Bunniswot grimaced and collapsed onto his folding chair, much like a man who had just had his shin tendons severed. The papers fell from his hands, cascading onto the ground. He raised a delicate hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting his eyes tightly.
"But our scouts said that there were no gnolls around here," the scholar said weakly. "Kender, yes, a necromancer, yes, but no gnolls."
"Next time make sure to check the swamp," said Toede, walking up to a pile of papers lying on top of a leather trunk. "I'll go wake the others, then I'll ride to Flotsam for help. You probably won't be able to load up this mess, and it would slow you down, anyway. If you want to save your work, you should put the most important material in a trunk and bury it, then come back later." And if you're like most scholars, thought Toede with a malicious grin, you'll still be organizing your piles of notes when the gnolls come crashing down on the last few moments of your life.
Instead, Bunniswot responded, "Perhaps it's better this way. Everything here will be trampled if we're attacked. If we're lucky, they'll burn the entire lot of it." Then he gave out a brittle cry, put his head in his hands, and began to sob.
Toede did not fancy himself an expert on human behavior beyond the standard buttons he could push to get his way: fear, terror, greed, threats, greed, fear, and greed. But it struck him that this was odd behavior for a man whose life's work was in the direct path of a gnoll invasion.
Perhaps the ogres had dark secrets that no living mortal should know. That was worth investigating. Toede glanced at the papers he had been clearing. The scholar's handwriting was crabbed but readable in the pale light of the tent.
"I didst come unto her skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh, wearing nought but my finger cymbals and the night air," Toede intoned. Eyebrow raised, he looked at Bunniswot. The scholar just shook his head and returned to sobbing.
Toede picked up another piece of foolscap. "We danced among the water lilies that evening, Angelhair and I, and dined upon each other's fleshly pleasures."
A third. "… and we were joined in our revels in the pavilions by two others, fair of face and unmarred of beauty, their eyes as bright and comely as the pale full moon…"
Bunniswot sighed deeply. "Stop," he pleaded. "I'm so ashamed."
"This is your secret?" smirked Toede. "That you toil through the night writing naughty poetry? A minor sin at best, punishable by brief immersion in white-hot magma. Nothing to lose your grip over. The gnolls can't even read."
"You don't understand." Bunniswot, tears in his eyes, looked up. "It's all like that. All of it." He gestured around the tent walls.
Toede realized that the scholar meant the forest of stone beyond. "You mean the pillars," he said, now smiling broadly.
"Yes, the bloody pillars," cursed Bunniswot. "I've deciphered forty of them now."
"And they're all…" prompted Toede.
"This!" He picked up a packet and threw it against the far wall. The pages fluttered like pigeons landing in the square. "Love poems! Trysts! Revels! Rendezvous! Smut!"
"That's really, really interesting," said Toede, edging
toward the tent entrance. "And perhaps we can discuss it later, say, after you hurry up and save your life."
Bunniswot ignored him. "I put Renders up for this exploration, did you know that? I found references to this place in preCataclysmic texts, stressing its age, its beauty, its mysterious origins. There was supposed to have been a great battle here, where the local inhabitants, my ur-ogres, battled and caged a creature of the Abyss. I expected a lost city, a temple, or at least a monument. Something to justify the time and effort. Something worth publishing."
Toede thought for a moment, then said, "Perhaps later you could spruce it up a bit, clean up the smut. Sort of a vulgate version, for the masses."
"This is the cleaned up version," said the scholar, seeming ready to collapse again. "Even the vulgate is vulgar," he sighed.
"And you haven't told Renders because…"
"Oh, Gilean's book and bladder, I can't. He showed so much faith in this project, and all I have to show for it is…"
"Ogre pornography," said Toede, shaking his head. "Not that this should depress you any further, but there are bloodthirsty gnolls to worry about now."
"What shall I do? What can I do?" moaned Bunniswot, staring at the debris in his tent.
"What you would do anyway?" said Toede, realizing that Bunniswot in his present condition was not high on the list of prospective survivors of the upcoming massacre. "Pack as much as you can, particularly your… er, translations, while I wake the others. Then have them bury the chest, but not so deep that water can't get to it. Then you wait several years before coming back and discover your notes have been destroyed. You reconstruct as much as possible, but of course, the gist of it is lost. Your reputation is saved, not to mention your life."
Bunniswot shook his head for a moment, then said quietly, "That could work."
"Goood," purred Toede, edging to the opening of the tent. "I'll wake Renders and get everyone else."
Once outside in the cool autumn darkness, Toede fought the urge to double over in laughter. It was unbelievable what humans would worry about when faced with extinction. This experience made his third life worth living, regardless of whatever happened next. Maybe it would be worth saving these humans after all, just to watch Bunniswot go crazy trying to hide his little off-color secret from the others.
"Ogre love poems," he chuckled, heading for Renders's tent.
"Ah. Quite impossible, you realize," said Renders, stroking his beard. "We couldn't pack sufficiently in darkness, even given a, ah, day or so. There is too much left to be done."
It was ten minutes and one quick explanation after Toede left Bunniswot to his fate of "publish and/or perish." Renders was being more difficult than the hobgoblin had deemed possible. Once more, the hobgoblin was on the verge of abandoning the thick-headed humans to their fate.
Instead Toede argued, "Lef s recapitulate. A huge horde of hundreds of gnolls is about to attack at dawn, maybe…" He made some mental calculations about Groag's ability to hold out. "Thirty minutes afterward, tops. They will be screaming for blood since you're on land they think is sacred. They will kill first, ask monosyllabic questions later. I'm leaving now and strongly recommend you do the same."
"Hmm," said Renders, continuing to stroke his beard meditatively. "No. No. We'd lose too much data, too many samples, too many pot shards. Why, ah, Bunniswof s material alone would take days to properly sort and pack."
"Bunniswot is already packing the best of his material," said Toede, imagining the fire-haired young scholar stuffing as much ogre erotica as possible into the leather trunk.
"Oh, dear," said Renders. "If he's rushed, something may be accidentally destroyed."
He should be so lucky, thought Toede, while continuing aloud, "I've done my duty. I've brought the warning, and if you're smart you'll withdraw to Flotsam."
"Wait a tic," said Renders. "You said the gnolls were coming from the, ah, the north, down the path we've been using. Correct?"
"Right," nodded Toede, rolling his eyes.
"And the marshes are to our south and east, and are also gnoll-inhabited, eh?"
"I have had a limited exposure to the extent of the gnolls' influence, but I think it's a given that they could find us easily there," said Toede.
"So, ergo, you are trapped here with us," finished Renders, as calmly as a merchant explaining the difference between a chicken egg and a goose egg.
"Beg to differ," said Toede, already halfway to the opening of the tent. "For there's a path from the road north that leads west. Good-bye."
"Ah," said Renders. "Ah. So you don't know, then?"
At the tent opening, Toede turned again. I'm going to regret this, he thought. "Don't know what, then?"