The Woods Out Back

The three unlikely companions ate a meal of berries and bread and started off just before dawn, Kelsey leading them through the tangle of underbrush far from the main road. Both the elf and the leprechaun covered the rough ground with little trouble and not much more than an occasional rustle, but Gary, in his heavy armor, stumbled and crashed with every step, broke apart branches and committed wholesale slaughter on the many unfortunate plants in his path.



"We'd best get him to the road," Mickey said after only a short while.



"The goblins may be watching the road," Kelsey answered grimly.



"Better that the goblins kill him than he kills himself," Mickey retorted. "Besides, with the clamor that one's making, all the wood'll know of our passing!"



Kelsey gave Gary yet another of his increasingly common derisive stares. Gary wanted to argue back, to ensure the elf that he could make it through, but unfortunately he picked that moment to hook his toe on yet another snag. Down he went, heavily and noisily, and the exasperated elf announced, before he even bothered to pick Gary up, that the road seemed the safer course.



For all of his wounded pride, Gary did have a better time with the flat road than the thicket, though the day grew hot, particularly so under the thick padding of the armor. Gary had thought that his body was getting used to the weight, that, except for the heat, he was actually beginning to feel somewhat comfortable in the stuff. But a short while later, he came to believe that the armor felt even heavier and less balanced than it had the day before. Gary didn't understand the change until Mickey abruptly appeared, comfortably perched on his shoulder.



"You've been sitting there all along," Gary accused him.



"Ye did not even notice," Mickey replied. "I weigh but a pittance next to that armor ye carry. If I'd stayed invisible, ye'd have carried me all the way to Dvergamal without a word o' complaint!"



"Dvergamal?" The strange word deflected Gary's ire.



"Voice o' the dwarf," Mickey explained. "A name given to the stony mountainsides where we'll find the buldrefolk, the dwarfs."



Gary considered the revelations for a moment, wondering if he had heard those curious names somewhere back in his own world. "Well, why didn't you stay invisible?" he scolded Mickey, halfheartedly trying to push the bothersome leprechaun from his shoulder - a quite impossible feat given Mickey's uncanny agility and the restricting shoulder plates of Gary's armor.



"I've some reading to do," Mickey answered calmly, and he promptly producedThe Hobbit. "Can't do that when me and the book are invisible, now can I?"



Gary was seriously considering diving sidelong to the ground, just to annoy the annoying leprechaun, but Kelsey turned back on them suddenly, ferociously.



"Silence!" the elf commanded in hushed but very firm tones. "We walk in dangerous..." Kelsey paused suddenly and Gary could see the elf's fine muscles tighten.



In a movement too swift for Gary to follow, Kelsey snapped his sword from its scabbard and leaped straight up, leading with his deadly blade. There came a squeak from a thick-leafed branch overhanging the road then a goblin tumbled from the thicket to land dead at Kelsey's feet.



Gary felt a jolt on his side and looked down to see a crude arrow lying on the ground, its tip snapped from the impact against his metal armor.



"Mickey," he started to say, but the leprechaun was not to be seen, nor to be felt.



Hoots and shouts went up all about the sides of the road and the goblins were upon them.



For all that he had been forewarned about Kelsey's battle prowess, Gary could not have imagined anything as precise and perfect as the elf-lord's movements. Kelsey danced a ballet, silent except for the swish of his fine sword and the screams of those enemies he encountered.



A large and fat goblin came upon the elf first, wrapping him in a bear hug from behind. As if he had anticipated the move, Kelsey stuck his sword arm far out in front, keeping it from the cumbersome creature's grasp. The sword dipped through the elf's legs and came slicing up between the goblin's legs.



The monster let go, right away.



From across the road, in front of the elf, two goblins charged out, holding a net between them. Kelsey crouched low and let them get right near to him, then leaped straight up, planting his feet atop the net and driving it down beneath him. The overbalanced goblins lurched helplessly and Kelsey's sword flashed left, then right. The gleaming silver blade appeared crimson now, and two more goblins crumpled.



So entranced by the spectacle in front of him, Gary hardly understood his own peril. He could not outrun the goblins, could not even hope to make it to the side of the road and hide in the underbrush.



An arrow bonked off the side of his helmet. He spun quickly to the side (though his loose-fitting helmet did not). Still, he saw enough to be afraid, for the goblin archer was now charging him, screaming wildly and holding a spiked club high above its gruesome head.



Something nicked Gary on the other side of the head, straightening his helmet as it flew by, and Gary registered the scene clearly as the heavy rock soared past him, crashing right into the charging goblin's face. The monster's head snapped back with a loud cracking noise and it dropped straight to the ground.



"Oh, good shootin'!" Gary heard Mickey congratulate himself from somewhere behind.



Three more goblins had surrounded Kelsey, coming at the skilled elf in measured, defensive strides. Time favored the goblins, for they had many allies lying in wait along this entire area, and hoots and cries echoed from every direction as more of the filthy creatures rushed to join the fight.



"Run!" Kelsey commanded Gary. "Back to Dilnamarra!" Then the elf charged his three opponents, quickly reversed direction, and broke free, scampering back towards Gary.



Gary turned and lumbered away, wondering what in the world he would do when Kelsey, and then the goblins, overtook him.



But Kelsey had other ideas. He had almost caught up to Gary, and had purposely allowed the goblins to keep pace, when he wheeled about suddenly and threw himself into the goblins' midst.



The startled creatures hadn't even leveled their spears, and they would never get the chance. A shield smash downed the one on Kelsey's left. He thrust out to the right with his sword, catching another monster cleanly in the throat, then buried the third in a tight embrace and bore it to the ground.



Other goblins were coming out of the brush, but they were all farther up ahead on the road - the trap had been sprung too quickly, before the companions had gotten past the first ranks of the creatures - leaving Gary a clear path back the way he and his companions had come.



And Gary did run, as best as he could, and it took him a long moment to wonder why Kelsey hadn't sprinted by. He dared to stop and turn, and he saw the elf struggling in the dirt with one foe, another dazed goblin nearby trying to pick himself up.



And a dozen more monsters charging down the road.



"Keep running!" Mickey cried from the brush to the side. "Ye can do nothing for him, lad, but to save the precious items!"



Gary cared nothing for the armor, or even for the legendary spear that seemed so valuable to the people of the land. His gaze focused only on Kelsey, not yet truly a friend, perhaps, but one who had selflessly thrown himself back on the goblins so that Gary could escape. Gary had never considered himself overly brave, and he most assuredly was scared to death at that brutal moment, but he could not leave Kelsey to such a fate. He hoisted his spear for a desperate throw.



"Do not throw it!"rang a voice in his head."What weapon will thee fight with when the spear is loosed?"



Not about to take the time to argue, Gary leveled the spear and charged, a primal scream that was as much terror as anger erupting from his lips. The dazed goblin to Kelsey's left started for the struggling elf, then saw Gary coming and hooted in glee, abruptly changing its course.



"Now what?" Gary moaned, and he tried to veer to the side, but stumbled instead and crashed heavily against a thick tree. As soon as he righted himself, he hoisted the spear again, desperate to stop the charging monster.



"Do not throw it!"came that inner voice again.



"Then what?" Gary answered silently.



"Take it up and fight with it!"implored the voice.



Gary braced the spear against the side of his heavy shield and wondered how he might maneuver the weapon well enough with one hand to possibly defeat the goblin.



The monster was almost on him; Gary could see the saliva dripping over its thick bottom lip from between its pointy yellow teeth.



"Not like that!"screamed the inner voice.



Gary's helpless frustration apparently sufficed as an answer, for the voice quickly explained."Against the tree," it said calmly."Brace the spear's butt end against the tree."



Gary considered the words. He was out of time; the goblin was upon him.



"Now!"cried the voice. Gary didn't even think about his movements as he followed the undeniable command.



The goblin foolishly barreled in, its own spear leading. Gary's weapon caught fast on the tree; his shield deflected the goblin's spear up high and to the side. Then the monster was up against him, its breath hot and smelly in his face, its bulbous, vein-streaked eyes boring into his.



Geek led the goblin charge down the road. The elf was gaining an upper hand in his struggles, but the goblin knew that even if the elf won, he could never recover in time to escape the approaching horde. The plan seemed so beautifully executed; wouldn't Lady Ceridwen be thrilled!



Suddenly the road was fully blocked by a huge spiderweb.



Geek shrieked (even goblins are terrified of the merciless giant spiders), dropped his spear, and covered up, plunging headlong into the tangle. Those others up in front shared similar fates, and the trailing goblins halted their charge and looked about in confusion.



Kelsey finally got atop the goblin, pinning its spear with his shield. He pushed free of the creature's stubborn grasp, getting into a kneeling position, and put his sword in line.



The doomed goblin whined and frantically threw its arm across its face. Kelsey's fine sword dove right through the arm, and right through the face.



Kelsey looked up the road, expecting to be overwhelmed. What he saw instead brought a smile to his dirtied lips. A dozen goblins thrashed and rolled, caught fast by an illusionary web. A score more stood behind, jostling each other and scratching their fat heads.



Then Kelsey heard a horn, back behind him, and the thunder of hoofbeats rolling down the road.



"The web'll not fool them for long," Mickey whispered from the side. "We should be going."



The creature's mouth opened wide in a silent, agonized scream. Staring into its gaping, yellow-toothed maw, Gary feared that it meant to bite him. The goblin's features contorted weirdly; a few sudden convulsions brought some blood out of its mouth.



Then Gary truly understood. He still held his spear, out straight, and the goblin's heaving tummy was right against that hand.



"Oh my God," Gary muttered without thinking.



The goblin jerked, showering Gary in blood, then went limp. Gary let go of the spear, watching mesmerized as the dead thing toppled to the side, the front half of his spear protruding from the creature's back, covered in blood and gore and entrails.



The young man stood very still for a long moment, not even remembering to breathe.



"Well done, goodly young sprout,"congratulated that voice in his head, but Gary wanted no applause, didn't feel a hero, didn't feel anything except sick to his stomach.



He put his head in his sweaty hands and tried to find the strength to retrieve his stained weapon.



The sound of approaching riders brought him back to the situation at hand. A score of armored knights charged down the road, banners waving and lances leveled. Gary forgot his horror for a brief moment and thought their salvation at hand. He lifted his arm and hailed loudly through the growing tumult.



Something crashed heavily into his back and the surrounding brush seemed to rush up and catch him. His first thoughts were that a goblin had tackled him, but the hand that came up under his chin was not gnarly and scratchy, like a goblin's, but delicate, though strong.



"What?" he started to ask, but found his head jerked back roughly and a fine-edged, bloodstained sword came in against his exposed neck.



"Silence," Kelsey whispered into his ear, but the command seemed hardly necessary with the elf's blade scraping a clear warning against Gary's throat.



"Prince Geldion," Mickey added. "Me thinking's that it should be a fair fight." The leprechaun looked back down the road at the goblins and blinked his eyes. The creatures stopped their thrashing as the illusionary web disappeared, and they gave it no more thought as the new nemesis, Prince Geldion and his guard, charged into them.



The first moments of battle went all the knights' way. Lances struck home and horses trampled helpless, sprawling goblins. But many more of the monsters were still filtering out of the woods to join the battle, and soon the Prince and his company found themselves tangled in a mire of goblin flesh. One rider was borne down under the weight of a dozen creatures, and he and his horse were swallowed up before they even settled to the ground.



"We have to help them!" Gary cried, and he struggled against Kelsey's loosened grasp.



Kelsey slapped him on the back of the helmet and put his full weight over Gary to hold him down. "Whoever wins would indeed be pleased to see us so easily delivered," the elf said grimly.



"The riders came for us?"



"It would seem so, lad," Mickey answered. "What other business would Prince Geldion have on the eastern road? It's no secret in Dilnamarra that we meant to go to the mountains."



Out on the road, the goblin press continued, but the knights were skilled fighters and seemed to be more than holding their own.



"We should be on our way," Kelsey commented. "The goblins could flee at any time, and if the Prince fathoms that we are in the area, we'll not have an easy time escaping." He crawled off of Gary's back and, still crawling, led Gary deeper into the underbrush. Soon they were up and trotting at a cautious pace, heading east and paralleling the road, but deep within the concealing shadows of the thick woods.



"I'm thinking that yer chosen quest might take a bit o' doing," Mickey remarked after the sounds of the continuing battle at last faded far behind them. "Ye've got enemies coming at ye from both sides, it'd seem."



"Why would the Prince...," Gary started to ask, but Kelsey cut him short.



"Both seek similar results, I would agree," the elf answered Mickey. "But they do not work in unison - that is our hope."



"Aye," Mickey replied. "One hand tangled the other."



"What are you talking about?" Gary demanded. "And why would the Prince..."



"It is of no concern to you," Kelsey interrupted once again.



"If someone's trying to kill me, I consider it my business," Gary replied as forcefully as he had ever spoken to the grim elf.



Unexpectedly Kelsey did not scold him, or even flash him a threatening glare. "You did well in the battle," the elf said sincerely. "Your bravery surprised me, as did your skill in handling the spear."



Gary shrugged, a bit embarrassed. "Thank Mickey," he explained. "He talked me through the whole fight."



Kelsey's look to the leprechaun was no less confused than the leprechaun's own expression. "Did I, then?" Mickey asked curiously.



"Well, you helped anyway," Gary replied, but his own face twisted in confusion as he came to realize that his guess was not correct. "It's curious that your accent changed when you communicated telepathically," Gary went on, trying to resolve the situation logically. "I never thought about it before, but I guess it makes sense. We all think the same way, even if we talk differently, and I didn't really hear words. I heard thoughts, if that makes any sense."



Mickey took a long draw on his pipe and nodded to Kelsey. "It wasn't me in yer head," the leprechaun explained to Gary.



"When did these inner voices begin?" Kelsey asked.



"Only at the battle," Gary replied, now growing concerned.



"And what do you carry on your back?"



"Just the spe - " Gary fumbled around to grasp the leather case, pulling it in front of him. "This thing talks?" he asked, his voice only a whisper.



"Thing?"rang a perturbed voice in his head.



"Of course it cannot talk," Mickey explained. "But its magic is strong, among the strongest in all the land."



"Sentient?" Gary reasoned.



"Aye, to its possessor," answered Mickey. "And ye'd be wise to listen to it carefully - that spear's seen more battle than the rest of us."



Gary sent the leather pack swinging back around him as though he was afraid of the thing.



"Be glad," Kelsey said to him. "You have an ally now who will aid you greatly in the trials ahead." A horn blew back down the road, once and then again, and Kelsey spun about. "And the trials behind," the elf added grimly.



"The Prince has won," Mickey remarked. "No goblin'd blow a note so clear."



"Then we must hope that Geldion has suffered too many losses to continue his pursuit," said Kelsey. "Cowtangle will soon end and the land between the wood and the mountains is clear."



An image of running across hedge-lined fields came into Gary's thoughts, with himself stumbling and struggling to get over each barrier, while the great armored knights pursuing him easily jumped their steeds along. Surely this adventure had taken on the dressings of a nightmare, with Gary running slowly, too slowly, to outdistance his determined pursuers.



They came out of Cowtangle Wood a short time later, as Kelsey had predicted. The mountains towered much closer now, seeming far less than the five days away Kelsey had claimed them to be when he had first discovered the goblin tracks. But as the day moved on, Gary understood the illusion. The ground was uneven here, rolling up and down regularly, and often at a steep pitch, and after four hours of walking, the mountains seemed no closer than they had when Gary had first exited the woods.



Kelsey veered north from the road then, explaining that he had no desire to go near to the town of Braemar.



"Probably find more traps waiting for us there," Mickey readily agreed.



They came to the bank of a river, running swiftly westwards from the mountains, a short while later. "The River Oustle," Mickey explained. "It'll take us right near to Dvergamal, though we'll get away from it before we get there, I expect, to keep around the town of Drochit."



Kelsey nodded at the leprechaun's reasoning.



Though this was no road, they made good time, and no evident pursuit, goblin or knight, came down the trail behind them.



Geek stumbled out of Cowtangle Wood to the southwest, a region of thick mosses and steamy bogs. Not many of his band remained alive, the goblin knew; perhaps he was the only one. He plopped down on a patch of moss and put his pointy chin in his rough hands.



"Drat the luck," he muttered.



He hadn't even considered yet what he might tell Lady Ceridwen, who was sure to be none too pleased.



"Drat the luck," the goblin spat again. "Stupid princes."



He heard a rustle to the side and jumped to the ready, thinking the knights had found him. He saw nothing, though, and figured it to be just the wind in the birch trees.



When he turned back, he nearly swooned. A shimmering blue and white light hovered over the ground he had just been sitting upon, gradually taking shape. Geek gulped audibly, recognizing the spectacle.



Lady Ceridwen stood before him.



"Dear Geek," the sorceress began, her voice sounding as a cat's purr. "Do tell me what happened. Who has harmed my dear Geek?"



"Mens," Geek replied. "Many mens, Prince's mens. What does they be doing in wood?"



"Perhaps," Ceridwen replied, pursing her lips, her flashing eyes staring far away. "Perhaps they were working for me." Her glare fell with full force over the now-trembling Geek. "Perhaps they were doing as I instructed, instead of interfering!"



"Geek did it for Lady," the goblin whined, falling to his knees and slobbering wet kisses all over Ceridwen's delicate hand.



The sorceress pulled away, revolted. "Why were you here?" she asked calmly.



"Geek catches elf and killses man," the goblin sputtered. "For Lady. Geek take armor - for Lady!"



"Did Lady tell Geek to do this?" Ceridwen prompted calmly.



The goblin shook his head. "Geek thinks..."



"Did Lady tell Geek to think?" Ceridwen asked, her voice louder, revealing some of her anger.



The goblin found no reply.



Ceridwen stepped back and drew out a thin wand from her sleeve.



"Lady!" Geek pleaded, and then he said no more, for frogs have little command of the common language.



Ceridwen walked over and casually picked up the pitiful creature. She moved to toss him into a nearby pool, then reconsidered and started away, petting Geek and casually promising him all sorts of adventure.



The merciless sorceress carried the goblin-frog to the other side of the small swamp, to a place where she knew a fat snake made its home.