“Of course it’s me,” Max laughed. He did not feel any different; looking down, he saw his same hand and the same Red Branch tattoo. But Cooper had taught Max that mirrors reflect all illusions, and according to this mirror, others would see Max as a barrel-chested Broadbrim with clay-colored skin and bloodshot eyes.
Toby leaned forward and sniffed him. “David,” he exclaimed, “you’ve created an illusion that’s … that’s almost smee-worthy!”
“Yes,” said David thoughtfully. “I think I have. Let’s—”
A faint tremor shook the earth, causing the mules to stamp and bray. Skeedle shrieked and hurried back to them, spilling oats from his canvas sack. He stopped dead at the sight of them.
“Wh-where’s Max?” he gasped. “What have you done with him?”
“I’m right here, Skeedle,” said Max calmly. The goblin merely gaped. “It’s just an illusion. You and Kolbyt can head back now. Which wagon should we take?”
“Th-the big one,” replied the goblin, still staring suspiciously. Summoning his courage, he darted forward and poked Max on the shoulder.
“It’s really me,” said Max, smiling.
“You even sound … and
“Music to my ears. You’ll be okay on the road back?”
“I think so,” the goblin chirped. “If trouble comes, I’ll run. I don’t need to run fast, just faster than Kolbyt.” Skeedle grinned, revealing six sharp teeth as he hugged Max. Turning, he barked out something to his cousin, who gazed over, grunted dully at the new disguises, and began transferring crates to the larger wagon. Taking Max’s arm, Skeedle walked him over to the mules, explaining their individual temperaments and quirks.
“And don’t hold the reins too tight,” he cautioned. “Petunia has a sore tooth. When you’re done with them, sell them to someone kind. Or just set them loose. They know the way home.”
“Got it,” said Max. He turned to Toby, who was already sitting up in the driver’s seat. “Do you know our inventory?”
“To the ounce and ingot,” sighed the smee. “Kolbyt might be dense, but not when it comes to what his cousin borrowed. He recited it in his sleep.”
“I guess this is it, then, Skeedle,” said Max, shaking the goblin’s hand. “Thank you for all your help. I expect the next time I see you, you’ll be sitting on Plumpka’s throne.”
“Maybe.” Skeedle blushed, removing his hat and twiddling his fingers. “If he doesn’t eat me first.”
While Kolbyt turned the smaller wagon about, the rest of the group said their goodbyes. Upon seeing David take his own guise, Skeedle clapped and circled the sorcerer to assess him from various angles. Satisfied, the goblin hopped aboard Kolbyt’s wagon and waved his hat farewell. Shaking the reins, Kolbyt barked impatiently at the mules and the cousins began their long, clopping journey back to Broadbrim Mountain.
“A prince among goblins,” Max remarked, climbing up into the driver’s seat next to Toby.
“You set a rather low bar,” scoffed Toby, sounding peevish. “Your ‘prince’ just left us in the middle of nowhere with four gassy mules and no more chocolate. Meanwhile, the thankless smee remains steadfast after serving as a steed, masquerading as a hag, and suffering that brute’s attentions.”
“Don’t be so dramatic,” said Max. “Kolbyt said he just wanted to look at you.”
“He was
As they drove on, however, Max had to admit that Skeedle’s fears seemed justified. There did appear to be something sinister to the landscape, a watchful silence that nipped and worried at the edges of his mind. As the afternoon waned, he found that he’d grown quiet, ignoring the smee’s incessant gripes and philosophizing as the mules plodded on.
It was nearly twilight and they were coming over a barren rise when Max finally saw his first bird of the day. It streaked past the wagon, a large crow whose throaty cries startled Toby from sleep.
“Wh-what’s that?” murmured the smee, blinking stupidly.
But Max was speechless.
He had never seen such an astonishing sprawl of bodies. So many corpses littered the vale below that they nearly dammed the river, forcing its waters to spill over its banks to turn half the plain into a bloody marsh. Broken bodies and equipment stretched as far as Max could see—a grisly feast for thousands of crows that flapped and hopped about the shocking carnage. When the slouching smee made to sit up, Max finally found his voice.
“Don’t look. Shut your eyes and keep them shut.”
Toby instantly clamped his hands over face. “What is it?” he hissed.
“A battlefield,” said Max, searching for words. “A graveyard … a massacre. Thousands dead.”
“Humans?”
“Some,” said Max, sweeping the field with his spyglass. “Mostly vyes … ogres and ettins … some of those riders that overtook us on the road. A few banners are Aamon’s, but most belong to Prusias. It seems things aren’t going so well for the King of Blys. Most of the casualties are his.”
Some movement caught Max’s eye and he trained his glass on a shallow depression near the edge of a thick wood. Scavengers were there, humans dressed in rags robbing the bodies of the dead. Most kept to the fringe of the forest, stripping the fallen of their armor and weapons and tossing the spoils into great sacks that they dragged away. They were a wretched-looking lot, and Max wondered if they would attack the goblin wagon. At least they’d largely cleared the road of bodies, Max thought. Reaching back, he rapped on the wagon’s front shutters.
“What is it?” mumbled David, sounding sleepy.
“Come take a look.”
A minute later, David stood by the nervous, champing mules and gazed down at the valley with a sad, contemplative expression. He pointed to a distant billow of black smoke rising from hills beyond the forest.
“I’d guess that’s coming from the brayma’s palace,” he reflected. “Prusias may have bitten off more than he can chew with Aamon.”
“Let’s get going,” said Max, twisting about to scan their surroundings. “It doesn’t do any good to sit up here for all to see.”
They descended the slope, passing the first body some hundred yards from the summit. Max tried to keep his eyes straight ahead, but it was impossible not to stare at the mounds of mangled vyes and men, arrow-riddled ogres in bronze breastplates, and two-headed ettins, all half submerged in cloudy pools of river water. The crows screamed at the wagon as they passed, a shrill chorus that drove the mules into a braying panic. Gripping the reins, Max held them to the road’s center as the wagon lurched and bumped along.
The living disturbed him as much as the dead. While the fallen were an appalling spectacle, the scavengers moved like hungry phantoms among them, dark shapes that stole about the battlefield, crouching over corpses and digging through the scattered wreckage of tents, chariots, and palanquins. Many of the combatants had dressed splendidly for battle—brilliant silk pennons, embossed shields, and magnificent armor of enameled plate. But the stark realities of war had stripped them of their glory; these trappings had been trampled and churned into the raw earth until they were as muddy and tattered as their owners.
Shaking the reins, Max urged the mules to a quicker pace as several scavengers came too close for comfort. He studied them as the wagon hurried ahead, men and women with hollow, ghoulish faces. They stared at the wagon, dully registering its occupants before resuming their work with knives and fingers and teeth.
“Can I look now?” whispered Toby.
“No.”
Max did not allow the smee to open his eyes for another twenty minutes, not until the last of the bodies were in their wake. He could now make out the source of smoke and saw David had been correct. Rising from a distant hilltop crowned with charred trees was a burning castle, its bailey, towers, and parapets little more than a brittle armature as it vomited plumes of black smoke into the lilac sky.
That night they camped away from the road, hiding the wagon behind a copse of alders and willows that lined an icy stream. While Toby strapped feedbags to the mules, Max looked in on David.
He found his roommate sitting in the back, propped against a cushion and scratching a nib ever so carefully on a sheet of spypaper.
“Just a minute,” he muttered. “I’m almost finished.” Blowing on the ink, he held the page up to the lantern so
