B’r ē k leaned into his spear, not out of laziness but because the bite to his right leg hadn’t healed. The sunlight flashed off his ruthlessly polished helmet and spaulders. He was thankful for a cool fall day atop the wall; not that the sun would have bothered his eyes and cracked yellow skin.

  The hobgoblin had grown up in the lowlands. Most of that time he spent hunting, drilling, and fighting in the Underwood but he’d also spent a fair amount of time in the swamp or on the dry plain under the merciless glare of the sun.

  The soldier looked out over the last of the swamp and to the north where the scrub plain started. Flat, desert ground dotted with patches of brown grass and various sorts of evergreen shrubbery.

  I need to get out there and get my hands on some meatgum bush. He thought, restating the obvious to himself.

  He didn’t have a day off for the next four and by that time the infection would have done its work and he’d be done. B’r ē k knew he was going to have to either break ranks or pay someone to fetch the plant for him; he didn’t like his odds of escaping the filemaster in his present state and he was close to flat broke at that moment.

  The soldier didn’t see a way out. The infection was going to worsen, and he would die as a result.

  As if on cue the nasty wound began to throb and holler. The hobgoblin bit his lip and clenched his fist.

  Stupid croc. B’r ē k wished he hadn’t gutted the damn thing already; he was sure doing so again would make him feel a little better. The thought did occur to him that he could just kill a random crocodile.

  The warrior smiled as his bloodlust shifted beneath his disciplined exterior. The fine for killing a croc from the moat, on that particular day, stood at twenty-five silver, a penalty B’r ē k had no way of paying for another two weeks when the garrison handed out wages.

  Since he’d be dead by then paying the fine was not an option. Naturally he would then be executed for non-payment.

  The hobgoblin laughed at his predicament.

  Screw it. Thought he. Might as well kill a damned goblin or orc. If the croc gets me executed for non-payment, just kill that pig-faced son-of-a-kobold Corporal Veshk at the gear lockup. Or – why think so small -- maybe I’ll gut one of those little ass-kissing toads on M’herkizos’s staff.

  In his mind B’r ē k conjured the vivid image of the Kru Etar’s reaction as he casually snatched one of his advisors up by the hair and took its head off with his fighting knife.

  B’r ē k laughed once more, this time hard. A snort to his right stopped the laughing.

  He looked up to make eye contact with the hobgoblin twenty or so paces to his right. The green-skinned brute stood well over six feet tall and probably weighed two-hundred-thirty pounds to B’r ē k’s one-hundred seventy or so.

  “What’s the problem you henchman reject?” B’r ē k challenged, citing as he often did the other soldier’s past in the service of an evil wizard known as Fell Staff.

  “Save your amusing daydreams for your down time,” the big hobgoblin spat. “This is a place of vigilance and discipline!”

  “So it is Mtald,” B’r ē k addressed his fellow soldier by name. “Once you’ve proven yourself in combat I expect you’ll be much less eager to preach about the doctrine at every opportunity.”

  “Fool!” Mtald stood up straighter. “I am a blooded warrior!”

  “Well, how good for you,” B’r ē k said with complete disinterest. “If you don’t mind I’d like to be left alone now.”

  Mtald snorted again. He smiled cruelly at the injured hobgoblin. “You have been put on this wall so your death from that bite won’t disrupt your company’s drills. Who among your superiors would care if you died a few days early?”

  The green brute peeked emphatically over the wall and into the crocodile filled moat below. The immense reptiles – some of them more than a dozen feet in length – lazily patrolled the waters or sun basked on the mud bank on either side of the canal bottom.

  “Really, I don’t know,” admitted the wounded soldier. “Probably none; not that it matters because you will be the one fed upon by crocs should you attempt something as stupid as what you insinuate.”

  “Is that so, yellow hide?” Mtald snarled, tapping the butt of his spear onto the walkway three times hard.

  B’r ē k rolled his eyes.

  Every other hobgoblin on that section of the wall now looked in the direction of B’r ē k and Mtald. Some of them had already been watching the argument. Others had only been alerted to the dispute by Mtald’s signal of challenge when he thumped his spear thrice.

  “You think you will curry favor by killing a wounded soldier, you oaf?” B’r ē k asked as he straightened himself out of his leaning posture.

  “No, yellow-skin,” Mtald corrected. “I am only doing that which Nom Ogya demands.”

  The green warrior raised his voice and quoted scripture: “Suffer not among you the weak and sickly. Put those to death, that perhaps they shall reincarnate to a more worthy state.”

  “Another wimperspoog hiding behind religious zealotry,” B’r ē k complained. “Come on then henchman; I’ll help you end your miserable lot in this world.”

  Immediately the large hobgoblin lowered his spear, an eight-foot shaft with a double-edged steel head, and rushed the smaller, wounded soldier. His spearhead trained on the center of B’r ē k’s torso, Mtald lunged hard off his last two steps.

  Too high henchman.

  Even with the painful bite wound in his leg B’r ē k easily sidestepped, rotating his upper body to clear the thrusting spearhead. He thumped the shaft of the bigger hobgoblins spear, sending it wide and causing its wielder – predictably too dumb to let go – to stagger into the battlement wall.

  B’r ē k quickly half-spun his spear to bring the butt of the shaft up into Mtald’s face, crushing his nose and loosing two teeth on impact. Mtald released his spear, clutched his damaged face with his left hand, and fumbled for his fighting knife with his right hand.

  B’r ē k extended the shaft of his spear past Mtald then stepped forcefully towards the wall. He dragged the long shaft across his adversaries chest and used it like a lever to push Mtald’s upper body past the battlements.

  Dagger in hand and a look of disbelief on his face, Mtald fell backwards. As his torso dropped and his buttocks collided with the wall his feet naturally left the walkway and hurtled backwards over the battlements.

  The doomed warrior screamed all the way to the water. The sound of his splashdown instantly became the sound of thrashing bodies and snapping jaws as the crocs tore the hobgoblin to pieces.

  The dozen or so soldiers in the vicinity cheered the victor.

  “I was challenged for my wound!” B’r ē k called out. “All saw this!”

  “Challenged and victorious!” the other soldiers called back in confirmation.

  His leg now screaming at him, B’r ē k leaned back into his spear. Killing that fool helped his mood a little, though he’d have preferred to avoid killing another hobgoblin if at all possible.

  “Well done,” said an almost human-sounding voice from right next to the leaning soldier.

  Startled but not about to let a superior know this, B’r ē k kept his eyes straight ahead and said, “I did not think you came all the way up here to speak with me sir, else I would have acknowledged you.”

  “That’s quite all right,” said the refined voice. “It’s in my nature to move about without being noticed.”

  Thinking this a strange thing for an officer to say B’r ē k felt compelled to turn and look at the other hobgoblin. He was unable to hide his alarm, albeit only for a split second. He half-flinched then immediately composed himself.

  The very first thing he saw were the fiercely intense, pink-orange eyes of the tall hobgoblin on the walkway beside him. The large, pointed ears, uncommon among hobgoblins, brought to mind those of a wolf. The warrior’s ash gray skin had blueish tinting around the neck and jaws, and also on the back of both hands.

  His armor was uniformly colored blood-purple with gold trim and decoration. B’r ē k knew the gold was real too, for staring him down on the walkway stood a Zorei officer. His grahik-varka, a curved broadsword preferred by his clan, hung loose on his belt, the gold pommel and ruby inlaid hilt nearly a foot long.

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  “I know you’re an Urkavikist, so that must have been an unpleasant thing.” The Zorei referred to B’r ē k’s adherence to the philosophies of Urkavik, who spoke against the self-culling of the hobgoblin race.

  How could he know this? Perhaps he is investigating the unit and has some of the others in custody and they have identified me.

  “I’m not part of any investigation B’r ē k,” the officer assured him.

  B’r ē k’s adrenaline began to pump. How could he have been so stupid? All know the Zorei have strong psionicists among them. He looked back out onto the marsh below and the plain beyond.

  “What then?” he asked.

  The glare of the sun caught B’r ē k’s helmet as he turned his head. The Zorei squinted.

  “Excuse me.” He pulled a semi-circular band of thin obsidian from inside his cloak.

  Raising the curved band to his face, he slid it over his swept back, pointed ears so the dark glass-like material shielded his eyes.

  “Better,” the Zorei remarked.

  “Here.” He handed B’r ē k a small burlap sack.

  “What is it?” the spearman asked.

  “Meatgum pulp,” the officer replied. “Treated by our matron, if you take my meaning.”

  B’r ē k stared in disbelief at the sack. He felt like he’d just won the weekly lottery.

  Then he came to his senses.

  “I can’t use magic to heal,” he whispered. “I’ll be executed. Might as well take my chances with the infection.”

  “You are under the protection of the Zorei now B’r ē k.” the gray hobgoblin said coolly. “No longer bound to the more primitive, outdated mandates of the less refined among our race.”

  He went on, “I’ve come through Mirefang to pick up some additional muscle for a mission that’s… Let’s just say it doesn’t have the full endorsement of the High Council. I can take only a small company of Zorei and must find warriors from other tribes and companies.”

  “You mean you’ve come looking for fodder.” B’r ē k turned back toward the plains.

  “No…” The Zorei half-growled. “Take this damn sack from me now! You won’t leave me holding it like some buffoon merchant!”

  B’r ē k immediately did as he was told and took the sack. “Thank you.”

  The Zorei nodded. “As I was saying, no I picked up the fodder on the uplands. Twenty outland migrants from up north.”

  B’r ē k said nothing.

  “Also formerly in the service of Fell Staff.” The Zorei officer smiled.

  B’r ē k laughed. It was funny.

  These idiotic hobgoblins and orcs that came in from time to time. Usually in the wake of some damned evil magic-user’s defeat subsequent to some imbecilic plan to take over a kingdom or worse. They always seem so bewildered by an outcome that only seemed obvious from afar.

  “Why?” The spearman shook his head, still chuckling.

  The Zorei shrugged. “If you mean why do so many of our kind pledge fealty to misguided human sorcerers and the like, I can only speculate they are lost out there in a world that despises them. They do what they can.”

  B’r ē k cleared his throat and stopped laughing.

  “No,” the Zorei chuckled. “You’re right to laugh. They’re fools.”

  “This Fell Staff in particular, what an idiot!” he continued. “His master plan involved raising an undead army – how original.”

  Both hobgoblins laughed.

  “From the field of bones I heard,” B’r ē k added.

  “Exactly!” the gray hobgoblin’s torso quivered with restrained laughter. “The cursed remains of soldiers already known to serve a dead master and periodically rise. I know he was from Auld Ur but come on!”

  Both hobgoblins chuckled at this.

  The Zorei shook his head. “There is simply no way he did not know the lore of that field of remains. So why in two hells…”

  He left the question unfinished.

  “The looks on the faces of these hobgoblins who came here in the aftermath,” B’r ē k commented. “As they recount the fool of a mage being torn apart and the undead turning on them…”

  “I suppose the truth is simple,” the Zorei admitted. “They have no education in the broader realms. You are Baraz’t; I know you went to a good primary school, as did I. We were taught these basics of magic that we might discern a worthy employer from a fool. Many of our brethren beyond these territories had no such advantage.”

  “It’s true.” B’r ē k agreed. “So where are you taking me?”

  “To the Amethyst Mountains.” The Zorei looked to the north.

  Of course only flat plains stretched as far as any eye could see. Even the Zorei’s sharp vision, a gift from his elven forebears, could not reach the hundreds of miles to the well-known purple mountain range.

  “I am Lothelgik, lieutenant of Matrizga Ialeak’gargis of the Zorei,” the warrior in the blood-purple armor announced. “I dare not give the full story, else my loremaster will be furious for denying him the tale. I can say only that a mission of great importance is at hand.”

  Lothelgik pointed to the sack B’r ē k still held. “Apply that and your wound will heal within hours. I need you strong.”

  “Why me?” B’r ē k wanted to know.

  “As a field commander unable to bring more than a dozen of my own men I am set upon two tasks. The first, as you wisely noted, was to find some fodder to throw out in front of us should our enemy outnumber us greatly – and they will. The second is to form a small company of capable warriors from hobgoblins I do not know. I cannot approach clan leaders we have agreements with; the matter is too sensitive.”

  “So you find random soldiers nobody will miss,” B’r ē k added.

  “Soldiers who will not be missed, yes. Not randomly. I have access to all the information I need from the militaries of the region to make an informed selection.” Lothelgik let his words hang.

  “Once again,” B’r ē k spoke. “Why me? I am an average warrior.”

  “You are a humble idealist,” the Zorei corrected. “You see the average of our kind as much more than what they are. You see them as how they should be, how their ancestors were.”

  “The large green soldier, he was a fool but strong, robust, ruthless. You ended him without bringing the lethal end of your weapon into the fight.”

  “He had no combat awareness,” B’r ē k explained. “Rushing forward with only raw aggression and hopeful ideals.”

  The Zorei laughed. “Who among your company has killed a Saurian, an Apophis no less, in single combat?”

  “I don’t know,” B’r ē k said. “Beriv Chol probably has.”

  “Right you are.” Lothelgik slapped the soldier on the shoulder plate. “He looks forward to your joining us; he awaits at the stables even now.”

  B’r ē k nodded, glad to learn this.

  “He recounted your fight with the Khar Tain savages last month,” the Zorei informed him. “You killed five of their warriors but claimed only three to insulate Beriv Chol’s kill count.”

  “He is my sergeant.” B’r ē k said matter-of-factly. “I make him look good when I can and he recommends me for promotion in a timely manner.”

  Lothelgik nodded his approval. “You will make a fine addition to my crew. I must tell you plainly however, your odds of survival are minimal.”

  B’r ē k raised his eyebrows and waited for the Zorei to say more.

  “I do not speculate,” Lothelgik elaborated. “My fortune teller has made clear to me I will lose many Zorei and almost all of the retainers. Six of my kind and two of those we bring with us will return, whether you will be one of those two I cannot say.”

  B’r ē k smiled. “Knowing this in advance gives me an advantage over the competition.”

  “So it does.” Lothelgik decided not to tell the spearmen the others had been informed as well. “Meet me at the north stables in half an hour. You can ride a tegusat?”

  B’r ē k hesitated.

  “Without getting bitten?” the Zorei pressed.

  “I’ll do my best,” the spearman shrugged.

  “Fair enough. Half an hour; the tardy will be lashed before departure.”

  The Zorei turned and traversed the walkway to the nearest ladder and descended it with the swiftness and dexterity of an elf.

  B’r ē k thought a moment.

  Moments ago, my plan was to kill an aristocrat and die of this infection. Now I am recruited by the most feared warrior order in Dirus Foedus for a suicide mission. There is a certain symmetry here; at least this death will bring honor to my clan.

  The hobgoblin began limping in the direction of the ladder. He would need to hurry, he had no wish to be whipped in front of his peers before the mission even began.