“Okay. Murray, you’re in charge. Algol, Gloober, go with Murray. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’d rather nobody saw you at all. Stealth is more important than clean clothes.”
She wracked her brain for anything else useful to say.
“Gloober, get your finger out of there.”
They waited.
“And good luck.”
The three saluted and moved off towards the fields.
“Weasel, you and Thumper go see if you can’t find something to eat, and keep your eyes peeled for anything that might make a good campsite. The rest of us will wait here.”
The pair saluted. Nessilka watched them go, the tiny little Weasel and the slab of muscle that was Thumper.
“Okay, troops,” she said, turning back to Blanchett and the twins. “You three rest up. That’s an order. Blanchett, will the bear mind if I borrow your helmet?”
There was a brief consultation. “He says it’s okay, Sarge.”
“Good. I could really use some tea.”
Making tea in a used orc helmet recently converted to teddy-bear sedan chair was an experience, but good sergeants learn to improvise. The hard part was getting the helmet clean. Who knew that Blanchett was using so much hair gel under that thing?
She had just gotten the water boiling when she heard a rustling in the bushes.
It was Murray. He and Algol and Gloober emerged from the woods, looking thoughtful. (Well, Murray and Algol looked thoughtful. Gloober had his finger up his nose again.)
“That was quick,” she said.
Murray tugged at his ponytail. “Sarge…I think you better come look at this.”
“What is it?”
“There’s nobody there.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s good, right? They stepped out. We can grab the laundry and nobody’ll be the wiser.”
“No, Sarge, I don’t think they stepped out. I think…”
He fell silent. Algol put a hand on her arm.
“Sarge,” he rumbled, “you really better come look at this.”
“Okay. Gloober, stay here. Everybody, lay low, keep quiet, don’t start any large fires.” She cast around for the next most responsible person on the chain of command, and sighed. Oh well, no help for it. “Blanchett, the bear’s in charge.”
He made the bear salute. “He says he’s honored by your trust, Sarge!”
Nessilka nodded. He can’t be any worse than some of the generals…
“Let’s go.”
ELEVEN
Sings-to-Trees had finally finished every small chore to be done around the farm, and by mid-afternoon, too.
This was so unusual that he sank down into the rocking chair on the porch with his eyes closed, because he was fairly sure that the moment he opened them, he would see something he’d forgotten, and then he’d have to get up again.
Fleabane ambled over and flopped down at his feet. Sings-to-Trees dangled a hand over the arm of the chair, and the coyote dragged a long tongue over his fingers.
The elf was content to slouch in the chair for a few minutes, feeling the afternoon sun baking his face and forearms.
Sometimes, even though he was fairly young as elves go, the whole thing got away from him. Too many animals, too many injuries, too many things that needed to get done right this minute. He occasionally wished for an assistant. Unfortunately, humans weren’t all that interested in sending their young to live with an elf, and the other elves…he knew well enough what they thought. He was like some kind of martyr, as far as they were concerned. They were glad he existed, but nobody wanted to get too close, for fear of getting unicorn crap or something worse on them.
Sometimes he thought about giving it all up, moving into the glade and taking up something respectable, like glass-whispering.
In a few hundred years, when he was ancient and his knees creaked like old floorboards, did he really want to be tottering around the farm, midwifing unicorns and bandaging trolls?
He opened his eyes with a sigh, and a troll was looking at him.
Sings-to-Trees didn’t quite yelp, but he made a choked noise. Fleabane’s tail thumped companionably on the boards. The coyote liked trolls. They brought goat meat, and Fleabane was desperately fond of goat.
The troll was sitting on the path, and spilling over on the sides. He recognized it as Frogsnoggler—that wasn’t the troll’s real name but it was the closest phonetic equivalent to the complicated set of sounds that it used to describe itself.
At least, he thought it was describing itself. He had never been able to learn their language. Fortunately, they understood his perfectly well.
“You gave me quite a start,” the elf said, getting up. The troll’s silent approach didn’t surprise him—trolls moved with eerie silence for their size—but seeing one out and about before sunset was unusual.