Orgos nodded promptly and put his knife away. I watched the honorable Stehnishman leave with Toth, then turned on the sword-master with astonishment. “Captain? You’ve allied yourself with this rabble?”
“Why not? Their cause is just.”
“You think.”
“I know.”
“That’s not the point!” I spluttered. “Look at them! Not at whether they’re goblins or not,” I added hastily, seeing him ready to interject. “I mean, look at their army, if you can call it that. They’re disorganized, untrained, poorly armed. .”
“The last I’ll grant you,” said Orgos, wiping his face and heading back to the stairs. “But they are not disorganized, and they are passionate soldiers.”
“But untrained.”
“Well, yes, largely, but-”
“And you’ve joined up with these goblin idiots-sorry, Stehnite idiots-to fight against the likes of Sorrail and his archers and his horsemen?”
“They need me,” Orgos answered.
“So you have to fight for them?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have to stand up with every weak and crippled force that you think has a genuine grievance regardless of whether they’re going to get flattened like a ladybug charging a rhino?”
“Yes,” he said. And that, I suppose, was the end of that. And him, probably.
“I’d better get my sword sharpened,” I said, miserably.
“So, you will fight?”
“No. I was planning on slashing my wrists now,” I answered. “You know, nip all that pointless hope in the bud.”
“They need you, Will,” said Orgos, giving me one of his level, sincere looks.
“No one needs me,” I replied quickly. “And no, I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m just telling the truth. I’m virtually useless in a battle. I can shoot a crossbow, but I’ve seen farm animals that could be trained to do that. I can barely draw a sword without slicing something crucial off myself. My best hope is that the enemy will laugh themselves to death.”
“But if your heart is true-” Orgos began.
“Rubbish,” I cut in. “And anyway, my heart isn’t true. In fact, if we’re being honest, lies are my strong suit. You need someone to swear on everything holy that black is white, I’m your man. But give me something pointed and ask me to lay down my life for truth, virtue, and some very dodgy-looking Stehnites and you’re on a loser.”
“I get the point,” said Orgos.
“Sorry.”
“Well, you’ll probably change your mind.”
“I doubt it.”
“Let me rephrase that,” said Orgos thoughtfully. “You’ll have to change your mind.”
My internal alarm bells began clanging heavily. “What does that mean?” I demanded.
“Well. .” Orgos began with a look as close to sheepish as he was ever likely to manage. “How long have we been friends, Will?”
“Nowhere near long enough to justify whatever you’re about to say.”
“How many times have I saved your life?”
“What have you done?”
There was a weighty pause and he took a long breath. “We had a meeting last night after you had gone to bed.”
“Who’s we?” I demanded, now surly and apprehensive.
“Mithos, Lisha, and several of the Stehnite leaders.”
“Why do I wish I had been there?” I mused aloud.
“I knew you wanted to, well, prove yourself to the Stehnites, so. .”
“That was you!” I exclaimed. “I never wanted to prove myself to anyone. You wanted that. I wanted to prove how little I cared about anything, and did so by drinking about eight pints.”
“Well, I made it sound like you’d volunteered,” Orgos continued, undaunted and smiling, as if I would thank him for all this one day.
“To do what?”
“It’s best if the Stehnite Council tells you.”
“No, it’s not. It’s best if you spill your guts before I have to spill mine less figuratively.”
I had been so engrossed in this ominous exchange that I hadn’t noticed Mithos’s soundless approach. Suddenly he was beside me. He gave us a brief look and said, in a tone whose seriousness was almost sinister, “It’s time.”
The Stehnite Council was eighteen men strong-or rather, as Renthrette would have annoyingly pointed out, was eighteen persons strong: Eight of them were women. All of them were dressed in darkly grand fashion, many sporting armor made of ancient metal and leather laced together at the edges and shaped outlandishly into horns, veined wings, and other animal parts, many hung with colored horsehair or feathers. Some wore armored masks, others clasped heirloom weapons finer than any I had seen in Phasdreille, and all of them seemed lost in memories of ancient times. Among them was Toth, so quiet and dignified that I did not initially recognize him. He was seated with a naked blade across his knees and, like the rest of them, his face was somber and thoughtful.
They sat in a circle in a swept corner of the cavern, a brace of large, swarthy Stehnites a good ten yards away from curious bystanders, though still within earshot. This last was of no consequence that I could see since the assembly was completely silent. Ominously silent, you might say. They sat like statues, eyes downcast like attendants at the funeral of someone they didn’t know very well. I can’t say I liked the feel of this, particularly as Mithos shepherded me into the center of the circle, his fingers curled round my upper arm with a grasp that could not be argued with. Then the grip was relaxed and I was left by myself in the middle. The council’s eyes rose from the floor to meet me and I decided I liked this still less. The funereal atmosphere was now augmented by something stern and sacrificial. If I was watching a funeral, it was likely to be my own.
For a moment, no one spoke. But then a sigh, as of resolve, seemed to escape several, maybe all, of them simultaneously, and, without any visible cue, they began to speak in unison.
“William Hawthorne,”-their voices were slow and somber, even sad-“reviewing your assault on the Stehnite settlement known as the Falcon’s Nest, this council finds you guilty of four separate counts of murder. Do you have anything to say?”
My jaw dropped and the room spun as if I had been slapped in the head by a roofing beam. Murder? How could an adventurer be tried for murder? I had killed a few goblins while trying to rescue my companions. That’s what adventurers did. I was the hero here. Heroes don’t murder, they. . well, they kill the evil and degenerate. But that wasn’t going to work as a defense. Maybe I could blame Renthrette. .
No. I began to speak. “Worthy council members, that I slew. . er. . people I believed to be enemies, I cannot and do not deny. That I slew them maliciously or knowing their worth, I do deny. I did what I believed was right because I had been. . misinformed. I do not mean that someone misinformed me on that particular day, that I hold the Arak Drül solely responsible. No. I was misinformed from the day of my birth. I was raised in a society where all people are judged according to their appearance. We shun the deformed and the sick; we despise those who are different from us. We even deride those who do not dress according to our customs and fashions. What we think of as abnormal we consider degenerate. What is different from our standards, we consider to have failed to meet them.
“As a child,” I said, warming to my subject, “my grandmother told me tales of hideous goblins whose appearance matched their evil, just as her mother had told her. When I came to this land, I found what I thought was confirmation of those tales in the words of Sorrail and the Arak Drül, and the strange (to my eyes) creatures that lived in the mountains. The Arak Drül culture lined up beside that which I had been raised in, so I believed them all too easily. I was wrong, but at that time I could not have assessed how wrong I was. I now know differently. I see you are an intelligent, subtle, and sophisticated race. I have read your literature and paced the sculpted streets of your city and I know your quality. This is why I do not despair. I know your virtues and, humbly, I throw myself upon them. You value truth, so I have given it to you. And as you are just, so, I beg you, be merciful.”