‘‘Why would Billa kill her own soldiers?’’ To Jig’s surprise, the question came from one of the humans, not a goblin.
‘‘Because she’s an orc, and we’re only goblins.’’ Jig’s words sounded harsh and bitter, even to his own ears. ‘‘Do you really believe Billa cares what happens to us?’’
Low, angry muttering spread through the goblins. Angry at Billa, or at Jig? He couldn’t tell.
‘‘Billa has led us to one victory after another,’’ Gratz said.
‘‘Her victories,’’ shouted Relka. ‘‘And who does she send to take the brunt of those battles?’’
‘‘Goblins!’’
Jig thought about the marching formation on the road. Any attack would have decimated the front lines—the goblins—leaving most of the orcs well-protected. ‘‘I’m tired of being used,’’ Jig said. He hoped Shadowstar was listening too. ‘‘Anyone who wants to keep fighting for Billa the Bloody, pick up your weapons and have at it. The rest of you, put away your swords.’’
Nobody made any move to attack the humans. More importantly, nobody tried to attack Jig.
‘‘They believed you,’’ Genevieve said, her voice quiet. ‘‘What did you do to earn such trust from goblins?’’
Jig shook his head. ‘‘Trust had nothing to do with it. They’re outnumbered and surrounded. Goblins will believe just about anything if it keeps them alive.’’
Jig hunched his shoulders and tried not to look at anyone as he followed Genevieve and Darnak deeper into Avery. Humans glared at him from the windows. Other humans were already hurrying through town, their belongings bundled on their backs or dragging behind on crude sleds.
They came to an intersection of roads and paths, coming together like threads in the middle of a spider’s web. Triangular gardens filled the spaces between the roads. A single tree grew in each garden, the branches twining together overhead to provide a bit of shelter from the snow. Even with most of the leaves fallen from the branches, the trees were large enough to provide a makeshift roof.
Unfortunately, the trees were also full of birds. Instead of being crusted with snow, the ground was now layered in fallen leaves and bird droppings.
‘‘Elfhawks,’’ Darnak said. ‘‘Back when Avery belonged to the elves, they raised their messenger birds here. When the elves left, the birds remained. They’re none too fond of humans, for the most part. A lot like elves, really. Over the years, they’ve gotten a bit out of control.’’
The hawks were as blue as the sky. Black markings along the chest and face made them look as though they were wearing tiny masks, or maybe spectacles. As Jig watched, two hawks hopped from the branches and swooped toward a family dragging their sled along the road. They snatched a carelessly bound rabbit from the sled. By the time the family reacted, the hawks had already carried their prize back to the tree.
‘‘They’re brilliant hunters,’’ Genevieve said. ‘‘But they’re even better thieves. They’re also the fastest things in the sky, short of a dragon. Smart, too, which means they’re the perfect messenger.’’
Darnak sat down in the middle of the road and pulled out a sheet of parchment. He dug through his pack until he found a pot of ink and a quill. He uncapped the quill and penned a quick message, then handed quill and parchment to Genevieve, who signed it.
Genevieve rolled the message into a tube. She glanced at Jig. ‘‘I need a strip of your cloak.’’
‘‘What?’’ Jig stepped back.
‘‘The birds are trained by color. Different ribbons signify different destinations. My father’s color is purple. Normally we use silk ribbons, but the birds got in through a window and stole them all last week.’’ She pointed toward the top of one tree, where the most colorful nest Jig had ever seen sat amid the branches.
Darnak was already slicing a strip from the bottom of Jig’s cloak. He gave it to Genevieve, who tied a tight loop around the parchment, then knotted a larger loop in the rest of the material.
‘‘How do the hawks carry—’’ Jig began.
Genevieve held out the message so the loop hung down. Instantly, four of the closest hawks dove into the air. Three veered away, and the fourth shot past. His head fit neatly through the loop, ripping the message from Genevieve’s grasp.
Jig could feel Smudge burrowing deeper into his pocket
The hawk was already shrinking in the distance, the message hanging from its makeshift necklace.
‘‘He won’t stop until he reaches my father,’’ Genevieve said.
‘‘Good,’’ said Jig. Relief made him dizzy. Prince Theodore would bring the rod and stop Billa, Noc would be safe, and Jig would finally be able to go home again.
Genevieve turned to Darnak. ‘‘Close the east and west gates. Post double guards on the north and south. I want men on the walls as well.’’
‘‘What?’’ Jig stepped back. ‘‘I thought Theodore was going to come stop her.’’
‘‘Billa is too close, lad,’’ said Darnak. He unstrapped his pack and pulled out a long leather tube. ‘‘It will be easier to show you with some maps.’’
With that, he unhooked his cloak and laid it on the road. He then began spreading out sheet after sheet of parchment, weighing the corners with fallen sticks, the ink pot, a dagger, and anything else he could find.
Each map was a work of art. Darnak’s own art, judging from the way he puffed up as he unrolled each one. It was a miracle he didn’t burst his shirt.
‘‘Hey, that looks like a goblin,’’ Jig said, pointing to a tiny blue figure painted among the mountains. Jig squinted through his spectacles, trying to comprehend the mess of colors and lines and tiny notes, all written in Darnak’s painstakingly perfect handwriting.
‘‘Your lair,’’ Genevieve said.
Once the map was secure, Darnak pulled a wooden box from his pack. He opened it to reveal a collection of tiny metal figures. He plucked out a blue-painted goblin, which he set down by a star marked AVERY. He set two armored soldiers beside the blue goblin. The three figures completely blocked out Avery. ‘‘Call it about a hundred or so fighters, all told.’’
‘‘Is this really the best time to be playing with toys?’’ Jig asked.
Genevieve smirked. Darnak looked indignant. ‘‘They’re not toys. They’re tools. Markers. Very valuable for visualizing tactics and strategy.’’
Jig picked up the goblin figurine. ‘‘Why did you paint blood on his fangs?’’
‘‘Give me that.’’ Darnak snatched the goblin back and slammed it into place. ‘‘Now the rest of Billa’s army followed you up to the lair, right?’’ He pulled out several thin stone blocks, each with the number 1,000 carved into the top. The sides were painted with various monsters. Darnak stacked four of them by the lair.
‘‘King Wendel and Theodore will be coming from the capital.’’ More blocks went down on the other side of the mountains, along with two more tiny metal figures. One wore a gold-painted crown, the other a silver crown. ‘‘He should be about here when he receives our message.’’
To Jig’s eye, the armies looked equally matched, and equally distant from the tiny force at Avery.
‘‘Even in good weather, it would take an extra day for Theodore’s men to get through the pass,’’ Darnak said, pointing to the mountains.
‘‘Assuming he believes me.’’ Genevieve stared at the map. ‘‘Knowing my father, he’ll toss my warning aside as the frightened nonsense of a naive child.’’
‘‘We’ll mine that vein when we come to it,’’ said Darnak. ‘‘Jig, do you have any guess when Billa would have left the lair?’’
Jig shook his head. ‘‘She might not even know I escaped yet.’’
She knows,
said Shadowstar.
Isa knows. They’re hunting us even now, Jig. I’ve done my best to protect you, but she’s stronger than I am.
Jig swallowed and said, ‘‘But she’s probably on her way.
Darnak tugged his beard. ‘‘She’ll have an easy march up the road.’’ He moved Billa’s blocks toward Avery. His jostling knocked the goblin figurine onto its back. Jig hoped that wasn’t an omen. ‘‘Billa could be here as soon as tonight.’’
Darnak moved the silver-crowned figure through the mountains, muttering to himself. ‘‘Teddy’s fast, no question. And his elves can run over the snow like it’s good, solid earth, even if they look like fancy-prance twits when they do it.’’
‘‘We can hold Avery,’’ Genevieve whispered. ‘‘Billa has no heavy siege equipment, from our last reports. Avery’s walls are strong. The gates are reinforced with elf magic. We only need to stop her for a day, maybe two.’’
‘‘You couldn’t even stop me.’’ Jig glanced at Genevieve’s face, then scooted out of reach of her sword. ‘‘What about the southern side of the valley? Won’t the elves—’’
Genevieve shook her head. ‘‘The elves will do nothing unless Billa violates their borders. My mother negotiated a treaty with them years ago. No elf can set foot in human lands without permission.’’
Jig stared at the map. ‘‘So give them permission!’’
‘‘First you’d have to convince my father,’’ said Genevieve. ‘‘He already thinks they’re trying to steal his son.’’
She set the two human figurines in front of Avery. ‘‘We’ll post our men on the walls.’’ She reached for the goblin. ‘‘Your goblins will need to work on the walls, cutting the last of the steelthorn. We should be able to finish—What is it now?’’
‘‘I don’t understand.’’ Jig studied the map more closely. ‘‘What goblins?’’
‘‘Your goblins,’’ Darnak said. ‘‘They’re not much, but they’ve done a nice job preparing the wall. We won’t be tying them up this time, of course.’’
‘‘Wait, you think they’re still here?’’ Darnak and Genevieve had been standing right there when Jig told the goblins about Billa’s betrayal. They heard him tell everyone what was coming, but they still expected the goblins to be here? ‘‘They’re probably in the woods by now, running away as fast as they can.’’
Genevieve frowned at Jig. ‘‘
You’re
still here.’’
Jig said nothing. Where could he go to hide from a goddess?
‘‘What about that one?’’ Darnak asked, pointing up the road. ‘‘She didn’t flee either.’’
Jig didn’t even bother to look. He knew who it had to be. The one goblin he would prefer had abandoned him.
‘‘I brought this for you,’’ Relka said, handing him a hard, brown roll with bits of burned leaves on top. ‘‘They say it’s an elf biscuit. I’d have made you a real elf biscuit, but they wouldn’t let me near their stoves. Also, we don’t have any fresh elf.’’
Jig took a quick bite of the biscuit, which tasted about how he would have expected. If this was what elves ate, no wonder they were so skinny.
Darnak sighed. ‘‘Without the rest of those blue-skinned nuisances, we’ll need to spread our men even thinner to watch the walls.’’
‘‘Where are the goblins going to go?’’ asked Relka, staring at the map.
Jig, Darnak, and Genevieve all turned to stare.
‘‘They haven’t run away yet?’’ Jig asked.
‘‘Most of them are resting in the stables.’’ Relka shrugged. ‘‘I guess they got used to it. The straw is warmer than the caves back home, and—’’
‘‘They’re
resting
?’’
‘‘Well, you didn’t order them to do anything else,’’ Relka pointed out.
Jig searched for something to say, but the words wouldn’t come. The wolf-riders had spent enough time in Billa’s army that they might have lost their sense of self-preservation, but why would the goblins from the lair still be here? Unless their minds had been dulled by eating too many pickles.
‘‘Come on,’’ said Darnak, rolling up his maps. ‘‘We’d best be getting back. Leaving your soldiers with nothing to do is a recipe for bloodshed, as any commander should know.’’
As if goblins ever needed an excuse for more bloodshed.
Genevieve was the first to spot the smoke. She broke into a run, leaving the others struggling to catch up.
They arrived to find the goblins gathered around a small fire in the middle of the road. Several humans stood nearby, looking . . . nauseated.
Trok turned around when he heard them approaching. ‘‘General Jig!’’
The other goblins cheered. The humans tensed and reached for their weapons. In the distance, the wolves broke into howls.
‘‘Dimak,’’ Trok snapped. ‘‘I thought I ordered you to feed those beasts.’’
Dimak hunched his shoulders. ‘‘Sorry, sir.’’ He grabbed something from the fire, then turned and fled toward the source of the howling.
‘‘What’s he going to feed them?’’ Jig asked. He glanced at the uneaten elf biscuit in his hand, but trying to feed such a thing to wolves would only enrage them further.
‘‘Grappok and I had a bit of trouble deciding who should be in charge, with you and Relka both gone.’’ Trok flexed his arm, and Jig saw two bloody fang marks at the shoulder. ‘‘I won.’’
‘‘I don’t understand,’’ Jig said. Despite his nervousness, he found himself edging closer to the cook fire. The air had grown colder, until his fingers seemed to burn from the wind. ‘‘Wait, why did you call me general? And what are you still doing here? I thought you’d have left the city by now.’’
‘‘It seemed only right to promote you,’’ said Trok. ‘‘Seeing how this is officially your army, not Billa’s.’’
‘‘We’re going to teach Billa the Bloody a lesson about goblins,’’ somebody said. The others cheered.
‘‘But she has thousands of monsters,’’ Jig said. ‘‘She’ll slaughter every one of you.’’
‘‘See?’’ said the same goblin. ‘‘General Jig, he tells it like it is! No lies from this one.’’
They cheered yet again, idiots to the last.
Jig grabbed Trok’s arm and dragged him away from the others. ‘‘This is madness.’’ Jig kept his voice low, pitched so nobody else would overhear. ‘‘You’ve seen Billa’s army. I can understand humans making a suicidal stand. They’re stupid that way. But we’re goblins. We survive by running away when we’re outnumbered. Or when we’re evenly matched. Or anytime we don’t have a twenty-to-one advantage, really.’’
‘‘You stayed,’’ Trok said.
‘‘I’m stupid too. And I can’t run away, because Isa would—’’