by Ari Marmell
Cræosh scowled. “I’m not crazy about that idea,” he grumbled, “but I can spare a year or three. Most orcs don't make it to old age anyway. I’m a little more concerned about that whole ‘not surviving thing,’ though.”
“I second,” Gork said, actually raising his hand.
“I'll risk it,” Katim rasped. “It's…extremely difficult to kill…a troll. I’m not…worried.”
“Well bully and hot-shit for you,” Cræosh muttered.
But in the end, their other options amounted to zero—a circumstance with which they were growing all too familiar. They roughly explained what was about to happen to Belrotha and Jhurpess. And then there was nothing left but to do it.
It took Gimmol three tries to get the spell right, and Cræosh was certain that the gremlin would dislocate his jaw with some of the harsh, alien syllables. When he finally did spit out the final phrase, the entire squad shuddered; a few even screamed. As though they'd taken a nice big slug of molten lava, a sudden heat blazed in their guts and radiated outward. Their blood boiled, their hair burned from the inside—or so it felt.
After only a few seconds, though, the burning faded to a tolerable level; not gone, alas, but easy enough to ignore.
“What now?” Cræosh asked, his voice sounding strangely high-pitched and tinny in his ears.
“Now we go,” Gimmol said. “The incantation should last about a day each time, so I’m going to have to recast it. A lot.” The gremlin sighed. “This is not an easy spell, Cræosh. It takes just about everything I've got. If we run into any sort of trouble, I probably won't be much help.”
“That's fine. You just leave it to us.”
The squad set out, and Cræosh was rather startled at just how swiftly the terrain flashed past to either side. It looked as though every step he took covered three or four paces’ worth of space.
“Not exactly,” Gimmol explained when he asked about it. “The size of your paces hasn't changed. You're just taking them a lot faster. Since your mind doesn't realize how fast your feet are moving, it looks like each pace is covering more distance.”
“But we're just moving faster.”
“Exactly.”
Cræosh pondered that. “Wouldn't this be a huge fucking advantage in combat, then?”
The gremlin shook his head. “You're forgetting how much stress you're under. Yeah, you'd be a lot faster than your opponent, but a single blow would kill you. Combined with the rigors of this spell, even a minor wound might prove fatal. That, and you wouldn't really want to age a few years every time you fight someone, would you?”
Cræosh just grunted and began very carefully checking his path for rocks and roots. Given what he'd just been told, he absolutely did not want to trip over anything.
Dying from a skinned knee or a twisted ankle would be humiliating.
“I just thought of…something,” Katim announced.
They'd halted for the night atop a small rise. It wasn't much—barely even a hill—but it was defensible, something that couldn't be said for most of the open plains here. They'd made good time, to have reached those plains already. At this rate, they would be at the shores of the Sea of Tears in less than another week.
“And that is?” Cræosh asked, his tone suggesting that he wasn't really all that interested in anything the troll might have come up with.
“We were so concerned with…reaching the Sea of Tears, we didn't…consider crossing it.”
“Um, by boat. Just how stupid—”
“And how many ports…stand on the coast of the Sea…of Tears?”
“Just Sularaam,” Gork interjected. And then, crushed beneath the weight of sudden realization, he groaned.
“What?” Cræosh asked.
“What's in Sularaam…Cræosh?” Katim asked pointedly.
It finally dawned on him. “Castle Eldritch. And Queen Anne.”
The troll nodded.
“Shit!” Cræosh rose and began to pace. “Will she be able to sense us if we just pass through? I mean, she's probably pretty busy, right?”
“Probably,” Katim agreed. “How much are…you willing to wager on that…particular ‘probably’?”
“Not much,” the orc admitted. “Okay, then. So what're our other options?”
“Isn't Tarahk Grond near Sularaam?” Fezeill asked him. “Couldn't we go through there?”
Cræosh shook his head. “Yeah, it's close. I have friends and relatives there. But Tarahk Grond's farther south in the Grieving Mountains. It's got no direct access to the Sea of Tears.”
“Oh,” Fezeill said. “Damn.”
After a fairly lengthy moment of silence, Gork scowled. “I’m hearing a rather disappointing lack of creativity here, people.”
“Oh, right,” Cræosh said, “like you've got any better ideas.”
The kobold shrugged. “Someone's got to supervise, right?”
“Jhurpess have idea!” the bugbear announced. “Jhurpess knows what squad should do.”
“This,” the orc said, “I've got to hear. I’m not sure I want to hear it, but…”
“Jhurpess will take squad through Trussus!”
“What?!”
“Trussus is bugbear village! Trussus near Sea of Tears!”
“Trussus on the Steppes!” Gork raged at the simian creature. “You want us to go back up into the Steppes? Into the tundra? You're not just stupid, Jhurpess! You're insane!”
“Trussus is warm,” Jhurpess protested mildly. “Mountains shield Trussus from wind and snow.”
“Maybe,” Cræosh told him, “but that don't make it the slightest bit easier to get to the fucking place. Sorry, Nature-boy, but I've got no intention of freezing my ass off again. If I want it gone, I'll take my sword and cut it the hell off the top of my legs.”
“To say nothing of the fact,” Fezeill added, “that it would mean trusting our lives to a bugbear-made boat. Frankly, I'd rather have the raft of doors we made in Ymmech Thewl. I—”
The argument ended, or at least stalled, at the hideous sound of Katim running her talons thoughtfully down the flat of her axe blade. “What about the River…Krael?”
“What?” It came from three mouths at once.
“If we cannot get a boat…at the coast, we get one earlier. Then…we travel the Krael, which…takes us into the Sea of Tears…far north of Sularaam.”
“Well, that's just fine, Dog-breath,” Cræosh said—filing away, for the moment, the troll's almost unnoticeable faltering at the word “boat.” Just like she'd hesitated before stepping onto the raft. Trolly's got a weakness…. “I suppose you've got a small ship stowed away in a belt pouch, right?”
Katim glowered until Cræosh began to fidget.
“All right!” he relented. “So you wouldn't have fucking brought it up if you didn't have some idea! So let us in on the secret, oh wise canine. We're breathless with suspense.”
“If we've truly traveled…as fast as Gimmol claims,” she said, “then we should…be fairly near Timas Khoreth. Since the…city sits on a tributary…of the Krael, it stands to…reason that they might have a boat…or two on hand.”
“Wait a minute!” Gork exclaimed, horror dawning on his face. “Isn't the Krael also in the tundra?”
“Not precisely. It runs along…the southern edge.” In fact, proximity to the tundra, and the poor quality of the frigid soil, was one of the reasons there wasn't a port city where the Krael met the Sea of Tears. But neither Cræosh nor Katim saw any pressing need to mention that fact to the irate kobold.
“No! No way! It's damn cold enough this far north already! Not a chance! I—”
Cræosh sighed and once again lifted the kobold off his feet, one huge palm wrapped around the struggling creature's head. “There are worse things than a little cold, right?
“Mrph!”
“I thought you'd see it that way.” The orc dropped Gork to the ground.
“You know,” the kobold snarled as he brushed himself off, “the next time you do that,
I might just take a bite out of your hand.”
Cræosh shrugged. “And I might just squeeze until your brains come oozing out of your ears like so much—”
Gork and Katim both turned away, determined not to hear whatever metaphor the foul-mouthed orc intended for “oozing brains.”
Cræosh grinned briefly before turning his attention toward their pet sorcerer. “How about it, Gimmol? Can you speed up the boat the same way you've been accelerating us?”
“I’m afraid not, Cræosh. Creatures only. I might get us to row a little faster, but that's it.”
“Ah, well,” Cræosh sighed. “Doesn't really matter, I suppose. Taking the river's faster than walking anyway. All right, you losers! Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow, we've got a boat to catch.”
It was an hour past noon, and the Demon Squad was huddled silently in a thick patch of brush and scrub just west of Timas Khoreth, watching the ebb and flow of traffic on the road.
Well, most of them were silent. Gork was still at the tail end of a snit and was grumbling all manner of profanities in Kobold.
“I thought you enjoyed being sneaky,” Gimmol whispered to him.
“Oh, bite my ass, gremlin! I’m finally in a position to pull rank on the humans, and you bastards won't let me!”
Cræosh sighed. “We've fucking been through this. We can't afford to go through official channels to requisition a boat. Queen Anne—”
“Yeah, yeah, Queen Anne'll catch wind of it. But we'll be long gone by the time she does!”
“You want to count on that, Shorty?”
More profanities in Kobold. More long hours spent watching the constant river of humanity flowing through the gates of Timas Khoreth. Merchants entered, soldiers departed, horses and donkeys and mules wandered past, lost in their own equine thoughts.
“The problem isn't really getting in,” Gork said, his attentions finally directed toward the issues at hand. “There are entrances besides the main gate, so we can enter in ones and twos. I haven't seen a lot of goblins in the crowd, but there are enough that so long as we don't try to pass all at once, we shouldn't stand out too badly. No, the real challenge is going to be getting out.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Cræosh admitted. “Any particular reason that we can't just sail out?”
“Yeah. You wouldn't know this, ‘cause you pretty much got to Timas Khoreth just in time for them to assemble our little shindig, but I had some time to explore. There's a guard tower just north of the city proper. It sits right at the intersection of the Krael and the smaller tributary that flows through Timas Khoreth. We have to sail right past it to get out.”
“Could we just make a run for it?” Fezeill asked. Then, when it appeared that Gork was ignoring the doppelganger, Cræosh nudged him in the shoulder.
“No,” the kobold said. “We'll be fighting the current until we reach the Krael itself. And even with Belrotha paddling, that's going to slow us down. A lot.”
“We could portage it,” Cræosh suggested, though his voice was doubtful. “Have Belrotha carry the boat until we've reached the Krael.”
The ogre's eyes widened. “But if me carry boat, me be under the water!” she protested.
Gimmol patted her reassuringly on the calf. “No, Belrotha. If we need you to carry the boat, it'll be out of the water.”
“Oh.” She beamed after a minute. “Me got it now.”
“Good.” The gremlin smiled.
“But if us out of water, what us need boat for?”
Gimmol gave up.
A brief discussion, however, proved that particular line of thought unnecessary. “…really don't think,” Fezeill was saying, “that even Belrotha could carry a boat big enough for all seven of us.”
“I've seen more than seven…people stuffed into some fairly…small boats,” Katim said.
“No, he's right,” Gimmol said, rejoining the main conversation. “If it was just a question of the river, sure. But remember, whatever boat we steal has to be able to navigate the Sea of Tears, too. That means sturdier, and that means bigger and heavier.”
“Well,” Cræosh said abruptly, rising to his feet and dusting off his hands, “there's no help for it, then. We grab the best boat we can, paddle like drowning dwarves, and hope we clear the tower before they realize what's happening—or that something better comes up in the meantime.”
All told, it wasn't much of a plan, but it was all they had. The squad waited until the sun had just begun to caress the western horizon. Then, as one, they abandoned the dubious safety of their patch of scrub and dashed toward the walls of Timas Khoreth.
It was, as Gork had foretold, simplicity itself to actually enter the city. Fezeill, of course, had no difficulties whatsoever. The bulk of the squad, in ones and twos, just fell in with the regular traffic, now rushing to pass through the main gates before nightfall. Those who would stand out too much from the crowd—Katim and Belrotha, specifically—moved around to one of the posterns, meant primarily for refuse. Katim crept up on the single unwary guard and smacked him over the head. She'd decided (reluctantly) that she couldn't justify killing a fellow soldier under the present circumstances, and had pulled her blow accordingly. Nevertheless, when trolls hit people, they tend to stay hit. The guard didn't wake up for half a week, and to the end of his days, the poor fellow swore he could see a small flock of purple-winged hedgehogs fluttering at the periphery of his vision.
It took even longer for them to wend their way across town without drawing excess attention, forcing them to remain alone or in pairs rather than reassembling—the fact that Jhurpess and Belrotha both got lost on the way didn't help—but finally they'd gathered, crouched in an alley not far from the riverbank.
Slowly, methodically Cræosh, Katim, and Gork surveyed the area. Now that the sun had set, the pier was lit by a series of lamps hanging from eight-foot metal poles. Most of the vessels moored here, thumping hollowly against the waterlogged jetties in the shifting tides, were rowboats and rafts. Two, however—a small, flat-bottom barge and a single-masted fishing vessel—looked capable of surviving the Sea of Tears.
There remained, however, a problem. Two problems, actually, and they were both sitting beneath one of the streetlamps, using a wooden crate as a makeshift table. The staccato smack of cards being slapped down onto the wood reverberated softly in the night air, occasionally followed by either a chuckle or a grunt and the clatter of coin changing hands. Even over the damp scents of the river, several of the goblins could detect the tang of sour sweat and cloying pipe smoke.
“I’m still not entirely opposed to killing them,” Gork said in a low whisper. “I mean, it's not as if there aren't more where they came from. My people have a theory that it was the humans who taught rabbits everything they know about breeding.”
“Leaving aside the trouble that murdering two guards is gonna cause us if we're discovered here,” Cræosh explained—again—”I’m not really sure how King Morthûl's gonna take it if he finds out we were killing his soldiers on our way to see him. I'd sort of rather he be in a good mood when we meet him.”
“Amen to that,” Gork agreed firmly.
“Good. Then shut the fuck up, unless you've got an idea that doesn't involve stabbing them in the back.”
“Could Katim just bash them?” Gimmol asked. “Like the guard at the gate?”
The troll, however, shook her head. “I couldn't be certain…of getting them both before one could…sound an alarm.”
Much to the horror of the rest of the squad, the bugbear grinned broadly. “Jhurpess has idea! Katim can go hit guards! Jhurpess will take care of the rest!” Before anyone could stop him, or even think of stopping him, the bugbear jumped up to the nearest second-story windowsill and scrambled onto the roof.
“I think,” Fezeill said, “that the word of the day is ‘shit.’”
“Shit!” Cræosh agreed. “All right, Dog-breath, I don't see that we've got any choice anymore. Nature-boy's gonna do whatever he's gonna do, r
egardless. Get out there and beat their heads in before all hell breaks loose.”
Katim nodded and charged, keeping to the shadows almost as well as Gork could have. It was only when she reached the circle of light in which they played that the guards noticed her at all.
The first collapsed facedown on the table before he'd even managed to stand, the side of his head bruised and bloody. Katim lunged over the crate, grabbing the second soldier by the hair and slamming her other fist into his jaw—but not before he'd lifted the signal whistle that hung on a cord about his neck and loosed a deafening screech.
Just as they'd feared. It was a short whistle, aborted abruptly when the troll's fist drove the tiny device through the man's front teeth, but it was enough. Already, the faint sounds of running feet echoed from nearby streets.
The remainder of the squad broke cover, racing to join the aggravated troll. “So where,” she asked, her raspy voice even darker and more dangerous than normal, “is the…damn bugbear? He—”
As though summoned, Jhurpess materialized from the flickering shadows directly beside them. “Jhurpess done,” he announced happily. “Squad can go now.”
“What did you do, you stupid monkey?” Cræosh asked. This was not going to be pleasant….
“Jhurpess gave guards a better reason for the alarm,” he said. “Squad really should go now.”
“He's right, Cræosh,” Gimmol called from Belrotha's shoulder, a perch he'd resumed while waiting in the alley. “The guards'll be here any second.”
The orc stubbornly shook his head. “Not until we know what he did!”
The far end of the dock erupted into a towering fireball that could probably have been seen from the tundra, followed by a roar that could have been described as the angry growl of thunder's pet dog. Heat washed over them; a deluge of acrid fumes made their eyes water, their nostrils burn. Dark silhouettes raced toward or around the fire, shouting and flailing, utterly oblivious to the gathered goblins.
“Lamp oil?” Cræosh asked, shouting over the roar of the fire.
