Having lived once, the shades could communicate, if one could bear to listen. Stone-still, Jedit tuned his ears. The ghosts voiced their sorrow in low gibberings or shrill keens or strangled moans. Many muttered the same angry phrases over and over.
"… revenge. Give us revenge. Give us…"
"… Shauku. Shauku. Shauku…"
"Shauku killed you all?" asked Jedit abruptly.
Like slamming a door, the windy whispering stopped.
Jedit weighed his words. The man-tiger knew nothing of the castle's lord except her name, but clearly she had many cruel deeds to answer for.
"Friends," he addressed the hovering mob, "we march against Johan, who marches against all Jamuraa. Johan is a guest of Shauku, and that fact alone condemns her, as does your presence. Friends, I promise you-and no one swears lightly a pact with the dead-if you let us pass in quietude, we'll do our best to punish Shauku."
He waited for an answer. None came. Except the eldritch light of the shades faded. Jedit squinted into blackness, strained his ears, in silence. Finally the tiger pushed off from his rock and padded silently up the twisted tunnel.
Pirates and woodsfolk had neither retreated nor progressed an inch. They sat bug-eyed and jumpy, staring at the dark cave. The tiger scuffed his claws to not alarm them.
Adira lifted her chin. "Well?"
"I negotiated," drawled the tiger. "The shades suffered at Shauku's hands. They'll withdraw if we exact vengeance upon her."
Rather than grow angry, Adira sighed. "That's a hell of a posture for pirates and mercenaries. If we set out to unseat every despot in Dominaria, we'll never have a day's rest and will chew through crews like spotted plague."
"If necessary," purred Jedit. "I'll enact revenge myself, for t'was I who swore the oath."
"No, no. We're shipmates." Adira rose and waved a glowing hand. "Proceed, Master Diplomat. We follow you."
"Hold," said Magfire. Everyone turned, squinting in rain, breath steaming. The warchief said, "If this is the big push, it's time to call in all our warriors."
Digging in a pouch, Magfire produced a thin bone whistle, then faced the forest and blew a triplet piping. People waited, puzzled. Then Jasmine gasped.
Winging from the trees, flying jerky as drunken bats, came two pixies. They perched on a birch tree, clinging to the bark with a hand and bare foot like sailors on a ratline. Their wings pulsed slowly as if puffed by invisible winds. Adira and her crew goggled and dared not move lest the tiny creatures spook. They were tall as a man's forearm with pale skin and green-blond hair yanked back and tied. They wore mole and rabbit skins. Tiny bangles or else tattoos decorated their arms and bare legs. Most startling were their intelligent, luminous green eyes that reminded the pirates of merfolk.
Magfire talked low in an unknown tongue to the fairies, who stared big-eyed without speaking. One asked a question in a high-pitched squeak like a bat's, waggling a hand the size of a dandelion blossom. Tribeswoman and pixies came to some agreement, and the two made to fly.
Whistledove Kithkin surprised everyone by asking a question in the same squeaking tones. Magfire looked peeved. One pixie spilled a long half-singing speech like bird song. Whistledove smiled and nodded.
"What did you ask?" asked Adira.
Shy, the redheaded brownie blushed. "I just asked if they knew someone I know."
"Have they names?" breathed Jasmine. The druid couldn't take her eyes off the pixies.
"Oh, yes. The smaller one is Sacred Tree, the larger Peace-flower."
"Let's get on." Magfire thumped her red-hafted spike in one hand.
Trooping silently, following buzzing pixies, the party trekked deep into the hill. They saw no ghosts. Wary of horrors, most missed the change.
Heath was first to notice. "Does it grow hotter?"
Everyone stopped. Jedit sniffed, "Fire ahead."
"Wood fires," said Adira. "For whatever our murderous sorceress cooks."
Farther on the tunnel fractured into four or five paths. Adira asked the way and Jedit pointed unerringly. Abruptly a questing pixie swooped over some boulders, chattering and pointing. Instinct primitive as a kitten's made Jedit pounce before he even recognized prey. Arching twelve feet in the red-lit tunnel, he landed with a slam behind the boulders. Something squeaked and bleated like mice. Jedit leaped, swiped, nabbed, stamped and came up holding by the ankles three creatures who punched and shrilled.
Jabbering, kicking, whining, shrieking captives the size of half-grown children had gray-purple skin, big noses, bald heads, and short-fangs. They wore rags and squabbled incessantly. The tiger bounced them on the boulders. Half-stunned, they subsided.
Magfire and her foresters gawked. "What are those?"
"Paint me pink!" snorted Sergeant Murdoch. "Kobolds!"
"Yes, kobolds!" blared a toothy shrimp. "We rule these caves, lords of all life, terrors to any who venture into our domain! We're the most feared of the fiercest tribes that range from the Blue Mountains to the Sukurvia!"
"So," added another kobold, "seeing as how we're feared and all, could you hold us heads up? My nose is stuffing up!"
"Do you have any food?" asked the third.
"Hush, you boobies." Adira pulled a dagger and tapped a bony head. "How many kobolds live under this hill?"
"Um…" Still upside-down, one held up eight fingers, all he had. "This many."
"He's lying," said Murdoch.
"How do you know?" asked the pirate queen.
"He's a kobold," replied the ex-sergeant. "I once tried to drill some. An insane plan of some shah. We finally prodded the beggars over to the enemy. You can't get a straight answer without a threat. Cut one's ear off to start."
"Waak!" All three kobolds waggled fingers in the air. "This many! No, this many! No, he's a liar!"
"How live you under this hill?" put in Magfire. "My tribe lived in this region for generations, and we never saw any kobolds."
"We don't like the sun!" gabbled one. They looked much alike, skin so muddy gray-purple they seemed bruised from head to toe. In firelight they squinted with deep piggy eyes past huge warty noses.
"What are your names?" asked Taurion.
"Dog Ears!"
"Pink Eye!"
"Biscuit Tooth!"
"You're not Biscuit Tooth!" carped the first kobold.
"Am so!"
With a long arm, Jedit swung the kobolds in a screaming circle to get their attention. He growled, "Answer truthfully or else."
"Or else what?" squawked the most fidgety one.
The tiger grabbed a scrawny neck, opened a mouth full of fearsome fangs, and shoved the unfortunate's head in.
Voice muffled, the captive shrieked, "All right, all right! We'll answer!" Jedit spat out the troublemaker's head.
"If we do," asked a second captive, "will you let us go?"
"Do I look like a fool?" growled the tiger. "We owe you no mercy. You inhabit the domain of our enemy. Answer right, or I'll gnaw a leg off each of you."
"Hang on," said Magfire. "They didn't answer my question. How came you to these caves?"
"We were fetched here," said the middle quibbler. "By magic."
"We didn't want to come," said the third. "We're peaceable. We love our enemies! All of them!"
"If you live here," asked Taurion, "what do you eat?"
"Pig!"
"Cattle!"
"Rats! I mean, pumpkins," they chorused.
"Who fetched you here?" insisted Magfire. "And why?"
"Mistress," answered the first.
"Who's that?" asked the second.
'Tellow Lady, you stupid picknose!" One kobold slapped another and sparked a flurry of smacks and curses. It ended as Jedit spun them in another sweeping circle.