was a tall, beet-faced man, and Toede wondered how much of the bravery in his blood had been fueled by grog.
Groag gurgled next to Toede, 'I know that one. Used to be your cook.'
Toede nodded as if he had recognized the human as well.' His eyes darted from the human attacker to Gildentongue and back again.
'Step forward,' said the draconian, his voice cold and level.
The human remained immobile, his eyes staring at the stones before the bier. 'False prophet,' he said, more quietly this time.
'Step forward,' repeated Gildentongue. 'Look at the face of the true prophets.'
The human remained in place, eyes down.
'Look at us!' Gildentongue bellowed, and raised his hands. Twin balls of greenish flame erupted from his clawed paws and exploded, one to either side of the human.
The human looked up suddenly, staring the draconian full in the face, and froze again, like an insect caught in ice or amber.
'Step forward,' said Gildentongue.
The human began a slow, lurching walk forward, as if his legs were newly made and as yet untried. His face, still locked with Gildentongue's gaze, contorted in pain.
'Kneel,' said Gildentongue calmly.
The human swayed, then dropped to his knees on the pavement, hard.
'Bow,' said Gildentongue. 'Touch your head to the pavement in honor of the Water Prophet.'
The human dipped forward and rapped his head, hard, against the pavement before the bier. Next to Toede, Groag winced.
'Again,' said Gildentongue.
The human dipped again, and a sharper rap resounded along the parade route. No one shouted now; no one breathed.
'Again,' said Gildentongue 'Faster.'
This time the human bobbed forward, and there was the sound of something breaking as he slammed his head against the pavement. Then back, and forward again, bashing his face into the blood-colored spot forming before him. By the sixth repetition, the human's face was a bleeding smear. By the twelfth, it was an unrecognizable slab of red meat.
After the twenty-first repetition, the man slammed his head against the pavement and lifted it only a few inches above the street before striking the ground again as his entire body collapsed.
'Such is the fate of those who doubt the Water Prophet,' proclaimed Gildentongue.
He nodded to the whip master, who snapped his instrument over the backs of the slaves. With a grunting groan, they resumed their tugging. The bier rolled over the bloody human, one wheel crunching a leg in the process.
The crowd shouted, though to Toede's ears their enthusiasm sounded a little more strained than before. Then they surged forward after Hopsloth's passing, the first ones thinking of looting the body, the ones farther back of looting the looters.
Toede leaned against the wall. Gildentongue was flashier than the highmaster had remembered him, and crueler as well. But just as short-tempered, it seems.
Toede looked over at his companion. Groag was paler than normal, almost a greenish shade, and his hands shook slightly as he brushed the hair out of his face.
'Any thoughts?' asked Toede.
'I think,' said Groag in a wavering voice, 'that this is not going to be as easy as you think.'
'I think,' said Toede with a scowl, 'you may be right.'
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
