I left the Jeep running and walked up to the gate, reaching for the magical charm that unlocked secure doors and gates. But I paused, my hand dangling. Someone had shot off the padlock securing the metal gate that kept people from driving back onto the old logging-road-turned-trail. Fresh tire marks had disturbed the grass and mud. The bar creaked as I pushed it up.
I trotted up to the bend and peered around it to make sure there wasn’t a bevy of park-ranger trucks waiting. The wide trail stretched back into the trees, straight and empty for as far as I could see, but the fresh tire marks were visible all along the way.
“Maybe someone else is hunting dragons,” I muttered and thought about calling Sindari.
But I needed to save him. If I ran into Dob back here… Well, I hoped I wouldn’t. Not yet. I wasn’t ready to run into him. I had Willard’s transmitters—there were three of them, and they’d been built into custom cartridges I could fire with Fezzik—but I was skeptical those rounds would pierce dragon hide. The memory of Zav incinerating bullets before they touched him came to mind.
All I wanted today was to find Dob’s lair. If I could slip in and out and leave one of the transmitters tucked behind a rock, maybe Willard’s pilot buddies could bomb the cave one night while he was snoozing.
Rain drizzled from the gray sky as I drove onto an old dirt road that had been allowed to narrow to something more suitable to hikers than automobiles. High grasses, trees, ferns, and other dense foliage I couldn’t name made it claustrophobic. Long beards of green moss dangled from the evergreen branches and carpeted their trunks.
Some of those branches reached out over the trail, clawing at the roof of the Jeep and reminding me of when Zav tore off the soft top on my last Jeep. The black one the army was lending me had a hard top, though I doubted it would deter dragon talons. Even though I couldn’t sense anyone magical nearby, I kept leaning my head out and trying to see the sky.
I caught a glimpse of Moss Lake off to the left but soon passed it, along with narrow trails branching off into the woods. I stayed on the wider path—given the density of the trees, there wasn’t any other option—until I came to a grass-choked crossroad, then turned right and gained access to a larger system of old roads. The rain picked up as I weaved along routes long forgotten by all but determined hikers and the wildlife that lived here.
When I got as close to the first cave as possible, I parked, put on a wide-brimmed rain hat, and went on foot. I cut my way through wet foliage, forging a path toward one of the creeks that ran through the area. Rain pattered off my hat, and the going was slow. My thought of checking all the caves Greemaw had marked by the end of the day turned into a plan to check them all this week.
The first one had been claimed by a skunk, and it drove me out of the area more effectively than a dragon would have. A bear had made a den in the second cave but was fortunately not home. The third was high on the bank of the Tolt River and too small for a dragon, unless he shape-shifted to get in. Since that was a possibility, I climbed up to it and shined my phone’s flashlight inside. Nothing.
“Three caves down, twenty-eight more to go…”
I’d searched all the ones in this area and would have to return to where I’d parked and head into the brush on the other side of that road. I was halfway back when gunshots fired.
Reflexively, I tore Fezzik from its holster and sprang behind a tree for cover. But my brain caught up to my instincts and informed me those shots weren’t near me. It was hard to tell how far away they were with the forest muffling sound, but at least a mile.
More shots fired as I continued warily back toward the Jeep. Hunters? If so, they weren’t very good hunters. Who needed that many shots to fell a deer? It wasn’t even hunting season. If anyone was back here, they were illegally poaching. Not that I particularly cared, so long as they didn’t shoot up my rig.
The gunfire continued, and the roar of vehicles grew audible. It sounded like I was heading right for it. I broke into a run, imagining drunk idiots smashing into my Jeep.
I leaped ferns, mushroom-studded logs, and great roots jutting out of the earth. I couldn’t wreck another vehicle in the same month, damn it.
Their trucks came into view before my Jeep did. A white Nissan and a black Ford, mud spattering the sides as they navigated down the old logging road. Men leaned out the windows and knelt in the beds, aiming rifles into the brush on the other side of the trail.
Just as I was thinking that any deer would have long ago fled at the noise, I sensed magical beings in the woods in the direction they were shooting. A half dozen of them at least. I couldn’t identify their species by the auras, but they seemed smaller than humans. More kobolds? Goblins?
Two shots fired, and a female scream came from the woods. That was no deer.
“Got one!” a man yelled.
I ran to the edge of the woods and leaned out enough to see the trucks. They’d stopped. The men—they were young and definitely human—sprayed fire into the trees.
A whispered argument in a language I didn’t understand came from the trail opposite me, and I spotted two green-skinned goblins with shaggy white hair also hiding behind trees. One was male, one female, neither more than four feet tall.
They pointed at the men, then pointed back into the woods in the direction the scream had come from. Neither of them appeared to have weapons. Clad in ripped and oversized jeans and flannel shirts, they reminded me of the refugees in Greemaw’s village. Their faces were lean, cheekbones prominent, and I doubted they’d had a good meal in a long time.
Even though I’d never met a goblin that hadn’t made trouble for me—the ones I’d run into were notorious for stealing things—I’d also never met one that was a killer and deserved a death sentence. In short, I’d never been sent out after one.
I tapped my translation charm and willed it to activate.
“They got Teenah. We have to help.”
“How?”
“Go pick her up and get her out of here.”
“They’re shooting all over the place over there.”
More gunshots erupted from the truck beds.
“Get ’em, get ’em!” one of the drivers urged, yelling through the open slider window to his gun-happy buddies.
Two of the men leaped out and ran into the woods. What were they going to do? Cut off the goblin’s head and mount it above a fireplace?
I pulled out Fezzik, visions of stalking down the road and opening fire on them filling my head. More sane visions of staying in the trees and shooting out their tires from behind cover replaced them.
I ran parallel to the road, leaping brush and logs, landing as lightly as I could, not that they’d hear me over their yammering and shooting. Once I was close enough, I found a stout red cedar to hide behind and leaned out. Though I was tempted to randomly rain fire on their trucks—and maybe sink a few bullets into their asses—I calmly and methodically aimed for their tires.
Still firing their own weapons, it took them a minute to even realize they were being shot at.
“Shit,” one of the drivers called out the back. “One of you jackasses hit my tire.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I’m losing tire pressure.” The driver pointed to some warning indicator on the console.
“You probably ran over some glass.”
“My tires are losing pressure too,” the driver in the second truck hollered.
Man, these guys were geniuses.
“It’s the goblins,” one of the men in the bed said. “They must be shooting back at us.”
“You said they wouldn’t have guns!” All of the men in the truck beds dropped to their bellies, only their heads and rifles visible over the sides as they fired into the woods again.
My senses told me that the goblins had managed to get their comrade and were carrying her out of the area, but the idea that these guys had come out here to hunt prey that couldn’t fight back—intelligent prey, not animals for the dinner table—pissed me off.
I fired again, this time aiming for their rifles. My shots knocked two guns out of their hands before the rest of the men spun in my direction.
“Over there!”
They finally returned fire in the right direction. I ducked behind the tree and touched my charm to call Sindari. Their bullets flew all over the place. None of them had seen me or knew exactly where I was.
You’re supposed to summon me before you enter into a firefight, Sindari said as he finished forming, the silver mist fading.
Is that how it works? I do struggle with order-of-operations problems.
You must have been a pox to your mathematics instructors. Shall I go rip off the legs of the men firing vaguely in our direction?
As tempting as that is, I doubt the police would appreciate it if we mutilated poachers in the woods. Especially goblin poachers. As far as I knew, it wasn’t a crime to shoot magical beings, since the government didn’t acknowledge they existed or give them rights. I thought of my mother pointing out that this kind of thing wasn’t uncommon down in Oregon. Maybe it wasn’t here, either. I just hadn’t known because I lived in the city. But do me a favor and scare them, will you?
Gladly.
Bonus points if they wet themselves.
I’ll give them my special roar.
I knew you knew your roar could elicit that response.
Sindari grinned back at me, inasmuch as tigers could grin, as he bounded toward the road.
His innate stealth kept the gunmen from seeing him until he sprang into the bed of one of the trucks, knocking men and their rifles over the side. He must have kept his claws retracted, because nobody screamed when he struck them with his powerful limbs, but the men did shriek and yell at the drivers to get them the hell out of there.
I trotted out as the trucks rumbled down the road, the poachers who’d been knocked out running after them. Sindari sprang from the roof of one truck to the bed of the next, knocking over more people. They couldn’t shoot at him without risking hitting each other, though that didn’t keep a few from trying. They weren’t even close to fast enough to graze Sindari with a bullet.