humans. They hated humans more than they hated any other being, and they hated the slave-taking, holier-than-all Istarians most.
The goblin cursed himself for believing this would work. The kender was infecting his brain. He should just kill both the kender and the minotaur and let them rot.
But the kender did almost all the hunting and cooking.
The goblin sullenly picked up his weapons again and left the cave. Life wasn't fair. He hated that.
The tired kender looked up, knee deep in the water alongside the minotaur, and a grin broke out on his face. 'I knew you'd help,' he said with relief.
They made a crude sledge before nightfall, roping two long rough poles together with a ragged length of hemp that the kender recovered from disassembling an animal snare. It was past midnight when they got back to the cave with the minotaur and set him down inside. The huge brown beast had never once stirred. The goblin staggered off to collapse in a corner and fall asleep.
When he awakened, it was long past sunrise. Cold, cooked venison was spitted over the fire pit; the fire itself had long gone out. The minotaur's festering wounds had been carefully cleaned and dressed with old rags from the cave's rag pile, donated by many farmhouse clotheslines. The kender apparently had found nothing to cut the huge chain the minotaur was dragging around. The chain was carefully wound into a loose pile by the minotaur's side.
The goblin rubbed his face and got up. He noticed the kender had succumbed to exhaustion and was asleep, sitting upright against a cave wall, some rags in his lap, a bone needle and sinewy thread in his hand. He'd been stitching together a crude blanket.
Then the goblin saw that the minotaur, still lying flat on its stomach, was watching him. The beast's dull eyes were as large as a cow's, with the same deep brown color. Long scars crisscrossed the monster's muzzle and low forehead. One broad nostril was split open from an old wound. Long yellow teeth gleamed dully against its thick lips.
Trying to pretend he hadn't been caught off guard, the goblin nodded at the beast. Suddenly the idea of having a live minotaur in the cave did not look as good as it had earlier. The goblin could almost feel the monster's enormous teeth tear into his flesh. The minotaur made no move to get up, and the goblin took care of a few minor chores with an air of forced casualness. The minotaur must be very weak to skip a live meal. The goblin made his decision.
Chores finished, the goblin walked over to the fire pit and carefully sawed off a piece of venison with his machete. Very slowly, he moved over to the minotaur and knelt down near its scarred, long-homed head. He could see no readable expression on the creature's bestial face.
If this worked, they would have a new ally. The goblin was sure that the minotaur would eventually kill both the kender and himself if they weren't careful or if it went hungry. But the goblin had worked with the strong and brutal all his life, and he knew the value of strength in numbers. He hoped the minotaur knew this lesson, too. At least the minotaur wasn't a human. It was poor consolation, but in these days, it helped.
The goblin held out the piece of venison near the minotaur's muzzle, letting it smell the food. Then he moved the venison closer to the monster's mouth.
The huge nostrils flared and snorted. The minotaur stirred slightly, then grimaced with pain. Its teeth were bared as its lips drew back and it closed its eyes, but it quickly forced itself to relax and open its eyes again.
With a carefully measured move, its gaze fixed on the machete that the goblin gripped in his other hand, the minotaur opened its mouth, revealing a set of teeth that rivaled those of the largest bear. Its breath was unspeakably foul. Very gently, it took the venison and began to chew.
Four weeks passed. The minotaur recovered. The kender was overjoyed and talked until the goblin dreamed of killing him just to shut him up. Both goblin and kender hunted now; the minotaur sat silently in the cave. Though the minotaur never spoke, the goblin feared that the beast would react violently the moment the two smaller beings asked anything of it, so he worked more than he had ever worked when it was just him and the kender, and he grumbled about it under his breath. But deep inside he was satisfied. He began to think that bringing the minotaur to the cave had been his own idea. He had a boss again, a strong boss who could eat humans for breakfast if it chose. It was worth the trouble for the added power and safety — just as long as the minotaur didn't go hungry.
The wind grew colder. The kender raided some of his old caches, laid more traps, and brought more food and supplies to the cave. The goblin was able to build a windbreak of huge branches and rocks at the cave's entrance, and this doubled as camouflage for the cave in case humans were about. The minotaur ate a whole deer now every three or four days, and its muscles bulged until they were like huge knots of steel under its ugly brown hide. It still never spoke, though the kender talked incessantly now, a beatific look on his face as he gladly tended his new friends.
The kender still borrowed the goblin's things, but the goblin no longer cared. He had too much else to worry about. The winter rains were almost upon them.
The goblin watched his quarry — a large buck worth half a week of food for them all — leap out of bow range and bound away. The cry had startled it. Cursing softly to himself, the goblin leaned forward in the bushes and strained to hear against the stirring leaves.
He heard nothing now. A bird? His grip on the bow and arrow relaxed.
No. Not a bird. He could hear it again. It was a human, maybe, crying out. He'd probably fallen in one of the kender's pits. Perhaps the kender heard it, too, but the kender was nowhere to be seen. Figured. He was probably distracted by something again when he should be hunting. It was amazing that the kender had lived this long.
If the human was alone, it wouldn't take much to finish him off and pick through his belongings. He might even have some money. The goblin didn't plan to live in the forest forever. It wouldn't hurt to save a little change for a future day.
Crouching low, the goblin moved through the crackling brown undergrowth, sliding from tree to tree. Cool wind blew over his face and through his black rags. He kept an arrow nocked. He had only three more arrows if the first one missed, which it often did. He wasn't the experienced hunter the kender was.
Laughter reached his ears, human laughter. The goblin stayed down, listening, then moved forward more slowly. Hidden among rock outcroppings and thick briars, he climbed up a low hill. Someone was saying something in a nonhuman language. It sounded like an elven tongue, Silvanesti. The speaker mumbled; his words were unclear.
'I can't understand you,' said a human voice in a language the goblin remembered well from his days in East Dravinar. 'Talk Istarian, boy.'
Someone mumbled again. The goblin was almost at the top of the hill. No guards were visible. He carefully checked his bow, arrows, and machete, then began to crawl toward a fallen tree trunk overgrown with briars and thick vines, slightly downslope on the hill's far side. The wind covered the sounds of his movements.
'Talk to me, gods damn you!' Beefy smacks sounded from the hill's other side.
A few seconds later, the goblin reached the fallen log and looked down the slope.
There were three humans, two men and a woman. All wore the brown and gray leather of Istarian free rangers. Once the defenders of Istar's forested west, the free rangers were now no better than mercenaries and bounty hunters. A thin, blond-haired man was leaning into the face of a male elf, whose arms were wrapped back around a tree trunk and presumably tied there. The elf's head sagged; cuts and bruises were visible through his long, sun-bleached hair. Both his eyes were blackened and swollen. The elf's fine clothing, too light for the weather, had been deliberately cut and ripped to shreds.
'You listening to me?' the blond man demanded. His right hand gripped the elf's hair and pulled the prisoner's head up and back. 'Anything getting through your pointy ears? Why were you trailing us, elf? What were you after?'
The elf started to mumble through thick, puffy lips. His knees had given out, and he hung upright only because he was tied in place.
The goblin chewed his lower lip. An elf and some rangers. Great. Two of a goblin's worst possible enemies. Maybe there should be a dwarf here, too, just to round things out. But it looked like there soon would be one less elf, and that was fine with the goblin. Damn shame the rangers had probably robbed their victim first. This day was
