by Jeff Grubb
"Ah, so we caught the tavernmaster on 'leave-your-brains-at-the-door day,' " sneered Toede, "or have you forgotten that we have no money?"
Groag gave that kenderish shrug again. Toede wished his companion would lose that habit and lose it quickly.
"I… ah… have taken care of that, Highmaster," said Groag. "I showed the master of this house that I was not at a total loss in the kitchen, and he offered a trade of services for quarters."
"What you're saying," said Toede, "is that you got a job."
Groag looked hurt. "Well, if you're going to get technical about it…"
Toede took a pull on the ale, which slid down his throat like hot grease. His last meal (lizard tartare) had been before they had entered the city, and the liquid splashed on an empty stomach. He ran a pointed finger over the puddle left by the mug's sweat. Groag sighed, bracing himself for another hobgoblinish blowup.
Instead Toede sighed and said, "Do you remember the old days, Groag? Before the coming of the dragon high-lords?"
"I remember them being cold and unpleasant," said Groag flatly.
"Bracing," corrected Toede, "and challenging."
"Violent," said Groag, "and primitive."
"Exciting," replied Toede, the ale warming him now, "and dynamic."
"Deadly," said Groag. "Nasty. Bloody."
"Untamed," said Toede. "Primal. Challenging."
"You already said challenging."
"It deserves to be said again," said Toede, slamming the now-empty mug down on the table with a hollow metallic clang. "It was a challenge. What happened to us as a people, that we have been reduced to serving as lackeys for other races, used as dragon-fodder for battles, banned even from proper cities now? What happened, I ask you?"
Groag was silent for a moment and swirled the ale in his mug without drinking it. At length he said, "Perhaps what happened was… you."
Toede looked long and hard at Groag. The smaller hobgoblin continued to surprise him at every turn. Meekly accepting kender masters, learning to cook, getting a job, and now this. It seemed to Toede that at any moment Groag would grow wings and fly away.
As it was, all he could grunt out was a surprised, "Eh?"
Groag leaned forward, as if to tell Toede a mighty secret. "Not you in particular. You in general. A lot of chiefs, shamans, petty ogre lords, and the rest joined up with the dragonarmies, coming out of the cold wilderness and discovering that fireplaces and cooked meat had a lot to recommend them."
"Of course, the thinkers, that would be you," Groag went on, "and me, kept themselves from the battlefield and let the warriors go out and fight. And die. Those that survived would have been great warriors indeed, but the masters we served used our forces as soak-offs. Throw-away troops. Units to keep the opponents' wizards busy while the real troops mopped up their throwaway troops."
Groag sighed and continued. "So our best, most savage warriors were thrown into a meat grinder. Those of us who talked them into it got soft, and those that went the furthest-you, me, your honor guard-got soft faster than the rest."
Groag, with a small smile, sat back. "Then we found out that the same bloody backstabbing rules applied in the cities as in our own corner of the world. But we found it out after everything fell apart on us." He took a long,
satisfied pull on the mug. "Another?"
Toede grunted as his companion pushed himself off the bench, weaving his way to the back. Toede thought of asking for something more filling, but let the thought slip away.
He scanned the room again, a habit ingrained in him back in the "dark old times" Groag talked of. The common room remained the sleepy paragon of an inn that had seen better times. The old sage had fallen asleep; his pipe had gone out, sliding into the front of his robes.
When Groag returned with another pair of foaming mugs, Toede took a long pull on his drink and felt the warmth flow into his fingers and toes. He looked at Groag and asked, "Since when did you get so smart?"
"Not smart, Highmaster," said Groag with a small smile. "A-dap-tive. When I was in the old tribe, I worked with the old ways. When I joined up with you in your court, I adapted to the new ways. When I was caught by the kender, I picked up their ways. Now I'm back with you." Again the shrug. "The good news is that while we were out playing human games, our wilder, more savage cousins were breeding hardier warriors, so at least there's hope for the race, if not for us."
Toede was silent for a moment, feeling the blood rush through his temples like rampaging dragons. "That's the answer, of course."
"Eh?" Groag looked confused.
"Our wild brothers," said Toede. "We go back into the wild and gather a horde of them and lead them back here. Take the town by force. Gildentongue will never give it up. Abyss and Takhisis, he won't even find out that I'm in the city. Nobody recognizes me, and his guards won't even let me get close!"
"Easy, milord, you're shouting," cautioned Groag.
"And I should shout!" bellowed Toede, standing up on his bench. "I expect people to pay attention, to realize who they're dealing with! I am not some 'minion' of a fake god, in whose name one should paw one's collarbone in reverence!"
All heads in the common room turned to watch the commotion. The sage snorted and blinked up from his book. The dominos stopped, and the hooded priest rose from his seat, stopping briefly by the sleeping barbarian.
The innkeeper poked his head into the room and frowned. Groag smiled weakly at his new employer and grabbed at Toede's robe. It was like trying to close the door on a hurricane, and about as effectual.
"Citizens of Flotsam!" cried Toede, stepping onto the table itself and elevating himself to human level. "I have returned to my city to find it laboring under delusions of my death! Delusions that have been put in place by a false prophet and his draconian manipulator! Tell the world that Lord Toede is back, and demands that someone pay attention!"
There was a silence in the room as all froze. Then one of the domino players nudged his companion, and the companion laid down another tile. The sage fished his pipe out of his shirt front and returned to his book. The others returned to their aforementioned drinks.
Toede's face flushed an almost-human shade of pink. "Do you not hear me?" he shouted. "I am Toede, your rightful ruler! Let us storm the gates and bring down the false lord Gildentongue! Spread the word that Toede has returned!"
Again silence. Then the reprise of clacking dominos and normal conversations.
"Toede's complexion darkened to a still-redder shade, "Doesn't anyone care? Isn't anyone listening?" he bellowed.
The silence following Toede's shout was broken by a sharp twang, then Toede's left shoulder exploded in pain. The highmaster clutched his arm and found that a smooth, feathered cylinder protruded from midway in the upper arm. From where the cylinder met his flesh, a growing smear of blood stained his ragged robe.
A crossbow bolt, said one part of his mind.
You've fallen to your knees, said another part.
Someone is talking to you, said a third; you'd best pay attention.
"Hobgoblin," said the hooded priest, dropping the spent crossbow and pulling a sword, "I hereby arrest you in the name of Lord Gildentongue and Holy Hopsloth the Water Prophet, blessed be their names. You are charged with insurrection, heresy, blasphemy, and"-the human smiled at this-"imitating the First Minion, the departed Lord Toede. You are guilty of all these crimes. The sentence is death."
Toede heard Groag say, in a voice that seemed to be at the far end of a tunnel, "Of all the times for someone to listen to you."
Chapter 6
In which Our Protagonist is set upon by an agent of his opposition without benefit of a proper introduction, and decides to bring the war home to his enemy.
A blackness rose within Toede and threatened to overwhelm him. But something else rose as well, a feeling of rage, a bright red blossom against that black. He had not come so far just to die in some pigsty of a bar, like a common, a common… commoner.
Toede
forced open his eyes and saw the human "priest." Part of his mind made the mental correction-everyone knows priests don't as a rule use swords-so he must be an assassin or warrior or whatever. Some agent of Gilden-tongue's. Stars danced and glittered around the approaching figure.
The other figures in the bar had evaporated. The barbarian was still asleep on his bench, but as for the rest, they vanished within moments of the crossbow bolt striking flesh.
Toede's mind was working faster than his body. He's going to kill you, noted one part. Find a weapon, said another. Run, said a third. Do something, reiterated the first.
Toede's left arm had stopped sending panic signals, or at least Toede had become immune to them, for the limb now hung like a dead weight. He dropped his right hand back to his side, his knuckles grazing something metallic that rolled slightly as he jostled it: his empty ale mug.
As he fumbled for the mug, his fingers felt like they were wrapped in bandages. The human figure now towering over him raised an arm. Laughing, said one part of Toede's mind. The swing of the blade will pass right through my neck, said the second. I think we all agree that I should do something, said the third, and relatively quickly at that.
Have to find time to collect my wits, responded Toede (or at least one part of Toede's brain). His fingers closed at last over the mug's handle, and all the disparate parts of his mind united to shout, "Swing it!"
Toede brought the mug around, hard as he could. His aim was bad, and if he had been standing toe-to-toe with his assailant, he would have smashed it against the front of the other's calves, square in the protective armor shin guards.
However, Toede was not toe-to-toe with his opponent. He was kneeling on a tabletop, so the wild swing connected with the human a short distance below his belt line, which is a position not protected by buckle, armor, or anything else beyond normal cloth.
The human attacker howled. Toede could not gloat from his well-placed strike, however; he was carried by the force of his own blow off the table. His wounded shoulder screamed with pain as he hit the flagstone floor. Colors never seen in nature swam and danced before his eyes.
Toede tried to rise, but had to settle for a three-limbed crawl to put some distance between him and the howling human. At ten feet (or ten miles, he was unsure about the exact distance), he ventured a look backward.
Groag (Groag! shouted his mind) was fighting with their human assailant. Well, not so much fighting as dancing, trying to keep a large serving platter between himself and the assassin.
But to Toede's pain-overloaded mind, Groag did have the grace of a dancer, nimbly parrying an overhand blow with the platter, jabbing the platter's edge at his assailant, then stepping aside sprightly as a side-arm slash went wide and carved a new divot in the plaster.
To a more objective (and less damaged) observer, Groag was little more than a flurry of motion, trying everything at once to keep the assailant at bay, while scurrying for cover between the tables and benches. The small hobgoblin's face was sheet-white, but he seemed as yet unmarked.
The human's face was knotted in pain and flushed red with anger, but otherwise their assailant was none the worse for wear.
The various parts of Toede's mind held a quick confab. Run, said one part of his brain. No, the human would finish Groag off in a matter of moments, then Toede would ^ be on his own. Then fight, said another part. No, Toede was in no shape to do anything more than bite his attacker in the shins. Get help, said that third part. The sleeping barbarian.
Toede smiled painfully and started to pull himself slowly toward the inert form still reclining on a bench, an empty mason jar overturned nearby.
Barbarians were easy targets, thought Toede, especially if drunk or sleepy. Or breathing. A quick story about how an evil spirit had transformed itself to look like the queen's brother, and one of these shaggy-headed warriors would charge any old castle, leaving destruction in his or her path. One such as this, bare-chested, animal-skinned, bedecked with daggers and sleeping atop a scabbard with a great sword, would be a perfect rescuer. The fact that Toede was already bleeding and helpless would just further underscore his peril.
Toede reached the sleeping form and realized that Gildentongue's agent had apparently had the same thought-but much earlier. A second smile bloomed underneath the barbarian's chin, and the blood was starting to drip onto the floor in heavy clots.
Panic now seized Toede, and he looked back in time to see Groag's impromptu shield being batted from his hands and sent clanging against the far wall. Half a minute tops, thought Toede, and I will lose my army of one. And then, it will be my turn.
The barbarian was lying on his scabbard, so Toede grabbed one of the daggers hanging from the dead man's belt. He held it by the blade, as he always did for throwing.
The knives that Toede had practiced with, a lifetime ago, were weighted such that an expert toss would cause the weapon to spin in a half-circle, end-over-end, so that the business end of the blade would bury itself in the target upon impact. It was a stylish way of driving one's point home in any semantic argument, but required a dagger specially intended for such use-lean and thin, finely balanced, with just enough weight to punch through a leather jerkin.
This was a barbarian's blade, and as such crafted more for close infighting than stylish tossing. A thick hunk of ragged metal chipped to something close to an edge, then jammed into a makeshift hilt made of horn and wrapped with leather strips.
The mason jar would likely be easier to throw, but at the moment Toede did not have time to shop around. He muttered a short curse to any dark gods that may have been listening and flung the knife in the general direction of the human. Perhaps it would at least distract the human long enough for Groag to gain some new cover.
The blade left Toede's hand and flew with all the grace and delicate deadliness of a brick. It spun, as he'd hoped it would, but when it straightened it traveled with the hilt first and blade trailing. Oops.
But it was enough. The human assassin turned toward it, either with an instinct for its approach or just looking around for Toede. The heavy hilt struck him just above the right temple like the aforementioned brick. The human's head snapped suddenly away from the impact, and the blade bonked to the ground.
The human swayed for a moment, his eyes trying to focus on Toede. Then he slowly collapsed, as if all the air had been let out of him.
Toede staggered to his feet uneasily. Groag lost no time in capitalizing on Toede's throw, and could be found beating on the human's head and shoulder with his serving platter shield-weapon. The human twitched a few times, held his hands up to ward off the attack, then dropped fully into unconsciousness.
Toede looked around. The regulars and sailors had vanished into the night, along with the old man and the domino players. The scar-faced innkeep reappeared once the noise subsided, his face trapped between the horror of what had happened and fear about what might happen next.
"Get me a healer," hissed Toede to the man. The innkeep motioned toward his collarbone, and Toede guessed there was a coin-shaped medallion beneath his shirt.
"That was an agent of Gildentongue, minion to the Water Prophet," said the innkeep.
Toede had had enough. He snarled, "Gildentongue is the second minion. I am the first, and I have returned to bring my vengeance upon those who use Holy Hopsloth as a puppet. Bring me a healer. Potion. Poultice. Something to stem the bleeding and close the wound. Whatever you have, but bring it now."
Toede said a few other things at this point, but they are unprintable, and most were said to the innkeeper's back as the scar-faced human scurried out of the room. Toede staggered over to Groag, who was leaning against the wall, serving platter still gripped in his paws, breathing heavily, his tiny piglike eyes bulging from their sockets in exertion.
"Has anyone," said Groag, gulping for air, "has anyone said you were a dangerous person to hang around with?" "None that lived," muttered Toede. "Good to see you haven't lost your 'savage' nature after all. H
e alive?"
"Uh-huh," gasped Groag. "You think I have the strength to kill a human with a dinner platter? Go ahead, you try. I'll be glad to watch."
Toede rolled the human over on his back. Thick, curly black hair and beard around an otherwise nondescript face. Another stranger. Was that because Gildentongue had brought in his own band of agents, or just that Toede never paid attention to the humans in the good old days? Toede grimaced half in embarrassment and half in pain. He unbuttoned the assassin's shirt and found a large coin-shaped locket, this one as big as a hill gianf s thumbnail.
It was the first one he'd seen at close range, and he pulled it from the human's neck. The chain was good quality gold, as was the clasp. The disk was some bronze or brass alloy, apparently stamped for production in mass quantities. One side was flat, the other showing the beaming features of Holy Hopsloth. From the beatific glow of the amphidragon's face, the creature had just eaten a team of oxen. He looked fatter than ever. Toede doubted that Gildentongue even took the beast out for rides.
Toede grunted, pocketing the symbol. Groag wiped the sweat from his brow and said, "He was a fanatic for Hop-sloth and Gildentongue."
"Fanatic?"
"Didn't you hear him during the fight?" asked Groag.
"I was busy bleeding." Toede realized that his fingers were growing stickier by the moment.
Groag nodded at the unconscious man. "He was shouting about how he was the messenger of the Water Prophet and all, and that he had been commanded to strike down the imposter of the minion (that would be you), and so on and so forth."
"A soak-off," grumbled Toede. "Pardon?" said Groag.
Toede scowled. "Gildentongue must have got reports of me, or someone claiming to be me, in the city. Probably from one of the guards this afternoon. So he sent an assassin-not his best, likely, or else he would be seen as paranoid. Just a soak-off. A throwaway warrior."
Groag saw Toede's face curl into a tight ball, and was suddenly unwilling to ask his lord to share his thoughts. The innkeep returned with a pair of small vials and a short strip of cured leather.