by Jean Rabe
“Isaam.” Mudwort recalled the name one of them had mentioned in connection with dark magic.
“That’s him. He would use his magic to find us so we could join the main force.”
“Hunting goblins, all these knights?”
He nodded.
“Five hundred and forty.”
He gave another nod. “Maybe more coming from an outpost. Commander Kata asked for them, but I don’t know if the orders came through.”
“Why?” Mudwort couldn’t understand why the Dark Knights would expend so much effort to track down the escaped Steel Town slaves. There was no more Steel Town. It was buried under tons of rock and hardened lava. And if they needed slaves for some other endeavor, why didn’t they just buy more from the ogres and minotaurs in the mountains? Why spend so much time and effort, and certainly steel, to track down Direfang and the others. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to buy fresh slaves and save time and steel?
“Why?” she posed louder. “Why hunt goblins? These goblins?”
He shrugged, his lower lip trembling fearfully. All bluster, he’d been, she thought. Maybe he realized the Blood Oath he’d sworn was a waste of time and saliva after all.
“Submit or die.”
The redness vanished from his face and he looked oddly pale, his face all shiny.
“To make an example, I think.” He sucked in his lip and squared his shoulders. “I think the Order needed to make an example of all of you. Can’t let slaves escape. Others might try it. And Guardian N’sera … traitors must be punished.”
She nodded. That would make a certain amount of sense. She silently regarded him. Her silence made him even more frightened. She was listening to the birds sing, spotting a pretty blue one with an orange belly and a white tuft on its neck.
“Can’t let slaves escape. Can’t let them be uncaptured and unpunished. Sets a bad precedent.” He spoke barely above a whisper. “For our honor. For the honor of the Order.”
“Honor?” She looked to where his companions had been. “The spirits will live in rotting bodies. No honor in that. S’dards, Dark Knights are. Spirits forever caught in rotting flesh.”
After the earthquakes in Steel Town, Mudwort had watched the knights bury their dead fellows. The graves were not far from the slave pens. In their armor and with weapons on their chests, they were stretched out in the ground, wrapped in a fine blanket, and covered with dirt. The knights capped their ceremony with words of praise and with a promise of a life beyond their world. Mudwort and the other goblins knew the living knights were committing their fallen brethren to a hellish eternity.
The goblins believed spirits returned to the bodies they’d inhabited, but if those bodies were burned, scattered, or otherwise destroyed, the spirits were forced to find a new life in a goblin being born. The knights’ spirits would return to dead husks, forever trapped in rotting flesh, going mad and nowhere.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” He paused. More softly, he said, “Not that I can blame you, how we treated you here. How we treated all of your kind in Steel Town and elsewhere.”
“Five hundred? And forty?” Mudwort was trying to wrap her mind around the number. She knew it was a lot, but she didn’t wholly understand numbers. She knew there were many, many goblins. One thousand, two … more than five hundred and forty knights. But how many more? Did Direfang need to know that?
“Five hundred and forty knights. Commander Kata wanted more. Maybe she’ll get them.”
“From an outpost?”
“Yes.”
“All looking for goblins.” She pursed her lips. “Direfang must know.”
She drummed her fingers against the ground, thinking. How far was she from the bluff? One day? More? Grallik is partly to blame for the Dark Knights following, she thought. Damn half-elf wizard.
“They’ll find me … or my body,” Donnel said fearfully. “You have to realize that. Isaam will find me, and they’ll come here. And then they’ll find you. They’ll kill all of you.”
Mudwort’s expression grew darker and he shuddered.
“Never find the goblins, the hated Dark Knights,” she said after a moment. “Because this Isaam will not find-”
“No. Please. I told you what you wanted to know. By all the dark gods, I …” His voice trailed away as he sank beneath the surface, the ground filling in over him. Mudwort smoothed the dirt with her magic.
The Dark Knight commander-Mudwort could not remember the name of the officer-and the magic-user called Isaam wouldn’t find the knights because they would all be dead and buried-more than buried. She continued to work her magic, sending the ones already buried under deeper and sending the broken one caught on top below and the one coated in rock with him.
“Down,” she ordered the ground. Within minutes they were hidden deep in the earth’s bosom, where their spirits would return and be trapped and driven mad forever and ever.
She pulled her arm from the earth and brushed it off. Her fingers pulled on a clump of clay that caught on her hair, closing and opening the fingers of her good hand. She held her injured hand close to her chest as she tried to stand, her first two efforts failing miserably. Finally she regained her footing, putting all her weight on her good leg, and hobbling toward the base of a tree where the knights had left their packs.
She gingerly sat and pulled the first one to her, fumbling with the clasp and sticking her good hand inside. She pulled out a dark linen shirt, like she’d seen some of the knights wear under their armor. That she set aside. She’d need something new because one of the knights had torn her tunic. Further exploring produced a cake of scented soap, which she discarded; a metal comb, which she had no use for; strips of cloth, one of which she wrapped around her mangled hand; and a small tin of hard candies, which she quickly devoured. The tin she filled with fresh earth, wanting the tin as a keepsake to remember the spot where she killed six Dark Knights all by herself.
There was more food in the other pack, too much for her to eat all at once, and nothing smelling as sweet as the candies. Mudwort wished she would have saved a few pieces of the candy for later. She rarely thought of later where food was concerned. There was a jar of salve, which she rubbed on her sore leg, finding it did nothing to ease the ache. But it smelled pleasant, and she held her nose to the jar. “Flowers. Smells like little purple flowers,” she muttered, enjoying the sound of her own voice.
There was a small, sharp knife and a sheath, which she kept, and a silver chain and a locket, which had a tiny painting of a pretty girl inside. Perhaps the knight’s sister or wife. Mudwort dug the painting out with her fingernail and discarded it, putting the chain and empty locket around her neck.
She spent the next several minutes using the knife to cut the sleeves off the shirt and to shorten it. Then she cut a strap off one of the packs and fashioned it into a belt so her new black tunic would not hang so loosely. Finished, she hung the knife from the belt and stood, leaning against the tree to keep the weight off her sore leg. All the while the birds sang; Mudwort took that as a sign they approved of her killing the knights.
Finally, she selected the pack in the best condition, a dark leather one that its owner had oiled and rubbed. She put the food she hadn’t eaten in it along with another tunic she’d found; an ivory-handled razor; and a small, leather-bound book with scribbling in it. Half the book was blank. Direfang might like it, Mudwort thought. Maybe he could read the first part of it to her. She tucked the tin with dirt inside.
She slung it over her good shoulder and with great effort stood and staggered away from the tree. Another quick spell and the earth flowed over the other packs, burying them. More magic buried the tent pitched behind a pair of elms. She kept one of the tent stakes, breaking it in two and using it as a cane to help her limp around. It took her well more than an hour to circle outward from the camp and coax the dirt into shifting to cover all traces of the knights’ footsteps and presence.
Exhausted and uncomfortable from he
r injuries, she found a rotting limb that worked better as a walking stick and hobbled from the clearing in the direction she was certain Direfang’s city sprawled. The broken tent post was eaten by the earth.
She hadn’t been able to look in on Direfang’s city before her capture, and she wondered if she should try again. She could contact Thya or one of the other goblins with a spark of magic inside … maybe even Grallik. Someone could come to her and help her, bring a hobgoblin to carry her. Or she could get Grallik to carry her in exchange for the promise of teaching him more magic.
“Direfang should know about the knights,” she said. It would take her a long time to reach the bluff over the river, going as slow as she had to hobble. Thinking about it, she decided if she summoned help, she would have to explain what she’d been doing there. They would ask and learn about the spear. No one must know of the spear, she decided. Mudwort’s spear.
Moving slowly and painfully was all right, she decided, and it was better to go it alone, asking the earth to cover up her tracks as she went and occasionally looking over her shoulder to make sure it was complying. The walk would give her time to think about how to explain her unfortunate adventure to Direfang and how to reveal the news about the five hundred and forty knights. The walk would give her time to dream up a credible story.
It was dark and two hard, painful days later by the time she reached the infant city.
A ruined city.
Mudwort stared and poked through the shadows. Homes were knocked over and destroyed. Trees were stripped of leaves and fingerling branches, and the ground had a diseased look to it, as if it were skin ravaged with boils by some plague. There was an odd, acrid stench that hung heavily in the air, and there was an all-too-familiar scent, goblin corpses that had been burned on a fire. There was also the odor of cooked meat, a strange meat, unfamiliar, but welcome. She wondered if there was anything left that she might nibble on.
Goblins were working in the shadows, though Mudwort could not tell what they were doing and had no desire to look closer, their usual conversations mingling with the sounds of crickets and small, green tree frogs and other muted night noises.
She stayed on the outskirts for several minutes, catching her breath and steadying herself, wondering what had befallen the city. What disaster had arrived? Would she have been able to help if she’d been there? Would her magic have made a difference?
She shook her head. “Maybe would have died,” she told herself. “Maybe would be a burned husk now.” She sniffed the air again. “A lot of dead goblins.”
She dropped the walking stick and lurched toward the home she knew was being built for the gnoll and the human healer. It was one of the few places that seemed to have survived the disaster.
Several goblins chattered hello and questions to her as she passed. She dismissed all their questions and concerns and waved them away with a gesture and a snarl.
The gnoll was not at Qel’s home site, which pleased her. She thought him more intense than the healer, and more curious. He might ask her too many questions about where she had been, and he was fluent in goblinspeak, so she couldn’t pretend she didn’t understand him.
“Qel?”
The human had been sitting with her back to a small fire, and when she turned, Mudwort thought she saw traces of tears on her cheeks.
“Mudwort, you’re back! And you’re hurt!”
Mudwort nodded and shuffled toward her.
“What did you do? Where have you been? Did the dragon hurt you?”
Dragon?
“Mudwort?” Direfang had materialized. She hadn’t noticed him nearby, but then she’d been intent on finding the healer. “Mudwort limps. What happened?”
“What happened here?” the goblin returned.
Direfang explained then pointed to her twisted leg and her mangled fingers.
“Fell in the woods,” Mudwort answered almost too quickly. “Stupid, clumsy, tripped. Fell in the woods.” She’d intended to warn him about the Dark Knights. He’d understand better the notion of five hundred and forty of the enemy pursuing them. But on her way to the city, she began to worry he’d move them all again, farther from her spear, or that he’d prevent any of them from leaving the city for fear of them being captured by Dark Knights.
She couldn’t let either of those things happen.
“All alone, walking and paying no attention while a dragon came here. Fell in the woods, tumbled down rocks and stuff, and got hurt bad, Direfang. Qel can help, though.”
The healer stretched forward her unnaturally cold hands.
PREPARING FOR WAR
Lurreg, a muscular goblin of middle years with mudbrown skin and olive-colored eyes, was leader of the Fernwold clan. He’d made it clear that he and his fellows did not like the Skinweavers, wrinkling their noses at the shrunken elf heads and refusing to return any friendly gestures.
Yet Lurreg toiled by Draath’s side, expending more effort and energy than he had when building his ruined home.
The two clans had fashioned spears from the thick, straight branches that could be salvaged from roofs. Those who had axes and knives cut logs that had once formed walls to make more spears, the best and thickest pieces becoming clubs. They discarded pieces that were cracked or bent like a supple willow or had been weakened too much by the chlorine.
Draath sat on a scarred piece of ground with a half dozen spear hafts in front of him and a pile of black, fist-sized rocks. Lurreg was nearby and watching the Skinweaver’s hands … refusing to look him in the eyes. Draath patted the smallest of his shrunken heads, a ritual he followed when he worked on each weapon; reached for a stone; and touched it to the end of a haft.
“This is obsidian,” Draath explained. “Dark as its purpose, to slay. Black as death.” His fingers moved over the stone, which shimmered and became as malleable as clay. “Obsidian is the best for this. Crystals work too, but those are more difficult to find.” The stone flowed over the end of the haft, capping it and firmly affixing itself. His thumb ran along the edges, forming it into something that looked like an arrowhead, but the thin edges were larger and appeared sharper, gleaming in the bright morning sunlight.
“Looks like glass,” Lurreg said. “This clan saw glass on the other side of the mountains. It was in a village in the Plains of Dust. An empty village. Obsidian looks like glass that reflects the night sky. Looks brittle. It will break easily.”
Draath grunted in disagreement and ran the spear tip across the palm of his hand, drawing a thick line of blood. “Obsidian is the very best,” he said. “And it is very difficult to break.” He put the finished spear off to the side and happily sucked on his wound. A youngling collected the spear and carried it to a growing pile.
The Boarhunters were making spears too, but theirs did not have stone tips. They affixed pieces of the spine that had run down the dragon’s back, dragon teeth, and talons to hafts. The youngest clan members did not have the luxury of using dragon parts. They sharpened the ends of the wood with knives and rubbed the knobs off the hafts so they would be easier to hold and more balanced to throw.
“Kroan used to work the dirt with magic,” Lurreg explained. “Kroan listened to the dirt and heard Mudwort’s call.” The clan leader bowed his head ruefully. “But Kroan was killed by the dragon. No remaining stonetellers in this clan.”
“That is …” Draath gestured toward a young goblin, little more than two feet tall. He had the same coloration as Lurreg, but his eyes were as black as the piece of obsidian Draath fitted to another spear.
“Olag,” Lurreg said, still not meeting Draath’s eyes.
“There is magic in Olag,” the Skinweaver said. “It can be coaxed out.”
Lurreg brightened and passed another haft to Draath. The Skinweaver crooked his finger at the young goblin, who hesitated a moment before cautiously approaching. Draath grabbed his arm and tugged him to the ground, shoving a piece of obsidian into his small hand. He took another spear haft, cupped his hand around Olag
’s, and forced the stone to the top of the wood.
“Find the magic inside, Olag. Tell the stone what it should do.” The Skinweaver poked a finger at his chest. “There is magic in your heart. Find it.” Draath cast his spell on the stone, pulling the energy from Olag. “Together, Olag. Feel it?”
The young goblin nodded enthusiastically, eyes wide as the obsidian began to flow and fasten to the spear.
“Together, sculpt the point,” Draath continued. He pulled more energy from the youth as the edges grew sharp and shiny.
Flamegrass clansmen, taught by a hobgoblin named Gokop, were fashioning breastplates from dragon skin. The largest scales were being made into formidable shields.
“Preparing for war,” Gokop said, grinning wide.
Others looked up and smiled back.
Direfang wished Spikehollow were with him. Spikehollow had been a slave in the Dark Knight mining camp. When the goblins made their escape, Spikehollow had joined Direfang in looting weapons from fallen knights and using those weapons against their remaining foes. The young goblin had been an able fighter, strong and determined, and if he were there, he would be useful. But Spikehollow had died weeks past, an early victim of the plague that wiped out so many of the Steel Town clansmen.
Dozens of goblins were crowded around Direfang. He gripped a long sword in one hand, which had been taken from a Steel Town knight, and held a hand axe in the other. He’d given his best knife to a feisty young goblin named Tilk.
“Watch me.” He crouched and held the sword level to the ground then swung it so fast, it whistled through the air. He followed it with a chopping motion with the axe. The hobgoblin repeated the maneuvers, pointing out each step.
All of the goblins in the group bore weapons, most of them short swords and daggers that had been taken from the corpses of Dark Knights or stolen from the ogre and dwarven towns they’d passed through on their flight from the mining camp. They did their best to imitate Direfang’s motions. The hobgoblin paused to congratulate the goblins who were correctly mastering the moves.
