Brack shifted in his chair, noted that his mug was more half-empty than half-full, and signaled to the serving gnome. He paused as the diminutive being brought him a full, foaming tankard, then continued, “I mean yes, it’s a gnome story, in that it’s about a gnome, but no, it’s not a gnome story because it’s not about a gnome at all.”
The big man’s bushy brows hovered over bleary eyes stained by many a drink that evening. “How can it be about a gnome and not about a gnome?”
“When the gnome does not exist,” said Brack, “but his greatest invention survives to this day. Let me explain.”
The patrol of hobgoblins, scouts in the service of the Green Dragonarmy, were having a bad time of it. Scouts were at their best in clear terrain and moderate climate, but ever since their invasion force had landed, they had been deluged by heavy rain and forced to reconnoiter through thick, bramble-filled overgrowth. Little to see, less to smell (other than wet hobgoblin), and nothing to report. They had been gone four days from the main encampment and were soaked to the skin. After a brief, heated discussion (the only heat the dozen creatures had experienced in three days), they decided to ascend one of the hills for a better view of the rain-damp fog.
“We shudda stayed in camp,” said one particularly large hobgoblin.
“And what?” growled another. “It’s just as marshy there. There’s a swamp where our bivvie should be.”
“At least then we don’t hafta march around in wet boots,” said the big one.
“At least yah have boots,” returned the sergeant, a scarred hobgoblin with one good eye. “When I first signs up, we had to do this barefoot.”
The big complainer bared his lower fangs, and the other hobgoblins assumed that a fight was coming and drifted into normal positions, a circle surrounding the sergeant and the big one. But the sergeant stared at the hobgoblin with an icy ferocity, and the big one closed his mouth and at last shook his head in agreement.
“Where we go?” said the big one, finally.
“Up,” replied the sergeant.
The ground grew no drier as they climbed the small tor. Indeed, it now had the added difficulty of being steep as well as damp. The hill was completely saturated, and the hobgoblins began to slip as they climbed. Their trail became a broad swath of mud-stained grass, and their armor was soon decorated with clumps of hanging sod.
“Where we going?” asked the big one again.
“Up,” said the sergeant.
“Down is easier,” said one of the smaller hobgoblins, which earned another icy glare from the one-eyed sergeant.
The fog-shrouded hilltop loomed above them, and a great granite cliff suddenly reared from the tor, blocking their path. “Up,” said the sergeant a third time, pointing at the small complainer.
“It’s wet and slippery,” protested the small hobgoblin.
“Stone is harder than mud,” said the sergeant. “Therefore it’s less slippery than mud.” The other hobgoblins in the group looked around for anyone to gainsay this bit of wisdom. There was no one.
The small hobgoblin was soon scrabbling up the granite cliff, a rope tied around his waist. He started strong, but tired halfway up, and the sergeant had to bellow threats to get him to finish the climb. The sergeant made it clear it was safer to climb up than to climb down, so up the small hobgoblin went.
He disappeared at the cliff’s edge and was gone, finding some tree or rock to secure the line. A moment later he appeared over the edge again and gave a thumbs-up to the patrol below.
The sergeant hooked a thumb at the rope. “Up you go,” he said.
The big complainer looked at the thin strand of hemp. “Don’t look safe,” he said. He looked more afraid than challenging.
“Neither am I,” snapped the sergeant, but the big complainer still stared at the rope. The sergeant sighed, “I go first, but when I get to the top, you follow, unnerstand?”
The big one (and most of the others) nodded in agreement as the sergeant began the climb. He found the stone was more slippery than the mud after all, and he had to clutch the rope tightly in order to keep from falling. At last he arrived at the top. The view was less than spectacular. There was slightly less rain up this high, but the hilltop was still wrapped in clouds. The surrounding whiteness parted slightly, allowing a brief glimpse of the neighboring hills before wrapping the hobgoblins in another gray, wool blanket.
They were on a gray promontory of bare rock, broken only by a single twisted tree, its thick and ancient roots shattering the surrounding stone. The small hobgoblin had tied the rope to one of the more prominent, arching roots.
“Not much to see,” said the small hobgoblin. “We go down now?”
The sergeant scowled. He’d had to scrabble up here. He’d be damned if the rest of the patrol got off scot- free. Instead he leaned over the edge and let out an assault of obscenities, promising all manner of torture for the last hobgoblin up.
The rest of the patrol sprang into action, fighting among themselves for the opportunity to clamber up the rope. The big one, the complainer, was the first up the rope, but the others followed closely, not waiting for him to get more than a quarter of the way up before following. Soon most of the patrol was hanging on the rope up the cliffside, their twisted paws clutching the rope and the surrounding rocks. Some lost their grips and slid down, bashing into others, who in turn lost their hold and slid a few feet into the rest of the patrol.
The sergeant watched their attempts and muttered a curse, thinking of the (relative) warmth and the (relative) dryness of their base camp. His ruminations were broken off by a sharp snapping noise directly behind him.
It sounded like the noise a crossbow made when sprung. He wheeled but saw nothing else on the tor except the small hobgoblin and the gnarl-rooted tree. The small hobgoblin was looking at the tree, his eyes round like platters.
The sergeant scowled. Was the tree breaking under the weight of the hobgoblins on the rope? There was another sharp snap, and he realized he was close but not fully on the mark. The tree was holding. However, the added weight of the patrol on the rope was enough to start uprooting it. Large cracks began to spider through the stone as the hobgoblins’ collective weight drove the tree’s roots deeper into the hilltop.
It threatened to bring the cliff down on top of the hobgoblin patrol. A human leader might have called down to his men to tell them to abandon the rope or even to jump. The sergeant was a hobgoblin, and his first worry was his own skin. Already the smaller hobgoblin was bounding for the far side of the tree, and the sergeant was ready to follow.
The ground shifted as the sergeant began to run, the spidering cracks quickly becoming large chasms, and then larger chasms, and the ground beneath his feet started to disintegrate beneath the soles of his feet. He heard cursing screams below him from the patrol, soon lost in a torrent of sliding rock. Then something large passed him- the ancient tree itself, still tethered to the hobgoblin-strung rope.
The sergeant leapt forward as the last part of the cliff-side vaporized beneath him, dragged down by the trailing roots of the tree. He landed on something solid and dug his claws into the earth in hopes that it would hold and not cascade back down the cliffside.
His prayers were answered. He felt the world sway for a moment, then right itself, while the rest of the hillside, except the tree, held firm.
Slowly the sergeant opened his eyes. The avalanche had pushed the rainy clouds back for the moment, and he had a clear view of the devastation below. The entire north half of the hill had fallen in on itself, forming a wide fan as it gained speed as it surged into the valley. He saw a few bits of armor and what might either be tree trunks or goblin torsos, but the patrol, big complainer and all, was gone.
The small hobgoblin sat down beside the sergeant. “Cor, whatta mess!” he breathed.
The sergeant considered for a moment adding the small hobgoblin to the body count, but decided against it. He shook his head.
“Bloody mess,” was all he said.
The small hobgoblin nodded, and said, “Whaddaya gonna tell the Louey?”
The sergeant winced. The commanding lieutenant was not going to like his report. “Lemme think,” he managed. “Lemme think.”
The small hobgoblin shook his head and said, “Looks like a battle. Whatta mess.”
The sergeant stroked his chin, then said, “Yeah, a battle. We got ambushed.”
