborhood.”
“Can do, boss,” Mr. Niff said.
Will’s stomach grumbled. He’d had some luck growing food in the Kingdom of the Goblins, but he’d long ago eaten what little he’d produced. That meant he had no choice but to cross the border for all his meals, and if yesterday was any indication the harpies might be interested in that trip.
Pointing at the trolls, Will said, “London, Brooklyn, get the guys working on finding those harpies. If you see them, report back, and try to be friendly if they want to talk. Vial, Domo, talk to Gladys and let me know if she turned up anything new. Niff, if you’re free I could use some company on the way to lunch.”
Indignant, London demanded, “Why not us?”
“If the harpies show up, I want there to be at least a chance for a peaceful meeting, and you two might, no, scratch that, definitely would pick a fight with any man, monster or farm animal we might meet on the way.”
Brooklyn thumped his chest. “We don’t take guff from cattle!”
Will left with Mr. Niff following. They went through the gatehouse and headed south, pausing briefly by the site of last year’s battle with Sarcamusaad the Walking City. Will and the goblins had survived that fight through planning, goblin warp magic and blind luck, but signs of the conflict remained. There was a chasm hundreds of feet across and nearly as deep where Sarcamusaad had collapsed the caves and tunnels running under the Goblin City. Huge pieces of rusted iron, some weighing thousands of tons, littered the landscape, remnants of the German battleship Bismarck that had been warped in by the goblins and fell onto Sarcamusaad.
Pointing at the wreckage, Will said, “And that’s why we’re trying to solve this peacefully. We’ve had five major conflicts that could have killed us all. It’s pure luck that we’ve lasted so long without losing anyone. I have to find ways to deal with problems without them turning into win or die situations.”
“Speaking of that, maybe you can help me out a little.” Mr. Niff smiled and scooted in front of Will. “The guys have a betting pool on who’s going to try to kill you next, but we just started one on who you’re going to beat up.”
“You’re joking.”
“It’s true. The smart money is on you picking a fight with the wizards of the Inspired, but goblins have put bets on you going after Duke Thornwood, clearing the Ruined Lands, taking down Viliamorous the Elf King and rubbing out Plausible Deniability Jones.”
Will shook his head and continued on. “I hate to disappoint everyone, but I’m trying very hard to not get killed or kill anyone else.”
Mr. Niff hurried after him. “Nobody said kill, just kick them in the shins, ruin their plans and turn them over to the authorities. Now me, I like long shots and big payouts, so I bet a small green frog that you’d go to Battle Island and clean out the arenas and gladiator pits. So if you’re feeling generous and want to help out an old friend—”
“No!”
“I’ll split the winnings fifty-seventy.”
Will stopped and stared at the short goblin. “That’s one hundred twenty percent.”
“Don’t get all mathy on me.”
It kept snowing for the rest of their trip and slowed them down. Will didn’t see any harpies, but anything farther than fifty feet away was concealed by snowfall. They needed almost twice as long to reach the human town as they normally would. The residents stayed indoors with only a few hurrying between houses and barns. An alarming number of men were carrying weapons, mostly farming tools, but some had bows.
“Stay on the outskirts of town and keep your eyes peeled,” Will told Mr. Niff. “Come get me if you see or hear anything suspicious.”
“Gotcha, boss.”
Will went into town and headed for the inn. He was nearly there when he spotted a hunched over woman at the mouth of an alley. She wore a heavy cloak, blouse, skirt, boots, gloves and leggings, all of it made of animal hides and leaving little skin exposed besides her face. He’d never seen her before, but according to the innkeeper there were refugees settling in town. Will was half convinced she was just another unfortunate person when she ducked back into the alley.
That wasn’t a good sign. Just to be sure, Will walked past the inn and turned off onto a side street. He stopped at the next corner, and moments later he saw her again. He took two more turns and found her hobbling after him wherever he went.
“Let’s see how far you’re going to take this,” Will said softly. This time he walked to the inn and went inside. The ground outside the door was wet from the heat melting snow, and his boots squelched in the mud. He found the building packed with people, most happy and laughing. Will took a table near the fireplace and sat down. Not a minute passed before the hobbling woman came in. She hesitated at the entrance, a worried look on her face.
“Hello there!” a rancher called to her. Her fear turned to shock as he waved for her to join him. “Don’t be shy. Strangers are welcome here.”
The woman lingered by the door but went inside when other guests echoed the rancher’s encouragements. She looked across the inn, her expression wary.
Oh, this could be bad. If these people realized she was a harpy, they’d attack her. Will stood up and waved to her, saying, “Come on over. Let me buy you something to eat.”
The inn’s other customers smiled and a few clapped at his generosity. One woman put her hands on her hips and looked at her husband. “See, that’s how a gentleman acts.”
“Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us,” a farmer said. Men across the inn laughed.
The harpy hobbled over and sat down awkwardly on a chair, nearly sliding off. Will headed to the bar and asked, “What’s on the menu?”
“Beef soup and fresh bread,” the innkeeper said. More softly, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“So far nothing, but if things get bad, I’ll need help keeping everyone calm,” he whispered back.
Will returned to his table and new guest. He spoke softly so no one else could hear. “I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Will Bradshaw, King of the Goblins. It’s a rough job, but somebody’s got to get stuck with it. You’re brave to travel in a storm like this. What’s your name?”
The woman cast her eyes down. “Ann.”
The waitress hurried over and placed bowls of soup in front of them both. The woman stared at it like she’d never seen soup before. Maybe she hadn’t. She looked around the inn and saw people eating with spoons, and with an example of what was expected she took a spoon and tried to feed herself. It took her a few tries to get the soup to her lips without spilling it.
Will asked, “What brought you here on a night like this?”
“I, my family lost our home to the Eternal Army. I’ve been wandering ever since.”
That upset Will. There were tens of thousands left homeless and desperate because of the Eternal Army, something he blamed himself for. He’d done what little he could to help, and others like the Brotherhood of the Righteous were doing their part. For the harpy to falsely claim to be a victim was wrong.
Will ate some soup. “We both know that’s not true.”
The harpy dropped her spoon and gasped. Her mouth opened wide enough for Will to see her teeth, long and sharp.
“I’ve seen you and your friends following me for days.” He pointed his spoon at her and added, “I want to make it clear I’m not mad. Confused, but not mad. There are a lot of people here who don’t like harpies, so I understand your disguise. I have nothing against you. If you want to talk, we can talk. If you have a reasonable request, I’ll try to help, but I won’t see these men hurt or lose their livestock. So, let’s you and me talk.”
“Hold on,” a farmer said. He stood up from his chair and pointed at the harpy. “She’s been sitting next to the fire for a couple minutes, but she hasn’t taken off her hat or gloves.”
“Mind your own business,” the innkeeper said.
“He’s right!” a rancher yelled. He drew a knife. “She’s got to be baking under all those clothes. What are you trying to hide?”
The harpy stood up and hobbled toward the exit, but a crowd gathered to block her path. Will ran between them and the harpy. He held up his hands and gestured for the others to sit. “Everybody calm down! I don’t want anyone to—”
That’s when the harpy screamed, a horrific cry that dropped every man, woman and child to their knees. Will clasped both hands over his ears in a vain attempt to muffle the agony sweeping over him. Pain shot through him like a sword thrust, and his own scream was lost in the cries of terrified people.
Such a potent attack left the harpy gasping for breath. She hobbled out of the inn, leaving everyone doubled over in incredible pain. Will staggered to his feet. He heard people crying. The teenage waitress was on her knees, sobbing, her hands still pressed against her ears. Will gritted his teeth and headed for the door. He saw the harpy pull off her cloak and toss it aside before spreading her wings. Will bent down and scooped up handfuls of mud at the inn’s entrance. He jammed mud into his ears and went after the harpy.
“Wait!” he yelled. His voice sounded weird with his ears plugged up. He saw the harpy turn to face him, a startled expression on her face.
The harpy took a deep breath and let loose another scream. It was so strong it forced Will back a few inches and sent waves of pain through him, but with his ears plugged it was nowhere near as strong as the first attack. The harpy gasped for breath and backed away when she saw that Will didn’t falter. With her best weapon rendered ineffective, she grabbed a steel hatchet laced to her leg. Will unhooked his fire scepter from his belt and held it like a club. She lashed out at him with her hatchet, missing by a wide margin, then flapped her wings and tried to take to the air. As she rose higher, he grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her back to the ground. He barely heard the harpy’s started cries through his clogged ears.
Back on the ground again, the harpy swung at Will with her hatchet and her free hand. He dodged the hatchet and blocked her hand with his fire scepter, but the blow was strong enough that her talons tore through her glove. Her hand looked like a blend between a human’s and a hawk’s clawed feet. The harpy screamed again, and Will winced in pain. He staggered and the harpy pushed her advantage with an overhead swing of her hatchet. Will only barely blocked it.
There was a red light to their left as Mr. Niff came to the rescue. He’d drawn his magic dagger, and one swing of the weapon whacked off the hatchet’s steel head. My Niff followed up by scooping up a handful of snow and throwing it into the harpy’s mouth. She gagged on it before spitting it out, silencing her terrible scream for a moment.
“I appreciate the help,” Will said. Mr. Niff said something in reply, but Will couldn’t hear it with his ears plugged.
The harpy recovered fast and bared her teeth at them, a frightening mouthful of fangs that looked like they could bite through bone. She scrambled toward them as Will pointed his fire scepter into the air and turned it on.
FOOM! The scepter belched out an overwhelming blast of white-hot flames. The sudden light and heat scared the harpy, and she fled the battle. It took her a few seconds flapping her huge wings to get airborne. This time Will made no effort to stop her. She’d fought so hard that he was sure the only way to keep her from leaving was by crippling or killing her, and he had no desire to do either.
Will tried to dig the mud out of his ears while people from the inn came outside. He managed to unclog his left ear and heard the innkeeper ask, “Where is she?”
He pointed in the general direction she’d gone, but with the falling snow there was no way to see her. “She went that way.”
A rancher patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her next time.”
* * * * *
The trip home was depressing. Mr. Niff kept chatting away while he handled the steel hatchet head he’d taken as a trophy. When they got back to the Goblin City, the others panicked at the sight of Will looking dirty and angry. He could barely hear them and let Mr. Niff explain what had happened. While that was going on, he went to his room and spent thirty minutes washing mud out of his ears. His friends gathered around him as he dried off with a rag.
“What are we going to do about this?” Domo asked.
“Let’s pound on them!” Brooklyn roared.
Mr. Niff held up the hatchet head. “Look at my new toy!”
Everyone stared at Mr. Niff, blissfully ignorant of why they might be annoyed with him. Will cleared his voice to get their attention.
“You’re going to be reasonable, aren’t you?” London asked mournfully. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’m angry,” Will said. “I think I have good reason to be, but I’m not going to do anything rash. It’s obvious the harpies aren’t going to get along with us, which is unfortunately not surprising given our luck, but we aren’t going to fly off the handle. We’re going to make a proportionate response to what happened.”
London’s shoulders slumped. “I knew it.”
“Spread the word to the goblins that I was attacked,” Will said. “Harpies are to be considered armed and dangerous from now on. Make every effort to find where they’re staying in our kingdom or Kervol’s. Don’t start fights and stay in groups in case they attack.”
Will tossed the dirty rag aside and frowned. “I was hoping we could be friends with them. We get along with the trolls and the purple puppet people. I thought we could reach some kind of understanding with harpies, too.”
“You can’t be friends with everyone, Will,” Domo said. “If it makes you feel better, this is one of those rare times when strangers might help us. They hate harpies way more than us, which I admit sounds weird.”
“If they’re public enemy number one then we’re going to have to improve our game,” Mr. Niff said. “Who’s up for sabotaging imperial bedchambers?”
* * * * *
“Sir William?”
Will grumbled and rolled over in bed. He’d dismissed his friends late last night and went to sleep hungry, sore and angry. It was impossible to tell what time it was since his bedroom was deep underground and he couldn’t see the sun. Nor did he have a clock.
“Sir William, it is I, Hugh Timbers.”
The lack of sun or alarm clock to wake him didn’t mean Will got to sleep as late as he wanted. His followers were only too happy to wake him up, and in the case of the goblins they’d do the honors any time they pleased and for any reason, or no reason at all, like to announce the winner of the Nauseous Gopher Giveaway contest. Hugh Timbers, on the other hand, had never been one to disturb Will’s sleep before now. That meant this was important.
“Good morning, Hugh,” Will muttered. He lifted his head from his pillow and squinted at the dwarf. Hugh stood holding a lit lantern in the doorway to Will’s room. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say something bad happened.”
“That would not necessarily be a correct assumption. Earlier this morning I was approached by a harpy while fishing. She seeks parley.”
Will sat up in bed and got dressed. “I could use a parfait right about now.”
“Parley. It means to seek a conference between enemies under a flag of truce. The harpy claimed last night’s attack was an unfortunate mistake that her flock didn’t order. She said her flock would like to speak with you regarding a serious matter.”
Will stood up and grabbed his fire scepter. “And this serious matter is…come on, help me out.”
“I asked and she would not say. She repeated that it was important, adding that it could only be discussed between leaders.”
“Why’d she say this to you and not directly to me?” Will answered his own question by saying, “Because after last night the harpies have to figure I’m mad and heavily armed, and that doesn’t make for a good combination.”
“There is more to it than that. According to the harpy, her flock has conducted business with dwarfs. These dealings went well enough to earn their trust. She was comfortable talking to me and felt certain I would pass along this message as requested. I hesitate to mention this, but she also felt your other followers were likely to misunderstand the message or possibly forget it entirely.”
Will frowned as he imagined what would happen if a goblin tried to carry an important message. The goblin would forget part or all of it, maybe add bits or deliver it to the wrong person, and that assumed the goblin was trying to do the job right. If the hypothetical goblin was feeling ambitious, he might deliberately change the message and giggle at the resulting chaos.
“Okay, you were the best person for the job,” Will admitted. “So where do they want to meet and when?”
“There is a small stream where I met the harpy. The harpies promise to wait there until noon.”
“I like this plan. Hugh, you don’t look very happy. Why is that?”
“I was intercepted by Domo before reaching you, and he insisted on hearing the news. He believed you would accept the offer.”
Will peeked out of his room and saw the tunnels filled with hundreds of armed goblins. London and Brooklyn led the horde, with Vial, Mr. Niff and Domo present as well. The assembled goblins and trolls had fought armies to a standstill, a force to be reckoned with.
“And I said that after last night there’s no way you’re going alone,” Domo told Will. He pointed his walking stick at the others. “Your honor guard awaits.”
It took some time to reach the meeting place, partly because while the storm had ended, it had left nearly a foot of snow behind. Hugh Timbers led the unruly horde, while the goblins were surprisingly quiet as they scanned the skies for harpies. London and Brooklyn borrowed small bombs from Vial to throw should they be attacked. Domo and Mr. Niff stayed by Will to coordinate the defense.
“When Will does something needlessly stupid, you have to stop him,” Domo told the other goblins.
“But he’s being stupid right now,” a bug-eyed goblin protested.
“This is just basic levels of stupid for him,” Domo said. “You have to watch out for epic, mind blowing kinds of stupidity. It could happen at any time.”
“I’m standing right here!” Will yelled.
“Would you rather we whispered?” Mr. Niff asked him.
“I’m curious what your goals are in this meeting, My Liege,” Vial asked.
Will took a deep breath before answering. “I want very much to end this peacefully. Doing that depends on exactly what the harpies want. There could be some big problems if they’re looking to settle here, but we might be able to make it work. We don’t have enough food for them, and I can’t let them steal food from farmers living to the south.”
He glanced at Domo and asked, “Could they use the goblin gate to reach new hunting grounds? That way they could live here and get food from far away.”
Domo tipped his head to one side. “Maybe, but there’s no way to tell where the gate could take them. They could end up in a tundra, or in a city where everyone’s going to try to kill them. That’s a huge risk to take for dinner.”
“Sir William, the meeting place is ahead,” Hugh said.
They saw a stream running out of a young forest, and as promised the harpies waited for them. There were five of them dressed like the one who’d attacked Will, different only in that they lacked gloves, boots or cloaks, and were armed with daggers, spears and hatchets. They weren’t ugly, but there was a feral look to them that made Will hesitate. The harpies spread their wings at the sight of the approaching horde, and one of them waved a spear at Will.
“What is this?” the gray haired harpy screeched. “We offer parley, and you bring an army?”
“You offer parley and I accept.” Will stepped away from the others and waved for them to stay back. “My friends are here in case things end as badly as the last time I spoke with one of your flock. I tried being peaceful then, too. I know what happened wasn’t entirely her fault, but good people were hurt.”
The gray haired harpy scowled but dropped her objections. “I am Maggie, and this is my sister, Gretchen. You met Ula last night. My flock and I have been watching you for some time. It was our intention to cause no harm. The battle between you and Ula should not have happened and was against my wishes. Ula wishes to apologize.”
Will had no trouble recognizing the harpy he’d fought last night, and she glared balefully at him. Maggie nudged Ula, but the harpy neither moved nor spoke. Maggie grabbed Ula by the arm and pulled her back, saying, “Excuse us for a moment.”
The discussion was quiet enough that Will missed most of it, but a few sharp words came through. “Had this discussion…observe only, not interact…boneheaded, half-witted, mindless…you volunteered…expect better from my niece…don’t give me that look.”
“Should we come back later?” Mr. Niff asked.
“This won’t take a minute,” Maggie promised before turning back to Ula. “Screwing up everything…you agreed to this…flock’s already left…you want attitude, I’ll show you attitude…act like a lady instead of an ogre.”
Maggie pulled Ula back. Ula stared at the ground and mumbled words too soft and garbled to understand. Maggie bared her teeth and would likely have laid into her fellow harpy had Will not intervened.
“Apology accepted,” he told her.
“That is generous of you,” Maggie told him. “You no doubt have questions, and I shall answer them. My flock needs aid. Normally we see to our own needs or call upon other flocks when trouble arises, but a rare and tragic situation has occurred that requires outside help.”
“Why didn’t you just come out and ask if you wanted help?” Will demanded. The harpies flinched at his angry tone. Will calmed down, barely, and asked, “What sort of problem is it?”
The harpy Gretchen hobbled forward, pushing between the other two. He voice was pained as she said, “My daughter Celeste was born…wrong. She is a good girl! Hard working! Honest! But she can’t fly.”
Maggie put a hand on Gretchen’s shoulder. “In rare instances a harpy is born without wings or talons. It hadn’t happened in our flock before and we thought it never would until Celeste was born. We’ve looked after her as best we could for years, but she is too big to carry and our journey too far for her to follow. We must leave her in the care of others.”
The color drained out of Will’s face. “Wait, you want to leave your daughter with me?”
“Yes.” Maggie hobbled closer. “Few deal fairly with harpies, but those who do speak well of you. We followed you this last week to see if the tales were true or lies. They say you are fierce in battle. I see proof of that before me, for goblins are ready to fight in your name. They say you are merciful. I see that is also true, for an outcast dwarf takes shelter in your lands. Can you be fierce and merciful, protecting a cripple from our flock?”
“We would come to visit her often,” Gretchen promised. She was fighting back tears. “She can provide for herself and would not burden you.”
“This isn’t a small thing you’re asking for,” Will said. “We’re talking a lifetime commitment to look after someone. And while I know this makes me sound like a jerk, you’re showing up out of the blue and making a huge request.”
Domo shrugged. “It sounds like you’re not giving us anything in return, either. I’m not a greedy sort, but if Will says yes then you fly away with everything you want and we get squat.”
“I gave sanctuary to Hugh Timbers,” Will conceded, “but those were extraordinary circumstances. And let’s be honest, this isn’t a nice place to live. There must be kingdoms better suited for your daughter.”
Maggie wasn’t giving up. “If so we have not heard of them, or they are too far away to reach. You live three days travel from the edge of our territory, a manageable distance. Few men live so far north and none of your reputation. The flock spent weeks searching for an acceptable home, no easy task when few love us. Your name was not at the top of the list. It was the list.”
Hobbling closer, she set down her spear and said, “Harpies born with Celeste’s condition are especially vulnerable. She can’t flee danger the way we can. If she doesn’t have the flock to protect her then she is at risk from predators, be they on four legs or two. In your care she has the protection of your forces and none would dare harm her. I know you have reason to be angry with us, and the lies told of us must be terrible. I ask you not to look at our failings but instead at the great need there is for your help. The flock has already migrated to our next nest. We’ve no time to find her another home, and leaving Celeste on her own is unthinkable.”
“Call a travel agent, because we’re going on a guilt trip,” Domo muttered.
Will frowned. “I’d like to talk with your daughter before making a decision. And I want to make it clear that this has to be a mutual agreement between her and I. I’m willing to offer her a home, but I’m not going to make it a prison if she wants to leave.”
Maggie held up her empty hands. “Where else could she go? Celeste, the man wishes to speak with you.”
A hooded figure walked out of the woods. She wore the same stitched together animal skins as the harpies, but she moved with a grace they didn’t. She stopped by Gretchen and exchanged a brief embrace before approaching Will. Celeste removed her hood, and Will gasped at the sight.
Celeste didn’t have wings or talons, just as Maggie had said. That was because Celeste was a young woman of roughly twenty years, and possessed the kind of unearthly beauty painters and sculptures tried to capture in their art. Her skin was pale and flawless, her figure astounding. There were only two traits that proved she wasn’t human, her long turquois blue hair, tangled and tied back around a rib bone, and her eyes, which were entirely blue without white or pupil.
“She’s a siren,” Domo whispered.
“Uh, hi,” Will stammered. Judging by how the harpies had been talking, he’d assumed Gretchen’s daughter was at most twelve years old. Why did they talk about Celeste like she was a child?
“Opening lines aren’t his strong point,” Mr. Niff said. The goblins nodded in agreement.
“I understand why I’m a burden to my flock,” Celeste said in a voice so melodious that it might be a song. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes were fixed on the ground. “I won’t get in your way or cause trouble. You won’t even know I’m here.”
* * * * *
Hundreds of miles away, the same storm that had blanketed the Kingdom of the Goblins in snow was now deep in the mountainous north. Winds howled and snow drifts formed quickly before crumbing under their own weight to fall down the mountains. This was a formidable deterrent and one of the reasons why the harpies had nested here not long ago.
Today the fierce storm and towering mountains offered no defense. Fifty attackers scaled vertical cliffs with a single-minded determination. Their heavy armor was wrapped in cloth both to warm them and muffle sound. The attackers found handholds in the thinnest of cracks in the cliff face, driving in steel spikes and attaching ropes to them as they moved ever higher.
It took hours climbing in conditions that could kill a man, but they never stopped until they neared the spot where Maggie’s flock had once nested. They slowed as they approached the nest and spread out to strike from all sides. The foul weather that had given them such trouble would be strong enough to ground the harpy flock. There was no way their prey could escape. As one the fifty attackers drew magic weapons and surged over the top into the nest, and found nothing.
The leader of the assault took a small magic mirror from his backpack and held it to his face. “They’re gone! The nest is empty!”
“Are they out foraging?” a voice in the mirror demanded.
The attackers searched the nest and came up with little. There were piles of ash, frozen droppings and broken twigs. The leader turned his attention back to the mirror. “There are no perches left. They’ve been broken up and burned for fuel. Harpies only do that when leaving a nest for good. They could be anywhere in their territory, and that covers five hundred square miles.”
The leader spat in disgust and looked at the mirror. “They were here only days ago! Orders, sir?”
“Find them at all costs.”
Chapter 3
The next day brought a major snowstorm that dropped visibility to fifty feet and stacked snow up an inch per hour. Will worried this might cause trouble for the smaller goblins, but his concern was baseless. Most of them went underground and traveled via tunnels, and those who stayed above ground put on snowshoes.
More enterprising goblins scooped up snow and made snowmen. In true goblin fashion, they proceeded to trap them so the snowmen would fall on anyone setting off trip lines. Vial and his lab rat goblins booby-trapped their snowman with explosives, which went off prematurely and splattered its makers with slush. Will had to free a small goblin who’d accidentally buried himself inside a snowman, but otherwise the event was peaceful.
That ended when London and Brooklyn ran screaming through the horde of snowmen and flattened them. Will fixed them with a stern glare, and the trolls looked down.
“It’s been hours since we hit anyone!” London protested. “Boss, you’ve got to start another war or we’ll get out of practice.”
“It has been a while since we were almost killed,” a feathered goblin said.
“No wars,” Will said firmly. “We’ve been having far too many of those.”
“Start a little war,” Brooklyn pleaded. He took a sheet of paper out of his trouser pocket and offered it to Will. “Here’s a couple guys we could pound on and nobody would mind.”
Will read the paper and handed it back. “I’ve never heard of any of these people.”
London grinned. “That way they won’t see it coming.”
Bored goblins gathered around Will and implored him to pick a fight. The fact that they could be killed for no reason didn’t deter them in the slightest, and Will knew from experience that logic and common sense were totally worthless in such a discussion. He was saved from a long and fruitless argument when Domo and Mr. Niff arrived with armfuls of mail.
“Neither snow nor rain nor enraged dragons with marital problems can stop the postman from his appointed rounds,” Domo declared. He stopped in front of Will and began going through the stacks of letters.
“I’m curious why the mailman hands my letters to you instead of me,” Will said. “Trusting goblins doesn’t come easy to outsiders.”
“It was hand it to us or go deeper into the kingdom to give it to you,” Mr. Niff explained. He smiled and added, “The guy has stepped into enough pit traps that he won’t test his luck anymore.”
“Most of this is hate mail and death threats,” Domo said as he sorted the mail. “Duke Thornwood wishes you a slow and painful death.”
“Yeah, season’s greetings to you too, pal,” Will snarled as he tore up the letter. Goblins scooted in and gobbled up the shreds of paper. He went through more of the mail, asking, “That one’s never written to me before. Is there a reason why he’s homicidal?”
“It’s nothing personal, boss,” Mr. Niff assured him. “Thornwood wants half the people on Other Place dead and the rest to suffer.”
Will shredded another letter. “There ought to be a law against someone that screwed up ruling anyone. The dwarf corporation Geo Speculations wants to dump their trash in our kingdom. The Esteemed King Landcrest wants to exile his political prisoners here. Someone named Pippiloo Pondscum wants my travel itinerary so she can have me beat up people for her. That’s three more for the shred pile.”
“Can we keep the last one?” Brooklyn asked.
Mr. Niff belched up a stamp. “Too late.”
Domo held up a smaller stack of letters. “Now here are the interesting ones. The law firm of Takeda Money & Runn is suing you for—”
Foom! The lawsuit burst into flames and was reduced to ashes. Not deterred, Domo reached for another letter. “This one—”
Foom! This time the entire stack went up together. Goblins clapped, and Mr. Niff said, “Wow, four lawsuits at once!”
“And that leaves us with the last one,” Domo said as he handed Will a letter.
This letter wasn’t cremated before it reached Will. Curious, he opened it and read it aloud.
“Let’s see, some kind soul wants my help transferring a million guilders out of his homeland. All he needs is my name, date of birth, signature, power of attorney and right leg.”
There was a snap like a whip crack as Will’s king contract shot out. It tore the letter apart while growling like an angry dog, even beating the offending letter against a tree stump for good measures. The contract rolled up again, briefly stopping to show Will a few lines near the end.
“Article 150, subsection 8, paragraph 4, line 2: The King of the Goblins can’t escape his contract through mail fraud, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes or Fonzi schemes.” Will frowned and asked, “Does anyone else think that crosses the line from thorough to paranoid?”
“Lawyers are involved, so no,” Domo told him. He looked a bit nervous and tugged at his robes before saying, “I understand you paid Gladys a visit after the harpy showed up.”
“Harpies, plural. We’ve got at least five of them in the kingdom, and one followed me home from the human town.” Will slid his king contract under his belt and searched the skies. Was the weather bad enough to ground the harpies? “Gladys sounded worried and suggested I keep you guys close.”
London frowned. “Not sure what good we can do, boss. The birdies fly high and we can’t fly at all. I guess we could throw stuff at them if they come close to the ground.”
“It’s not fair the way they stay too far away to rough up,” Brooklyn complained.
“There is something we can do,” Will said. “Spread the word to the goblins that harpies are in the kingdom. Ask them to look for a nest, roost, anything that looks like they’re moving into the neighborhood.”
“Can do, boss,” Mr. Niff said.
Will’s stomach grumbled. He’d had some luck growing food in the Kingdom of the Goblins, but he’d long ago eaten what little he’d produced. That meant he had no choice but to cross the border for all his meals, and if yesterday was any indication the harpies might be interested in that trip.
Pointing at the trolls, Will said, “London, Brooklyn, get the guys working on finding those harpies. If you see them, report back, and try to be friendly if they want to talk. Vial, Domo, talk to Gladys and let me know if she turned up anything new. Niff, if you’re free I could use some company on the way to lunch.”
Indignant, London demanded, “Why not us?”
“If the harpies show up, I want there to be at least a chance for a peaceful meeting, and you two might, no, scratch that, definitely would pick a fight with any man, monster or farm animal we might meet on the way.”
Brooklyn thumped his chest. “We don’t take guff from cattle!”
Will left with Mr. Niff following. They went through the gatehouse and headed south, pausing briefly by the site of last year’s battle with Sarcamusaad the Walking City. Will and the goblins had survived that fight through planning, goblin warp magic and blind luck, but signs of the conflict remained. There was a chasm hundreds of feet across and nearly as deep where Sarcamusaad had collapsed the caves and tunnels running under the Goblin City. Huge pieces of rusted iron, some weighing thousands of tons, littered the landscape, remnants of the German battleship Bismarck that had been warped in by the goblins and fell onto Sarcamusaad.
Pointing at the wreckage, Will said, “And that’s why we’re trying to solve this peacefully. We’ve had five major conflicts that could have killed us all. It’s pure luck that we’ve lasted so long without losing anyone. I have to find ways to deal with problems without them turning into win or die situations.”
“Speaking of that, maybe you can help me out a little.” Mr. Niff smiled and scooted in front of Will. “The guys have a betting pool on who’s going to try to kill you next, but we just started one on who you’re going to beat up.”
“You’re joking.”
“It’s true. The smart money is on you picking a fight with the wizards of the Inspired, but goblins have put bets on you going after Duke Thornwood, clearing the Ruined Lands, taking down Viliamorous the Elf King and rubbing out Plausible Deniability Jones.”
Will shook his head and continued on. “I hate to disappoint everyone, but I’m trying very hard to not get killed or kill anyone else.”
Mr. Niff hurried after him. “Nobody said kill, just kick them in the shins, ruin their plans and turn them over to the authorities. Now me, I like long shots and big payouts, so I bet a small green frog that you’d go to Battle Island and clean out the arenas and gladiator pits. So if you’re feeling generous and want to help out an old friend—”
“No!”
“I’ll split the winnings fifty-seventy.”
Will stopped and stared at the short goblin. “That’s one hundred twenty percent.”
“Don’t get all mathy on me.”
It kept snowing for the rest of their trip and slowed them down. Will didn’t see any harpies, but anything farther than fifty feet away was concealed by snowfall. They needed almost twice as long to reach the human town as they normally would. The residents stayed indoors with only a few hurrying between houses and barns. An alarming number of men were carrying weapons, mostly farming tools, but some had bows.
“Stay on the outskirts of town and keep your eyes peeled,” Will told Mr. Niff. “Come get me if you see or hear anything suspicious.”
“Gotcha, boss.”
Will went into town and headed for the inn. He was nearly there when he spotted a hunched over woman at the mouth of an alley. She wore a heavy cloak, blouse, skirt, boots, gloves and leggings, all of it made of animal hides and leaving little skin exposed besides her face. He’d never seen her before, but according to the innkeeper there were refugees settling in town. Will was half convinced she was just another unfortunate person when she ducked back into the alley.
That wasn’t a good sign. Just to be sure, Will walked past the inn and turned off onto a side street. He stopped at the next corner, and moments later he saw her again. He took two more turns and found her hobbling after him wherever he went.
“Let’s see how far you’re going to take this,” Will said softly. This time he walked to the inn and went inside. The ground outside the door was wet from the heat melting snow, and his boots squelched in the mud. He found the building packed with people, most happy and laughing. Will took a table near the fireplace and sat down. Not a minute passed before the hobbling woman came in. She hesitated at the entrance, a worried look on her face.
“Hello there!” a rancher called to her. Her fear turned to shock as he waved for her to join him. “Don’t be shy. Strangers are welcome here.”
The woman lingered by the door but went inside when other guests echoed the rancher’s encouragements. She looked across the inn, her expression wary.
Oh, this could be bad. If these people realized she was a harpy, they’d attack her. Will stood up and waved to her, saying, “Come on over. Let me buy you something to eat.”
The inn’s other customers smiled and a few clapped at his generosity. One woman put her hands on her hips and looked at her husband. “See, that’s how a gentleman acts.”
“Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us,” a farmer said. Men across the inn laughed.
The harpy hobbled over and sat down awkwardly on a chair, nearly sliding off. Will headed to the bar and asked, “What’s on the menu?”
“Beef soup and fresh bread,” the innkeeper said. More softly, he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“So far nothing, but if things get bad, I’ll need help keeping everyone calm,” he whispered back.
Will returned to his table and new guest. He spoke softly so no one else could hear. “I don’t think we’ve met before. I’m Will Bradshaw, King of the Goblins. It’s a rough job, but somebody’s got to get stuck with it. You’re brave to travel in a storm like this. What’s your name?”
The woman cast her eyes down. “Ann.”
The waitress hurried over and placed bowls of soup in front of them both. The woman stared at it like she’d never seen soup before. Maybe she hadn’t. She looked around the inn and saw people eating with spoons, and with an example of what was expected she took a spoon and tried to feed herself. It took her a few tries to get the soup to her lips without spilling it.
Will asked, “What brought you here on a night like this?”
“I, my family lost our home to the Eternal Army. I’ve been wandering ever since.”
That upset Will. There were tens of thousands left homeless and desperate because of the Eternal Army, something he blamed himself for. He’d done what little he could to help, and others like the Brotherhood of the Righteous were doing their part. For the harpy to falsely claim to be a victim was wrong.
Will ate some soup. “We both know that’s not true.”
The harpy dropped her spoon and gasped. Her mouth opened wide enough for Will to see her teeth, long and sharp.
“I’ve seen you and your friends following me for days.” He pointed his spoon at her and added, “I want to make it clear I’m not mad. Confused, but not mad. There are a lot of people here who don’t like harpies, so I understand your disguise. I have nothing against you. If you want to talk, we can talk. If you have a reasonable request, I’ll try to help, but I won’t see these men hurt or lose their livestock. So, let’s you and me talk.”
“Hold on,” a farmer said. He stood up from his chair and pointed at the harpy. “She’s been sitting next to the fire for a couple minutes, but she hasn’t taken off her hat or gloves.”
“Mind your own business,” the innkeeper said.
“He’s right!” a rancher yelled. He drew a knife. “She’s got to be baking under all those clothes. What are you trying to hide?”
The harpy stood up and hobbled toward the exit, but a crowd gathered to block her path. Will ran between them and the harpy. He held up his hands and gestured for the others to sit. “Everybody calm down! I don’t want anyone to—”
That’s when the harpy screamed, a horrific cry that dropped every man, woman and child to their knees. Will clasped both hands over his ears in a vain attempt to muffle the agony sweeping over him. Pain shot through him like a sword thrust, and his own scream was lost in the cries of terrified people.
Such a potent attack left the harpy gasping for breath. She hobbled out of the inn, leaving everyone doubled over in incredible pain. Will staggered to his feet. He heard people crying. The teenage waitress was on her knees, sobbing, her hands still pressed against her ears. Will gritted his teeth and headed for the door. He saw the harpy pull off her cloak and toss it aside before spreading her wings. Will bent down and scooped up handfuls of mud at the inn’s entrance. He jammed mud into his ears and went after the harpy.
“Wait!” he yelled. His voice sounded weird with his ears plugged up. He saw the harpy turn to face him, a startled expression on her face.
The harpy took a deep breath and let loose another scream. It was so strong it forced Will back a few inches and sent waves of pain through him, but with his ears plugged it was nowhere near as strong as the first attack. The harpy gasped for breath and backed away when she saw that Will didn’t falter. With her best weapon rendered ineffective, she grabbed a steel hatchet laced to her leg. Will unhooked his fire scepter from his belt and held it like a club. She lashed out at him with her hatchet, missing by a wide margin, then flapped her wings and tried to take to the air. As she rose higher, he grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her back to the ground. He barely heard the harpy’s started cries through his clogged ears.
Back on the ground again, the harpy swung at Will with her hatchet and her free hand. He dodged the hatchet and blocked her hand with his fire scepter, but the blow was strong enough that her talons tore through her glove. Her hand looked like a blend between a human’s and a hawk’s clawed feet. The harpy screamed again, and Will winced in pain. He staggered and the harpy pushed her advantage with an overhead swing of her hatchet. Will only barely blocked it.
There was a red light to their left as Mr. Niff came to the rescue. He’d drawn his magic dagger, and one swing of the weapon whacked off the hatchet’s steel head. My Niff followed up by scooping up a handful of snow and throwing it into the harpy’s mouth. She gagged on it before spitting it out, silencing her terrible scream for a moment.
“I appreciate the help,” Will said. Mr. Niff said something in reply, but Will couldn’t hear it with his ears plugged.
The harpy recovered fast and bared her teeth at them, a frightening mouthful of fangs that looked like they could bite through bone. She scrambled toward them as Will pointed his fire scepter into the air and turned it on.
FOOM! The scepter belched out an overwhelming blast of white-hot flames. The sudden light and heat scared the harpy, and she fled the battle. It took her a few seconds flapping her huge wings to get airborne. This time Will made no effort to stop her. She’d fought so hard that he was sure the only way to keep her from leaving was by crippling or killing her, and he had no desire to do either.
Will tried to dig the mud out of his ears while people from the inn came outside. He managed to unclog his left ear and heard the innkeeper ask, “Where is she?”
He pointed in the general direction she’d gone, but with the falling snow there was no way to see her. “She went that way.”
A rancher patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her next time.”
* * * * *
The trip home was depressing. Mr. Niff kept chatting away while he handled the steel hatchet head he’d taken as a trophy. When they got back to the Goblin City, the others panicked at the sight of Will looking dirty and angry. He could barely hear them and let Mr. Niff explain what had happened. While that was going on, he went to his room and spent thirty minutes washing mud out of his ears. His friends gathered around him as he dried off with a rag.
“What are we going to do about this?” Domo asked.
“Let’s pound on them!” Brooklyn roared.
Mr. Niff held up the hatchet head. “Look at my new toy!”
Everyone stared at Mr. Niff, blissfully ignorant of why they might be annoyed with him. Will cleared his voice to get their attention.
“You’re going to be reasonable, aren’t you?” London asked mournfully. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’m angry,” Will said. “I think I have good reason to be, but I’m not going to do anything rash. It’s obvious the harpies aren’t going to get along with us, which is unfortunately not surprising given our luck, but we aren’t going to fly off the handle. We’re going to make a proportionate response to what happened.”
London’s shoulders slumped. “I knew it.”
“Spread the word to the goblins that I was attacked,” Will said. “Harpies are to be considered armed and dangerous from now on. Make every effort to find where they’re staying in our kingdom or Kervol’s. Don’t start fights and stay in groups in case they attack.”
Will tossed the dirty rag aside and frowned. “I was hoping we could be friends with them. We get along with the trolls and the purple puppet people. I thought we could reach some kind of understanding with harpies, too.”
“You can’t be friends with everyone, Will,” Domo said. “If it makes you feel better, this is one of those rare times when strangers might help us. They hate harpies way more than us, which I admit sounds weird.”
“If they’re public enemy number one then we’re going to have to improve our game,” Mr. Niff said. “Who’s up for sabotaging imperial bedchambers?”
* * * * *
“Sir William?”
Will grumbled and rolled over in bed. He’d dismissed his friends late last night and went to sleep hungry, sore and angry. It was impossible to tell what time it was since his bedroom was deep underground and he couldn’t see the sun. Nor did he have a clock.
“Sir William, it is I, Hugh Timbers.”
The lack of sun or alarm clock to wake him didn’t mean Will got to sleep as late as he wanted. His followers were only too happy to wake him up, and in the case of the goblins they’d do the honors any time they pleased and for any reason, or no reason at all, like to announce the winner of the Nauseous Gopher Giveaway contest. Hugh Timbers, on the other hand, had never been one to disturb Will’s sleep before now. That meant this was important.
“Good morning, Hugh,” Will muttered. He lifted his head from his pillow and squinted at the dwarf. Hugh stood holding a lit lantern in the doorway to Will’s room. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say something bad happened.”
“That would not necessarily be a correct assumption. Earlier this morning I was approached by a harpy while fishing. She seeks parley.”
Will sat up in bed and got dressed. “I could use a parfait right about now.”
“Parley. It means to seek a conference between enemies under a flag of truce. The harpy claimed last night’s attack was an unfortunate mistake that her flock didn’t order. She said her flock would like to speak with you regarding a serious matter.”
Will stood up and grabbed his fire scepter. “And this serious matter is…come on, help me out.”
“I asked and she would not say. She repeated that it was important, adding that it could only be discussed between leaders.”
“Why’d she say this to you and not directly to me?” Will answered his own question by saying, “Because after last night the harpies have to figure I’m mad and heavily armed, and that doesn’t make for a good combination.”
“There is more to it than that. According to the harpy, her flock has conducted business with dwarfs. These dealings went well enough to earn their trust. She was comfortable talking to me and felt certain I would pass along this message as requested. I hesitate to mention this, but she also felt your other followers were likely to misunderstand the message or possibly forget it entirely.”
Will frowned as he imagined what would happen if a goblin tried to carry an important message. The goblin would forget part or all of it, maybe add bits or deliver it to the wrong person, and that assumed the goblin was trying to do the job right. If the hypothetical goblin was feeling ambitious, he might deliberately change the message and giggle at the resulting chaos.
“Okay, you were the best person for the job,” Will admitted. “So where do they want to meet and when?”
“There is a small stream where I met the harpy. The harpies promise to wait there until noon.”
“I like this plan. Hugh, you don’t look very happy. Why is that?”
“I was intercepted by Domo before reaching you, and he insisted on hearing the news. He believed you would accept the offer.”
Will peeked out of his room and saw the tunnels filled with hundreds of armed goblins. London and Brooklyn led the horde, with Vial, Mr. Niff and Domo present as well. The assembled goblins and trolls had fought armies to a standstill, a force to be reckoned with.
“And I said that after last night there’s no way you’re going alone,” Domo told Will. He pointed his walking stick at the others. “Your honor guard awaits.”
It took some time to reach the meeting place, partly because while the storm had ended, it had left nearly a foot of snow behind. Hugh Timbers led the unruly horde, while the goblins were surprisingly quiet as they scanned the skies for harpies. London and Brooklyn borrowed small bombs from Vial to throw should they be attacked. Domo and Mr. Niff stayed by Will to coordinate the defense.
“When Will does something needlessly stupid, you have to stop him,” Domo told the other goblins.
“But he’s being stupid right now,” a bug-eyed goblin protested.
“This is just basic levels of stupid for him,” Domo said. “You have to watch out for epic, mind blowing kinds of stupidity. It could happen at any time.”
“I’m standing right here!” Will yelled.
“Would you rather we whispered?” Mr. Niff asked him.
“I’m curious what your goals are in this meeting, My Liege,” Vial asked.
Will took a deep breath before answering. “I want very much to end this peacefully. Doing that depends on exactly what the harpies want. There could be some big problems if they’re looking to settle here, but we might be able to make it work. We don’t have enough food for them, and I can’t let them steal food from farmers living to the south.”
He glanced at Domo and asked, “Could they use the goblin gate to reach new hunting grounds? That way they could live here and get food from far away.”
Domo tipped his head to one side. “Maybe, but there’s no way to tell where the gate could take them. They could end up in a tundra, or in a city where everyone’s going to try to kill them. That’s a huge risk to take for dinner.”
“Sir William, the meeting place is ahead,” Hugh said.
They saw a stream running out of a young forest, and as promised the harpies waited for them. There were five of them dressed like the one who’d attacked Will, different only in that they lacked gloves, boots or cloaks, and were armed with daggers, spears and hatchets. They weren’t ugly, but there was a feral look to them that made Will hesitate. The harpies spread their wings at the sight of the approaching horde, and one of them waved a spear at Will.
“What is this?” the gray haired harpy screeched. “We offer parley, and you bring an army?”
“You offer parley and I accept.” Will stepped away from the others and waved for them to stay back. “My friends are here in case things end as badly as the last time I spoke with one of your flock. I tried being peaceful then, too. I know what happened wasn’t entirely her fault, but good people were hurt.”
The gray haired harpy scowled but dropped her objections. “I am Maggie, and this is my sister, Gretchen. You met Ula last night. My flock and I have been watching you for some time. It was our intention to cause no harm. The battle between you and Ula should not have happened and was against my wishes. Ula wishes to apologize.”
Will had no trouble recognizing the harpy he’d fought last night, and she glared balefully at him. Maggie nudged Ula, but the harpy neither moved nor spoke. Maggie grabbed Ula by the arm and pulled her back, saying, “Excuse us for a moment.”
The discussion was quiet enough that Will missed most of it, but a few sharp words came through. “Had this discussion…observe only, not interact…boneheaded, half-witted, mindless…you volunteered…expect better from my niece…don’t give me that look.”
“Should we come back later?” Mr. Niff asked.
“This won’t take a minute,” Maggie promised before turning back to Ula. “Screwing up everything…you agreed to this…flock’s already left…you want attitude, I’ll show you attitude…act like a lady instead of an ogre.”
Maggie pulled Ula back. Ula stared at the ground and mumbled words too soft and garbled to understand. Maggie bared her teeth and would likely have laid into her fellow harpy had Will not intervened.
“Apology accepted,” he told her.
“That is generous of you,” Maggie told him. “You no doubt have questions, and I shall answer them. My flock needs aid. Normally we see to our own needs or call upon other flocks when trouble arises, but a rare and tragic situation has occurred that requires outside help.”
“Why didn’t you just come out and ask if you wanted help?” Will demanded. The harpies flinched at his angry tone. Will calmed down, barely, and asked, “What sort of problem is it?”
The harpy Gretchen hobbled forward, pushing between the other two. He voice was pained as she said, “My daughter Celeste was born…wrong. She is a good girl! Hard working! Honest! But she can’t fly.”
Maggie put a hand on Gretchen’s shoulder. “In rare instances a harpy is born without wings or talons. It hadn’t happened in our flock before and we thought it never would until Celeste was born. We’ve looked after her as best we could for years, but she is too big to carry and our journey too far for her to follow. We must leave her in the care of others.”
The color drained out of Will’s face. “Wait, you want to leave your daughter with me?”
“Yes.” Maggie hobbled closer. “Few deal fairly with harpies, but those who do speak well of you. We followed you this last week to see if the tales were true or lies. They say you are fierce in battle. I see proof of that before me, for goblins are ready to fight in your name. They say you are merciful. I see that is also true, for an outcast dwarf takes shelter in your lands. Can you be fierce and merciful, protecting a cripple from our flock?”
“We would come to visit her often,” Gretchen promised. She was fighting back tears. “She can provide for herself and would not burden you.”
“This isn’t a small thing you’re asking for,” Will said. “We’re talking a lifetime commitment to look after someone. And while I know this makes me sound like a jerk, you’re showing up out of the blue and making a huge request.”
Domo shrugged. “It sounds like you’re not giving us anything in return, either. I’m not a greedy sort, but if Will says yes then you fly away with everything you want and we get squat.”
“I gave sanctuary to Hugh Timbers,” Will conceded, “but those were extraordinary circumstances. And let’s be honest, this isn’t a nice place to live. There must be kingdoms better suited for your daughter.”
Maggie wasn’t giving up. “If so we have not heard of them, or they are too far away to reach. You live three days travel from the edge of our territory, a manageable distance. Few men live so far north and none of your reputation. The flock spent weeks searching for an acceptable home, no easy task when few love us. Your name was not at the top of the list. It was the list.”
Hobbling closer, she set down her spear and said, “Harpies born with Celeste’s condition are especially vulnerable. She can’t flee danger the way we can. If she doesn’t have the flock to protect her then she is at risk from predators, be they on four legs or two. In your care she has the protection of your forces and none would dare harm her. I know you have reason to be angry with us, and the lies told of us must be terrible. I ask you not to look at our failings but instead at the great need there is for your help. The flock has already migrated to our next nest. We’ve no time to find her another home, and leaving Celeste on her own is unthinkable.”
“Call a travel agent, because we’re going on a guilt trip,” Domo muttered.
Will frowned. “I’d like to talk with your daughter before making a decision. And I want to make it clear that this has to be a mutual agreement between her and I. I’m willing to offer her a home, but I’m not going to make it a prison if she wants to leave.”
Maggie held up her empty hands. “Where else could she go? Celeste, the man wishes to speak with you.”
A hooded figure walked out of the woods. She wore the same stitched together animal skins as the harpies, but she moved with a grace they didn’t. She stopped by Gretchen and exchanged a brief embrace before approaching Will. Celeste removed her hood, and Will gasped at the sight.
Celeste didn’t have wings or talons, just as Maggie had said. That was because Celeste was a young woman of roughly twenty years, and possessed the kind of unearthly beauty painters and sculptures tried to capture in their art. Her skin was pale and flawless, her figure astounding. There were only two traits that proved she wasn’t human, her long turquois blue hair, tangled and tied back around a rib bone, and her eyes, which were entirely blue without white or pupil.
“She’s a siren,” Domo whispered.
“Uh, hi,” Will stammered. Judging by how the harpies had been talking, he’d assumed Gretchen’s daughter was at most twelve years old. Why did they talk about Celeste like she was a child?
“Opening lines aren’t his strong point,” Mr. Niff said. The goblins nodded in agreement.
“I understand why I’m a burden to my flock,” Celeste said in a voice so melodious that it might be a song. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes were fixed on the ground. “I won’t get in your way or cause trouble. You won’t even know I’m here.”
* * * * *
Hundreds of miles away, the same storm that had blanketed the Kingdom of the Goblins in snow was now deep in the mountainous north. Winds howled and snow drifts formed quickly before crumbing under their own weight to fall down the mountains. This was a formidable deterrent and one of the reasons why the harpies had nested here not long ago.
Today the fierce storm and towering mountains offered no defense. Fifty attackers scaled vertical cliffs with a single-minded determination. Their heavy armor was wrapped in cloth both to warm them and muffle sound. The attackers found handholds in the thinnest of cracks in the cliff face, driving in steel spikes and attaching ropes to them as they moved ever higher.
It took hours climbing in conditions that could kill a man, but they never stopped until they neared the spot where Maggie’s flock had once nested. They slowed as they approached the nest and spread out to strike from all sides. The foul weather that had given them such trouble would be strong enough to ground the harpy flock. There was no way their prey could escape. As one the fifty attackers drew magic weapons and surged over the top into the nest, and found nothing.
The leader of the assault took a small magic mirror from his backpack and held it to his face. “They’re gone! The nest is empty!”
“Are they out foraging?” a voice in the mirror demanded.
The attackers searched the nest and came up with little. There were piles of ash, frozen droppings and broken twigs. The leader turned his attention back to the mirror. “There are no perches left. They’ve been broken up and burned for fuel. Harpies only do that when leaving a nest for good. They could be anywhere in their territory, and that covers five hundred square miles.”
The leader spat in disgust and looked at the mirror. “They were here only days ago! Orders, sir?”
“Find them at all costs.”
