Toede went through a mental list of individuals who might want to see him restricted to shambling on undead feet through some unlit passageway for all eternity and was distressed to find that it was so long.
Or it could be someone else entirely.
It could be a chance encounter; maybe this zombie got bored doing his mundane tasks and decided to go for a spring stroll.
Toede smiled, but his a smile was without mirth. He took the long sword and the dagger from the undead creature's deathlike grip, snapping a few finger bones in the process. The dagger he shoved in his belt, and the scabbard he slung over his shoulder, since if he wore it on his belt the tip would leave a faint furrow in the soft ground.
Then he headed north, upstream along the creek, wondering where he could find some kind of defensible place to call home.
The climb was relatively easy, as the stream divided into two smaller creeks, and the rightmost creek into two smaller brooks, and the rightmost brook in a series of rock-strewn trickles and tributaries.
As the creek bed rose above the vale below, Toede turned and regarded his world. He was facing south and could see a landscape dotted with the light greens and cyans of new buds, and a sprinkling of wildflowers. Far toward the horizon was the accursed swamp, a thick miasma of haze blurring its outlines.
Toede resumed climbing, congratulating himself on his cunning. Were someone like the necromancer pursuing him, he would assume Toede took the easiest route: downstream.
The tributary Toede had been following finally ended in a natural spring bubbling up from the rock. The brush had surrendered utterly to rocky ground, dotted by a few gnarled, ancient trees. Not the best territory to eke out an existence, but sufficient for protection, Toede noted.
Whatever fates there existed were with him when he spotted an old, half-tumbled hovel halfway up the hill above the spring. It was little more than an entrance hall, and ran about fifteen feet back into the hill, with a low ceiling that sloped downward in the back to join the floor. The cabin had been abandoned. The rotted remains of a musty bedroll, tarnished platterware, and termite-infested wood littered the small one-room interior. The dry smell of food that had spoiled, rotted, or evaporated hung heavy on the air. An open sack of flour stood on one low shelf. Toede tested it with his dagger point; it had solidified into a powdery white brick.
Toede imagined that this had been the home of some dwarven miner, guessing from the low ceilings and amount of rusted iron present. Probably there was an excavation somewhere nearby, or a shaft back into the hills. Probably, said shaft ended with a cave-in and a pair of dwarven boots sticking out of the rubble.
Toede cleared out the garbage (that is to say in general, emptied the cabin), but declared the bedroll serviceable after removing it, thwopping it against a boulder a few dozen times, and standing back as enough dust billowed from its insides to gag a mummy.
By the time he had finished reintroducing the concept of livability to the hovel, the sun was already nuzzling the horizon, and Toede's stomach was grumbling. He sat on his front porch (a patch of dusty ground, actually) and nibbled on dinner (the last bit of smoked meat that looked semi-edible). In the morning he would have to look for some berry bushes, maybe set a few traps (a deadfall was a deadfall, regardless of what it was falling on), and scout for neighbors.
The last of the sun retreated, leaving a band of reddish fire along the horizon. In the distance there was the howl of a wolf or wild dog. The air was cooling, and Toede thought briefly of building a fire, but he had no idea what else was living in the neighborhood, and there was no need to advertise his presence just yet.
Toede rose, sighed, and leaned against the frame of the doorless entrance to the hovel (that creaked alarmingly). The reddish hue along the horizon was ebbing, and the stars were coming out overhead.
"Perhaps," he said to no one in particular, "this is the answer. No Flotsam. No Balifor. No kender or gnolls or scholars. Perhaps."
So he retired to bed, lying face-up, his fingers threaded behind his head, considering his options. Maybe this was what the shadowy figures were saying: travel and die or remain in place and build your own little lordship. Not a bad concept, and maybe it would do for a while. Even if a week passed, and he became bored beyond belief, that would be three days longer than he had survived before.
There was the wolf howl again, and Toede's last thought was that he would have to fix up a decent door. That resolution belonged on the upper end of his "things-yet-to-be-done" list.
Toede awoke to a deep growling. He opened his eyes to see a large, shaggy black hound sniffing his face. The idea of a decent door moved even higher into the top ten of his "to-do" list. The creature was as black as soot, with pale green eyes. It would have been considered huge even if Toede were not lying on his back looking up into its slavering jaws. The hound sniffed at Toede and growled again.
Toede's eyes never left the hound, but his hand spidered along the bedroll until it closed on the hilt of the zombie's short blade.
Still in silence, he swiftly brought the dagger up between himself and the dog. The creature had some experience with weapons, because it backed up a few paces. Toede rose, snaking his other hand out to grab the zombie's sword from its scabbard. Now with two weapons, he advanced on the creature.
The creature backed up a few more steps. From his position Toede could see no more animals, and assumed that this one was a stray or loner. Toede moved forward another couple of paces, as the creature backed fully out of the cabin, into the moonlight beyond.
In the moonlight, the creature seemed to shrink in size and menace. Indeed it was a dog, a large mastiff, inky dark and mud-spattered. It stretched its back out, pushed forward on its paws, and wagged its tail, its tongue hanging out the left side of its mouth. It whined at him.
Toede smiled, thinking of when he had first met Charka, and assumed the gnoll was a dog. Perhaps this dog was a dog, and would prove some help in hunting. Either that or make for a good meal in a tight spot.
Toede tucked the dagger in his belt (keeping a firm hand on his long sword) and stepped through the doorway, reaching out to pet the animal, making small, affectionate clicking noises with his tongue.
"Gotcha, you rat!" said a vaguely familiar voice as the back of Toede's neck exploded in a spasm of pain. The ground came up very fast (the dog leaping out of the way), and he was swallowed by blackness.
But not before another, more familiar voice said, "Oh, pooh, I think you hurt him."
Chapter 21
In which Our Protagonist is lured away from his pastoral setting and his final reward, and becomes involved with a situation of his own making, but not quite exactly as he would have expected it.
Toede awoke with a ringing that started at the base of his neck and radiated throughout his entire form, ending in (what he imagined were) vibrating fingertips.
He expected to be back on the stream bank, having set a new record for dying. Instead, he was inside a suspiciously familiar dwelling, made of hooped wood and brush in the kender style. He blinked his eyes, trying to focus.
"Hello, Toede," said a small figure across the room. "You really are Toede, aren't you? The one and true Toede."
Toede squinted, normal vision returning. The figure was familiar, child-sized, and dressed in fringed leather. Her face was more tightly drawn and serious than before, and the soft russet ringlets of her hair had been replaced by a short, rust-colored down that snugly wrapped her skull.
"Taywin," he muttered. "Kronin's daughter. The berry picker. The kender poet. You've changed your look." He couldn't help but frown in disapproval, though to his hobgoblin sensibilities anything was an improvement over her previous appearance.