Beech and Operation Breakfast
Operation Breakfast meets its first real test as Beech returns to the mill and helps trapped families escape. The goblin captain has learned a few lessons of his own.
In which the plan meets the goblins
"THE PAN!"
The goblin captain's roar came down the mill road like an accusation delivered by a very angry cow.
Beech crouched behind the hazel bush, holding his breath while the shouting rolled past. The mill stood just across the road, close enough to reach in a dozen strides and far enough away to get him killed on the way.
Across the road, the captain pointed his axe towards the mill. Two goblins started forward. The others hesitated beside the overturned barrel of vinegar, their eyes darting between the mill and their leader.
"Don't all run at him," said the captain sharply. "One along the wall. You, round the back. He'll bolt if he sees us coming."
Beech had not expected that. Until now, most goblins had treated pursuit as a contest to see who could shout the loudest while falling down. These were beginning to behave like hunters.
He flattened himself beneath the hazel branches. One goblin slipped into the alley between the mill and the grain store. Another crept down the bank beside the waterwheel, where the shallow reeds concealed its legs. They were moving to surround him.
The captain advanced more slowly. He had learned, apparently, that rushing a carpenter with a frying pan could be hazardous to one's helmet.
Beech could not remain where he was. Behind him, just beyond the grain store, lay the narrow route through which he had helped Mara, the cooper's sister, and three children escape the smoke-filled bakery store. If he blundered back that way, the goblins might find their trail.
Instead he edged towards the mill's lower side door. A plank across its bottom had warped in the damp, leaving a gap large enough to slip his fingers through. He knew because he had fitted the plank, and had told Merrick that he would return to plane it properly.
That had been two summers ago.
He pulled. Nothing. He set down his pan, pressed his shoulder against the frame and lifted the warped corner. The latch clicked. The door opened barely wide enough to admit him, and Beech squeezed inside.
A shaft of light fell across the dark mill floor. Grain dust hung in the air. Above him great wooden gears turned with the patient groan of old timber, their rhythm drowning the footsteps outside. He eased the door shut, then felt an unfamiliar pressure against his ribs.
It was the package of bread and cheese Nella had given him.
"Ah," Beech whispered. "A better use of the time."
He reached inside his bag, broke off a piece of bread and stopped with it halfway to his mouth. Someone was standing beside the grain chute holding a long iron lever.
Merrick.
The old miller stared at him. "Are you eating?"
"Not successfully."
"Goblins outside?"
"Several. More organised than before."
Merrick took the bread out of Beech's hand, wrapped it in its cloth and put it back into the bag. "Then let's save your lunch for when we're not about to die."
Beech thought this reasonable, though disappointing.
Merrick had reached the mill by the fields and found the sluice mechanism just as he remembered it: rusted, stubborn and held together by a system of iron pins that worked perfectly so long as no one touched them. Unfortunately, someone now needed to touch them.
"The lower gate's jammed," he explained. "I can free it, but the lifting chain is caught under the axle. Need someone on the upper gallery to turn the release wheel while I work down here."
Beech looked up at the steep ladder to the gallery. "Is that safe?"
"You were supposed to mend the third rung."
"I see."
"Did you?"
"No."
"Then I suppose we know the answer."
Beech climbed carefully, avoiding the cracked rung, and reached the upper platform just as the side door rattled. A goblin had found it. The creature pulled once, then struck the door with the butt of its spear. The badly fitted plank held, though Beech suspected it had never been more useful.
From above he could see the chain wound around the shaft. Merrick guided him through the release: loosen the wooden peg, turn the wheel twice, then stop before the millrace took the full weight. The work was familiar enough. Beech had spent years helping fit shutters, make hinges and repair wagon wheels. The trick was not strength; it was knowing which piece held the others in place.
The mechanism shifted. Deep below, water began to rush through the opened gate into the lower channel, safely below the cottages. On the mill road a fresh trickle spread across the lowest stones. Given another quarter of an hour it would turn the track to mud and make a massed charge difficult.
The goblin outside rammed the side door again. Merrick looked up.
"Leave the rest to me," he said. "Find Harl and Darron. Let them know we're opening the way to the sheepfold."
Beech descended the ladder and retrieved his pan. "And if the door gives?"
Merrick lifted the long iron lever. His bad knee troubled him, but his arms were still strong from hauling sacks all his life.
"Then the first goblin gets an education in mill machinery. Go."
Beech took the rear loading hatch, climbed over a stack of empty grain sacks and dropped into the mill yard. On his way towards the smithy he passed the stable lane. Joss's shutters were fastened, and the yard beyond was quiet. Beech pictured the carter leaning on his uninjured arm while his little daughter barred the door. He wanted to call to them, but two goblins were crossing the street, and one shout might send them straight to the stable.
He went on, promising himself he would return. His sleeve caught on a nail and pulled at the little tear left by the archer's arrow in the flour-covered lane. He freed it carefully and kept close to the walls.
Smoke drifted over the smithy roof. Farther away he heard the captain bellowing for his missing quarry, muffled by the mill buildings. Beech had gained a few minutes. It would have to be enough.
Darron's smithy stood at the edge of the square, its ironwork sign hanging crookedly over a blackened door. Beech found the blacksmith on the rear steps binding a strip of cloth around his left forearm. Blood had soaked through one sleeve. His hammer lay beside him, its wooden handle charred.
"You're alive," Darron said, looking up.
"To my surprise, yes."
"I told you to get clear."
"I did. It didn't suit me."
Darron studied Beech, then looked at the frying pan. "I heard a story about that thing."
"Most of it is probably exaggerated."
"Did you knock the captain into the millstream?"
"That part may be true."
For the first time all morning, Darron laughed. It came out as a short, tired bark, ending in a wince as his wounded arm moved.
Beech explained the sheepfold, the hidden drover's track and the plan to draw goblins towards the cattle pound. When he mentioned the route behind Fenner's garden, Darron shook his head.
"Harl's got a dozen people in the tavern cellar. He can get them out by the kitchen yard, but the lane's blocked with a cart and two broken beams. I've tried shifting it. Can't do it alone with this arm."
"The cart by Elna's old bakehouse?"
"That's the one."
Beech knew it. He had repaired its near wheel only last winter. The axle could be uncoupled if one removed a wooden locking peg beneath the hub. It would not make the cart lighter, but it would let the wheel turn away from the narrow passage, creating room for people to squeeze through.
"I can open it," he said.
Darron stood. "Then let's go."
"Shouldn't you rest?"
"Shouldn't you be at home eating porridge?"
There seemed no polite answer to that.
They kept close to the walls, moving between sheds and fenced yards. Briar Glen smelled of burned straw, spilled ale and the acrid tang of broken lamp oil. They passed a cottage whose roof had collapsed into the kitchen. On its doorstep lay a little wooden horse, one leg snapped off, blackened on one side by smoke.
Beech stopped and picked it up.
He remembered making it for Elna's niece at the spring market. The girl had insisted the horse ought to have a mane, and he had spent an extra hour carving one. Now its little head was scratched and one wooden ear had burned away.
He put the toy in his bag without speaking.
Darron waited until Beech was ready. Neither man mentioned the horse.
The Lantern and Ladle had suffered badly, but it still stood. One window was broken, the painted sign hung by a single chain, and an overturned bench smouldered beside the back door. From inside came the sound of Harl Dobb shouting abuse at someone who apparently did not appreciate the value of ale.
"THAT'S MY LAST GOOD BARREL, YOU FILTHY LITTLE—"
A crash interrupted him.
"He sounds well," said Beech.
"He's been better," Darron replied.
They slipped through the yard. Harl greeted them from the kitchen doorway wearing a bloodstained apron and the same nightshirt in which Beech had seen him fighting that morning. There was a dented cooking pot beside him; apparently he had abandoned it as a helmet.
"Beech! I thought the goblins had carried you off."
"They tried. I objected."
Harl looked at the pan. "With that?"
"Can we discuss my cookware later?"
The landlord stepped aside. Down in the cellar, frightened villagers sat among the casks: an elderly couple, two farmhands, several women, four children and Elna the baker, whose hands were blistered and bandaged. A man lay on a folded cloak at the foot of the steps, groaning softly as another villager bound his leg. Harl had been using his tavern as a refuge while fighting over the beer upstairs.
Beech felt a fierce relief at seeing them alive. Then he saw that Elna's eyes were red and swollen.
"The bakery," she said when she noticed his expression. "I couldn't save it."
Beech wanted to tell her that it could be rebuilt, but the words felt too easy. He had helped replace her shopfront after a winter storm and knew how much work lay in every beam. He crouched beside her instead.
"Mara's alive," he said. "And the boys. Nella's taking them to the sheepfold."
Elna shut her eyes. The sound that escaped her was not quite a sob and not quite a laugh.
"Thank you," she whispered.
For once Beech did not make a joke. He stood, drew a breath and gave Harl the route out, including the ruined fence and the fallen gate that could be pulled aside at its rotten hinge. Harl listened, then began organising the cellar folk with the brisk authority of a man accustomed to moving forty drunken customers outside at closing time.
"No bundles bigger than you can carry," he ordered. "No going back for anything. And if a goblin asks you for your name, tell him Harl Dobb sent you and keep running."
"Would that help?" asked Beech.
"No. But I'd enjoy it."
The people came out through the rear kitchen one family at a time. Darron and Beech reached the blocked cart, where the fallen axle had jammed against a stone trough. Beech went flat on the ground, slipped his knife beneath the wooden peg and worked it loose while Darron held the wheel steady with his good arm. With a groan, the wheel moved just enough for the passage to open.
One child slipped through. Then another. Harl kept the line moving, his voice surprisingly calm now that it mattered.
The last of the cellar villagers had nearly reached the orchard when a goblin appeared at the lane's mouth. It carried a short spear, and its eyes went straight to the frightened families.
"People!" it shrieked. "They're getting away!"
Beech could not reach it in time. The goblin lowered its spear towards the last child, who had stumbled beside the cart. Darron moved first, shoving himself between them. The spear struck his wounded arm and drove him against the wall.
He screamed.
Beech hit the goblin, not with the pan but with the loose cart wheel. He had braced the wheel upright against the axle; now he heaved it forward with both hands. It rolled the short distance across the lane and pinned the goblin's legs against the trough. The creature dropped its spear. Beech seized the child's wrist and pulled him to safety as Harl hauled Darron back into the yard.
More goblins were shouting from the square.
Beech's hands shook. The child was crying. Darron sank to the ground, pale beneath the soot on his face, and Harl pressed a clean cloth against the new wound.
"Go," Darron said through his teeth. "Get them out."
Beech looked from Darron to the people disappearing into the orchard. This was exactly what the plan was meant to prevent: ordinary villagers being hurt because he had misjudged the danger. The thought threatened to swallow him. Then Harl seized his shoulder.
"Beech. Listen to me. You opened the way. Now keep it open. I'll bring him."
Beech nodded and went after the evacuees, carrying the child until they reached the thicker hedge where Nella and her dogs waited.
Nella took one look at the boy's scraped knees and Darron's arm as Harl brought him along, and understood enough not to ask questions. She sent the families along the drover's track with two of the older farmhands, one dog ranging ahead and another behind. A few minutes later, from the ridge, came the short clear whistle Tam had been instructed to give when a group reached the upper path.
They were getting people out.
It was working.
And the goblins were coming.
The trouble with Operation Breakfast was that Beech had planned the beginning, the middle and a very pleasant ending in which somebody bought him supper. He had thought rather less about what would happen if the goblin captain recognised the middle as a trap.
The captain's voice rang out from the square. Raiders were moving into the eastern lanes, some shouting as they ran, others keeping to the walls with spears ready. Beech spotted another black-vested goblin among them, its shoulder marked with the white broken ring. It pointed after the fleeing families, and the others changed direction.
"They're being guided," he told Nella.
She followed his gaze towards the marked raider. "Then we'd best stop the ones following."
The cattle pound stood south of the mill road behind a high stone wall. Its heavy main gate faced north, towards the road from the square. Inside, against the southern wall, was the old feed shed; by climbing the stone step beside it, Beech could reach the shed roof, cross the back wall and drop into the mill yard. The service wicket in that wall was bolted from the yard side, which was useful for escape and useless for any goblins trapped within.
To the east of the pound, the road dipped towards the millrace. Merrick waited there at the sluice. The villagers being evacuated were moving beyond the northern hedges, on the higher drover's track, while raiders from the square pressed towards the low crossing. It was the only reason the water could help: Merrick could spoil the goblins' approach without washing away the people Beech wanted to save.
Beech showed Nella the gate. It opened inward. The cord Merrick had lent him would run from the gate's iron ring through an eye on the opposite post, then back behind a stack of empty feed troughs just outside the entrance. Nella could pull it shut from cover. Once the gate met its jamb, someone would have to drop the great wooden bar across it.
"With Harl's help," she said, testing the rope, "I can do that."
Harl emerged from the orchard wall, having left Darron under a spare cloak where he could be carried up the drover's track. He gave the arrangement one sour look.
"You want me beside the gate while angry goblins run through it?"
"Only for a moment," said Beech.
"That is not as comforting as you think."
Nella pulled the cord once to make certain it was free. Harl stood by the bar, hidden from the road by the troughs. Beech could see the roof he needed to climb, and the mill-yard drop on the other side; he could also see the narrow space that would become a killing ground if he slipped.
"You can still go with the families," Harl told him.
Beech thought of Elna's burned bakery, Darron's arm and Joss behind the barred stable door. They needed time for the last of the villagers to reach the ridge. The thought did not make him brave, but it made leaving feel worse.
"Not yet."
He walked into the middle of the road, his cloak drawn close and the frying pan held low.
The nearest goblin shouted, and the captain emerged from behind the smithy. His red cloak was wet with mill mud. A fresh bruise darkened the bridge of his nose, but he carried his axe lightly, with none of the awkwardness Beech had come to expect from the ordinary raiders.
"You again," the captain said.
"Yes. Sorry."
The captain did not rush at him. He looked beyond Beech, took in the open pound gate and the empty space behind it, then made a small, sharp motion with his axe.
"A trap."
"No," said Beech, much too quickly. "A cattle pound."
"Circle it," the captain ordered. "He wants us inside."
Two goblins moved towards the mill yard, and another slipped along the outside wall. The captain kept his distance, studying the open gate. He had learned from the bridge. Beech felt that the captain might continue learning for the rest of the day, to everyone's considerable disadvantage.
There was still time to abandon the scheme and warn Nella. Instead Beech struck his frying pan once against the iron gatepost. The ringing note carried over the shouts in the street.
"You're right," he called. "It's a trap. That's why I'm leaving."
He turned his back on the captain and walked through the entrance.
"Don't follow him," the captain snapped.
Beech went towards the feed shed, conscious of every inch of open ground between himself and the stone step. He climbed, got a boot on the slate roof, and nearly lost it again as moss slid under his sole. He caught the gutter and pulled himself up. Behind him the captain said something too low to hear.
Then came shouting from the road. Five of the ordinary raiders had arrived from the square, seen the famous pan-man scrambling onto a roof and decided that they would not be taking orders from someone who seemed content to let him escape. They rushed through the open gate, spears raised.
Beech flattened himself against the slates as the first spear jabbed towards his legs. Another scraped across the roof edge. The goblins were not laughing; they were trying to pull him down.
"Nella!" he shouted.
She hauled on the cord. The gate's free edge drew towards the opposite post; Harl came out from behind the troughs and heaved the timber the last few inches. The bar dropped on the road side with a deep wooden boom. Five goblins were inside, trapped between the shut gate and the high walls.
The captain had stayed outside.
He turned from the gate to the troughs. Nella's hands were still on the cord, and Harl stood beside the bar with nowhere to retreat but the open road. The captain's expression changed from anger to a cold, unmistakable satisfaction.
"Found you."
Beech shouted a warning from the roof. Harl had already seen the raised axe, but the landlord could not move quickly enough with Nella beside him and the wall at their backs. The captain advanced, careful and entirely silent now.
Beech hurried over the feed shed, dropped into the mill yard and jarred both knees on landing. He looked around for something he could throw, a lever he could push, anything. From here he could not reach the road without going around the wall.
A squeal rose above the shouting.
Duchess burst from the orchard lane, a length of rope trailing from one hind leg and a cabbage leaf stuck to her snout. Three goblins ran ahead of her, clutching the turnips they had been foolish enough to steal. Widow Fenner followed at a slower pace with her rolling pin raised, expressing opinions about thieves that did not require any interpretation.
The leading thief stumbled into the captain's back. His axe swept wide, striking stone instead of Harl. Nella dragged the landlord behind the troughs as Duchess thundered through the space they had occupied a heartbeat earlier. She chased the thieves towards the ditch, scattering turnips and leaving the captain sprawled against the wall.
Beech had no idea whether the sow had saved them deliberately. He knew only that Nella and Harl were alive, and the lane had cleared for a moment.
He ran to Merrick at the sluice, which lay just beyond the eastern end of the mill yard. The miller had been watching the last evacuees pass along the higher path.
"Clear?" Beech called.
"Clear enough!"
"Then now!"
Merrick hauled the release lever. The gate rose another hand's width, sending a fast brown rush through the channel and across the lowered crossing. The water did not swallow an army or carry away houses. It made a shallow road suddenly treacherous at precisely the place the raiders needed to cross. Men coming from the square hesitated, backed into those behind them and lost the order their marked guides had imposed. One slipped; the others had the sense not to follow him blindly into the same patch of mud.
On the far side, beyond the hedges, the last villagers were climbing the drover's track. Harl was helping Nella regain her footing by the pound, and the five prisoners within were hammering uselessly at the barred oak.
The captain got to his feet. He looked at the shut gate, the flooded crossing and Beech standing by Merrick's wheel. His face lost its fury. What remained was worse.
"I'll remember you," he said.
"I was rather hoping you wouldn't," Beech replied, without feeling at all amusing.
A horn sounded from the village square: two low notes, a pause, and a third short call. The marked raiders stopped at once. The captain turned towards the sound, cursed and gave the order to withdraw. Even those who had been pursuing Beech most fiercely fell back towards the northern road, leaving the five men in the pound to batter at the gate and shout after them.
Beech watched the red cloak disappear between the houses. The captain had wanted him dead. Something—or someone—had just proved more important than that desire.
The withdrawal did not make Briar Glen safe. Fires still burned, broken buildings stood open to the rain, and some villagers remained unaccounted for. But the eastern lane was clear. By late afternoon Nella's groups had brought more than twenty people to the sheepfold, with others following in ones and twos along the drover's track. Harl and Tam organised water and blankets on the ridge. Elna, her hands bound, began giving instructions about feeding everyone from the stores they had salvaged.
"You ought to be resting," Harl told her.
"You ought to be wearing trousers," she answered.
Harl looked down at his nightshirt. "An excellent point."
Merrick checked the sluice and left it partly open to protect the lower crossing. The cattle pound remained barred and guarded from a distance; nobody was foolish enough to open it while the raiders inside still had weapons. Darron rested under Nella's spare cloak, pale but awake, with his arm bandaged as best they could manage.
Beech found himself sitting on a stone beside the spring, too tired even to remove his boots. The frying pan lay across his knees. Its rim bore the axe dent from the bridge, and its underside was scratched from scraping along walls and cobbles.
He had not defeated the goblins. There were still far too many of them, and the worst might not yet have happened. But he had helped get families out, and when he had feared making another mistake, he had stayed to make the right choice anyway.
Nella sat beside him, one of her dogs lying at her feet.
"You did well," she said.
Beech regarded the pan. "The plan wasn't very good."
"It was good enough to save some people. We can improve the rest."
After a while he reached into his bag and found the wooden horse from the burned cottage. He set it on his palm and examined the missing leg.
"I made this," he said. "For Elna's niece. I expect I can mend it."
"I expect you can."
A shout came from the lookout above them. Tam stood on the ridge pointing north, towards the road beyond the square. Beech and Nella climbed to him.
Through the thinning smoke they saw a file of goblins leaving Briar Glen. They marched with a discipline quite unlike the raiders who had been looting houses. Several wore the black strip embroidered with the broken white ring. Between them, carried on two poles, hung a narrow ironbound chest wrapped in canvas. The red-cloaked captain walked at the rear, his axe on his shoulder, looking back towards the village.
"They've taken something," said Nella.
"Perhaps from the meeting hall," Beech said. "I saw one of the marked goblins at the bridge pointing towards it. They kept going back there, even while the others were looting."
Merrick, who had climbed up behind them, studied the procession. His lined face became grave.
"The hall doesn't keep anything worth an army," he said. Then, after a moment, he added, "At least, nothing anyone's spoken of in a long time."
Beech watched the chest disappear along the northern road. He remembered what Berta's daughter had told them at the sheepfold: a marked goblin had ordered the others to find the old room. He remembered, too, how the captain had abandoned his pursuit the instant the horn sounded.
The goblins had not come for Harl's birthday ale after all.
This seemed both a relief and, in ways he could not yet explain, a much more worrying possibility.
Below them, the sheepfold rang with voices. People were sharing food and asking after missing friends. There were wounds to dress, fires to put out and homes to save if any still could be saved. Tomorrow would be harder. The soldiers might still be two days away.
Beech felt the familiar desire to return to a quiet cottage, sit beside the fire and let someone else sort out the difficulty. He wondered whether the front door could be repaired or would need making anew. He would probably need more oak. And nails. A great many nails.
Then he looked at the wooden horse in his palm, at the smoke over his village and at Nella standing beside him.
"We're going back," he said.
"Yes," Nella replied. "We are."
Beech took the wrapped bread and cheese from his bag. It was rather crushed, but otherwise excellent.
"Good," he said, sitting down on the grass. "But first, I am having my lunch."
Nella glanced at the reddening evening sky.
"It's nearly supper."
"Then I've timed it beautifully."
He broke the bread in two and offered her half. She took it, and for the first time since meeting him in the woods, she laughed without immediately having to worry about what would happen next.
Down below, from somewhere in the sheepfold, Harl's voice rose in indignation.
"RIGHT! WHO IS GOING TO WASH THE SUPPER POTS?"
Beech quietly tucked his frying pan beneath his cloak.
Some things, he felt, were best dealt with tomorrow.
End of Chapter Four
The story continues.
Back to book contents
