"Are you hungry?" the kender repeated, still waiting for a reply. "I mean, I've got a whole deer, and the meat won't go to waste with two to eat it. Do you want some?"

The goblin thought about it some more, fearing a trick, but his stomach won. "Yes," he said simply, marveling at the novelty of it all. No one had ever asked him if he was hungry before. No one had particularly cared.

He'd just make sure the kender didn't try anything without catching the wrong end of the machete first. Just to be safe, he picked up the spear, too.

"Well, let's be off, then," the kender said, waving the goblin on to join him as he set off into the woods. "Mind the pit. It took me a week to make all the stakes."

"We really should go back and bury the human at some point," the kender said, kicking through a big pile of brown leaves. "I mean because of the wild dogs and wolves and things. And the smell, too. I don't live here, so it wouldn't bother me much, but I have some pits here, after all, and there are always humans about, you know. I wonder if anyone will miss him - the man, I mean. No one ever seems to miss us, people like you and me. The humans have each other to look after. We have no one. We just have to stay alive when the humans come. That's the way it's always been, hasn't it? My parents told me it wasn't, but I learned different. They said some humans were nice. I never saw the nice ones. Maybe my parents were telling me a story, right? They always used to tell me stories about heroes and dragons and ghosts and elves. They told some good ones.Do you know some stories to tell? I bet you do, the way you handled your sword. I was sure glad to see you, even if I had the pit ready. You never know what might happen. I found a wolf in one of my pits once and I nearly fell in looking at him. The wolf was almost dead, and I felt sorry for him, so I had to kill him. I forgot that other things besides humans might fall into the pits. It would have been ... um ... i-ron-ic if I had fallen in. My father taught me that word. He was good with words. What's your name?"

The goblin hesitated. The kender's chatter was more than a little annoying and was bound to grow worse, but playing along with the charade of friendship would keep the kender off guard for now. Kender were supposed to be trusting, if unbearably nosy. "Do not have one," he said stiffly.

"No kidding? No name at all? I've never heard of that before. Didn't your parents call you anything?"

The goblin had never known his parents, having been sold into slavery as an infant and having escaped in his teens. He had been called many things by the human thugs who had also worked for the moneylender, but none of the names were worth remembering.

"Eh," the goblin said at last. "Do not know why."

"How strange," the kender said. "I thought everyone had a name. Mine is ..." The kender stopped, then looked down in sudden embarra.s.sment as he walked. "Well," he finished quickly, "what's important is that we're alive, and that's what counts. My father always said that. He was smart."

The deer carca.s.s lay on a hillside among a pile of leaves. A broken arrow shaft protruded from the s.p.a.ce behind the deer's front left shoulder; a bow leaned against a nearby tree. The deer had been cut half open, and flies swarmed about the entrails. The kender searched in the leaves for a moment, bent down to pick up a long-bladed knife with a bone handle. The goblin tensed, but the kender merely sat down by the deer to finish dressing it.

The kender continued talking throughout the whole process. His easy patter about the forest and its secrets were of more than pa.s.sing interest to the goblin, who suspected that he might have to live in the wilderness for some time to come. The kender had obviously lived here long and had learned much.

In the back of his mind, the goblin knew that one of these days it might be necessary to kill the kender, particularly if food became too scarce to be shared. Until then, he would listen and learn, and would watch his back just in case the kender's syrupy friendship turned out to be as false as a human's.

The goblin watched his back, and the kender talked and talked. The kender borrowed the goblin's things, and the goblin took them away again. Three weeks flew by. The winter rains were now six weeks away.

The minotaur had fallen into a stagnant pool of cold water and red leaves, where it lay unconscious. Its breath rasped slowly and heavily as the leaves endlessly rustled around it and flies feasted on the open, filthy woundsacross its back and shoulders. The twenty-foot length of mud-choked iron chain, linked to the manacles on its wrists, had gotten snagged on a log, which the weakened minotaur had been unable to pull loose before collapsing.

The goblin caught the kender by the arm as the latter approached the huge brown figure. "d.a.m.n, you crazy!" he growled. "What you do, eh? One bite, we all bones." He hefted the boar spear in a muscular red fist. "I finish it and sleep good."

"No!" The kender grabbed the goblin's arm and pulled it down. For a second the goblin started to resist, almost turning the spear to run it into the kender's chest, but holding off. Instead, he simply shoved at the kender with his free hand and sent him sprawling.

The kender immediately got to his feet, face filled with rage. "No!" he shouted. "I want to help him! If it was you, I'd help you! Look at his chains! He was a human's slave! I want to save him!"

"We have no food to feed him in winter!" the goblin retorted. "We live good, bellies full now, but food gone when rain come. You say you hungry in cold rain, hunting bad. He hungry, too. What you feed him, eh? You like him chew off leg?"

The heated argument continued unabated for several minutes. Finally, the goblin cursed and turned his back on the kender, walking the two miles back to the cave where they lived. d.a.m.n the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Did he want to start a city out here in the forest? The fool was not thinking with his head. The minotaur was more dangerous than a company of city guardsmen. The goblin once saw a chained minotaur bite off the arm of its slave overseer, though it knew it would be killed for its crime. The minotaur had roared with laughter until the ma.s.sed humans had beaten it unconscious with clubs before dragging it away to its fate.

The goblin fumed and stamped around the cave, finally realizing it was cold. The kender had always gathered wood in the evening while the goblin sharpened their weapons and relaxed. Everything had been just fine until now. The goblin knew how to use the fire-starter bow, but he didn't know where the kender found all the wood for the fire pit.

When he went outside, all he could see were sticks and leaves, no burning wood.

And the kender did most of the hunting and cooking, too.

The goblin stamped around some more.

Maybe the minotaur could be bargained with. The goblin had no illusions about whether or not the minotaur would be a grateful and friendly ally, but even a brute like that would see the value in having two lesser beings tend to its wounds and hunt for it. And having a monster like that around might not be a bad idea, if it could be managed.

Minotaurs were as savage and brutal as could be imagined.

They were d.a.m.n strong, mightier than humans. They hated humans more than they hated any other being, and they hated the slave-taking, holier-than-all Istarians most.

The goblin cursed himself for believing this would work. The kender was infecting his brain. He should just kill both the kender and the minotaur and let them rot.

But the kender did almost all the hunting and cooking.

The goblin sullenly picked up his weapons again andleft the cave. Life wasn't fair. He hated that.

The tired kender looked up, knee deep in the water alongside the minotaur, and a grin broke out on his face. "I knew you'd help," he said with relief.

They made a crude sledge before nightfall, roping two long rough poles together with a ragged length of hemp that the kender recovered from disa.s.sembling an animal snare.

It was past midnight when they got back to the cave with the minotaur and set him down inside. The huge brown beast had never once stirred. The goblin staggered off to collapse in a corner and fall asleep.

When he awakened, it was long past sunrise. Cold, cooked venison was spitted over the fire pit; the fire itself had long gone out. The minotaur's festering wounds had been carefully cleaned and dressed with old rags from the cave's rag pile, donated by many farmhouse clotheslines.

The kender apparently had found nothing to cut the huge chain the minotaur was dragging around. The chain was carefully wound into a loose pile by the minotaur's side.

The goblin rubbed his face and got up. He noticed the kender had succ.u.mbed to exhaustion and was asleep, sitting upright against a cave wall, some rags in his lap, a bone needle and sinewy thread in his hand. He'd been st.i.tching together a crude blanket.

Then the goblin saw that the minotaur, still lying flat on its stomach, was watching him. The beast's dull eyes were as large as a cow's, with the same deep brown color. Long scars crisscrossed the monster's muzzle and low forehead.

One broad nostril was split open from an old wound. Long yellow teeth gleamed dully against its thick lips.

Trying to pretend he hadn't been caught off guard, the goblin nodded at the beast. Suddenly the idea of having a live minotaur in the cave did not look as good as it had earlier. The goblin could almost feel the monster's enormous teeth tear into his flesh. The minotaur made no move to get up, and the goblin took care of a few minor ch.o.r.es with an air of forced casualness. The minotaur must be very weak to skip a live meal. The goblin made his decision.

Ch.o.r.es finished, the goblin walked over to the fire pit and carefully sawed off a piece of venison with his machete. Very slowly, he moved over to the minotaur and knelt down near its scarred, long-homed head. He could see no readable expression on the creature's b.e.s.t.i.a.l face.

If this worked, they would have a new ally. The goblin was sure that the minotaur would eventually kill both the kender and himself if they weren't careful or if it went hungry. But the goblin had worked with the strong and brutal all his life, and he knew the value of strength in numbers. He hoped the minotaur knew this lesson, too. At least the minotaur wasn't a human. It was poor consolation, but in these days, it helped.

The goblin held out the piece of venison near the minotaur's muzzle, letting it smell the food. Then he moved the venison closer to the monster's mouth.

The huge nostrils flared and snorted. The minotaur stirred slightly, then grimaced with pain. Its teeth were bared as its lips drew back and it closed its eyes, but it quickly forced itself to relax and open its eyes again.

With a carefully measured move, its gaze fixed on the machete thatthe goblin gripped in his other hand, the minotaur opened its mouth, revealing a set of teeth that rivaled those of the largest bear. Its breath was unspeakably foul. Very gently, it took the venison and began to chew.

Four weeks pa.s.sed. The minotaur recovered. The kender was overjoyed and talked until the goblin dreamed of killing him just to shut him up. Both goblin and kender hunted now; the minotaur sat silently in the cave. Though the minotaur never spoke, the goblin feared that the beast would react violently the moment the two smaller beings asked anything of it, so he worked more than he had ever worked when it was just him and the kender, and he grumbled about it under his breath. But deep inside he was satisfied. He began to think that bringing the minotaur to the cave had been his own idea. He had a boss again, a strong boss who could eat humans for breakfast if it chose.

It was worth the trouble for the added power and safety - just as long as the minotaur didn't go hungry.

The wind grew colder. The kender raided some of his old caches, laid more traps, and brought more food and supplies to the cave. The goblin was able to build a windbreak of huge branches and rocks at the cave's entrance, and this doubled as camouflage for the cave in case humans were about. The minotaur ate a whole deer now every three or four days, and its muscles bulged until they were like huge knots of steel under its ugly brown hide. It still never spoke, though the kender talked incessantly now, a beatific look on his face as he gladly tended his new friends.

The kender still borrowed the goblin's things, but the goblin no longer cared. He had too much else to worry about. The winter rains were almost upon them.

The goblin watched his quarry - a large buck worth half a week of food for them all - leap out of bow range and bound away. The cry had startled it. Cursing softly to himself, the goblin leaned forward in the bushes and strained to hear against the stirring leaves.

He heard nothing now. A bird? His grip on the bow and arrow relaxed.

No. Not a bird. He could hear it again. It was a human, maybe, crying out. He'd probably fallen in one of the kender's pits. Perhaps the kender heard it, too, but the kender was nowhere to be seen. Figured. He was probably distracted by something again when he should be hunting.

It was amazing that the kender had lived this long.

If the human was alone, it wouldn't take much to finish him off and pick through his belongings. He might even have some money. The goblin didn't plan to live in the forest forever. It wouldn't hurt to save a little change for a future day.

Crouching low, the goblin moved through the crackling brown undergrowth, sliding from tree to tree.

Cool wind blew over his face and through his black rags.

He kept an arrow nocked. He had only three more arrows ifthe first one missed, which it often did. He wasn't the experienced hunter the kender was.

Laughter reached his ears, human laughter. The goblin stayed down, listening, then moved forward more slowly.

Hidden among rock outcroppings and thick briars, he climbed up a low hill. Someone was saying something in a nonhuman language. It sounded like an elven tongue, Silvanesti. The speaker mumbled; his words were unclear.

"I can't understand you," said a human voice in a language the goblin remembered well from his days in East Dravinar. 'Talk Istarian, boy."

Someone mumbled again. The goblin was almost at the top of the hill. No guards were visible. He carefully checked his bow, arrows, and machete, then began to crawl toward a fallen tree trunk overgrown with briars and thick vines, slightly downslope on the hill's far side. The wind covered the sounds of his movements.

"Talk to me, G.o.ds d.a.m.n you!" Beefy smacks sounded from the hill's other side.

A few seconds later, the goblin reached the fallen log and looked down the slope.

There were three humans, two men and a woman. All wore the brown and gray leather of Istarian free rangers.

Once the defenders of Istar's forested west, the free rangers were now no better than mercenaries and bounty hunters. A thin, blond-haired man was leaning into the face of a male elf, whose arms were wrapped back around a tree trunk and presumably tied there. The elf's head sagged; cuts and bruises were visible through his long, sun-bleached hair.

Both his eyes were blackened and swollen. The elf's fine clothing, too light for the weather, had been deliberately cut and ripped to shreds.

"You listening to me?" the blond man demanded. His right hand gripped the elf's hair and pulled the prisoner's head up and back. "Anything getting through your pointy ears? Why were you trailing us, elf? What were you after?"

The elf started to mumble through thick, puffy lips. His knees had given out, and he hung upright only because he was tied in place.

The goblin chewed his lower lip. An elf and some rangers. Great. Two of a goblin's worst possible enemies.

Maybe there should be a dwarf here, too, just to round things out. But it looked like there soon would be one less elf, and that was fine with the goblin. d.a.m.n shame the rangers had probably robbed their victim first. This day was nothing but bad pickings all around.

"The elf said something about a sword," said the ma.s.sively built, dark-haired man standing nearby. He sounded uncertain. "Didn't the captain find a long sword, a ceremonial thing of some kind, in a box with that elf the boys caught yesterday?"

"I thought he said sword, too," said the woman with them. She had the plainest face the goblin had ever seen on a human, but she was heavily muscled, too, with short, stringy hair the color of old hay.

"Hey, elf!" yelled the thin, blond man, his mouth against the elf's left ear. The elf winced and tried to turn his head away. "Hey, can you hear me? Did you want that pretty sword with the gems on it? Was that what you wanted?" When no response came, the blond man slammed his fist into the elf's abdomen. The three humans waited as the elf vomited and choked and gasped for air.

"This is taking all day," said the woman. "We gotta get back to the troops. We should just take this sword and sell it to the clerics in Istar, make our fortune! Either gut him here or take him with us."

"Shhh!" said the blond man. He leaned close to the elf, listening as the elf's lips moved. The goblin heard no sound.

"So it was the sword, right?" the blond man said.

Without waiting for a response, he added, "Is that sword magic, boy? Does it got magic powers?"

The other two humans stood a little straighter, startled by the question. They watched the elf intently.

After a pause, the elf nodded, his face slack. He was nearly unconscious.

"d.a.m.n," said the blond man. He looked up at the other two humans, a smile crossing his face.

There was a whisper in the wind, followed almost immediately by a thump. At the same moment, the huge man with the dark hair bent back, his hands clawing behind him at the dull-colored arrow that had struck him directly between his shoulder blades. The arrow was sunk in almost to the feathers. The man made a strange wheezing sound, then pitched forward on his face.

"Oh, great Istar!" the woman said, wide-eyed. Her hands pulled her sword free, and she and the thin, blond man ran for cover behind separate trees. They crouched down, both clearly visible to the goblin. The man on the ground did not move. The elf hung limp from the tree, his chin against his chest. The wind started to blow harder.

The goblin slowly reached down to his side. His fingers touched the curved wood of his bow.

The blond-haired man, his nerve gone, made a break for it. He took off from his tree, running in a straight line for a clump of bushes about a hundred feet away. The woman started after him, but she must have heard the arrow as it went past her, for she dropped to the ground, rolling until she was behind a pair of close tree trunks. From there, she could hear the blond man scream as he writhed in the leaves and dead ferns.

"I surrender!" the plain-faced woman cried in the trade tongue. "Don't shoot! I've got kin who'll pay my ransom!"

"Then come out!" the kender's voice called. (It figured, thought the goblin.) "Leave your sword!"

"I've got a big ransom!" the woman yelled again. The goblin could see the white in her face, as pale as a drowned man's skin. She looked as if she would be blubbering any time now. The blond man was not so much screaming now as making short, gasping cries, trying to pull out the arrow buried deep in his lower back.

"Just come out slowly," said the kender. "Very, very slowly."

The woman tossed out her useless sword, then got to her feet. Her legs shook as she placed her hands on her head. "Don't shoot me!" she yelled again, looking around with huge eyes and a trembling lower lip.

"I'm over here," said the kender. He stood up, his bow lowered but his arrow nocked. The woman saw him and stared, surprised at his size and obviously reconsidering her chances of survival. The goblin could see it on her face. If I can get close enough to that little b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he knew she was thinking, I can make hash of him. It's my only chance.

"My kin can pay a big ransom for me," she said, her voice gaining strength. "Lots of gold, I swear it. Just don't hurt me. Promise me that you won't hurt me."

"I promise," said the kender.

The long arrow that thumped into the woman's chest took her by surprise. She staggered back, her hands still on her head. Her eyes grew terribly big and round before she fell over backward. She never made a sound.

The goblin lowered his bow. It was the first time in four days that he'd hit anything on the first try. He waved at the kender, then started down the slope toward the gasping blond man.

The goblin found the minotaur sitting in front of the cave, gnawing on a deer's thigh bone. The overwhelming odor of dried blood and ripe manure carried on the air. The goblin was actually getting used to it.

"Eh," said the goblin, almost apologetically.