Three nights ago, the hobgoblins killed their first humans. Laughing Garayn and brooding Klart had been walking back from an evening in town when they were shot dead with crossbows. A hobgoblin dagger was found in one of the bodies. I watched as my neighbors wrapped my cousins for burial, then I went to my uncle and said I would be leaving for a few days.
"Family business," I said.
"Don't do anything foolish, my boy," my uncle urged. He was a big man with a pouchy face, hook nose, and receding hairline. Twisting Creek had been lucky enough not to be sacked and burned during the War of the Lance, ended just two years ago, and my uncle's business had survived. But now his two sons had been taken away from him, his life permanently scarred by the bad elements still roaming the land. "You're all I got left, Evredd."
"What I do," I said tersely, "won't be foolish." His eyes glazed over. His hands moved around the valuables on his desk, touching them reassuringly. Tears squeezed from his eyes.
"There's been killing enough," my uncle pleaded. "Let it go."
Needless to say, I didn't listen to him. My uncle had been absorbed in his business lately, locking himself in his study with his ledgers and cursing the hobgoblins' effect on trade, and now this. He seemed like a destroyed man.
I left town at dawn, taking food, my sword, and little else. I knew where part of the hobgoblins' old trails usually went, so I followed that course until a regular path appeared, six miles outside of town. The tracks stood out as if they had been laid down by a small army instead of a few raiders loaded down with loot. Two days later, I was here.
One of the hobgoblins above me belched like a giant frog croaking, then dropped a metallic cup and cursed. "S'my damn drink!" he moaned. "S'all spilled!"
The other sentry cleared his throat and spat. "There's yer drink," he said, sniggering. "Put it in yer cup."
"I'll give ya somethin' for yer cup," muttered the first, and a rock sailed off the top of the hill, over my head and about sixty feet past me. I kept quiet in case one went to look off the cliff. Hobgoblins are a fun-loving race when it comes to humans. They would have lots of fun with me, good hobgoblin fun, with whips, knives, hot irons — the works.
Another rock flew overhead, landing in the grass beyond.
"Throw one more, and ol' Garith'll set yer dumb ass on fire," said a hobgoblin testily.
"Ya godda find 'im, firs'," retorted the other. "S'nod comin' back. Gonna live like a huuu-man now. Thinks 'e's so good."
"He's comin' back," snapped the first. "Didn't I tell him we wouldn't wait long 'fore we began to tear things up? He knows we'll cause trouble. Little toad-belly knows we want action. We got to keep movin', not sittin' on assbruises. And you put that rock down or I'll give you a face that would scare a blind dwarf."
After several more minutes of arguing, the hobgoblins settled down in wine-sodden silence. I decided to move out again in a bit when the sentries were either dozing or too groggy from drink and lack of sleep to notice. Then I'd take them, one by one, the way I'd learned to during the war. Only the crickets could be heard in the darkness. I sighed, waiting, fingers on my sword hilt.
Something punched my chest. Pain shot through my left lung, hurting far worse than anything that had ever happened to me at Neraka. I looked down, my hands involuntarily going for the source of the pain, and saw a short, feathered shaft sticking out of my leather surcoat, next to my heart. I could tell the arrow had gone right through me. I was never more surprised to see anything in my life.
Son of a bitch, I thought, desperately trying not to breathe or scream. They'd found me; the hobgoblins had found me. But how in the Abyss did they do that? I never heard them coming. I stood there like an idiot, looking down at the arrow shaft and wondering why the hobgoblins weren't now calling out in alarm. The shock and pain of being hit was too much to take. I couldn't think.
Something prickly and cold spread through my bloodstream from the wound. The pain ceased and became a cloud of nothingness, as if my chest had disappeared. My will broke then and I tried to scream, but I couldn't inhale. It seemed like a huge weight pressed against my rib cage, keeping out the air. I slumped back against the rock face, my vision swimming, my hands clutching the wound.
It came to me then that I was going to die. There was nothing I could do. I didn't want to die, not then, not ever. I wanted to go home. I wanted to breathe. I wanted to live. For a moment I thought of Garayn and Klart. I could al most see their faces before me.
The numbness reached my head. Everything became very light and airy. I felt a rushing sensation, as if I were falling.
This wasn't right, came a mad thought. The hobgoblins killed me. They'd killed my cousins, and now they'd killed me. It wasn't right, and I wanted them to pay for it in the worst way.
That was my last mortal thought.
I was having the worst of all nightmares, worse than the red dreams I'd once had of Neraka. I dreamed I was dead and buried. Ice-cold rain fell without end on me, trickling down on lifeless flesh. My body was dead-numb, my limbs chained down. I was hollow, a shell of nothing in the earth. I fought to wake up or even move a muscle. I begged the great gods of Krynn to let me wake up.
No one heard me.
I begged them for mercy. I pleaded for justice.
No voice spoke in the darkness.
Then I cursed them, I cursed the gods, and I cried for revenge.
I became aware of a colorless light. Without thinking, I opened my eyes, my lips still moving.
Gray clouds rolled swiftly above me, ragged-edged. Cold droplets slapped my face and fell into my unblinking eyes. I couldn't move my limbs. I felt nothing, nothing at all but the cold, and I listened to the drumming of the rain against and around me.
The gray clouds rolled on for ages. The rain fell. Then a weight seemed to fall away, and I knew I could sit up.
Very slowly, I rolled onto my side and pushed myself upright. Every movement was unbalanced, and I swayed dizzily until I braced myself with my arms. The tilting scenery settled in my vision, and I looked around.
The landscape appeared odd in the rain-washed light, but I was still at the foot of the rocky cliff. It was late in the evening now. I didn't know the day. The long grass of the plain had been beaten down by rain some time ago. A light wind blew across the field, rippling the bent and broken stalks.
I sat there stupidly for a long time, then looked down at myself.
The butt of an arrow was projecting from my chest. After a few moments, I remembered how it got there, and thought I was lucky that it hadn't killed me.
Then, of course, I knew the truth.
I stared at the arrow for a long time. The rain eventually slowed. All was quiet except for the cawing of distant crows. I wasn't afraid, only dully surprised. No heartbeat sounded within me, no blood ran from my wound. I felt surprised, but nothing more.
I hated looking at the arrow in me. It wasn't right. It ought to come out. Carefully, I reached up and touched it, then tapped it hard. There was no pain, only a sense of its presence. I reached up and carefully tugged on the shaft. It didn't budge. Then I took it in both hands and broke off the arrow at the point where it entered my chest, having it in mind not to open the wound any further. I felt a need to keep my body looking as good as possible. Self-respect, maybe.
That done, I reached behind me with one hand to find that the arrow point stuck out of my back by an inch or two, between two ribs. After some difficulty in getting a proper grip, I slowly pulled the arrow out, then held both pieces of it before me.
The arrow was shorter than I'd expected; the arrowhead was small and grooved. It was actually a crossbow bolt, not a longbow arrow — a well-made bolt, too; dwarven-make. Doubtless the hobgoblins had been picking up good weaponry on their raids.