At Laural’s insistence, they traveled at high speeds for the better part of five days entering finally at least into the outer regions of the Goblin Haze. A few people tried to chat with them, all heading to Mooning Castle, but she barely listened beyond hello and kept them going. The friendly travelers just managed to strangle out warnings to avoid the Goblin Haze. Which would have been helpful if the white arrow taken from the necromancer’s cave didn’t keep point them directly there.

  The boys only took one night of sleep before they recovered from the magic of being sacrificial snacks for forest Fae dance. Nettle had recovered fully from his blows with the Boar-Bear. The cuts from Bodi’s bar crushed glass fight healed up, although he still scratched at them in annoyance. Kriti never got any time to read the suspicious book from the Fae woman alone.

  The perpetual plains around the castle that then dropped into forest went up hill both ways. This of course means hills, which tend to go up and down while on them. Sixteen horses got a lot of supplies although they struggled to keep a healthy levels of eating. And their new supplies quickly went through the perishable ratios, including leftover festival foods, and into sturdier and more seasoned by Kriti dinners.

  Over this dinner, with everyone finally uninjured and currently undisturbed by wildlife, the question got posed.

  Nettle addressed Day. “How long do you think this journey will take? I guess Bodi did drink that sorta infinity carry potion. We could go without resupply once if we had it still.”

  Laural raised her hand. “Off worlders also warp are ability to move forward or back.”

  Day wanted out of the blame zone. “We don’t know where we’re going beyond what a stupid arrow move around as well. Since nobody told me much beyond the first go to here pointing. And just in case you were worried about it, I totally haven’t been leading us in random directions to avoid this that bother me when I travel. I would never do that. Totally not. It’s all slowed due to resupply.”

  “And things are trying to kill us a lot,” Kriti offered. “Takes off route.”

  “Average horse pace is about forty miles a day.” Laural shrugged. “We’re slower with the cart.”

  “It’s gonna take what it takes.” Bodi quipped, offering nothing to the conversation.

  “Can you at least give me in an estimate?” Nettle probed.

  Everyone turned to Day.

  “From this point my guess is, sixty thousand words or around thirty chapters, give or take ten thousand words. This is probably the last third of the book.”

  Nettle grumbled. “That long?”

  Day sighed. “But I suspect we do get to our quest goal before then.”

  “Fantastic, ‘cause you guys are a drag.” Kriti went to clean the pans, not out of earshot so they could all hear the squish of the scrubber.

  “Nettle, tell us what you know about this quest. Finally, please.”

  He stared into the fire and answered. “I’m looking for the Fae doohickey in the Goblin Haze. Which we’re in now. My translation skills aren’t the best. It’s supposed to be The Quest item. An item that existed prior to off worlders. The original quest item.”

  Day shifted. “What’s it called?”

  Nettle twiddled his fingers. “Most call it, The Smudge. On account of all the documents have the name of it redacted.”

  Bodi rubbed his eyes and then squinted at him again. “That’s fucking it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s like the worst plan ever.” Day began rubbing her temples.

  “This is my first expedition.” Nettle didn’t seem to mind the glares.

  “Everyone knows that Smudge is mythological!” Laural glanced at the horses. “Buddy and Pantyhose died for this? I can’t believe your incompetence.”

  “You idiot.”

  “We’re all out here to get something and nobody knows what it is?”

  “It’s a plot device!” Laural explained the laws of nature in her own world, again. “Duh. And not a needed one for natural born people of our world. Everybody knows this already.”

  “You’re not out here to help me anyway,” countered Nettle. “You’re out here for the money!

  Day shook her head. “I’m actually not.”

  Spoon nodded. “I’m actually here because the vampire council expects me to die politely in the wilds. They told me to watch Nettle, but it’s a political thing they don’t want him to live. So they sent me. Worst protection ever.”

  “Oh.” Kriti looked interested.

  “Yeah,” Spoon inspected his hands.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “That explains why you’re basically the worst.”

  “I know. You’d think a royal bloodline would help but apparently there is no crossover between good at guarding or physical fighting and monarchy. Who could have anticipated that?”

  “Nice big reveal.” Laural rolled her eyes. “You’re useless and people want you to die.

  “Why are we eating in the and sleeping here?”

  Laural shrugged. “The squirrels say it’s safe enough to stop here and nothing is better beyond. Let’s sleep here in the middle of the road.”

  “Still,” Spoon sighed. “It’s weird to be directly on the road.”

  “There is no good spots inside the woods we’ve found. It’s one night and we’ve hardly seen anyone. I’m sure it won’t be an issue. And I don’t think I can go further with Nettle right now. The Smudge. Everyone knows the stories about the Smudge. It’s not real.”

  As she ignored them caring for the horses, Bodi put down their sleeping bags in preparation to avoid predation. They finally slept on the road.

  Morning came before the morning anyone expected. At the bright early of the SagetTerry-Us moon, which kicked the monkey moon out of orbit on alternating impossible apogees, possibly do to someone stealing the moon, shooting the moon, becoming the moon, representing the moon, or Valeri Polyakov finally getting a silver medal in times you got stuck somewhere events. In that early morn or latest of nights, they got awakened.

  A tiny green head round and bulbous, with an equally elongated limb and thin body poked Bodi in the foot with a saber.

  Bodi popped to his feet, yelling articulately, “Gnah?”

  And fifteen or so of the barely discernable creatures vanished away from the incredibly purple hulk. Everyone else flailed awake too. Laural howled in fright. Nettle protected just himself with a tiny pod like green shield. Kriti vanished from her bed and materialized within the shadow of the forest, only to realize she’d forgotten her crossbow and had to go back and get it.

  Day muttered to herself darkly. “Just one more cadaver. I know I can get it, Dad.”

  But given that nobody immediately attacked them, they all had time to get together over the coals and rub sleep out of their eyes to stare at the bright light down the road. With the curve above, the light beamed from the sky of hill. This is when they realized why sleeping on the middle of the road was a dumb idea. Since a whole metric-army-ton, or at least a very large party of goblins had stumbled upon them.

  Ah, Golbins inside the Goblin Haze region. Nobody could have predicted that. From this crowd of varying goblin only types, a short started green harried man with feathers surrounded his head like a halo and lines deep in his skin came out to meet them. Everyone at camp tried unsuccessfully to look like they weren’t basically asleep still. They stood around wavering charcoal for light, but graciously the visitor lit a large torch.

  “Why are you sleeping in the middle of the midnight?” He demanded.

  Bodi rose to his full height over the smaller man and his face stretched in the dancing firelight.

  “What do you mean by charging us in the middle of the night? I’ll rip you from limb to limb.”

  Spoon ever more calm at night than everyone else hissed at him. “Shut up, Bodi. We’re not looking for trouble.”

  The aged Goblin narrowed his eyes at Bodi. A third of his size but clearly not backing down at all to the tall stranger. “Yes, shut up, orc Bodi. Who is chieftain here? I wish to speak with someone who has sense.”

  Nettle groaned. “Uh, sorta, me. How can I help you?”

  “We are trying to bury our dead from a great fire brought from foolish frolicking Fae cannibals. You would think chucking meat away couldn’t go that far, but magic makes strange things happen. Blocking the way to our burial grounds is very distressing to our tribe. We sing a song of bad luck to find a barrier on the ways to the great rest. Could you kindly explain why you’re sleeping in the middle of the road impeding our way instead of traveling twenty minutes further to rest in the great encampment?”

  “There were squirrels,” muttered Laural who was still standing beside her bed and sounded like she might be saying the words in a dream.

  The chiropractor however admitted quickly before Nettle would complain. “We have not traveled to here before and did not know. We apologize for being in your way. We’ll pack up forthwith and move from your area. And we are very sorry for any hindrance we’re causing any of your ceremony.”

  Nettle agreed. “This a failure on our parts. We must take the other otter track and go onto Last Stop.”

  The Goblin Chieftain frowned at them. “This is not the path to Last Stop. This takes you to the Bitterswifts. Which path to you believe you are on?”

  By the light of the flickering torch, they revealed to him the map with the chiropractor pointing to their location.

  He inspected the map, poking at the dandelion symbols, then grunted in annoyance. “You’re in the completely wrong area. Clearly you turned off wrong back at this junction. This is the Goblins’ Haze main tracks here. You must have turned to the left side of the interchange Indigo sixty-six. Instead of taking the slight life at Hotel to Nowhere. There is some construction there right now. Lots of lost confuse Nowhere and Last Stop. It’s a common mistake, but you’ve been going on longer than most. Did it not occur to you that the roads were much less busy? How did you miss the bridges?”

  Spoon indivertibly, inadvertently muttered, “How long will the food stretch?”

  Before Nettle cut him a scathing glare. they saw even more torches lit out behind the other goblins. The goblins might be manageable in single combat, but the mass made them a formidable enemy. People didn’t travel through the Goblin Haze primarily because goblin could be quite aggressive and many areas of the forest quite dangerous.

  The Chieftain sighed. “It’s a small wonder you did not meet the Careshishi Riggts. Very aggressive tribe that, they’re endlessly annoying us for more grain to feed their fighters. We here in the true goblin forest welcome trade and visitors, although not typically during our burial rights. Perhaps you could move your caravans and horses out of the way and then travel with us. Once we’ve completed the ceremony, we can have our navigators discuss the matter of safely getting you around the most common dangers in the region.”

  Spoon and Bodi shook their heads at the map, trying to find where they turned wrong. Laural went ot the horses getting them ready for the night moving. Day got the Quad horse into their harness at the fastest speeds she could. It took less time than usual, because they only had to get out of the way, of course, there was no place for them to get off, so it was a hurry to move on into the great encampment they spoke with a tiny little chatting party behind them. When they finally moved, the goblin voices cheered once. Then the chanting began in earnest.

  The music becoming louder and more thunderous behind them with each step. It was an early feeling, eerie in the ear that is, lighting the way with their emergency lights and what Nettle could conjure in a hasty walking down a path in what they now knew as the Goblin Haze and the sound of many, many voices following them. Many, many speakers angry about the presence of strangers blocking the way.

  None of them were under any illusions about the situation. Behind them the flickering, the sounds. This group could easily kill them all and feast on their bones with none the wiser.

  They pulled off to the side, but the chieftain this time with many others appeared.

  “You must join us.”

  Nettle spoke, more awake and more careful now. “We don’t understand.”