“These aren’t ordinary goblins, sir,” Slith stated, as he and Kang helped the hobbling Gloth limp farther back among the trees. “I think we have proof now, that these goblins are acting on orders. Someone wants us dead, sir.”
“Now there’s a surprise!” Kang grunted. “I don’t have fingers and toes enough to count everyone who wants us dead.”
“Goblins aren’t usually among that number, sir,” Slith argued. “Goblins are usually on our side. Those who hire them are on our side, if you take my meaning, sir. The cursed Solamnics wouldn’t be likely to fund goblin assassins.”
“Which means that someone on our side wants us dead.” Kang was thoughtful. This introduced a totally new aspect to the situation. “But why?” He answered his own question. “The females.”
“We’re a threat to someone, sir. We know that Queen Takhisis-I spit on her name and her memory”-Slith matched his words with the action-”intended us to die out once we were no longer of any use to her. She feared us, and now it seems that even though she’s gone, others fear us, too.”
“But who?” Kang demanded impatiently, studying the arrow he was still carrying, like a talisman. “Who even knows about the babies?”
“Those dwarves know, sir, and they’re certainly not above selling the information.”
“Right,” Kang muttered. “I forgot about them, drat their hairy hides. I wonder-”
“Where’s the commander?” a voice was shouting.
Draconians hissed and pointed. Whenever a dracon-ian moved, an arrow zipped his direction.
Kang raised up quickly. “Here!” he shouted. An arrow struck his back, lodged in his chain mail armor. Slith plucked it out, broke it in two, and cast it into the snow. Kang hunkered back down.
“Sir!” A draconian slid through the snow, halted beside Kang, bringing a storm of arrows in their direction. The draconians flattened themselves into the snow, waited for the onslaught to pass. “Sir!” the draconian continued, “we’ve found a large stone building. It’s outside the tree cover, in the middle of the plains, about a mile away! It’s right out in the open, sir, but the building’s good and solid.”
“Excellent!” Kang was about to tell his troops to move out.
“There’s only one problem, sir.”
“What’s that?” Kang asked impatiently.
“It’s a Temple of Paladine, sir.”
A temple of Paladine. Their most implacable enemy. The great god of the righteous on Krynn. In the old days, no draconian would have dared set a claw inside a temple of Paladine. The wrath of the god would have fried the meat from his bones.
“Paladine’s gone,” said Kang. “From what we hear, he fled the world five months ago along with our cowardly queen.”
“What if we heard wrong, sir?” Gloth asked. He had packed his wound with snow, and the bleeding had stopped.
“We’ll have to chance it,” Kang said. “Slith, you go on ahead, check things out. Take Support Squadron with you.”
He could hear shouts, sounds of fighting. The goblins had given up shooting at them from afar and were now attacking.
“Yes, sir!” Slith was up and gone before the archers had a chance to target him.
“Fall back by squadrons,” Kang shouted. “Support Squadron first. Gloth, can you hold the line?”
“Yes, sir,” Gloth said and began to issue commands.
The wind howled through the sparse copse of trees, kicking up snow from the ground that stung the eyes and half-blinded them. The sound of fighting was far away, but that was a trick of the winter wind. His soldiers, the dra-conians of the First Dragonarmy Field Engineer Regiment, were only five hundred yards away through the sparse tree cover.
Runners went scrambling across the snow to relay the orders he had just given. Kang hurried to the rear to take a look at the temple himself. He paused in the shelter of the trees, gazed across the plains to the building that would serve as their redoubt. The forward companies were doing an excellent job of keeping the goblins occupied. No arrows back here, not yet-but it would be only a matter of time.
The temple was large with two levels, few windows and those were lead-lined stained glass. A dome surmounted it. The building was made of marble that gleamed whiter than the snow. A wall surrounded the temple. Behind the temple and along the wall were several outbuildings. Kang could just barely see their red-tiled roofs.
The snow wasn’t nearly as deep on the plains as it was in the forest. The wind swept the frozen ground clean, sent the snow piling up in drifts in front of the temple wall.
He watched as Slith cautiously approached the temple’s holy grounds, which could be just as dangerous to the draconians as goblin arrows. Nothing and no one attacked him. Kang could see no signs of guards on the walls. Slith kicked in the front gate.
Support Squadron, nearly seventy strong, came up behind Kang. He raised a hand, ordered a halt. Support Squadron had been tasked with keeping the young female draconians safe. Every one of them had sworn a blood oath to defend to the death the babies they carried. Fulkth, the Chief Engineer and commander of the squadron, came to stand beside Kang.
“Looks good,” he said.
“It’s a Temple of Paladine,” Kang returned.
Fulkth’s long tongue flicked out between his teeth. “Must be nigh unto six hundred goblins on our tail, sir.”
Kang snorted, said nothing. Slith came out of the front, began waving his arm back and forth, the signal that all was well.
“Go!” Kang ordered and Support Squadron moved out, heading for the temple at a run. They passed Slith, who was returning to make his report.
“You think we can hold there, Slith?” Kang asked.
“Yes, sir. Support Squadron can fortify the doors and windows. That brick wall is good and solid. It’ll give pause to the goblins. They’ll think twice before they try coming over the wall after us.”
“Just like they thought twice about tracking us through the snow,” Kang muttered. “I’m sorry, Slith. It’s not your fault. I’m in a bad mood, that’s all.”
“I know how you feel, sir,” Slith said. He gave a shiver, his scales clicked. Normally, the dragon heritage of the draconians would protect them from the cold, but if the temperature dropped too low, the draconians couldn’t adjust to it and faced the possibility of freezing to death.
The temperature was dropping.
“No problems inside?” Kang asked. “No holy force tried to prevent you from entering?”
“No, sir.” Slith grinned, showing a row of sharp teeth. “The rumors we heard must be true. Paladine’s long gone. No one else is inside either, at least that I could see.”
“Fulkth will check the place out. I’ll make the temple my headquarters. Let’s go.”
Kang and his small security detail of five baaz draco-nians raced to the temple. Support Squadron had already entered the gateway of the temple grounds. He could hear Fulkth shouting commands to search the buildings, secure the windows and the doors. Kang had reached the gate when one of his guards called his attention behind them. A runner was coming toward him, using his wings to hop and glide, letting the wind help carry him across the plain.
The runner skidded to a halt.
“Sir, Squadron Master Gloth reports that the goblins broke through his first line, but that he repelled the break and now the goblins have retreated three hundred yards. He thinks its only temporary, though, and wants to know if you want him to pull back to the temple, sir.”
Kang looked at Slith. “What do you think?”
Slith shrugged. “They’ve got to pull back sometime, sir. Might as well be now.”
“How’s it looking up there?” Kang asked the runner.
“We’ve lost four or five of ours, but one was Kelemek, the bozak, and when he went, he took nearly twenty goblins with him.”
“Hate to lose him, all the same.”
Another one of us gone, Kang thought. Our numbers grow fewer every day. Maybe we should have stayed in the valley. .
“Sir?” Slith was regarding his commander in concern.