Bonechisel emerged from the front door of the large mill house. The hobgoblin was dressed in his ceremonial finest: a stiff shirt of dried bear-hide, with wide shoulder epaulets formed from the blades of captured short swords. His gleaming belt rattled with grisly trophies, a dozen human skulls that dangled from the golden links. His face was painted with white clay, except for circles of shining red around his eyes and his mouth-the crimson of fresh blood, stolen from a captive human child who had been sacrificed minutes before, simply to provide the bright facial paint. In each hand he carried a dagger with a curved blade, and he held these weapons over his head, edges crossed, and roared out a command:
“Hear me, my warriors!”
The chieftain scowled and clashed the blades of his two daggers together as the drumming continued, drowning out his words from all but the nearest of his listeners. These few ceased their dancing, facing Bonechisel in an expectant semicircle-though a few cast envious glances over their shoulders at their still reveling comrades. When the hobgoblin repeated his command, the crowd began to settle. Drums faltered, and more and more of the gobs turned their attention to their leader.
The firelight illuminated Bonechisel as he stood on a high stone porch, well above the crowd. A number of sub-chiefs crowded upon the steps leading up to the platform, jostling to be closest to the exalted one.
Finally the last of the drumming faded away, and the revelry settled to a few isolated whoops, cries, and howls. Ankhar was one of the last to settle down, so that the lofting of his spear and his deep, ululating cry stood out. Bonechisel scowled at his tribe’s adopted son until even Ankhar quieted resentfully.
“My hobs and gobs!” Bonechisel roared. “I have brought you here, a great horde of warriors, and now I will tell you my plans!”
It was at that moment that the impulse came to Ankhar, and he acted without further thought. Later he would wonder if the question he had dared to ask had been inspired by Hiddukel himself.
“Why do you stay in the big house-and we sleep out here, in the rain?” Ankhar roared in a deep bellow, more commanding than any hobgoblin voice.
Bonechisel blinked in surprise and groped for a train of thought. “It has not rained all week!” he protested lamely. The crowd of gobs began to mutter among themselves, some glowering at the young giant, others echoing the question indignantly.
“We should all share the big house,” retorted Ankhar, sensing the majority of the crowd was rumbling in agreement with him. Some instinct caused him to repeat the offending phrase. “The big house!”
“Big house! Big house!” The chant began as a wild whoop by some of the drunken young gobs near Ankhar, but in seconds it spread through the gathering, rising as a chorus, echoing from the surrounding hills.
“Stop!” cried Bonechisel, momentarily taken aback, holding up his hands. The crowd ignored him.
“You-Notch-you stop them!” barked the chieftain, whacking one of his under-chiefs on the side of the head- forgetting that he was still holding the curve-bladed knife.
The stricken Notch recoiled with a howl, clasping a hand to his bleeding ear. The next moment he snarled, lashing out at Bonechisel, who lifted his daggers and tried to step back. The group on the porch behind him, however, blocked his exit.
“Big house!” roared Ankhar again, relishing the squabble. The crowd surged forward, goblins on all sides pressing close, ignoring the hapless few who fell to be trampled underfoot.
The goblins behind Bonechisel were in no mood to expose themselves to Notch’s fury. They pushed back, and the chieftain wobbled precariously at the lip of the porch. The bleeding sub-captain grappled with him while other lieutenants hooted and howled in amusement.
The pair fell together, vanishing into the mass on the wide stone steps. Ankhar could see only a thrashing, chaotic melee, and he pressed forward for a better look. The crowd parted almost magically before him, and he reached the base of the steps. Notch lay dead, bleeding from several deep cuts, but Bonechisel had not escaped the tumble unscathed. To judge from the bloody punctures in his legs and sides, several of his trusted lieutenants must have taken stabs at him as he rolled past them. He gasped, spitting furiously, as he looked up to see the hill giant looming over him.
Ankhar, in later years, could never reconstruct what impulse caused him to act in this fashion-but undoubtedly it had to do with the years of abuse, the vicious cruelty and bullying of his hated master. The giant abruptly brought his spear down, the steel head punching through the stiff bearskin of the hobgoblin’s breastplate, through the body underneath, and into the hard ground. There it stuck, the elm shaft rising up like a flagpole, quivering from the force of the lethal blow.
For a long moment-two or three heartbeats, at least-Ankhar gaped at the dying chieftain. The crowed seemed to share his reaction, as many edged back and a murmured gasp ran through the mass, spreading outward like ripples through still water.
“Bonechisel is dead!” croaked one subchief, looking not at the slain hobgoblin but at the giant who stood like a statue over the bleeding corpse.
“Ankhar killed him!” cried another, in a tone of triumph. “Hail Ankhar!”
“Ankhar! Ankhar!” The chant started with those on the steps of the mill-house, but quickly spread through the square, down the narrow streets, through the throngs on the surrounding hillsides.
“Ankhar! Ankhar!”
Time had stopped, and now it started to move again for the half-giant. He felt liberated and empowered-two sensations wonderful and unfamiliar. He looked through the crowd, trying to spot his mother, but Laka was invisible among the sea of faces.
Slowly, with a hesitation that might be mistaken for diginity and deliberation, Ankhar reached out to grasp the stout spear shaft. He flexed his powerful mucles and drew the shaft free, lifting Bonechisel’s body off the ground until he shook the weapon and the corpse dropped free.
The head of the spear was glowing, and the giant raised it curiously. He had inadvertently split the talisman of Hiddukel that the hobgoblin had worn over his heart. The vial had spilled forth its contents, an oily liquid that now slicked over the sharp, double-edged bit of his spearhead. The hard steel glowed with an emerald light that made it look as though the forged metal had just been pulled, cherry-hot, from the smith’s furnace.
Wonderingly, the half-giant raised the weapon to his face, touching the sharp edge with his fingers. It was cool to the touch.
“He is the favored one of the Prince of Lies!” cried Laka. The old shaman came beside him now, shaking a rattle made from the skull of a human. “See how the god favors him with the Emerald Fire! It is the Truth! Ankhar is the Truth!”
Ankhar raised the spear over his head and relished the cheer that erupted, spontaneously from ten thousand bloodthirsty throats. Holding the weapon by the base of the shaft, he extended the glowing head high into the air, where it seemed to spark and shine with light brighter even than the full, silver moon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
You sure you want to do this?” Dram Feldspar asked. The dwarf was slouched in the saddle, his mare stolidly plodding along the road beside the warrior’s gelding. The Garnet Mountains and the city of the same name were by now several days behind them.
The two riders were sunburned and dusty after crossing the dry plain. The previous day, the road had spanned a wide river on a splendid bridge, and here Dram had suggested they stop for a leisurely soaking, maybe an early camp. The warrior had looked across at a gaunt, burned-out structure on a bluff, a former manor house now in utter ruins, and insisted they keep going.
Now the outline of a lofty city was looming before them. A high wall of stone ramparts marked the end of the plains less than a mile away. Beyond that wall rose the houses and shops, the towers and forts, the docks and smithies, and the Gnome Ghetto of Caergoth. The great gray bulk of Castle Caergoth towered over the whole, ramparts and towers gleaming in the morning sun.
“Yes,” the warrior replied, after a very long pause. “I’m sure.”
