parents had lived years ago before fever took them. I
worked on my uncle’s farm and maintained the wagons for
his trading business, which suffered more than a bit with
the obnoxious hobgoblins around.
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 ass-
bruises. 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