The slight, yellow-skinned Nojheim was on the ground, pinned by huge paws, when I caught up to them. I ordered Guenhwyvar back, and even as the panther moved away, Nojheim rolled about and grabbed for my boot with his long, spindly arms, his hands still showing the remnants of torn leather bindings.
I nearly slammed him with the butt of my scimitar, but before I could react, I found the pitiful Nojheim slobbering kisses all over my boots.
“Please, my good master,” he whined in his annoying, high-pitched voice, so typical of goblins. “Please, oh, please! Nojheim not run. Nojheim scared, scared of big, ugly ogres with big clubs. Nojheim scared.”
It took me a few moments to recover my wits. Then I hoisted the goblin to his feet and ordered him to be silent. Standing there, looking down into Nojheim’s ugly, flat face and sloping forehead, his gleaming yellow eyes and squashed nose, it took all of my control to hold back my weapons. I am a ranger, a protector of the goodly races from the many evil races of Faerun, and among those evil races, I name goblins as my most hated enemy.
“Please,” he repeated pitifully.
I slid my weapons away, and Nojheim’s wide mouth stretched with a strained smile, showing his many small but sharp teeth.
It was nearly dawn by this time and I wanted to be off right away for Pengallen, but Nojheim was half-frozen from his stumble into the river. I could see by his crooked stance that the goblin’s drenched leg had little or no feeling in it.
As I have said, I hold no love for goblins and normally offer them no mercy. If Nojheim had precipitated a raid on my own community, I would have put a second arrow in the air before he had ever lifted his leg from the river, ending the whole affair. But I was bound now by my oath to the farmers, and so I set a blazing fire, allowing the goblin to warm up his numbed limb.
Nojheim’s actions when I had first caught him continued to bother me, continued to raise quandaries in my mind. I questioned him early the next morning, after I had released Guenhwyvar back to rest on the Astral Plane. The goblin would say nothing. He just took on a resigned expression and looked away from me whenever I tried to address him. So be it, I told myself. It was not my concern.
Later that afternoon, we arrived in Pengallen, a cluster of about a dozen one-story wooden houses set in the middle of a flat field cleared of the common trees and surrounded by a high picket wall. The others had come in a few hours earlier, and Rico had apparently warned the two gate guards manning the village wall of my impending approach. They did not immediately allow me entry, though they were far from inhospitable, and so I waited. Rico was there in a few moments. Apparently he had left word that he should be summoned when I arrived.
The burly man’s expression had changed much from the previous night. No longer was his square jaw set in a grimace, revealing Rico’s happiness at the turn of events. Even his wide-set blue eyes seemed to smile as he regarded me and my prisoner, all the lines on his ruddy face tilting upward.
“You’ve been generous with your aid,” he said to me, looping a rope about Nojheim’s neck the way some in crowded villages leash their dogs. “I know that you have business in Silverymoon, so let me give you my assurance that all is well in Pengallen once more.”
I had the distinct feeling that I had just been summarily dismissed.
“Please take a meal at our inn,” Rico quickly added, motioning for me to go through the now-open gate. Had my confusion been that obvious? “A meal and a drink,” he added cheerfully. “Tell the barkeep, Aganis, that I will pay.”
My intention had been to deliver the prisoner and head off at once, trying to get a good start on my way to Silverymoon. I was eager to see the wondrous city on the River Rauvin, to walk freely with the blessings of the ruling lady along the marvelous curving boulevards, to visit the many museums and the unparalleled library. My instincts told me to go in for that meal, though. Something about this whole scenario wasn’t quite right.
Aganis, a barrel-shaped, thick-bearded, and oft-smiling man, was indeed surprised to see the likes of a dark elf enter his establishment, a larger two-story building set in the middle of the village’s back wall. The place served as inn, trading post, and a variety of other public functions. As soon as he got over his initial reaction-I suppose that terror-stricken is the only word to properly describe his expression-he became quite anxious to please me, at least, judging from the large portions he set before me, portions far larger than those of a farmer sitting not so far down the end of the bar.
I let the obvious pandering go without comment. It had been a long night and I was hungry.
“So you’re Drizzit Do’Urden?” the farmer at the end of the bar asked. He was an older man with thinning gray hair and a wizened face that had seen countless days under the sun.
Aganis blanched at the question. Did he think I would take offense and tear apart his place of business?
“Drizzt,” I corrected, looking to the man.
“Jak Timberline,” the man said. He extended his hand, then retracted it and wiped it on his shirt before putting it back out. “I’ve heard of you, Drizzt.” He took extra care to pronounce the name correctly, and I’ll admit, I was flattered. “They say you’re a ranger.”
I accepted the shake firmly, and my smile was wide, I am sure.
“I’ll tell you right here, Drizzt-” again, the extra care with the name “-I don’t care what color a fellow’s skin might be. I heard of you, heard good things about what you and your friends’ve done up in Mithral Hall.”
His compliment was a bit condescending, and poor Aganis blanched again. I took no offense, though, accepting Jak’s clumsiness as inexperience. The greeting was actually quite tactful, weighed against so many others I have received since I came to the surface world-so many others that took place at the end of a drawn weapon.
“It is a good thing that the dwarves have reclaimed the halls,” I agreed.
“And a good thing, too, that you happened by Rico’s group,” Jak added.
“Tharman was a happy soul this morning,” put in the nervous barkeep.
It seemed so normal to me, and you have to understand that I was used to anything but normal in my dealings with the various surface races.
“Did you get Rico back his slave?” Jak asked bluntly.
My last bite of food suddenly refused to go down my throat.
“Nojheim,” Jak explained. “The goblin.”
I had seen slavery in all its brutality in Menzoberranzan, the city of my birth. Dark elves kept many slaves of many races, working them brutally until they were no longer useful, then torturing them, butchering them, breaking their bodies as they had broken their spirits. I had always felt slavery to be the most repulsive of acts, even when practiced against the so-called unredeemable races, such as goblins and orcs.
I nodded in answer to Jak, but my sudden grimace put the man off. Aganis nervously cleaned the same plate several times, all the while staring at me and occasionally putting his towel up to wipe his sweaty brow.
I finished the meal without much more conversation, except to innocently discover which farmhouse belonged to Rico. I wanted no answers from these two. I wanted to see for myself what I had done.
I was outside Rico’s fenced-in yard by dusk. The farmhouse was a simple structure of boards and logs, mud patted in against the cracks to keep the wind out and a roof angled to handle the winter snows. Nojheim was going about his chores-unshackled, I noticed-but no one else was in sight. I did see the curtains of the single window on this side of the farmhouse move a few times. Rico, or one of his family, was probably keeping an eye out for the goblin.
When he was done tending to a goat tied near the house, Nojheim considered the darkening sky and went into the small barn, barely more than a shed, a short distance from the house. Through the many cracks of this rough structure, I saw the light of a fire come up a moment later.
What was this all about? I could not reconcile any of it. If Nojheim had initially come to Pengallen at the head of a raiding force, then why was he allowed such freedom? He could have taken a brand from that fire he had burning in the barn and set the main house ablaze.
I decided not to get my answers from Rico-decided, since I knew in my heart what was going on, that I would get no honest answers from him.
Nojheim went into his pitiful slobbering as soon as I walked into the shadows of the dimly lit barn.
“Please, oh, please,” he whined in his squeaky goblin voice, his fat tongue smacking against his lips.
I pushed him away, and my anger must have been obvious, for he suddenly sat quietly across the fire from me, staring into the orange and yellow flames.
