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 hobgoblins-they 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 war-a 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.