Jean Rabe - Redemption

He shook his scaly head at his predicament. “Why didn’t I just disappear into the swamp?”

Ragh didn’t budge from the spot until Fiona came back two hours later. Her breath was ragged, her face streaked with sweat and dirt. The sword she clung to was bloodied.

The draconian rushed to her, still wary of the sword she carried. “Fiona, what happened? Are you hurt? What did you—”

Yagmurth chattered and hopped between the pair, trying to make them speak in a language he could understand.

She gave the goblin a sneer and kicked Yagmurth away, brushing at a strand of hair. “The village is small from the looks of it. Very. I couldn’t get in close, though. The hobgoblins belong to the Knights of Takhisis. I can tell from the emblems on their armor.”

“Hobgoblins in armor? Wonderful.”

“Leather and chain for the most part. It was wonderful to fight against an armored opponent again, after all this time—even if they were filthy hobgoblins. I stopped thinking about Rig for a few minutes when I was busy fighting. Everything seemed so clear.” She paused to take a deep breath, her eyes wide and glittering.

“Battle suits you,” Ragh said simply.

“I ran into three of them, hobgoblins, on the south end of the village. Sentries, obviously. They wouldn’t let me pass into the village, and though I couldn’t understand them I figured out the gist of the situation. The town was blockaded.”

He pointed to her sword.

She shrugged. “I killed two of them, the third ran. I would have given chase, but thought I might find myself outnumbered. I came back to report to you.”

A rare sane decision, Ragh thought. “Good. I worried.”

She spat at the ground.

“They’ll reinforce the south end of the village now, of course,” he said.

“I suppose,” she agreed. Suddenly the distracted look was back in her eyes. She turned back toward the village, but Ragh stepped in front of her, edging away from her sword.

“Let’s not be hasty.”

“I am a Solamnic Knight, sivak. My report to you is concluded. I will now go back to the village and slay whatever reinforcements they’ve gathered to the south.”

The draconian groaned. Against his better judgment he put his arm around her protectively and tugged her away from the rise, to the west. “No, Fiona. They’ll be expecting someone coming again from the south. We’ll fool them, pick another direction.”

“Another? OK. West. Let’s charge in from the west.” She gripped the pommel of the sword firmly.

“Tell your little, stinky friends about the plan, and let’s see if they can keep up.”

Ragh was already telling Yagmurth and the others that had gathered around them. The draconian directed the goblin force to follow him and stay as quiet as possible. He could only pray that Fiona herself would stay quiet and not prove a liability. He had to rush to catch up to her, the two of them leading their ragtag army around to the west and a bit north, circling the village and using a copse of pine and oak trees as cover.

There were some hobgoblins just inside the treeline, and Ragh didn’t notice them until it was too late.

A pair of armored sentries sniffed the air suspiciously, scenting their approach. Though related in some ways to their small cousins, the hobgoblins bore little real resemblance to the smaller, uglier creatures.

These sentries and soldiers were the size of men, and vaguely man-shaped in their limbs, with coarse brown-gray hair covering their bodies.

Their faces looked batlike, ears large and pointed, snouts wet and snuffling, sharply pointed teeth, and constant drool spilling over swollen lips.

“Move!” Ragh barked. “Get them!”

Thrilled to be commanded by Takhisis’ perfect child, the whooping, shouting goblins descended on the hobgoblins.

“Victory!” Yagmurth cried in Goblin. “Ours is victory!”

The goblins moved hungrily, stabbing hobgoblins right and left. They fought well, but several of them were also killed in the initial melee.

“Monsters!” Fiona shouted. “Foul things!” The Solamnic pushed her way through the ranks, drawing her sword and swinging it wildly until the blade whistled.

The impressed goblins folded in behind her, shouting encouragements. Fiona closed with a large hobgoblin. Small ones behind her jabbed at the hobgoblin’s legs, yip-ping maniacally as the large hobgoblin found itself pressed from all around.

Ragh narrowly avoided a spear thrust from one hobgoblin and nearly tripped over Yagmurth. His hobgoblin foe jabbed his spear again, this time scraping Ragh’s ribcage.

“I felt that!” Ragh grunted.

Smirking, the hobgoblin redoubled his effort.

All around him goblins and hobgoblins were shouting and fighting. A few feet away, Fiona was still squared off against her big hobgoblin. Just at that moment, she lunged in and sliced at the hobgoblin’s hands, shearing off a few of its fingers. The hobgoblin howled and flailed wildly, trying to push Fiona back with a charge, but at the same time it was assailed by a flurry of goblins, stabbing at its legs with their short spears.

“The creature is mine!” Fiona yelled. She drew her lips into a tight line and delivered more blows. The first finished her opponent, but the press of goblins held the creature up with their incessant stabbing until one of her swings lopped its head off.

“Victory!” Yagmurth howled again. “Ours is victory!”

Ragh’s opponent threw back his head and screamed a string of obscenities as he saw Fiona finish off his comrade. He screamed louder as the corpse was quickly swarmed by goblins.

Ragh’s opponent was the last hobgoblin on his feet. “You’re too far from the village,” Ragh hissed.

“Too far for anyone to hear your alarm.” The draconian dropped beneath a spear thrust, then darted in so close the hobgoblin’s long weapon was ineffective. Ragh stretched a hand up to the creature’s throat, slashing wildly with his claws, tugging his opponent down, and biting down on the hobgoblin’s neck.

“Foul monster!” Fiona shouted, as she waded in to help.

“Foul tasting,” the draconian said as he spat out a chunk of hair-covered skin. “Filthy, flea-ridden beast.” He stepped away as the hobgoblin fell backward. Fiona stabbed it to be certain it was dead, and the goblins swarmed over it, tearing it to bloody pieces.

“Yagmurth,” Ragh said, pushing his way through the goblin throng.

The old goblin struggled to reach the draconian, tugging along with him a small goblin, possibly his son, whom he was scolding for taking part in the unseemly rending.

“Good job,” Ragh said.

The old goblin smiled and ran his leathery tongue over his teeth. “Some places goblins and hobgoblins are kin,” Yagmurth said, “but not in Goblin Home. Here we are enemies.” He expounded on the situation.

Ragh missed a few of the words, ones stemming from a dialect he wasn’t familiar with, but he learned that the majority of hobgoblin tribes in Throt had thrown their lot in with the Knights of Takhisis, serving as soldiers, as errand-runners, taking land from goblins once their allies at human behest.

“So the Knights of Takhisis want this town guarded by the hobgoblins for some reason,” Ragh mused.

Ragh brushed several goblins aside to stare at the homely visage of the hobgoblin he’d fought and killed.

The draconian closed his eyes and shut out the awestruck murmurs of his goblin-followers and focused on his inner magic.

Moments passed before Ragh’s form shimmered like molten silver. The draconian’s legs and arms became thinner and longer, his fingers crooked like twigs, his chest broadened into a barrel shape. The silvery scales lost their shine and turned into a splotchy, reddish-brown hide. A moment more and that hide was covered with coarse, uneven hair. His ears grew long and pointed, his snout became broader and shorter, and his tail all but vanished. His eyes flashed, then became dull and wide-set.