Fog & Fireflies by T.H. Lehnen

Author:T.H. Lehnen [Lehnen, T.H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798989861019
Publisher: Aspen & Thorn Press

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“Quick! Awake, awake!” an anxious voice wrested Ogma from a pleasant dream.

“Hmung? How long have I been asleep?” Ogma muttered, opening her eyes to pale late afternoon light. There was a rustling noise, and the leaves that covered Ogma’s head were brushed away.

An anxious face peered into Ogma’s eyes. “Awake, awake!”

“What is it?” Ogma sat up. The leaves they had carefully piled, that had seemed so comfortable before, now seemed a meager protection against the coming night. The gnome in the nightdress was biting his fingernails nervously. The surly gnome was warily studying the edges of the ruined tower.

“What—” Ogma repeated.

“Shh…” The kindly one’s voice spoke softly from behind her elbow. “It’s the king.”

What’s a king, that they are so afraid?

There was a gravity in how the kindly old gnome spoke. Something much more serious than their playful and ridiculous banter that morning, and an undertone of fear.

Ogma fell silent, trying to keep perfectly still. If it’s just another gnome, it can’t be that impressive. Her bravado felt hollow. The ruined courtyard was frozen, expectant. Ogma felt like a deer startled in the thicket, every fiber ready to run.

She studied the trees at the edge of the tower intently. Drifts of fog had crept up, the mist padding softly around the edges while Ogma slept. There was a rustle of bushes somewhere in the undergrowth, the sound of a branch bending and whipping back into place.

“There he is,” the grizzled gnome hissed, dropping his eyes to the ground in a fearful bow.

A king’s a person, then. Still, she couldn’t see him. Her eyes flitted from budding leaves to hoary lichen, peering through the twisted branches trying to find⁠—

There! I’m sure I saw something. If that’s another gnome, then I’m a pickled onion.

Ogma caught glimpses of the figure through whorls of fog. Twigs snapped. With a creak and groan even the gnarled trees were bending. The king, whoever he was, wasn’t pushing through the undergrowth, nor was he picking his way carefully around it. The trees and branches were moving on their own.

They’re bowing, Ogma realized with a shiver.

His clothes hung with shaggy curls like birch. His skin was the mottled color of moss and lichen. He was tall. Taller than any person Ogma knew in her village, but not quite too tall. Moss grew in a beard that hung from chin to belt.

“Mmm? What have we here?” The shaggy green man picked his way through a gap in the stone wall and loomed over Ogma and the genuflecting gnomes.

“A visitor, your majesty.”

“A trespasser, more like. But she knows ’er cordials,” the grumpy one admitted reluctantly.

The gnome in the night cap simply cowered.

“A trespasser, is it?” The old man’s voice was deep and grave. He blinked, ripples in amber pools, as he considered Ogma. “How very serious.”

He stared at Ogma for an uncomfortably long moment. I don’t think he talks to anyone very often.

Ogma drew a breath. “Thank you for the shelter.” She thought it best to start things off politely.

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