It took less than eight hours before Izsha was up on its feet. Two hours after that, the other draken took Izsha out hunting. Alyssa’s favorite draken was a bit slower than she remembered, but she supposed that was to be expected after effectively being comatose for a few weeks. They would watch out for Izsha. It was just a bit of a shame that Alyssa couldn’t go with them. Although she wanted to, she had promised to look into the missing monster children issue.
Brakkt, surprisingly enough, was with her.
“Didn’t want to go with Izsha?” Alyssa asked as they walked through the monster camp. Fezzik led them through, taking them to the little gremlin person that had found Alyssa earlier in the day.
It was quite surprising how well it was turning out. Though it still was clearly a temporary set-up, the monsters here were making it into their own area. There were makeshift chairs set up that looked like they had been constructed out of spare lumber—they might be able to tear down the stables Izsha had been using for some more, and the city might be happy to let them do so simply because it was an old abandoned building that no one was taking responsibility for.
The tents, all made from some kind of hide stitched together, were set up around a central plaza-like area. Most of the food that the city had offered had been stored in a larger tent. Just outside it, a fire boiled water in a large black cauldron. It seemed as if a soup was up for dinner tonight in the monster camp. Which… had been what they had been eating the last time Alyssa had popped by.
She hoped that they had some variety. But then again, they might not. They were effectively eating the city’s leftovers. Considering their starvation on their journey over, they were probably still happy for anything, but…
A few of the monsters were earning money working as guards. Probably not much. Probably a tiny fraction of what the humans were making. But they might occasionally be able to buy some better food with that. Assuming they weren’t saving for something else.
“Thought about it,” Brakkt said after a long moment. “Decided against it simply because they likely want a bit of bonding time on their own. Ensou will ensure that everything goes smoothly. If something troublesome crops up that they cannot deal with, they’ll get me immediately. They’re not going too far anyway.”
Ensou will ensure? Was that a pun? “Quick question, did you name the draken? Or did they somehow communicate their names to you? Or… how do their names even work? I doubt they can speak their own names, so a translation?” The more she thought about it, the stranger the topic got. It had to be the first one, but…
“I named them, but they had some input. Or rather, I asked them whether they liked the names. Musca was quite picky, but most of the others more or less accepted the first name I offered them.”
“Figures.” Musca was definitely the most temperamental of them all. “How did you end up finding them, anyway? And getting them to trust you? That’s probably the more puzzling question. I’d have thought that monsters would jump on and tear apart any humans that entered their territory. There’s like a dozen of them. Unless you walked in with an army…”
“No army. I’m just hard to kill.”
“They did attack you, then?”
He just shrugged with a fond and almost nostalgic smile on his face. “I don’t know if I would call it that…”
Alyssa opened her mouth to ask just what he would call it before remembering that this was the guy who literally found a snake as a child and decided he wanted bigger versions with lots more teeth. She just shook her head.
It seemed as if they had arrived anyway. Fezzik stopped outside a tent. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it. In fact, it almost looked shorter than all the others. As Fezzik pushed aside the front flap, Alyssa quickly figured out just why it was so short.
It was like a Hobbit hole. Everything inside was a quarter smaller than it should have been. The shoes, the beds, the clothes, and even the packs. It was like a tent designed for young teens. The four gremlins inside matched the size of all the undersized items. One was old and wrinkled, clearly not a teen. For the other three, Alyssa couldn’t even begin to guess their ages. Were they children? Were they adults? Hard to say. One thing was for certain. None looked happy.
“Here you are,” Fezzik said as Alyssa and Brakkt entered. “I’ll be back on the camp edges if you need me.”
With that, he backed away, letting the flap fall shut behind him.
The one that Alyssa had spoken with earlier was sitting on a cot on one side of the tent. She popped up immediately as Alyssa walked in. She rushed right up to Alyssa, barely managing to stop in time to avoid a crash. “They haven’t come back yet!”
“Are they normally back by now?” Night had yet to fall, but it was close. Less than a half hour away, Alyssa guessed.
“They’re always back before the evening meal.”
“The meal that isn’t ready yet?” Alyssa asked, glancing back outside the tent. The path to the central area where the pot of water was being boiled was out of sight, just behind another tent, but they couldn’t have finished it in the short time it had taken to walk around to this tent. “They still have some time, if that is the case. But let me ask, could they have gotten wind of this little intervention? Might they be deliberately avoiding us?”
“I told you that you were being too harsh,” one of the other gremlins snapped. “You’re just driving them away even more. The young ones have to make their own mistakes. It’s how I learned. It’s how my father learned. It’s how all our ancestors learned.”
“But they didn’t learn in a human city,” the lead gremlin shot back over her shoulder. She hissed the word human like she was trying to keep her voice down enough to keep the actual humans in the tent from hearing her. “Who knows what they are getting into? And what if they do something that gets the humans angry at us? We’re sitting on their land, relying on them for food and protection. If that’s all gone, they might get everyone killed!”
“I don’t think there is anything they could do short of murdering lots of humans that would get such a drastic response…” Alyssa glanced over to Brakkt, who gave a moderately reassuring nod of his head.
“Attempting to infiltrate the regent’s manor and guard buildings in search of information might also be seen as an attack. And would likely be responded to accordingly.”
“They’re kids,” Alyssa said. “I doubt they’re infiltrating and spying on anything. They’re probably exploring a new environment. Maybe even having fun. The problem is that there might be humans who wouldn’t really take kindly to them being around. But if this has been going on for a while now, they’ve probably figured out how to get around, who to avoid, and other such things.”
“It only takes once for things to go wrong.”
“Trying to be reassuring right now,” Alyssa whispered to Brakkt. “If they aren’t here soon, we can ask Kasita and Fela if they would wander around the city a bit. I’m sure Kasita can spot even disguised monsters. Fela can smell them. For now…” Alyssa looked over the gremlins in the tent before focusing on the one that had come up to her earlier. “How are things here? Aside from that water issue you mentioned, do you all have everything you need?”
Two of the younger-looking ones glanced at each other, but it was the oldest gremlin that spoke. “My pipe has been empty for weeks now,” he said, pulling a long wooden smoking pipe out from the folds of his fairly baggy clothes. All three of the other gremlins bobbed their heads in vehement agreement. But they didn’t have anything to add. Or if they did, they didn’t say anything.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“So… just luxuries then?”
“Luxury?” one of them squeaked, indignant. “You asked for needs so we gave you our need!”
“Yeah, but smoking—”
“Isn’t luxury! Luxury would be warm blankets! Edible food would be luxury!”
“So more food and blankets? I’ll make a note.”
“Humans have such small ears,” the old one said again in a low and slightly shaky tone of voice. “Shouldn’t have expected them to list—”
The blaring of a trumpet interrupted the old gremlin. All four of the little things jumped a good foot in the air. Even Alyssa hopped a tiny bit. Brakkt didn’t, but he did turn toward the tent flap with a scowl as the trumpet started playing a short tune. It wasn’t quite Reveille, but it was a triumphant rapid ditty of notes.
“I take it that wasn’t the dinner bell,” Alyssa said as it finished.
One of the gremlins shook his head, but it was Brakkt that responded.
“No. If I recognize that tune, it is a herald from… Yora?”
Alyssa pressed her lips together. The name sounded familiar. She was certain that she had heard it somewhat recently. Not since arriving in Illuna, but something back at Lyria?
Brakkt pushed out of the tent. Alyssa started to follow, but paused to glance over her shoulder. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ll be back soon to talk more about your problem.” Hopefully.
The camp wasn’t that large. It took only a few dozen steps to figure out just what was going on.
A small parade of of humans were on a distant hill, blaring their trumpet. They weren’t so far that Alyssa couldn’t see them, but they were far enough that she had to wonder at how their trumpet was so loud. Magical enchantments? Possibly. They were too small from her perspective to see any faces, but she didn’t need to see any. Several of them carried large banners, almost twice the height of the horses they rode upon.
Yora now made much more sense to Alyssa. The red banner with eight swords was quite familiar to Alyssa. She didn’t even have to think hard to where she saw it last. It was the emblem of House Yora, the same house that Decorous belonged to. She had seen a very similar banner in his office the night he invited her up for a little dinner and interrogation.
At a pause in the rapid notes, a return call came from the walls of Illuna. A similar bugle sound, but just a bit slower than the one played by the group from Yora. As soon as it finished, the horsemen started toward the city.
Pulling out her binoculars, Alyssa did note that the banner carried by the men here wasn’t made with quite the same quality as the one from Decorous’ office. The embroidered swords lacked a great deal of the detailing. Finer threads and flairs that Decorous’ had were simplified here. They billowed in the gentle wind of the day as their horses carried them forward at a deliberately slow pace.
“What are they doing here?” Alyssa asked as she handed the binoculars over to Brakkt.
“Likely here to meet with Martin. Or deliver a message to him. Yora is actually a bit south of here. A direct road would have taken them straight to the southern gate. But the angle they are coming in, coming right near this encampment…”
“A deliberate show of force?” Alyssa dropped the volume of her voice down a few notches. There weren’t any monsters too near them, but lots of monsters probably had decent hearing. A surprising number of them had larger than average ears, often times similar to that of cats or wolves. “Were they the ones hunting down the monsters here?”
“Hard to say. From talking with these monsters, their original home was south of here, but well within Illuna’s territory. House Yora shouldn’t have interfered, but they might have decided to do so anyway. Or those who were hunting the monsters were unaware of where the boundaries of the territory actually were. It could be any number of other factors, a coincidence, or even a third party completely unrelated to House Yora.”
“Could be, but…”
The dozen or so horses paraded toward the city. They didn’t approach the encampment of monsters, merely marching in a direct line toward the city gate. She couldn’t spot a hint of wariness in their march past. Even their horses didn’t seem to mind the gaggle of monsters who had heard the trumpet and come to watch their proceedings. The same could not be said for the monsters or the humans here.
For the monsters, their nervous glances to each other and general unease was roughly what Alyssa would expect from such a scene. They were just barely getting settled in, even if they weren’t going to stick around here permanently, and any change had a high potential to be a change for the worse. The actions from the humans were certainly not helping matters.
Illuna had stationed a few guards—volunteers, they hadn’t forced anyone who was against it to associate with the monsters—mostly as a measure to declare to other humans that this camp was not some siege against the city. An approaching merchant would hopefully see some humans with the Illuna emblem and not panic. At first, they had clearly been nervous about their assignment. If the monsters suddenly turned hostile, there probably wasn’t much that they could do. But, as time went on and they got a little more used to the monsters, it probably turned into something of a cushy job for them. All they had to do was sit around and be visible.
But now, with the approaching party from Yora, they were trying to stand tall, standing more like proper guards than baby sitters. One was adjusting his emblemed tabard, straightening it and trying to brush off a bit of dirt. Another was looking up at a planted banner of Illuna as if to check that it was straight and clean as well.
“Is this likely to be trouble?” Alyssa asked Brakkt, not taking her eyes off the representatives from House Yora. “Can we ignore them and go about our day?”
Even aside from the gremlins and their missing kids, with Izsha up and about, Irulon would probably want to get her interrogation in as soon as possible. Alyssa would be sitting in on that. Both to find out more about what was going on with Irulon and the dragon’s soul situation and to ensure that Irulon didn't go too far in questioning a recently awoken Izsha. Not that Alyssa really expected her to do so, but Irulon was somewhat panicked at the moment.
“I shouldn’t avoid this. The woes of being prince,” he said with a sad shake of his head. “Even if I am not to succeed my father, I’m still expected to act as a representative of royalty.”
“Irulon will be joining you then?”
Brakkt looked over, raising an eyebrow high above his violet eye. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s strange that you got saddled with your moniker instead of Irulon.”
“Irulon generally keeps to the shadows and out of public view. Hard to get a nickname when a large majority of people are only barely aware you exist.”
“Good point, I guess.”
“In any case, I shall leave the gremlins and their problem to you. I trust you to take care of it. I had best make my way back to the city.”
“Let me know if things seem like they aren’t going to go well.”
“Of course,” Brakkt said, already walking away. “Same goes for you,” he said over his shoulder. “And I’ll keep a look out for any monsters in the city as well.”
Despite him leaving, Alyssa didn’t head back to the gremlin tent. She stayed and watched the Yora procession, switching back to her binoculars as they got closer to the wall. Only when they dismounted, handed off their horses to the Illuna guards, and walked out of view did Alyssa finally turn away. She had a bad feeling but there wasn’t much she could actually do. Not right now anyway.
Brakkt would figure out exactly what was going on. For the time being… Alyssa turned and spotted a much smaller gremlin than any of the ones she had seen. “Hey!”
His eyes widened momentarily.
For a long second, he and Alyssa just stared at each other.
Grabbing the hood of his cloak, he pulled it down over his head as he spun around and started power-walking away. But his small legs couldn’t carry him too far too fast.
Alyssa had a hand clamped around his shoulder in seconds.
“Let me go!” he piped out.
“Absolutely not.” He was squirming, but she now had both hands locked onto his shoulders. “Do you know how worried you’ve made… uh, the others?” They were all gremlins, but they might not be his parents. Best to use a more neutral term.
A deep voice interrupted Alyssa before she could ask where he had been. “Something wrong?”
The sudden voice just about made her jump, but it was a voice she recognized. “Fezzik,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “This is one of the ones the other gremlins were worried about… I think. I haven’t actually found out for sure yet, but…” Slowly, Alyssa trailed off as she realized that quite a few of the monsters were looking in her direction.
Slowly, she released the little gremlin, hoping she wasn’t looking like some kind of predator or abductor.
Thankfully, Fezzik intervened. He reached down, large hand practically wrapping completely around the now released gremlin. As if the kid was nothing more than a pillow, Fezzik hefted him up and hoisted him over his shoulder. “So you’re one of the ones who has been sneaking off into the human city.”
“It wasn’t me!”
“Then where have you been all day, Iona? I’ve been standing guard. Haven’t seen you even once. And your mother has been scared ragged.”
“I was here the whole time!”
“Then you won’t mind having a little talk about just what you’ve been doing.” Fezzik said, starting off back toward the gremlin tent. “And I’m sure some of the others have seen you around too?”
Alyssa followed after them. Fezzik was large and loud, so it was fairly easy to go unnoticed while he was around. She quietly followed him to what turned out to be a rather interesting discussion about where he had been. If a rather painful one in actually extracting said information.
But, learning that he had been off baking pies with the humans did put a smile on Alyssa’s face. At first, she had been a bit worried that he had somehow gotten conned into slavery, but it seemed as if he actually enjoyed cooking.
It was perfectly possible for humans and monsters to get along after all.