Beneath these sputtering iron-held fires, small groupings of men clustered and talked in low voices.
Toede smiled. The thing about humans was that they feared the dark because it hampered their vision. One more reason that human kingdoms would never stand in the face of determined hobgoblin assaults.
"Hsst," whispered Groag from a nearby shadow. "Guards!"
"I can see that," said Toede, in a perfectly normal voice. "Now come out of there."
A pause from the shadows.
Toede, trying to be patient, shoved his hands deep in his pockets and rocked slightly back on his heels. He did not look directly at Groag's shadows. "If they see you hiding, then they'll know you're up to something. If we walk right up to them, then their first thought is 'What do they want?' as opposed to 'What are they doing here?' " With that, Toede, affecting the quick, irritated stride of a man (or hobgoblin) with important business on his mind, approached the two guards.
Groag pulled himself from the alleyway and carefully followed, noting that Toede had not offered to lug either of the backpacks. Groag's nose was already running from the dusty contents of one, and he cursed as he toted them toward the retreating backside of the former highmaster of Flotsam.
The guards, three of them, were gathered around the base of the sputtering street lamp. No trouble was expected on the Rock, and Toede timed it so that he addressed them only at the last moment, when one of them finally noticed him.
"You men! Why are you shirking about like this?" He put iron into his voice, and two of the guards immediately pulled themselves upright in an automatic response before it was clear to them who, or rather what, they were being addressed by.
The one who looked up started to say, "See here, what do you-" But Toede was already ahead of him.
"It's very important that I meet with Lord Gilden-tongue immediately!"
The guard started to say again, "What do you-"
Toede interrupted again. "I haven't time for this foolishness. Haven't you heard the news? Toede is back!"
The three looked at him as the information sunk in. The first one shook his head and said, "Toede? You mean Highmaster Toede? But he's dead."
"Would that it were so," said Toede, reverently touching the disk of Holy Hopsloth that he wore. "I fear the menace was playing a cunning stratagem. And now he's come back, and Lord Gildentongue, indeed, all of Flotsam, is in grave danger."
"Mehbeh we should get the sargant," said one human, with a northern accent thick enough to be cut and sold in slices.
"Mehbeh we should," Toede shot back, aping the human's tone and accent. "Come on, now, let's shake a leg. Every moment lost is a moment of danger."
The first guard held his hands out. "Now hold a moment…" he began.
Toede crossed his arms, tapping his foot. By this time, Groag had come up alongside him. "Yes?"
"Who are you?" asked the guard, regaining his verbal footing.
"Who do I look like?" snarled Toede.
Silence, then, "Well, you look like a hobgoblin." The voice held just the first trace of suspicion.
"Ex-act-ly!" shouted Toede, pointing a finger at the guard. "And who better to track another hobgoblin? I've been following him for months, ever since Lord Gilden-tongue first suspected Toede survived his apparent-and obviously staged-death.
"It was brilliant, I'll admit," continued Toede, "particularly tricking the kender into thinking the dragon was their idea. Turns out the dragon was in on it from the start, and Toede drove the kender in its direction so as to appear roasted and breasted, going out in a blaze of glory and not leaving much in the way of evidence."
The three guards nodded sagely at the explanation, as if that were exactly the way they would have handled the situation.
"Now," said Toede, "where is Lord Gildentongue?"
Another silence. "He's in the city," the guard with the northern accent finally replied. "Went dahn earlier t'night. He's not back yet, I dawn't think."
Toede stifled a smile behind his knitted brow and stern jaw. "And this 'sargant' you mentioned is the highest ranking officer on the Rock?" Head nods all around. "Then take me to him at once. Unless… you'd rather explain your delay to Lord Gildentongue later."
That got them moving. The trio, more than happy to dump responsibility on someone of higher rank for the loud, obnoxious and apparently important creature, formed an official escort for Toede and Groag to the sergeant's office.
As they crossed the streets, walking past darkened windows and a few other guard posts, Toede whispered to Groag, who was lumbering along beside him. "Were my guards this twitchy?"
"Twitchy?" came the nervous response. "Scared," said Toede. "I almost expected them to faint when I alluded to Gildentongue's orders. Were my guards this frightened of me when I wasn't present?"
A pause for three steps. "In general," said Groag in his delivering-bad-news voice, "no, they weren't." Only because they thought you a fool and a horse's behind of the first water, the small hobgoblin added silently to himself.
"Good," said Toede. "That means the guards won't question orders, and maybe the sergeant won't either."
As it turned out, the sergeant-at-arms was another low-level hack outside the circle of influence of the local ruler-ship. This much was obvious at first glance, for he was a nondescript functionary in chain mail of little better quality than that worn by the guards, and was seated in a dingy office that had once been the entry of a feasting hall. He had a stack of paper gathered on his desk, next to a candle guttering in its holder.
He was ideal for Toede's purposes. As soon as the guards opened the doors, Toede stepped in front of them, positioning himself opposite this worthy local authority.
"Your report on the Toede situation, Sergeant," snapped Toede, in a manner that suggested he had seen the officer only moments before.
The sergeant, rising from his desk, blinked twice. Then the cogs of his human brain finally found purchase, and he asked, "Who are you?"
Toede stared at him the way one human stares at another before imparting a great secret. Then he said in a stern voice, "The dragon flies at midnight." The sergeant again blinked twice. "What?" "I said, 'The dragon flies at midnight.' " Toede seated himself across from the sergeant, elbows resting on his knees. He held his hands out, palms upward, and motioned with his fingers. A response was expected. Groag hung as close to the door as possible between two of the guards.
"Is this some sort of game?" asked the sergeant, Toede slapped his knees, hard. "If only it were!" he shouted, jumping to his feet. "I have information to give, and they seem to have left an idiot-sorry, I'm sorry, it's not really your fault-behind who doesn't know the password."
"Password?"
"Password. The response to 'The dragon flies at midnight.' Quickly now, where is Gildentongue?"
"He left for the city, er, the Lower City, an hour or so ago. Took the captain with him. There was some sort of disturbance…"
"At the Jetties, yes, what do you know of it?" "Only that there seemed to be some sort of trouble," said the sergeant.
"Trouble?" howled Toede. "Istar finding itself the bull's-eye for a cosmic game of darts is trouble. Waking up to find a medusa in your bed is trouble! Toede is back, and more dangerous than ever! That is not trouble, that spells disaster!"
"Toede?" said the sergeant, wondering just when he lost complete and utter control of the conversation. "Wasn't he the bumbler Lord Gildentongue replaced?"