Jeff Grubb: Lord Toede

Toede's stomach growled in confirmation. It seemed like it had been ages since he last ate.

Toede quickly followed the scent down the far side of the ridge, careful to move with as much grace and quiet as he could manage. Just because it was food did not mean that it was friendly food. It could mean he'd found his runaway entourage… or poachers.

The brush and undergrowth thickened, which helped keep the small highmaster hidden until he was almost upon the encampment. He closed to within sight of the camp, then moved counterclockwise along its perimeter to a point where he could get a good view, careful not to be seen until he could determine the true nature of those within.

They were poachers, and kender to boot. There were about two dozen huts in a rough circle around a central fire. The huts were made of light willow saplings bent into hemispheres and covered with skins and bull rushes. A few of the kender were lolling about in typical kender fashion-dressed in shirts and leggings made of tanned hide, accented with small flourishes like feathers and bits of metal. The fire itself was a good-sized hearth of stones, indicating this was a semiregular campsite he had stumbled into. A half dozen geese had been dressed and were hanging from tripods over the campfire, their dripping fat causing the tongues of flame to spit and dance. A portly female kender was berating a slower, larger (larger to her, smaller than Toede) creature who was bringing wood for the flames.

Normally Toede would have continued around the encampment, looking for a clear trail out, ignoring his stomach's rumblings. He would have, but at that moment the larger creature dropped the pile of wood he was carrying, and Toede saw his face. A very hobgoblin face. Groag!

Toede was stunned, but only for a moment. Groag's face was thinner, leaner, and not as well tended as Toede remembered, but nonetheless it was his former courtier and chief bootlicker. Same lumpish head, chinless face, and beady eyes that were common to Toede and all hob-goblinsj?ut in addition a nose that looked like it had been flattened by a rock, and a black mop of hair cut bowl-fashion at ear level. Groag's finery had been stripped of him, and the hobgoblin was dressed in worn, tattered buckskins that looked like they had been patched together from several kender's throwaways.

The hobgoblin was shorter than Toede and (in better times) wider, but his presence next to the child-sized kender made him look like an ogre-sized creature next to a human. Groag was nodding dumbly as the kender cook lectured him on some matter of wood hauling. It was then that Toede noticed the manacles on his former lackey's ankles and wrists, and the thick chains that linked them together.

A white fury exploded in Toede's heart. If anyone had the right to toss his servants in irons, it was him, not some ragtag collection of poaching kender. The insult was incredible, he fumed. He should come back after dark and free his companion. This made proper sense, since Groag would probably know the best route out of these marshlands.

At least he should warn Groag to expect something, thought Toede, to prepare for an escape. Careful not to reveal himself too much, Toede attempted to signal his former courtier. Fortunately, the kender cook had her back to him, and no other natives were in sight. Toede waved, trying to catch Groag's attention.

Groag looked directly at him as Toede waved, and his piggy hobgoblin eyes widened. Toede placed a finger to his lips and quickly pantomimed the sun going down, then pointed at himself, then at Groag, then made walking-finger motions to show the pair of them escaping.

Repeating the motions a few times, Toede expected Groag to nod in agreement, or at least to look puzzled.

What Toede did not expect was for Groag's eyes to roll up in his pointed little head, and the smaller hobgoblin to pitch backward in a dead faint, sending kindling scattering in all directions. Yet, this was exactly what happened.

As he ducked back into the brush, Toede did not remember if he'd cursed aloud at Groag's reaction. Of all the foolish, stupid things to do! Fainting at the first sign of rescue. There was nothing to do for it but to get out quietly and come back later, hopefully with a detachmenrof guards and Hopsloth.

Toede began backing slowly away, careful to keep as much vegetation between himself and the fire (and the cook calling for aid with a fainted hobgoblin) as possible. He thought he had cleared the area when he felt the sharp point of a dagger placed expertly between the links of his chain shirt.

"Sure and now," said a high-pitched, definitely kender-ish voice, "you wouldn't be leaving us without joining your friend." The pressure from the dagger point grew, and Toede cursed again.

Then Toede raised his hands in surrender and began walking, slowly, back into camp.

Groag awoke with a head full of bees, his face and hands still tingling from the shock. Had to have been heatstroke, he thought, grasping for consciousness. All the work, all the labor, all the pain-that was the only rational explanation.

The real world swam back into view, and he found he had been carried back to his own hut. His chains had been threaded through the iron bolt driven into a large rock positioned at the hut's center. He could move about the hut in relative ease, but any further escape was impossible. As usual.

It was still morning, evident from the slant of the light through the doorway bars, light that illuminated the other occupant in his hovel, similarly chained and shackled and securely moored to the anchoring stone.

Toede scowled at him and said, "Well, thank you so very much."

Groag's eyes rolled up in his head again, and the darkness reclaimed him. He pitched backward.

Toede sighed and grabbed the water bucket and ladle placed by the door. He waddled over to his prostrate companion, pulling a ladle full of the cool swamp water. He stood there for half a moment, as if considering the consequences of his intended action. Then he drank from the ladle, set it aside, and poured the water from the bucket over his companion.

Groag awoke with a start, spitting and cursing.

"That was your wake-up call," said Toede smoothly. "Do try to stay conscious for a while."

"You're alive!" sputtered Groag.

"Ah, observant as ever," said Toede. "I can see why the poachers kept you to gather their wood. You've been out a full hour, you know. And unconscious, you're neither entertaining nor enlightening."

"I mean, you're dead," said Groag. "I mean, you're supposed to be dead."

Toede scowled deeply. "Dead! Do I look dead?"

"Well, not now," said Groag, looking hurt and ashamed. "But you were, I mean, are. You're not one of those zombies the necromancer keeps, are you?"

"My dear Groag," said Toede in his best axe-is-about-to-fall voice. "We are in sufficiently serious trouble as it is. Now is not the time to go delirious on me."

"I'm not delirious." Groag shook his oversized head. "I mean, I think I am delirious, but because you're here. I mean, I saw you die!"

"Do I look dead?" said Toede again, a little taken aback by Groag's vehemence on the subject.

"Well, not at the moment," said Groag. "But…" He let the word drift off.

A silence fell between the two hobgoblins. Then Toede sighed and said, "Let's entertain the fantasy for a moment. How did I die?"

"There were these kender…" started Groag.

"I remember the kender," interrupted Toede.

"And there was this dragon…" continued Groag.