by Jeff Grubb
Toede was still seething inwardly with the indignation of his plight. It took a full ten minutes for him to switch from planning imagined revenge on all kender to assessing the situation for possible escape. The water looked too rough for a chain-bound swimmer, but could throw off the scent of a party of dogs. The spray would dampen any clear sight or bow shot past a hundred feet, and the thunder of the cascades meant that any survivors would have to crawl for help rather than count on being heard crying out in pain.
The girl seemed like no real problem, and the guard was not particularly watchful. Toede realized he would have to take him out quickly, before the dog reacted. After which, there was the matter of Groag.
Toede sighed-there always was a weak link in any plan. They had been spirited out of the hut before making any real decisions as to escape, so he had to act and hope that Groag would pick up on the momentum. More likely another large mountain would hit the sea of Istar, Toede reflected bitterly as they skipped glumly alongside the water. The path was only wide enough for a single creature, and in places was devilishly slick, even for those not hampered by iron chains.
Lord of Flotsam, Lord of Flotsam, Lord of Flotsam. He repeated it now as a mantra, not a daydream.
The sun peeked out from behind the clouds about the time Taywin chose a likely place. She looked back, and Toede beamed at her, trying his best to outshine the timid Groag. If I play this right, Toede thought, they will never know what hit them. Taywin brought out a smile that gleamed in the sun in return to Toede's, but Toede was unaware of it, his eyes riveted on the key around her neck.
'This looks like a nice spot. They should be ripe enough. Mister Groag, Mister Underhill, you can start here. I have some baskets…" She fished several smaller baskets from her hamperlike carryall.
"Of course," said Toede, smiling and shoving his arms wrist-deep into the nearest berry-laden bush, wrapping his fingers around a likely collection of berries in the process. The smile froze as the bush locked around him as if it were a tooth-laden vise. Shouting, he pulled his scratched hands away.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Underhill," said Taywin, "I thought you knew about the thorns. All raspberries have thorns."
"Of course, thorns," said Toede through gritted teeth. "I knew about them, just forgot for a moment. It's been so long since I was in the field." He sucked on a bloodstained knuckle.
"Of course," beamed Taywin Kroninsdau, "there are gloves in the large basket, with the smaller berry-baskets. Oh, and if Mr. Groag was any example, there is a difference in hobgoblin and kender taste. We like the ones that aren't green."
"Aren't green," gritted Toede, his jaw still firmly clenched.
'11 make a note of that."
The three of them worked the berry patch, Toede and Groag together, Taywin a little farther down, the guard with the dog watching the pair of hobgoblins. They gathered berries for what Toede thought was half an eternity but was most likely three-quarters of an hour, until each hobgoblin had a half-full basket to Taywin's full one.
"Well, you boys had better catch up. How about if I read some poetry?" she said with a smile.
"Kill me now," muttered Toede in a prayer to the dark gods.
"Beg pardon?" She blinked at the highmaster.
"I said 'silly cow.' I was talking to Groag. He made a face when you mentioned poetry."
"Mr. Groag, I thought you liked my poetry," said Taywin, pouting.
"But I did, mean I do, er, I didn't," Groag's explanation tumbled to an eventual silence as the kender pulled a small tome from her pocket. Toede turned back to his bushes, stifling a smile.
Taywin's voice was strong and clear, and did absolutely nothing to improve the quality of the poetry. Fortunately for Taywin's feelings, it was normal for hobgoblins to hate all sorts of verses above the level of obscene limericks equally, so they failed to appreciate good poetry with the same enthusiasm as bad.
Taywin intoned in her "serious" speaking voice, dropping several octaves into a humanlike alto.
"The knight amount swept on his horse through bracken field and brawny heath and drew his sword of N'er-do-well to face each danger in its teeth."
Groag and Toede were working close together now, a little apart from the female kender. "I didn't make a face," whispered Groag resentfully.
"It's all part of the plan, so don't worry," Toede hissed back.
"He vanquished dark and dreadful lords and proved his will to fight and fight and won the hearts of all around with his fine and lordly might."
"But I don't think it's so bad," continued Groag.
"You wouldn't know bad if it infested your nostrils and bore young," said Toede.
"But she writes it herself. I think she's improving."
"Will you forget about the poetry for a moment?" shouted Toede breathily, trying to convey his rage without increasing his volume. Taywin halted, and the guard looked over at them, spear at the ready.
Toede clanked his chains as he waved at them. "No problem, just a tuber in the way."
Taywin returned to her declamation.
"And so the people of the land did seek him out to cure their woes to battle dark and dreadful lords and aid them in defeating foes."
Groag sighed again. "You think she means us when she says 'dark and dreadful lords'?"
Toede bit the inside of his mouth. "Let's concentrate, for the moment, on escaping."
"Escaping?" said Groag, puzzled.
"Yes, escaping, as in 'finding a lifestyle involving less-heavy jewelry.'" He clanked at Groag. "I have half a plan."
"And so the great and powerful knight did seek the great and holy quest to find the faith and fairest flower and put himself to holy tests."
"Got it!" exclaimed Toede.
"Stuck yourself with a thorn again?" responded Groag.
Toede glared at Groag. "Got the other half of the plan. Be ready to move when I say move."
"Right, move when you say move," agreed Groag. "And in the meantime?"
"Pick faster. I don't know how much more poetry I can take."
Whether spurred on by Toede's promised deliverance or Taywin's poetry, the hobgoblins filled their baskets in record time. The sun had risen high, but the vale was still wet from mist when they finished.
Then the four dined on berries and a few goose sandwiches the female kender had packed. Groag volunteered the information that he had helped grind the grain to make the bread. Toede felt his smile get more brittle by the instant.
"Well, we have to get you boys back," said Taywin at length. "There are other chores needing to be done."
"Pity, it seems so… idyllic," said Toede with a wide smile. Groag looked at him with a panicked glance. The nicer the highmaster seemed, the worse things usually got. "Tell me, Miss Taywin, I'm confused after all this. Are we on the east side of the stream or the west?"
"The western side," said Taywin, already gathering the baskets and the remains of the sandwiches, handing the gathered collection to the guard.
"Oh… pity. Well, we should be getting back," sighed Toede, rising to his feet. Groag, without much choice owing to the chains, rose with him.
"Why is it a pity?" said Taywin, her cute brow wrinkling in small dimples.
"Didn't Groag tell you?" said Toede, miming shock at an apparent breach of common sense. "The best berries are always on the eastern side. They take in the dying sun, and as such blush the reddest. It's common hobgoblin lore…"
Groag started to say, "I never heard of…" but Toede stepped in quickly, "Perhaps he was waiting to tell you later. I'm sorry if I spoiled the surprise." Toede gave a quarter turn toward his companion, his eyes flashing the threat of holy terror.
"Well, yes," said Groag quickly, "a surprise. It was going to be a surprise.
"Perhaps next time, then…" said Toede. "Besides, there's no way to cross this creek."
Toede took three half-steps away, then turned. Taywin was still standing there, thinking. Watching a kender gather her thoughts made Toede think of
an old rain barrel about to explode from being overfilled.
"I've never heard of that business about the eastern side," said the kender at length, "but there's a log wide enough to walk across a hundred yards or so down below. We can check it out."
For the first time the guard spoke, and Toede realized why he had kept silent-his voice cracked with adolescence. "Milady, these are prisoners, and…"
"Oh, for Mishakal's sake, Miles," said Taywin. "It will only take a moment, and Daddy will be back this afternoon so there won't be that much to have them do."
The five of them (the dog padding along in last place) weaved their way down along the banks to where an ancient maple had fallen across a narrows. It had been used as a bridge before, and most of the bark had already peeled away, leaving a smooth, straight pole between opposite banks of slippery rock.
The kender ideal of "crossable" was at great odds with the hobgoblin definition of the same, or anyone else's for that matter. The water thundered about ten feet below in a torrent, squeezing between the two rocky banks before passing over a low falls and into a series of rapids.
"Better berries, you say?" said Taywin, taking the lunch basket from the guard.
The guard shook his head, "I don't think it's wise to take the prisoners across, milady."
"If I may be so bold," broke in Toede, "but the young man, sorry, young kender is correct. In our current condition I don't think we could make it across such a narrow crossing." He held out his chained hands and cocked his head at the young female.
Taywin looked at the cuffs as if they had just that moment entered her vision. Toede could swear steam was pouring out her ears as her brain struggled to grasp the concept that two chained hobgoblins could not cross the stream. She touched the iron key that hung around her neck as if it were a holy fetish.
Then she nodded. "Right. I'll go across first and see if the berries are truly sweeter. Then next time we'll bring more guards and do some major picking."
With that she turned and, with surefooted ease, started to cross the log, ignoring the fact that the crossing lacked anything resembling a handrail and was slick with spray.
Toede sighed as the young kender guard stepped up next to him. "She's real smart, she is," the kender said with a grin.
"Very," agreed Toede, nodding. "I notice how she never during the entire morning got within an arm's length of me. Not like you are now."
The kender guard was about to respond, but the words (and several of his teeth) were shoved back down his throat by Toede's iron-manacled forearm.
The guard went down like a lump of suet, and Toede reached out and grabbed his spear before it hit the ground. Then he kicked the guard for good measure, watching the kender curl up in a small pain-filled ball.
The mastiff growled and was rewarded with a hard rap across the nose from the spear shaft. The hound retreated two paces and growled again, crouching. Toede raised the spear to throw it, and the dog bolted for the woods, yip-ping.
The kender was still down, spitting blood. Groag looked at Toede in shock. "Why did you do that?"
"Couldn't you see? He was about to read us a poem," snapped Toede, and started dragging his compatriot toward the fallen log. "Come on."
"But we can't get very far in these," whined the lesser hobgoblin, rattling the manacles and chain between them.
Toede turned and glared at his companion. "But she has the key, and there are two of us. Now come on."
Groag said nothing, but reluctantly followed the high-master to the edge of the thundering stream.
The passage had gotten very slick indeed at the center of the beam, and Tay win had reached out her arms to both sides to balance herself. Now she looked back for a moment and spotted Toede starting to inch along the beam, shuffling sideways along the span. That was her first clue that something had gone wrong. The second clue was the fact that he held the guard's spear, about a third of the way down from its flint-tipped head, and was using it as a balancing pole. The third clue was that Toede was smiling. It was a frightening, ear-to-ear smile.
"What's wrong?" Taywin shouted to make herself heard over the rushing water. "You shouldn't come out here!"
Toede shouted back, "The guard just took ill! Bad berries! You'd better come back." Indeed, beyond Toede on the near bank, the guard was clutching his mouth and stomach in obvious pain. Groag stood about three paces behind Toede, feeding out the chain and looking worried.
Toede saw a look of concern cross Taywin's face, and she tottered, just slightly, on the slippery log. She bellowed, "Hang on, I have to turn around! Ifs worse than it looks." She made a quarter-turn so she faced downstream, the opposite direction as Toede.
"Here, take my hand," said Toede, reaching out with one chained limb. The other, carrying the spear tightly like a dagger, was tucked behind him. Groag followed him out onto the beam a few careful paces.
"No, you're rocking the log," shouted Taywin. "Look…"
The next word was hypothetically "out," but Taywin merely screamed as she pitched backward, her large basket flying in the opposite direction and quickly disappearing in the rapids.
Toede instinctively leaped for the key. However, his hands were chained together, with a second chain leading to those connecting his feet, which were in turn chained to a similar arrangement on Groag, who did not leap forward, at least not voluntarily. The result was that the chains pulled taut, pulling Toede's arms and legs backward suddenly, and pitching him headfirst after the falling kender.
He dropped the spear, but did manage to catch the kender with a firm grip, snaring the top of her blouse between clenched teeth. This would normally have been an extremely embarrassing situation for both of them, but at the moment such proprieties were not the top priority.
Groag, as Toede had oft pointed out, was not the brightest of hobgoblins, but as he saw the chain connecting him to the falling hobgoblin play out, he immediately realized what would happen to him. With a quickness gained by his several-months' tenure as a servant, he dropped to the log and held on for dear life.
Nonetheless, Toede and Taywin splashed into the torrent and were immediately dragged back under the log and downstream. Toede still had his arms and legs pulled tight behind him, but Taywin was already grabbing him and pulling herself up the chain to shore. As soon as she had a firm grip on the chains, the submerged hobgoblin released his jaw-grip on her shirt-front.
Slowly and painfully, Taywin clambered back up the sheer rock to where Groag stood. The hobgoblin on shore shouted encouragement and put out his foot for her to grab on to as she pulled herself up the final few feet.
Taywin swept back her matted hair and spat water, trying to force air back into her lungs. "I owe you two my life," she said between pants.
Groag replied, "It was nothing, I… Oh! Toede!" and with that started hauling on the chain that had disappeared into the swirling white water and (presumably) was still attached to his former master.
"Toede?" said Taywin, shaking her waterlogged head. "As in Highmaster…"
"Gotcha, you rat!" shouted the kender guard, as he smacked the back of Groag's head with a good-sized, more than adequately heavy rock. The guard's mouth was coated with drying blood, and his eyes burned with vengeance. "Teach you to take a shot at me!"
Groag perforce dropped the chain and lost his grip on the log. The force of the water dragged Toede downstream and pulled Groag in as well.
Taywin grabbed for him, but her fingers closed on empty air as the pair of chained hobgoblins disappeared in the torrent.
"Serves them right," muttered the guard, tenderly touching his swelling lower jaw. Taywin's response was most unladylike (and is best not quoted, as the main thrust of the tale had moved suddenly and precipitously downstream).
The low falls below the fallen maple was little more than a bump, and after constricting into a still-smaller chute, passed through a pair of hydraulics and into a wide, fast-moving pool. Groag's head broke the water briefly, sank again, then crested a
second time. Dog-paddling madly in his chains, he could barely keep afloat.
Groag felt a tug from the connecting chain. "Toede?" Groag asked, and was rewarded with a mouthful of water as he sank slightly. The small hobgoblin sputtered and dog-paddled harder. He heard nothing in response, though whether that was because of the thunder of the river or an aftereffect of Miles's well-aimed rock was unclear.
Highmaster Toede surfaced three feet away, water streaming from his nostrils in a fine spray. He looked angry, and a little afraid.
"You all right?" sputtered Groag, gaining another mouthful of cold river water.
Toede raised an iron-shod wrist and pointed at one of the banks, slightly upstream.
Groag tried to shake his head. "Upstream? Better try to make land a little downstream."
Toede pointed again, frantically.
"If we go downstream, then we have the river going with…" Groag's voice died out once he realized that he could not hear his own words over the increasing thunder-the sound of water falling from a very high place to a very low place.
Then it suddenly became obvious why Toede wanted to swim against the current. Groag began dog-paddling madly alongside him. Both were extremely aware that the surrounding banks of the river were slipping past them, and the thunder was growing louder, until it reverberated in their very bones.
The river erupted over a high barrier of hard shale, through a narrow passage no more than five arm-spans across. The force of the water was such that it flung itself out ten feet into the air before gravity finally got its due and pulled it into a cascading plume of white tinged with rainbow drops reflecting the afternoon sun. Also spewed out this distance were two humanoid figures connected by a length of metal chain. One of them, the smaller one, was screaming at the top of his little lungs.
