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.”