The Foolhardies 108 A Dog's Purpose

As the flames from Aura's efreet caressed the furry white tail of the lead kobold, a panicked yelp escaped its snout that was loud enough to bounce off the stone walls of the tower's interior.

The kobold blinked its sky blue eyes to waking and found itself staring up into the not-so-handsome mug of my half-ogre squad leader. 

Edo growled in that intimidating way he loved to do. It was highly effective.

The kobold let out a whining squeak, its eyes darting left and right, looking for a path of escape. His gaze fell upon his bound friends, all their faces looking forlornly back at him.

Seeing them tied down like that must have struck a nerve for a sudden visible change appeared in the kobold's face. His fear had shrunk, replaced by a manic determination that might have made things messier if I hadn't stepped in at that exact moment to de-escalate the situation.

"Whoa there," I pushed past Edo and raised my free hand to stop the kobold from launching what might as well have been a suicide attack on the half-ogre. "The fight's over. Now's the time to deal."

Kobold didn't have eyebrows, but the confused tilting of its head was unmistakably one of confusion.

I kept my hand raised in a gesture of peace. "You can understand me, can't you?"

The kobold did not reply. Yet its eyes narrowed. Confusion replaced with suspicion.

"Listen, friend, my guy here," I jerked a thumb toward Edo, "would love any excuse to turn you into dog paste, but I'm more magnanimous if you cooperate." I pointed at the kobold. "What's your name?"

Seconds ticked by while I allowed the kobold to ruminate and glance back and forth between me and Edo. But as I expected, it opted not to attack and instead answered my question in a husky voice, "I am Thor, son of Arthor."

"Nice to meet you Thor, son of Arthor," I said. Then I pointed to myself. "I am Dean, son of Desmond, and I've got a proposition for you?"

Thor repeated the word, "proposition," awkwardly like he couldn't p.r.o.nounce it right.

I stood up straight and raised my arm to the side, moving my fingers back and forth like I was calling someone over. Varda arrived soon afterward and handed a scroll of parchment to my waiting hand. I unfurled this scroll and read aloud some of the more interesting parts written on it.

 "The White Howling Gang… Wanted by the Sunspire Dominion for highway robbery and attempted theft of priceless artifacts… successfully infiltrated the Adamant Fortress…" My eyes momentarily went wide at the mention of the Dominion's unconquerable fortress located in the Westersand Desert on the western side of Westmarch. "Rumored to have given away their stolen loot back to lowly kobold villages along Westmarch… The reward for capture or proof of death: three thousand Leprechauns…"

I whistled before I wrapped the scroll around again and tossed it back to Varda.

"That intel report from Great General Darah's spies here in the Westmarch has a lot more choice remarks about you guys," I added. "It says you'd even escaped the clutches of our Great General Garm once or twice."

I glanced behind me and found Aura's smirking face looking back at me.

"Of course, you didn't last very long against us," I reasoned.

"We were ill-prepared," Thor growled, his fangs appearing for the first time since Luca knocked him out.

Edo growled and then hefted his glaive menacingly in Thor's line of sight. The kobold cowered instantly. His fear had come back after I'd stunted his earlier adrenaline rush.

"Maybe you were ill-prepared to face us," I admitted. "But you've done quite a few interesting things… did you really give the loot you stole back to other kobold villages?"

"W-we stole only what was taken from us first, what the Dominion stole from kobold tribes," Thor answered hotly.

I raised a hand to stop Edo. The dude was raring to go.

"A real-life robin Hood, huh," I commented.

I glanced over to Luca and mouthed, this dude's got a hero complex too. He's so much like you its creepy!

Shut up, Dean! I don't have a hero complex, Luca mouthed back.

I let out a low chuckle that others might have misunderstood as an evil laugh that promised evil things were coming. In fact, there was a sudden uptick in kobold whining right afterward.

"You're in luck, Thor, son of Arthor," I said. "I've got need of a crew with your particular skill set."

"We do?" Varda's question came at the same time as Thor exclaiming, "You do?"

I nodded and then pointed to the soldiers surrounding the kobolds.

"Great General Darah didn't send the Foolhardies to the west just to help out our trading partner." I looked over to Kallista with a smile on my face before turning my attention back on Thor. "We're here to investigate certain troubling rumors regarding this war between Great General Garm and the Sunspire Dominion."

There were too many ears listening for me to reveal more of our mission. But the truth was that Darah had sent us west to see if there was truth to the rumor of Garm making use of Scarlet Moon forces in his war against the Dominion. The Patriarch had declared the Scarlet Moon our enemy and any friendly ties with them were an act of treason. Of course, Darah hadn't put all her eggs in one basket as ours wasn't the only unit she'd sent this way.

"Which means… I'm in need of thieves who know their way around the area and can get in and out of hard to crack places," I explained. "And it just so happens I've got about forty slots to fill in my five-hundred man unit."

So that's why you didn't complete our roster back in Fort Darah," Varda realized. Her fist pounded on the open palm of her other hand. 'You must have been planning this for a while now, Commander.

I glanced back at Darah and quoted Sun Tzu once more, "Victory usually goes to the army who has better-trained officers and men."

Then I swiveled my head back to Thor and offered him my hand.

"I'm simply making sure we're prepared for whatever comes our way," I said knowingly.

It took a few seconds, but the kobold eventually reached out to take my hand with one of his furry ones, and I helped him rise to his full height, which admittedly, was at least a head taller than me.

No, it doesn't count. He's not human, my brain whispered inside.

"So, I guess this means you're in?" I asked, still holding onto his hand.

Thors glanced toward his fellow kobolds who looked just as surprised as him at the strange turnaround of events. When he turned his snout back at me, he said, "We will join you… Foolhardies, if you promise to help the kobolds of this region."

I glanced over at Aura and saw her nod silently. In the next second, she ordered her efreet away. Just like that, the tension surrounding the tower's interior faded away as well.

Thor and I shook hands, a concept which perplexed the kobold until I explained this was how humans struck a binding deal with each other.

"Well, now that this is over," I turned my attention on the thirty-nine other kobolds, "what say we get your friends looked at by the Foolhardies healers."

Thors bowed his head low and barked, "Please do."

I left Varda, Edo, and Berrian in charge of the situation and led a small party comprised of myself, Kallista, Aura, Ashley, Varda, and Zarz deeper into the tower's interior.

The s.p.a.ce we'd left behind was more like a rather large entryway with three sets of stairs. Two found by the walls directly east and west of the tower entrance and a central staircase that rose up twenty feet to a second-floor landing. My party walked up these central steps and found ourselves at the entrance to an even wider circular hallway than the one we left behind.

"Looks like a—"

"—throne room," Aura finished my thought.

"It's a great hall for supplicants," Ashley explained, her eyes scanning the interior wall and the relief sculptures carved on nearly every surface of it. "This tower must have belonged to the s.h.i.+eldmaidens at one point."

Her point was valid. The wide circular hall with its high ceiling and its stained gla.s.s window did resemble the s.h.i.+eldmaiden tower we'd visited once before. Except, some of the designs, like the windows themselves, were dwarven, not elven which was the s.h.i.+eldmaiden default.

Ashley pointed to the nearest wall which was on our right.

"That depicts the first meeting of the lost monarch and the Mab, the s.h.i.+eldmaiden's high priestess," she explained.

I hadn't forgotten that old sculpture I'd seen of a fairy babe rising out of a dead man's insides. Just remembering it made my face cringe.

"So, what? The s.h.i.+eldmaidens just up and left?" Luca asked.

"Maybe," Aura agreed. "Although it doesn't seem like they were the first ones here."

It was Aura's turn to point her finger, directing all our attention to the raised dais at the end of the circular hall. On it stood a chair carved out of a large chunk of what looked like—

"Silver!" Zarz chirped. "That throne is made entirely of silver!"

While Zarz raced toward the boulder-sized chunk of metal and the chair carved out of it, I spent the time raising an eyebrow.

"The silver throne?" I said, shaking my head.

"Dean," Luca called my name. "It kind of looks like Daenerys' throne in Dragonstone, right?"

I nodded after taking a second to agree that it really did look like that throne in that groundbreaking HBO TV series about dragons and ice zombies which Luca and I could only watch whenever mom wasn't around to scold us for ogling too many nude women.

"You know, it kind of does," I said.

From across the hall, we could all hear Zarz exclaim, "This is no elven work. Only dwarves could craft something this beautiful out of such malleable metal!"

"Whoever made this place, I think it would make a suitable headquarters. Right, Dean?" Kallista noted.

"Headquarters?" I turned to look at her and saw the knowing smile on her face. "Whose?"

"Yours," she chuckled.