"About the necromancer," said Renders as calmly as if he had said "about the flower shop" or "about the new maid."
I was right, Toede thought, I'm already regretting it. He raised his eyebrows and asked, "Necromancer?"
"Nasty sort," said Renders. "The first scouts we sent were returned as… ah… zombies, carrying a message that he didn't care what we did with the pillars, as long as we stayed out of his territory." Renders thought a moment. "Interesting chap-it seems he can speak through the zombies he creates, like puppets. Or marionettes. Or something like that. In any event, he rules the west."
Toede came back in, leaving the tent flap open to the cool night air. He could feel time slipping away like a handful of mud. He sat down opposite the elder scholar. "My horse wouldn't go that way," he said dully.
"Your horse is, ah, smarter than you," said Renders, not presuming to understand why Toede would have wanted to go in that direction in the first place.
"What you're saying is that we're trapped here," said Toede, mentally cursing himself for not fleeing to Flotsam earlier, not coming up with a better story, not learning about the necromancer, not leaving Charka to die in the first place, not killing himself as soon as he realized he was alive again. Pretty much everything that had occurred in the past few days of his life, he cursed.
"Well," said Renders, counting off the cardinal directions. "Marshes. Marshes. Gnoll army. Necromancer." He nodded. "Seems you are right. Trapped, that is."
A long silence fell between the two as Toede felt the mud of time in his fingers turn to water, and then to vapor. Finally, Renders said, "Perhaps you could talk to them." He ignored the cold look the highmaster gave him, which could have frozen water.
Renders continued. "After all, they are a murderous nonhuman bunch of savages, and you, well…" He motioned toward the empty air as if to say the point was obvious.
"I've learned to chew with my mouth closed, thank you," said Toede, keeping his voice in check and wondering if the gnolls would thank him if he started in on braining a few scholars now. Judging from Charka's earlier attitude toward gratitude, probably not.
"You could at least try. To talk to them," added Renders.
Or talk my way through them, thought Toede, mentally adding another notch to Charka's intelligence for advancing toward the camp along their only real line of retreat. "The problem is," said Toede, leaning back and stroking his chin. "The problem is, we need some superiority, some dominance that they might fear. Say, for example"-Toede looked at the lamplit roof of the tent-"magic. Do you have any wizards of any ability in your group?"
Renders chuckled. "In my experience, wizards aren't very willing to share their knowledge. And they're always looking for this magical item or that artifact. No, we never bring them along on a dig if we can help it."
Bloody wonderful, thought Toede. "What about warriors, someone good with a sword?"
"We had some scouts," said the older sage, "but we let them go soon after we started. Cheaper that way, with the necromancer not bothering anyone, and we didn't know about the gnolls, of course. There's always… you."
"It would be difficult for all of you to hide behind even my muscular, battle-hardened frame," said Toede, confident by this point that Renders was immune to sarcasm. "And besides, I'm not for hire, and I don't think that Groag's cooking would be reason enough for me to want to die at your side."
"Ah," said Renders, jerking himself upright. "Of course. How foolish. I was so used to dealing with the other one, the cook, that I just assumed. Hmmm, where did I put it? Ah!" The elder scholar pulled a large box out from his trunk and rummaged through it. He removed a large gem, about the size of Toede's thumbnail, and set it on the table before the hobgoblin.
"Will that do?" he asked.
Toede picked up the gem and turned it over a few times. If it were a fake, it was one that could pass his critical eye (and by connotation anyone else's, short of a dwarf's). Toede nodded, pocketing the gem. At least I'll die rich, he thought.
Toede looked out at the still-sleeping camp, thinking of recommending that the scholars just take their chances with the swamp or the necromancer. Across the dying embers of the campfire, he could see the clear light of Bunniswot's magical stone, showing the dancing shadow of the young scholar trying to re-cover that which he had so recently uncovered.
Toede smiled. "Actually, Renders, I can talk to them, but first I'll need some things from Bunniswot."
It was a few hours before dawn. Groag was still seated beneath the oak, watching his fingers. He flexed them, wiggled them, and in the likely event that Toede would not reappear, bid them a fond farewell.
Such pleasant hands, he thought, pity they're going to be gone soon, and all because of that rat-bastard Toede. At least he (Groag) had thought better than to tell his captors outright that Toede was likely going to head for the high country as soon as inhumanly possible. There could still be a chance for a miracle rescue, up to the point of the first hatchet-fall on his digits.
He was being watched over by a pair of Charka's guards. Charka didn't seem as interested in him as the gnoll chieftain had been in Toede. Groag idly wondered what the link between the two was. When he wasn't saying mental good-byes to his extremities, that is. If their positions had been reversed, would he have fled? Probably not, but then he (Groag) thought that he (Toede) had sacrificed his (Toede's) life for his (Groag's) own. If that was true, then why was the former highmaster acting untrustworthy this time around?
Groag's gloomy reverie was broken by the sound of approaching hooves. His heart leaped for a moment, but his brain turned surly and sour. Whatever it was, he thought, it couldn't be good.
The horse carrying Toede stopped at the edge of the clearing. At first thought Groag thought it wasn't the highmaster at all, that it was one of the scholars disguised as Toede. Then he realized that it was Toede, and that Toede was wearing Bunniswot's ridiculous dressing gown, the one his mother made for him. The gown hung long and loose on the sides, with the sleeves rolled back and tied off at his elbows. The patches of alchemic symbols were dark blotches in the red moonlight.
Toede did not dismount, such that he remained only a little shorter than the surrounding gnolls. The former highmaster intoned in his deepest, darkest pronouncement-style voice: "I bring greetings to Charka from Chief Boils Flesh. Boils Flesh is most displeased with Charka for doubting power of Boils Flesh. Most displeased."
By this time most of the gnolls were staring at the mounted hobgoblin. Toede raised a hand, revealing a small, dark wooden box.
"Boils Flesh gives challenge to Charka," continued Toede.
"Box hold weakest juju of Boils Flesh. If Charka can defeat juju, Boils Flesh and other wizards become dinner. If Charka cannot"-and here Toede smiled his most evil smile-"Boils Flesh will curse Charka and Charka's people."
Toede tossed the box at the gnoll chief's feet. Charka picked it up with all the care usually reserved for a live skunk. The gnoll turned it over in his hands a few times, then carefully lifted the lid.
The bright rays of the light-stone struck the chieftain full in the face. Charka squinted, snarled, and dropped the box. The box hit the ground and flew fully open, bathing the entire region beneath the oak in near daylight.
Gnolls, though unharmed by something as simple as light (unlike vampires, goblins, or other mythological creatures) were by nature nocturnal, so the entire company took two steps backward from the unusual radiance.
Weakest juju indeed, thought Groag bitterly. That was Bunniswof s piece of magical light, purchasable from any hedge wizard passing through Flotsam. Was Toede so stupid as to imagine that Charka had never met a wizard, and had never witnessed a light spell?