Elfhome

What the world was Impatience trying to tell her?

“You!” She pointed at the nearest commando. “Do you have phone?”

“Yes.” He handed it over.

“Hello?” Jin answered on the first ring.

“It’s Tinker. Here, listen to this.”

She held out the phone to Impatience.

“Naadaaan pookuu.” He reached out with his great five-clawed paw and plucked the phone out of her hand.

“No! No, don’t take it apart! God damn, how can someone that’s so smart be so stupid!” Tinker grabbed his paw and pried the phone free. “Talk! Talk!”

“Yanananan?” Jin’s tiny voice came over the phone.

Impatience cocked his head and then gave a dragon laugh of “Huuhuuhuuhuuhuu.”

“Tinker radadada pookaa,” Jin said.

Impatience launched into a long discussion and then after a minute, stopped and looked expectantly at Tinker.

Tinker put the phone back to her ear. “What did he say?”

“There is a box near you. It holds something that belongs to the greater blood, Yutakajodo. You alone should take possession of it, but do so carefully.”

“Why carefully?” Tinker asked.

“I’m not certain,” Jin said. “He’s speaking very quickly and seems to be using…slang?”

“Dragon slang?”

“Yes. Maybe. I’m getting the impression that the box might harm you if you’re not careful.”

Tinker eyed the collection of boxes piled high about the room. “How do I ask him which box?”

“Huunaaaaahaaaa.”

Tinker carefully repeated the word.

At the far end of the room, under a pile of furs, there was a large ironwood chest. The thick lid was spell-locked.

Once Tinker focused on it intently, she realized the chest buzzed against her magic sense with contained power. It felt much like getting too close to a hornet’s nest. There had to be an active spell inlaid on the back of the lid. Logically, keying open the locking spell would deactivate the hidden spell. Most likely if the lid was forced, then the active spell would trigger some kind of trap. The question was what kind of trap? A simple alarm? Or something more deadly? She spent time playing with spell-locks. She thought she might be able to pick the lock, but it might be her ego talking. She wasn’t sure how much she actually knew about magic compared to the elves themselves…

She blinked at the lock. “This is elf magic.”

Pony and Stormsong eyed the lock and nodded in confirmation.

“Transmuting wood and metal are Stone Clan magic,” Pony murmured, glancing to Thorne Scratch. “They create such chest for other clans at a steep price. The owner chooses the key when it’s made.”

It seemed unlikely that the oni would have stolen it and not tried to open it. Unblemished as it was, it seemed more likely that the elf that owned it worked with the oni.

“Could it be Sparrow’s?” Tinker asked.

Stormsong clicked her tongue in an elfin shrug. “She took advantage of the fact that none of us sekasha liked her to keep her activities hidden. I was with her most, but I don’t remember her having a chest like this.”

They would have to deal with the chest later; they needed to find the missing children. She assigned Little Egret, a half dozen of the marines, and one of the tengu the chore of getting the chest to Poppymeadow’s, and then pushed deeper into the whelping pens.

#

She was losing hope of finding any of the children alive. They reached the back of the maze to find another large courtyard with pits dug into hard packed dirt. The holes were filled with garbage, urine and feces.

“Are these their latrines?” Tinker asked. The holes seemed too big for latrines but too small for anything else.

“They’re holding pens.” One of the tengu said.

“Oh gods,” Tinker whispered as something stirred in the nearest hole and started to whimper. “Get them out!”

One of the Fire Clan marines slid down into the hole and lifted the whimpering child out. It was a male, small in comparison to the laedin-caste marine. He started to keen inconsolably once he realized he’d been rescued and was safe to finally react to his torture.

“This one needs a healer!” A female marine shouted as a limp male body was passed up from the second pit to the waiting adults. His left arm had been broken so many times it barely seemed like an arm. One of the marines produced a healing spell on a strip of paper and pressed it to the child’s barely moving chest.

“Here’s another one!” An EIA commando called from a pit near the back.

A tiny naked female was lifted, wide-eyed and desperately squirming, by the humans. She saw Tinker and lunged toward her, arms outstretched.

“It’s all right!” Tinker cried even as Thorne Scratch caught hold Pony’s sword hand. “It’s fine! She’s just scared.”

The tiny female was a patchwork of bruises ranging from violet to sickening green to pale yellow. She wrapped arms tight around Tinker and wouldn’t let go.

“She probably thinks you’re Stone Clan domana,” Stormsong murmured in English, nodding toward Thorne Scratch who had grown angry and silent.

“Quiee.” The little female said. “Quiee. Quiee.”

“What is she saying?” Tinker asked Stormsong.