with the spell of magical strength the elf had cast upon him. He thought he could lift a horse now if he wanted to, maybe ten horses. And he wore a ring that altered the sounds around him, so a man would think he had heard an owl hoot if the goblin spoke, or heard the wind blow if he walked up. It was too good to be true. In his excitement, he barely noticed the cold.
The main encampment of Istarians was on the hilltop, packed tightly around the bonfire in the chill air. Down the slope, in a clearing, half hidden from the hilltop by trees, was a cluster of several wagons and all the Istarians' horses. The elf had scouted ahead with his spells and reported finding slaves in one wagon: an elven woman, an old dwarf, and three children — human or elven, he couldn't tell. The other three wagons were empty. The kender's estimate of twenty men was close; the goblin guessed twenty-four — twenty-one now that he had killed three men in the last few minutes of circling the camp.
The elf and minotaur were down by the wagons, attacking the guards there. The elf cast a spell that silenced the minotaur's rattling chains. The goblin crouched down, pulled a thin, ceramic flask from a leather pouch on his rope belt. It was time. Uncorking the lid, he drank the contents, screwing up his face at the bitter taste. Wiping his mouth, he stood up, tossed the flask aside, and moved toward the firelight in a crouch. He had to reach the top of the hill before the kender arrived with the fireball.
Every step of the way, the goblin pictured the sword. He saw himself holding it instead of his machete, and saw himself after he made his wish, the one wish, the only wish. The thought almost made him hurry too fast and give himself away to the humans, who were directly ahead of him. He dropped down behind a tree and faded into the darkness. He was only two hundred feet from the fire on top of the hill.
'It's not like we're killing real people, you know.' The human who spoke kept his voice low, but his tone was sure and knowing. He shifted his stance, and his armor clinked. Chain mail, maybe with plate. 'You and I, we're real people. We know the difference between right and wrong. The great gods blessed us with vision that no other race has. That's the vision to see our destiny. We're not like the mongrel races who see only to the next day's meal. They don't deserve to breathe our air. By the blessed gods, do you want to live in a city with goblins?'
There were two men ahead of the goblin, thirty feet away, near a pile of brush and branches from a fallen tree. He could see them well in the firelight. One wore metal mail, the other riveted leather. The goblin guessed that the one in mail was a leader, maybe a knight. The man would be hard to kill if this wasn't done right. The goblin wondered if he should just go around them, but he hated leaving anyone alive behind him, especially people who didn't want to live with goblins or breathe their air.
The man in the riveted leather looked away from his companion, his grip loosening on his spear. 'No, Your Reverence,' he mumbled.
The goblin froze. Gods of Istar, he thought, a priest. Perhaps a priest that could tell what you were thinking!
'Well, neither do I,' said the mail-armored man, looking at the other with a half-grin. 'No one does. You know what kinds of evil things goblins do, don't you? Well, certainly. We have to destroy them, and you know that's right. And kender. Forgive my asking, but would one of the gods of good ever have created a kender?'
'They — ' The other man stopped, obviously trying to think this out carefully. 'They aren't… I mean… kender, they cause trouble, I know, but — '
The mail-armored man snorted good-naturedly. He looked away at the distant bonfire in the center of the camp, surrounded by the secure clutter of bedrolls. The dim firelight was reflected in his polished steel breastplate. 'You're trying to tell me that kender aren't as bad as goblins, right?'
The leather-armored man took a breath, thought better of his answer, and said nothing.
'So you DO think kender aren't as bad as goblins.' The mail-armored man sighed. 'You think we're doing wrong, is that it? We're doing the will of the gods of good and the Kingpriest of Istar, and it's wrong?'
'No.' The man seemed badly frightened. The goblin could barely hear the answer. 'No, that's not it, Your Reverence.'
'Ah,' the cleric said, the misunderstanding apparently cleared up. 'The captain said this was your first campaign. I know it's hard, and everything seems confusing at times. Maybe all the time, right?'
The other man looked at the ground and seemed to nod in the affirmative, unwilling to speak.
The goblin's worst fear was eased. If the priest could read minds, he wasn't doing it now. The goblin studied the ground ahead of him, then reached into a side pocket and pulled something out. He couldn't count on a clean kill through mail armor, so he'd have to use the potion's powers and work around it. He slowly crept out from the tree's shadow.
'It was confusing for me, too, when I started.' The cleric suddenly sounded strangely vulnerable. 'It was terrible for me at first. I wasn't worried about fighting goblins, but other things threw me. We had to fight dwarves once. They put the fear of evil into me, with their shifty little eyes and ratty beards and stumpy bodies. They fought like' — the cleric dropped his voice and turned his dark eyes on the recruit — 'like the Seven Evil Ones were in them.'
There was only silence after his words, except for the distant crackling of the fire. The wind seemed to be picking up around them.
'It was a terrible war in the mountains,' said the cleric in a low voice. 'I saw my friends crushed by avalanches, shot by bolts and arrows. They lay in my arms with their limbs hacked away, begging me to heal them. The dwarves did this to us in the mountains. They didn't fight like humans. They weren't human. They were evil reborn. I saw it all then, and I came to believe at last in their evil. I wish to the gods even now that there had been a better way for me to learn than to have gone through that. I'll not see my friends die in my arms for that again, bleeding away and me not able to stop it because all my spells were gone to others wounded earlier.' The cleric's eyes were like dancing black flames.
The cleric reached up, patted the other man on the back. 'I like you, boy. You remind me of the way I was, before the war in the mountains. I wish you could always be like that. I really do. You're a lot happier for it.'
The leather-armored man coughed and dared a weak smile. The cleric smiled back at him. The leather- armored man reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
Something moved across his feet and crawled up his legs.
The man jumped when he felt it. Something had him by the feet, and he lost his balance and fell over, dropping his spear. The cleric began struggling and slapping madly at his thighs. He was seeing tall grass and vines and roots and briars and saplings knot themselves around his calves like iron chains. The two men opened their mouths to shout or scream. No cries sounded. Instead, the crickets chirped more loudly, the wind blew harder, night birds called. The men on the hill by the fire went on about their business.
The goblin came swiftly out of the darkness. He whipped a flexible wire over the cleric's head, twisted the wire around his neck, and pulled it tight in less than a second, snapping the cleric's head back with great force. The cleric's eyes bugged out; he fought to get his fingers under the wire but found no space. His tongue came out between his teeth, and his eyes stared, white, at the stars. The man on the ground struggled to get free of the vines and grass that tightened over his legs and chest and arms and reached up for his face, and he screamed and screamed and heard only the crickets and the night birds and the wind in the trees above.
Then the cleric collapsed, falling backward into the grasping grasses and vines, and the dark shape released the garrote and looked at the fallen man with cold eyes. The leather-armored man saw it and believed the cleric about the evil then, he believed it all, and he screamed like a madman right up to the end. And no one heard him.
It's all too good to be true, thought the goblin.
'Where in the Abyss are they?' muttered the captain, heedless of the sleeping men around him. He had to be the captain, the goblin decided, though the man wore no armor. His bearing and movements marked him at once as a man who was in charge. 'Hey, you!' he shouted to the sentry standing across the camp. 'Get out there and tell those two dung-eaters that the fire's dying, and they're to get their fat asses back up here with the wood right now. And tell them I want to see them afterward, too. If they've got time to hunt squirrels, they've got time for a few other things I've got in mind for them. Go!'
The sleeping men slept on. The chosen soldier saluted with a grin and took off into the woods, passing the unseen goblin and leaving the bearded captain to slap at mosquitoes and gnats. 'I hate being out here,' the captain muttered. 'I hate all of the camping out crap, with little things that bite and sting. The wilderness doesn't give a damn about me or my rank or anything. I can't fight back.'
