The War Of The Lance (6 page)

brown water. A thick wolf pelt covered his shoulders and back. One gray-green hand was
thrust forward, fingers digging into the wet ground. The hobgoblin looked as if he'd
tripped over something while walking toward the cliff but had never gotten up. He wasn't
going to get up, either. The crossbow bolt projecting from the back of his thick neck
tipped me off. So did the hungry aura of black flies whirling around him.

He certainly hadn't been the one who snapped that stick I'd heard. Then, I saw who did.
About twenty-five feet from me was a dwarf in an oilskin cloak. His back was to me. He
bent over another fallen hobgoblin, his chain mail links clinked under the cloak. The
dwarf straightened. He carried a bright, spike-backed war axe clutched in a leather-gloved
fist. Then, looking around warily, he turned in my direction, revealing a wet and tangled
brown beard, thick dark eyebrows, and small black eyes that widened violently when he saw
me.

“Reorx!” the dwarf gasped. He swung the spike- backed axe in his right hand, his left arm
coming up to block me if I rushed him. He took a half-crouch, feet set in a stance that
could shift him in any direction. Another veteran of the war.

I raised my hands - palms out, fingers spread - and shook my head slowly. The dwarf didn't
take the hint, still readied for an attack. The sight of him clutching that polished axe
struck me as amusing, but I didn't smile.

I moved sideways to get away from the ledge, having none of the unsteadiness I'd felt
earlier. The dwarf rotated to keep facing me.

I moved my lips to say something to him, but nothing came out. It took a moment to figure
out why; then I drew a breath to fill my lungs. Part of my rib cage expanded, but there
was an unpleasant sucking sound from my sternum and the sensation that the left side of my
chest was not filling. I quickly reached up and placed my right hand inside the neckline
of my surcoat to cover the bolt wound. I tried again.

“Don't worry,” I said - and was startled to hear my own voice. It was burned hoarse, as if
I had swallowed acid. I forced another breath in. “I won't hurt you,” I finished with a
gasp.

The dwarf gulped, never taking his eyes off me. A

muscle twitched in his left cheek. “'Preciate the thought,” he muttered. “I'll keep it in
mind.”

I was curious about the dead hobgoblins. I gave the dwarf an unconcerned shrug before
kneeling to examine one of the fly-covered bodies. As I'd suspected, the bolt head
projecting from the hobgoblin's neck was exactly the same type as the one that had hit me.
I let my right hand drop from inside my shirt and reached out to examine the dirtied tip.

I quickly pulled my hand back. A strand of black tar clung to the bolt head, worked into
some of the grooves. I had seen that stuff before, at Neraka. Black wax, my commander had
called it. Deadly poison. A handful of the Nerakan humans had used it on their weapons,
their idea of a special welcome for us. The gods only knew where they had gotten it; the
Nerakans themselves hadn't known how to handle it. We would regularly find their bodies,
snuggled into ambush points, with little spots of black wax on their careless lips or
fingers.

I remembered the sensation of nothingness spreading inside me as I died, the bolt through
my chest. I'd been the first that night to feel the poison's kiss. I figured my cousins
must have felt it earlier still. Too bad I hadn't thought to examine their bodies.

I leaned over to continue checking the hobgoblin, who had probably outweighed me by a
hundred pounds in life. He was a thick-necked brute; his clothes and armor were as dirty
as his skin. Knife slashes had opened up his belt pouch, now empty, and the sides of his
armor and boots. He was also missing his left ear. It appeared to have been cut cleanly
away, below his helmet line.

I looked up at the dwarf, who hadn't moved, remembering to put my hand inside my shirt
before I spoke. “What about him?” I asked hoarsely, pointing a clawlike finger at the dead
hobgoblin behind him. I sounded like an animal learning to talk.

The dwarf eased up, but only by a hair. He stepped away from the body behind him, clearing
my view. This hobgoblin lay face up, an arm flopped down beside an empty wine cask in the
grass beside him. He'd been stabbed through the darkened leather armor over his abdomen. A
second stab wound, blue-black now, was visible in his throat. His left ear was missing,
too, cleanly

cut away. He had not even gotten up; he had died sitting, then had fallen back.

I reached up and felt my own ears. Both were still intact.

“Maybe you could tell me a bit about what you want.” The dwarf's voice was steady and low,
his axe arm still raised for a strike or a throw.

I looked beyond the dwarf at the half-forested hilltop. No one else was around. “Looking
for someone,” I said finally.

This didn't answer everything, but the dwarf let it go for now. “Got a name?” he asked.

“Evredd,” I said, the word sounding like a mumble. I covered the wound and said it again,
more clearly.

The dwarf's flint-black gaze went to my chest. “You a dead boy, ain't you?” he said.

I found it hard to answer that. It wasn't something I wanted to face.

“You a rev'nant, I bet,” the dwarf went on, knowingly. “Been dead a bit, I can tell. I
seen dead boys before, but not walkin' ones like you. You a rev'nant, come back to get
your killer man. That right?”

He was talkative for a dwarf. “Who did this?” I asked him, indicating the bodies.

The dwarf looked at me a while longer, then glanced around, one eye still on me. The sky
was darkening with the coming sunset, but the rain had stopped. Behind the dwarf by a
couple hundred feet, in a tree line, was an irregular outcropping of rock, overgrown with
vines. A wide gully or eroded road ran out of the woods and undergrowth, then off along
the top of the cliff toward the south.

“Can't say,” said the dwarf, looking back at me, then down at the bodies. “Just got here
myself.” Rainwater dripped from the axe blade.

I stood up. The dwarf fell back, his face tight, and raised his axe arm.

“No,” I said, but it came out as a gasp. I put my hand inside my shirt. “No,” I repeated.
“How long . . . What day is this?”

“Sixteenth,” he said, his eyes narrowing again.

I'd been dead for a day, then. The hobgoblins had hit on the twelfth, and I'd left on the
next day. "Are more . . .

people with you?" It was hard to get the words out in one breath. I'd need lots of
practice at this.

The dwarf hesitated. “Just me,” he said. The dwarf grinned nervously and adjusted the grip
on his axe. “I didn't make you a dead boy, and if you a rev'nant, you ain't gonna attack
me, I reckon. You save that for your killer.”

I had no urge to bother the dwarf if he didn't bother me, so I guess he had a point. I
scanned the ground for any clues to the identity of my murderer. The dwarf stayed back,
but soon got up the nerve to examine the stabbed hobgoblin again, checking for valuables
with one eye locked tight on me.

The heavy rain had destroyed virtually all the clues there were - tracks, crushed grass,
everything. For all that, I could still put together a few things about my killer. He had
used a crossbow, probably a dwarven one. He knew about weapon poison. He could probably
climb cliffs; he must have gone right up this one after killing me, then hit the
hobgoblins. They'd been drunk and tired, but the lack of other bodies indicated that he'd
moved with considerable speed, killing them before they could shout warnings, even to each
other.

But if he'd killed hobgoblins, why had he also killed me? He must have known I was after
them, myself. And if he could see well enough to shoot me this accurately, he couldn't
have mistaken me for hobgoblin scum. I pondered for a minute, then looked off the cliff. I
could still see a man-shaped impression in the muddy ground below, where I had fallen. I
scanned the field out to the horizon. About fifty feet to the west, away from the cliff
base where I'd been shot, was a small dead tree with a briar bush cloaking the base of its
trunk. I'd had my back to the cliff, facing west. The killer could well have been hiding
out there somewhere in the darkness when he caught sight of me.

Yes, my killer was a damn good shot. Maybe he could see in the dark, too. “You know,” said
the dwarf casually, "hobs don't go

in twos. Must be more dead 'uns somewhere here. Otherwise, we'd be covered in arrow stings
'bout now. Maybe we better look around."

The dwarf got to his feet. I'd almost forgotten he was

there. Dwarves, I remembered, could see heat sources in the dark. So could elves and maybe
wizards. Wizards couldn't use crossbows, though, and the elves I'd known in the war had
universally despised them. Dwarves liked them.

“Hey,” said the dwarf, waving his free hand, the other clenching the thick axe handle.
“You deaf as well as dead?”

I shook my head, not wanting to talk much. “More of them?” I asked with one breath,
indicating the nearest body.

The dwarf glanced back at the tree line. “Fort's back there,” he said. “Old one. Bet we
find 'em there.”

I nodded, seeing now that the “outcropping” was really a half-collapsed wall. The distant
shouts I'd heard the other hobgoblins give last night must have come from there.

The dwarf gave me a final look over. “Name's Orun,” he said. He didn't put out his hand to
clench my arm, as was the custom of most dwarves I'd known from these parts.

I nodded in return, then pointed in the direction of the fort. We left the bodies and
started off. Orun made sure to keep a good two dozen feet between us. He was cautious, but
he seemed to take to my presence. Either he had nothing against a walking corpse or else
he was crazy.

But then I was dead, so I was no one to talk. *****

The fort in the trees was probably a relic from the times of the Cataclysm. Rough stone
walls, the wooden double gate, a short stone-based tower to the left - all fallen into rot
and ruin.

This place came with a third hobgoblin, lying facedown in the open gateway. The butt and
fletching of yet another crossbow bolt was visible just under his leather armor; he'd
fallen on it and broken the shaft after it had struck him. Humming flies circled over him,
many feeding where his left ear had been. His arms were caught under him. He'd grabbed at
the shaft, just as I had done. His sword was still nestled in its scabbard at his side.
Another surprised customer.

Through the open gateway, we could see the fort's overgrown main yard, small when it was
new but more so now with the bushes and trees thick in it. On the other side of the
roughly square yard was the barracks building, its stone walls and part of its roof still
standing. To the right, against a wall, was a low building that had probably been the
stables. The tower to the left was mostly rubble. All was quiet except for the flies.

Orun glanced at me, then carefully leaned over the fallen hobgoblin and took hold of its
rigid face with his free hand. Thick fingers poked at a gray cheek, then tugged down an
eyelid to reveal a white eyeball.

“Dead 'bout a day,” he muttered. He squinted up at me, then glanced around the fort's
yard. “Think we're alone here,” he added, matter-of-factly.

I nodded and went on through the gateway, the dwarf coming behind me.

The yard was largely covered with tall grass and thorn bushes. Trees stretched skyward by
the stone walls. Someone, probably the hobgoblins, had partially covered the damaged
barracks roof with animal hides. Pathways had been recently beaten through the tall grass,
linking the barracks with the main gate. The stables to the right had their original roof
and appeared more habitable than the other structures. The hobgoblins could stay safe and
dry within the stables, firing through arrow slits at all intruders.

Intruders like us.

A squirrel ran lightly over the stable roof, stopped when it saw us, and watched with
curiosity. It fled when I stared at it for too long.

“Bet you a steel,” Orun said, pointing his axe at the barracks, “the rest of 'em's in
there. Maybe your killer whatever's in there, too. Better go look.”

We moved closer, Orun generously letting me lead. Dark shapes lay on the floor beyond the
open barracks doorway. The dwarf stopped about thirty feet back from the single stone
step, axe ready, watching both me and the doorway. He was no fool.

I hesitated only a moment before I mounted the step and went inside. The buzzing of
insects filled my ears in the darkness. Weak light filtered in from the doorway and
through holes in the makeshift roof. Water dripped

constantly from above, splashing across the room. As I looked around, I was glad to be
dead. Not that the sight of bloated bodies affected me any longer as it once

had on the bloody plains of Neraka. It was mere scenery now, shadows that held no terror.
No one screamed, no one cried, nothing hurt. Everywhere I looked inside were bodies, and
everywhere were black flies and crawling things at a morbid feast, carpeting the
discolored, twisted bodies of the hobgoblin dead.

I counted eight bodies. Five clutched at their throats or faces. The rest gaped at the
ceiling with bulging eyes and open, soundless mouths, their rigid arms grabbing at their
chests or locked open in grasping gestures. It was hard to tell what they had been doing,
but not one had made a move for his weapon. All swords were sheathed or leaning against
the walls.

I looked around the room. There was a door to the right, apparently leading to the
stables. The wood was gray with age and appeared ready to fall apart. It opened with ease.

Beyond the doorway it was very dark. I walked carefully to avoid stumbling over bodies
that might be in the way. I didn't find any until I got into the stables themselves.

The hobgoblins had apparently cleaned up the stables and made them into a tidy home. Gray
light leaked in from small holes in the ceiling and outer walls. The interior walls had
long ago rotted away, but the hobgoblins had shoveled the debris with great efficiency. An
ash-filled circle of stones served as a seat by a fire pit. A large mass of rotting cloth,
half covering a pile of dry leaves, appeared to make up a bed. It was sufficient, if not
cozy.