Things went more than bump in the night, they moaned and they whispered, and they hissed in the leaves, they croaked and they creaked in the brook and the brush, and they trod on ghostly feet, disturbing the leaves around about the line master Karoly had drawn.
What do ghosts do when they get hold of you? Yuri wondered. But no one yet had said anything about taking him home, so he lay still, shivering in his blanket, and hoping that last noise was Gracja stirring about, inside their circle. Zadny was bedded down with him and Zadny was asleep. The trolls had not shown up again, and he wished he could think they were part of what was going on out there, but he feared that Krukczy had indeed found his brother, or whatever made his going worthwhile. He was glad for Krukczy if that was the case. He hoped that he would find Tamas tomorrow.
Hello, he would say, when they rode up on Tamas. Tamas would be surprised, and angry, but over all glad to see him. Tamas would be impressed with what he had done and his keeping his promise—no, truth, Tamas would be furious at him for leaving home and worrying their parents and losing Zadny in the first place; but Tamas would forgive him, because Tamas would be very glad he had brought master Karoly and master Nikolai, who were help Tamas must have given up on—whatever Tamas was doing, whatever he was into, running off with witches.
Probably he was looking for Bogdan. If Tamas had gotten out in one piece, he would be doing that. Or possibly Tamas was trying to do whatever master Karoly was supposed to be doing, that his sister had wanted of him; so master Karoly's sister should not mind helping them, if master Karoly could make her understand.
And what was that master Karoly had said, using gran's name? People said gran had come from over-mountain, and people said gran had been odd. The boys said gran had been a witch. And evidently she was.
So what did that make papa, and what did that make him? That was a scary thought, and one he kept skipping off of, like a stone going over a river—back to the rustlings in the brush and back to Tamas and skip-skip-skip, across that dark spot again that held things he knew for certain master Karoly was not going to tell him, or master Karoly would have before this.
Then—it was after a dark spot, so he thought he must have dozed off—Zadny brought his head up and jolted his arm, and he saw master Karoly down on his knees with his ear to the ground, listening, the way he would do at home. He wondered if master Karoly's sister was talking to him, and he moved his arm and put his own ear to the ground. He was not sure he wanted to hear what master Karoly was hearing, and he was not sure it was right to eavesdrop.
But he heard nothing, anyway, but the noise of the brook and the rustle of the wind, and Zadny's heavy sigh. For a long time master Karoly stayed the way he was, and sometimes after that he cupped his hand as if he were whispering to someone, and listened some more. Yuri's eyes were very heavy, and they kept drifting shut, since nothing was going to happen that he could hear. And finally he knew he was asleep, because he kept dreaming of the troll's cave, and the cellar at Tajny Tower, and about home, too, as if he could drift around the halls. He could see his father sitting late, late in the hall, with no one around him. He could see his mother, looking so worried and so unhappy. He wanted to say, We're all right. And ordinarily in his dreams he could do as he wanted to do, but this time he talked and they did not even turn their heads, as if in his dream he was not there at all. And he went to Tamas' and Bogdan's room, but it was dark and no one was there; and he went to his, and everything was just the way he had walked away from it, even Tamas' box sitting on the bed, and everything dark, but he could see it. It was scary, as if he really was there, and his mother had not let the maids move anything, or even dust anything, because it had a musty, unused smell. He wished he were back with master Karoly and master Nikolai and he wished it would be morning soon.
Which it was, because he heard the birds starting up. And then he wanted to sleep, but master Karoly came and poked him with his staff and said they had to be moving.
Skory had snorted and moved, just a moment before Tamas knew that birds were singing-—he had that vague, disturbing impression, and he opened his eyes on gray sky and the branches of pines, seeing nothing wrong: he was numb on his back from contact with the stone, he would ache if he moved, and Ela's weight on his shoulder was truly painful, but he would have been oh, so willing to shut his eyes just a moment more.
But they had at least to think through where they were going and what they were going to do. He moved his left arm to lean on and lifted his head, and saw the rocky nook by daylight, saw—
"Ha!"
Goblins, all about, armed and squatting on the rocks and the earth of the hillside, only waiting, spears angled over shoulders.
Ela waked. He gathered her to her feet in the sweep of his arm as he scrambled up, saw goblins reach for spears and rise to their feet. He reached and drew his sword in hope that goblins had some concept of honor, enough to bring them at him one at a time—enough that it was not a volley of spears they had to face.
But the goblins all about suddenly changed their expression and looked past him, to the sounds of a rider arriving among the rocks. He turned his head just enough to confirm the pale gray horse he suddenly, angrily, believed it was. The goblins stood waiting for the intruder as Azdra'ik took his own time, rode up on them at an easy pace, swung off and lit on both feet at once, with a clash of metal. Lwi shied, snorting in dislike, and Tamas brought the sword up, waiting.
But Azdra'ik waved at whatever was happening at his back. "Oh, put the damned thing down, man, I've brought your horse back, haven't I?"
For a very little he would have swung at Azdra'ik. He did not put the sword away, he held it, waiting for Azdra'ik's joke to play itself out how it would; but Azdra'ik came closer, Lwi's reins in hand, and, with the point a hand's span from him, pushed it delicately, carefully away with the back of his hand, offering Lwi's reins inside Tamas' guard, while all about them was silence and waiting.
"Tamas," Azdra'ik said, looking him straight in the face; and did a beast call a man by his name, or give him time to think how fetal a move it would be to kill the goblin they knew, in the face of so many they did not.
Ela was as much in doubt. He felt her behind him. He kept his eyes on Azdra'ik and everything within eyesight as he lowered the sword point and reached after Lwi's reins, expecting some goblin joke. But Azdra'ik gave up the reins, and grinned at him, for which he was not in good humor. Azdra'ik turned away and swept a grand gesture at his cohorts around them, beckoning them to join him.
"Come down," Azdra'ik said, "come down, pay your respects to the witch of the Wood and—" With a turn half about: "—What are you, Tamas, lad? Have you a title this morning? Witchly consort, or—"
"Be damned," he muttered, and knew what they had seen and what they thought, while Ela stood hearing this and there was nothing reasonable he could say to Azdra'ik's suppositions.
Goblins came from out of the rocks, two score of them at the least. Tall, these were—like Azdra'ik, with like armor, and like faces, and an elegance and grace about them that declared they were no rabble. They were every bit what he had seen in the cellar at Krukczy Tower, if it had not been Azdra'ik himself—that memory welled up with cold clarity. They were guilty of that butchery, one and all of them. He had Azdra'ik's word they were not the lesser sort. These— these, then, were the lords and masters, these were Azdra'ik's kind; and he hoped for nothing different than his companions and Ela's mistress had gotten, seeing what he saw about them. He kept the sword in hand, he wanted to know Ela's mind—but perhaps he had dreamed last night: he felt nothing—nothing of her thoughts or her wishes or her intentions, only her presence. He saw the goblins going through the motions of courtesy toward her, but whether it was some mockery, or honest chivalry, their manner gave no clue. He felt cut off, bereft of that feeling he had dreamed he had last night, bereft of understanding friend or foe, or what Ela was, or where her allegiances lay: she had been at Krukczy Tower, she had escaped ambush, and he had thought when he first set out with her that she might be one of theirs. He did not want to think that there had never been any chance of his escape, that she served some goblin master,—ohtgod, he did not want to think that.