by Don Perrin
“It’s gone now,” said Fonrar, disappointed. “Wait. There! There! Did you see that?”
“I saw it!” Thesik was excited. “A definite flash!”
“It was moonlight reflecting off metal. I’m certain of it. The gobbos are out there, Thes. We’ve found them. We just need to get a little closer to make certain. You know what the commander says. ‘Verify. Always verify.’ ”
The two crept forward, hunching among the shadows, fearful that moonlight glinting off their scales would reveal them to the enemy. Thesik glided along the broken, uneven ground as silently as a moon-shadow. Fonrar tried her best to move silently, and succeeded fairly well until a large rock turned under her foot. She managed to maintain her balance, but not without considerable wing flapping, tail lashing and scrabbling. Alarmed, Thesik looked back at her companion.
“Are you all right?” she started to ask when another voice boomed out of the darkness.
“Halt! Who goes there? Stand and identify yourself!”
Fonrar grabbed Thesik, dragged her down behind a boulder. The two froze in place, not daring to breathe.
“I know you’re out there,” the voice said again.
“Do goblins speak draconian?” Fonrar whispered.
“Not that I know of,” Thesik returned. “Goblins barely speak goblin.”
“Whoever it is spoke in draconian.” Fonrar paused, then raised her voice. “You stand and you identify yourself!” she called out in a creditable imitation of Commander Kang.
“We can smell you, if we can’t see you,” was the answer. This second voice sounded very unimpressed. “And it’s only because you don’t stink like humans that we haven’t spitted you already. You have five seconds to identify yourself or we’ll be identifying your corpses.”
“They do talk like draconians,” Thesik said doubtfully.
“Yes, but they might just be speaking our language to fool us,” Fonrar returned. “The commander says that some of the cursed Solamnics speak draco. Maybe that’s who they are. Solamnic spies.”
A sword rattled. They could hear metal sliding against metal and the sound of clawed feet scraping against rock.
“Advance on my order, men,” the first voice said.
“Don’t attack! I give up,” Fonrar shouted. Lifting her hands in the air to indicate that she held no weapons, she jumped out from behind the boulder. “You keep hidden,” she whispered hastily to Thesik. “If anything happens to me—”
“I will not keep hidden!” Thesik returned indignantly. “If anything bad happens it’s going to happen to both of us.”
Thesik reared up from behind the rock and, defiantly, before Fonrar could stop her, the aurak female stepped out into a patch of moonlight. Argent light sparkled on her golden shining scales. Her slender body was poised, her movements graceful. She held herself with dignity and without fear.
From out of the moonlit darkness came gasps, exclamations, in-drawn breaths and whispered blasphemies. The voices no longer sounded threatening. They sounded awed, even afraid.
A large bozak rose up from out of the rocks not twenty feet away from them. At his signal, four more draconian soldiers materialized, moonlight flashing on their helms and the buckles on their sword belts.
The bozak advanced a pace, staring at Thesik. He suddenly sank down upon his knees.
“Great aurak!” he said, his voice and his wings quivering. “Forgive my threats. My rash words. I had no idea. I meant no disrespect. If I had known …” Bowing his head, he spread his arms wide. “Great aurak! Command me. Command my men. We are in your service.”
Two other draconians dropped to their knees. Two fell flat on their bellies.
“Command us, great aurak!” they cried in unison.
“Now this,” said Fonrar exultantly, “is more like it!”
* * * * *
The ranks of hobgoblins marched forward. The hobs were fresh. They had taken no casualties. Their morale was high. They had probably just waken from a sound sleep after eating a good dinner. The draconians had not had a good night’s sleep in months. They had not eaten properly in at least that long. They had fought three major engagements this day alone. Almost every one of them was wounded, some severely. They’d seen their comrades die beside them. They were outnumbered and had no where to run.
The hobgoblins marched forward chanting a battle song. The draconians stood grimly, gripping their weapons. They were dead-tired, the battle they faced was hopeless. Kang more than half expected to see his men lay down their weapons and die where they stood. He would not have blamed them.
And then one of the baaz raised his voice in a shout. The baaz had been wounded. One arm hung useless. He could no longer carry a shield. But he could still wield a sword.
“For the commander!” he yelled raggedly and he dashed forward to meet the oncoming hobgoblins.
“For the commander!” shouted the draconians and charged after him.
Kang’s heart swelled with pride. No one would sing about this final moment, except maybe the victorious hobgoblins. But Kang would. In whatever afterlife awaited him, he would carry this moment, his pride in his men, with him.
Slith pounded on Kang’s shoulder armor.
“Sir! Look there!” Slith pointed to a small knot of hobgoblin warriors who were larger and stood taller than the rest, wore chain armor criss-crossed with bright red sashes. In the center stood an enormous hobgoblin—the biggest hob Kang had ever seen. He wore a leather helmet decorated with elk horns and with the horns added on, he stood eight feet tall, at least.
“Their general.” said Slith.
“Any keg bombs left?” Kang asked urgently.
“No, sir.” Slith shook his head. “Sorry, sir.”
“Never mind. We’ll take him on hand-to-hand,” Kang said, holding his battle-axe in one hand and drawing out his dirk with the other.
“Something to sing about, sir,” Slith said with a lopsided grin.
“With my last breath,” Kang returned. He glanced back at his command group. Only two warriors were left with him. Granak, the standard bearer, had vanished over the ridgeline. Kang took a single shining moment to imagine the females racing away to a safe haven they were sure to find. He imagined them keeping the standard a treasured artifact, imagined them telling their children of the First Dragonarmy Engineers who had proudly fought and proudly died beneath that standard. Holding that single shining moment in his mind, Kang lifted his hand, pointed at the huge horned hobgoblin. “That’s our objective, men. Let’s go!”
Kang battled his way into the first ranks of the hobgoblins. A spear sliced into his ribs. He swung his axe and decapitated the hob before he could attack again. Slith fought at his side, wielding sword and dirk with dispatch and efficiency. The ranks of hobs opened up before them. Kang’s two bodyguards were bogged down in the battle. Kang lost track of them. He and Slith continued to push forward, their objective in sight.
The general saw them—Slith’s shouted insults, spoken in excellent goblin, made certain of that. The hob general paid scant attention to the two attacking draconians. Continuing to guide the disposition of the battle, he left the annoying dracos to be dispatched by his bodyguard.
Kang faced off with one of the red-sashed hobgoblins. The hob was nearly as tall as Kang, and well-muscled. He swung a huge broadsword with ease, brought the blade slashing down on Kang. Kang deflected the sword with his battle-axe and sideswiped back. The hobgoblin lifted his leg to kick Kang in the stomach. Thrusting his dirk between his teeth, Kang used his free hand to grab the hob’s leg and upend the warrior, sending him sprawling onto the blood-covered ground. Slith plunged his sword into the hobgoblin’s chest.
“Duck!” Kang roared.
Slith crouched low, avoiding a vicious swing from the sword of the second bodyguard, a blow that was meant to separate Slith’s head from his shoulders. Slith stabbed his dirk into the hob, burying the blade up to the hilt in the flabby stomach where it protruded from beneath the breast
plate. The hob doubled over, went down with a grunt.
“You stinking Solamnic flunky!” Kang bellowed. “Look at me, you bastard hob!”
Now, at last, the hobgoblin general glanced around. Seeing his two bodyguards wallowing in their own gore, he scowled with irritation.
“Just a moment while I deal with pests,” he told a messenger who stood waiting for orders.
Kang charged, wielding his axe. The general lifted a great two-handed broadsword to meet the draconian’s furious onslaught. Kang’s axe crashed down on the broadsword. He hoped to snap the weapon in two, but the hob’s blade was a fine one and held true. The two closed, heaving and shoving, each hoping to force the other to break.
“Who hired you?” Kang demanded. “Who paid you to kill us? Answer me, you slimy gobbo turd!” he added, shifting into draconian in his frustration.
“No matter to you, lizard. You be dead,” the general returned, sneering, showing his yellow, rotting fangs. “I tell you this. I almost sorry kill you skinks. You make me fortune while you alive.” He shrugged and gave a great heave with his muscular arms. He easily pushed Kang backward. “But when you dead, I collect bounty. So is all right.”
“Blast you to the Abyss!” Kang swore, leaping back to the attack. “I’d almost let you kill me just so I’d blow up in your ugly yellow face.”
The general laughed and raised his broadsword. But at that moment, another of the red-sashed bodyguards threw himself in front of his general. Kang was forced to fight the bodyguard.
“You coward hob!” Kang shouted, so angrily that spittle flew from his mouth. “Fight me, damn you!”
The hobgoblin general sneered. Turning his back, he resumed giving orders.
The hobgoblin bodyguard sliced the greave off Kang’s right leg, took a hunk of flesh with it. The hob was an excellent swordsman and Kang was forced to give his full attention to battling the bodyguard.
Still more hobgoblins surged forward.
Kang defeated the bodyguard, cleaving its head in two, but two more loomed up behind that one. Kang was so tired he did not think he had the strength to lift his axe. Slith fought valiantly at Kang’s side, but Slith was wearing out, too. He made a mistake that opened him up to his opponent. Only a desperate lunge on Kang’s part saved his friend.
The two had no breath left to exchange words, but they managed to exchange glances.
This was good-bye.
Kang fought on, still hoping to reach the general, if only to die at his feet. He was dimly aware of a breathless hobgoblin messenger dashing up to make a report, a report that appeared to take the general by surprise. The hob listened and looked intently out to the west. He issued orders. A horn blast went off right in Kang’s face, half deafened him.
“What the—” Kang began, but he was drowned out by horns that blared all around him.
Officers shouted commands. The hobgoblin general took to his heels. The rest of his staff ran alongside him, their feet pounding down the long grass. Kang stood panting, looking around him in dazed confusion. Where before he had seen a thousand hobgoblin faces slavering for his blood, now all he could see were a few hundred hobgoblin backsides.
“What’d I miss?” Kang asked, bewildered. “We were losing, right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Slith. “In a big way.”
“Am I dead?” Kang demanded. “Is that it?”
Slith eyed him. “You don’t look all that good, sir, but you’re not dead.”
“Then what the hell is going on?”
Slith stared out at the hobgoblin army. “It looks to me like they’re running away, sir.”
Kang shook his head and glanced behind him. The remnants of his army were scattered all over the field, most wounded, many dead. No answers to be found there.
“By the Dark Queen’s grace!” Slith breathed. He touched Kang’s arm. “Look, sir. Look there!”
A phalanx of draconians came charging across the plain. They hit the hobgoblin’s flank like a lightning bolt flung from the heavens. The hobgoblins’ retreat dissolved into a rout. The draconians lifted their voices in a fierce war cry and chased after them.
“That must be Fulkth’s squadron,” Slith growled, annoyed. “He was never one for obeying orders.”
Kang stared until his eyes burned. He rubbed them, stared again. The vision didn’t go away.
“It’s not Fulkth,” he said at last. “I don’t know who that is, Slith. There aren’t that many dracos in Fulkth’s squadron. Hell, there aren’t that many dracos in our whole damned regiment!”
Slith blinked. “You’re right, sir. Where’d they come from then?”
In answer, Kang heard giggling behind him, giggling he recognized.
Slowly, as in a dragon’s breath dream, he turned around.
Fonrar snapped to attention, raised her hand in a brisk salute. Beside her stood Thesik, also saluting, and behind her were the sivak sisters, Hanra and Shanra.
“We brought draconian soldiers, sir,” Fonrar said proudly.
She cast a rebuking glance at Shanra, who had a most unfortunate tendency to giggle in tense situations.
“And I showed Fonrar where to find you,” Shanra added.
“No, I showed Fonrar where to find them,” Hanra said, glaring at her sister.
“Thesik and I thought you might be able to use the help, sir,” Fonrar hurriedly intervened. “Not that we feared you might lose.” She carefully did not look at Kang, who was battered and bloodied, gasping for breath and grasping at what was left of his sanity. “We brought these troops just to give you and the others a rest.”
A kapak draconian officer strode out of the moonlit darkness and saluted Kang.
Dazedly, Kang returned the salute. There were no kapak draconians in the First Dragon Army Field Engineers. There hadn’t been for over thirty years. The kapak was accoutered in splint armor like that worn by draconian heavy infantry. He wore the rank badges of a subcommander.
“I am Prokel, subcommander of the Ninth Infantry.” The kapak eyed Kang. “Are you injured, sir?”
Kang was too dumb-founded to reply, his brain having apparently decided to go off to dance a cotillion. Seeing his commander momentarily incapacitated, Slith returned the kapak’s salute.
“First Dragonarmy Engineers,” Slith said, adding incredulously, “Where in the Abyss did you spring from?”
The kapak continued to look with concern at Kang. “We have a fortress about ten miles from here. We’re the last remnants of the draconian race, or so we thought until these two valiant warriors”—he motioned toward Fonrar and Thesik—“intercepted one of our patrols. We were investigating your signal fire on the top of this ridge. We thought you might be Solamnic Knights.” The kapak looked at the retreating enemy. “Instead we find draconians being attacked by hobgoblins.”
“Commander Kang, sir!” came a shout.
The tall sivak Granak appeared, waving the standard proudly.
“Sorry to disobey orders, sir,” Granak said. “But we ran into these draconians and I knew you’d want us to come back.”
Fulkth was there, pounding Slith on the shoulder. More of the females arrived. Gathering around Fonrar and Thesik, they all began chattering at once.
Fonrar managed to extricate herself from the crowd, came over to Kang. “We hope you’re not too angry with us, sir.”
“We’ve already confined ourselves to quarters, sir,” Thesik added meekly, “just to save you the trouble.”
Kang looked out over the field. The goblins had disappeared into the night. For the first time in over thirty years, Kang saw more draconians than he could count. Draconian soldiers were everywhere, jogging past in company columns, picking up dead, dispatching wounded goblins, tending wounded draconians.
Looking back at Granak and the standard, Kang began to laugh. He fell to his knees, laughing, and then he pitched forward face-first into the long grass. As consciousness slipped away, he heard Fonrar cry out in a fear that was very sweet to him. He heard Sh
anra or Hanra—bless them both—still arguing. He heard the kapak officer shout for a litter-bearer. Last, before he sank into a blessed oblivion, Kang heard Slith.
“The commander’s wounded, but not badly, sir. He’s like the rest of us. He’ll live. We’ll all live,” Slith stated triumphantly.
Kang hurt all over. Goblins—giggling goblins—surrounded him, jabbing him with their spears, sending flashes of pain through his body. Kang fought the goblins, slicing off their giggling heads, but for every one he killed, six more sprouted in its place. Then horns began to blow and he looked around to see draconians charging straight into the giggling goblins. Kang was angry. He hadn’t ordered a charge! He struggled to call the soldiers back, but the ship on which he was sailing was lurching wildly and every time he tried to stand up he toppled overboard and drowned in a yellow sea.
Kang woke with a gasp and start. Completely disoriented, he was afraid to move, afraid to even wiggle lest he fall off that blasted ship and tumble down into that yellow water again. He dared not even turn his head, but stared straight up above into blue sky. Blue sky that was floating. No, he was floating. He was lying on a bed and his bed was on a ship that was floating along on the air.
I’m dead, he thought. I’m dead and my soul is drifting through the ethers.
But if that was the case, why did his back ache abominably? Why was his shoulder stiff and immovable and why did his leg burn like it was on fire?
Kang was angry. A fellow should get some reward for being dead, if only that he didn’t hurt anymore. This was intolerable. Kang was going to speak to someone about it. Someone in charge. He just had to find out who. Who was in command? Who was trying to kill him?
Kang sat up.
His sudden and unexpected movement caused his floating bed to tilt. All around him, draconian soldiers began shouting and cursing. He experienced a wild moment of intense confusion during which he had the feeling he was being juggled like a ball and then he was unceremoniously dumped onto the rock-hard ground.
Lifting himself on his elbows, Kang looked above him at an upended litter and at the four stricken baaz who had been carrying him. Kang closed his eyes, sighed in relief. He wasn’t dead. His soul wasn’t floating. He was being carried on a palanquin on the shoulders of four strong baaz, when his sudden movement upset the whole contraption and dumped him on the ground.
