Elfhome

29: SPOT ON

Tommy had raided the fridge for food that could travel and stuffed it into an insulated delivery bag. They sat on the hilltop as the sun set, eating egg rolls, cold pork buns, and fried rice. Afterward Spot curled up against Tommy and slept.

Tommy studied the camp through binoculars, grinding his teeth together. He couldn’t stop thinking of what Jin had said about the elves needing to win the war.

After watching the royal troops flood the city and Windwolf fight, Tommy had been assuming that the elves winning was a given. Now he wasn’t so sure. Yeah, for a while there the elves were pulling rats out of their holes and hacking them to pieces. The most recent score, however, had oni kicking elf butt. Earth Son was dead. Forest Moss had gone over the edge. Jewel Tear had been taken and all her people killed. Tinker was hurt. Windwolf was in protective overdrive. It left Prince True Flame to take on the entire oni army — if Tommy went back and drew a detailed map and the elves believed him.

Windwolf might listen, but he wasn’t calling the shots.

True Flame would believe Jewel Tear.

Of course there was the small matter of finding her and then freeing her — if she was still alive — and then running nearly twenty miles back to his hoverbike with the entire oni army chasing them. He’d have to be insane even to consider it.

Jin had said that you had to create peace to live in it.

Tommy should have grabbed a tengu to drag along. The elves were treating the tengu as trusted allies. If Riki took back reports of the camps, they’d believe him. The bastard had helped kidnap Tinker, but they still called him in on raids of oni whelping pens. Tommy took out his cell phone and checked to see if he had a signal. No surprise: he didn’t.

He sighed and scanned the torchlit camp once more. Most of the warriors were obviously right out of whelping pens, and the camp was pure chaos for it. He probably could walk right into camp, passing as one of them, except for the fact he was too well known. He spotted dozens of officers that had reported to his father. They knew his scent, knew his face, knew that he’d slipped free of the oni hold and joined the elves.

Spot turned in his sleep, and Tommy glanced down at the boy. Spot scrubbed his hand over the fur on his face, rubbed at his dog-like muzzle, and then stilled, his floppy ears covering his eyes.

Spot could move through camp unnoticed. He looked bred in a whelping pen. None of the officers knew the boy; Tommy had kept him well hidden. Spot could track Jewel Tear through the camp, find out where the oni were holding her and—

Tommy laughed. And what? Take on the entire oni army?

But then again, this wasn’t one of his aunts. This was elf domi. If Tommy could free her, then she could take on the oni army herself.

Still, it was dependent on Spot finding Jewel Tear without getting caught. Tommy hated the idea of sending him down into the camp. The oni wouldn’t just kill him if they caught him; the oni were too cruel for anything so merciful.

Tommy’s nose wasn’t keen enough to pick up Jewel Tear’s scent. If he didn’t send Spot, then Tommy would have to search all of the camp.

He shook Spot awake.

Spot thought Tommy was insane — it was clear in his gaze. His eyes would slowly slide off Tommy’s to the oni-choked camp, and one eyebrow would climb in confusion. And then he’d look back at Tommy, the other eyebrow cocked.

Tommy didn’t sugarcoat it, but he didn’t want to scare Spot either. “You can do this. You know how when I bring you home a chew toy? You know how you have to act so the big kids won’t steal it off you? I’ve seen you do it. You hide it in your pocket and just pretend you’re doing chores and walk around the warren, looking for someplace you can chew on it without anyone seeing?”

Spot thought and then nodded slowly.

“You’re going to go down and walk through the camp like you have a chore to do. No one will stop you.” Tommy hoped and prayed that they wouldn’t. “You just need to find out where they have her and come back to me. I know you can do this. You just have to be brave. Okay?”

“Okay,” Spot whispered.

The hardest thing Tommy had ever done was to sit and watch Spot slip out of the shadows and walk toward the oni camp. Fear was roaring through him — a small, cold certainty that the boy was heading for a painful death. Tommy blanked Spot from the guard’s vision so his cousin could walk in unchallenged.

Spot paused only slightly just inside the gate, nose working, and then set off in a determined walk.

Tommy lost sight of him among the taller, shifting bodies.

He frantically scanned the oni, looking for the small boy. There were other small oni moving through the camp, their size making Tommy think he’d found Spot only to realize he was wrong.

“Shit, shit, shit. Where is he?”

Time crawled. Half an hour. Then an hour. The small, cold certainty grew until it filled him. What was he thinking? Oni ate their own children if they found one that seemed too weak.

Then the mass shifted, and there was Spot, walking determinedly toward Tommy again.

“Yes!” Tommy blinded the guard, and when Spot reached him, hugged him hard. “Good boy. Good boy.”

Spot grinned up at him, nearly vibrating with nerves.

“Did you find her?” Tommy asked. “Is she still alive?”

Spot shook his head but continued to grin.

Tommy’s stomach roiled. “She’s dead?”

Spot shook his head, his grin slipping.

“You didn’t find her?”

Spot cringed from Tommy’s scowl. “They took elf to whelping pens.”

Tommy swore but rubbed behind Spot’s ears in apology. “Good boy.”