I rolled to my knees, then staggered to my feet and looked myself over. I was filthy with mud. My sword scabbard was empty, my boots were gone, my food pouch was untied, and my waterskin had been cut loose. I knew that my pouch had been tied before I had been killed. My murderer must have checked me for loot. I had done it myself at Neraka, searching dead hobgoblins after the battles. I hadn't brought anything with me but a few odds and ends. I opened the pouch flap and found it was empty now. I looked down at my feet and saw my food in the mud and water. None of the food had been eaten; all was ruined. The boots and waterskin lay further away, slashed open. The sword was nowhere around, but the killer had undoubtedly taken it, probably discarded it later. It was cheaply made. My murderer was thorough.
I tossed the pieces of the bolt to the ground. I looked at my arms as I did so and realized that, for a dead person, I didn't look half bad. My skin was very pale, almost dull white. My hands and arms looked thinner than I'd remembered, more bony and less puffy and full. My trousers, boots, and surcoat were muddy and soaking wet, and my surcoat was also badly stained with what had to be blood. I must not have been dead for very long, maybe only a day or two.
I couldn't see my own face, of course. For that small blessing I felt curiously grateful. I touched my short beard and mustache, wiped them as free of dirt as I could, then adjusted my leather surcoat and brushed at the small hole in the front as if I had just spilled food there. My long, thin fingers were like icicles, but the cold was almost comfortable.
A stick snapped, the sound coming from somewhere beyond the edge of the cliff above me. I looked up, saw no faces, only clouds and rain.
Damn hobgoblins had probably forgotten about me, left me here for animals to feed on. Maybe they were still drunk.
Maybe I should find out.
I examined the cliff face. It was weathered and old, full of cracks and plant roots. It was worth a try. Wedging my bone-thin fingers into a vertical split in the rock, I found a foothold and began the ascent.
It took time to go up the cliff, but I didn't mind the climb. I felt no pain at all. I wondered what the hobgoblins would do when they saw me. I couldn't wait to find out. I had no sword, but I had my bare hands, and I was already dead.
Just below the top, I hesitated listening. Someone was moving around up there; metal clinked, maybe chain armor. I had no fear of their weapons now, but I wanted surprise. I rocked slightly, then pulled myself up swiftly and quietly over the ledge.
At my feet in the tall wet grass lay a heavy-bodied figure, his misshapen head buried face-down in mud and brown water. A thick wolf pelt covered his shoulders and back. One gray-green hand was thrust forward, fingers digging into the wet ground. The hobgoblin looked as if he'd tripped over something while walking toward the cliff but had never gotten up. He wasn't going to get up, either. The crossbow bolt projecting from the back of his thick neck tipped me off. So did the hungry aura of black flies whirling around him.
He certainly hadn't been the one who snapped that stick I'd heard. Then, I saw who did. About twenty-five feet from me was a dwarf in an oilskin cloak. His back was to me. He bent over another fallen hobgoblin, his chain mail links clinked under the cloak. The dwarf straightened. He carried a bright, spike-backed war axe clutched in a leather-gloved fist. Then, looking around warily, he turned in my direction, revealing a wet and tangled brown beard, thick dark eyebrows, and small black eyes that widened violently when he saw me.
"Reorx!" the dwarf gasped. He swung the spikebacked axe in his right hand, his left arm coming up to block me if I rushed him. He took a half-crouch, feet set in a stance that could shift him in any direction. Another veteran of the war.
I raised my hands — palms out, fingers spread — and shook my head slowly. The dwarf didn't take the hint, still readied for an attack. The sight of him clutching that polished axe struck me as amusing, but I didn't smile.
I moved sideways to get away from the ledge, having none of the unsteadiness I'd felt earlier. The dwarf rotated to keep facing me.
I moved my lips to say something to him, but nothing came out. It took a moment to figure out why; then I drew a breath to fill my lungs. Part of my rib cage expanded, but there was an unpleasant sucking sound from my sternum and the sensation that the left side of my chest was not filling. I quickly reached up and placed my right hand inside the neckline of my surcoat to cover the bolt wound. I tried again.
"Don't worry," I said — and was startled to hear my own voice. It was burned hoarse, as if I had swallowed acid. I forced another breath in. "I won't hurt you," I finished with a gasp.
The dwarf gulped, never taking his eyes off me. A muscle twitched in his left cheek. "'Preciate the thought," he muttered. "I'll keep it in mind."
I was curious about the dead hobgoblins. I gave the dwarf an unconcerned shrug before kneeling to examine one of the fly-covered bodies. As I'd suspected, the bolt head projecting from the hobgoblin's neck was exactly the same type as the one that had hit me. I let my right hand drop from inside my shirt and reached out to examine the dirtied tip.
I quickly pulled my hand back. A strand of black tar clung to the bolt head, worked into some of the grooves. I had seen that stuff before, at Neraka. Black wax, my commander had called it. Deadly poison. A handful of the Nerakan humans had used it on their weapons, their idea of a special welcome for us. The gods only knew where they had gotten it; the Nerakans themselves hadn't known how to handle it. We would regularly find their bodies, snuggled into ambush points, with little spots of black wax on their careless lips or fingers.
I remembered the sensation of nothingness spreading inside me as I died, the bolt through my chest. I'd been the first that night to feel the poison's kiss. I figured my cousins must have felt it earlier still. Too bad I hadn't thought to examine their bodies.
I leaned over to continue checking the hobgoblin, who had probably outweighed me by a hundred pounds in life. He was a thick-necked brute; his clothes and armor were as dirty as his skin. Knife slashes had opened up his belt pouch, now empty, and the sides of his armor and boots. He was also missing his left ear. It appeared to have been cut cleanly away, below his helmet line.
I looked up at the dwarf, who hadn't moved, remembering to put my hand inside my shirt before I spoke. "What about him?" I asked hoarsely, pointing a clawlike finger at the dead hobgoblin behind him. I sounded like an animal learning to talk.
The dwarf eased up, but only by a hair. He stepped away from the body behind him, clearing my view. This hobgoblin lay face up, an arm flopped down beside an empty wine cask in the grass beside him. He'd been stabbed through the darkened leather armor over his abdomen. A second stab wound, blue-black now, was visible in his throat. His left ear was missing, too, cleanly cut away. He had not even gotten up; he had died sitting, then had fallen back.
I reached up and felt my own ears. Both were still intact.
"Maybe you could tell me a bit about what you want." The dwarf's voice was steady and low, his axe arm still raised for a strike or a throw.
I looked beyond the dwarf at the half-forested hilltop. No one else was around. "Looking for someone," I said finally.
This didn't answer everything, but the dwarf let it go for now. "Got a name?" he asked.
"Evredd," I said, the word sounding like a mumble. I covered the wound and said it again, more clearly.
The dwarf's flint-black gaze went to my chest. "You a dead boy, ain't you?" he said.
I found it hard to answer that. It wasn't something I wanted to face.