“The Prince’s party will be approached with news of the damsel in distress not far from here. Apparently, the pair met at some fancy mixer not long before we kidnapped her. Took quite a shine to her, so we’re told.There is only one path up the mountain, and the goblins will be stationed in the lower woods.” He curled his lip. “We used to work with ogres. They were easier to deal with but can get overzealous in a fight.”
Gretchen shrugged. She’d seen the ogres at The Salt and Bog get into tousles after a few too many brandies.
“Further along is an abandoned fort. Mostly just dust inside. Makes a good staging point for the Cauley brother’s tricks.” He coughed. “We’ve had a few different performers operate in there. Beyond that is a cave. Right cavernous, too. We only use that if we have to, anything explosive in there is dangerous. And it’s right next to the bridge that takes the Prince over the chasm and up the tower to his fair lady.”
“Where Viragh lays in wait.” Gretchen tapped her nose. “I guess what I’m asking though, is how your performers keep from getting skewered?”
The driver barked a laugh and waved his hand. “That’s the easy part. Fish guts and goat’s blood along with smoke and mirrors.”
Mandell called to the crew as he crawled from underneath the wagon, and the driver scuttled away. It seemed Mandell had overslept, and he was flapping his arms at someone who was checking the horses' hooves.
“Fish guts, eh?” Gretchen took a sip of coffee. “Well, if that’s all it takes to fake one’s death, I should really take a closer look at my insurance policy. What do you think, Mulligan?” Gretchen glanced at her feet and blinked. The thought of what the scruffy creature would be up to in her absence left a sour feeling in her gut, but she missed him sorely.
“Who is Mulligan?”
Gretchen startled and turned, almost upsetting the crate she was sitting on. Sir Courtenay loomed over her. “My cat.” Gretchen sighed. “Say what you will about him, but he’s a good listener.”
Sir Courtenay eyed the surrounding grass askance and blinked. “The tricksters are well ahead of us. The Prince’s party is a day’s ride behind.” He waved at the camp. “Yet we sit around here like lumps.”
Gretchen smirked at the sound of Mandell shouting and stood to stretch her arms overhead. “Looks like we’ll be on our way any minute. Not that I relish the idea of bouncing around on a wagon again. Never thought I’d miss my broom, but my rump feels like it’s been tenderized.” Gretchen rubbed her aching muscles. “That Viragh could come back and fly us all up. What kind of dragon needs a portal stone to get around, anyway?”
Sir Courtenay’s eyes softened at that, and his face took on a wistful set. “Ah, the mighty firedrake. He was around back in my day, you know? We never dared to disrupt his mountain, and for the most part he left our stock alone.” He drew a sharp breath through his nose. “He has fallen far from valor, to take part in this kind of nonsense.”
Mandell’s voice rang among the camp, and the first of the wagons creaked into movement. The goblins fell from the tree into neat somersaults and stood crouched, eyes darting around them.
“I suspect goblins made up the better part of his diet back then.” Sir Courtenay held out a hand, and a whirlwind picked up around Gretchen’s feet smothering the flames left on the fire. “I doubt roast goblin is all that appetizing. I’ve read somewhere that dried goblin ears make for the best sleep tonic. Maybe Viragh was a little snoozier back then.”
The wagon driver responsible for the coffee came over and plucked the cup from Gretchen’s hand and collected the remnants of the morning's meal. “We must push on. If you’d prefer to walk, I suggest you get ahead of the wagons. The roads are dusty on the climb.”
Gretchen glanced at Sir Courtenay and rubbed her rump. “I suppose I could call this a field trip. My pantry is woefully empty. If I find any green speckled mushrooms up there, I may well end up with enough coin to take a vacation.”
Sir Courtenay said nothing and turned to float away through the dense forest paying no mind to the trunks in his path. Gretchen shrugged and followed at a slower pace navigating around rocks and low branches.
She kept the trail to her right and within earshot as she foraged, which wasn’t difficult given the clamor the caravan made. It wasn’t long before she’d stuffed the small pouch she always kept for foraging opportunities with comfrey and toadflax cuttings. She kept her eyes on the forest floor though, ready to dump the bag's contents should anything more valuable turn up. As she picked around the undergrowth with a stick, she stumbled over a hunched figure in a gray cloak.
“Careful,” the Cauley brother hissed. “These ingredients are dangerous.”
Gretchen righted herself and held a hand to her chest. “Holy smokes! Scared me half to death.” She peered at the hollowed tree he was stuffing bags into. “You plan on blasting this tree into the sky or something?”
He wiped his hands and covered the hole with a wooden shield plastered with mud and sticks.
“This is the staging ground for the first battle. I need to have my supplies ready.”
A snuffling accompanied a gentle tug at Gretchen’s hand, and she snatched the bag away from a goblin who had half a stalk of toadflax hanging from its mouth. It chewed and swallowed before clambering up the tree trunk, and Gretchen gawked upward at the massive twisted limbs. The goblins each had their own perch and were for once being quiet as they groomed themselves with purple tongues.
“So, I guess this is where we leave these guys?”
“The fort isn’t far ahead. I’ll stay here to make sure they don’t annihilate each other in the meantime.”
Gretchen followed him back to the road where one of the wagon drivers loaded an empty crate in the back. The other two brothers stood in the wagon bed prodding around their supplies. They looked up and said nothing but seemed to communicate something as the wagon ambled forward leaving the third brother to melt back into the forest. Gretchen lifted her foraging bag for a tentative sniff.
“Aargh. Goblin stink.” She upended the bag and shook out its contents. “No telling what that would do to a healing brew.”
She considered staying with the wagons but couldn’t shake the ominous feeling clawing in her gut. A damsel was in distress. A prince was coming. All is not as it seems. He planned on poking holes in Gretchen with something both sharp and pointy, and no amount of goat’s blood or fish guts would assure her she’d make it out in one piece.
“The gold. Think of the gold,” she muttered to herself. Hitching her knitted hose up, she stomped back into the forest, determined to find something more useful than goblin snacks on that leg of the journey.
By the time she’d refilled her bag there was a hole in her shoe and cobwebs in her hair. Gretchen had a feeling there might have been a spider crawling underneath her hat and was clawing in her braid for the culprit. She had no idea how far she’d drifted from the party in her foraging, but at least she’d found some yarrow, and if she could make a decent batch of queen of yarrow—
“I think you’ll find the mushrooms you are after over yonder.” Sir Courtenay jerked a thumb over his shoulder.