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.'
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 Gilden-tongue'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.
