Free Betrayal at Falador by T. S. Church

Let them say what they will, he thought, shifting the weight of his axe more comfortably. Let me hear what my crime is.
    A tall man strode forward, his purple robes unfamiliar to the dwarf. He raised his hands as the crowd shouted. Some began to throw stones at the cabin, while a few of the bolder youths walked closer, eyeing him intently.
    Never before had he seen a mob, and it began to terrify him. Not the terror he had felt earlier, but a fear that was no less real, and he was lost for words.
    More of the group turned their attention away from his home and toward the dwarf himself. One of them shouted and pointed accusingly in his direction.
    “There is the creature!” the man in the purple robes declared. “It must know about the murders. Let us force it to confess!”
    Before he could react, the men surged forward, the smell of drink rife amongst them. His axe was impotent—he couldn’t risk killing any of them, for then he would surely be lost.
    This must be a misunderstanding, he thought. A mistake.
    “What are you talking about?” he shouted above the din. But they paid him no heed. His arms were seized, his axe taken from him, and he was lifted bodily off the ground, his protests ignored. Vicious hands tore at him and clenched fists clubbed him in drunken rage as a dozen men forced their way into his cabin.
    He could hear the crashes of his handmade furniture being overturned and broken, and he knew then what they were looking for.
    “Gold!”
    A cry louder than the rest silenced them all.
    He knew the find would spur them to greater efforts. Kicking feebly against his captors, the dwarf could hear men ripping up the wooden panels of the floor, using his own axe to destroy his home.
    He had watched the men approach the cabin. He had heard enough of their words and seen enough of the looks on their faces to know that they had only unintentionally rescued the dwarf from becoming his next victim. He looked on with an amused growl, watching the events unfold with anticipation.
    The thought that an innocent creature would pay for his crimes amused him. He lowered himself to the earth underneath a small group of fir trees, whose low-lying foliage concealed him against the whiteness of the snow.
    His red tongue slowly made its way around his white teeth, hunger making him salivate. The clearing was beset by the scent of fear from the dwarf, from the mob, and even from the men in purple robes.
    He had encountered such men before—men who preached human superiority and lied to achieve their ends. He examined the speaker, a man who was gesturing and talking with righteous animation, and in the darkness his red eyes glinted sadistically.
    He was no longer interested in the dwarf.
    The fire started accidentally.
    One of the men, careless from intoxication, dropped his burning brand on the stack of dry straw that the dwarf used to bed his goats during the winter. As the flames roared the looters cried out in alarm and rushed outside, the last of them barely escaping as the roof collapsed behind him.
    Some men clapped and halloed, their voices slurred and their eyes burning with aggression. Others looked suddenly downcast, as if the fire marked the end of a fever.
    Quickly the mob began to disperse. Some dropped their plunder in the clearing, ashamed of their behaviour—though it could not be undone. The thought of the monster still loose in the land made them remember their loved ones, defenceless at home, not far away.
    With growing alarm the mob vanished.
    Lying in the snow, forgotten, the dwarf’s face was curiously expressionless as he watched the burning pyre that had once been his home. He shed no tears and he uttered no curses at those who had done this deed.
    The leader of the mob, his pockets now heavy with coins and jewels, knelt by the dwarf while his fellow purple-robed men stood close by.
    “You should see this as a warning,” he sneered. “Some of the men might regret what they’ve done tonight, but