Chapter 15
“Wake up!” I heard a small voice, and I felt my body shaking. My eyes flew open, and all I could see was darkness in my barn attic.
“Ugh,” I mumbled. “What’s going on?”
But I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question.
It was the day of the festival.
“Hello,” Babble said and smiled, and for the first time in my life he looked taller than I was. “I’ve come to be your alarm clock. Before the roosters, or Flora, or--”
“How did you get in here?” I asked. “I thought I locked it inside.”
“That lock is meant to keep out a human or a dwarf, but it’s not gnome-proof,” he answered as if that was a reasonable explanation.
“But the lock itself was ins--” I began.
“Tyler!” Flora called out from the stairs.
“You know what, I give up.” I immediately perked up as I brushed the sleep out of my eyes. When I opened them again, I saw Flora standing in front of me in a blood-red dress and an apron, and I felt a smile creep across my face.
“Guess I didn’t do the job,” Babble muttered as he crossed his arms over his chest and stomped a foot.
“Shut up, boss,” I yawned. “You did just fine. And today is the festival, so no pouting allowed! Also, what time is it?”
“It’s three,” Flora replied. “I got up a little early today since we wanted to get such an early start. Should we load up Tulip’s cart?”
“Dear Hagop,” I heard myself mutter, and that’s when I really knew that I was one of the locals. “When I said early, I didn’t mean the middle of the night.”
“It’s a long trip,” Babble replied. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if one of your competitors tried to stop us along the way. Those dwarves have made it known these last few days that they don’t want you in the competition. So, we need the extra time--”
“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed. “We’ve had this same discussion for weeks now.”
I rolled out of bed and stretched, even though it was literally three in the morning, which was still nighttime as far as I was concerned. But now that I was up, I was pretty damn excited about the festival, and I couldn’t have fallen asleep again if I wanted to.
“I need to get dressed,” I said with a pointed look at my guests.
“We’ll wait downstairs,” Flora replied and tugged Babble toward the stairs.
I waited until they were out of sight before I went through my morning routine and finally pulled on my burgundy suit. I had other clothes now, but for something as important as the festival, I felt like I should wear my best outfit.
As I headed down the stairs, Flora reached into her basket and handed me a bun. I couldn’t make out exactly what was in it, but it smelled absolutely delicious.
“Thanks,” I said.
“It’s cranberry and whipped cheese with rosemary,” she answered. “Usually cranberries aren’t ready to be harvested until a little later in the season, but one of the farmers from the bogs came in the other day and dropped off his first harvest."
I took a bite into the bun and felt a smile creep across my face. It was tart and savory with just a hint of sweetness from the cheese, and it felt like the perfect way to warm up on a cold autumn day.
“Very good, Flora,” Babble muttered as he finished off his own bun. “My, there’s going to be so many delicious foods at the festival. I won’t know where to start!”
“We can think about that when we get there,” I said. “For now, let’s get these barrels to Johannes.”
“Ah, yes, I’ll help!” Babble declared as he patted a barrel that was easily three times taller than him.
“Let me just get Tulip,” I said.
I opened the barn door and went out to the paddock, where Tulip would be in her stable. It was a little chilly out, but the entire yard was lit in a peaceful blue light. It was also dead quiet because the bar had been closed since the previous morning when Hildegard left for the festival.
I’d teased her about being a judge in the beer competition and asked if that counted as having some kind of in. I’d gotten a smile in return and a reminder that it was a blind tasting, so she had no way of knowing which entry was mine.
As if.
She’d know exactly which beer was mine, and she knew it.
“Morning Tulip,” I called out, and I heard some shuffling in the donkey’s stall. She peeped her sleepy head out and blinked at me in confusion. She looked up at the sky as if to tell me that she was unimpressed with the early start time, and then she added a displeased wheeze in case I didn’t understand her other hints.
“I know, honey,” I laughed. “But we have to be there by noon today, so we need an early start.”
The donkey stomped one foot unhappily, but she let me lead her from the stall and put her harness on. She shook her head to wake herself up while I worked, and she nibbled on the carrots I gave her while I attached her to the cart.
When that was done, I laid a couple of boards from the back of the cart to the hard-packed ground so I wouldn’t have to lift the barrels. The damn things weighed a ton, as I’d discovered, but fortunately, my landlord had a few tricks of her own.
“All good?” Babble asked as he stepped into the yard.
“All great,” I said. “Time to get those barrels rolling. Flora, will you check that the corks are in nice and tight?”
“Yep,” she called back.
I patted Tulip again and then stepped into the warm, dry barn. I watched Flora inspect each tap carefully, and then she gave me a thumbs up.
“Here we go,” I said as I placed the decoy one, which I’d marked with an x, on its side and then rolled it out to the cart.
I had to give the barrel an extra shove to get it onto the boards, and I moved more slowly as I rolled it up the beams because I didn’t want to roll it off the edge and have the whole thing break apart. But once I had it in the back of the cart, I turned it upright again and pushed it into the back of the cart.
“Easy as can be,” I said when I saw Babble watching.
“So I see,” he replied and did a little dance.
“Morning,” someone yawned, and Johannes appeared. The tired-looking fisherman gave me a wink, and I smiled.
“Hey Johannes,” I said. “These are the barrels.”
“Let’s go, boys,” he yawned, and three teenaged boys appeared.
“Dad, it’s so early,” the smallest one yawned, but the other two got to work on rolling them out.
“Thanks a bunch,” I said, and then Flora gave me a peck on the cheek and followed Johannes onboard his boat.
She gave me an excited wave goodbye as the ship made its way upriver, and I waved back at her. I couldn’t believe that we were actually putting this plan into motion.
Babble and I climbed onto the cart, and then I clicked to Tulip. The little donkey’s ears perked up at the sound, and as soon as she felt the slack in the reins, she trotted from the yard and out to the empty street.
I’d never seen Hagop so quiet before, and I kind of liked this other side of my adopted town. There were a few stragglers from one of the other bars, but even the chickens had found a quiet place to roost for the night. The sound of the cart wheels against the cobblestone seemed to echo off the buildings, but no one came out to investigate.
“Is this what it’s like when Flora gets up for work?” Babble asked. “It’s so quiet, though it does look lovely in the moonlight.”
“Must be,” I nodded. “Nobody is around, and the town feels like it belongs to her.”
“Lovely, but oh so quiet,” the gnome muttered, and then he curled up in a little pile of straw and smiled.
“Do you know how to get there?” Babble asked a moment later.
“Hildegard gave me directions,” I said.
“That’s good,” Babble said. “But if you need help… I used to go to the festival with my gnome friends when I was younger, so I know the route.”
“Did you and your friends have fun?” I asked.
“A little bit,” he said. “But we were really there to gamble.”
“I’m hoping I’ll see a lot of things at the festival,” I replied. “Especially a lot of silver pieces for making Hagop’s best beer.”
The sun started to peek over the horizon as we reached the first of the fields, and the yellow and green of the crops looked like they had caught fire for a moment. The first warm kiss of sunlight touched my cheeks, and I could hear some of the small birds start to stir.
“Oh, it’s the day of the festival,” Babble started to sing. “The locals give great cheer… we eat some harvest apples… we like to all drink beer! We get up in the morning, and then stay up all night! We’re going to the festival, and, and…”
“And everything is going right?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Babble said. “I used to make up songs while I work. It’s just a great way to pass the time. But all of my gnome friends thought it was silly.”
“They’re silly,” I said. “Would you ever perform them in Hagop? You have a good knack for rhymes.”
“Nah,” he said. “I like to gamble, but I’m more of a behind the scenes kind of gnome. I get stage fright.”
“Interesting,” I nodded. “Is there usually a lot of music at the festival?”
“Tons,” Babble nodded. “Folk bands come from all around to entertain the masses. The big draw of the festival is the beer competition of course, but there’s also a music competition there.”
“Sounds amazing,” I said. “I can’t wait to do a victory dance to some sweet folk music after I win first prize.”
“Oh,” Babble laughed. “That sounds so fun! Also, take this path on the right.”
I veered right at a fork toward some pastures full of cows and horses. I’d never been down this path before, and although there were some smatterings of farmhouses in the distance, it didn’t seem like there was too much going on in these parts of town.
By the time the sun was blazing in the sky, the world was starting to look like the Hagop I knew. Smoke poured from distant chimneys, and a few more carts started to appear on the road. We passed a farmhouse, where a man was loading some wares and four kids into his cart. He tipped his straw hat at us and waved, and the kids did so as well.
“Morning!” I called out.
“Morning,” he nodded. “You two heading to the festival?”
“We are!” Babble shouted and then sat up.
“There you go, little fella,” the farmer laughed. “Gorgeous day for the journey! We’ll see you there.”
His gaze passed over my barrel, and his eyes widened for a moment. He suddenly looked very excited, but we were past him before he could ask any more questions.
The farmland eventually gave way to fields of wildflowers and thick clumps of trees. Sunlight glinted off something, and I realized we were near water.
“We’ll follow that river up ahead,” Babble said. “That will take us straight to the fairgrounds.”
“That is pretty easy,” I said. “Is it part of the Hagop River where Johannes and Flora are?”
“Yes, this is the one that runs through the Eastern Woods,” Babble said. “Unlike the murky Hagop River, the water is a lot cleaner in these parts.
I thought back to Cassian and his shit-for-brains pal drinking the river water from the Hagop River. The river water had looked pretty fucking gross, but I was sure that if it had been truly poisonous, nobody would’ve been standing there cheering like they had. At least, I hoped they wouldn’t.
“What song is that?” Babble asked as he heard me humming.
“It’s called The Wanderer,” I said.
One thing that I did really miss about Portland was being able to listen to whatever music I wanted whenever I wanted. There was obviously no such thing as a radio here, much less music on demand. But maybe one day, I could change that, too, if I managed to build my brewery into a beer empire.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I murmured as we neared the river.
Several small streams branched off into the trees, and even in autumn, the leaves were thick enough to cast long shadows across the road. But it looked like it was well-used, so I took that as a good sign that we wouldn’t have any problems along the way. There was even a small well tucked away beneath some trees where travelers could stop and refresh themselves. Except…
“What’s that?” I asked, and I pointed at two large figures standing near the bridge we had to cross.
“Stop the cart right now!” Babble gulped.
I took a deep breath, but since the gnome was about to crawl over me to get to the reins, I finally brought Tulip to a halt. I could only make out a faint outline, but they were definitely larger than I was. And since I hadn’t met anyone nearly as tall as me so far in Hagop, that wasn’t a good sign. I sighed and wondered if I’d somehow jinxed us by making such extensive plans.
But it was always good to plan for an emergency.
“Hold on,” I murmured, and I turned Tulip onto a rutted track where we could hide behind some trees.
“I can’t believe this,” Babble whispered as we watched the musclebound giants from our hiding spot. “I was right!”
“Babble, you obviously know what they are,” I said.
“They’re ogres,” he replied and spat over the side of the cart.
Ogres? In Hagop? I should have expected they existed here but God dammit, now I’d really seen it all. But unlike the dwarves and elves, I didn’t think I could just knock them down with a good, hard shove.
“This seems like trouble,” I sighed. “Ogres on the bridge. And why do you think they’re there?”
“Ogres aren’t all too bright,” Babble said. “And usually they stay away from the towns.”
“But we’re not in town,” I pointed out. “We’re in the middle of the woods.”
“On a popular track,” he said. “That’s as good as being in town, at least to ogres. Usually, you’d have to hike for days deep into the woods to find one.”
“Then why are they here?” I mused.
“How would an ogre know about the festival?” Babble grumbled. “They wouldn’t, unless--”
“Unless someone hired them to waylay us,” I said, and my thoughts drifted to Cassian.
“Like a dirty, low-down dwarf!” Babble sniffed.
“We assumed that he would try something,” I replied.
“This is insane,” Babble said, but then calmed himself down. “But this is what we prepared for. However, I will admit, I didn’t think that ogres would be the sabotage… they are awfully… large.”
“Evidently,” I sighed. “But what are those ogres going to do to me? Does he want them to smash me into a pulp or something?”
This must have been the dwarf’s final fuck you. I couldn’t imagine how he’d found a couple of ogres and then convinced them to lie in wait for me, but it must have cost him every favor he had.
Too bad it was going to blow up in his face.
As long as they had no intentions of beating us up, of course.
“What are we going to do?” Babble whispered. “Those guys don’t look as if they’d be happy to see us. In fact, they look like they’re sniffing around for prey!”
“Okay,” I sighed. “This is not what I was expecting. Being intercepted? Yes. But not by ogres. Those things look like they could snap me like a twig.”
“That doesn’t make me feel too confident, Tyler” Babble said. “And even Tulip looks frightened.”
Tulip turned behind her for a moment and gave me a wide-eyed look. Yeah it was scary, but it was also the only way to the festival.
“I’m going to act like you’re my slave,” I said. “And you’re going to act like I’m the worst master in the world. And we’re going to give them the decoy. Just like we thought might happen, okay?”
“I didn’t think that ogres would happen,” Babble sighed. “They could… eat me!”
“Do they eat gnomes?” I said. “Is that a regular part of their diet?”
“No,” he shook. “But they are aggressive beasts!”
I sighed and looked about. They really were pretty gross. They had greenish skin and barely any clothing other than some suede loincloths, and I’m pretty sure one was holding a stick like a police baton. They looked like a cross between Sloth from The Goonies and the Incredible Hulk, and I really did not think trying to fight them would work out well for me even if I had had a gun to use.
“This is a nightmare,” I said. “But we have a plan. Okay? You hate me, and I hate you. And together, we will lose this barrel of river water.”
Tulip anxiously pawed at the ground, and I slacked the reins. We didn’t have a choice in the matter, and we were going forward with it.
“Come on Tulip,” I coaxed the donkey. “We’ll be okay.”
She stepped forward toward the beasts, and I guessed that this was actually happening.
“Oh, my,” Babble said as the ogres came into sight.
“Halt!” One of them roared, and I felt my heart pounding against my chest. One wrong word to these guys, and they could easily bite my head off.
“H-h-hello,” Babble quite literally babbled. “We’re going to th-th-the…”
“Stop it, you jabbering fool,” I ordered Babble, and the gnome gave me a frightened look before realizing that it was part of the plan.
The two ogres stepped over, and my heart was practically audible by now. They were nearly ten feet tall, and even atop the cart they were taller than me.
“We don’t like you,” one sneered, and he looked at the barrel in the back. “And we don’t like the look of that barrel, either.”
“Why?” I added with a nervous laugh. “Just a regular old beer barrel, for the--”
“Quiet!” Another one roared, and I winced as his rancid breath washed over me like a potpourri of dog poop and fish guts.
Don’t eat me. Don’t eat me. Don’t eat me.
“Master, what shall we do?” Babble moaned. “These esteemed beasts don’ like our barrel!”
“Beast?” One growled.
“Yes, oh large and elegant monstrous one,” I said quickly. “Forgive my stupid slave. He’s too small to generate any wise thoughts, unlike yourselves… yes… large selves…”
“I’m not forgetting that!” Babble shot back, and the ogres squinted their eyes.
“Hmmmm,” one huffed. “You no pass with that barrel.”
“But I want to take it to the festival,” I whined in my best Luke Skywalker voice. “For the beer compet--”
“No beer brewing for humans!” One roared, and I tried not to faint. “Rather a dead human than a beer brewing one!”
“Well, what would you prefer, his life or the beer?” Babble asked, and I shot him a glare.
“Imbecile!” I said. “Oh, ogres, must you--”
“We take beer, like bearded man said,” he growled, and one of them stepped to the back of the cart. He lifted the barrel like it was a piece of paper and gave it to his friend to inspect.
“Surely we can go now,” I added with a nervous laugh. “Surely, yes… and I can watch all the other dwarves win, like always!”
“Hmmmmmmph,” an ogre growled at me as he met my eyes.
His eyes were a dull amber color, and I took a few deep breaths as his friend sniffed the barrel.
“It’s human beer,” he said, and the ogre turned away. “Dwarf will be happy.”
“Get out of here,” he said. “Go to the festival, and we take beer.”
“Oh, I can’t believe you did this, oh terrible master of mine!” Babble cried, and I slacked the reins. Tulip walked past the ogres at a significantly quicker pace, and we veered in the direction of the festival.
“Oh, my God,” I said.
“What’s that?” Babble asked, and I rolled my eyes.
“Nevermind,” I said. “Just… I can’t believe we made it out. I cannot believe that. They were…”
“The plan worked and that’s all that matters,” Babble said, and we rode in silence for the next five minutes as the ogres disappeared once more.
As we got farther and farther, I felt my heart rate normalize once more.
We had done it. We had actually gotten by without being squished.
“I can’t believe they thought river water was human beer,” I laughed.
“You’ve tasted it,” the gnome giggled. “Close enough to fool a dumb ogre.”
“When you’re right, you’re right,” I replied and cringed as I thought back to that nasty human beer I’d tried when I first got to Hagop.
“So,” Babble yawned. “Do you actually think I have a small head?”
“I think you are a brilliant actor, and that’s all that matters,” I added. “Now look, what’s that?”
Over a few trees in the distance I could see a flag. Then another one, and another.
It was the festival.