Tales from the Forgotten Realms: Tarakhin Grimscale

Prologue

The carriage trundled listlessly down the narrow country lane, flanked on either side by tall trees which offered a welcome protection from the sun overhead. Holding the reins was a colossal scaly humanoid, with his face affixed into a permanent snarl. The occasional smattering of daylight fought its way through the foliage, and glistened sharply off of his obsidian black scales. His grip tightened on the rope as he anticipated the next words to come from his overly talkative passenger.

"We make quite the unlikely pair, don't we," chirped a small, jolly-faced creature. An air of unseriousness permeated every inch of his two-and-a-half foot frame.

"I suppose so", replied the dragonborn, clearly unused to the concept of small talk.

"Not many other gnomes would believe me if I told them I had sat next to a beast such as yourself", the gnome laughed, adding "no offence", just for good measure.

The mules dutifully trotted and the carriage dutifully followed. The gnome, blessed with an inability to feel the awkwardness of the situation, tried to continue the conversation.

"It's just another job to me, I say", the gnome smiled, playing with the dagger at his hilt, "and hey, a bit of extra gold to line my pockets is no bad thing."

A grunt in response.

"But enough about me. What's brought you to this neck of the woods?" he continued, grinning at the cleverness of his pun.

The dragonborn didn't offer the gnome an answer. What a ridiculous creature, he thought. Surely a liability in the case of trouble. The dragonborn looked down at the tiny man. He was well-equipped, he had to give him that. The gnome carried a short sword, bow and arrows on his back, a dagger at his side, and on his foot, a single shoe. Despite the weapons however, the gnomes flat red cap offered little resistance to the afternoon sun, and his clothes would scarcely protect him from a papercut. He was clearly young, perhaps only a teen, and his unkempt brown hair was framed by a cluster of rubble on his collar.

The gnome, for his part, seemed unphased by the lack of an answer, and continued on with his attempts at conversation. It was the easiest way to pass what would otherwise be a very uneventful journey, and whether the conversation was two-sided or confined to only one, it was still a conversation worth having. He took a moment to notice the large dragonborn looking down at him – Tarakhin, his name was – and continued with his idle chatter. The beast had scales that looked chiselled from granite, deep black devilish horns and the most magnificent sword that Oneshoe had ever seen. It was at least 6 feet in length, making it utterly unusable for anyone without his immense size. The blade was so sharp it looked like it could cut the air itself in half, and out of the bottom emerged a twisted, black hilt with the face of a dragon carved into the pommel, with a large, black gemstone laid in the centre of it.

Oneshoe admired the gems lustre, he had been known to dabble in the collection of precious gemstone himself. As he continued with his chattering, his mind wandered to all the ways that he could steal it. Yes Tarakhin was large, and yes he was strong, but as Oneshoe knew, no matter how big they are, all men have a weakness. Perhaps Oneshoe could slice an artery in his thigh, or maybe, sink his dagger into the dragonborn's ear cavity, but then again, it would probably be easiest to just steal it while the beast slept. He contented himself with these thoughts as the journey drew on. Each turn of the wheel is one step closer to our destination, he mused.

Off in the distance, Tarakhin spotted a mysterious shape on the lane, a shape which, as they continued to draw near, began more and more to resemble that of a body. By the time they were 50 feet from the shape, all became clear. For the first time since the journeys beginning, silence washed over the carriage.