Hiding between two shearing-sheds, Jack took a moment to work out his spell of disguise. This one was simple enough, and now that he had the knack of it, the subtle strands of magic fairly hummed in his mind’s grasp. Threads of illusion shimmered around him as he crafted a new appearance, a bigger, fatter, hairier appearance. A crooked fang protruded over his lip; his ears grew long and pointy; his arms lengthened while his legs shortened, giving him a rolling, bandy-legged posture. In ideal circumstances he would have performed his magic in front of a mirror, correcting minor details as he noticed them, but no such facilities were at hand. In thirty heartbeats he judged he was done, and emerged from his hidden corner with a wide-bellied swagger.
Instantly he found himself confronted by the field overseer Two-Tusks, a bald orc with a severe underbite. The orc grunted in surprise.
“What are you doing, you shirking mongrel, you mongrel shirker?” Jack demanded in his best imitation of Malmor’s voice. “I should put you back in the paddocks, the paddocks.”
Two-Tusks cringed and stammered, “The human rat is not at his place, Malmor! The goblins told me he ran off this way. They said he went mad. I go to find him.”
“He is not here!” Jack growled. “Now you listen: Go to the south gate and open it. Drive all the rothe out of the paddocks. No more rothe in the paddocks, turn them out, turn them out.”
Two-Tusks stood and gaped. “But then the rothe will all get out.”
“Of course!” Jack bellowed. “Why would I tell you to open the gate if I did not want the rothe to get out? The drow want the beasts to graze free for a time, so Malmor must let them out. Now do what I say at once, at once!”
The orc turned and fled the scene, dashing off toward the south. Jack could hear him shouting orders to other slaves, lashing about with his stinging-rod as he yanked them away from their current tasks and drove them toward the assignment Jack had given him. Jack grinned to himself, then swaggered off toward the next overseer to catch his eye, the gaunt gnoll Karshk. The unpleasant creature was hurrying across the pasture to put a stop to whatever Two-Tusks was up to. “Karshk!” Jack bellowed, stopping the gnoll in his tracks. “Go at once to the west pasture and drive out all the rothe. Now is the time they are to graze free. Quickly, quickly!”
The gnoll stifled a yip of surprise. “But Malmor-r-r, we’ll never-r-r catch them all once they get fr-r-ee,” Karshk protested.
“They must have exercise, exercise. So the drow command. Who are we to argue with what our dark masters desire? Who are we, who are we?” He raised his hairy hand as if to backhand the gnoll, but Karshk scampered off westward, heading for the next pasture over.
Jack surveyed his handiwork for a moment, enjoying the spectacle of bleating rothe running in circles before field hands frantically shouting and waving, trying to drive the stupid creatures out the open gates. Next he swaggered his way to the pastures on the far side of the tower, browbeating and threatening every field-slave and overseer he saw along the way. He could hear the confused lowing of the rothe as they scattered out into the open cavern beyond the pasture enclosures, trampling this way and that in the gloom somewhere beyond his sight. How much trouble that might cause the drow and their thrice-cursed overseers, Jack couldn’t say, but at the very least perhaps he’d done something to shake the dark elves’ confidence in their mastery of all they surveyed. It occurred to him that perhaps he might have been wiser to consider carefully the combination of impersonation and misdirection that would provide the best opportunity for him to make his escape, but then he abandoned the idea with a shrug. He was an improviser, not a planner. Didn’t they say perfect was the enemy of good enough?
He circled through the lakeside pastures, ordering slaves to set fire to the feed-cribs so that they could be purged of an imaginary rothe plague. It proved more difficult to convince the field-laborers to actually burn the troughs and granaries, but once he seized a torch and struck a light himself to provide an example, the rest of the field hands quickly followed suit. Then Jack headed toward the bunkhouses and cribs surrounding Malmor’s hut, near the entrance to the paddocks. Despite his bold actions elsewhere, Jack proceeded more carefully here, because there was an excellent chance he would run into Malmor himself, and Malmor, at least, would know that Jack was not him. He circled around the great mushroom-cribs where much of the rothe fodder was stored, and peered around the corner at the hovel where the bugbear slept. There was Malmor, standing just in front of his little bunkhouse, his face twisted in fury as he listened to half a dozen field-slaves and overseers all gabbling on at once about the rothe escaping from the paddocks.
“Hmm, now what?” Jack wondered. He heard a soft jingle of mail and arms behind him, then the soft sibilance of dark elves speaking among themselves. He quickly stole to the other end of the crib. A patrol of dark elf guards was hurrying down the road from the castle, no doubt coming to find out what in the world was going on in their fields.
Sudden inspiration struck Jack, and he acted upon it at once. He dashed back to the yard-facing edge of the mushroom-crib, picked up a stone, and hurled it at Malmor and his knot of overseers. It was a poor throw, missing the bugbear by several feet, but it did clip a nearby orc behind his right ear. The orc howled and fell; Jack shouted, “Hey, fathead!” and ducked back around the corner before Malmor and his henchmen could get a good look at him. Then he rushed to the other corner, scooped up a rothe patty, and leaped out in full view of the oncoming drow patrol.
“Malmor!” the drow-sergeant-as it happened, it was the warrior Varys-shouted. “What is the meaning of this? The rothe are escaping!”
“Stupid dark elves!” Jack retorted. “Catch your own rothe, your own rothe!” Then he flung the patty at Varys. It was a long throw, a good fifteen yards or more, but this time Jack’s aim was unerring. The lump of dung sailed spinning through the air and struck Varys on his mailed shoulder as he vainly tried to duck out of the way; the dung splattered with great effect. The dark elves gaped in astonishment, stunned by the sudden suicidal defiance from their lackey. Jack capered and flung another dung patty at the dark elves, then ducked back around the corner just in time as one or more of the dark elves fired their hand-crossbows at him.
From the yard-facing corner Jack heard the sudden rush of footsteps coming to meet him. “My work here is done,” he decided. He released his magical guise with a word of dismissal, and scrambled up the side of the crib. He threw himself into the foul-smelling mushroom feed just as Malmor and his overseers rounded one corner in furious pursuit, while Varys and the dark elves he led stormed around the other with murder in their eyes.
“Masters,” Malmor simpered at once. “What is-”
“Malmor,” the dung-splattered Varys snarled. “Oh, you will wish for a quick death before I am through with you. Kill the rest, but make sure the bugbear lives!”
The drow fell upon their slaves with merciless efficiency, blades flashing and crossbows singing. Two or three of the overseers went down at once beneath the murderous assault, while others threw themselves to the ground in terror or scattered to the four winds, thinking of nothing but getting away from the furious warriors. Malmor fell to his knees, cringing. “Malmor does not know what he has done, what he has done,” he wailed. “Please, masters, do not be angry, do not-” His groveling was cut off by the whistling impact of Varys’s stinging-rod, quickly joined by several more as the dark elves set about beating the bugbear as thoroughly and viciously as anybody had ever been beaten before.