“Right, but it’s going to be hard to pick it, open the gate, and stroll out with that large fellow sitting right over there,” Malagach murmured. While the guard was not looking directly at them, their cage was in his peripheral vision, and his eyes were alert enough to ensure he wouldn’t miss something so obvious as prisoners hopping out and running away. “We’ll need a distraction.”
“Probably,” Gortok said. “Got anything in mind?”
“Let’s see your pockets.”
Gortok laid out his rubber bands, the rock, and a couple meters of twine next to Malagach’s nail.
Malagach pointed to the rock. “That’s flint, isn’t it? And my nail, any chance it’s made from steel?” He did not know how to tell the difference between iron and steel, but he was sure Gortok did. “Maybe we could start a fire.” He fingered the dry straw bedding on the floor.
“You want to start a fire in our cage?” Gortok asked. “With us locked inside?”
“Well, it’d be distracting.”
“To me, sure. Picking a lock with flames warming my backside is more of a distraction than I was figuring on.”
“You did say something about the wire making things too easy,” Malagach murmured.
“Uh hunh. Anyway, the point of a distraction is to get them fellers to look away from you, not at you—and your flaming cage.” Gortok handed Malagach the nail. “Maybe you can stab someone in the foot with it later.”
“Gee.” Still, Malagach returned the nail to his pocket. “What’s your brilliant idea? To shoot rubber bands at the guard?”
“Naw.” But a smile did stretch Gortok’s lips as he picked up a couple of the rubber bands. “Remember the time I tried burning a rubber band to see if I could reshape the rubber into something else? It smelled right icky.”
“For three days,” Malagach said. “Ma was quite displeased that you’d undertaken this experiment inside the hut.”
“If I combined that with...” Gortok grabbed a clump of the hair dangling next to his cheek and nodded to himself. “I’ll need to cut off some of this.”
Using his teeth again, Gortok began sawing off locks.
“This method of haircutting explains much.” Malagach gestured at Gortok’s perennially wild thatch of hair.
Tongue stuck between his teeth now, Gortok did not respond. He wrapped the rubber bands around the chunks of hair and secured the bundles with pieces of twine that he cut up using the same tooth-sawing method.
“I’m not sure why you were lamenting the loss of your tools,” Malagach said, “given your dental aptitude.”
“All right.” Gortok laid six rubber-band and hair bundles out before him. “If you’re done making snippy comments, we can start tossing these onto the campfire and lamps when no one is looking.”
“And that will do what?” Malagach asked.
“Distract.” Gortok winked. “Trust me. We just have to make sure they burn.”
“With our throwing skills, what are the odds we can land one in the fire?” Malagach peered over his shoulder. It was about fifteen feet to the campfire. A couple of the lamps on the wagons were closer, but they offered smaller targets.
Gortok offered a lopsided grin. “I’m hoping no worse than one in six.”
Malagach picked up one of the bundles. “I’ll throw them. This will need to be done subtly, and you’re not subtle.”
“Subtle.” Gortok sniffed. “Odd claim from the goblin who wanted to set his own cage on fire a few minutes ago.”
“Just pretend to be asleep until it’s time to do your part,” Malagach said.
Gortok shrugged and leaned his head and shoulder against the bars. All except one of the bundles went into Malagach’s pocket, and then he stood and took up a position as close to the fire as the cage allowed. He yawned and casually draped his arms through the bars. The big guard looked his way, but Malagach fixed a beaten forlorn expression on his face and gazed unseeingly toward the river. He tried very hard not to look like ‘trouble.’
After a moment, the guard’s gaze dropped back down to his puzzle. Malagach listened to the footsteps of the roving guard, trying to time the route so he could throw the bundles when the man’s back was to him and the fire. Malagach glanced around at the other cages. Most of the other slaves—prisoners—were asleep, though firelight glinted off a human boy’s eyes. Everyone seemed to be as young, or younger than, Malagach and Gortok.
“If there’s time,” Malagach whispered, “Unlock the others too.”
Without opening his eyes, Gortok made a noncommittal grunt.
When no one was looking, Malagach tossed the first bundle. He winced as it went wide, bounced off a rock next to the fire, and skidded to a stop against the leader’s bedroll.
“Subtle,” Gortok muttered, one eye half open.
Malagach held his breath, afraid one of the men would react. Fortunately, the guard had not noticed, and the leader remained asleep.
Malagach let several minutes pass before he tried again. This time the bundle fell just short of the fire. He sighed and waited for the roving guard to circle again.
“I’m not going to have to feign sleep before long,” Gortok whispered.
“Didn’t you decide that the time for snippy comments had passed?” Malagach said.
“No, just that it was my turn to make them.”
Malagach lobbed the third bundle...and clenched his fist in triumph when it landed on red embers. As he watched, the materials sizzled, but there was no plume of smoke, roaring explosion, or anything particularly distracting that he noticed.
Then the guard’s nose crinkled. And as soon as it did, Gortok deemed him distracted enough and started working on the lock.
Soon the smell of burning rubber and hair—somehow combining to create a more noxious odor than either alone-wafted to Malagach, and he too crinkled his nose. The guard coughed. He stood up, walked to the fire, and peered around the area. He lifted a frying pan, looked in and under it, and then began sniffing at his comrades.
Gortok lowered his arms and slid the unlocked gate open just far enough for two goblin whelps to slip through.
“Ralf, you smell that?” the guard called lowly into the woods.
“Yeah, what’re you burning?”
Gortok slipped through the shadows to the next occupied cage. Malagach crept the other direction, using a wagon for cover, and placed a hair bundle in one of the oil lamps. While the guard was sniffing at one of his comrade’s boots, Malagach lobbed another bundle into the campfire.
“It’s not me,” the guard answered.
“Eee, it stinks all the way out here.”
“Is it coming from out there?”
Working with the key hole in front of him now, Gortok navigated the second lock more quickly. He soon opened the gate and moved to another cage. Malagach tossed the last bundle into a different lamp and then edged toward the river, the most obvious escape route. Darkness and the current would help them elude recapture—he hoped.
“How should I know?”
“It’s getting worse. I’m going to wake everyone up.”
Uh oh. Malagach waved, trying to get Gortok’s attention. When the leader woke up, his first look would probably be toward the prisoners. Intent on unlocking the last cage, Gortok did not notice Malagach, and he probably didn’t hear the conversation either. Malagach abandoned his headway toward the river and crept back toward his brother.
“You dolts!” That was the leader. “The slaves!”
“Time go to!” Now Malagach ran to Gortok.
A metal cage door clanged open, and the elf boy darted into the woods. It was the last of the occupied cages. Malagach shoved his brother toward the river, all too aware of footsteps thundering toward them.
He tripped over a rock, and Gortok pulled out ahead. Thankfully Malagach did not fall, but the bobble cost him seconds. Gortok made the water first, plunged in several steps, and dove. Malagach too plowed into the river but was tackled from behind. He landed in a
foot of water, a human more than twice his size on top of him.
Barely able to keep his wits, Malagach found the pocket with the nail in it. Even as he thrashed to keep the man from getting a good grip on him, he twisted and thrust upward. The nail pierced flesh, and the man yowled, releasing Malagach.
Malagach scrambled away on hands and knees. As soon as the water was deep enough, he inhaled a great gulp of air and yanked his head below the surface. Though he could not yet be certain of his safety, a grin spread across his face. The nail was still clutched in his hand.
Staying underwater, he stroked for the center of the river. Once he was a few meters from the shore, the current picked up and swept him along. Only when his lungs began to burn did he dare lift his head. The slavers’ campfire was a reassuring distance back upstream.
Despite a growing awareness of the cold water, Malagach stayed in the river for many minutes, letting the current carry him a couple miles from the slavers. A few times he glimpsed Gortok’s white head bobbing farther downriver. When hills closed in, and the towering trees gave way to a recent rockslide, Malagach paddled for the shore. If the slavers were inclined to track their runaways, following prints across stones would be nearly impossible.
Apparently of the same mind, Gortok reached the rocky shore first and greeted Malagach with a thump on the shoulder. Together they found their bearings and headed home.
“By the way—” Malagach held up the nail, “—I found a use for this.”
Gortok chuckled.
“Maybe I can honor it by hammering into a pivotal spot in the tree hut,” Malagach said.
“Hammering? On the tree hut?” Gortok asked. “Er, you?”
“A non-pivotal spot?” Malagach suggested.
“Maybe you could just frame it and hang it on a wall.”
“That works.”
They walked in amiable silence for a while, and the water sloughing off their buckskins gradually subsided. A strange part of Malagach wondered what life might have been like across the mountains. Being a slave did not hold any appeal, but perhaps someday he would travel to the east on his own terms. Ideally with some looming bodyguards to protect him, he mused dryly as he remembered how easily the humans had slung him around.
The night was peaceful, and it seemed he was not the only one mulling as they walked.
“You know that question you asked about freedom?” Gortok asked.
“The one you so articulately answered with ‘I dunno’?”
“That’s the one, and I’ve been thinking... Your question doesn’t matter.”
“Oh?” Malagach raised an eyebrow.
“Yup,” Gortok said. “Freedom isn’t something other people give you. It’s something you make for yourself.”
Malagach fiddled with the nail in his pocket. “Maybe so.”
Though they were exhausted by the time they reached their own river and the village nestled beside it, they did indeed make it by morning. Only an hour past dawn, Malagach and Gortok strolled toward Ma’s hut, deliberately passing Chief Loggok’s home on the way. Perched on log seats outside, Zakrog and a couple friends were crafting new fishing spears. Gortok had been right: watching the gawking expressions on the whelps’ faces was fun. Even better was when Zakrog, eyes bulging, fell off the log and snapped the tip off his spear.
The Goblin Brothers and the Tempting Treasure
Malagach sprinted down the forest path with a bag of herbs clenched in his green hands. Would he make it in time? Maybe he shouldn’t have stopped to change out of his fish-gut-spattered buckskins.
He raced around mushroom-covered stumps, over gnarled roots, and under grasping evergreen branches draped with moss. Mud squished between his green toes, and brambles tugged at his clothes. When Malagach burst out of the trees and onto the rutted road, he gasped with relief when he spotted the trader.
Standing next to two pack mules, the human male leaned against a musket. He wore sturdy brown trousers and a white cotton shirt, both factory-stitched in some distant city. A knot of goblins clustered around a blanket displaying his goods. There were metal pots, tools, knives, spices, sugar and coffee tins, musket balls and small kegs of black powder, and of course purely impractical treats. A grownup from Malagach’s village ambled by wearing a top hat and munching from a bag of candy. Two books in an open sack still loaded on a mule caught Malagach’s eye.
He paused to comb his fingers through his hair and straighten his tunic. His little brother, Gortok, was already in the goblin cluster—he had not bothered to wash or change. Malagach could smell fish guts from several paces away.
Gortok was negotiating with the trader when Malagach reached his side.
“Look it spins. It’s great.” Gortok wound up something that looked vaguely like a foot-high mushroom with a flat top. He had constructed it from empty food tins scavenged from abandoned human campsites. Gortok set the contraption on the ground, and the flat circular top rotated slowly.
The trader crossed his arms over his chest. “What is it?”
“A rotating lamp holder,” Gortok said. “Or you could put candles on it. Or you could put it on the ground with all your food dishes on it, and at dinner people could take what they want when it rotates to their side.”
Malagach smiled a bit at his brother’s pitch and the way Gortok’s gaze kept sliding toward the tool section of the blanket.
“Humans don’t eat on the ground,” the trader said, “and they don’t want their lamps to rotate.”
“Even so, there are tons of uses for this handy device,” Gortok said. “Every hut should have one. You could take it to a human city and patent it. I’m not asking for much. I reckon my invention is worth...that wrench set there.”
“I reckon your piece of junk isn’t worth the time I’ve wasted looking at it.”
“How about just one tool?” Gortok tried. “That little alligator wrench—look, there’s a rust spot on it.”
“Get out of here.” The trader kicked Gortok’s gadget across the road.
Malagach blinked in surprise at the man’s hostility. Gortok squawked and scrambled after his contraption.
“Come back when you’ve got furs or coin or something valuable to trade for my goods,” the trader grumbled.
Malagach had told his brother that thing would never sell, but he still felt a twinge of sympathy as Gortok, with pointed ears drooping, picked it up and clutched it to his chest. He spotted Malagach and offered a little shrug, which Malagach returned in kind.
“What do you want?” The trader’s gaze landed on Malagach, who felt very small next to the towering human, and indeed only came midway up the fellow’s chest.
He realized he was the last goblin holding anything to offer. The others were drifting away, disappearing into the forest. After watching the trader’s treatment of Gortok, Malagach hesitated to hand over his bag. The dried herbs had taken a long time to pick, and they were fragile.
“Have you got anything or not?” the trader demanded. “I’ve got someplace to be, and it ain’t on this forsaken mountain road all day.”
Alarmed by the man’s shortness, Malagach thrust out his sack. “Medicinal herbs: Lion’s Ear, Scarlet Sage, and Orc Tusk. They’re hard to find if you don’t know the forest well. They’ll bring a good price at an apothecary.” Or so he had been told by the last trader he’d met. Malagach had never seen an apothecary shop, nor did his interests lie along those lines, but if picking herbs could get him some new books to read...
The trader riffled through the bag. “Enh, what do you want for ‘em?”
Malagach pointed at the bag on the mule and dared pull out the books so he could read the titles: The Original & True Tales of Ogfried Ogre Slayer and Early Modern History of the Kingdom and Its Seas.
The trader slapped his hands away. “Don’t get them dirty!”
“I washed before coming, sir,” Malagach said stiffly.
“A reading goblin, hunh? That’s odd.”
“Yes, sir. I’d
be willing to trade for either book...” Both! his mind cried out, but he was afraid to bargain with the volatile fellow. “Though the history book would be more practical.”
“Sorry, whelp. Those are hand-copied books, not printing-press produced. They’re worth a couple gold a piece. How about some candy?”
“I’m not interested in candy,” Malagach said.
“I’d be middling interested in some,” Gortok said, edging closer though keeping his contraption well out of reach of the trader’s boots.
“How much are my herbs worth?” Malagach asked.
“A couple silver tops. Tell you what. I’ll take these herbs with me as an advance. You bring me some more next time I’m through, and maybe you’ll have earned a book by then.”
Shaking his head, Malagach reached for his sack. “No, thank you. I’d rather wait for the next—”
The man lifted his musket and pointed the muzzle in Malagach’s direction. “Deal’s done. I’m taking them.”
“What deal?” Malagach looked around for help, but only he and Gortok remained.
“The deal where you run off to your village before I put some holes in your face.”
Palms held out, Malagach backed away. He had no weapons, and a sack of herbs wasn’t worth getting hurt—or killed—over.
The trader dropped the herbs on top of his blanket, bundled everything up, and tied it to a mule. He mounted his horse and rode down the muddy road without a backward look, knowing full well a couple of goblins weren’t a threat.
Malagach glowered, but tried to make light of the situation for his brother’s sake. “He wasn’t the friendliest trader to come through these parts.”
“He was nastier than a troll’s left cheek,” Gortok said, dusting off his rotating gizmo. “He could have at least left the candy.”
“Indeed.” Malagach sighed glumly as they headed back to the village, and cleaning fish.