intruders.
Intruders like us.
A squirrel ran lightly over the stable roof, stopped when
it saw us, and watched with curiosity. It fled when I stared
at it for too long.
“Bet you a steel,” Orun said, pointing his axe at the
barracks, “the rest of ’em’s in there. Maybe your killer
whatever’s in there, too. Better go look.”
We moved closer, Orun generously letting me lead.
Dark shapes lay on the floor beyond the open barracks
doorway. The dwarf stopped about thirty feet back from
the single stone step, axe ready, watching both me and the
doorway. He was no fool.
I hesitated only a moment before I mounted the step
and went inside. The buzzing of insects filled my ears in
the darkness. Weak light filtered in from the doorway and
through holes in the makeshift roof. Water dripped
constantly from above, splashing across the room.
As I looked around, I was glad to be dead. Not that the
sight of bloated bodies affected me any longer as it once
had on the bloody plains of Neraka. It was mere scenery
now, shadows that held no terror. No one screamed, no
one cried, nothing hurt. Everywhere I looked inside were
bodies, and everywhere were black flies and crawling
things at a morbid feast, carpeting the discolored, twisted
bodies of the hobgoblin dead.
I counted eight bodies. Five clutched at their throats or
faces. The rest gaped at the ceiling with bulging eyes and
open, soundless mouths, their rigid arms grabbing at their
chests or locked open in grasping gestures. It was hard to
tell what they had been doing, but not one had made a
move for his weapon. All swords were sheathed or leaning
against the walls.
I looked around the room. There was a door to the
right, apparently leading to the stables. The wood was
gray with age and appeared ready to fall apart. It opened
with ease.
Beyond the doorway it was very dark. I walked
carefully to avoid stumbling over bodies that might be in
the way. I didn’t find any until I got into the stables
themselves.
The hobgoblins had apparently cleaned up the stables
and made them into a tidy home. Gray light leaked in from
small holes in the ceiling and outer walls. The interior
walls had long ago rotted away, but the hobgoblins had
shoveled the debris with great efficiency. An ash-filled
circle of stones served as a seat by a fire pit. A large mass
of rotting cloth, half covering a pile of dry leaves,
appeared to make up a bed. It was sufficient, if not cozy.
The body near the fire pit was the room’s only
occupant. I knelt down by it and took a long look. In life,
it would have been the biggest hobgoblin I could have
ever imagined – a head and a half taller than me. Even in
the near darkness, I could still see a massive burned spot
across the front of his hide armor. I’d seen its like only
once before, when storm lightning had killed one of my
uncle’s horses in its pasture.
I looked up. The stables’ roof was solid.
On impulse, I got up and walked over to the bed,
searching the rags until I found a suitably long strip of
cloth. This I wrapped around my chest with a bunched-up
rag covering the bolt wound, then tied it off. I tried a few
words and discovered that I could speak almost normally
now, though I still sounded as if I had rocks in my throat
instead of vocal cords.
“Thought I heard you talkin’ to yourself,” Orun
muttered when I came outside. He’d moved closer to the
barracks doorway, but the stench was obviously getting to
him. He held his nose until he was away from it. “Any
ideas what happened to our hob buddies?” He indicated
the doorway with the axe.
I shook my head. The dwarf frowned and looked
around. “What did for ’em?” he asked absently, then
turned back to me. “There anyone else in there ‘sides
hobs?”
I shook my head no.
“No sign o’ another dwarf, maybe? Kinda white-
lookin’ one, real ugly?”