Jean Rabe - Redemption

Ragh, like all sivaks, was able to assume the form of any creature he killed. He did not employ this talent much. He greatly preferred his draconian body and was proud of the way his keen sivak eyes perceived the world. A hobgoblin had a disconcertingly narrow range of vision because of the close-set placement of its eyes.

Ragh flexed hobgoblin arm and leg muscles, finding them adequate but clumsy. The hands, especially, took some getting used to. The fingers were too long. He twisted his neck this way and that and rotated his shoulders, trying to feel comfortable.

“Wretched creature,” the draconian observed. “Unfortunate, pathetic creature.” But taking on the body of the hobgoblin could prove advantageous, Ragh explained to the amazed goblins.

“Perfect child of our revered god,” Yagmurth said, bowing respectfully.

Ragh snorted in amusement. When he spoke to Yagmurth now, his voice was different—still hoarse but deeper and somewhat unpleasant to his pointy ears.

“You are most powerful and most wise, Ragh—greatest of Takhisis’ creations,” repeated Yagmurth.

“I am most… something,” Ragh returned with a chuckle. “Here’s what I intend to do.”

“What did you tell him?” Fiona demanded when he had finished in the goblin tongue, and his army had ceased their chattering. “And just what did he say to you?”

“I told him I intend to stroll into the hobgoblin camp and see just how many are in their force and why the village is under guard. Then I’ll lure some of the beasts out so you can bloody your sword some more.”

“Acceptable,” she pronounced after thinking for a moment. “Do not tarry long. We must make sure that Riki and her baby are safe, then I must go after Dhamon before his tracks are old. He must pay.”

“Of course he must pay,” Ragh muttered, shaking his hobgoblin head as he lumbered away, his goblin entourage falling in line behind him and trying to shush each other. “Follow me,” he called over his shoulder, “and I’ll show you where to hide and wait.”

Fiona stared at the hobgoblin corpses and the bodies of eight goblins that had been left behind. She hurriedly covered them all up with fallen branches, then followed after the goblins. “Dhamon will pay,” she said to herself.

In less than an hour, Ragh encountered two more sentries and quietly dispatched them, making his way into the hobgoblin camp. There he learned that more than sixty hobgoblins were on duty. It was a small force but equal to the number of dwellers in the village. Sixty was certainly more than his ragtag two dozen goblins.

Too, Ragh learned, the people in the village boasted no real weapons. The hobgoblins had expropriated all their swords, spears, and bows. They left the villagers a few knives for cooking, but the village was unarmed, defenseless.

Engaging a tired and unsuspecting hobgoblin in conversation, Ragh drew out this intelligence, that the hobgoblin force had blockaded the village on the Knights of Takhisis’ orders because most of the village residents were Solamnic or Legion of Steel sympathizers. Several locals had passed information to enemies of the Knights of Takhisis and had harbored spies in the past. The hobgoblins had been ordered to kill any Solamnics or Legion of Steel Knights they captured, as a warning to nearby villages.

Ragh recalled that Riki’s husband had past ties to the Legion of Steel and guessed that might be why his young family was here. Varek probably kept up his old allegiances.

“I’ll trick some of the hobgoblins into following me to this stand of trees,” Ragh explained to the assembled goblin army. He repeated his comments in Common for Fiona. “I expect you and your people to ambush them, Yagmurth, but let Fiona, the human woman, tackle the biggest ones.” He also said in Goblin but didn’t translate into common tongue, “Let the woman-slave take on the most dangerous of the hobgoblins. That way you’ll be safe. Her life is not as valuable as yours.” He didn’t have the heart to tell Yagmurth that Fiona was a better fighter than any dozen of them.

The draconian posing as a hobgoblin had stolen a suit of armor that was a mix of chain and plate.

During his spying expedition, Ragh had found the general of the hobgoblins and had tricked him into going behind a rise. There the draconian slew him and assumed his body. This bigger hobgoblin body was a little more pleasing to the draconian, for the general was in better shape than the sentry. However, he was saddled with slightly bowed legs on which he couldn’t quite walk comfortably.

“Now the hobgoblins think I’m their general,” Ragh told the goblins with a grin. “I’m not going to try anything so suspicious as ordering them all to leave. I’d wager some of them would contest me. But I’ll order them to come out here with me in small groups that you can manage. Enough will follow my orders that we can decrease their number, I think.”

“As we follow the orders of the greatest of Takhisis’ creations,” Yagmurth pronounced. “As we serve the perfect child.”

It took several hours but the plan worked brilliantly—so brilliantly that Ragh, disguised as the hobgoblin general, was able to lure every one of the hobgoblins out to the forest, in relay groups, until the entire force was vanquished, killed, or fled. Unfortunately, however, this tactic cost nearly a dozen goblin lives. Only fourteen of Yagmurth’s people survived the sometimes chaotic fighting. Yagmurth himself survived and was eager to follow Ragh to any other battle he might suggest, but the draconian was able to dismiss the goblin leader and his dwindling army with a false promise to meet them in two days at the stream where they had first confronted the umberhulk. Sadly, as though he suspected the truth, Yagmurth shook Ragh’s hands and left with the goblins.

Fiona had loved the fighting, and now she detested Ragh for sending the brave goblins away. “Liar.

Liar. Liar,” she muttered as she watched them retreat from view.

Ragh shook out his shoulders, shedding his hobgoblin form and returning to his wingless sivak shape.

“You lied to them, sivak.”

“Yes, Fiona. I lied to them,” the draconian admitted, “and I’ll probably have to tell some more lies in order to get Riki and her baby and Varek away from here safely”

She tossed her head. “Yes, Riki and Varek and… the baby That is my mission now.”

“We’ll go together,” Ragh said tersely. As much as he would prefer to send her back alone—for the humans were bound to wonder at the disappearance of all the hobgoblins and the sudden, alarming presence of a draconian—he still couldn’t bring himself to fully trust Fiona. Her eyes no longer flashed any semblance of sanity.

“Together, then,” she reluctantly agreed. “Then I must hurry after Dhamon.”

Things didn’t go well. The alarmed villagers had already prepared themselves for some crisis and started at the sight of Ragh strolling down their main street. The draconian was wounded by a badly tossed hobgoblin spear before he could shout anything to quell their fears. Now he was in the care of Riki, who had him seated on a chair inside her small house—the only chair she trusted to support his considerable weight—and she was bandaging the sivak. She smoothed ointment on his ribs where he had been gouged and blotted blood from his forearm and shoulder, where he had been pelted with rocks.

“Pigs, but they got you good, beastie!” the half-elf said. Riki fussed over the draconian, as Varek and Fiona looked on. “My new friends in this place didn’t know you weren’t no evil beastie. They were just tired of all the…”

“Hobgoblins,” Ragh supplied.