"Good news, lads. The dark lord has returned!"
The news was greeted at first by silence, then a murmur of surprise spread through the bar. Pel was also taken aback. He looked to see his father’s reaction. Bryn was squinting up through the smoky air at Wulf. There wasn’t much expression on his face. He looked like he did on patrol; intent, with his ears swiveled forward and focused on the speaker.
"The dark lord has been dead these seventy years. He’s gone."
The speaker was a goblin from another village, a grizzled veteran with one ear whom Pel didn’t recognize.
Wulf glared down from his makeshift podium. "Are you calling me a liar, Holdt?"
Holdt held his gaze for a time, and then looked down. "No, we all know you talk straight Wulf," he said. "But you could be mistaken, or misled. We’ve heard lots of wild stories before, you know."
"I’m not mistaken. Taurus is back, and he’s raising an army.
"Did you see the dark lord himself?" Pel’s father asked.
Wulf paused for a moment. "No, Bryn... I didn’t actually see Taurus." This statement caused a noticeable increase in the hubbub. Wulf held his hands up. "He’s still coming with his army, from the east. I saw one of the indigo wizards, though! Makhos himself. He had soldiers with him, humans and goblins. A troll, too. They all had the dark lord’s horns on their uniforms."
"Makhos?" asked Holdt. "How do you know it was Makhos? It’s not like any one of us would know him. Anyone can stick horns on a uniform and call himself a servant of the dark lord."
"It was an elf, a wizard, with a scar on his face and claiming to follow the dark lord. You think there are many elf wizards that fit that description? You think a lot of elves want to openly pretend to be an indigo wizard, these days?" Wulf paused for a moment, and took a drink from the tankard at his right. "He showed us magic too, not hedge wizard stuff but real magic. Kralu was there, she can vouch for it." He waved at the shaman, standing off to the side of the podium. "Makhos was a scary guy... he had this air about him, you know? The guys I was with, none of us were exactly pushovers, right? You know us." He stopped again. "None of us would want to face him in the dark. If it wasn’t Makhos, I don’t know who else it could have been."
Holdt still looked skeptical, but one of his companions, a dark-skinned younger goblin, spoke up. "What did he want then, this Makhos?"
"Ah, now we’re getting to the point," said Wulf. "Like I said, the dark lord is raising an army. He wants to take back the East Kingdom. For good this time. He’s coming west with his troops, and he wants us to join him."
"So he wants us to fight his battle for him?"
Wulf laughed. "You think he’s just going to snap his fingers and hand us the kingdom back? Of course he wants us to fight for him. Makhos and Taurus, they’re great wizards, but great wizards alone don’t win wars. They can win battles, but not wars. They need the likes of us for that. Besides, why should he want to just hand the kingdom over to us, if we can’t even be bothered to fight for it? To fight for our freedom?" He took another swig of mead, and slammed the tankard down. "Well as for me... I’ll fight!" There was a general roar of assent at this. Not the whole crowd, Pel noticed, but a significant fraction.
"What makes you think he can win this time?" called someone from the crowd.
Wulf paused. "What’s that?"
"I said, what makes you think the dark lord can win this time? He lost last time, after all."
"Ah, good question," Wulf laughed. "I asked him that myself, I did. ’Makhos,’ I said, ’Why do you think you can win this time? The elves and dwarves and wizards drove you away before, why can’t they do it again?’ But Makhos was expecting that. He said that Taurus has learned. After the last battle the survivors hid, and ran away east. Far east. There’s a human kingdom there, not one of the four kingdoms. They spent long years there, thinking about what went wrong, what they could do better. They learned, too. There are wizards in the far east, strange wizards with different magic. Taurus was already the greatest wizard of them all, but now he learned magic that no other elf has ever seen."
Wulf drank again, and went on. "It took the combined armies of the four kingdoms to defeat him, and he very nearly won. This time they’re not so prepared. The dwarves aren’t likely to help fight again, not after how the elves abandoned them last time. The humans will be divided, same as before. There are lots who know they’ll be better off with Taurus in charge. And the elves... well, they like to pretend they are united, but they aren’t. They didn’t call it the ’Civil War’ for nothing. Granted, Taurus’ family were mostly killed in the war, but there are still elves who will follow him. If the goblins and trolls unite, the dark lord will have a strong army, stronger than his enemies."
"And you know," Wulf continued, "in the end it doesn’t matter. What else are we going to do? We say we want freedom. We say we want the interlopers gone, to be masters in our own land. Well, if we believe that, then we have to fight. I’d rather fight and lose than cower in these hills and watch the southern bastards take our fields and grow fat on crops that should be ours. I’d rather fight and lose than be afraid. I’d rather fight and lose than be held a liar, a no-good boaster who can talk about ’liberty’ and ’equality’ and fancy words like that but who doesn’t actually have the guts to follow through with the proud talk. For I don’t know how many centuries we’ve grumbled about how the elves and men stole our kingdom and did us wrong. The time for talk is finally past! I’m going to join the dark lord’s army, and I’ll find out for myself whether some bastard elves are going to stop me from taking back the land of my fathers."
Pel was moved by Wulf’s speech, but apparently not everyone else in the bar had agreed with him. The discussion went on late into the night. Pel listened attentively at first, but as the same arguments were repeated over and over his head started to droop. He didn’t think he slept, exactly, but time seemed to pass in strange jumps. Eventually he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder.
"Pel?" said Bryn. "You’re dozing, son. Time for us to head out."
Pel shook himself. "Sorry, father," he said. "We can stay a bit longer. I’m not really sleepy."
"Well, I am," replied Bryn, "and we have a long way to go before morning. I think everything that really matters has already been discussed to death here, and most people are leaving. Let’s do the same."
They stood and and gathered up their cloaks. They had to step over a few inebriated goblins in order to get out of the bar. Pel looked around briefly. Wulf was still arguing with Holdt in a corner, and there were a few warriors clustered around listening, but on the whole the bar had really emptied out.
The cold night was like a slap in the face after the warm, dense air in the bar. Pel breathed in deeply. He mostly smelled goblin; the little village was much more full than normal. There was a faint trace of horse in the air, lingering most likely from a visit by human traders from the valley.
They started up the path towards their home. Pel listened carefully, but other than the faint sounds of talking still coming from the tavern there were only the usual night noises. The air was crisp. High clouds covered the moon and obscured the stars, but it didn’t feel like rain was coming. They walked along together for a few minutes.
"So, Pel, what did you learn tonight?" Bryn asked, startling Pel out of a reverie.
"Um... that the dark lord returned?" he replied.
"Really? Is that, exactly, what you learned?"
"Well, no. I learned that Wulf thinks the dark lord has returned."
"Correct. And what do you think?"
Pel considered for a moment. "I think Wulf is a tough, experienced fighter. I don’t think he’s the type to fall for flights of fancy, or to be easily taken in by a con artist."
"Ha!" his father snorted. "Anyone is easily taken in by a con that he earnestly desires to be true."
"Perhaps so, but tales of the dark lord have been circulating ever since he disappeared. He is the great legend, the savior of the goblins, and we all want him back. Wulf knows this. And he has seen many great chieftains come and go over the years, and has experience of both their strengths and follies. I think he would recognize an impostor."
"What, the wizard Makhos? Wulf is no wizard to tell true magic from trickery."
"He has seen enough magic on the battlefield to know what it is like. And he had Kralu the shaman with him; she, surely, could judge magic."
"Kralu might see through simple tricks, yes. Still, Wulf is a romantic, and he yearns for glorious battle against the interlopers. This is a dream come true for him."
"So you think it’s too good to be true?" Pel asked.
"Ah, that’s my son, turning the tables on his questioner." Bryn grinned for a moment, then turned serious. "It does sound too good to be true. But..."
"But?" Pel prompted.
"But you’re right that Wulf has seen many enemy tricks in his day, and seen many friends whose grandiose schemes come to naught. He is a careful fighter, despite his romantic tendencies. So we cannot rule out the possibility that he is correct."
"You didn’t answer my question, father."
"Nor did you answer mine." Bryn shrugged. "This may be a case where judging quickly means judging poorly. We just don’t have enough information."
"So what do you think we should do, father?"
"Gather more information, of course. If Wulf is correct and the dark lord is returning with an army... it could make a huge difference to us. It would be wonderful. But we must remain skeptical. Just because we want it does not make it true."