Lord of the Rose by Doug Niles Page B

By virtue of his blood parentage, he stood ten feet tall when he raised his head, a height that lifted him two or more feet above the largest of the hobgoblins in all the Garnet tribes. He was not a greedy soul, for he had not yet developed a taste for females or strong drink, and in these days there was plenty of food to go around, and he was often courted and feted at the campfires of all the lesser lords.
    He was counseled in private by his foster mother. Laka spoke to him of many truths, truths that had been revealed to her by the Prince of Lies. Hearing these words, Ankhar began to see his own destiny and to think in terms of his own choices … his power.
    Through these nights, Bonechisel watched his tribe’s adopted son with increasingly narrowed eyes. A strapping hobgoblin, the aging chieftain was still no match for the young, lumbering Ankhar. The chieftain always wore a green medallion of stone formed from the first talisman of Hiddukel that his wife had discovered, and now he fondled that glowing disk, worrying. His simple mind perceived that the youth was a menace, and no doubt he regretted that he had not taken decisive action when his prospective rival had been but an infant. Now it was too late, at least for a direct confrontation.
    Although he was not the most subtle of schemers, Bonechisel began to consider other ways to deal with the hulking hill giant whom most considered his adopted son. He whispered of his wishes to several lesser chieftain, suggesting that great rewards—money, liquor, gob-wenches—might come the way of one who removed the threat from his midst. The hob was not particular: poison, a knife in the back, assault by a bloodthirsty mob, all seemed workable solutions. Unfortunately, he found no takers for his schemes, not even among the most aggressive and ambitious of the sub-lords. Several even looked askance at Bonechisel when he ventured a few hints. More than one of these would-be schemers, it may be assumed, reported the chieftain’s wishes to Laka or to Ankhar himself.
    For his part the half-giant foster child was a good-hearted fellow, and avoided politics and other entanglements. He stayed out of Bonechisel’s way out of long-established habit, remembering all too well many a bruising kick, slap, or bite that he had suffered during his younger years. Of late he noticed that the chieftain had ceased to harass him directly, though he saw the brooding glances and observed the surly attitude. Ankhar willingly accepted the hospitality of the other chieftains as he made the rounds of the vastencampment. So it was that he had become known to all of them by the the last night of the great council, when the solstice itself brightened the night. It happened to be a cloudless sky, and the silvery orb of Solinari commanded the heavens and the world.
    The bonfire that night was the biggest in the memory of even the oldest gob granny. Trunks of whole pine trees were stacked into an enormous tepee, and when they were ignited the heat was such that the whole circle of watchers could not close to more than three dozen paces away from the base of the fire.
    The throng of goblins, hobgoblins, and the odd ogre and draconian filled the valley, with many gathered on the hills that rose to either side of the former mining village. The moon bathed them all in pristine light, and the gobs were so thick on the ground that when they drummed and danced it seemed as though the whole landscape was thrumming with the power of the tribe.
    Ankhar mingled with the throng, delighting in the drumming, raising his face and howling at the silver moon as loudly as any of the rest of them. He shook a spear over his head, a weapon he had carved himself from a straight sapling of elm. He had affixed a steel spearhead to the shaft, the hard metal treasure something that he had claimed from one of the villages overwhelmed by Bonechisel’s band. Now his long arm and the even longer staff of wood raised that spearhead high