Lord Toede (2 page)

In which we officially meet Our Protagonist, who returns to the land of the Hiring and
soon comes to regret it. Toede awoke with the taste of ashes in his mouth. Had he gotten
drunk again and slept too close to the dying embers of the hearth? No, that was years ago,
another lifetime and half a continent away, in a crude cavern with his fellow hobgoblins.
Before the dragons came. Before opportunity knocked and showed him a dream of great power.
Much had happened since then.

Then there was another dream as well, more current, stemming from his recent slumber.
Great and powerful figuresgiants or godlingsstriding the landscape, speaking to him. He
was bound for greatness. No, not that. Nobility. He was bound for nobility. The rest of
the dream tore away in small, forgotten strips as dreams tend to do, but that was enough.
He liked dreams that promised good things in the future.

But where was he? Toede looked around and saw he was perched at the base of a comfortable
maple tree overhanging a quietly gurgling stream. On three sidesnorth, east, and westthe
tree- clad hills rose sharply, cloaked in the brilliant green of new foliage, but the
ground of the valley floor was flat and dotted with brush. The sky was as blue as a
paladin's eye. The maple was in full bloom, and thin yellowish flowers streamed down
around him on the soft breeze. Toede's nose twitched from the blooms, and he sneezed,
explosively, expelling gouts of dust from each nostril. No doubt about it, thought
Highmaster Toede, sniffing. I'm in the Abyss. Toede rose and padded down to the bank of
the stream, kneeling over it and splashing water in his face, wiping the dust and pollen
from his eyes. He drank a bit from his cupped hands. The water had that bitter, cold taste
of freshness that always made Toede queasy, but any refuge is a relief, as his departed
mother always used to say. As the water stilled from his libations, he looked down and saw
himself full in the face: a weak chin tucked beneath two blubbery lips that ran from ear
to ear; a pallid complexion that would make an undead look positively perky; limpid,
saucerlike eyes (now rimmed in red) placed against a sloped forehead and topped by a
hairline that receded all the way to the back of the neck, bracketed by drooping ears
tufted with stringy gray locks. Toede smiled, and his teeth flashed in sharp triangles,
filed in the traditional hobgoblin manner. “You handsome devil, you,” said Toede aloud. It
was then he noticed his clothing. Worn finery beneath a chain and plate shirt stretched
over his portly, malformed frame. Huge shoulder plates imitated the fashions of the dragon
highlords. The armor had been specially made, modified from a suit that had belonged to a
dwar-ven tax-dodger. His hunting clothes. He had been hunting? Somewhere along the line he
had lost his weapons. And with that Lord Toede remembered the hunt, the final hunt. It had
been Groag's idea, really. Highmaster Toede, master of the city of Flotsam, had been bored
with life at court, bored to tears. Nothing seemed to hold his interest, not feasts, nor
entertainment, nor even the occasional interrogation of suspected rebels. Groag had been
one of the hobgoblins of the court, a preening, spineless little flunky with the talent of
agreeing to everything Toede said. In a rare moment of independent thought, the smaller
hobgoblin had suggested a hunt. And so they went hunting. Toede, Groag, and most of the
highmaster's hobgoblin retinue, along with some human servants. Toede had left his normal
mount, Hop-sloth, behind and was mounted on his jet-colored war stallion. A pair of kender
were the prey, Toede remembered, Kronin and Tal-something. Rebellious poachers. Led them
on a merry chase through the woods south of Flotsam, too. Kender were a miserable,
dangerous breed, and kender poachers doubly so. Toede's party had shackled the two
together and still the kender ran rings around them. Over the hills, into the briars,
through the

woods, and at last to the cave. A cave. That thought stopped Toede for a moment, and his
brow furrowed. And what happened next? The kender were in the cave. They went in to flush
them out, and ... And... Then it hit him, rocking his memory like a large stone dropped
from a balcony. A dragon. There was a dragon in the cave. A wild and feral creature, not
one of the pets the highlords kept. They had sent the dogs in, thinking the kender were
within, and they had awakened it. His bodyguards scattered under the dragon's assault.
Toede tried to rally them, but by that time the dragon had overtaken him. The beast reared
over him, there was the sudden white heat of the dragon's breath, and ... And... And
nothing. Absolutely nothing. Blackness, darkness, an Abyss of lost memory. No. There was
the dreamgreat and powerful figures looking at him, talking in unknown tongues, a
gibberish of godspeak. One message. “You shall live like a noble.” Then dawn at the edge
of this unpleasantly pleasant stream. What happened? Had he fainted? Perhaps he blacked
out from the intensity of the heat and lay prone as the dragon passed over him? Or even
wandered off in a daze? Maybe Groag, or some other faithful retainer, seeing his meal
ticket endangered, had dragged him to safety, then went looking for help. Maybe. None of
the options felt exactly right. The mental block, a great icy black chunk of lost time,
remained in place, resistant to any attempts to pry it loose. Toede thought about it for a
full two minutes, a long time in hobgoblin terms to be devoted to anything not directly
connected to violence. Well, nothing to be done about it at the moment, mused Toede. It
would come back to him, probably when he least wanted it. Besides, if Groag had gone for
help, there was a good chance that the courtier had become lost. Even by a hobgoblin's
standards, Groag was a waste of a spot at the dinner table. All that fancy finery, the
rings, the jewelry, the snuff, was like gilding the pig, in Toede's opinion. Groag was
still a hobgoblin beneath it all. If it were not for the fact that Groag had been so good
at groveling and fawning, Toede would have tossed him to Hopsloth, or to the sharks, a
long while ago. Toede sighed and looked at the sky. Still plenty of daylight. His gaze
fell on the stream. The sharks had made him think of the sea. And all streams run,
eventually, to the ocean. By following this one he should reach something that resembled
civilization. Heaving himself slowly to his feet, he began padding south along the low
grass of the stream embankment, pausing only occasionally to kick the petals off a clutch
of wildflowers. Near the sea is where my throne lies, Toede thought. Ignoble Flotsam, a
city-state of bandits and pirates and rummies, humans and kender and less-polite races, a
clearing house of corruption and thievery. Home. The first building block in what the
highmaster already thought of as the Greater Toede Empire. Long ago there had been the
cavern encampments, the brawls, the savageness of his youth. He had survived by his
brains, back then, by pitting one rival against another until he was regarded by all as
the next natural leader of the tribe ... after his mother died. Toede slowed for a moment
in his walk. Poor Mother. He still remembered the day when the representative of the
dragon highlords had arrived, seeking battle-fodder for their wars against the outnumbered
human kingdoms. Mother wanted nothing of it. “Hobgobs live free on their own and die
free,” she kept repeating, as if it meant something of import. The highlord's man said he
would wait until dawn for an answer. They argued long into the night, Toede, his mother,
and the rest of the tribe. Toede wanted to take the offer; his mother was adamant against
it. At last they settled their disagreement in the traditional hobgoblin fashion. Toede
closed his eyes and imagined his mother, standing there in that ancient, uncleaned cave
with a bone-handled knife jutting out beneath her heaving right bosom. Her porcine eyes
had gone wide; her mouth, already filling with blood from a punctured lung, gurgled a
curse. Then she pitched over

backward. Toede opened his eyes and laughed to himself loudly. A half dozen frightened
frogs leapt into the stream in surprise. The look on her face! Hilarious! Well, of course
the tribe entered into the service of the dragon highlords, with the condition that Toede
himself be trained to lead them in combat. This meant that most of the tribe ended up
thrown away in some forgotten battle, while Toede groveled to the higher muckety-mucks
safely behind the lines. A little bootlicking, and some character assassination, and soon
he was one of the top flunkies in the chain of command. It was then he noticed that most
of the successful humans were like successful hobgoblinsthey chose their lackeys from
those who would be unlikely or unwilling to replace them. The same political skills that
had served him so well in the tribe he wielded here, and wielded them so well that he
became the chief aide-de-camp of a highlord himself, Old Verminaard. Toede sighed at the
memory. Those were the days. A little murder, a little spying, a little slaving no, that
particular job didn't pan out as well as he had hoped. If only he had been given decent
help, maybe he could have held on to those Solace slaves: Riverwind, Goldmoon, and that
gold-skinned youngster, Raistlin. If only he had held on to those slaves, then things
might have been different. Ah, well. At least Verminaard had the good grace to perish in
battle with those aforementioned luminaries. A carefully phrased report, a quiet tour
watching over the conquered and burned landscape, and Toede had moved on to Flotsam for a
new posting. It was the only thing the highlords could do with someone of his talent. It
wasn't as if they could suddenly put him in charge of a wing command, or ask him to lead
an army into battle. They tried, at the close of the wara brevet command to highlord of a
dragon wing, a temporary position at best. But the real work (and real dying) was done by
human subordinates, and within days the highlords found a suitable replacement on the
field. No, Toede was of more use far from the action, and Flotsam was a quiet enough
backwater that they risked little of the war effort by leaving him in charge there. Of
course they had to give him his own mount, a frog-dragon crossbreed named Hopsloth, and a
draconian advisor named Gildentongue, and all the perks. It was a pleasant sinecure, for
the most part. Then the evil dragons fell in on themselves, and it suddenly became
important to hang on to what you had. The move to remain behind, to not lead a dragon wing
into combat, suddenly seemed to be puissant wisdom. Quickly the sleepy little seaport had
a lot more to do with piracy and rogues and all the other evils that inhabited those later
days, and more than ever needed a capable administrator. Toede smiled again, for he had
been dealt a good hand, even if he had a devil of a time getting taxes collected and
keeping the human chattel in line. And those kender in the hinterlands, always poaching
and raiding. The thought of kender brought Toede back to the real world. With his own
retainers and guards driven off, kender might be anywhere, lying in wait to ambush him. He
was suddenly painfully aware of his unarmed status. He'd bring a pretty penny in ransom,
he would, the high-master of Flotsam. No, live like a nobleman. High lord of Flotsam.
That's what he should be called. With the dragonarmies squabbling among themselves, nobody
would begrudge him. He liked the sound of it. It had a nice rhythm. Lord of Flotsam. Lord
of Flotsam. Lord of Flotsam. He already had his own court and his personal guards, though
most of them had scattered before the dragon. Toede snorted again. The cowards! He'd see
each one of them tortured. No, publicly flogged. Human nobles were into that kind of
spectacle, and it would show he didn't play favorites among his own race. Lord of Flotsam.
Lord of Flotsam. Lord of Flotsplosh! The shock of cold water snapped him out of his
reverie as the ground opened up before him. Toede had stepped into a small, shallow pool
of water. The vale here widened and the embankment

lowered, such that the stream became a wide marsh, dotted with water-filled sinkholes. One
such sinkhole had positioned itself in Toede's path, and inconveniently he had tumbled
into it. The water, only knee-deep to a normal man, rose to Toede's hips, completely
soaking his leggings and boots.

With a curse, and a remonstration on keeping his mind on matters at hand, Toede scrambled
out of the hole in a less-than-lordly fashion and surveyed the land ahead. The grass grew
thicker and was dotted with tails (of cat and horse varieties) as the sinkholes joined
together to form a solid, impassible marsh. From Toede's (admittedly low-level) viewpoint,
there was no sight of relief or dry land ahead. So much for the theory of all streams
leading to the sea. With another curse, Toede turned toward the left-hand, eastern ridge
and began to carefully navigate his way along the edge of the swamp.

This land would have been perfect for Hopsloth, thought Toede, with another sudden wave of
emotion and nostalgia. He truly missed his assigned mount, a behemoth amphidragon the
highlords had granted him when he took over Flotsam. The beast was a fat, sluggish, warty
creature, a twisted melding of dragon and amphibian, inheriting the worst of both worlds.
Hopsloth had a wide mouth, an insatiable appetite, a pea-sized brain, and a 4azy demeanor.
Not surprisingly, Hopsloth and Toede had found common ground at once, and the beast
responded well to his orders even if it confined its comments to the deep-seated, belching
ribbit or two. But no, Toede had decided to take a battle stallion on the hunt (and the
dark gods only knew where the blasted horse was now). If he had Hopsloth, perhaps he would
have avoided all the rest of this mess. He hoped that the courtiers at his manor house
remembered to keep his pet well fed. Hopsloth got positively peevish when he was peckish.
The land rose beneath Toede's feet, and he climbed the ridge. About halfway up, the trees
began in earnest. Toede turned to look behind him, and saw that the marsh had become a
swamp that evolved into a full-fledged lake, without a single sign of sentient habitation
or obvious outlet. With a sigh he continued up the hillside, cursing his cowardly
courtiers, his runaway stallion, the poaching kender, Hopsloth, Mother, Groag, Verminaard,
slaves, and anyone else he could think of. He had reached the top of the hill when a
breeze wafted a distinctive smell up toward his sensitive nostrils. Now, Toede had all the
weaknesses of a hobgoblin. Bright lights hurt his eyes, and subtle noises were lost on his
battle-dimmed ears. But all hobgoblins retained their sense of smell and taste (if not
good taste) throughout their adult lives. Particularly for food. And that was what Toede
smelled now, a goose, no, several geese by the strength of the scent, roasting on spits
over an open wood fire (a cultured nose could tell by the amount of fat dripping down on
burning logs). He had found someone, and what is more, that someone had had the good sense
to cook a meal. Toede's stomach growled in confirmation. It seemed like it had been ages
since he last ate. Toede quickly followed the scent down the far side of the ridge,
careful to move with as much grace and quiet as he could manage. Just because it was food
did not mean that it was friendly food. It could mean he'd found his runaway entourage ...
or poachers. The brush and undergrowth thickened, which helped keep the small highmaster
hidden until he was almost upon the encampment. He closed to within sight of the camp,
then moved counterclockwise along its perimeter to a point where he could get a good view,
careful not to be seen until he could determine the true nature of those within. They were
poachers, and kender to boot. There were about two dozen huts in a rough circle around a
central fire. The huts were made of light willow saplings bent into hemispheres and
covered with skins and bull rushes. A few of the kender were lolling about in typical
kender fashiondressed in shirts and leggings made of tanned hide, accented with small
flourishes like feathers and bits of metal. The fire itself was a good-sized hearth of
stones, indicating this was a semiregular campsite he had stumbled into. A half dozen
geese had been dressed and were hanging from tripods over the campfire, their dripping fat
causing the tongues of flame to spit and dance. A portly female kender was berating a
slower, larger (larger to her, smaller than Toede) creature who was bringing wood for the
flames.