"The wizard ran," growled Gull. "In those past battles, she must have won, so could tend her charges and see them home safely. But this time she got skunked, and ran like a rabbit. And left you stranded. Is that it?"
Choked up, Helki only nodded. Holleb snapped a thick stick apart, piece by piece.
"Like that silly clockwork animal out there," Gull mused, fitting pieces of the puzzle. "And those useless goblins and the poor giant with his arm shorn off… For that matter, it explains the soil under that thorn wall."
"Thorn-wall? What is thorn?" Despite her sorrow, Helki was curious, for herein might lie answers to their plight.
Gull explained, "That heap of briars. When I was hiding my sister, I noticed the soil was red. We don't have soil like that in our valley. I've only heard of it from travelers. So that whole thorn hedge was actually lifted from somewhere else in the Domains and dropped on our village… Imagine the power to do that, to uproot part of the earth and transport it elsewhere. Look what these wizards can do! And yet they spend their time warring on one another, forcing innocent folk to fight to the death for-well, why do they fight, anyway? Kings fight for glory and soldiers for pay. What are wizards after?"
"Power," rumbled Holleb, startling the other two. "Power to become gods."
The fire slumped to red coals. Around them, the Whispering Woods were so still Gull had to strain to notice the hissing almost-voices that droned like summer bees.
He'd fit together a few pieces, yet the puzzle only loomed larger. If wizards warred for power, or magic or mana or whatever they called it, why had two of them come here? The only power in White Ridge had been water turning a gristmill. And there was little magic. Their wisewoman was more midwife than witch. She could bless the seeds at planting, and their blacksmith could conjure twinkles while forging steel, but…
It made no sense for wizards to invade their valley.
And since the battle had been pointless, his anger flared anew. How dare they use people like tools, then cast them aside when broken, or they needed to run?
A crashing and thrashing and snapping of branches sounded from the edge of the woods.
Gull snapped alert, snatched up his axe, looked for Greensleeves. The centaurs leaped up and liberated their lances. All three faded from the firelight.
Along with the smashing, like a tornado shearing branches, came a pounding Gull felt through his soles. He took a new grip on his axe. Whatever it was…
High up, branches parted at the edge of camp. Filling the firelight stood Liko, the two-headed giant. Leaves fluttered from his shoulders and spiraled into the fire. With one heavy arm missing, he listed left. The almond eyes looked sleepy, like a child's.
"Have you food? I hunger."
They had the giant sit down against an oak. The tree groaned, as did the man-thing. His twin faces were pale as birch bark, oily with sweat.
Gull asked the giant how he felt, but got only a murmur. The woodcutter turned instead to the centaurs. "What shall we do? He's a brother-in-arms, a victim of wizard slavery like you."
The centaurs talked in their own language, snarling and snapping like a dogfight, then Helki offered, "We see cattle in other wood. We could fetch one. Eats he meat?"
"He eats anything. But can you really find cattle at night?"
The man-stallion Holleb went hot-eyed. "Do you jest?"
"No." Gull was surprised. "But I searched for cattle- gods, just this morn-and found no sign."
Helki snorted delicately. "Holleb can track ladybug across lake. We fetch." Gear flapping on their flanks, they cantered off into the dark.
Since there was no one else to do it, Gull inspected the giant's wound. The giant's left head watched him curiously while the right head slept. Unwrapping the green horsehide unleashed a gagging stink. Jagged bone jutted from flesh both flaming red and rotten gray. Sighing, Gull rebound the wound.
No wonder the giant was tired, he thought, fighting infection like that. He'd have relief soon, and the peace of the grave, once the blood poisoning reached his heart. Gull kept his voice light. "Giants are made of stern stuff, I see. No wonder they tell legends about you."
He wasn't sure if the giant understood or not. With his slitted eyes and parchment skin and bald pate, Liko looked ancient and wise, yet Gull could see that most everything confused him.
To change the topic, he asked, "How did you fall into the service of that wizard, Liko? Did she shake your hand too?"
A frown. "Wizard?"
Gull's neck cricked from having to look up. Even seated, the giant's heads were four feet above his. "The woman in brown and yellow, the hand waver. Did she shake your hand?"
"No. She gave me wine barrel. In tiny boat." He raised his arms to show the length of the boat, but lacked a hand and frowned again. His heaving chest and stomach made the patched-sail smock toss like a ship at sea. "Good wine. Good friend."
And Urza's own bargainer, the woodcutter thought, to buy a slave with one barrel of wine. "Why not rest, Liko? The centaurs will bring food soon."
"I like wine, too."
"Don't we all. You'll need wait till the fall harvest."
A twig snapped behind him. Not one crackling in the fire.
Gull whirled.
A goblin was stealing his axe.
"Yaaahhh!!!"
The woodcutter howled to startle the thief, jumped awkwardly over the firepit.
Short-legged and weighed down by the eight-pound axe, the goblin didn't get far. Gull swatted, knocked it against a tree.
Dropping its prize, screeching, the goblin scrambled to get away. Gull grabbed a skinny ankle and hoisted the creature like a hooked fish. With a ragged kilt hanging around his arms, he was obviously male. He didn't weigh forty pounds, and had a black streak in his gray hair, like a skunk.
The wretch gibbered, pleaded, threatened, wind-milled his arms, almost snapped his own ankle with contortions. Gull shook until his head bobbled and he fell silent. "That's better. Now, do I bash your brains out on this oak? Or will you say why you stole my axe?"
"I didn't, I didn't!" the goblin cried. Normally a lichen green, his inverted face turned bright as clover leaves.
Gull snorted and walked to the firepit. Waving the goblin over the flames, he asked, "What did you say?"
"All right! I did, I stole! Is that s'bad?"
"What? Of course it's bad! It's wrong to steal! Especially from me!"
"Yes, yes, I see that now! I won't do't again! I swear!"
"Pah! Once a thief, always a thief." He shook the skinny leg for emphasis.
"Yessir, very true. But I'm a bad thief. See? I got caught! So I'll give it up!" Not killed, the goblin calmed. "If you could leggo me leg, sir?"
"Hush." Gull let the goblin drop onto his head. What to do? He should just wring his neck and throw the carcass to the ants. One wasn't much threat, but goblins were like rats or cockroaches, and should be stomped whenever possible.
A rustling made him turn. Greensleeves returned from the woods.
Burbling in a questioning tone, she put one hand on Gull's arm, the other on the goblin's foot. Upside-down, the goblin latched onto her ragged hem. "Oh, save me, sweet lady, good miss! I'm innocent, I am! This brute's seized me, a poor wretch who never done any harm…"
"No harm?" Gull couldn't help laughing at the bald-faced lie. "You and your bunch tried to cut me! And eat my sister! You did eat Liko's arm! I ought to-"
Chattering, Greensleeves pushed Gull's arm lower. Spiderlike, the goblin scrabbled, latched onto a rock near the fire, screamed at burned fingers. "Green-ie…"
But with her gentle urging, Gull finally dropped the culprit. Bouncing on his head, rolling upright, the goblin shrilled. "Ha! Fooled you, white-skinned ninny! You donkey, blundering boob! I got away! Takes more than a great stupid mountain of meat to conquer Egg Sucker! Ha, ha!" His gloating was spoiled by blowing on singed fingers.