“Freydis,” I said. “Do you happen to be seeing – anything moving? Fairly far off in the trees?”
She didn’t answer, but I saw her begin to look left and right periodically. After a time, she said:
“Indeed I do. Something may be watching us. Well, we knew it would happen. We’ll likely be watched all the way to – our destination.”
To add to this unease, the sky clouded up. It looked like we would have to sleep in the rain, this night.
*
It was a short time after that the terrain changed, somewhat; it leveled out, and became rockier. It was still covered in pines, but I suspected we would see holes in the ground soon. Freydis noticed one first.
“It’s time to watch our step,” she said. “Good-sized pit up here on the left.”
“It will be any smaller ones we’ll need to worry about missing,” I answered.
The hole she referred to had been dug long ago, and was just large enough for one person to drop down into.
“What are those?” Caiside asked.
“Amber pits,” I said. “Raw amber can be found right at the surface, in spots here. And when it was found, people would dig further down to see if there was more. Often there was. This is where Slade would have found what he took to Wastemoor to trade. Or others found it and sold it to him.
“And this means,” I added, “this is as far into the wilds as I have ever ventured.”
“Does anyone still dig here?”
“You hear about a villager trying it now and then. Kobolds might. The understanding is that the amber is now too hard to find, though. The Dwarves don’t bother, so there can’t be much.
“It feels odd to me, you know,” I added. “Oddly familiar. Walking through a jewel field, essentially. It reminds me of what I do, what my family does, with our music.”
“Your music?” Caiside asked.
“Yes. We play standards, you know. Traditional wedding songs, festival songs, and so on. We add our own flavor to them, though, and when we do, I can’t help feeling a sort of kinship with their original composers, whoever they were. We might take a melody, for example, and change a few words here and there, and it gives me a sense of – connection, I’d say, to those who have gone before, like nothing else does. It’s an odd thing. It’s presumptuous, I know. But when I’m thinking through one of those songs, I can’t help but feeling I’m standing in the shoes of some wise old musician, somehow. It’s like walking through a field of jewels. Does that make sense?”
“No,” Caiside said.
*
Late that afternoon we decided to stop whenever we saw the next level gap in the trees, as we had the two previous nights; but before we came to one that suited us, suddenly we cleared a ridge and saw, far off through the woods to our left, the ruins of what looked like an ancient mansion. It was either right before a slope, or else was actually cut into it. We turned left to get nearer.
The grand old building – for grand it was – turned out to indeed be cut into the sheer side of a rocky hill. It had two levels; an expansive veranda out in front of the bottom level was bounded by fat columns, which supported a wide porch extending out from the top level. Large steps led up to the lower level; on either side of them were ornamental pools which were dry. Around the sides of them were long-overgrown flower beds.
“Very impressive,” I said. “I’d never heard of this place.”
“Who would have lived here?” Caiside asked.
“I don’t know. A well-to-do family, long ago. Or maybe a clan. Who didn’t want neighbors. Maybe they had something to do with the amber fields back there.”
“And we don’t know what might live here now,” Freydis said.
“If it is truly abandoned, though,” Caiside said, “we could sleep on that veranda, under that overhang, out of the rain.”
“But who knows what’s inside?”
“It may just be single rooms cut into that hill,” Caiside said. “Behind that facade. Often that’s the case, with cave dwellings like this; it’s too difficult to excavate deeper into the rock hill for any distance. Easy enough to reconnoiter and find out.”
We stood behind trees some distance away from it and just observed it for some time. Other than a bird alighting on a balustrade on the top level, there was no movement.
We decided to approach.
*
Even with the pools dry, and the garden beds overgrown, and the gray stone stained, it was clear what a stately home this must have once been, if that’s indeed what it was. As I walked up the steps I half expected to be greeted by a house steward.
The home had a large center front doorway, but any doors that had once been there were long gone. Likewise there were several open window spaces to either side.
It took a dozen steps just to cross the veranda from the steps to the doorway. Caiside peered inside.
“I believe it is indeed just one room deep,” she said. “We should be able to see anything there is to see. And – there’s something right there.”
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She lifted a crutch to point to a pile of shining objects in a far corner of the room. We stepped inside to get a better look –
And a portcullis slammed down behind us from a hidden aperture over the entrance. At the same time two crowds of kobolds, each apparently from a side room with darkened entrances, rushed in, surrounding us and brandishing spears.
Freydis slapped her hand onto her head:
“I can’t believe we just fell for that.”
The kobolds were a significantly better-put-together lot than the ones we would see about town – most of whom were servants for the Dwarves – or the one which I had somewhat successfully hidden many years ago. The ones around town would typically be wearing just rags, essentially, and would have fur that was unkempt or actually singed off from toiling at Dwarven furnaces.
These here, however, mostly wore either short robes, or else respectable-looking gambesons. They nearly all had spears, and a number had knives at their belts as well. They barked at us, and thrust their spears in our direction, and hemmed us in; but they did not actually attack.
And then they started to sing:
We’re the Free Kobolds of Fine Hills
and we’ll no longer be shills
for the loudmouth SwornBorn,
nor folk like you;
we don’t take orders from others
aimed at us or our mothers.
There is no way you’ll tell
us what to do.
I spoke quietly to Caiside:
“This is the same melody as that song about our gear you sang just a few days ago.”
“There are timeless tunes that have spread all through the civilized world,” she answered.
The crowd kept going:
We’ve taken over this mansion,
and we’re bent on exfansion
in these hills to get room
for all our kin;
here we all have frotection,
we don’t live in abjection.
There are no chains, no cuffs;
we’re not locked in.
We’ll only work for ourselves now
and we may tell the Elves how
Dwarves make fun of their bal-
lads, and their harfs.
And also – now that we meet you –
well, the Dwarves try to cheat you
when you trade; they say you
are easy marks.
And now we stay up for late nights
and sit watching the north lights
there is no curfew from
some commandant;
We won’t get up before light now
to go feeding their frize sow
and we’ll eat too much breakfast
if we want.
We don’t take orders from tall folk
To make toast or an egg yolk
And to transfort a tray
Right to their beds.
We won’t be feeling fotatoes
Nor be blanching tomatoes.
We will no longer serve
you muttonheads.
That was the end. They stood glaring at us.
I was expecting to be thrown into chains ourselves, imminently, and to have our gear seized. We weren’t carrying much, but if nothing else our Elven knives would tempt the kobolds, I would think.
But what happened next was a somewhat larger, older kobold stepping to the front of the crowd. She wore a large black belt around her robe, and also a leather cap. She hooked her thumbs into the belt as she spoke:
“Well now, visitors. Do we make ourselves clear?”
Caiside, Freydis and I looked at each other; I then answered:
“Yes, you certainly do. Ma’am.”
“Very well, then.”
She said no more, for the moment. She and the crowd just stood there, staring at us.
“So then,” I said. “We are just passing through. We didn’t realize this place was occupied. We can head back outside, and we’ll be on our way.”
“No one may move through Koboldlandia in Fine Hills,” she said, “without faying a conduct fare of one shilling.”
“One shilling?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Each?”
“That’s right.”
I looked again at Freydis and Caiside. Freydis widened her eyes slightly and barely nodded, as if to say:
Fay them that fare already, finhead, and let’s get out of here.
I unlaced my purse and withdrew three shillings. A younger kobold carrying a scimitar stepped up with his hand out.
“There you are. And we will be – on our way. You have a very nice hill fortress, here.”
“You’re welcome to sfend the night out under the overhang,” the apparent chief said. “No need to risk rain out under the trees.”
“Well. All right, then,” I said. “Thank you for allowing us here.”
She may have given us a slight nod, or it may have been a slight shake of her head, but either way she then just turned and walked back into the side room off to the left. The rest of them dispersed, too. A few stood around and spoke to each other; others wandered inside after their leader, or past us to head out into the woods.
Some of them must have headed to the portcullis crank, wherever it was, because that heavy gate rose up again and disappeared into the slot in the ceiling.
The three of us walked out onto the porch where we would spend the night.
“This is not what I anticipated,” Freydis said. “Not when we approached, and certainly not when that gate fell down.”
“Should we tell them,” I asked, “that they could really just – run an inn, here? They could get their shillings without threatening anyone with the weaponry.”
James St. John, CC BY 2.0