“Wait, wait, wait!” All three goblins fought to talk over one another, excusing Smiley’s poor manners as they watched, eyes fixed on the steaming pan of oats as if it was the single most important desire in the entire world.
Daana could practically hear the gurgling of their empty bellies. With the three goblins fixated on breakfast, they failed to notice the faint look of approval stretched across Snag’s weathered face. Unlike Daana, who definitely noticed, and both loved and hated it at the same time. On one hand, it was wonderful knowing that he trusted her to do this her way. On the other, the thought of failing in front of an audience was a blunder she would not live down so easily.
Especially not with the way Ashwyn was still glaring at her for giving away half their breakfast.
Daana filled their three wooden bowls and distributed them to her eager guests before ladling the rest into whatever containers she had on hand. It wasn’t an extravagant meal by any means, but the goblins didn’t appear to mind. They crouched beside one another, snapping up their food as quickly as possible while eyeing their neighbor’s bowl in hopes of helping them finish.
Snag eventually gave up standing guard and settled onto the ground with everyone else. He stirred his oats, feigning interest in the food as he pried the trio for information in the least obvious way possible.
According to their guests, whatever disputes normally pitted one goblin den against another had simmered for the season. With fall turning swiftly into winter, the threat of the first harsh snowfall had everyone scrambling to stock their underground ladders.
“You should reach the eastern border without trouble. Especially with that one in your company.” Smiley indicated Ashwyn with a tilt of his jeweled head. “No den’s going to risk their best fighters trying to take on a behemoth when they’ve got hungry mouths to feed.”
Snag’s ears flattened against the back of his head. “Who said we were headed to the border?”
“All the riders come and go through there,” Smiley said. “Everyone knows Adderwood is the easiest way to sneak in an’ out of the realm. The border’s wide with plenty of cover and not enough soldiers to police anything beyond the main road. Sneaking past is easy-peasy.”
Ashwyn’s ears perked. “We’re not the first riders you’ve seen?”
“You kiddin’? For months now, there’s been entire—” Smiley was cut short by a stiff elbow to the ribs from Spoon Ear. The pair exchanged heated glances before Smiley’s shoulders sank in defeat. He stabbed at the last few bites of oat mush with his spoon, resigned to a sulking silence.
Content her companion was not about to give away vital information for free, Spoon Ear took charge of the conversation. “We came here to trade, yeah? Seems like you all want information, not firebrew. We’ll be happy to supply it.”
An eager grin split Twig’s face from ear to ear. “For the right price, of course.”
Ashwyn stared at them for a disconcerting amount of time before shifting her weary gaze to Snag. “What’s goblin taste like? These fuckers had the gall to eat my breakfast and are now asking for more.”
Snag made a limp, so-so gesture with his hand. “Similar to wild rabbit, but stringier. Not good raw though. Too many parasites.”
“These three don’t look old enough to be carrying parasites.”
“You’d still be better off boiling them alive. Might help if you filet the skin first.”
Daana immediately recognized their game. It was a common one. Someone played the role of baddie while their counterpart worked their mark from the nice angle. With Snag and Ashwyn both filling the role of the calloused killer, it seemed the remaining position had been left for her. Just as well, she supposed. She had already proved to be generous once already.
Wordlessly, Daana knelt beside the supply bag and pulled free a bundle of cheesecloth and crinkly paper. She removed four strips of the thin sliced meat and arranged them into neat lines within the pan. The goblins watched her every move as she navigated the cast iron back over the glowing embers. Their wariness soon gave way to hunger when the pork strips began to sizzle and pop, releasing the glorious smell of bacon into the air.
“This is something special I picked up for the journey. Very hard to come by out here. Very pricey when you do find it.” Daana used her wooden utensil to keep the bacon strips from touching, ensuring each was given enough room to crisp evenly. She had no doubt Snag would give her an earful for wasting his good vittles but, for the moment, all he could do was glare at her from afar.
Daana’s next words were going to make him even more mad. “The first one to tell us about the recent travelers can have it all.”
Their salivating mouths all snapped shut simultaneously. The three goblins no longer stared at the bacon, but each other. Silently sizing one another up, attempting to scare the others into keeping their silence.
“Now that’s determination.” Ashwyn extended her empty tin cup in Daana’s direction. “Since they’re not interested, I’ll take one of those to temper my hunger, thank you.”
“It’s still floppy,” Daana said.
“It’s bacon, not a cock. Give it here.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Flipping a limp strip onto her spoon, Daana maneuvered it from the sizzling pan to Ashwyn’s cup with a steadiness that surprised even herself. She noted the way the goblins’ heads moved, following the path of the morsel from pan to cup. Ashwyn noticed too, and made a show of savoring every greasy bite. The fact that she refused to break eye contact with the trio while doing so was a choice Daana didn’t fully understand but, nevertheless, knew not to question.
When finished, Ashwyn jutted her empty cup in Daana’s direction. “More.”
Smiley broke first. “The riders are the elf witch’s people. Lots of them, as of late. Just three weeks ago a party of forty strong slipped through the border into the realm.”
Daana moved the cooked bacon onto a flat slab of rock to cool. “Have any riders come back?”
“None so far.” Smiley fended off Twig’s little fists as the other goblin attempted to pummel him back into silence. “Maybe a single rider now and then, but it’s usually only a messenger of some type.”
Ashwyn prevented Daana from passing out the bacon with a lift of her hand. “What about from the other side?” she asked. “How many riders from the realm have you seen slinking through these parts?”
“Besides you three?” Smiley challenged.
“You’re about to lose half your bacon, boyo.”
“Alright, alright, alright.” Smiley stood, ignoring the angry chittering sounds from his companions. “There were lots of realm soldiers mucking about at first, but the defeat in Adderwood sent them packing. Our den leader says their armies drew back into the interior territories.”
Ashwyn drummed her fingertips against her leg. “What defeat in Adderwood?”
The young goblin appeared genuinely confused by her question. “You seriously don’t know?”
“She’s playing you, idiot!” Spoon Ear hissed.
“If I already knew, I wouldn’t be asking.” Ashwyn flashed her teeth at the little goblin, warning her against interrupting again. “Now, don’t make me repeat myself. It makes me hungry. What happened in Adderwood?”
“Nah-uh! You don’t say another word.” Spoon Ear was not so easily intimidated. She smacked the back of Smiley’s head as she shot to her feet and returned Ashwyn’s heated stare. “If you lot want to know so bad, then you’re going to pay for it. With more than just a handful of scraps, I might add.”
There wasn’t any sense in pussyfooting around. It was time to make an offer they couldn’t refuse. “All of this for the information.” Daana held aloft the remaining wrapped rasher of bacon, ignoring Snag’s muffled whimper. “No more, no less. You answer all our questions–”
“And you don’t tell anybody where you got it, either. Or I will make it my personal life mission to hunt the three of you down and strip the flesh from your bones with my teeth,” Ashwyn finished.
Smiley and Twig both watched Spoon Ear for her answer. The little goblin gave her nod of approval. With the matter settled, she extended her hand in Daana’s direction, demanding what was owed.
Daana narrowed her eyes. “Information first.”
Spoon Ear rolled her eyes and gestured for the other two to fill in the gaps.
“You really don’t know?” Smiley had to ask once more, just for clarification. Ashwyn’s unamused expression was the only answer he received. “Adderwood rebelled. They chased the realm out and declared their independence.”
Twig spoke up next, having switched his wide-eyed gaze from Spoon Ear to Ashwyn. “Word is they’ve got the turncoat on their side.”
“The who?” Ashwyn said.
He waggled his eyebrows in a manner that suggested he knew that she wasn’t being forthright about her identity. “The protector.”
“For the last time, I’m not the protector.”
Twig twirled his spoon in one hand, shrugging. “You look like her.”
“I can assure you, she would never stoop to eating a goblin just because it annoyed her.”
Twig’s face paled as he dropped his gaze back down. Smiley jumped back in, proving once more to be a wealth of information, “The elders say the upheaval has got the realm figureheads nervous. It’s the first time one of the territories has successfully broken away and it’s only a matter of time before some of the others try to do the same.”
“What about the protector?” Ashwyn said. “Is she still in Adderwood?”
Smiley’s expression said, ‘pretty sure she’s sitting right here’. His mouth, however, offered a more diplomatic, “Your guess is as good as ours.”
Ashwyn’s valiant attempt to wrangle additional information out of the trio proved otherwise fruitless. They had nothing else to offer. Finally, with their bargaining commenced, the trio gathered their rasher of bacon and turned to leave. Spoon Ear glanced back over her shoulder one last time. Her yellow eyes were wide and rimmed in white, offering a look that was almost sorrowful in nature. She uttered something in Laftak before slipping away, lost to sight amongst the tall sea of swaying grass.
Snag’s stony expression soured.
Ashwyn rose, adjusting her belt as she did so. For the sake of not scaring off their company, she had remained seated throughout the exchange. She set about rolling up her bedding in the most violent way possible. “How many more times are we going to have to do that? Talk about a waste of time.” She glanced sharply out of the corner of her eye at Daana, adding, “And bacon.”
“We still have all of our stuff and no one is trying to prevent us from reaching our destination,” Daana replied. “I consider that a win.”
Ashwyn turned to Snag for support. “You’re not going to back me up here? It was your bacon she gave away.”
Snag didn’t appear to have heard.
Daana waved her hand in front of his face. “Are you alright?”
“What?” He recoiled, his earrings jingling, as if he’s been snapped from a trance unexpectedly. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
Daana resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his incredibly convincing statement. “Something bothering you? What did the little one say just before she left?”
Snag played with the ring strung through his lip, one of the unconscious signs that he was deep in thought. “She claims the bounty put on Snaglebrag’s head was lifted some time ago. The powers that be issued a full pardon. The old toad is considering something of a hero now for helping dismantle the realm an’ all that.”
Daana suspected there was more he wasn’t volunteering. “And?”
“He’s been welcomed back home.”
Ashwyn finished rolling her bed roll into a more manageable size. “Sounds like a stroke of luck to me.”
Daana couldn’t get a full read on Snag’s face and how he was taking this newfound information. “Is that something he wants? To return home?”
“Once upon a time, maybe. But now,” his thin voice trailed, as if he was unsure what words were supposed to follow. “He’s not so sure what home is. That word lost all meaning decades ago.”