Toede set off in the direction of the whining, ignoring the reflection that if he always expected the best, he would without a doubt always be disappointed. As it was, Toede was bound to be disappointed, first because it took a short while to locate the source of the sound, and second by the nature of the sound itself.
It was a dog, or something that looked like a dog, mired in the bog. The poor creature was trapped in the viscous and unavoidable draw of an oily patch of quickmud. The swamp was full of such patches, Toede imagined, where the water contained enough dirt and other debris to look like solid ground, yet was slippery enough to become a mini-quagmire.
The dog-thing was trapped, its gold-yellow head and muzzle straining to remain above the water line. Mud caked its fur up to the jawline, and Toede could see that it was in the last throes of its struggle. The dog looked like one of the kender's mastiffs, with a few exceptions accountable to differences in breed. The nose was more pointed, like that of a weasel. The ears, set farther back on the head, were triangular and upright. The neck (what was showing) was significantly muscular and hunched.
And the look in its eyes was the dumbest-dog-look Toede had ever seen, exceeding even the stupidest of his hunting hounds. The eyes regarded Toede with a look halfway between pleading (please get me out), unadulterated hatred (how dare you not drown with me), and mild pleasure (did you bring any food?). Even as it regarded him, the pathetic dog-thing ceased to struggle, and sank a half inch farther into the muck.
Toede cursed. Not because of the cruelty of fate that apparently led the animal to its near demise. And not because Toede expected better food on the hoof.
Toede cursed because the creature was about fifteen feet out in a nearly circular pond of mud. Here was dinner, almost dead and ready to be served up, and it was out of his reach!
The mud-hole was surrounded by willows and other bushy trees, a few of which had sufficient overhang for a normal male hobgoblin to reach the animal. Unfortunately, Toede was much less than a normal male (in the height department, at least) and would still be unable to reach and grasp, much less haul up, a struggling animal.
Toede wracked his brains while the dog whined at him. "I'm thinking," he snarled, as if the dog would immediately understand and die quietly rather than disturb him. The dog whined again.
"Simple. Got it," said Toede. "Don't go away," he told the dog, "I'll be right back." And Toede set off for higher, drier ground, returning a minute later with two pieces of wood, one a long, misshapened pole about five feet in length, the other a truncated club. He put the club next to the base of one of the younger willows and, holding the pole in one stubby mitt, began to shimmy up the sapling.
The willow bent as he ascended, a little at first, then more and more until its trunk was running parallel to the surface of the mud. Toede was prepared to abandon his plan at the first sound of the tree cracking, but he had chosen well, for the sapling was supple enough to bend, but strong enough to hold his weight easily.
As he climbed, Toede talked to the dog in the same manner as he talked to his own hounds when coaxing them out of their dens for another hunt. "Okay, boy"-all dogs were "boy" to Toede, unless proved otherwise by bearing puppies-"I'm going to climb up here and steady myself. Then I'm going to take the pole, and you're going to take it with your mouth. Bite it. Then I'm going to drag you back to shore. Okay?" Toede silently added: And then I'm going to bash your skull in before you regain your strength. Part of his brain was already thinking of dog carcass roasting on an open fire.
Throughout all this the dog remained inert, no longer struggling and sinking. The creature's lower muzzle was only an inch above the muddy water, and it no longer whined, or for that matter, growled. It continued to regard Toede pathetically with its dumb-dog looks.
"Okay, I'm steady now," said Toede, locking his legs around the bending bole of the tree. "Now you're going to bite the stick. Bite the stick, boy. Come on, bite it." He whistled at the creature and clicked his tongue.
It was then that the dog did a very undoglike thing. A huge, muscular arm, its fur caked in muck, rose from the water by the creature's head and grasped firmly on Toede's stick, pulling hard on the makeshift pole Toede had lowered.
Toede panicked and immediately dropped the pole, trying to shimmy back down the willow sapling without unlocking his legs. But even as he dropped the pole, the giant undoglike creature reached out and grabbed a nearby branch of the Toede-bent willow, and slowly began hauling itself out of the water, moving hand-overhand toward the shore.
Toede shimmied backward even faster, in the process reducing the weight on the willow and helping the creature emerge that much faster. The doglike head and huge neck were mounted on a great humanoid body, with a broad, muscular chest. Its arms were each the diameter of Toede's paunch and another half-Toede for good measure. Toede's mind raced to think of creatures that matched its unusual appearance.
Gnoll. The undoglike dog was not a dog but a gnoll. Toede's mind reviewed what he knew of the hyena-headed humanoids, noted for their low intelligence, nasty dispositions, and voracious appetites. Toede's mind wondered, How could anyone be so stupid as to think this was a dog? Toede's mind looked shamefully at his feet.
Of course Toede was not listening to his mind at the moment, or his stomach or any other organ that was not directly involved with getting him far from this snarling beast (and it was snarling now, unrecognizable gnoll-curses as it half pulled, half waded its way to shore).
Toede slipped back a few more feet, then leaped for solid ground.
Or at least what he thought was solid ground, only a few feet from where he had stashed the club. And the ground was solid, as far as the weight of a small being walking around on it was concerned. Leaping from a tree four feet up in the air was another matter entirely.
The soil crumbled away, back into the mudhole, taking the highmaster with it. Toede bellowed as he fell forward. He felt his entire lower body slide into the dirty water.
It's only worse if you panic, his mind said, and was rewarded with a lively string of curses from the rest of Toede's body, which was flailing, reaching, and twisting in all directions at once to pull itself out of the muck, while only succeeding in driving more of itself deeper into the mire.
I don't know why I even try, sniped Toede's mind.
Toede reached out with one muddy arm for a handful of long grass attached to the (presumably) solid bank, only to be rewarded with the entire plant being pulled out by its roots. Toede cursed one more time as he felt the muck touch his lower lip.
Then a strong arm, its biceps as wide as a Toede-and-a-half, wrapped itself around him and lifted him bodily from the mire. The ebony mud clung to him for a moment, stretched, then abandoned the contest and returned to its sludge state.
As Toede felt himself lifted off the ground, his legs dangling uselessly below him, the world whirled around. Dirt stung his eyes, but when he blinked back the mud he realized he was firmly in the grip of an equally filthy gnoll.
He was spun around again, face-to-muzzle with the mongrel monster. Saliva was dripping down in long, ropey strands from its fang-ladened maw. Toede's arms were pinioned against his sides, and he could see the creature's chest heave as it breathed hard. Or laughed. The gnoll could very well be saying grace and Toede wouldn't
be the wiser. Or saying grace.
The maw opened in a mighty yawn, and Toede closed his eyes, ready for the next life, if there was one. At least it was quick, his mind noted astutely as the rest of his body told it to just shut up.