The room also smelled pungently of goats.
Which made sense, because four goats joined the village folk in their makeshift refuge. A brown-and-white-spotted nanny regarded them with disdain as she chewed her cud beside a set of stairs.
Eight individuals occupied the maybe-a-tavern. The rough voice belonged to a sturdy woodsman-looking fellow named Booth whose red mustache devoured his upper and lower lip, and who still held an iron pry bar forgotten in one fist. An underfed stone-fey couple had protective hands on the shoulders of their waifish daughter. The reedy voice was the property of a tiny, crooked, and surpassingly elderly woman whose eyes were squinted closed behind a pair of cracked spectacles. Her silver hair was gathered into a bun pierced with two knitting needles. Fern thought she might be dressed in a feed sack held in place with about twenty turns of twine. Three gnomish women in kerchiefs who were clearly sisters murmured to one another near the goats.
Fern, Staysha, and Zyll crowded together near the door, now closed at their back. The dwarf shifted uncomfortably.
Astryx towered over all of them, Nigel once more sheathed.
It was very tight indoors, and with the animal smell pervading the close air, quite claustrophobic. A gabble of conversation and argument had broken out immediately after they’d entered, but Astryx had silenced it with a few quiet words that nevertheless seemed to drown out everything else.
“It’s a verdigaunt.”
After a beat of silence, the old woman adjusted her spectacles and peered balefully up at the Oathmaiden. “Don’t know aboutthat.”
Astryx frowned back. She didn’t appear to know how to respond to skepticism. Were Nigel’s blade bared, Fern had no doubt he’d already have risen to her defense.
“Finny means we ain’t seen one of them before,” offered Booth, apologetically.
“If you had, I don’t believe we’d be talking,” said Astryx. “You’ve just seen the greenlings, I’d warrant.”
“Greenlings?” asked the stone-fey woman, doubtfully. “That sounds too nice for what’s been coming ’round.”
“Bones and roots. Corpses run through with ivy. They’re not fast, and not smart, but hard to kill,” said Astryx.
Booth and the gnomes, who’d finished their muttered conversation, were already nodding. The little stone-fey girl’s eyes were huge with recognition.
“The verdigaunt is nothing like them, but they belong to it. That’s the call you must have heard—in the deep woods, where its tree grows. And that’s what must be dealt with.”
“Eight preserve us,” murmured Finny, clutching at the front of her hideous dress.
“We sent young Lem to Trestletown with all the coin we could muster.” Booth seemed to be trying to figure out what to do with the pry bar, but resigned himself to continuing to awkwardly hold it. “Haber’s Five can be got hold of there, and we all figured they could see us clear of the trouble. Lem said they were s’posed to arrive four days after he came home, but it’s been two weeks now.”
Astryx scanned the assembled folk, but Fern was the one to speak up. “Where is Lem? Is he upstairs?”
A shadow passed over their faces, and the answer became self-evident. Fern thought Staysha looked a little pale.
“I’m sorry about Lem. And if it’s two weeks, then I think your money is well and truly lost,” said Astryx. “But I can help you. I’ve been done a good turn where I didn’t expect it, and it looks like you’re due one as well. We’ll have to wait until the greenlings return, though. Once they’re dealt with, I’ll follow their back trail to the tree where it sleeps.”
The Oathmaiden stared speculatively around the room.
Fern tingled as she sensed her gathering up the reins of authority.
“Will any of your other buildings fit a pair of horses?” asked the elf. “And I’m going to need a volunteer.”
Fern wasn’t sure how her paw ended up in the air.
As twilight unfurled, Bucket and Persimmon were shuttered uncomfortably into a shed attached to one of the dwellings. Bucket registered his opinion of their lodgings with a bitter whinny. Staysha’s wagon sat on the other side of the wooden bridge, tucked out of the way.
Astryx ordered Booth to remove all the boards from the windows of the building so that they could see out, then attempted to usher all of them upstairs. Staysha was only too happy to join them, but Finny and Booth declined. Booth because he offered to help keep an eye out through the exposed windows, a hatchet at the ready, and Finny because she was a contrary old lady.
Zyll had regarded the elf seriously, before declaring, “Shall be scout-ling,” and then scrambling onto the roof where she perched like a very colorful gargoyle at its peak.
Astryx waited inside, leaning next to the window beside the door that gave the best view of the road out front.
The goats bleated piteously from behind her, except for the one that stood beside Fern in the road directly before the tavern. It was the brown-and-white-spotted nanny, who had the sad misfortune of being the most tractable.
Fern held the end of its lead in one paw and Breadlee at the ready in the other—as though she was capable of anything more useful with him than slicing bread.
