by Jean Rabe
“No. Not from the looks of it. But a far greater storm is coming, Foreman.” Grallik continued to peer at the sky. “If the Dark Knights are able to find us despite that magic in your old stone, a lot of goblins will die. You have numbers, I’ll grant you that. But they have far more skills. And their weapons are far superior.”
“Worried?” Direfang poked a taunting finger into Grallik’s shoulder, the force nearly toppling the wizard. “If the Gray Robe is so worried, better follow those goblins.” He gestured in the direction of the mountains. “Free to go.”
Grallik raised an eyebrow. At one point Direfang had called him a slave, and the hobgoblin had been ordering him around since the exodus from Steel Town. He had never felt free to do anything.
“Grallik is free to go,” Direfang repeated.
“They’ll kill me as fast as they’d kill any of you, the Dark Knights,” Grallik said. He stared past Direfang, eyes following a young goblin dragging a half dozen heavy clubs. The sky rumbled, and the goblin stopped and looked up. “I prefer my chances here. I’m a traitor as far as they’re concerned.”
“Worse than a traitor,” Direfang observed.
“Yes, I suppose I am. And I suspect they will kill me slowly. So I’ll stay, Foreman. I’ll cast my lot with you and-”
“Because of the magic Mudwort teaches.”
Grallik stared, not replying immediately. “Because there is some safety in your greater numbers. Better than if I was on my own.” The wizard looked away from the young goblin and instead stared up the bluff at Direfang’s spire. “I hope you have a plan,” he added, “beyond simply and foolishly waiting here to fight hundreds of trained, dedicated Dark Knights.”
“I have a plan for you,” the hobgoblin shot back. He pointed to where the ruined homes stretched, the wood all taken for weapons. All that remained were earth bowls. “Mudwort is gone, and much spell work needs to be done, Gray Robe. Who knows when Mudwort will come back? Meanwhile, your job is waiting.”
Grallik looked around. “Mudwort, gone?”
“Thya saw Mudwort leave.” Again Direfang pointed to the ruined homes. “No one saw Mudwort return. She comes and goes. But she’ll be back. You can go but not come back. If you stay, then there is spell work to be done. Understand?”
Grallik rubbed his chin. “Yes, I understand.”
Direfang left the wizard to find Draath and Olag and any other goblins known to have a spark of magic.
Direfang met with Orvago next. The hobgoblin thought the gnoll looked rather glum, probably because Qel had gone; she was his only link to his former home of Schallsea Island.
“Qel is safe away from here,” the hobgoblin said reassuringly.
The gnoll nodded. “But this place would have been good for her. And she would have been good for it. If there is a war coming …”
“No good can come of Dark Knights and goblins fighting. And no good can come of any war.”
“I could well imagine that you’re tired of all the bloodshed.” The gnoll shrugged. “There may be another outcome this time. If the spire hides us from magical prying, we-”
“How much magic is in here?” Direfang gently jabbed the gnoll’s chest. “Talking to trees, healing. How much is hidden?”
The gnoll stepped away and planted his hand against an oak. “My rapport with nature is considerable, Foreman Direfang.”
“Then there is much work to be done. Stop talking. Go to work.”
The goblins and hobgoblins worked through the night, only Grallik taking a rest, and that was because his eyes were not so keen in the darkness. The storm had held off until the evening, but it came with lots of thunder and gusts of wind. It wasn’t severe, but it drenched everyone and made some of the work difficult.
More goblins threatened to leave, tired of the endless work, ever hungry, and finding little to like about the forest.
“Let the elves take it back, this forest,” Neacha griped. The hobgoblin towered above Keth and shivered as a loud boom of thunder sounded. “The mountain caves are for hobgoblins and goblins. The trees are for elves. Caves would-”
Direfang shook a finger at him. “Gnasher is very smart. Gnasher will help save this city. Talk of leaving must stop.”
Keth stared up at Gnasher, waiting for him to speak; he stood silent, glowering. “No one place is safer than another. I will stay with Direfang and Graytoes and the Boarhunters.”
Direfang’s breath whistled out from between his teeth. “All right, caves were once for goblins and hobgoblins, true. But now the woods belong to the clans. What’s left of this blasted city, that will be for the hated Dark Knights.”
They all looked at him, astonished.
“So if the city is for the Dark Knights, all the clans are leaving?” Keth said. He looked in the direction of the mountains. He couldn’t see the peaks, the foliage thick and the overcast sky making everything dark. “Everyone is leaving?”
“Very soon.” Direfang nodded. “That is my plan. The Dark Knights can have what is left of this damnable city.”
Keth and Gnasher nodded. Even Neacha looked pleased.
Direfang looked around for Mudwort. He had made another decision he almost instantly regretted. He desperately needed her now.
DEAD RECKONING
Bera couldn’t sleep. Curled against Zocci, she listened to his heart and the sound of distant thunder. She carefully extricated herself, not wanting to wake him; rose; and watched fireflies come to ground and rise again. She put on her boots and adjusted her under-tunic, wrinkling her nose at the smell of it and herself.
She needed a bath. All her men could do with one, and there was no river or stream in sight. Isaam had not grumbled lately about the march, but she knew the sorcerer hated the expedition. He wanted an easier posting in a city. She had to admit she wouldn’t mind such an assignment with its abundant supply of water, better food, and a soft place to sleep. Bera looked over her shoulder at Zocci; he was snoring softly.
Better, perhaps, that the Order keep her there-even after she found the goblins and the traitor Grallik N’sera. There she could have Zocci. Elsewhere, and her husband and daughter might come to join her, and the mad affair with Zocci would end. Word might get back to them anyway, about her infidelity. She’d stopped being discreet, thanks to the rigors of the march and the length of time she’d been away from her family-it had been many months since she’d seen them-and, too, she blamed it on Zocci’s continued advances. He’d been persistent.
It was all of those things, coupled with her weakness for someone so young and attractive. Bera knew she would have to be careful; her behavior could not be seen to jeopardize their mission; otherwise, her rank in the Order would suffer.
She padded farther away from him, weaving through the maze of sleeping knights, their snores mingling with the song of crickets and the constant buzz of mosquitoes and gnats. Three small fires burned, but she couldn’t hear their crackle over the other sounds. Sentries were posted near them. Nine, one for each hundred knights. Normally she’d post four or five times that number, but the men were so tired; she’d been pushing them hard. And that many knights camped in the woods had little to fear.
She passed one of the fires and nodded to the sentry. Behind him, the former knight Horace was tied up tight. He slept fitfully, and she hoped his dreams were filled with visions of his death. She would enjoy killing him when he was no longer useful, and she was certain he knew that. Zocci had suggested she was keeping him alive merely because she liked to watch him suffer.
She had no patience for traitors.
Bera did not consider herself a cruel commander; Horace’s death would be a swift one when the time came. Grallik N’sera however ….
“I could not sleep either.”
Bera recognized Isaam’s voice, but she couldn’t see him at first. He stepped from behind a tree, a slash of gray amid the shadows.
“The thunder, I think, kept me restless.” Bera kept her voice down to avoid waking the men. She step
ped close.
“It is not loud.” Isaam spoke so softly, Bera could hardly hear him.
“Yet it reminds me of war drums.” Bera gestured with her head, and the two followed a narrow game path that wound between ginkgos and ash.
“But you like war.”
“Aye, Isaam, I do. But I never have liked the drums.”
When they were finally beyond the last of the sleeping men, Isaam tugged on Bera’s tunic. An old friend, he could get away with such a gesture. She stopped and looked down into his fleshy face. The moon emerged from behind a thick cloud, and it reflected off his pale skin. He was sweating, and it wasn’t so warm that evening.
“Isaam, you’re ill?”
He shook his head and wiped at his face with the sleeves of his robe. It smudged dirt across his forehead. “I’ve been using my magic, Bera, to the point where it’s taxed me terribly. I’ve been looking for our absent men.”
“Our scouts.” She nodded and steepled her fingers beneath her chin. “Go on.”
“I accounted for nearly all of them before we stopped. And they’ve nothing to report about goblins. One party did cross paths with a bloodrager.”
Bera cocked her head, unfamiliar with the creature.
“Like an overly large wolf,” Isaam said as way of explanation.
“Go on.”
“But our long-absent force …”
“Donnel and Tannen and-”
“I believe I’ve found them.”
“Then summon them immediately.”
“I cannot lead them to us, Commander. We must go to them. And we should do so quickly.”
Bera had woken the knights promptly, Isaam leading the way and setting a pace slower than usual. It wasn’t until four days later, nearing sunset, that the exhausted army found the clearing where Mudwort had buried Tannen and Donnel.
Animals had unearthed the remains. The dirt in the clearing had been dug up with the efficiency of men using shovels, and bones and pieces of armor were scattered everywhere. Flesh remained here and there; Donnel’s face was easily recognized, though his eyes were gone. Insects were thick, things that crawled on what was left of the bodies and flies that were so numerous they looked like black clouds settled to ground.
The smell was horrid. Bera and many of the knights in the first rank covered their noses with their hands. Some of the men turned away, while others looked on in grim fascination.
“What did this?” Bera was furious, her anger overshadowing any grief she felt for the six men. “The bloodrager you mentioned?”
“A bloodrager certainly would be capable of such,” one of her men answered.
Isaam waved away some of the flies, scowling when they returned quickly to swarm again. “Possibly,” he agreed. “But their bodies were just freshly unearthed when I’d found them. This other damage was done in the time it took us to get here.”
“So something killed and buried them, you’re saying.” Bera stared at a leg bone, maggots thick on a hunk of flesh.
“Or someone.” Isaam walked through the swarm of flies and picked up Donnel’s head. “Let’s find out.”
He retreated to a spot outside the clearing where the insects were not so bothersome. Smoothing at his robe with his free hand, he sat on a patch of thick-bladed grass and crossed his legs, all the while holding Donnel’s head. Isaam set it almost reverently on the ground in front of him, picking a worm out of an eye socket and tossing it away matter-of-factly.
Bera kept a polite distance, Zocci staying behind her and quietly ordering a detail of knights to properly rebury their brethren.
Isaam placed his hands on the sides of the head and leaned forward until his forehead was inches from it. Bera tried unsuccessfully to suppress a shudder. The thing reeked, and her sorcerer friend, so close to it, showed no signs of being bothered by the stench or by the notion of what he was nearly touching.
As she watched, maggots crawled from the scraps of flesh on the head and over Isaam’s fingers.
“They call it the dark side of magic,” Isaam began, “that which lets me speak to the dead.”
Zocci touched Bera’s shoulder. “Is he going to-”
“Shh,” Bera warned. “I’ve seen him do this once before.” That was years past, when she wanted to learn the name of a knight who’d fallen in battle. His wounds had been so grievous that she couldn’t identify him. His blood was still red, and the warmth was just leaving his flesh. She considered that experience far less gruesome than the decomposed head Isaam addressed.
“Perhaps the darkest of magic …” Isaam continued. Then his words became foreign to her. She knew it was an incantation, and the very sound of it sent a shiver down her back. Isaam droned on for long minutes, his voice dropping in tone, and the sounds of men digging proper graves in the earth coming to the fore.
A cloud of insects had followed them there, and Zocci tried unsuccessfully to bat them away from Bera’s face. Despite the stench, Bera stepped closer to Isaam, trying to listen.
When the incantation finished, a new voice rasped. Bera vaguely recognized it; Donnel had been in her company long enough that she knew the sound of his voice. She opened her mouth as if to say something to the grotesquerie that was her former knight. Then she took a step back and bumped into Zocci’s chest. The voice was Donnel’s, but it was emerging from Isaam.
“It was a little, ugly, female goblin, one that had been at the mines. She had whip scars; that was the telling sign that she’d been in Iverton, Steel Town. Her eyes were like little pieces of coal, hard and dark.”
“Defiant,” that was uttered in Isaam’s voice. “You considered the goblin defiant.”
“Yes.” The word was a hiss, like a kettle left too long dangling over a fire. “Despite the pain, defiant. Broke her fingers, her leg, punched her. We brought her close to death-too close, Tannen thought. Should have taken her to Zocci.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Isaam told the spirit.
Bera found it disconcerting not only that Isaam talked to the spirit but that he carried on a conversation seemingly with himself. Both voices continued to issue from his mouth.
“Yes,” the spirit replied. “She would have killed us anyway, the ugly little goblin. She gave up her secrets because she knew we would not live to take the news to Commander Kata. She answered our questions to toy with us.” The spirit’s voice came faster, with Isaam sucking in great gulps of air. “More powerful than you, sorcerer, that goblin is. She ordered the ground to swallow us up. She turned it to quicksand beneath our feet, and it pulled us down like being drawn into the Abyss.”
“Not possible,” Isaam cut in.
“You know it to be true,” the spirit answered flatly. “I can tell no lies.”
Bera edged closer again, cupping her hand over her nose and mouth in a futile attempt to cut the stench. Zocci stayed close behind her.
“Then she turned the quicksand to stone as hard as granite. She crushed our legs and ribs. The pain she gave us was unbearable.”
“She did not kill you right away?”
“No, sorcerer. She asked us questions first, gained our secrets, I say.” The spirit’s voice faltered but continued. “We gave up everything we knew. Gave up Commander Kata. Gave up you. The oath we took meant nothing compared to the pain we felt.”
Isaam looked away from the skull and caught Bera’s gaze.
“You wish more from his spirit? I’ll hold him here as long as you want. He wants to return to the Gray.”
The Gray was the place where spirits were said to meander, close to the world of the living but unable to reach it.
Bera stared at the maggots crawling over Isaam’s fingers. One disappeared up his sleeve. “Yes. I want more. He said the goblin gave up secrets as well. What did she tell them?”
“That she was indeed from Steel Town. That the other escaped slaves are in the woods. She told us where to find all of them, and that their leader is named Direfang. He perches himself above their camp, on a blu
ff over a river. She betrayed them only because she thought word would never reach you.”
Bera turned and passed by Zocci. “Let his spirit go, Isaam. Zocci, see that the head is buried with its body. We have a priest in our midst who will give the proper rites.” More softly, she added, “And soon Horace will also give rites over Grallik N’sera’s corpse.”
She hurried around the clearing where the knights continued to dig deep, even graves. The flies persisted as she made her way. She was looking for one knight in particular.
“Zathor,” she said to one group of knights after the other. “Where is Zathor?”
A lieutenant caught her attention and directed her to the north.
“He should be near the front, not the back,” she cursed. “He has the maps.”
Finally she found him. “Your maps, Zathor,” she ordered brusquely.
He nodded and swung his pack off his back. She motioned to a knight with a torch. “Light it. The sun is gone, and I need to see.”
Bera was impatient, and after a few moments, she grabbed the torch from the knight and lit it herself. Zathor spread a series of maps across the ground, holding them in place with rocks. She looked from one to the next, studying terrain features and straining to read tiny marks about elevations.
“Some of these are older than others. Things have grown and overgrown,” Zathor tried to explain. “But they’re all I have to work with.”
“Too many streams and rivers,” she said. “This damnable forest is too damn big.” She reached her free hand to the back of her neck and scratched it then crouched to get a better look, careful to keep the torch from catching anything on fire.
“Commander?” Zathor set down the final map and placed rocks on top of it to keep it down in place. “What are you looking for?”
“Goblins,” she muttered. “Damnable goblins in this damnable forest.” After a pause, she added, “And a traitor.”
She told him about the bluff and the river. After a few moments of scrutiny, he pointed to a spot on the closest map.
“This could be it, Commander. I don’t believe we’re far from here. Less than a day or two’s march.”
