by Elliott Kay
“Yeah!” She clapped her hands together, producing a large puff of flame between them that died out before her hands were back at her hips. “Big ones, little ones. Even light without heat or heat without light. Keep ‘em going long even with only a little bit of fuel to burn, too. Or snuff ‘em out fast. But I don’t do it for free.”
“Nothing wrong with making a living on your skills.” War Cloud shrugged.
“Damn right! So why are you two going around with all the freebies? Makin’ me look bad!”
“We want to help the camp,” said Yargol.
“That’s where we started this conversation. Can’t fool me with your circular logic,” said Ikri.
“Are you a wizard, or anointed with power by one of the gods?” asked Yargol.
“Don’t need no anointing. That sounds perverted. And no, I’m not some wizard type, either. Don’t need all that book learnin’ to be smart or know magic. Some things you can figure out on your own if you try hard.”
“Then how long have you had this talent for fire?”
“All my life. Burned down my first hut before I was a year old. Dad was pissed, but Momma knew I had a gift. Showed me how to use it to get by as I grew up.”
“So you didn’t pick it up here in Zition?” Yargol asked.
“Hell, no. Been doing it since I was small, like I said. Practiced all my life.”
“Ah. It’s not unheard of for some individuals to manifest a talent for a narrow few magical effects. An inborn ability, not the ongoing gift of a god or long study.”
“Who says it wasn’t a god who gave it to me?” asked Ikri. “Don’t want any worship for it, though. Work’s enough. Did great until we got thrown out of the south. Still helps up here—but not if everyone feels entitled to my skills, see?”
“I think healing the sick and injured may be a little different,” said War Cloud. He tilted his head in thought. “Are you why the fires went out so soon after the attack?”
“Yeah. Too far away to help with the fight before it was over, but I came running. Doesn’t do me any good if the whole camp burns down. I live here.”
“We feel the same way about sickness. Disease spreads and affects us all.”
“Are old tables sickness?” She pointed to Yargol’s work.
The magician rolled his eyes beneath his hood. “I will make clear my aid is a matter of my own choice and not something to be expected of others.”
“Huh. That’s something. Still gonna hear all kinds of grief from everyone who wants free magic. Don’t mind helping out where it’s needed but everyone’s gotta make a living.”
“Fair enough. Survival and aid for the suffering are our first concern.” War Cloud gave her a slight bow. “We’ll think twice before overstepping our boundaries.”
“Good.” Ikri gestured to someone behind the pair. “Might want to tell that to them, too.”
A small crowd of mixed races gathered behind them, most keeping a respectful distance from three individuals in the lead. A hobgoblin woman in a tattered dress and bone jewelry stomped up toward them along with the first bugbear War Cloud or Yargol had ever seen in robes—and an orc in black trousers, a black coat over a ragged white shirt, and a black tie.
“Hey!” shouted the orc. “We heard you’re leading our flocks astray with sin and free magic!”
“We—wait, what?” War Cloud blinked. “That’s a sin?”
“Have they sacrificed for it?” the orc pressed. “Have they dug deep into their coin purses and prayed for salvation?”
“It’s a refugee camp. Everyone’s broke.”
“The faithful prosper in any circumstance, and prosperity shows!”
Yargol looked around at the tents and meager belongings. “It shows in their coinpurses?”
“Yes, and in their—” He stopped short, blinking. “Are you a goblin or a half-hob, or... what the hell are you?”
Yargol already had a patient hand up at War Cloud’s arm. “I am one seeking refuge, much like yourself. I have magic to offer to improve the camp. Can you say the same?”
“Never mind Reverend Ostiin,” grumbled the hobgoblin in bones. “What’s your goal here? Are you starting a religion of your own?”
“We’re helping the sick and wounded. Who are you?”
“Sharl of Woodlock, Midnight Guide.”
War Cloud gave her a slight bow. “Good to know the camp has a Midnight Guide to see to the fallen. I am War Cloud, a paladin of Dastia. My friend Yargol is a wizard rather than a servant of faith.”
“Does the paladin of Dastia challenge the primacy of Ooglan VharBorl?” the bugbear asked in a loud baritone. He stepped in close to look War Cloud eye to eye.
“Never heard of him,” War Cloud replied without blinking. “Sounds like you made that up by mashing mouth-noises together.”
“You have never heard of him because he has only manifested himself in this world through my dark powers!”
“Which are?”
The robed bugbear threw his arms out wide. Clouds of inky shadow fell from his hands, fading like vapors before they touched the ground. “I am Dusklord! I can turn the day to night.”
War Cloud glanced to Yargol. “I don’t sense anything from him. This effect doesn’t look the same, either.”
“He likely conjures shadows drawn from natural sources,” said Yargol. “It happens. Never mind him.”
“What? No, I don’t! I bring them from the realm of the darkest god!”
“You have a minor magical talent and a naturally loud voice. That doesn’t make you a dark emissary,” Yargol sighed. “Find a tutor and you might make a decent wizard someday.”
“Wait, really?” asked Dusklord.
“Is this all of the magicians and clerics in Zition here?” War Cloud asked, looking around. He peered past Dusklord and Reverend Ostiin to find a couple of goblins hidden behind the larger folk. Both looked just odd enough to suggest magical inclination, religious stature, or a loud pretense of either.
Yet another glowering form pushed through the crowd, this one a hobgoblin with his hair cut close to the scalp with runic scars dug into his skin. Well-used leather armor and an axe painted with tiny skulls finished his appearance. “Who’s going around preaching now?” he demanded. “This is a goblin folk camp! Ravaj holds primacy here!”
“Oh, put a sock in it, Ardnar,” muttered Sharl.
War Cloud rolled his eyes, looking back to Yargol. “There had to be one.”
“Presumably,” said Yargol. “I don’t see anyone else coming.”
“Good. Hold on,” War Cloud said to the newcomer and the others. He stepped back, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. His bestial head rolled across his shoulders as if stretching out his muscles, but his ears stayed perked up and the rest of his body tensed. Then he relaxed and looked to Yargol. “Nothing. None of them.”
“We can take that with relief,” said the magician.
“You think? It would hide from my senses, wouldn’t it?”
“Anyone with magical talent would leverage it to their advantage in these circumstances,” said Yargol. “If there is someone else with such talent in Zition, we’ll hear of them soon enough, and we’ll know it isn’t any of these folk.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Sharl.
“We encountered a power from beyond this world in the woods,” Yargol explained. “Shadow tentacles and a possessed human. Cracks in the very air. Have you seen anything of the sort in the camp?”
“Nothing like that,” Sharl answered.
Dusklord stepped back nervously. War Cloud rolled his eyes. “No, not you.”
“I haven’t heard an answer to my questions, paladin of Dastia,” said Ostiin. “Are you here to find worshippers for your god? To lead others astray?”
“You mean is he here to threaten your paltry income?” muttered Sharl.
“It’s a fair question,” Ostiin shot back. “Offerings to the gods demonstrate piety and assure continued prosperity.”
“Your prosperity, maybe.”
“No,” said War Cloud. “It’s not that I don’t care, but we’ve got bigger problems to deal with. All of you, listen: that mess of shadow tentacles may have been a coincidence, but it could be a sign of something more. They came from a possessed human who had to have been out here looking for something. If you see magical plagues or signs of madness, it has to be dealt with right away. We can’t let that shit spread. If it’s here, we need to find the source. All I can say for sure right now is it isn’t any of you.”
“Wait, hold on,” said Ardnar. “Did you go throwing your magic around just to draw us in so you could sniff us all for possession?”
“Yes. Yes, we did,” said Yargol.
“Gotta admit, that’s kind of clever,” said Sharl.
“As long as we’re all here, we can explain ourselves once and be done with it,” said War Cloud. “We’re here to help the camp however we can. We’re not here to start a holy war or steal anyone else’s followers. I don’t care if you’re the true priest of a god or if half of your divine power comes from cheap card tricks,” he said, throwing a look at Ostiin. “Preach. Pray. Sell your magic for profit. Follow the dictates of your gods or make up your own, I don’t care. We’re not here to bend this camp to our will.” He looked to Ostiin again and to the priest of Ravaj. “We are all on the same side here. We will heal the wounded and tend to the sick. Get in our way and I will cleave your skull in two.”
Ardnar gave War Cloud his fiercest snarl before turning to stomp away. Ostiin puffed out his chest and said, “Fine. I’m glad we had this talk.”
* * *
The map came without fuss or favors owed in return. Shady Tooth carried her own simple brush and ink in her pouch, though the former was worn out and the latter running low. The first obstacle to her task came from the lack of paper or parchment in the camp, a need resolved with the back side of one of the wanted posters Teryn had collected in her travels.
Only one other difficulty remained as Shady Tooth copied the map of the area. He loomed over her with a torch in hand to provide light, watching as she worked on a flat rock between several tents. “You copy fast,” said Ruck.
She grunted without looking up.
“Words, too.” The brawny bugbear tilted his head when she didn’t respond. “You can read?”
“Yes.”
“Hm. You fight well. Better than my crew.”
“Yes.” She was almost done. The map was only a simple matter of landmarks.
“Do you want me?” asked Ruck.
“No.”
He grunted. Pursed his lips. Thought. “Should I ask again later?”
“No.”
Another grunt. A nod. “My boys will want to know the same.”
“None of them. No conditions. Here.” She handed back the original map. “Thanks.”
He let out a final grunt. Creases in the map let Ruck fold it easily with one hand. “I’ll let them know,” he said, and walked off into the night.
A rustle of canvas drew Shady Tooth’s attention to the closest tent. Teryn poked her head out from the open flap, having risen only to her hands and knees with a frown. “It’s that simple for you?” she hissed. “For bugbears?”
“What?” Shady Tooth blinked.
“Romance. Men. Mating.” She waved her hand in Ruck’s direction. “That.”
“What do you mean?”
“They just ask if you’re interested and you say no and they go away?” Teryn pressed.
Shady Tooth shrugged. “Yes.”
“And he doesn’t throw a tantrum or start rumors about you or get sullen and pissy whenever you’re around?”
“That’s what it’s like for humans? How do you even stand each other long enough to breed?”
At a loss for words, Teryn let out a far more emotive grunt than any of Ruck’s as she pulled back inside the tent. Silhouetted by the light of a glowstone inside the tent, Shady Tooth saw Teryn fling herself into her bedroll.
Another silhouette rose as Yargol sat up. “Didn’t you grow up sheltered and—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Teryn complained into her makeshift pillow.
“Do you need us to hunt someone down and extract vengeance from them?”
“…maybe,” came her muffled reply. “Several.”
* * *
The topic stayed with her as she drifted off to sleep. It returned along with waking thoughts. The memories were about as unpleasant as the light on the other side of her eyelids, but at least the tent and the camp were quiet.
As one thought on the subject of men and break-ups and rejection led to another, Teryn snapped fully awake. She sat upright in her bedroll to look around the tent. Yargol’s bedroll lay empty behind hers. War Cloud sat on top of his simple fur blanket, polishing the symbol of Dastia he wore around his neck. He looked at her with an unspoken question.
“They should have lost more horses,” she said.
“You think?”
“Yes. They were in a full charge, all in good form—at night—and then the ground exploded. Only a few of them completely lost their horses. Hardly any of the others panicked. Some even came out of that trench uninjured. And they came all the way here from outside Eastford in the first place, ready to fight.”
“I don’t have much experience with horses,” War Cloud admitted. “What do you suspect?”
“Bandits take whatever horses they can find. Young, old, barely trained or not. Most of those horses last night were healthy and trained. Almost uniformly.” She threw off her small blanket and reached for her boots. “Do you know if the others are up? Wait, what time is it?”
“The sun has been up a couple hours. We thought you’d be out well into the day. Scars came to grab Yargol to get food only a little while ago. A couple of the cooks started serving again. They wanted to get in line. Shady Tooth is out cold in the other tent. I guess DigDig wandered off already.”
“The cooks are still working after the sun came up?”
“You’ve seen us live in the sun,” War Cloud chuckled. “We’re no more limited to the night than humans are limited to the day.”
“It had to be three in the morning when we went to bed. You’re all up again already? After a night like last night?”
“We don’t need that much sleep. Even Yargol. Lucky thing for a magician.”
“And goblins know how to fight from birth. Gnolls, too, I’m sure? And orcs? How have your peoples not conquered the world?”
War Cloud rolled his eyes. “Somebody’s people keep coughing up heroes to go on incredible quests favored by the gods.”
“Whatever. How did things go? Did you and Yargol find what you were looking for?”
“No sign of anything suspicious. We met with the shamans here and walked back and forth across the camp twice. That hardly covers the whole area, but I detected nothing. Either there’s no such evil here, or it’s hidden well. Nothing more frustrating than searching for what may not even exist.”
“Do you know where to go for food?”
“Yeah, I was waiting for you.”
With her clothes and weapons collected, Teryn stopped before she crawled out of the tent. “Waited, or stayed behind to protect?”
“I’m a paladin of the hearth goddess. If I’m in a tent, I’m protecting it.”
Out of the tent, Teryn and War Cloud took in the sight of the camp in daylight. The morning haze hadn’t burned off yet. The camp struck Teryn as much quieter now than when she’d turned in for what remained of the night. She heard fewer voices and saw fewer bodies moving in the gaps between tents. Still, as War Cloud noted, the camp hadn’t gone to sleep.
“And yes,” he said quietly, walking beside her with one arm out to guide the way, “we thought our sole human friend shouldn’t be alone in a camp of exiled goblin folk we’ve only just met.”
Teryn and War Cloud emerged from the maze of tents into a small clearing, where several tree trunks lay line
d up in front of a single, open-faced tent. Smoke rose from a large campfire beside the canvass shelter, heating a series of large pots on a rack. A pair of goblin cooks worked the pots and the table covered by the tent, where crude wooden bowls and plates were stacked up after the meal. Only a handful of diners sat on the tree trunks, mostly goblins with a scattering of hobgoblins. Each largely kept to their own kind.
She felt eyes on her as she walked with War Cloud to the tent. The cooks seemed indifferent. “Anything left?” asked War Cloud.
“Rabbit stew,” said the one at the fire. “Normally we’d be scraping the pots by now, but not this time.”
“Did you cook up the fallen horses from the battle already?” Teryn thought out loud. “The one deer we brought in couldn’t have made that much difference.”
“Yeah, that was you?” asked the other goblin. “Next time you bring in so much meat, try bringin’ it to us first. That was downright unfair taking it to the first cook on the edge of camp.”
“Sorry. We’ll keep it in mind,” said War Cloud.
“Anyway, yeah, the horses that didn’t make it have already been doled out. Can’t let ‘em go to waste when we’re all—”
“Whoa, are they eating here?” called a deep, gravelly voice from the makeshift benches. “Is she eating here?”
“Is she paying?” asked one goblin cook. He looked directly at Teryn.
“Of course,” she answered.
“Then yeah,” the goblin called back. “I’ll take any customer who pays.”
“That’s bullshit!” protested the voice.
She knew it was one of the hobgoblins before she glanced over her shoulder—and, in fact, regretted the glance, and also regretted the sudden return to facing forward when the hobgoblin and his friends stood up. She probably looked weak now. “This is why you came with me, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“Yeah, but it’s best if you handle it yourself,” War Cloud replied.
“Alright.” She accepted the challenge with a deep breath. “How far does this have to go to win their respect? Weapons? No weapons?”
“Wait, what?”