“Oh, no you don’t,” gritted Camille, and she leapt to her feet and took up Scruff and slipped him into her high vest pocket, the sparrow chirping softly once or twice at being handled in the night. Then, following the furtive sounds, Camille quietly ran after the one thief, or several.
Through the rugged hill country she followed, scrambling up steep slopes and down angled slants and across rocky streams. And now Camille knew that there were more than just one, for as they had gotten farther away from her meager camp, they became boisterous, laughing away at their ill deed, and jabbering at how easily it was done, no longer attempting to be quiet.
The moon slid down the sky as through winding canyons and across shale-laden hills and past thickets and briars they led her.
But at last they scrambled up a boulder-strewn slope, where high on its flank Camille saw the glowing mouth of a cave, lit from within by a fire. And she gasped once more, for in the light streaming outward she then saw the forms of the thieves: six altogether there were, and small, three or so foot tall at most, with spindly arms and legs. Their clothing was quite ragged, and, when one turned to look at another, by the firelight glowing forth Camille could see that he was wholly ugly.
“Goblins?” she whispered to herself, wondering. “Or perhaps-No wait. Spriggans, they are. Just as Vivette and Romy described.”
“Ho, we’re back!” cried one as he stepped inside, Lady Sorciere’s staff in hand.
“With booty, too,” called another, Camille’s cloak draped over his arm, with a third Spriggan and three more following, each bearing an item of hers-money belt, waterskin, bedroll, and rucksack.
A babble of voices responded, and then Camille knew that this was a den of thieves.
“What will I do, Scruff?” she whispered. “There seem to be many within.”
But Scruff answered not from the vest pocket, sound asleep as he was.
Using the boulders as cover, Camille crept up the slope. She came to a place where she could see in, and by firelight reflected ’round a turn in the cave, she saw a gaggle of Spriggans gathered, some of whom pawed through her rucksack, casting clothing and food and such aside, while others examined her remaining goods. One at the rucksack crowed and lifted up a necklace; he had found the hidden pocket. Another poured out the coins from her money belt, and still another tested each ducat with his teeth.
Just like my mother. The image flashed through Camille’s mind, and she was immediately ashamed for having thought it. She cast that image away, and watched as one unrolled her bedroll and shook out the blanket, while another poured out the water from her waterskin and jiggled it up and down to see if aught of value was within, while others fumbled along the lining of her cloak, searching for more wealth. Oh, sweet Mithras, what will I do without my goods?
Once again, one of the Spriggans crowed; he had found the treasure sewn in the lining of the cloak. As he drew a knife to slit the cloth, another called out for attention, this one with a tattered black hat atop his head. “To the pile,” he said. Whatever he meant, Camille could not guess, but the result of his words was plain, for they rerolled her blanket and poured the coins back into the money belt and returned the goods to the rucksack, including refilling the secret pocket with its coinage and jewelry. And then they took up all and trooped deeper into the cave, disappearing ’round the turn.
“What will I do?” she asked sleeping Scruff. “I have not even my staff as a weapon. Oh, would that I had a sword.” She remembered Borel’s words, and added, “A sword of iron would lay these by, though I know not how to use one. -Or would that I had an enchanted sword, one even better than iron.”
A memory tugged at Camille’s mind. “Better than iron,” she repeated. “ ‘Better than iron for me and you,’ that’s what the old woman said… that, and ‘remember my words.’ Oh, Scruff, do you think it so? Durst I trust the mad babblings of a daft old crone. Yet did she not also say ‘Much like iron for a wicked few’? Ah, but are these Spriggans among those for whom it is true; are they ones for whom such will be a terrible shout? — Oh, but I do need my goods.”
Taking a deep breath and deciding, swiftly Camille stripped off her clothes and turned them wrong-side-out. The she redonned all, and as she slipped on the turned vest she murmured to Scruff that it was necessary, the sleeping wee bird now on the inside; she pulled on her boots: left on right, right on left. Lastly she turned her gloves, and slipped them on as well. Then, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, up and into the cave she went.
The moment she entered she felt a slight tingle, and from somewhere beyond the bend the babble of voices stilled, and then a loud voice called out: “Who dares enter the cavern of the giants?”
Camille nearly turned and bolted, but she heard a great sucking in of air, and many throats huffing and puffing, and remembering the sisters’ words and praying to Mithras they were true, on inward she went.
“Fee, fum, fie!” came the booming voice…
In that moment Camille stepped ’round the turn to see a large firelit chamber, overcrowded with tall, ugly beings jammed from wall to wall, fully twelve or thirteen feet high and quite broad; and as Camille stepped into the light, the one in the fore, the one with a tattered black hat atop his head, boomed out:
… “I’ll grind your bones to make a-”
“ Eeeeeee…! ” came a collective scream as the great tall beings saw Camille’s inside-out garments. And they bolted every which way, as if fleeing a peril beyond comprehension.
Pthbthththth… came a great roar of flatulence, much as would a hundred buffoons’ air-filled, pig’s-bladder-cushions prolongedly break wind were they all simultaneously sat upon. And the chamber filled with a terrible stench-worse even than that of the nag-churned quag-and had Camille eaten a full supper, surely she would have lost it right then and there. Breathing through her mouth to keep from gagging in the ever-worsening air, she watched as the beings shrank and shrank and ran about in panic, and struggled to fit into crevices and cracks and holes. Quickly they returned to Spriggan size, and they squeezed through the fissures and clefts, and down the small tunnels beyond they did flee.
And left in their foetid wake on a great pile of treasure and other goods lay Camille’s stolen gear.
Yet gasping in the befouled air, swiftly Camille took up her cloak and put it on wrong-side-out. She grabbed her rucksack and money belt, pausing just long enough to make certain that her jewelry and coinage were yet within. She slung them over her shoulder by their sling straps, and snatched up her bedroll and waterskin and slung them as well; then she scooped up Lady Sorciere’s staff, and, leaving all else on the glittering mound behind, she turned and strode from the chamber and toward the bend and the entrance beyond, all the while thinking, Go slow, go slow. Don’t let them see you are as frightened as they are. Slow. Don’t run.
But when she reached the mouth of the cave, she could no longer withhold her fright, and down the slope she ran in the moonlight, fleeing back the way she had come. And as she climbed up the far hill beyond, from the mouth of the cave behind a voice screeched out, “Thief! Thief! You terrible, wicked thief, you’ll not live to see the dawn!”
Without replying, on upward pressed Camille and over the crest and beyond, as a chill wind sprang from nowhere to curl all ’round.
Onward she fled, the wind becoming more brutal, and it lashed tree limbs and hurled grit as if to punish Camille. And the night darkened, with racing clouds filling the sky. They slid across the moon, and Camille had to slow, for in the resulting gloom she could but barely see.
A deluge of frigid rain began falling, and it was then Camille remembered the words of Vivette: “Though cowards all, some say they are quite dangerous, able to call up great winds and storms.”