Lord Toede

Chapter 5

By the time dusk claimed Flotsam fully, and the small lamp urchins scurried from light post to light post with their long-handled wicks, Toede and Groag had retreated to the common room of a rundown inn near the south wall.

The inn was called the Jetties and had seen better days, none of them, Toede wagered, during his lifetime. The exterior stairs and porch were rotting away, and the walls were dirty stone, the grit of the city only barely covering scrawled graffiti. The interior was little better, the lathe and plaster walls pitted from numerous brawls. The graffiti artists had moved inside as well, and switched from paint to knives, incising new designs on the dusty woodwork.

Still, the owner, a wide, battle-scarred gentleman, had not spit at them when they asked about rooms. That alone put this dive leagues ahead of the last three places they had stopped. Apparently Gildentongue had issued some decree that this was an acceptable mode of treating non-humans, at least when addressing anyone who looked like Toede.

it was abundantly clear that Gildentongue held the city in the grip of fear. If the protester at the parade was any indication, the choices were death or belief in Holy Hop-sloth, the Water Prophet.

The Water Prophet. Toede rolled the name around in his mouth as if it were a wafer made of hard salt. He had pieced together the entire story from a few people on the street-at least those who would talk to them.

There were three types of humans in Flotsam nowadays. First and foremost were those who would flee when Toede approached, as if he carried a blood-drenched dagger and wore nothing more than a lunatic grin. From these he got nothing. Several seemed to recognize him, and fled all the faster, clutching their small medallions as they scurried off.

The second group of humans were even more insulting. They treated both Toede and Groag as if the two had been recipients of a sudden spell of invisibility cast by a slightly demented wizard. Their eyes seemed to lock on something slightly to the right or left of the hobgoblins, and they breezed past, oblivious to their existence. Toede tried to commit their faces to memory for eventual revenge, but had to abandon this idea after the dozenth such incident. Not to mention, to a hobgoblin all humans look alike.

But there were a few in the city who would dare being seen talking to a hobgoblin. These were beggars, sailors, layabouts, and similar dredges, along with a handful of nonhuman servants who were working toting bales and sweeping streets. They would talk to anyone. Indeed, a few seemed to be talking to themselves when Toede joined their conversations.

A one-eyed goblin servant with a straw broom told him that the story of Lord Toede's death had swept through the city like a smoldering fire in dead, wet brush-slowly jumping from bard to bard, and from bar to bar, met with toasts and small smiles.

An ogre that was carrying rusted metal to the dock told him that at first the tale was disbelieved. People thought it part of some plot of the highmaster's to draw out dissent. When a week passed without Toede's reappearance, all assumed that, whatever the cause, Toede was gone.

A woman who looked half sea elf told him about the carnival that followed, a week-long celebration that ended in a series of bloody confrontations between the townies and the local detachment of the dragonarmy. It was then that Gildentongue, Toede's "faithful" liaison with the highlord armies, stepped forward to calm the troubled waters and announce his own revelations.

A street preacher said Gildentongue revealed that Hop-sloth, a unique and divine creature, had been sent by the True Gods to lead Flotsam to greatness. Toede had been Hopsloth's first student and minion but grew greedy, and sought to keep that power and wisdom for himself. Gildentongue, being sensitive to the true nature of Hop-sloth the Water Prophet, shared this revelation with all, and had proved to work wonders for the city in the few months of his reign.

Gildentongue had made good his promise, acting as the Second Minion (the late, unlamented Toede being the first) of the Holy Hopsloth. The city wall was rebuilt, said one beggar. The nonhuman trash of hobgoblins and kender that roamed the streets was exiled, said another. The green dragons and their riders were sent inland to a new base, and Gildentongue's Flotsam was granted a degree of autonomy, said another. About this time the medallions appeared. Holy Hopsloth had cured the sick. Holy Hopsloth drove the sharks from Flotsam Harbor. Holy Hopsloth was an agent of the were-insects from Nuitari.

Toede took it all in, discounting the bulk of it. Hopsloth was about as bright as a bag of lampreys and incapable of communicating any advanced theology beyond a desire for his next meal. The former highmaster originally thought he had been given the beast as a joke, a satire of the highlords' own elegant dragon mounts. For Hopsloth was no more a servant of the greater gods than Toede was king of the kender.

No, Toede thought, Gildentongue has proved himself as politically astute and slime-ridden as ever. Gildentongue would have had a hard time following Toede's illustrious (if apparently misunderstood) reign. So the draconian borrowed a page from before the war and set up his own church, of which he was the mere spokesman.

Give the people a few bones and musty miracles, and you're set for life.

The pair of hobgoblins had shuffled from inn to inn looking for quarters, or at least recognition, until they had reached the Jetties.

Now Toede surveyed the room. A drunken barbarian sprawled on a nearby bench, snoring softly. A trio of domino players lazily laid down their tiles with occasional clicks. An old man with a pipe was immersed in a musty tome. A few sailors chatted and lied over drinks. A hooded priest in a voluminous, ragged robe, worshiper of some abandoned god, was propped against a far wall. The serving girl had vanished soon after the hobgoblins' arrival, and had not reappeared since.

And lastly Toede and Groag, a pair of ragged, ratty-looking hobgoblins with no appearance of nobility, or even adequacy.

Toede sighed. The good news was that it was unlikely to get any worse. The bad news was it was at the moment unlikely to get any better.

The smaller hobgoblin had vanished fifteen minutes earlier, abandoning Toede to the cold stares of the other patrons and his own dark thoughts. Toede had wrapped himself up in his tattered cloak and sulked. If sulking had a sound, it could be said that he was sulking loudly, but as it was a (mostly) silent practice, the only noise being the crinkling of his forehead skin, that dry flesh crinkled more tightly. Groag brought a pair of ales to the table, smiling.

"Where did you get those?" said Toede sharply.

"Comes with the room," said Groag, clambering up onto the bench across from the former highmaster. Neither hobgoblin's legs touched the floor, but Groag swung his back and forth, while Toede's limbs hung motionless like pieces of dead meat.

"Ah, so we caught the tavernmaster on 'leave-your-brains-at-the-door day,' " sneered Toede, "or have you forgotten that we have no money?"

Groag gave that kenderish shrug again. Toede wished his companion would lose that habit and lose it quickly.

"I… ah… have taken care of that, Highmaster," said Groag. "I showed the master of this house that I was not at a total loss in the kitchen, and he offered a trade of services for quarters."

"What you're saying," said Toede, "is that you got a job."

Groag looked hurt. "Well, if you're going to get technical about it…"

Toede took a pull on the ale, which slid down his throat like hot grease. His last meal (lizard tartare) had been before they had entered the city, and the liquid splashed on an empty stomach. He ran a pointed finger over the puddle left by the mug's sweat. Groag sighed, bracing himself for another hobgoblinish blowup.

Instead Toede sighed and said, "Do you remember the old days, Groag? Before the coming of the dragon high-lords?"

"I remember them being cold and unpleasant," said Groag flatly.

"Bracing," corrected Toede, "and challenging."

"Violent," said Groag, "and primitive."

"Exciting," replied Toede, the ale warming him now, "and dynamic."

"Deadly," said Groag. "Nasty. Bloody."

"Untamed," said Toede. "Primal. Challenging."

"You already said challenging."

"It deserves to be said again," said Toede, slamming the now-empty mug down on the table with a hollow metallic clang. "It was a challenge. What happened to us as a people, that we have been reduced to serving as lackeys for other races, used as dragon-fodder for battles, banned even from proper cities now? What happened, I ask you?"

Groag was silent for a moment and swirled the ale in his mug without drinking it. At length he said, "Perhaps what happened was… you."

Toede looked long and hard at Groag. The smaller hobgoblin continued to surprise him at every turn. Meekly accepting kender masters, learning to cook, getting a job, and now this. It seemed to Toede that at any moment Groag would grow wings and fly away.

As it was, all he could grunt out was a surprised, "Eh?"

Groag leaned forward, as if to tell Toede a mighty secret. "Not you in particular. You in general. A lot of chiefs, shamans, petty ogre lords, and the rest joined up with the dragonarmies, coming out of the cold wilderness and discovering that fireplaces and cooked meat had a lot to recommend them."

"Of course, the thinkers, that would be you," Groag went on, "and me, kept themselves from the battlefield and let the warriors go out and fight. And die. Those that survived would have been great warriors indeed, but the masters we served used our forces as soak-offs. Throw-away troops. Units to keep the opponents' wizards busy while the real troops mopped up their throwaway troops."

Groag sighed and continued. "So our best, most savage warriors were thrown into a meat grinder. Those of us who talked them into it got soft, and those that went the furthest-you, me, your honor guard-got soft faster than the rest."

Groag, with a small smile, sat back. "Then we found out that the same bloody backstabbing rules applied in the cities as in our own corner of the world. But we found it out after everything fell apart on us." He took a long,

satisfied pull on the mug. "Another?"

Toede grunted as his companion pushed himself off the bench, weaving his way to the back. Toede thought of asking for something more filling, but let the thought slip away.

He scanned the room again, a habit ingrained in him back in the "dark old times" Groag talked of. The common room remained the sleepy paragon of an inn that had seen better times. The old sage had fallen asleep; his pipe had gone out, sliding into the front of his robes.

When Groag returned with another pair of foaming mugs, Toede took a long pull on his drink and felt the warmth flow into his fingers and toes. He looked at Groag and asked, "Since when did you get so smart?"

"Not smart, Highmaster," said Groag with a small smile. "A-dap-tive. When I was in the old tribe, I worked with the old ways. When I joined up with you in your court, I adapted to the new ways. When I was caught by the kender, I picked up their ways. Now I'm back with you." Again the shrug. "The good news is that while we were out playing human games, our wilder, more savage cousins were breeding hardier warriors, so at least there's hope for the race, if not for us."

Toede was silent for a moment, feeling the blood rush through his temples like rampaging dragons. "That's the answer, of course."

"Eh?" Groag looked confused.

"Our wild brothers," said Toede. "We go back into the wild and gather a horde of them and lead them back here. Take the town by force. Gildentongue will never give it up. Abyss and Takhisis, he won't even find out that I'm in the city. Nobody recognizes me, and his guards won't even let me get close!"

"Easy, milord, you're shouting," cautioned Groag.

"And I should shout!" bellowed Toede, standing up on his bench. "I expect people to pay attention, to realize who they're dealing with! I am not some 'minion' of a fake god, in whose name one should paw one's collarbone in reverence!"

All heads in the common room turned to watch the commotion. The sage snorted and blinked up from his book. The dominos stopped, and the hooded priest rose from his seat, stopping briefly by the sleeping barbarian.

The innkeeper poked his head into the room and frowned. Groag smiled weakly at his new employer and grabbed at Toede's robe. It was like trying to close the door on a hurricane, and about as effectual.

"Citizens of Flotsam!" cried Toede, stepping onto the table itself and elevating himself to human level. "I have returned to my city to find it laboring under delusions of my death! Delusions that have been put in place by a false prophet and his draconian manipulator! Tell the world that Lord Toede is back, and demands that someone pay attention!"

There was a silence in the room as all froze. Then one of the domino players nudged his companion, and the companion laid down another tile. The sage fished his pipe out of his shirt front and returned to his book. The others returned to their aforementioned drinks.

Toede's face flushed an almost-human shade of pink. "Do you not hear me?" he shouted. "I am Toede, your rightful ruler! Let us storm the gates and bring down the false lord Gildentongue! Spread the word that Toede has returned!"

Again silence. Then the reprise of clacking dominos and normal conversations.

"Toede's complexion darkened to a still-redder shade, "Doesn't anyone care? Isn't anyone listening?" he bellowed.

The silence following Toede's shout was broken by a sharp twang, then Toede's left shoulder exploded in pain. The highmaster clutched his arm and found that a smooth, feathered cylinder protruded from midway in the upper arm. From where the cylinder met his flesh, a growing smear of blood stained his ragged robe.

A crossbow bolt, said one part of his mind.

You've fallen to your knees, said another part.

Someone is talking to you, said a third; you'd best pay attention.

"Hobgoblin," said the hooded priest, dropping the spent crossbow and pulling a sword, "I hereby arrest you in the name of Lord Gildentongue and Holy Hopsloth the Water Prophet, blessed be their names. You are charged with insurrection, heresy, blasphemy, and"-the human smiled at this-"imitating the First Minion, the departed Lord Toede. You are guilty of all these crimes. The sentence is death."

Toede heard Groag say, in a voice that seemed to be at the far end of a tunnel, "Of all the times for someone to listen to you."