Jean Rabe - Redemption

Fiona purposefully stood downwind. However, she was interested in Yagmurth, who seemed to carry himself with confidence and speak louder than the rest. The smallest goblins had the thinnest voices, and one scrawny, brown one sounded like a mewling cat. For the most part, the bigger the goblin, the more noise it made and the greater its stink.

The female Knight watched their expressions and listened to their craggy voices. She picked out occasional words in the common tongue—words that either didn’t exist in the goblin language or were universal in all languages: “sivak,” “Takhisis,” “general.”

“General?” she repeated to herself, cocking her head and noticing that the one who kept saying “General” was now watching her closely. “General… who?”

This goblin separated himself from the pack. He was nearly three feet tall, with a nose that reminded her of a turnip and skin the color of rust. His eyes seemed too large for his pug nose, and his hair fell in scattered patches of uneven lengths. There was a bone ring in the goblin’s right ear, from which dangled two bluejay feathers and a clay bead.

She sucked in her breath in an effort not to chuckle at the strange-looking creature.

“General,” the goblin said, followed by a string of nonsensical—to her—clicks and snarls. “General.”

“Yes, General. Forgive me for speaking aloud. I had no intention of drawing your attention. Go away.”

The little, strange-looking goblin didn’t go away. In fact, he drew nearer. The goblin babbled animatedly, including the word “General” a few more times. The goblin’s voice yipped excitedly, reminding her of a small and annoying dog. The goblin clearly wanted her to say something in response, but she raised her lip in a snarl to quiet the thing.

“Ragh!” Fiona called. “Your goblin friends are bothering me. Can’t you do something with your ‘army’?”

The draconian shouted in the goblin tongue for them all to quiet down.

Instantly, the old goblin named Yagmurth thumped the haft of his spear against the ground, calling all his fellows to attention. Then he gently thwacked the haft against Ragh’s leg. When the draconian looked down, Yagmurth started chattering loudly.

“I know,” Ragh answered in their guttural tongue. “You are waiting for me to lead you against the hobgoblins and their leader General Kruth. But I, the greatest of Takhisis’ creations, believe there might be a better, slyer way of winning the day.”

The draconian registered the disappointment on the goblins’ faces. Yagmurth thumped the spear again.

“Perfect child,” Yagmurth asked in the goblin tongue. “How is there a better way than battle?”

Ragh shrugged his shoulders. Years before he fell in with Dhamon, Ragh settled nearly all his problems by combat. There were a few exceptions. For example, he had learned if his problem was bigger and nastier than himself, it was wise to avoid a fight.

“There are always alternatives to fighting,” Ragh dissembled smoothly. “This is an opportunity that calls for stealth and intelligence—two things I’ll bet you have plenty of, and two things I’m certain your hobgoblin enemies have never heard of.”

The goblins swelled with pride. By the tone of their excited voices and expressions, even Fiona could tell they were won over by Ragh’s flattery and listened to his plan. As he huddled with his army, Fiona, tired of their banter and their stink, stepped away from the crowd and held her own strategy session—with the sword.

“I seek revenge,” she told it. “I seek….”

The sword gave her the answer she sought.

“Fiona.” The draconian stamped his foot. “Fiona!”

She looked up, frowning to note that the draconian had interrupted her dialogue with the sword. The draconian was watching her closely. In truth, Ragh remained half-afraid the female Knight, in her madness, might lash out at him or the goblins.

She twisted her head to look at Ragh, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

“We need your help.”

The frown disappeared, replaced by an almost wistful expression, but her eyes looked distracted, flitting over Ragh and then shifting away, studying something in the distance that perhaps only she could see. “You need my help with your plan?”

He nodded.

“Oh, yes, you need me,” Fiona agreed. “That’s why I stayed with you, sivak. You need me because I look human. I’m the only one who can walk into that village and scout what’s happening, see where Riki and Varek and Dhamon’s baby are, how they are doing. I can see if they know that they’re in serious danger if they stick around this place.”

The draconian nodded again.

“I can see what the hobgoblins are up to. Yes, you need me.”

Ragh loosely translated what she had said to Yagmurth, who’d skittered up to his side and was staring at the female Knight with curiosity and fear.

“That’s the only reason I stayed with you. For the sake of Riki and Varek and the baby Otherwise I’d be following Dhamon. Sooner or later I will make him pay, you know.”

“Yes, yes. You’ll make him pay,” Ragh grumbled. The small army of goblins had gathered behind him, chattering in their thin voices, making their clicks and snarls. “But for the moment, Fiona…”

Yagmurth thumped his spear and waved for silence.

“You can count on me, Ragh,” Fiona said, after the goblin chatter died down. She smiled wide then, but her smile looked odd, and her eyes remained unfocused.

Ragh instantly wondered if he really could count on her. “On the other hand, Fiona, maybe—”

“I like Riki enough,” she continued brightly. “I’d like to help her. And her baby. I won’t be having a baby of my own, sivak. I won’t be getting married. Ever. I won’t be having a family of my own. Now that Rig’s dead…”

“Maybe instead we should—”

“The village is just around that rise, right?” Fiona stepped away. “I can’t see it from here.” She sheathed her sword. “I’ll go now,” she announced, “for a baby I can’t have.”

She started north. Ragh quickly hurried after her, putting a clawed hand on her shoulder. “About Varek, Fiona. If you talk to Varek you probably shouldn’t mention to him that—”

“That the baby isn’t his?” She smiled more genuinely. “Of course the baby is Varek’s. It can’t be Dhamon’s because Dhamon is going to die when I see him next. He’ll pay for what he did to Rig. He will pay for everything, sooner or later, I swear.”

Mad as a hare, Ragh thought. He cursed himself as he watched her go, digging his claws into his palms in silent frustration. “Damn, but I should have gone with Dhamon instead. Why by the number of the Dark Queen’s heads did I volunteer to retrieve the half-elf and her family? Why?” He ground his heel into the packed earth. “Some part of me thinks I should’ve just disappeared into the swamp a long time ago—leaving Dhamon and Maldred and Fiona to their own foolishness. Disappeared… and….” He scratched at his head. “Done what with myself?”

The old yellow goblin gently rapped his spear against the draconian’s leg to get his attention. “Human slaves,” Yagmurth sniffed. “They are so unreliable. It’s better just to eat them—they’re tasty when they’re young—but I think this one’ll do as you command.”

The two stared across the Throt landscape. It reminded Ragh of a desert in its barrenness and severity. He could count the trees he saw on both hands, and he spied only a few birds. There were places on Krynn as desolate, he knew—he’d been to them. There were climates more hostile. This was certainly tolerable, but he didn’t care for it.

“Don’t like goblins,” he muttered in his own speech, leaving Yagmurth scratching his head. “Don’t like waiting for a crazed Solamnic Knight. Don’t like not knowing about Dhamon. My friend Dhamon.”