by Jean Rabe
But her pain was worse.
For an instant she hadn’t been able to feel the fingers the hated Dark Knight had snapped. However, they were all she could feel at that moment.
The pain came in bursts, shooting up through her hand and into her arm, fiery jolts that caused her to slam her teeth together. Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. It was all she could do to keep from crying out.
Show no weakness in front of these foul, foul men!
But she was weak. She couldn’t stop the tears.
The Dark Knight reached for a third finger as another knight grabbed her leg and twisted it.
“S-s-stop,” she said in their language. The word was a plea. It was one of the first words she’d learned of the common tongue.
The Dark Knight dropped her on the ground. “Then talk to us, rat. Talk quick if you don’t want more bones broken.”
“Maybe we should wait, Tanner. Take her to the commander and see if Zocci can get something out of her. Don’t want to bring her in too mangled. You know what happened to the last one we caught. And we’re days and days away from the main unit.”
Two knights stood over her, the only two she’d heard names for: Tanner and Donnel, both words, both humans hated more than anything in the world. The latter had skin the color of milk. There were four other knights in the clearing, all on their feet and chattering to one another about how pleased their commander would be with the goblin, though one of them was shaking his head and saying: “One goblin is nothing. Less than nothing.” He argued that they should go hunting for more.
“You’re from Steel Town, rat.” Tanner spoke slowly, and Mudwort guessed it was so she might better understand him.
She nodded without hesitation. “Yes, Steel Town. Hell Town.” The latter was what she’d heard some of the knights call the mining camp.
“See the whip scars?” He bent and ripped the tunic off her shoulder. “See? I told you she’s from the mines.” Tanner broke into a broad grin, and Donnel slapped him on the back.
Mudwort cradled her injured hand. The broken fingers still throbbed, but the ache had eased just enough so she could also register the pain in her twisted leg. Had they broken her leg too? She tried to sit up and move her leg, but Donnel stepped hard on her good ankle to hold her in place. She writhed in the dirt and cursed at them in goblinspeak.
“Take care,” one of the other four knights said. “Don’t kill it. We’ll have to bury it like the last one.”
Tanner leaned close. “Little rat, you are indeed from Steel Town, yes?”
“Yes. Already said so. Yes. Steel Town. Hell Town.” The words hissed out between clenched teeth. She dug the fingers of her good hand into the ground when Donnel placed more pressure on her ankle. All the competing pains in her little body threatened to drive her to unconsciousness. “Steel Town, yes. Yes. Yes.”
There’d been birds singing when they’d carried her to their small camp. Odd, she thought, that she’d noticed and remembered that. But the birds had stopped, and all she could hear were the men breathing, the ones she couldn’t see clearly whispering, and the quick thunder of her heart.
“Iverton,” one of them said. “They used to call the place Iverton.”
“They don’t call it anything now,” said another of the four. “It’s buried under ash and rock, like soon we’ll have to bury her if they’re not more careful.”
“So the others are nearby?” Tanner asked, raising his voice. “The Steel Town goblins?”
She opened her mouth and raised an eyebrow, trying to decide what to say.
“The other escaped slaves,” Donnel clarified. He raised his voice too. “You didn’t come all this way by yourself, little thing. There were shiploads of you stinking rats.”
“Nearby,” Mudwort admitted when he reached for her again. She nodded. “Yes. Walked from nearby. Not far. Not terrible far.” Her breath came in ragged gasps when Donnel pressed harder on her ankle before finally stepping back. Her mouth was filled with dust and blood. She’d bitten her tongue hard. “On a bluff. They are all perched on a bluff. There is a river, and-”
“And the traitor wizard?” That came from one of the other knights. She couldn’t see him well, as he stood behind Tanner. His voice was scratchy and unpleasant. “Is the traitor wizard nearby? Guardian N’sera they used to call him.”
“Grallik,” Mudwort supplied, drawing smiles from Donnel and Tanner. “Grallik is there, perched on the bluff with the others.”
Two of the knights in the background talked rapidly, one claiming to have known Grallik from before Steel Town. That was the one with the scratchy voice, and Mudwort realized he had some age to him.
“Never cared for the wizard,” he was saying so softly that she had to strain to hear him. “Only interested in magic. Kept to himself. I never trust magic. Not even Isaam’s dark arts.”
Mudwort wondered who Isaam was, and if the scratchy-voiced knight was with the search party because he’d recognize the wizard.
“Grallik from Steel Town,” she said with a little more volume. “Grallik is nearby, yes.” She held her injured hand to her chest and drew her sore leg in closer. She could wiggle her toes, a good sign … until they decided to break them like her fingers. She kept her good hand in the ground where they couldn’t reach it.
“And you can lead us to them all, can’t you, little rat.” Tanner did not speak it as a question. “You can lead us to Grallik and the escaped slaves.”
Mudwort vehemently shook her head, blood drops flying from her lips. Even though she could move her toes, her leg was twisted so badly that she wasn’t sure she could lead anyone anywhere. But more than that, she wouldn’t lead them to Direfang. “No,” she spit. “Never.”
“You know where they are!” Donnel shot back. “You’ll take us to them or we’ll kill you.”
“She knows we’ll kill her anyway,” Tanner said in a low voice. “They’re not completely stupid.”
“Oh, this little rat will lead us straight to them. I promise you that. Lead us to them, and then we’ll bring Commander Kata here. There’ll be promotions and decorations for all of us.” Donnel made another move toward Mudwort and stumbled, crying out.
In the next moment, all of the knights were shouting and struggling, arms flailing like animals caught in a trap. Mudwort had trapped them with her magic, rode the earth up over their feet and hardened it. She pulled her good hand free of the earth and scrambled forward between Tanner and Donnel, dragging her injured leg and narrowly avoiding a sword blow from one of the other stuck knights.
She crawled faster and got farther away then spun back and sat and glared at them, waggling her fingers and coaxing the ground to continue to do her bidding.
All six were caught up to their ankles in the earth that she had pulled them down into and magically strengthened.
“What sorcery is this?” shouted Tanner. He was struggling the most, and in response the ground started cracking around him. “Is the goblin responsible? Did that rat do this?”
“Aye, foul thing that it is,” Donnel spit. He was wriggling out of his boots. “We were told there might be spell-weavers among them.” He grunted and twisted, working his right foot halfway out.
“Never escape,” she told them in goblinspeak. “Stuck forever in the ground. Be buried in the ground, reeking Dark Knight corpses.” Ignoring her pain, she thrust her good hand into the earth again, the dirt softening like clay around her fingers. “Buried. Buried. Buried.” The earth softened around the knights and began to soothingly suck them down.
The Dark Knights stared wide-eyed as her arm sank in up to the elbow and she pointed the thumb of her mangled hand at them. “Ever and ever and ever stuck! Buried! Buried! Buried!”
Ripples spread out from her embedded arm, like mud sliding down the side of a hill in a summer storm. It rushed forward and, like a wave, rode up past their knees. At the same time, the ground turned to liquid below them, tugging them down like quicksand.
&n
bsp; “Ever and ever,” Mudwort repeated. She turned the words into a chant.
They screamed obscenities, their voices filled with anger and terror, so loud that she thought the rest of the knights-there had to be more of them somewhere-or Direfang even … someone would have heard their death cries.
How many more knights?
And how far had those carried her from where she’d been captured? How far away were Direfang and the others?
As they struggled like bugs trapped in a spiderweb, she slammed her eyes shut and pushed her senses through the mud and toward the knights several feet away. In the back of her mind, she could see their legs churning uselessly through the muck.
Ever and forever, she mouthed.
She picked two pairs of legs that were churning the most violently and created a vortex that sucked them down faster. Within the passing of a few heartbeats, two chests were surrounded by mud, then two faces, their arms above their heads waggling almost comically. Mudwort could see through the earth like others could see through the air on a clear day. She saw the utter panic etched into their faces, mouths gulping in her liquefied earth, eyes wide and seeing nothing but blackness.
She watched them drown.
When they stopped moving, she opened her eyes and stared at the four remaining, the horror written plain on their faces bringing a smile to her own. She’d trapped the two unnamed ones up to their armpits already, the one with the scratchy voice ineffectually beating the stonelike earth with his sword.
Donnel and Tanner she’d left free from their hips up.
“Quiet,” she commanded. “Quiet or be tugged under like the buried two.”
They instantly obeyed, though Tanner opened his mouth as if to say something.
“Quiet!”
Mudwort waited until she heard birds singing again. Her broken fingers still throbbed, and her twisted leg hurt too. She felt some pain in her stomach, where she’d been punched. She wanted to prod herself with her good hand, to see how serious her injuries were. She wouldn’t die from her wounds, she suspected, but she worried that she might not make it back to Direfang’s city on her own.
“The knights …” she began. “All the other knights. Where are they? The knights with the one called Isaam and the commander?”
The four stared at her, Donnel red-faced and eyes aiming daggers at her.
“Don’t tell that rat anything.” That came from one of the unnamed knights. He’d said it to Tanner, so she guessed that Tanner was in charge of the group. “Don’t tell that thing-”
His words ended in a gurgling sound, his mouth full of mud, choking.
Mudwort liquefied another clump of dirt. The size of an apple, it rolled away from her and slowly toward the knights. It rolled between Donnel and Tanner, the latter trying to grab at it. Mudwort kept it just beyond the reach of his questing fingers. Then the clump of dirt turned into a snake and oozed up the leg of the knight who’d just swallowed the first ball of mud.
“The knights,” Mudwort said again. “Where are they?”
When there was still no answer, the mud snake oozed up the man’s chest then his neck. He struggled so hard, she feared he would either break free or snap his back from all his gyrations.
“Tanner!” he sputtered. “Tanner, do something. By all the dark gods-”
She directed the mud snake into his mouth, filling it, a tendril of it reaching up and plugging his nose. The knight’s gyrations increased, his face turning scarlet, his eyes expanding so wide that she wondered if they might pop out onto his cheeks. He managed a whimpering noise right before he died; then he crumpled over as much as his earthen prison allowed.
“Cramer’s dead!” Donnel shouted, twisting around to stare at his fallen comrade. “The rat’ll kill us all. Foul sorcery!”
Mudwort bared her teeth, eyes boring into Tanner’s, which had lost some of their intensity.
“The knights,” she said. “I’ll ask again. Where are all the knights?”
“I don’t know where they are.” Tanner’s voice was edged with defiance, though it lacked the scorn she’d noted before. “And that’s the truth. We left them on the beach when were told to scout inland. We’ve been gone from them for days and days.”
Mudwort drew her face together until she knew it must look pinched and angry. Why send a scouting party into a forest to lose itself? How were they expected to find their main group again?
Unless the main group was tracking the scouts. Clever. Yes, Dark Knights could be clever and resourceful.
A shiver passed down her spine. Would more knights be there soon?
“How many knights?” she asked angrily.
“Three of us left,” he shot back. “You killed the other three.”
“Knights on the beach.” Mud rippled out from her embedded arm again, surging toward Tanner and stopping just in front of him. Donnel had turned back around and was gesturing futilely at the sloshing wave. “How many knights on the beach?”
Tanner shook his head. “No, never.”
“It’ll kill us, Tanner. Don’t tell that damnable rat anything.”
“Donnel.” Mudwort shifted her gaze to him. Another wave of mud washed away from her and toward him.
“Damnable rat!” Donnel cursed. “You’ll learn nothing from us. We’ll see you in the Abyss!”
She stopped the wave just short of him, the mud moving forward and back like water lapping at the shore. Maybe if she shut Donnel up, then Tanner would talk. Or maybe … with a twitch of her thumb, she directed the mud flow between Tanner and Donnel and around to the other knight stuck behind them.
Maybe that lowly Dark Knight knew something and would talk, she thought. She directed the mud to ooze upward until it covered the human’s shoulders and neck. Then it slowly crept up his chin.
“Tanner?” The word came out as a squeak.
“How many knights?” Mudwort practically shouted the question. “How many on the beach?”
He shook his head, droplets of mud flying away from his frantic motions. “Never.”
“How many days and days away?” Mudwort closed her eyes and thought back to Steel Town, savoring her hatred of Dark Knights.
“Submit or die,” she heard the Dark Knights say over and over there. “Obey the will of our superiors and put all personal goals behind the aims of the Order. Submit or die.”
She’d wend her way up the mountain each day for her overlong shift in the mine, and often she would pause before the entrance and stare down into the mining camp to see the Dark Knights standing before their commander. In perfect lines and wearing full armor that glinted in the early-morning sun, they knelt in unison, bowed their heads in unison, and shared a moment of silence. Then their voices would rise up the side of the mountain in a sonorous hum that sounded like a swarm of cicadas. They joined in what they called their Blood Oath, and they repeated it five times, followed by something she learned was called “The Code.” Then she considered it a horrible squandering of words, an insipid chant that wasted time and saliva. At that moment it was something useful to remember and say to the doomed one.
“Submit or die,” she said to the knight covered in mud.
He glared at her.
“Then die.” Mudwort gestured with her mangled hand, the mud doing her bidding and covering the knight as if he were a piece of fruit being dipped in chocolate, dipped and covered.
He struggled for only a moment; then she forced the mud to harden like stone. Donnel twisted around to see his companion struggle briefly and die. After a moment he turned back to Tanner, looking for guidance. Tanner was trying in vain to wrest free.
“Submit or die,” she repeated to Donnel.
“Never,” he said again.
She looked to Tanner; his head was pointed at the ground as he bucked and thrashed about, trying to pull himself out of his earthen prison. He didn’t see her snarl at him or hear her curse in a language he couldn’t fathom. And he didn’t see her close her eyes.
She pee
red into the earth again. The spell she wove sent her mind through the ground as if she were a burrowing animal. She felt the earth resting lightly on her, though she knew she was aboveground. It was a comforting feeling. She smelled the richness of it and the sickly sweet scent of the dead insects and tiny animals that had died and been covered over by time. She headed toward the knights again, feeling small, smooth rocks and finding the sensation of passing over them pleasant. It made the pain in her fingers and leg ease just a bit. A moment more and she felt Tanner’s boots, once so polished and fine, marred and soiled. Higher and she felt his metal leg plates.
His armor was insignificant compared to her magic. She made a fist and watched as the metal caved and twisted, the earth pressing in so very hard and relentless. She heard the ground rumble, and faintly, she heard Tanner cry out in anguish.
Submit or die, she mouthed.
The ground pressed in harder, the metal crumpling like a piece of parchment. She heard the groan of the buckling leg plates, and she heard Tanner’s bones snap.
He screamed then, his knightly mien dissolving as the pain consumed him, as the pain had consumed Mudwort when they broke her fingers.
She wasn’t done with him, letting the ground open up beneath him so he could drop down. His chest passed below the surface then his head. The mud on the surface flowed over where he’d been and hardened at her bidding. The earth pressed in once more, crunching his breastplate and arm plates and breaking the bones beneath. He died too quickly for her. Mudwort had never considered herself a cruel sort, but she hated Dark Knights above all else.
“Five hundred and forty.”
The words pulled her mind back into her body. She blinked and beheld Donnel, sweat running down his horrified face.
“I said, there are five hundred and forty knights, under the command of Bera Kata.”
She hadn’t expected any of the Dark Knights to break and had fully intended to suck that one down and be on her way.
“On the beach?”
He shook his head, sweat beads flying. “They were on the beach when we left them, but they were coming inland. They would find us later, or we would find them. There’s a sorcerer with them. He can find most things.”
