Chapter 23: Squirrely

  Tom-Tom crouched behind a bush and narrowed his eyes at the suspect.

  It was acting so nonchalant. It was brown, fuzzy, with beady eyes and a long tail. Tom-Tom had taken one look at them and he knew, they were definitely shifty. It wouldn’t be able to pull a fast one on him, Tom-Tom knew.

  Klik leaned over his shoulder, “It’s a squirrel.”

  Tom-Tom didn’t look away. “I know it’s a squirrel. That doesn’t mean it’s innocent.” He spat out through gritted teeth, his eyes still trained forward the whole time.

  The squirrel, perched on a branch a few feet above the forest floor, twitched its tail once as the kobolds spoke. It move one, then twice. Tom-Tom's eyes narrowed further.

  “See that? That’s code.”

  Klik scratched his scales, “Code for what?”

  Tom-Tom pressed two claws to his temples like that would help him focus harder. The squirrel stared back at him from the bark of the tree trunk that it clung to. Its tail still lashed at the air occassionally.

  “Probably... something dangerous. Something like, ‘the humans went that way’ or, ‘I have buried a forbidden snack.’” Tom-Tom finally said.

  Red-Snout shuffled up behind them, he was chewing on something which sounded suspiciously crunchy to Tom-Tom’s ears. He hoped the kobold wasn’t trying to eat pebbles again. It took weeks to get him to kick that habit last time.

  “Where snack?” Red-Snout asked.

  “Maybe it just squirrel things, no human ally?” Klik added.

  Tom-Tom turned slowly toward both of them. “He. Looked. At. Me. With. Malice.”

  Klik nodded at him in agreement and shuffled forward to squat beside Tom-Tom at the log. Tom-Tom shifted in place to allow some room. His knees ached by now. Kobolds weren’t meant to crouch this long. He had been there, waiting, for many minutes to watch this furry suspect. But, the burning ache in his leg muscle was the burn of victory.

  Red-Snout flopped belly-down beside them and whispered, “Maybe we throw a rock at it?”

  “No!” Tom-Tom hissed. “Then it will forget everything it knows. You have to be clever with interrogation.”

  Klik scratched his head. “We don’t speak squirrel.”

  “That’s what the stare is for,” Tom-Tom muttered.

  Finally, after the long and agonizing stake-out, Tom-Tom rose slowly. He stepped up to the looming tree upon which the squirrel clung itself. The squirrel looked up curiously, twitching its tail.

  Tom-Tom pointed a claw at its beady eyes. He struck what he thought was an intimidating pose and glared at the mammal intently. “Tell me your secrets.”

  Silence followed, obviously because of the squirrel refusing to talk.

  Tom-Tom looked at the squirrel. The squirrel looked at Tom-Tom. The moment stretched, then the squirrel turned, twitched its tail again, a double flick this time, and jumped away up the tree with a casual level of disrespect.

  “LIES!” Tom-Tom screamed. “RUNNING MEANS GUILTY!”

  Klik jumped to his feet. “Do we chase it?”

  “HE KNOWS SOMETHING!” Tom-Tom howled, leaping over the bush and crashing through underbrush like a tiny scaly thunderstorm. “COMMENCE CHASE”

  The squirrel darted from branch to branch. Tom-Tom sprinted below, leaping over roots, ducking branches, all the while his arms flailed wildly. Klik and Red-Snout thrashed along behind him, shouting things that mostly didn’t help.

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  “He turned left!”

  ?“He’s climbing up that tall one!”

  ?“I dropped my pebble!”

  The chase was utter chaos. Birds scattered, leaves flew, a wild deer fled in terror as three kobolds shrieked past it. They vaulted a stream, skidded through a hollow log, slid down a slope of loose moss and dead leaves, and then Tom-Tom tripped on a root and careened forward with a squawk! He landed hard, face-first into a pile of ash.

  “Ow,” he groaned into the dirt.

  Klik slid to a stop nearby, panting. “You okay?”

  Tom-Tom sat up slowly. There was ash stuck to his snout and his left eye twitched. “That squirrel... was trained.”

  Red-Snout flopped down behind them and groaned. “I lost my pebble…”

  But Tom-Tom wasn’t listening. He had brushed ash off his face and tilted his head in confusion. The ground beneath him was… flat. The earth was stamped down. Not kobold-made. The ash came from an old fire pit, long ago cold but it wasn’t ancient. The foliage was pushed back to a perimeter around the fire pit. Twigs, leaves and branches were partially buried, some kicked away by time... or by squirrel feet.

  Klik looked around. “What is this place?”

  “A camp. Not ours, our hunters. Human. ” Tom-Tom stood slowly. He turned in a circle, surveying the whole area around them. It was easy to see that this was once a campsite. But there was even more for him to find. He sniffed. Yes, there was metal and smoke. That faint bitter human-water smell again, and something else. Something that reminded him of the area near the shame-graves.

  Red-Snout was already poking at the ash with a stick.

  Klik walked a slow circle around the site. “They were here? How long?”

  “Long enough to sleep. Long enough to leave clues,” Tom-Tom said. His tone had shifted now. He was still excited, but serious. A his tone shifted to a serious one, a scout’s voice. No, a scale-captains voice. That’s what he needed to be.

  He knelt beside the fire pit and dug a little. He found bits of bone, maybe from a rabbit, as well as some burnt wood. He turned his head—and there, just a few paces away, caught on a low branch, was a scrap of pale green cloth. He plucked it carefully and then smelled it. Human, oil, a faint herbal tang. Not kobold. Not beast. He folded it and tucked it into his pouch.

  “We found it,” he said softly.

  Klik’s brow furrowed. “But they’re gone.”

  Tom-Tom nodded. “They were here. Which means they might come back. Or they’ve left something behind. Something big.”

  Red-Snout stumbled in behind them, arms full of mushrooms. “I lost the squirrel. But I found snacks.”

  Klik was sniffing at a stick at this point, but he abandoned his endeavor and turned his head to Red. Tom-Tom ignored this and stayed focused on the task.

  He took another lap around the camp. His eyes caught scratch marks on the bark of a nearby tree, claw marks, too high for a kobold. Maybe made during a fight. A struggle? He still had the cloth scrap, that was enough proof for now.

  “Doudra will want to hear of this,” he said at last.

  Klik nodded. “What if Doudra asks, how we found it?”

  Tom-Tom huffed, then slowly turned back toward the forest, scanning for movement. He found it, the squirrel. It sat in the fork of a tree, preening its fur and tail. Tom-Tom could see that it was smug. It knew it was triumphant, and untouchable. Tom-Tom hissed.

  “The squirrel led us here,” he whispered.

  Klik looked concerned. “Still a suspect?”

  “He is. But he’s also an informant.”

  The squirrel sneezed, suspiciously, then it darted up into the canopy and vanished. Tom-Tom watched it go with a snarl. The two of them were not finished. Their paths would cross again, and next time it will be Tom-Tom who sat in the tree and cleaned his tail at the end of it. It would be Tom-Tom who got the sneeze of triumph!

  Red-Snout raised his hand. “Do we tell about the squirrel?”

  Tom-Tom hesitated. “No. She’d think we’re dumb.”

  Klik nodded. “Smart.”

  Tom-Tom puffed out his chest. “We just say we tracked them the regular way. Smell, footprints, broken twigs and things. You know, smart scout stuff.”

  The other two nodded. There was a long pause.

  Red-Snout raised his hand again. “...Do we still get to throw rocks at stuff?”

  Tom-Tom grinned. “Only if it lies.”

  Klik cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go tell Doudra.”

  The three of them turned as one and slipped back into the trees, limbs sore, pouches full of ash and secrets. Tom-Tom walked taller. The trail was hot now. The mission clear. Whatever these humans were doing, wherever they were hiding, Tom-Tom would find them.

  And maybe, just maybe, next time… the squirrel would talk.