Free From the Wood, Yet Slave to the Heart

Colin took an hour out of the next day, busy with war preparations and such as it was, to visit the hobgoblins. It had been far too long since he had sat with Mika and Tratzl to have a conversation, however brief. They kept inside a lot of the time now, unwilling to be mistaken for enemies among the roiling masses of armed soldiers that so populated most of the courtyards.

“I heard you called off the search,” Mika said aside to him in much better English than she had started with. She said it lowly as Tratzl amused himself across the room after growing bored with the conversation that the king and his own caretaker had entered into.

“We cannot afford to have our forces spread so thin right now,” Colin said, but he heaved a sigh before he could stop himself.

“So it’s not just because you have given up,” Mika observed, sounding somewhat relieved. “I had feared that was the case, you know. I have not told Tratzl yet because I did not know the true reason, and I did not want to keep his hopes up if, indeed, you had given up.”

“I would never give up,” Colin said fiercely, but still low enough that they did not attract the young hobgoblin’s attention, “but I’m afraid that, even if I continued the search, it will have to wait until after this war ends and for a few years beyond in order to make reparations for it.”

“I understand,” said the she-hobgoblin, “and I’m sure Tratzl will. I will tell him after you have gone, but perhaps you should visit us again soon and tell him yourself as well.”

“Ah, is my time up?” Colin glanced at the clock and sighed again, standing, “I guess so. I will come again as soon as I can, Mika. Tratzl! Are you going to say ‘bye’ to me?”

Tratzl groaned, “You’re leaving already?!”

“Yeah,” the young king knelt as the shorter-than-average child ran up to him and threw his arms around him. He returned the hug and continued, “but I’ll come back just as soon as I can, okay?”

“Okay!” the little hobgoblin let go and waved as the king left the room, coming face to face with spymaster Goroan.

“Ah, your Majesty, I was just coming to get you,” he said, then lowly, “There’s trouble brewing again.”

“Of course,” Colin said, rolling his eyes even as the older man turned to him. He was not putting it down as unimportant, by any means, but one does get tired of false reports, and he’d had a few of those from other sources over the last few days. Colin trusted Goroan completely, however, because he’d asked one of Goroan’s men each time to verify the news, and it always came back negative.

The king walked in step with the spymaster as they headed back down to the council room, and he asked, “Where?”

The spymaster needed no further questioning and replied, “They are massing once more at the head of the valley, Majesty.”

“Do we have an estimate of their numbers?” Colin asked, dread welling in a knot in the pit of his stomach. “And the types of creatures that await our soldiers in battle?”

“We do,” Goroan nodded, and his tone was as grave as his countenance. That was not comforting to the young king in the least. “I think it’s best that we save those details for the council, Majesty.”

That statement was not comforting either.

“As you see fit,” Colin agreed, holding back another sigh and letting the conversation lapse into a sort of grave silence. Had he been a lesser man, he would have been fidgeting from the nervousness he felt, but he was a king, born and raised, and he could not show the small, trivial signs of weakness. It would set his people into a state of fearfulness, and he’d learned from a young age that, in times of a real crisis, panic would only cause a collapse.
So he walked in silence, his hands clasped behind his back stiffly, but his face giving nothing away.

They reached the council chamber shortly thereafter, and Colin wasn’t so sure he wanted to enter although he knew he must. And so they did, finding Captain Ysid sitting at the table conversing in a low tone with Colin’s father Reginald and Tessalyn. They looked up at the King’s entrance and he nodded to them to continue as he strode over to his spot at the head of the table. Goroan took his seat, behind which stood his second in command, Chewyn.

“Your Majesty,” Ysid said respectfully.

“Captain,” Colin nodded to the man specifically. “What news have we?”

“It’s not pretty, son,” Reginald said lowly, looking down at a few papers in front of them before passing them to Colin to look over. “They estimate the number of the enemy at around 20,000. The odds are well against us, even with the men who’ve returned from the search and others who came at the pleas we sent to our other cities. At best, we have eight thousand.”

“We’ve never had a need for a large garrison,” Ysid spoke when Reginald had fallen silent, “until now. And we had no forewarning, or very little, so we had no time to build our forces up. We train vigorously now for the fight to come, but against such odds I fear it will not be enough.”

“It has to be,” Colin sighed, looking over the papers. “Also, it says here that, among the Armies of the Sealed still approaching, we’ve sighted a much larger number of Peroan minotaurs than we have already faced. How much larger would that be?”

“Scores,” said Chewyn, choosing his words deliberately, “probably near to six hundred of the beasts altogether, whereas the last battle held only, at most, two, Your Majesty.”

“Wargs? Do you have an estimate of their numbers?”

“The report is much the same,” Tessalyn heaved a sigh, drumming her fingers on the table.

“Do you see victory?” Ysid inquired of her.

“I See nothing,” she said in frustration, throwing her hands up. “I cannot See for the first time in my life! It’s as if a grey haze has been drawn over the Seeing eye, preventing me from knowing whether we set out on a fool’s errand or not!”

This frustrated outburst was greeted with utter silence. It was not often that the Seer could not see, and although so far all had still ended well it was still not a thought those present liked to embrace.

“Perhaps it is a fool’s errand,” Colin said slowly, “but we will change that. We will win a victory whatever the cost. Please, Goroan, enlighten me as to the numbers of the other creatures listed here.”

The young king tapped his finger on the haphazardly scrawled list of creatures, and the spymaster and his second leaned over to examine it.

“The Theroan minotaurs have much the same number as the Peroans, Majesty,” Chewyn said, analyzing the list.

“There is a large body of trolls this time, where few joined in the last. Nearly ten thousand of them,” Goroan said, his voice falling with a note of what Colin identified, grudgingly, as despair.

“What of the roughly eight thousand that remain? What are they and how many?”

“My men spied another tribe of minotaurs not yet seen in battle; we believe they are Genoan. Smaller than the Theroan, but agile. A thousand.” Goroan reported dutifully.

“Also, from what I gather,” Reginald cut in, “there are a number of beasts we cannot identify. They’re hulking beasts, skin a greyish-green and scaly. Three claws on their three-fingered hands, a spiked tail and spine, wicked teeth, and clawed feet. They wear no armor and carry no weapons.”

“Relatives of the urdak, Colin,” a gravelly feminine voice said, and the group turned to see Mika the hobgoblin at the doorway. “I can feel them. They are dangerous, extremely dangerous! Bad, bad, bad news, Majesty!”

“How many are there?” Colin asked the others with trepidation, motioning for Mika to come nearer. “Favrel!” he called for one of his ever-present guards.

“Majesty?”

“Bring a chair for Mika,” Colin said, then he turned to the hobgoblin.

“We estimate only two hundred of those,” Goroan said, glancing at the female hobgoblin.

“Only!” she shrieked, unintentionally, for she quieted her next words. “Only, he says! Only two hundred! They are as bad, maybe worse, than the urdak! They’ll be hunting us, and Miss Raya, too, because we escaped their brethren! No, this is bad. Bad!”

A tremor of uneasiness spread through the room, and Colin spoke quietly, “Continue with the report, Goroan.”

At that moment, Goroan opened his mouth but paused as the guard brought in the chair requested for Mika and sat it, at Colin’s instruction, next to the king’s chair. When Favrel had left, Goroan began, “The nastiest of all goblins make an appearance of around four thousand, and at least fifty ogres were spotted, if not a few more. There are various breeds of flying creatures that number another two thousand. The remaining troops in their armies seem to be mostly, I loathe to say it, undead. A group of fifty aside from them seem to be the necromancers in charge, and they are creatures ranging from men to trolls to whatever other monstrosities there are.

“All in all, Majesty, the odds promise nothing except a defeat.”

“No!” Colin said sharply. “No. It will not be so. How many days until they are here?”

“At most, if they stop at the head of the valley for the night, one.”

“Mika,” Colin turned to her, with a sudden decisive movement. “Mika, what kind of promise will it take to convince those inhabiting the Royal Forest to fight on our side? I can give them land, even a monetary compensation of some sort. I can grant them pardon and protection so long as they will obey the laws of my kingdom. Can we convince them into fighting at our side?”

“Majesty!”

“Colin!”

“Inconceivable!”

“Quiet!” Colin said loudly above the others. “Mika, can it be done?”