The G’home Gnomes stared wordlessly, their last shred of hope gone. The Darkling—their friend, their maker of wondrous magic—had deliberately betrayed them. It had given them over to their worst enemies.
“Ho, hum,” the speaker said with a yawn. “Time to dispose of you, I think.”
The other trolls growled their assent and stamped their feet impatiently. They were growing bored with this game. Fillip and Sot struggled anew.
“What shall we do with them?” the speaker mused. He glanced about at the others. “Cut their throats and spike their heads? Pull off their fingers and toes? Bury them alive?”
Roars of approval sounded from all about, and the G’home Gnomes cringed down into small puddles of despair.
The troll leader shook his head. “No, no, I think we can do better than that!” He looked down at the cavorting demon. “Little fellow, what do you say should be done with these gnomes?”
The Darkling danced and balanced on fingers and toes, a wicked spider like shape clinging to the bottle’s slick surface. “They might make good feeding for the animals of the forest,” it teased.
“Ah!” the troll leader exclaimed. The others joined in a chorus of raucous approval, and the early morning stillness was filled with the sound.
So it was that Fillip and Sot were thrown to the ground, bound hand and foot with cord, hoisted feet first from a line slung over a low branch of a nearby hickory, and left to dangle with their down-turned heads some four feet above the ground.
“Not so close as to drown you in a rain wash and not so far as to prevent the scavengers from reaching you,” the speaker advised as the trolls turned away north. “Farewell, little gnomes. Keep your chins up!”
The pack laughed and shoved playfully at one another as they departed. The Darkling sat upon the speaker’s broad shoulder and looked back, eyes a blood-red glitter of satisfaction.
In moments, Fillip and Sot were left alone, hanging upside down from the hickory. They swayed gently in the wind and rain and cried.
One-Way Ticket
It was raining and blowing on Ben Holiday as well as he began his day some twenty miles south of where the G’home Gnomes had been strung up by their heels. He unwrapped himself from the warmth of Willow and his sleeping gear and shivered with the early morning chill as he dressed. They were encamped within a sheltering stand of giant fir that sat back against a rocky bluff, but the damp seemed to penetrate even there. The kobolds were already up and moving about, Bunion making ready to begin scouting ahead for the fleeing gnomes. Questor staggered about sleepily, attempted to make breakfast with his magic, and succeeded in producing five live chickens that flapped about madly and a cow that scattered Parsnip’s cooking gear. Within minutes, wizard and kobold were yelling at each other irritably, and Ben was wishing he were back at Sterling Silver in the comfort and seclusion of his own bedchamber.
But there wasn’t much point in wishing for what he couldn’t have, so he consumed a stalk of Bonnie Blue and a little water, mounted Jurisdiction and set off with the others in tow. Bunion quickly went on ahead, disappearing into the shadows and half-light like some aberrant wraith. The others rode after in a line, Ben leading, Willow and Questor following, Parsnip bringing up the rear on foot with the pack animals.
They traveled in silence. It was cold, rainy, and dark, and no one felt much like talking. It was the kind of day that you wished on your enemies or, at the very worst, on yourself when you knew you were going to be comfortably settled indoors before a warm fire. It was not the kind of day in which you traveled. Ben sat atop Jurisdiction and wondered why things had to be like this. He was thoroughly discomforted within minutes of setting out. The rain gear kept the water off his body, but the damp and the chill permeated everything. His toes were numb through his boots, his fingers through his gloves. What good thoughts he might have started out with trickled away with the speed of the puddles and streams that passed underfoot.