The goblins sat in the shadow of building. Nessilka crouched behind a water barrel on the edge of the street and stared at the building.
Nothing happened.
“Maybe its parents are dead and it’s just trying to eat until someone gets here to find it,” she said, without much conviction.
“Uh-huh,” said Murray.
“The bear is pretty sure that’s a load, Sarge,” said Blanchett.
She sighed. “Yeah, me too.” The casual way it had moved the corpse aside with its foot—that screamed “murderer” and “crazy person” and “do not touch.”
“Think it’s a wizard?”
“It’d almost have to be, wouldn’t it?”
“There could be a grown-up wizard in there doing the actual magic.” Murray chewed at his lower lip.
“Children are vicious little bastards, some of ‘em,” offered Blanchett.
Flies buzzed. Across the square, two crows got into a brief squabble over a tasty bit of carrion.
“Now what do we do, Sarge? Go back?” Murray glanced behind them.
Nessilka would have loved to go back. Going back sounded like a great idea.
But if they went back and told Sings-to-Trees, he’d insist on coming out to see if the human really was a child who needed help, and if his rangers showed up, they’d probably do the same, and if it was a goblin child they’d be on their guard, but since it was a human and humans were nice…
There were already a whole lot of dead people out there. Nessilka didn’t care very much for faceless unknown rangers, particularly not elves, but Sings-to-Trees didn’t deserve to wind up in that pile of bodies.
And the Nineteenth—what there was of it—still had to get home, and if the weird voice magic could reach as far as the treeline, then they’d have to go miles out of their way to get home, and that would undoubtedly lead them into trouble with somebody who wasn’t nearly as nice as Sings-to-Trees.
“We have to get a better look. Murray, you and me—Blanchett, stay here.”
“Sarge…”
It was a poor day when Blanchett was questioning orders, Nessilka thought grimly. Still—“You’re the only one we know is immune, so you’re the only one who can get a message back if it gets us. If it’s a kid…fine. If it’s a grown-up wizard…well, we’ll find out.”
Blanchett hunched his shoulders and looked mulish, but perhaps the bear had a word with him, because he said gloomily “If you say so, Sarge.”
She took one final look at the church and the bodies, shoved her earplugs back in—Murray did the same—and made a move out gesture with her fingers.
Nessilka and Murray moved out.
SEVENTEEN
Sings-to-Trees stood just inside the forest and fretted.
He’d lost sight of the goblins fairly quickly—for all their apparent clumsiness, they knew their way around a hedgerow.
He hoped they would be okay.
He couldn’t believe he’d nearly attacked the cervidian.
He should go back to the farm and send a pigeon. He should send a pigeon about the mage, and about the weird noise. The goblins would be fine. The goblins could take care of themselves.
Sings wrung his hands together.
The goblins could probably take care of themselves better than Sings himself could.
It was so quiet. The quiet bothered him almost as much as the memory of the voice did. Forest edges were hopping with life—birds and bugs and lizards and squirrels. There should be scurrying and scuttling and chirping and singing.
There should be—
Something stamped.
He turned his head slowly, already knowing what he would see.
Ah.
Yes.
The empty eyes of the cervidian stag stared back him.
“I won’t go out there,” he told the stag. “It’s okay.”
The stag rattled and stamped again.
“Er? Is there something else?”
He looked for the bone doe, but she wasn’t there. Perhaps the stag had seen her somewhere safe, then returned.
The stag paced toward him. Sings held his ground. I almost attacked him. He didn’t attack me, and he didn’t hurt that goblin, even though he could have. If anything, he’s got the moral high ground on me.
A few feet away, the cervidian halted. Hollow eyes gazed into his.
And then the stag turned slightly, stretched out a forelimb, and…knelt?
Why is he—
“Oh no,” Sings-to-Trees said out loud. “Oh no! Ride you? You can’t be serious!”
The stag rattled with impatience.
Sings-to-Trees eyed the exposed knobs of the stag’s backbone and imagined then against his tender bits. He shuddered.
“Are you sure I can’t just follow you?”
The stag rattled again and pawed at the ground.