by Jean Rabe
The fire at the top of the oaks rode the wind south to the next tree and the next, dancing faster than someone on the ground could outrun it. The flames spread east too, and Isaam knew the goblins would find themselves under the fire soon-if they weren’t trapped already. His magic would spread panic, kill and diminish their numbers, and give the Dark Knights the edge.
He cast another spell, adding to his mental fatigue. The enchantment caused him to float above the ground, higher and higher until he was above the topmost canopy. Then he willed himself to stop. Floating there, he watched his dazzling fire jump. Sometimes it cleared a tree, sparing one on some capricious whim, only to catch the next one to the south and engulf it with a roar. The woods were so dry because he’d drained the life and the water. The trees easily accepted the fire.
The druid could do nothing to aid the goblins. No one could stop Isaam’s magic.
The wind blew stronger up in the treetops, no thick trunks to slow it down. Each gust set another section of the forest canopy on fire. In one place the fire jumped a quarter mile, he guessed, embers borne by the swift breeze, hurtling across a stream. The edges of the stream burned. Nothing Isaam’s magic touched was safe.
He heard shouts; they were faint, a fair distance away. The cries sounded pitiful. His fire had indeed found the goblins.
“Burn,” he hissed. “You like to burn the corpses of your dead. Let the forest you ran to be your funeral pyre.”
A fire whirlwind lit the sky, a column of flame Isaam suspected had come from Grallik-a feeble attempt to snuff out the main fire. But there was no main fire. Fire was everywhere.
“An ineffectual attempt. Your magic was always beneath mine, Grallik N’sera. Your rank as well.” The sneering Isaam floated a little higher and drew his robes tighter around him to cut the slight chill of the night breeze. The fire did not warm him.
The flames spreading to the west were erratic and a little unpredictable, encountering trees that hadn’t been kissed by Isaam’s draining spell. They put up a fight, but the fire was too strong to be denied. Isaam suspected the druid was in anguish and working diligently to figure out how to neutralize his spell … but Isaam’s magic was superior and spreading.
Birds shot into the air by the hundreds, squawking so loud that they briefly drowned out the whoosh and crackling flames of Isaam’s great creation. But they were gone quickly, in search of a safer part of the forest. The animals trapped on the ground would not be so fortunate. The fire was moving too fast for escape.
A dense cloud of fiery embers pushed to the south just ahead of the flames that were swallowing one tree after the next. The fire was taking a firm hold in the peat soil too and would be spreading across the ground, though it would move slower there as the wind couldn’t help spread it.
“Burn well and wildly, my creation.”
He could hear the goblin shouts easily-louder, clearer, closer. And though he couldn’t understand the language, he could well translate their terror. Bera was right; they did sound like wild dogs yowling.
A haze formed over the upper canopy from all the smoke and the wind that continued to agitate the fire. It reminded Isaam of fog hanging over pastures on early spring mornings. There was something beautiful and otherworldly about it. He stared proudly at his creation for several long moments.
Even though he was above it all, his eyes were watering and his mouth felt dry from the effects of the fire. Isaam didn’t mind the uncomfortable sensations, though. They spoke to his magic’s success. He took a deep breath of the sulfurous air.
Likely when the fire finally died down, they would find only goblin bones. They could well turn everything to ash-bones and ash.
“As hot as the Abyss, that blessed fire must be.” Isaam swelled with pride. He floated a little farther east and north, spotting the knights below. They fought goblins and hobgoblins that must have broken into the Dark Knights’ camp right before the fire struck. There’d been no flames to keep that group of foul creatures back. But that was a fortunate thing, he decided. “Let Bera have some fun. It will keep her mind off Zocci.”
The fire would keep all the rest of the goblins and hobgoblins at bay-the thousands that had no doubt been streaming toward the Dark Knights. The fire would slay all of the stinking rats for Bera.
The light from the fire made it easy for Isaam to pick out details on the ground below. In the front rank, Bera fought madly, parrying attacks from two goblins that looked to have some skill with knives. Her fighting form was never better, he thought.
Isaam drifted lower for a better look. He could aid her with a simple spell or two, make her blade sharper and her arm stronger, or he could give her more energy so she could fight faster. But Bera might not appreciate either of those spells. So instead he used his magic to lock the image of her battling into his mind. Then he could retell tales of her bravery with perfect clarity later, reporting to the Dark Knight Counsel that would want to hear about the mission. He would use spells to replay the most vivid parts, and he would make Bera shine. She could gain the promotion she’d been dreaming of.
FIGHTING WITH FIRE
On the forest floor, Bera was coughing hard with each swing of her sword. Her eyes stung so badly that tears streamed down her face. Her men fared the same, but all of them fared better than the goblins and hobgoblins who were closer to the fire.
“It’s Isaam’s doing no doubt, this great blaze,” Doleman said.
“Aye, Lieutenant. I’d told him to cast some spells that would trouble the rats.”
“But you didn’t expect this business, eh, Commander?” He forced a smile as he drew his sword over his head, two hands on the pommel, and brought it down hard on the collarbone of a tall, red-skinned goblin. The blade sliced through the flesh and broke the bone. The goblin crumpled and Doleman drove the point through its heart.
“I had not anticipated help to this extent,” she replied wryly.
“Unfortunate the Gray Robe had not thought of this earlier,” Doleman continued. “It would have cut our losses by the bluff.” He tugged his shield free from his back and wielded his sword with one hand.
Bera parried another blow. The goblins in front of her changed the rhythm of their attack, and she used that to her advantage, bringing the sword down on one’s wrist, cleaving through the arm and sending the creature away, howling and holding its blood-spurting stump. While the other goblin glanced at its wounded kinsman, she drove her blade through its throat and brought her heel against its stomach to help free her weapon.
“I did not order Isaam to cast such fire magics then, Lieutenant. At the bluff I was expecting a straight-up battle.” In truth, she hadn’t realized the sorcerer might be capable of such a magnificent gesture. And she had been determined to take the goblins down with brute force rather than even consider magic. “This mission rests on me. Only my head, you hear?”
“At least the wind is cooperating, Commander. It keeps most of these rats at bay. We’ve only a few hundred here to kill.”
That was both good and bad news as far as Bera was concerned. It was good that goblins were burning to death in the woods; in the distance. She could hear their screams and smell the stench of their roasting flesh.
But still, it was unfortunate that they were not dying by her own hand.
“For Zocci,” she whispered as she engaged a hobgoblin she’d spotted by the bluff earlier. One of its shoulders was lower than the other, and it moved with a pronounced limp. It wielded a crude spear that splintered when she struck it with her sword. “Pity you are not a more worthy foe,” she muttered as she shoved her blade through its stomach then raised her foot to push it off the weapon. The creature fell back onto an approaching goblin.
Goblins to her right shouted a horrid-sounding battle cry she couldn’t translate. Their strangled voices mingled with the clang of steel and the crackling flames. The air was hot to breathe and singed her lungs.
But Bera raged as hot as the fire.
She’d bee
n weary after the failed strike on the bluff and their subsequent retreat, her arms and legs sore, and her neck stiff with a bothersome ache. But fighting with her hated foes somehow refreshed her; fresh power went into each swing. Not one man in her army-not one living man since Zocci was dead-was her equal in combat. She exulted in the moment.
Her husband had once told her that she lived to fight and that her bloodlust was stronger than her love for him or their daughter. She’d denied it, of course, though both of them knew he spoke the truth. Bera was born for battle. On another occasion he’d said she came into the world too late, that she would have been better suited to legendary challenges of the War of the Lance. She’d agreed with him then, saying those skirmishes were reportedly faster and deadlier than those of recent memory, and the stakes were in many respects higher.
The stakes were high for the battle that raged in the forest, though.
Flames snapped and popped all around her. The air was filled with burning flesh and trees. What would her husband think of her at that very moment, flailing away at goblins in the heart of the burning Qualinesti Forest? Would he be proud? Would she ever tell him her heart had been broken with Zocci’s death?
Another hobgoblin charged in, wearing a breastplate that looked like it had been cobbled together from multiple mismatched suits of chain and leather armor. Almost comical in its appearance, the hobgoblin nevertheless protected itself from her first swing. It grinned at her, drool spilling over its lower lip, the creature looking wet and slimy in the firelight.
“You disgust me,” she spit. “All of your kind.”
She swung higher, forcing the hobgoblin to parry her thrusts and giving it no chance to launch an attack of its own. Then she made a move to swing higher still, aiming for its big head. As it brought its own blade up, she dropped to a crouch and angled her sword up like a lance, skewering it in a gap she’d noticed between the uneven segments of chain mail. She faintly heard the sound of her blade grating against its ribs.
Her husband would understand her blood lust, she thought. He’d been a Dark Knight once, in the very early years of their marriage. But he’d injured his leg in a fight with a pair of young Solamnics, and though he’d slain them, one had managed a severe blow. The Skull Knights healed him but could not properly set his leg on the battlefield. He’d retired to raise their daughter.
Bera thought rarely of her daughter, a beautiful woman with her eyes set in her father’s face and with aspirations for only marrying well and raising a family. The girl had never shown an interest in the Order; perhaps that was why Bera had given back so little interest or affection. But when the fight was through and the necessary reports made to those above her, perhaps Bera would go home to visit the girl-woman, she corrected herself. Time was fast and elusive. She would visit her husband and daughter, who she hoped had found a man to marry and provide for her. Then she would look to her next posting and perhaps a coveted promotion.
“Commander!” Doleman shouted a second time to get her attention.
He’d been wounded, though not seriously, a slice on his upper sword arm. Bera moved closer to give him cover as he switched his sword to his left hand and transferred his shield to his right.
“My thanks, Commander.”
“Slaying another goblin would be thanks enough,” she returned.
He nodded and bull-rushed forward, his shield knocking down a goblin as he raised his sword and brought it down at an angle to sever the leg of another opponent. The one on the ground scrambled to rise again, but Doleman jumped on top of him, heel digging into the goblin’s neck and crushing and strangling him.
“Debt paid, Commander!”
“Aye, Lieutenant.” She turned to encounter a large goblin preparing to attack her. The creature wielded a club in its right hand and a wavy-bladed dagger in its left. More disgusting than its fellows, the goblin had two miniature heads hanging from its belt. They bobbed against its legs as it darted forward.
Elf heads, she realized with a start. Bera had studied goblins and knew there were sects that took trophies, such as hands and heads. She’d read about a tribe that shrunk the skin, believing it captured the spirit of the enemy. The visual proof of that legend gave her one more reason to despise goblinkind.
“Filth,” she cursed at it. “A disease on the face of Ansalon.” She changed her pattern of attack, raining blows down in a staccato fashion until the head-toting goblin tried to stumble back. But there were goblins behind it, and it was blocked from retreat.
“A disease!” she hollered. “And I am the cure.” She ran it through. Her heart sang with joy, and she whirled to find her next opponent, her next hated enemy, another treat for her sword.
AN UNANSWERED CRY FOR HELP
Graytoes was at the rear of the goblin throng. She could have stayed on the bluff. Should have, maybe, she thought. Younglings were gathered there, watched over by the oldest goblins and hobgoblins who were deemed too fragile or too wounded from the previous battle to fight. She could have helped them.
Perhaps she should have stayed to take care of Umay, to keep her out of danger; Direfang had told her to stay. Orvago had stayed. She’d heard the gnoll tell Direfang that he was better at protecting and defending and healing. It was not his place to go on the attack.
“My nature will not allow me to pick sides, Foreman Direfang,” he’d said. “But I will fight to save these goblins on the bluff. I will stay here and do my best to hold the bluff.”
Graytoes could have stayed with Orvago. Horace had stayed too. The Skull Man was broken and resting, tending wounded goblins when he’d briefly revive. Horace wasn’t a Dark Knight any longer, so Graytoes decided that she could finally like him. Graytoes could have stayed with Horace and helped with the wounded.
But Graytoes was curious above all else, and in truth she prided herself on being part of Direfang’s army. With Umay strapped to her back in the leather pack, she still could use her hands to fight well. She carried a long knife in one; she thought it was the weapon Direfang had dropped after gaining the magnificent axe. Because it had been Direfang’s, she knew it was fine and strong and would be enough to protect her and Umay.
Jando-Jando had gone ahead of her and was probably very near the front of the war party. She worried he might fall to a Dark Knight. Jando-Jando was not as good a fighter as she. Graytoes didn’t love him like she’d loved Moon-eye, though she thought perhaps with time she might. But Graytoes didn’t want to be without a mate again, which was the main reason she followed the thousands of goblins through the woods, looking for Jando-Jando. She thought that if she were near him during the fighting, he wouldn’t die. She’d not been near Moon-eye when he’d died. Watching over Jando-Jando would give her some purpose. And it was an excuse not to remain on the bluff.
Besides, there was a little magic in her, and she could join it with Draath’s and maybe Olag’s if she could find them in the melee. She wished Thya and Mudwort had not left the city. Their magic was very strong, and it was easier to mingle her magic with theirs. The female stonetellers brought out the best in Graytoes.
Mudwort, especially, made the magic simple. But Draath was good too, she thought. She didn’t like to look at the tiny elf heads strapped to his belt, and she didn’t want to touch his fingers; she pictured them pulling the skin loose from elf skulls. But she could work some spells with Draath when she closed her eyes. Together, they could help defeat the knights and thereby help Direfang. Graytoes hated Dark Knights more than she hated anything else. She hoped there were a few elves among the enemy so Draath and Sallor and their kinsmen could add to their disgusting collection. But she would not watch them do it.
Umay slept blithely, despite Graytoes’s rushing over uneven ground, jumping knobby roots, and sometimes being jostled by goblins who raced near her and faster and occasionally pushed her out of the way. Umay slept although she was probably hungry. In all the confusion and activity, Graytoes hadn’t fed her.
“Win for Umay,” Gr
aytoes told herself. “Beat the Dark Knights. Kill all Dark Knights. Then go back and milk a goat and feed Umay. Bathe Umay, and sing an old song Moon-eye liked.”
Graytoes liked the forest, despite the bloodragers and the dragon and other dangers, and she wanted Umay to grow up in the nice, green place. Not on the bluff, though; there’d been too much death there. The ground was tainted with all the blood from dead goblins and Dark Knights. Nothing good could grow on such terribly tainted ground. Graytoes decided that after all the Dark Knights were dead, she would have a long talk with Direfang. The goblins must build a city somewhere else. Along that same river, fine, but somewhere else, not within sight of the tainted ground.
She would build a fine earth bowl home with Jando-Jando, one better than even what Mudwort had made. She could use her own magic to do the digging, and together they’d make it a large home so Umay would have lots of room to grow up in. Maybe they would put a wall inside of it, dividing up the space, the kind of innovation that Qel was rumored to have in her home. Then Umay could have her own space when she got a little bigger.
“Graytoes loves Umay very much,” she said.
Graytoes had been running for a while before she noticed things changing around her. Ground animals were scampering through goblin legs, all of them racing in the opposite direction, toward the south, tripping over each other and exposed roots-running for the sake of running, she thought. Larger animals-deer and boars and maybe bigger things by the thrashing-also rushed through the woods. All of them hurried away from where the goblins headed. Maybe they were afraid of the coming confrontation. Maybe the battle ahead was too fierce.
But Graytoes quickly realized they were afraid of something worse. She well knew what fire smelled like; she’d been around plenty of goblin funeral pyres in the past weeks and had smelled the fire spewed by the volcanoes when they escaped from Steel Town. And she’d been close enough to Grallik’s fire spells plenty of times. Something in the forest was burning, and it had frightened the animals and was frightening her too. But the goblins running ahead and all around her had not turned back toward the bluff; they still charged after Direfang.
