When Grae woke, shaking awake to the sound of distant thunder in the sky above, the stone that had grown across his hide in the sunlight slid away. It peeled from his skin like shedding a scab; Grae shook himself to dislodge the stone fragments from his fur.

The kobold sat over the fire, roasting a fragment of stringy meat on a skewer.

As the weak light of the flames rose and fell, Larktongue’s face drifted in and out of focus; when the light touched the lines of pinkish, raised scar tissue that crossed his face, they shone like fresh wounds. When that light sank away, the scars vanished and left him in the dark.

Grae yawned. His massive pink tongue curled between long, yellow teeth.

The kobold glanced up. “Slavers near. Very near. Here. I made you a squirrel. It’s not much, but-”

With a helpless shrug, the little creature let the words end there, without saying outright ‘it’s all I can do.’

Grae stood partway, as much as he could in the cave’s space. “Thank you for the squirrel.” It was gone in a bite, the skewer splintering in his teeth alongside bones and ligaments. Two chews, and Grae swallowed the lot down.

“You said there were other runaways?”

“Yes. Yes some. We come here for the city; city close keeps the humans far. But these slave-finders, they track us and track us. The moment the sun is down, they move in.”

“Hmm.” Grae paused. “Does the city sleep at night?”

Larktongue blinked, as if this was obvious. “Yes. All cities must sleep. The mother-star protects us, blinds them.”

The mother-star.

What a quaint name. Grae assumed the effects of the night-star on the cities must be similar to the day-star’s effect on him.

“Gather up the other escaped slaves.” Grae commanded. “I will do this for you, but I will not do it alone.”

---

They gathered together in the largest of their caverns, a place hidden in a hillside and covered by thorny plants that denied entrance to anyone without thick fur. Grae could stand inside; it was an old, old place, full of stalactites that grew slightly each time a dripping droplet of water traced down their toothsome shape from above.

Some of the slaves were kobolds, but Grae was surprised at how many species were gathered here.

There were mushroom people with tall, skinny bodies, sprouting little shelves of dark-blue fungus from their pale underbellies. They had distinct halves- their back and their arms were colorful and rough-skinned, while their legs and chests were a soft, white mass. Their heads were mushroom cups, under which hung veils of stringy roots.

They did not speak, only puff out spores. The kobolds seemed to understand this as ‘talking’.

Then there were the bat-folk. No taller than a kobold, they walked hunched, their wings descending to the ground so they could use their three-fingered hands to balance on. Their ears stuck up, reading the wind, and their piggish noses snuffled.

Of all the creatures there, Grae liked the bats instantly. They had soft and musical voices. He could imagine them in his maker’s dungeon…

Besides the bat-folk, there was a hobgoblin. His head was huge and flat, with pointed ears like a bat’s wings that stretched out in each direction, making his face seem wider than it was tall. His scrunched up nose and almost-lipless mouth, with its sharp little teeth, made him seem like a hairless pink cat.

Only the hob had brought a weapon. Dozens of flat, sharp pieces of stone were stuck into of a length of river-smoothed driftwood, forming a club with stone teeth. It rested in his lap as he sat kindling a fire for the group.

“Sssooo…” The hobgoblin hissed. “The big one wishes for us to fight the slavers?”

“I see no other way you will be free.” Grae stated. It was nothing but fact. You could not be free if you were always running; that was feeling slack in the leash, not shrugging it off.

“You say that, but…” The hobgoblin chuckled, his flat nose wrinkling. “I’ll tell you, they don’t work like us. If you kill one, they don’t say, ah, there’s a mean one, best not to meddle. They say, send two. If you kill two they send three…”

“By the time they send more men, you will be long gone.” Grae said, patient as the stone.

“Where too? Few territories are safe, now. Our dungeon-homes make deals with the humans. They sell us out; they like the humans more than us, now, because the humans make them clever toys.”

“That is not my problem.” Grae refused to be drawn in. The hobgoblin would only continue to whine and complain.

He was full of fear and listening to fear's voice.

The voice that told you, don’t lift your hand to solve one problem, if two more await. The voice that lied and said a perfect solution existed to all your problems, so wait, wait forever, and do nothing now.

“I have my own business.” Grae said. “It will lead me away soon, and I will likely not see you again. While I am here, though, you have a chance to throw these slavers off. Will you take it?”

One of the mushrooms let out a hissing puff of spores. A kobold nodded her head; she was young, the youngest of any of them, with black-spotted blue skin that was soft and slimy like a pond-dwelling lizard. “Seven-Scribe says he is with you.” The little lizard hissed. “And I will help, if I can.”

One by one the other mushrooms groaned.

Five in all, two kobolds and three mushroom-folk a start to things.

The bat-folk were next. They had drawn away from the fire, whispering to one another. Now one limped forward. Their representative was old and crooked, needing the support of his young son to stand. One of his legs had been amputated.

“You… Monster-shape you have, yes. And monster-scent. But you talk human-ways. When you speak, I see the trap closing its jaws. I think, you will give us to humans…"

Grae looked at the old creature. "You say I speak like a human? You all speak like humans. Some less, some more; this is their world. That is the problem. Would you rather I roar and beat my chest? What do we gain from that?"

"They have killed us from the dawn of time. Now they whip you into subjugation. Of course I speak like a human, just I will wield magic like a human, drive my enemies to ruin like a human…" Lifting his hand, Grae made a water bullet. The entire room gasped and shrank back in awe.

With a single finger Grae directed the bullet to tear a fist-sized hole into the wall. "We were conquered because we lost. To win the next war, we must learn the ways of the conqueror."