The hand that had a damned stick attached to it!
Cræosh roared with fury as he finally spotted the little wooden shaft—not much more than a sturdy twig—protruding through a tiny hole in the table and into the corpse's wrist. Still bellowing, the orc ripped the table from the floor and heaved it bodily over his shoulder. The crack of the wood was accompanied, in an almost musical harmony, by the fainter shattering of glass. Curious, Katim knelt beside the wreckage, inspecting the shards as they glittered, reflecting the flickering torchlight.
“Eep! Irp? Bedabedat! Biroo…”
“What the…!” Cræosh recoiled from another sudden burst of movement, then peered up at the ceiling, trying for a clearer glimpse of the gibbering creature that had just shot past him. It was tiny, he'd seen that much; shorter even than their diminutive Sergeant Shreckt. It too had wings, but they were clearly feathered, not leathery like the imp's, and the face was a great deal flatter. The high-pitched nonsense it had spouted as it passed resembled no language the orc was familiar with.
“Abroo! Bedara bruk!”
Cræosh scowled, though his blazing fury was rapidly ebbing into a simmering frustration. “Hey, Nature-boy! You feeling better?”
“Jhurpess hurt,” came the response from atop the ladder. “But Jhurpess all right.”
“Good. You feel up to using that bow?”
A moment later, the top half of the bugbear appeared, hanging from the edge of the fireplace hatch. “What Jhurpess supposed to shoot?”
“That!” The orc pointed his weighty sword at the creature, now firmly perched on one of the rafters.
“Eroo?” the strange little thing asked.
Jhurpess drew back the bowstring and let fly. The arrow sped across the room—and with a speed Cræosh would never have believed had he not witnessed it firsthand, Katim's chirrusk arced up and intercepted the missile.
The orc found himself struck nearly dumb. Nothing could have moved that fast! He wondered, with a sinking sensation in his gut, if he shouldn't have taken his own advice and tried to kill the troll when he had the chance.
But he wasn't about to let her see his worry. “What the fuck's with you?” he ranted, fists clenched. “Why'd you do that?”
“Because we…do not want to kill…the creature. It is…not a threat.”
Cræosh blinked. “I thought trolls didn't take prisoners. I thought you didn't believe in mercy.”
“We do not. But…this is not an enemy. It…is nothing more than an…animal. And I am…curious about it.”
“Bejaba geroo! Urr urrup!”
“Pretty damn talkative for an animal, isn't it?” Cræosh said sullenly. But Katim would not be budged, and Cræosh was unwilling to force the issue.
“How come we didn't see it when we came in?” Gimmol asked, unable to look away from the corpses, perhaps still expecting them to leap up and eat him. “I mean, it's small, but there's not a whole lot of room to hide under those tables.”
Cræosh directed his gaze, half questioning and half mocking, back at the troll. “Well? You're its new best friend. Why don't you tell us how chicken-dick managed to hide from us?”
“Rucha wamma burr!”
“Yeah, you heard me! Chicken-dick!”
Katim actually sighed. “Here.” She handed the startled orc a small shard of glass.
“Oh.” And then, “What the fuck's it mean?”
“It means…that there was a mirror…underneath the table. In…such poor lighting…it reflected the shadows…and made it appear that the space…was empty.”
“Uh-huh. And that kind of premeditation—to say nothing of the fact that it was smart enough to puppeteer a damn corpse—doesn't make you think that, just maybe, the little shit's more than some dumb animal?”
“The ‘little shit’ could…not have moved the glass…by itself. If this was…premeditated, it was arranged…by someone else.”
“Which reminds me,” Cræosh told her, abruptly switching track. “Weren't we about on our way out?”
The ladder creaked even more loudly on their way up, apparently weakened by their combined weight (and undignified panic), but it held. When Katim finally clambered out onto the floor of the main room, Cræosh already had the others lined up in a vague formation and approaching the door.
The tiny winged creature shot from the massive hole, jabbering at them, clearly agitated about something.
“You sure you don't wanna kill the little fucker?” Cræosh asked.
Katim just looked at him.
“You suppose the owner's liable to be upset about Jhurpess ripping apart his chair?” Gimmol asked nervously.
“Oh, sure,” Gork muttered. “He won't care in the slightest about the six-foot hole in his floor, but don't fuck with his chair. Tell me something, Gimmol, are your people always this swift, or are you a prodigy?”
“And just what,” the gremlin asked, his face twisted in a scowl as fierce as he could produce, “is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you're representative of your people, I’m astounded that you exist at all! It's amazing to me that your species has the brainpower to remember how to breed!”
Hollering, Gimmol hurled himself at the kobold. The diminutive pair hit the ground and rolled, tiny fists flying like hailstones. The rest of the squad swiftly gathered; Gork and Gimmol would have been mortified had they seen the amusement plastered across their companions’ faces.
Cræosh watched for a couple of minutes, until the whole thing stopped being funny. Then, growing bored of the spectacle and remembering that they were supposed to be fleeing the cottage, he grabbed a combatant's collar in each fist. He rose, dangling Gork and Gimmol like a pair of dejected kittens.
“Either put ‘em back in your pants,” he said, “or fuck and get it over with.”
Despite their precarious positions, both pint-size soldiers managed to swivel toward the orc and give him a withering look of disgust.
“All right, then. Kill each other later. Right now, we're withdrawing.”
“Don't you mean running away?” Fezeill asked from behind.
“Nah. Marching calmly is a withdrawal. Usually, if I’m running away, my hands are waving in the air and I’m screaming a lot.” He paused. “Or is that sex? It's been so damn long, I can barely remember….”
Katim grimaced and headed toward the door—or rather, the empty doorframe. She had gotten to within a yard or so of the entryway, in fact, when her egress was suddenly blocked.
“Umm…Cræosh?”
“Last time was back home in Tarahk Trohm,” the orc was telling the largely uninterested—and somewhat disgusted—doppelganger. “Lovely shit-brown cutey, she was….”
“Cræosh!” Katim called, somewhat more forcefully.
“…Name of Mesharral, I think….”
“Orc!!”
“What?! I—oh.” Steel hissed against leather as his massive sword slid free of its sheath. Similar sounds followed as the entire squad drew steel, staring intently at the figure in the doorway.
He was markedly shorter than Cræosh, and slender as a reed. A dull gray cloak wrapped most of his body, and his features hid within the depths of his hood.
“I’m going to venture a guess, here,” the stranger said in slightly accented Gremlin—which, of all the goblin languages, was most pronounceable to outsiders and served as something of a common trade tongue. His voice somehow conveyed the impression of song, even though his tone was neutral, even flat. “A boulder, obviously well traveled, came bounding across the tundra, crashed through my front door, and left this rather unattractive hole in my floor. Meanwhile, you good samaritans, concerned that there might be some poor unfortunates injured by said boulder, came racing in here to see if you could help. And now, upon realizing that there is little you can do, you were preparing to sneak back out into the snows, unrecognized and unthanked for your courage and generosity.”
“How about that?” Cræosh asked. “He got it in one try! Can't
put anything past you, can we? Well, since, as you were so good to point out, there's not much else we can do here, I suppose we'll just be on our way. Sorry about, um, the boulder and all. Squad, move—”
The new arrival held up a hand. “I think not.”
Cræosh scowled. “You want to try to stop us? Are you stupid or just—no, you'd really have to be stupid.”
The cowled figure snapped his fingers. With a resounding whine of old hinges, the hatch beneath the fireplace slammed itself shut. The crackling of wood, a sudden loud roar, and the flames were once again blazing away in the hearth, as large and as vivid as if they'd never been extinguished.
Jhurpess whimpered. Gork ducked for cover behind Cræosh. Gimmol appeared on the verge of passing out completely, and even Katim blinked nervously once or twice.
“Of course,” the orc continued, “you could also be a wizard.”
Though they couldn't see his face for the shadow of the hood, they were all quite positive the stranger smiled. “I could, at that.”
“You fry us, mage, and you're gonna lose a good portion of your hut, too.”
“There are other ways to kill you, orc. But the truth is, I don't want you dead. Sit, please.”
There was a great deal of muttering, of reluctance, of suspicious glances in all directions; but what there was not was a whole lot of any real choice. The Demon Squad could do what the stranger asked, or they could fight their way past, and while Cræosh was pretty sure they'd come out on top, he was equally certain that not all of them would survive the attempt. No need to risk it. Yet.
Of course, after the bugbear's earlier rampage, the hut was now somewhat deficient in the chair department. Fezeill and Gimmol settled into the two plush chairs by the fire, leaving the surviving wooden seats for Gork and Jhurpess. Katim and Cræosh stood, she in the center of the room, he beside the gremlin's chair.
“Okay,” he growled at the owner of the strange little hovel, “I’m as relaxed as I get without alcohol and nudity. So who the fuck are you, and what do you want?”
The figure pulled back his hood in reply. Dark tresses framed a slender face, sharp-featured and clean-shaven—and a pair of upswept, pointed ears.
“Elf!” Cræosh hissed, his body tensing. Fezeill, Gork, and Jhurpess were on their feet, ready to kill the foul, hideous creature.
Katim's chirrusk dangled from one hairy fist, but even as she moved to lunge, she drew to a halt, blinking.
“Are you not…kind of short for an elf?”
Cræosh scowled, though the troll's sudden reluctance was enough to stay his hand as well. “So he's a midget. What's the problem? Just means I'll have to bend over to yank out his entrails.”
But now Gork, too, had picked up on it. “No, she's right!” he called out, as desperate to avoid this fight as he had been, just a moment ago, to start it. “Look at his eyes!”
The orc sucked in his breath. Every elf he'd ever encountered—every elf he'd ever heard of—had irises of woodland hue: greens, reds, and golds, for the most part. These eyes, larger than those of any elf he'd ever seen, had a reflective tint of deepest violet.
“But they're just myths!” Cræosh protested, his gaze darting from Gork to the strange elf. “Stories, wishful thinking maybe. They don't exist!”
“We don't?” the elf asked, his voice suddenly concerned. “Then what am I doing here?”
“No need to get sarcastic,” the orc huffed.
“No,” Fezeill added, gesturing at Cræosh, “that's his job.”
Cræosh scowled at them both—then at everyone else, just because.
“We've run into them from time to time,” Gork told them, his voice unusually subdued. “Kobolds, I mean. Nobody I know personally ever actually met one, though.”
“’One’? Really now, kobold, is it so difficult to say it?”
“Dakórren,” Gork finally muttered. “Dark elves.”
The stranger made a face at that. “You've been cavorting with the eilurren, haven't you?”
“Eilurren?” Cræosh asked softly.
“Elves,” Gork said. “That is, uh, ‘light’ elves. The normal ones.”
The “nonnormal” elf was still going on. “…but I mean, really! ‘Dark elves’? Don't you find that a little melodramatic? You've got humans fighting alongside you in the Charnel King's armies, but you don't hear anyone calling them ‘dark men,’ do you?”
“Jhurpess doesn't do anything with elves!” the bugbear protested once he could jam a word in edgewise. “And what ‘cavorting’?”
“Meeting, playing with, socializing!” Cræosh snapped. “Generally being friendly! Which is why you have no idea what it means!”
Jhurpess began to pout. Cræosh ignored him.
“Fine, so you're dark elf, or dakórren, or whatever. That means exactly what to me?”
“So hostile, friend orc? We are not enemies.”
“Legend says that you pseudo-faeries are one of the few races King Morthûl approached who refused to join his armies. If you actually exist, I see no reason to doubt that part of the story. So who's to say we aren't enemies, you pointy-eared bug-fucker?”
Katim rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “I see that…diplomacy is one of your…strong suits.”
“What's wrong with pointy ears?” Gimmol whined at the same time.
Only the elf, it seemed, did not react adversely to the orc's comment. He smiled, a white, even-toothed smile. “You're alive, orc. Surely, that alone demonstrates my goodwill.”
“Or your cowardice.”
The smile slipped just a bit. “I could have stood outside and killed you through the open door before you even knew I existed.”
“Don't think so, pixie. We're Demon Squad! We're ready for anythaaaarrgh!!!” Cræosh flailed his arms, trying to catch the strange little creature who had dived from nowhere and plucked a tuft of hair from the orc's head.
“Rooo. Delaba wur! Ekee ekee!”
“Yes, I can see that,” the elf said gently to the creature as it landed, quivering, on his shoulder. “Quite brave of you.”
Cræosh shifted his near-perpetual scowl from the elf to the thing that had joined him. “You understand the little shit?”
“Oh, yes. Quite well.” The elf's expression turned downright nasty. “Had your trollish ally not stopped you from harming him after his little game, you would have found my reception somewhat less cordial.” And then, once again, the newcomer was all smiles, casually scratching the strange little beast—which was purring—under the chin.
“Did you know?” Cræosh demanded of the troll.
“Under the…circumstances, I felt the creature could…very well have been a…wizard's familiar. I thought it…safer to be sure.”
“You coulda said something, instead of spouting all that ‘Oh, it's just a pwecious wittle animal’ horseshit.”
“Why? I wasn't…sure one way or…the other. Look,” she said, placing herself between the orc and the elf. “You told us…that you want something…from us?”
The wizard raised an eyebrow. “Did I?”
With a sideways glance that spoke volumes, Cræosh elbowed past the troll so he was once again standing at the fore. “Well, you said you didn't want us dead. For my money, they mean the same thing.”
“Indeed.” The elf snapped his fingers once again and then proceeded to sit comfortably in the large plush chair that hadn't been beneath him but a moment before. A sudden thump sounded behind them, followed by a brief whine as Gimmol's ass hit the floor. “Very well. My name is Nurien Ebonwind.” He paused there, in case any of his “guests” wished to introduce themselves in turn.
“Ebonwind?” Cræosh sniggered. “Yeah, he's an elf all right. You have a brother named Twinklefart by any chance?” Gork stuck his snout in his hands and giggled.
Ebonwind sighed. “Forget it. Anyway, I find myself with something of a problem, and I believe you good folks can assist me with it. As I’m sure you can imagine, considering how much hatred there is b
etween my own race and the other elves, it behooves us to keep as close a watch on their activities as possible.”
“What ‘behooves’ mean?” Jhurpess asked. Cræosh smacked him.
“Unfortunately, the elves have grown adept at thwarting our spies. In the recent past, they have begun sniffing out our agents and intercepting our scrying magics with relative ease.”
“How recent?” Katim asked.
“Oh, a thousand years, plus or minus.”
Six pairs of eyes stared at him.
“Okay,” Cræosh said, his fingers casually, perhaps even unconsciously, poking small holes in the back of Fezeill's chair. As he spoke, the orc constantly pulled the stuffing from within the cushions and shredded it, leaving a growing mess on the floor. “You got a problem. I sympathize, I feel for you, and all that rot. What the fuck do we do about it? And why do we bother?”
Ebonwind shook his head. “Patience is not one of your virtues, is it?”
“I try to make it a point not to have virtues. They itch.”
“Of course. Very well, then. As you are doubtless aware, King Dororam of Shauntille is gathering the Allied Kingdoms to attack Kirol Syrreth once the winter snows have passed.”
The squad members exchanged sharp glances. Sure, they'd heard the rumors, and most of them had assumed that that was why they were being assembled as a Demon Squad in the first place. Still, confirmation from an outside source was unsettling.
“I see that you have. Good. The elven nations, though not normally known for fraternizing with the humans—it means the same as cavorting, bugbear—do consider themselves to be one of the Allied Kingdoms. They are assembling their armies alongside the others, preparing to march.”
Comprehension dawned like a summer's day. “And that,” Cræosh finished, “makes them easier to keep track of.”
“Exactly.”
“So I ask again, what do you need us for? Even Gimmol here couldn't lose an entire army!”
“Why, thank you, Cræosh. I—hey, wait a minute…”
“True enough,” the elf continued, ignoring the protesting gremlin. “But keeping track of what the elves are doing isn't enough. We need to know what they will be doing, before it happens. Once the elves have massed, they may decide to turn some of their might against us, should the fortunes of war permit. Or their absence from their homes could provide us with opportunities of our own. In either case, we must be ready. That's where you could be of great help, my friends.”