“Wake up, Telle.” I opened my eyes. “How do you feel?” Freya’s face came into focus. Her eyebrows were thin and spiky. Her cheekbones were high.

“Water,” I said. My voice was scratchy.

She handed me a mug. I took it with shaking hands and emptied in three gulps. I exhaled and handed back the mug. I felt the water drain into my stomach. I felt hollow inside. “Food,” I said.

“Get your clothes on and come downstairs,” she said. She pointed to my clothing that lay folded on a chair in front of a large window. She walked to the door. Her muscles moved under the leather wrapping that she wore. She closed the door behind her when she left.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Sunlight streamed in through the window of the attic. Lazy spots of dust hung in the shaft of light. Next to my bed sat a dry basin with a cloth folded next to it. I looked up at the ceiling. Gray strands of cobwebs hung from the corners. The wooden beams were warped and cracked with age. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet didn’t reach the floor. This place had been built by stilts, everything was too big.

I hopped to the floor. My legs nearly buckled under me. I held on to the side of the bed for a second. My feet tingled. I leaned on bed and walked slowly. The floor was covered in crumbled chunks of fallen roof. I reached for my clothing on the chair. It had been washed. As I pulled my pants on slowly, I looked down at my chest and arms. The bites from the burrbiters had nearly healed. My bruises were gone. The sharp pain in my side from the beetle had become dull ache. I took a shaky step toward the attic window. I leaned on the pane and looked out. Beneath me was a view of the entire farmland.

Gently rolling hills were covered in a golden carpet of wheat. The overgrown road I had taken to the house stretched gently into the distance until it vanished over the horizon. Black trenches scarred the wheat. At the end of each trench sat the hulking mound of a beetle. Some moved, plowing their way through the field. Others were still, as if they were resting. In the distance one enormous bug made its way. It cut through the wheat with a steady pace. A puff of dust appeared around it. When the dust cleared, the bug had vanished.

“They burrow,” I thought to myself.

Then it hit me. The smell. I inhaled as deeply as I could. My stomach cramped with hunger. Saliva rushed into my mouth. The smell of roasted meat, fried scunwunks, and spices I had never smelled before filled the air. I turned and followed the aroma. My legs grew steadier. They took me out of the room and down a delapitated staircase. The steps sagged. There were gaps where several were missing. The stairs were too steep me, but I managed. I jumped down the steps and ran into the hall at the bottom of the stairs. I heard voices and walked down the hall. I stepped on that squeaky board again. The voices stopped. I walked slowly down the hall. I came upon the kitchen.

“He lives.” Freya said. She stood before a rusted stove. She stirred bits of meat and spices together in a pan. On her left hand was the tattoo of a yellow pepper. She stirred so quickly that her left hand was merely a blur. Behind her was a table, where Ragnar and Chastity sat.

“Telle, you must be starving,” Chastity said. She winked. Ragnar said nothing. I took a place at the table.

“You’re hardier than you look, little man.” Ragnar said.

“I’m no man, I’m a gnome,” I said.

“So you are, little gnome,” he laughed. He looked at me and his smile vanished. “But I’ve got my eye on you,” he said.

“No threats at the table,” Freya said from the kitchen.

“That was hardly a threat,” a voice said. I jumped and turned. A thin green-skinned man with spiky eyebrows appeared at my side. He wore a black tunic, and several pouched leather belts. His boots looked expensive. A silver streak ran through his long, black hair. His skin was drawn over his high cheekbones causing his mouth to stretch into a smile. Or a grimace.

“Where did you come from? I didn’t even see you there!” I said.

“Maybe you weren’t paying attention,” he said. He moved without a sound to the chair next to mine.

“Telle, meet Drexel,” Chastity said. “He sneaks up on all of us.”

“We’ve actually met,” he said, his grimace grew.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Of course you don't remember,” he said with forced humility.

“You were creeping into our home here. I applied a little force to the back of your head,” he said. I remembered the squeaky board behind just before I’d been knocked out.

Before I could say anything, Freya dropped a plate in front of me.

“Pan-fried rabbit with scunwunks, horse sauce and wheat garnish,” she said. She served the others and set an extra plate on the table. The arranged plates looked like works of art.

I ignored the utensils on the table and thrust the golden morsels of meat into my mouth with both hands. The meat was salty and spicy. The gravy was sweet. The scunwunks were perfect. They were tender on the outside and just barely crunchy in the middle. I barely chewed as I swallowed chunks of meat. I was licking the gravy off my plate when Freya spooned more food onto it. I looked up in gratitude. Grease ran down my chin.

“Slow down, Telle,” Freya said.

“I’ve never had scunwunks cooked before!” I said.

“Raw scunwunks?” Freya asked. She shrugged. “Not my favorite.”

I nodded and kept eating. I heard footsteps while I grazed and noticed the magician had entered the room. She looked past me as she walked by and took her place at the table.

“Where’s Reese?” She asked.

“Sleeping it off, I imagine,” Drexel said. Jenna nodded and turned to me.

“Speaking of sleeping it off, I see you’re with the living,” Jenna said.

“No thanks to you,” I said. I glared at her.

“Watch it,” she said with a frown. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be beetle bait by now.” Her wide ears waved at me.

“That’s right, Telle,” Chastity said. “Jenna nursed you back to the land of the living.” I looked at Jenna.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

I ate the rest of the food on my plate. My belly stretched. Across the table, a plate of food cooled in front of an empty chair. Chastity saw me looking at it. She winked at me.

“We have a friend sleeping downstairs,” she said. “A Satyr, sort of” She rolled her eyes. “He had a bit too much to drink last night. He’ll be up in a little while.” She smiled. She wore the same cloth as before. It looked more like a bandage. Her stilt body spilled out of it.

“I can’t imagine someone missing a meal like this one,” I said.

“Thank you,” Freya said.

“Is flattery a Gnomish trait?” Ragnar asked. I ignored him. When the others finished, Freya cleared the table. She passed a pitcher of water but I was too full to drink. She sat down next to me.

“We have a few things to discuss,” she said and looked at me.

“Shouldn’t we wait until everyone is here?” Ragnar asked and nodded to the empty chair.

“We don’t need Reese prancing around while we talk. You can fill him in when he wakes up,” she said. She turned back to me.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"It's Chastity's dead uncle's house" Drexel replied, "Or so she says!" He looked at Chastity and raised an eyebrow. She stuck her tongue out at him. Ragnar gave him a dirty look.

“Telle, we believe your story now." Freya began, " The goblin pits must have been horrible, and Jenna's interrogation was deep and difficult. We owe you an apology. But you must understand our situation,” she said.

“Are you going to let me go?” I asked.

“We have no interest in killing you, as you’ve done nothing wrong,” she said. She looked at the others. Drexel examined his fingernails, Ragnar looked away.

“I, for one, am against releasing him,” Drexel said.

The food had greatly boosted my confidence.

“Is that right?” I asked.

Drexel leered at me.

“I have escaped from nastier things than you,” I said.

Drexel spit his water onto his plate. Ragnar barely suppressed a snort.

“Are you sure you put everything back when you were done?” Drexel asked Jenna. He wiggled his fingers in the air and pointed at my head.

“I don’t recall,” Jenna said. “a gnomish mind is a delicate organ.”

“Should you escape from us, where would you go?” Ragnar asked. The beads in his necklace glowed. “I don’t suppose you’d run back to the smoogers. No, that wouldn’t do.” He rubbed his chin. “Perhaps you would survive the beetles.” He smiled and looked past my head and out the window.

“If you did manage that, it would only be a matter of time before the Bupinders found out you were with us. They would stretch your little body until every joint popped. By the time your last ligament had sprung, you would have told them everything about us!” His fist slammed the table, causing the plates to jump.

“Let him go,” Chastity said. She pushed her lips together in a pout and looked up at Ragnar. “Even if the Bupinders find him, we’ll be long gone,” she said.

“We can’t take that chance,” Ragnar said.

"Oh fine. Nobody ever listens to me!" Chastity pouted.

I cleared my throat.

“While you are deciding how I am going to die, can you at least tell who and what, in Kraken’s name, you are?” I asked. There was silence. Ragnar sucked on his teeth.

“You don’t ask questions,” he said.

Jenna's ears stuck straight out from the sides of her head. “It’s fair that he should get some answers. He's been a prisoner for quite a long time.” she said. She gestured with her hand at the view of the farmland. “This land we live in is called Twaddle. Did you know that?"

"No" I said

"It is a vast land. Many cities, all the domain of the royal family Bupinder,” she said. “They have made many enemies. We are among those enemies.”

"Please dont call them the 'Royal Family' in my presence", Drexel remarked smartly.

"The law says that they are the royal family, Drexel." Chastity said, "So what if they married the rightful Queen and then bumped her off? So what if they are tyrants and demon-lovers? They're the law."

“So, you are fighting the Bupinders?” I asked.

“If you call this fighting,” Drexel said with a smirk.

"We became enemies of the empire two months ago in the city of Buba" Jenna said.

“Enough. He knows too much already,” Ragnar said.

“Perhaps you have said enough, Ragnar,” Jenna replied. “You heard his story. He has more reason than any of us to fight the Bupinders.” Her ears waved back and forth slowly, like a cat’s tail.

"Do I?" I asked

“It was goblins who did his town in, not the Army,” Drexel said. His face was expressionless.

“And yet the name Bupinder was spoken by his mother on that very day,” Jenna said.

“It’s coincidence, nothing more,” Ragnar said.

"Do you remember why your Father was speaking with the Bupinders that day?" Jenna asked me.

"I barely remember him at all." I said. "I was really young when the Smoogers killed everybody and put me in a pit. But I remember my mother." I thought again of the vivid, awful memory the magician had made me re-live.

"It's a coincidence." Ragnar said. "Probably his father was meeting with some imperial dandy, about artesian wells or something. If his town was destroyed by Goblins, that rules the Bupinders out. Nobody works with goblins, not even them."

“There is no such thing as coincidence,” Jenna said. She raised her left eyebrow. “He might be useful. We should take him.” Her ears flattened against her head.

“Superstitious kneebiter,” Ragnar said. He got up from the table. “How did I get mixed up with such a group of fools!” He turned to face the window.

I looked over his shoulder and out the window. A mound of dirt moved by the house and into the distance. A beetle was traveling underground. If the dirt wasn’t crawling with smoogers, then it was infested with giant beetles. The world is like that. I realized that I had forgotten to give thanks to Kraken before my meal. I closed my eyes and offered a quick prayer. I felt his strength within me. Jenna was right. Kraken had kept me alive for a reason. The knot of fear that I had carried in my gut since the day I first saw the smoogers boiled into rage. I ended my prayer.

“Take me with you!” I shouted. Ragnar spun around to face me. “I want to fight the smooger-loving Bupinders. I will avenge my people!” I knew as soon as I said it that it was true.

"You don't want to come with us, Telle" Chastity said.

"Have you even been listening, you little twit?" Ragnar said. He looked at the others. His gaze stopped at Jenna.

“If he joins us, he becomes your problem,” he said to her, "You're responsible if his addled brain gets us into trouble." She opened her mouth to speak just as crash came from below.

“The half-breed stirs,” Drexel said. Another crash came, this one was louder. The crashes sounded like someone was falling over furniture.

“There’s nothing worse than an adolescent manimal with a hangover,” Freya said.

“Half-breed? Manimal?” I asked.

Jenna turned to me to explain. Before she could speak, a blast of splintering wood and sharp cracks came from under the floor. The entire house lurched and I was thrown off my chair. I landed on my back. The others stayed on their feet, but just barely. There was a moment of complete silence. We looked at each other in surprise. Then the beams overhead groaned as the floor shifted sideways. There was scratching from below and a scream.

“A Beetle is coming up through the floor!” an unfamiliar voice shouted from downstairs.

There was the clatter of hooves on wood. A figure ran into the room. His head and torso were those of a teenaged boy. His face was mottled with pimples, his hair long and stringy. He wore a long dirty shirt. His bottom half had the legs of a goat.

“What should we do? It's gonna take the place apart! Let’s get out of here!” The goat-boy was in an utter panic.

The crashing grew louder. A familiar rumbling started somewhere beneath us. Breaking glass tinkled from above. I looked to my left. Drexel was already gone.

Freya jumped onto the table and crouched there. The room shifted slightly to the right. The sound of splitting wood came from all around. A loud crack came from above. Then came the thud of a falling beam. Dust filtered through the ceiling. The beams groaned and then broke. Freya tumbled through the air and dove out the second-story window. Her feet cleared the opening a second before the ceiling collapsed into the far side of the room. Ragnar ran down the hall and down another staircase. Chastity and I started to follow him. I was in front. As we reached the ground floor, there was more rumbling from below.

“The floor!” Chastity said. I looked down. Dust shot up. The floorboards caved in with a crash. I jumped backward and fell into Chastity. We scrambled backwards as the floor collapsed in front of us.

We turned and ran back past the kitchen and down the hallway. I had no idea where we were going. There was a roar. I looked back toward the kitchen and saw only a tangle of beams and dust. I ran through a room filled with clouds of dust. Furniture covered in sheets wobbled and moved as the floor buckled beneath it. A chandelier crashed in the middle of the floor. I fled down a hall. The house darkened as dust filled the air. Chastity moved in the darkness ahead. Thick gray clouds billowed up from the floor boards. I lost sight of Chastity in the dust. I gasped for air and crawled blindly down the hall. Stones shot from a collapsing fireplace on my right. I heard more shouts from outside.

Sunlight glowed through the dust ahead. I crawled toward it. I hit my face on a glass door blocking my way. I reached up and pushed. It swung open in front of me and then fell off its hinges. It shattered in a burst across the floor. I cut my right hand as I crawled over the shards. My eyes stung from the dust. I scrambled forward as fast as I could. Suddenly, my hands were over empty space. I tried to pull back, but I was too late.

I tumbled down a small staircase and into sunlight. I was outside, at the foot of a porch that led from the side of the house. I ran from the house as quickly as I could. I turned and looked back. Part of the house leaned dangerously to the left. Plumes of dust spewed out of the windows. The chimney crumbled onto the roof, sending chunks of rock in all directions. I looked around and saw Freya and Jenna on one side, Reese galloped off in the distance. Ragnar and Drexel were nearby.

“Where’s Chastity?” I shouted to Ragnar and Drexel. They didn’t seem to hear me. Without thinking I ran to the front of the house. I sprinted toward the porch. As I reached the porch steps I heard her shouting from inside the house.

A rock slid off the roof and struck the ground with a thud next to me. As I climbed the steps to the porch, a column slid sideways and fell across the front door with a crash. The left side of the porch roof slammed into the ground. There was barely enough room for me to fit inside.

“There’s no way!” Ragnar said over the rumble. He stood next to me.

“I can do it!” I shouted back. I ducked under the beam and crawled into the rubble of crushed stones and splintered wood. I wedged myself into the small opening.

“Push!” I yelled. I exhaled to make myself as small as I could. Ragnar put his weight behind me. I reached through the hole and pulled on a shattered doorjamb. My clothing tore. My skin tore when my ribs scraped on the jagged boards. I winced and slid through the tight opening. Dust stung in my nose. I took a deep breath and crawled into the dusty darkness.

“Chastity!” I shouted over the noise. The sound of scratching and ripping came from below. I felt my way down the hallway.

“Telle! I can’t get out!” She shouted over the cracks of splitting beams. I squeezed through a tangle of wood. It shifted beneath me. The boards slid down through a gaping hole. I jumped forward and held onto the broken floorboards that jutted out. I pulled myself up. Behind me, the rest of the doorway collapsed. I crawled into the main hall and found Chastity trying to pull debris off the pile.

“You’ll never get out this way!” I took her hand and led her back toward the kitchen. We felt our way past the wreckage. I found the room I had crawled through before. Together we made our way to the side staircase.

“Broken glass!” I said. I held up my bleeding hand and pointed to the floor. She went first. We crawled over the shards until we reached a narrow staircase that lead outside. The house groaned and began to pitch backward. She fell head first toward the steps. I bounced down after her. We began to stagger into the field. Chastity took a few steps and fell face down into the wheat.

Behind me I felt a gust of dusty wind as the structure finally collapsed. I turned and watched as the rubble twisted and bulged. An antennae shot through a hole in the pile. More boards and bricks moved. A pincer emerged and then the carapace of a giant beetle. It plowed through the remains of the house. We were showered in bits of broken wood and stone. I lay still as the beetle crawled past me. It reached the edge of the wheat field and rumbled as it plowed slowly away. The top of its shiny carapace was white with dust. Then there was quiet. I looked down at Chastity. Her hair was matted over a bloody scrape on her forehead. Her face was pale white, but she was breathing.