Chapter 6

A blackness rose within Toede and threatened to overwhelm him. But something else rose as well, a feeling of rage, a bright red blossom against that black. He had not come so far just to die in some pigsty of a bar, like a common, a common… commoner.

Toede forced open his eyes and saw the human "priest."

Part of his mind made the mental correction-everyone knows priests don't as a rule use swords-so he must be an assassin or warrior or whatever. Some agent of Gildentongue's. Stars danced and glittered around the approaching figure.

The other figures in the bar had evaporated. The barbarian was still asleep on his bench, but as for the rest, they vanished within moments of the crossbow bolt striking flesh.

Toede's mind was working faster than his body. He's going to kill you, noted one part. Find a weapon, said another. Run, said a third. Do something, reiterated the first.

Toede's left arm had stopped sending panic signals, or at least Toede had become immune to them, for the limb now hung like a dead weight. He dropped his right hand back to his side, his knuckles grazing something metallic that rolled slightly as he jostled it: his empty ale mug.

As he fumbled for the mug, his fingers felt like they were wrapped in bandages. The human figure now towering over him raised an arm. Laughing, said one part of Toede's mind. The swing of the blade will pass right through my neck, said the second. I think we all agree that I should do something, said the third, and relatively quickly at that.

Have to find time to collect my wits, responded Toede (or at least one part of Toede's brain). His fingers closed at last over the mug's handle, and all the disparate parts of his mind united to shout, "Swing it!"

Toede brought the mug around, hard as he could. His aim was bad, and if he had been standing toe-to-toe with his assailant, he would have smashed it against the front of the other's calves, square in the protective armor shin guards.

However, Toede was not toe-to-toe with his opponent. He was kneeling on a tabletop, so the wild swing connected with the human a short distance below his belt line, which is a position not protected by buckle, armor, or anything else beyond normal cloth.

The human attacker howled. Toede could not gloat from his well-placed strike, however; he was carried by the force of his own blow off the table. His wounded shoulder screamed with pain as he hit the flagstone floor. Colors never seen in nature swam and danced before his eyes.

Toede tried to rise, but had to settle for a three-limbed crawl to put some distance between him and the howling human. At ten feet (or ten miles, he was unsure about the exact distance), he ventured a look backward.

Groag (Groag! shouted his mind) was fighting with their human assailant. Well, not so much fighting as dancing, trying to keep a large serving platter between himself and the assassin.

But to Toede's pain-overloaded mind, Groag did have the grace of a dancer, nimbly parrying an overhand blow with the platter, jabbing the platter's edge at his assailant, then stepping aside sprightly as a side-arm slash went wide and carved a new divot in the plaster.

To a more objective (and less damaged) observer, Groag was little more than a flurry of motion, trying everything at once to keep the assailant at bay, while scurrying for cover between the tables and benches. The small hobgoblin's face was sheet-white, but he seemed as yet unmarked.

The human's face was knotted in pain and flushed red with anger, but otherwise their assailant was none the worse for wear.

The various parts of Toede's mind held a quick confab. Run, said one part of his brain. No, the human would finish Groag off in a matter of moments, then Toede would ^ be on his own. Then fight, said another part. No, Toede was in no shape to do anything more than bite his attacker in the shins. Get help, said that third part.

The sleeping barbarian.

Toede smiled painfully and started to pull himself slowly toward the inert form still reclining on a bench, an empty mason jar overturned nearby.

Barbarians were easy targets, thought Toede, especially if drunk or sleepy. Or breathing. A quick story about how an evil spirit had transformed itself to look like the queen's brother, and one of these shaggy-headed warriors would charge any old castle, leaving destruction in his or her path. One such as this, bare-chested, animal-skinned, bedecked with daggers and sleeping atop a scabbard with a great sword, would be a perfect rescuer. The fact that Toede was already bleeding and helpless would just further underscore his peril.

Toede reached the sleeping form and realized that Gildentongue's agent had apparently had the same thought-but much earlier. A second smile bloomed underneath the barbarian's chin, and the blood was starting to drip onto the floor in heavy clots.

Panic now seized Toede, and he looked back in time to see Groag's impromptu shield being batted from his hands and sent clanging against the far wall. Half a minute tops, thought Toede, and I will lose my army of one. And then, it will be my turn.

The barbarian was lying on his scabbard, so Toede grabbed one of the daggers hanging from the dead man's belt. He held it by the blade, as he always did for throwing.

The knives that Toede had practiced with, a lifetime ago, were weighted such that an expert toss would cause the weapon to spin in a half-circle, end-over-end, so that the business end of the blade would bury itself in the target upon impact. It was a stylish way of driving one's point home in any semantic argument, but required a dagger specially intended for such use-lean and thin, finely balanced, with just enough weight to punch through a leather jerkin.

This was a barbarian's blade, and as such crafted more for close infighting than stylish tossing. A thick hunk of ragged metal chipped to something close to an edge, then jammed into a makeshift hilt made of horn and wrapped with leather strips.

The mason jar would likely be easier to throw, but at the moment Toede did not have time to shop around. He muttered a short curse to any dark gods that may have been listening and flung the knife in the general direction of the human. Perhaps it would at least distract the human long enough for Groag to gain some new cover.

The blade left Toede's hand and flew with all the grace and delicate deadliness of a brick. It spun, as he'd hoped it would, but when it straightened it traveled with the hilt first and blade trailing. Oops.

But it was enough. The human assassin turned toward it, either with an instinct for its approach or just looking around for Toede. The heavy hilt struck him just above the right temple like the aforementioned brick. The human's head snapped suddenly away from the impact, and the blade bonked to the ground.

The human swayed for a moment, his eyes trying to focus on Toede. Then he slowly collapsed, as if all the air had been let out of him.

Toede staggered to his feet uneasily. Groag lost no time in capitalizing on Toede's throw, and could be found beating on the human's head and shoulder with his serving platter shield-weapon. The human twitched a few times, held his hands up to ward off the attack, then dropped fully into unconsciousness.

Toede looked around. The regulars and sailors had vanished into the night, along with the old man and the domino players. The scar-faced innkeep reappeared once the noise subsided, his face trapped between the horror of what had happened and fear about what might happen next.

"Get me a healer," hissed Toede to the man.

The innkeep motioned toward his collarbone, and Toede guessed there was a coin-shaped medallion beneath his shirt.

"That was an agent of Gildentongue, minion to the Water Prophet," said the innkeep.

Toede had had enough. He snarled, "Gildentongue is the second minion. I am the first, and I have returned to bring my vengeance upon those who use Holy Hopsloth as a puppet. Bring me a healer. Potion. Poultice. Something to stem the bleeding and close the wound. Whatever you have, but bring it now."

Toede said a few other things at this point, but they are unprintable, and most were said to the innkeeper's back as the scar-faced human scurried out of the room. Toede staggered over to Groag, who was leaning against the wall, serving platter still gripped in his paws, breathing heavily, his tiny piglike eyes bulging from their sockets in exertion.

"Has anyone," said Groag, gulping for air, "has anyone said you were a dangerous person to hang around with?"

"None that lived," muttered Toede. "Good to see you haven't lost your 'savage' nature after all. He alive?"

"Uh-huh," gasped Groag. "You think I have the strength to kill a human with a dinner platter? Go ahead, you try. I'll be glad to watch."

Toede rolled the human over on his back. Thick, curly black hair and beard around an otherwise nondescript face. Another stranger. Was that because Gildentongue had brought in his own band of agents, or just that Toede never paid attention to the humans in the good old days? Toede grimaced half in embarrassment and half in pain. He unbuttoned the assassin's shirt and found a large coin-shaped locket, this one as big as a hill giant's thumbnail.

It was the first one he'd seen at close range, and he pulled it from the human's neck. The chain was good quality gold, as was the clasp. The disk was some bronze or brass alloy, apparently stamped for production in mass quantities. One side was flat, the other showing the beaming features of Holy Hopsloth. From the beatific glow of the amphidragon's face, the creature had just eaten a team of oxen. He looked fatter than ever. Toede doubted that Gildentongue even took the beast out for rides.

Toede grunted, pocketing the symbol. Groag wiped the sweat from his brow and said, "He was a fanatic for Hop-sloth and Gildentongue."

"Fanatic?"

"Didn't you hear him during the fight?" asked Groag.

"I was busy bleeding." Toede realized that his fingers were growing stickier by the moment.

Groag nodded at the unconscious man. "He was shouting about how he was the messenger of the Water Prophet and all, and that he had been commanded to strike down the imposter of the minion (that would be you), and so on and so forth."

"A soak-off," grumbled Toede.

"Pardon?" said Groag.

Toede scowled. "Gildentongue must have got reports of me, or someone claiming to be me, in the city. Probably from one of the guards this afternoon. So he sent an assassin-not his best, likely, or else he would be seen as paranoid. Just a soak-off. A throwaway warrior."

Groag saw Toede's face curl into a tight ball, and was suddenly unwilling to ask his lord to share his thoughts. The innkeep returned with a pair of small vials and a short strip of cured leather.

As the scar-faced innkeeper worked the bolt loose from Toede's arm, the highmaster sat down and bit hard on the leather. Flashes of pain, like sudden, silent lightning, flickered inside his tightly shut eyes. Toede half hoped for the blackness to return and claim him, but was spared that luxury.

Then a glass vial was pressed against his lips, and a sickeningly sweet syrup oozed down his throat. The colors faded, and the blackness retreated. A second vial-load of curative potion dripped into his esophagus. The pungent aroma gagged Toede, making him think involuntarily of death by pancake syrup.

He opened his eyes and touched his wounded arm. The cloth was still sticky with his blood, but the pain had subsided. Rubbing it, he could still feel the small crater where the bolt had entered his body.

The innkeep rose. "You should go now," he said solemnly.

"We'll need some supplies," said Toede.

"You should go now," repeated the innkeep.

"You have served the minion well," intoned Toede, knowing that this seemed to command attention. "But let us consider the deviousness of my enemy, the false minion of Hopsloth, the anti-minion. His own servants will be here soon, brought by your fleeing patrons. Upon discovering you aided us, they will torture and perhaps kill you, and most definitely burn your inn to the ground. You have shown kindness to us, and I cannot allow you to come to harm. Therefore, I tell you to quickly gather a few items for us. Then we will lock you in your own cellar, if you wish, and leave, so that the agents of the false minion will find you a victim as well."

Toede did not say that, were he in charge of Flotsam once again, he would burn the entire inn to the ground just as a safety precaution, regardless of the innkeep's guilt or innocence. No sense in making the poor human worry.

As it was, the human readily nodded, and Toede rattled off a list of supplies he would need. The human said he had them available and would go fetch them.

This readiness surprised Toede, who thought that some of his requests were for items that might take some time to collect, or might cause the innkeep to leave the building, allowing Toede and Groag to rifle his remaining stocks. It occurred to Toede that the innkeep might have his own reasons for sticking to the premises and keeping his building from burning to the ground. He filed that away for future reference.

Groag had recovered his breath and was kneeling over the body of their human assailant, who was still breathing shallowly, but steadily now. "He'll be coming around soon. You want me to kill him?"

"No," said Toede. "I have a better idea."

He retrieved the heavy dagger of the dead barbarian and thumbed the point. Razor sharp, as he had hoped.

Toede then kneeled over the prostrate form of the human and opened his shirt the rest of the way, baring both chest and belly. He used the knife to inscribe two lines in the flesh of the man's chest, not cutting deep enough to severe muscle or puncture organs, but sufficient enough to break and open the skin. The first line ran from nipple to nipple, while the second ran from the center of where this line crossed the sternum to the belly button (an "outtie," he noted).

He stepped back to admire his handiwork and heard the heavy tread of the supply-laden innkeeper. The innkeep whistled low at the hobgoblin's artistry.

The assailant had a crimson T carved into his chest.

"He said he was a messenger, eh?" Toede said to Groag. "Let this be the message he carries back to his master."

To the innkeep he said, "You can make sure he doesn't bleed to death with one of your potions. That way he will be indebted to you for rescue instead of suspecting you of aiding us.

The innkeep nodded and said in a strained voice, "You should."

"I know," said Toede. "Now, what's the quickest way to the docks?"