Twobble looked at me then, really looked at me, and for the first time since he’d come tearing out of the Academy, he hesitated.
“I can,” he said slowly. “But once I say it, we can’t pretend we didn’t hear it.”
I nodded. “Tell me.”
Twobble drew in a deep breath, shoulders rising as he braced himself. I swore the goblin underground shifted beneath our feet, listening right along with him.
Twobble slowly exhaled, like whatever he was about to say weighed more than he’d expected.
“By all accounts,” he said, voice dropping, “they’re orcs.”
My jaw actually dropped open.
Orcs.
“As in,” I said faintly, “big, burly, green dudes with tusks and axes and an attitude problem?”
Twobble scowled at me. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”
Keegan closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. “This isn’t good.”
I blinked at him. Once. Twice. And I laughed, the sound shrill and disbelieving as it escaped me.
“Well. Now I’m worried.” I shook my head.
He opened one eye. “Because I said it wasn’t good?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “You don’t say things like that unless we’re standing on the edge of something deeply unpleasant.”
Keegan laughed softly, despite himself.
“We’re not doomed,” Keegan said. “But this won’t be clean.”
Twobble folded his arms, ears flicking. “That’s an understatement.”
“Talk to me,” I said, forcing myself to focus. “Orcs aren’t exactly subtle, but Stonewick’s Wards should—”
“Slow them,” Keegan finished. “Don't stop them.”
I turned fully toward him. “Meaning?”
“They’re not the swiftest magical creatures,” he said carefully. “They don’t slip through Wards or dissolve into shadow. They move forward through whatever is in their way. And they don’t mind stepping on things to get what they want.”
“That’s comforting,” I muttered.
“And mondo boar,” Twobble added.
I stared at him. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Mondo. Boar,” he repeated. “Huge. Armored. Mean. The kind that doesn’t ask permission from forests or fences.”
My laugh came out thin this time. “So… large orcs riding even larger murder pigs.”
Twobble grimaced. “When you put it like that, I almost miss the shadow things.”
Stella, who’d gone very quiet during all of this, finally spoke.
“Orcs don’t wander,” she said. “They mobilize.”
