Leading my mare to a partially frozen brook that cut along the side of the mountain, I knelt down in the snow to refill my water skin. Despite the heavy fur-lined gloves a grateful villager had insisted on gifting me, my fingers were stiff from the long ride through the woods.
A branch snapped nearby, and I whipped around with a start. A lone doe tugged at a stubborn sapling behind me, but I was startled to realize I’d lost sight of the others. Their horses ambled along the frigid stream, but there was no sign of Adriel, Sorsha, or Kaden.
Feeling uneasy, I rose to my feet, listening intently for the crunch of their footsteps. But it was eerily quiet in the snow-dusted clearing. The only sounds besides the feasting doe were the gurgle of the water and the steady drip of icicles melting along the side of the brook.
Taking a slow breath to calm myself, I tethered my mare to a sturdy-looking tree and followed my friends’ tracks. The low hiss of whispers quickly reached my ears, and I found Sorsha and Kaden bickering beneath an enormous fir.
Adriel stood a few paces ahead, his shoulders tense as he approached a tall rock outcropping.
I stared, expecting to find some beast the royal guard had cornered, but there were just rocks and a few scraggly pines growing between the cracks.
I blinked, looked again, and the scene began to waver.My eyes widened as the illusion melted away to reveal a behemoth evergreen tree and what was unmistakably a village tucked in the shelter of its roots and branches.
Huts fashioned from twigs were erected among the lumps of snow-covered moss, and tiny treehouses were built in sprawling stories along its trunk like clusters of mushrooms.
Adriel took a cautious step forward, and I heard half a dozen high-pitched shrieks as the little doors slammed.
No fewer than twenty bearded warriors surged from the huts, clad in armor fashioned from tortoise shells and scraps of leather. They brandished tiny daggers, clubs, and scythes that looked to be made from the fangs of some great beast.
Adriel stomped around them with purpose, snatching up a small figure in a drooping woolen hat who seemed to have passed out drunk in front of a ramshackle hut.
A miniature warrior roared, slashing at Adriel’s shins with his scythe and causing the royal guard to raise his knees and half hop, half skip out of their path.
I stood frozen, watching the melee as Sorsha and Kaden snickered. They didn’t seem at all surprised by what lay beyond the illusion — or by the knee-high warriors.
High-pitched shouts and what sounded like insults rose from the diminutive mob, and Adriel winced as a palm-sized battle axe struck him hard in the shin. The royal guard growled in pain, nearly dropping the comatose male in his grasp. “Enough!”
He drew his own sword and held it to the throat of the tiny drunkard. The warriors ceased their attack.
“I’ve come to make a trade,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his fighting leathers and withdrawing a small bundle wrapped in beeswax. “Four trams of the finestOuwelgolsch mushrooms, and I only need to borrow this smelly lout.”
A sudden hush fell over the crowd, and I caught a glimpse of tiny faces peering through the gaps in doorways and windows.
“You come to our hollow and attempt to take one of our own hostage?” piped a warrior, his small voice thick with an unfamiliar accent.
“We need to barter passage through the ice caves,” Adriel explained.
Anxious titters rose from the crowd.
“To take a gnome to Eckoghari is a promise of a gruesome and painful death,” the warrior snarled. “You may keep your mushrooms.”
Gnomes. So that was what the tiny warriors were.
“I’ll keep the mushroomsandtake the brute if it comes to that,” the royal guard snapped.
“Four trams, and I personally guarantee he will be returned to you unharmed. Unless he manages to drink himself to death along the way.”
A wave of mutters swept over the village, the warriors glowering up at Adriel as the gnomes hiding in their huts peered out curiously.
After a moment, the spokesgnome took a bold step forward, glaring at Adriel as though he weren’t large enough to crush him with a single well-placed stomp. “We have an accord,” he said, nodding at the unconscious male still dangling from in his grasp.
“Many thanks,” Adriel rumbled, tossing the bundle into the snow and stalking back toward where we’d left the horses as if the encounter hadn’t happened.
The royal guard moved with a slight limp from wherethe battle axe had struck him in the kneecap, and Sorsha was making little effort to stifle her laugher at his expense.
“What was that?” I asked Kaden, watching in horror as Adriel attempted to stuff the gnome into one of his saddlebags.
“Eckoghari favors gnomes.” He shrugged. “Taking the little drunkard may allow us to gain entry to the ice caves, though I don’t know how he plans for the tiny bastard to live.”
