About fifty feet to the west, away from the cliff base
where I’d been shot, was a small dead tree with a briar
bush cloaking the base of its trunk. I’d had my back to the
cliff, facing west. The killer could well have been hiding
out there somewhere in the darkness when he caught sight
of me.
Yes, my killer was a damn good shot.
Maybe he could see in the dark, too.
“You know,” said the dwarf casually, “hobs don’t go
in twos. Must be more dead ‘uns somewhere here.
Otherwise, we’d be covered in arrow stings ’bout now.
Maybe we better look around.”
The dwarf got to his feet. I’d almost forgotten he was
there. Dwarves, I remembered, could see heat sources in
the dark. So could elves and maybe wizards. Wizards
couldn’t use crossbows, though, and the elves I’d known in
the war had universally despised them. Dwarves liked
them.
“Hey,” said the dwarf, waving his free hand, the other
clenching the thick axe handle. “You deaf as well as
dead?”
I shook my head, not wanting to talk much. “More of
them?” I asked with one breath, indicating the nearest
body.
The dwarf glanced back at the tree line. “Fort’s back
there,” he said. “Old one. Bet we find ’em there.”
I nodded, seeing now that the “outcropping” was
really a half-collapsed wall. The distant shouts I’d heard
the other hobgoblins give last night must have come from
there.
The dwarf gave me a final look over. “Name’s Orun,”
he said. He didn’t put out his hand to clench my arm, as
was the custom of most dwarves I’d known from these
parts.
I nodded in return, then pointed in the direction of the
fort. We left the bodies and started off. Orun made sure to
keep a good two dozen feet between us. He was cautious,
but he seemed to take to my presence. Either he had
nothing against a walking corpse or else he was crazy.
But then I was dead, so I was no one to talk.
*****
The fort in the trees was probably a relic from the times
of the Cataclysm. Rough stone walls, the wooden double
gate, a short stone-based tower to the left – all fallen into
rot and ruin.
This place came with a third hobgoblin, lying
facedown in the open gateway. The butt and fletching of
yet another crossbow bolt was visible just under his
leather armor; he’d fallen on it and broken the shaft after it
had struck him. Humming flies circled over him, many
feeding where his left ear had been. His arms were caught
under him. He’d grabbed at the shaft, just as I had done.
His sword was still nestled in its scabbard at his side.
Another surprised customer.
Through the open gateway, we could see the fort’s
overgrown main yard, small when it was new but more so
now with the bushes and trees thick in it. On the other side
of the roughly square yard was the barracks building, its
stone walls and part of its roof still standing. To the right,
against a wall, was a low building that had probably been
the stables. The tower to the left was mostly rubble. All
was quiet except for the flies.
Orun glanced at me, then carefully leaned over the
fallen hobgoblin and took hold of its rigid face with his
free hand. Thick fingers poked at a gray cheek, then
tugged down an eyelid to reveal a white eyeball.
“Dead ’bout a day,” he muttered. He squinted up at
me, then glanced around the fort’s yard. “Think we’re
alone here,” he added, matter-of-factly.
I nodded and went on through the gateway, the dwarf
coming behind me.
The yard was largely covered with tall grass and thorn
bushes. Trees stretched skyward by the stone walls.
Someone, probably the hobgoblins, had partially covered
the damaged barracks roof with animal hides. Pathways
had been recently beaten through the tall grass, linking the
barracks with the main gate. The stables to the right had
their original roof and appeared more habitable than the
other structures. The hobgoblins could stay safe and dry
within the stables, firing through arrow slits at all