Persi shifted her weight in the soft chair. The deep impression in the cushion told her that her older sister had been lounging in it earlier. Fat, lazy Yummo, laying around for hours on end reading, always reading, and then talking. Nothing roused Persi’s ire more than the accolades people gave Yummo for her wisdom. Persi had poked her slender nose between the covers of a few of Yummo’s books, and lo!, every wise thing Yummo had ever said was found within those tomes. “What wisdom is there in stealing other people’s words?” Persi would argue. She bristled when people accused her of jealousy. As if I could be jealous of that lop-eared mound of pudding. Yummo was rotund in the extreme and had a bent right ear and blotchy grey-green skin. Persi made it a point to flaunt her lithe body and dark, forest green skin in her sister’s company, to remind her who was born with their own gifts. Yummo could have her fame as the word thief. Let the bootlickers and beltsniffers call her Yummo the Wise; she was Persi the Strong, Persi the Beautiful, and in some circles, Persi the Queen.

Yes, Yummo could keep her impotent following of deedless flatterers. Persi was the true desire of everyone who mattered in Goblin Town. Well, there was one who cared almost nothing for her. Oh he cared for her in useless ways; as a daughter, and a soldier, but did he want his fierce and beautiful daughter to carry on the legacy of Nuno Gurgu Nuno? No. He wanted the Pudding Queen to carry his torch.

The damp warmth of the seat cushion sickened Persi and she rose quickly to find another chair. Her father sat in the Hand of the Sun, the upturned oak stump that had been the high seat of Goblin Town for a thousand years. Truth be told it was the hundredth of such seats Persy had seen in her lifetime. The thrones were continually rotting and being replaced, or they were swapped because her father had sprung another boil on his aging rump and blamed his discomfort on his throne. Once the throne was changed without his knowledge by his servants, who switched it for a lighter one so it would be easier to carry from room to room, as her father was oft to demand. His withered old body looked more like a tree to her now than his throne, and the throne looked like the claws of some archaic grotesque reaching to pull him into the grave.

The servants had arranged the feasting cave for only five. The Ancient and the ambassador from Primus of Drow were to join the royal brood. Persi had arrived early to beat her sister to the spread. Yummo and her shared one thing in common, a ravenous passion for pomegranates. One of the servants, a squat, dark green little beast with a purple top knot, set a plate of pre-picked pomegranate seeds heaped as high as a skull in front of an empty chair. He then bowed wretchedly and gestured for the seat. Persi sat in the chair. The cushion had looked flat and rigid, but to her surprise was perfectly soft. Yummo carries her cushion with her. I deserve a soft chair after a hard day of drilling our soldiers in the dead pools. The servant remained bowed over as he turned to leave. Her father was snoring in his throne, a thin line of drool connecting his face to his food-stained ermine robe.

“Halt,” she commanded. The servant obeyed. “Turn,” she ordered. The servant obeyed. “Rise,” she said. The servant lifted his head, but did not stand erect. “What’s the matter?” she demanded, “Have you a hunch?”

The little beast smiled and his small dark eyes seemed to turn a lighter shade of black. “I had a hunch,” he said in a gravelly little voice, “that Persi the Queen fancies pomegranate.” He bowed again and hobbled out of the room. Persi watched him carefully. He walked as if both his short legs had been broken and healed improperly, until he turned the corner into the kitchen. Then she caught a glimpse of him standing upright and walking as nimbly as a cat. That one has an angle. She scooped a handful of pomegranate seeds off her plate. They burst with sugary juice within her mouth, the flavor filling the spaces between her teeth and cheeks with pure ecstacy. He definitely has an angle! This pomegranate is sublime! Whatever that lil’ worm wants, he might just get it.

She relished the look of envy on on her sister’s doughy face when she came into the room. Fortunately the Ancient and the drow arrived before Yummo had a chance to bleat in protest. The Ancient looked half the age of her father, despite his reputed five hundred years of life. He reached out with his cane and poked her father on his bony knee. The King opened one eye and swatted limply at the Ancient’s cane. “Go away Litho, I’m wide awake.” The King wiped his drool on his wrist and stretched, knocking over a half drained flagon of red rum with his bare foot. Two servants came from the kitchen, one with a towel and the other with a fresh flagon filled to the brim. Another pair came out with a special table of ash wood that attached to the roots of his throne. When the food was served her father had a plate of steaming hot squidlings on a bed of boiled spinach. The rest of them were given trenchers of hard bread filled with meat porridge. The squat little servant never came back out with the others, but when Persi had stuffed her face with the pile of pomegranate seeds he came running with a ladle full of more to heap on her plate. Whatever his game is, he’s won it.

She wondered if he was a soldier in disguise trying to win her hand. She had no shortage of suitors, but what was in short supply was suitors she found interesting. There were handsome ones, to be sure, and capable warriors as well. Many had strong young bodies and ears half filled with quality clink. Others were blessed with piles of treasure, and some had connections with the deadliest of Goblin Town’s mercenary syndicate.

But of what good were these things to Persi the Beautiful? Persi the Strong? Persi the Queen? She was handsome, clinked and connected, and the richest woman east of Obrus, west of Miur, south of the Araad and north of Canthor. She didn’t want a husband who's virtues complimented hers, she wanted to see her sister’s face twisted with envy as she poured pomegranate seeds into her gullet. She looked up at Yummo’s glaring puddle of cheeks and beady eyes as she licked her plate clean of juice. When she set it down a ladle plopped another pile of seeds on it. She looked about but could not see her little servant anywhere.

He’s definitely no servant, she thought. He moves like an expert throat cutter. One of the army’s spies perhaps, or an initiate of the syndicate. Whoever he was, he was giving her exactly what she wanted. Yummo tried to order one of the other servants to fetch her a plate of pomegranate seeds, but the man replied that the pomegranate’s had all been picked clean. Persi laughed hard. “Is all of Goblin Town devoid of pumgranns?!” Yummo bellowed. Her speech always slurred when she spoke the names of food. “Get me one! And pick the seeds for me!” The servant bowed and bolted out of the feasting cave. Persy thought she smelled rum on his breath as he darted past her. Those plop brained pigs have all been slurpin’ on our liquor, I’ll warrant.

“Is the sow finished oinking?” asked the drow. Yummo glared, but kept silent. The Matron Perpetual had proven herself a force to be feared many times over since she’d arrived. The heads of her father’s personal guard had been arrayed on platters at the first feast she’d attended. The message was clear; she was here to ensure the Goblin King’s commitment to their shared cause, and he would only be safe as long as he stayed true. Her father had ordered the ambassador killed, of course. The assassins that attacked her had decorated the table at the following feast. This was the first feast without heads on the dinner table. They had been set on shelves in the kitchen to frighten the servants, in case any assassins were hiding amongst their ranks.

They ate in silence. The Matron Perpetual never remarked on the food she was served, the timeliness of their servants, or any other matter except for the noise of goblin speech and chewing. Her father had commanded complete quiet during dinner to appease his deadly and unwanted guest. Once the table was cleared the drow would likely have some minutia to discuss; the elven assault on her father’s soldiers, or the lack of word from their man on the summit. Persi had begged her father leave to ride her nightlion to the Starwood with a company of throat cutters. “I’ll put my knives in Meromis’s belly,” she’d told him. “My blades will dance a jig inside the Bladedancer.” The old fool had rejected her outright, fearful of taking any action not sanctioned by his drow leash-holder.

The third course had been served when the door to the outer hall opened. From where Persi sat she could see the servant her sister had sent, a plate of pomegranate seeds in his hands. A pair of dark green hands came from the shadows behind and took hold of his face. In one seamless motion, the hands twisted the servants head sharply to the side, then caught the plate as the man dropped limply to the floor. A sandal shod foot kicked the servant’s body out into the hall, and her squat little friend entered the room instead. He pulled the door tightly shut, wriggled the handle three times, then knelt on the floor by the table and held the plate aloft while Persi ate the seeds one at a time, relishing every hateful dagger that came from Yummo's eyes.

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When she finished, the servant returned to the kitchen. “Who’s that?” her father asked. “He looks like one of your uncle’s clinkers.”

Persi thought to herself that she hadn’t bothered to look at the little man’s ears. They were bare, but a close look would show if there were any holes in his lobes.

The third course, plates of stewed ruffage, was finished and her father signaled for the pies to be brought out. Tradition would have Yummo pounding her fists on the table until the dessert was served, but the Matron Perpetual would likely slit her throat were she to do so much as slurp her rum.

Persi noticed the drow’s ears twitch at a soft noise coming from the kitchen. No wonder she can’t abide our chewing, with hearing like that. Persy’s own ears then twitched at another sound. A crack and a slump, then fidgeting, the start of a scream, and a pot shattering on the floor. Her squat little servant then came from the kitchen. He stood to his full, albeit diminutive height, his shoulders cocked back, and his black eyes glinting cruelly in the candle lit chamber. His mouth was open like a panting dog’s, and a short paring knife was in his left hand. Blood trickled off the blade.

The Matron Perpetual moved quickly. She cast off her long robe and drew a broadsword and a dagger from a scabbard fit close on her back, leapt from her chair and circled the room to face the assassin. Persi turned her chair and leaned back to watch. The Ancient had slid back from the table while her father screamed for his guards, having clearly forgotten that their heads were stacked like mason jars in the kitchen, courtesy of the Matron Perpetual.

Yummo spilled out of her seat and onto the floor, then ran to wailing the door. The Ancient remained still, though from the look in his eyes he was feeling anything but calm. Yummo pulled in vain at the door. The handle turned, but it had been latched shut somehow from the outside.

The Matron Perpetual lurched forward with a feint, likely wanting to test the speed of her opponent. The servant moved forward like a bolt of lightning and stuck his paring knife in the base of the drow’s throat, sending her instantly to the floor. He then walked slowly towards her father. The Goblin King scrambled to free himself from the Hand of the Sun, but the table his servants had fastened between the stump’s roots pinned him in place. The assassin hopped lightly onto the table, strode over cups and platters to Persi's father, then put his hands around his throat and squeezed until the old man stopped twitching. He then turned toward Yummo.

“No,” Persi said, raising her hand, “I’ll do this one.”

Yummo stopped her mewling and looked at her sister in shock.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Persi said. She took the broadsword from the Matron Perpetual’s dead hand and stuck her sister right through her fat belly, then pierced her lungs to keep her from squealing as she lay kicking on the floor.

Persy expected to see the Ancient laying in a pool of blood when she turned back around, but instead he was pouring rum into a mug. He handed the mug to the assassin, who sat cross legged on the table and denied it with a wave of his hand.

“You’re going to let him live?” Persi pointed the drow’s sword at the Ancient.

“Lots of followers,” the assassin said plainly.

It was true. The Ancient’s influence in Goblin Town rivaled her father’s. “Who are you?” She sat in her chair and licked the last bit of pomegranate juice off her plate.

“Killer,” the little man said.

“And who do you kill for?”

“Boss.”

Persi laughed. “Which boss?”

The dark little worm pointed at her.

She smiled and looked to the Ancient. “Tell me true, is this little slinker yours?”

The Ancient shook his wrinkled head fervently; the sparse bits of clink in his ears jingled lightly. Persi looked at the servant and leaned forward. Sure as she suspected, his lobes were poked through like a pair of sieves.

“Very well, I’ll do without yer name. I’m assumin’ you’ve a plan in mind.”

The Killer shook his head.

“So, you woke up this mornin’ and thought, ‘I’m going to kill my king today’, just for grins?”

He shook his head again and spoke, and as he spoke he pointed at her father, then the drow, then her sister. “King did her plan, fat girl was first for Queen. Them gone, no more plan, you’re Queen. Plan’s yours now. Do what you want.”

The assassin sat still as a gargoyle, peering at her intently with his tiny black eyes. His skin was such a dark shade of green he was almost invisible in the dim hall. She turned to look at the Matron Perpetual. Her lightning white hair was now red as her father’s rum, and her dead fingers clutched stiffly as if her sword was still in them.

There was something in the assassin’s look that worried her. She had no doubt she’d be powerless to save herself if he were to attack, despite her own considerable prowess. He wants something from me. Why else would he give me all those pumgrann seeds to taunt the Pudding Queen with? And he knows the Ancient’s worth. He has a plan, or whoever sent him does.

Persi stood and stowed the drow’s sword in her belt. “Alright assassin, do you have any suggestions? I owes you after all, or whoever your master is.”

He looked at her blankly for a moment, then stood and hopped off the table. He went to the drow and took her dagger and stuck it in his belt. “You’re Queen. Queen needs guards, guides, and army. Guard and guide here, army fighting dwarves. Get new army, or call old army back.”

“I doubt there will be much of my father’s army left when that battle’s done.”. She looked again at the Ancient. “What ye say old fella? Do I call back the troops? Or do we start drillin’ some new recruits?”

The Ancient was calm now. He seemed more at ease, in fact, than he ever had while her father lived. “Oh, my strong and beautiful Queen,” he said, looking at her through steepled fingers, “Goblin Town has so many options before it now, with your clever brain in its head and Primus’s dagger pulled out of its back. I say leave your father’s army where they are and let them wreak what havoc they can for havoc’s sake. Raise your own army from the millions of young men and women who adore you, and let the old dogs your father trained die under Grar’s bloody boots.”

She looked at the assassin. “I’ll have my guard’s thoughts as well. What say you, clinker? Let the old dogs die, or call ‘em back and teach ‘em some new tricks?”

The servant shook his head, then pointed again as he spoke, first at himself, then at the Ancient. “Guard. Guide. Guard kills. Guide talks.” He then pointed at her. “You Boss. You decide.”

She thought for a moment, then stepped over the table to the Hand of the Sun. She lifted the small, ash wood table from the roots, pulled her father out of the throne, then sat in his place. “Call them back. And let ‘em know who gave the call. The ones that answer I can trust, the ones that don’t will be scratched to bits by the claws of Obrus. In the mean time I’ll start puttin’ our young lads through the paces. I’ll be rewritin' the rules, and I'll need lots of players for my new game.”

The Ancient leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers together. “And what, Queen Persi, is your new game?”

Persi drew a pair of daggers from hidden sheaths in her boots, then sat back and spun the blades in her hands. “Dancing.”