Alex Irvine - The seal of Karga Kul

“I will echo Remy’s question. From all of us,” Kithri said.

“There are many signs that mean one thing at one time and place and another when the time and place are different,” Biri-Daar said. “I suspected but was not certain. Now that Roji has confirmed what I suspected, I am thinking that our path is clear.”

Iriani looked thoughtful. “I am thinking that his original errand and ours might be related. Does anyone concur?”

“I am thinking that young Remy ought to stay here and work for his bread while we go off and finish what we have started,” Lucan growled.

“You have made this clear,” said Biri-Daar, in a tone that closed down that angle of conversation. “And now we have decided that Remy must come with us because if we let him go and his errand comes into conflict with ours, we will be fortunate if we have a chance to correct that error.”

“We have decided?” Remy asked. “I haven’t decided anything.” The group looked back at him. No one spoke. “You make me sound a bit like a prisoner,” Remy said, meaning it to come out as a joke but realizing as he said it that it hadn’t.

“You are a bit like a prisoner,” Kithri said before anyone else could say it in a more diplomatic way. “But we’re giving you a full share and letting you buy a horse, so you’ve got it better than most prisoners. Might as well enjoy it.”

The main stable of Crow Fork Market was built against the southwest corner of the wall and ran for more than a hundred yards along the inside of the western wall. The corner end of the building housed travelers’ horses and the opposite end horses for sale. In between were the main sliding doors, through which the potential buyer of a horse entered into a tack and grooming area. At the back of it was a large drain that caught Remy’s attention.

“We’re in the middle of the desert. Where does the drain go?” he asked.

The stabler introduced himself as Wylegh. “There’s an underground river,” he said. “Where it comes out, no man knows. Or at least I don’t. But the council has paid for sewers to be cut down to the caves where it flows. One of them runs from the main keep under here and on to those caves.”

“Natural sciences are so interesting,” Iriani said with a roll of his eyes. “Shall we get on with the horse-trading now?”

“Agreed. Although we can all do with a bit less sarcasm,” Biri-Daar said. The horse merchant waddled back down the row of stalls, stopping at a barred door that marked the farthest end of the building from the corner of the wall. Shafts of light came down through narrow skylights, doing little to brighten the gloom in that part of the stable.

“Pick one you’d like to have a look at and we’ll take it out in the yard,” he said, tapping on the door. A soft scraping noise came from back near the front entrance and the merchant chuckled. “They’re restless today.”

Lucan and Iriani exchanged a glance. Remy caught it. Something elf, he thought. What were they noticing? Iriani touched the corner of his eye and looked back the way they’d come. Lucan dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword. Remy paused until they caught up with him. “What?” he asked.

Both of them shook their heads. “Not sure yet,” Iriani said quietly. “But something here is not as it seems.”

“Remy!” called Biri-Daar. “There are two here that aren’t outrageously overpriced and might survive a week on the road. I’ll let you choose which one.”

Remy headed deeper into the shadowed interior of the stable. “I don’t know much about horses,” he said.

“Then bring the elves. You can trust them.”

“Elves?” Lucan said. “There’s only one elf here.”

“You’re both elves as far as I’m concerned,” Biri-Daar said. “Especially in the way you bicker over nothing. Come look at these two horses.”

It was just at the last moment, when the grate was completely off the stable drain, that Kithri noticed. “Lucan!” she cried out.

But the hobgoblins who had levered the drain cover off and were pouring up into the stable weren’t after Lucan. They fanned out into an arc with Remy at its center. He drew his sword and waited for one of them to make the first move. They came up so fast out of the drain that at first none of the party noticed that not all of them were hobgoblins; then Iriani reached out a hand and balled it into a fist. “Back to hell, imp,” he said.

In the second rank of advancing creatures, the farthest on the left went up in a pillar of flame. Horses all through the stable reared and shrieked.

“No fire!” screamed the stabler. “No fire, you’ll burn us all!”

Biri-Daar turned and with the flat of her sword leveled him. He crumpled under a tack bench. “Betrayer. You deserve to burn,” she said, and with the return swing of the sword cut down the closest of the hobgoblins.

There were so many of them it was hard to keep track in the darkness until one or more was already attacking; they moved in groups, blending into a collective impression of pitted blades, bared fangs, and eye-watering stench. Remy got a stable door at his back and found Kithri next to him. “Worse than the sewers they come out of,” she said, wrinkling her nose. Remy barked a short surprised laugh. Then he struck where she did, hoping the halfling could see what he couldn’t.

Iriani solved part of the light problem by blasting a torso-sized hole through the roof and letting sunlight in. The hobgoblins skirted the light, pressing their attacks from the shadows. Keverel contributed to the stable’s illumination by pronouncing the name of his god, which created a glow around the imps that flanked the hobgoblins, keeping out of the way until they could strike with the advantage of surprise.

One such glow appeared just above and behind Remy’s head. He ducked instinctively and the imp’s tail stinger stabbed past his ear into the stable door.

Kithri was nearly as fast as the imp. In the split second it took the tiny devil to release its stinger from the wood, she cut its tail off and with a second stroke pinned it to the doorframe by its hand. The imp shrieked and vanished, but its invisibility was no protection with the twin streams of ichor running from its hand and the stump of its tail. Remy finished it and pivoted around to deflect a spear thrust from a hobgoblin. His return stroke sent it spinning away, to meet the head of Keverel’s mace. In the light the hobgoblins were not so bold. They attacked, but cautiously, as if content to keep the party where they were, pinned in the stable.

And then it became apparent why, as a larger shape loomed behind the hobgoblins, forcing its way up through the sewer opening that was barely large enough to admit it. “Troglodyte,” Keverel said grimly. “The Underdark must be close to the surface here.”

The troglodyte, larger than Biri-Daar, finished forcing its way through the drain and lumbered toward them between the rows of whinnying horses that bucked and kicked at their enclosures as it passed. Quickly Remy took stock before it arrived. The imps were gone, and most of the hobgoblins had fled or were staying out of the way. Some of those that remained fell victim to the troglodyte, which struck out at them with its great stone club on its way toward Biri-Daar and Lucan, who stood to meet it. Kithri, Iriani, and Remy killed off the rest of the hobgoblins from distance while Keverel limped along the wall, wounded in the thigh.

The troglodyte mauler raised its club and brought it down against Biri-Daar’s shield. The dragonborn staggered under the force of the blow, and the troglodyte pressed its temporary advantage, striking again and reaching with its free hand to claw Biri-Daar’s shield away. Lucan ducked in from the side under its looping backswing, striking at its hamstrings.