by Jean Rabe
Dead from fear?
She searched their bodies to see if by some wonder either had possessed a waterskin or if there was something tasty in their pockets that she could give to Direfang when she found him. They had nothing.
She knew where her hobgoblin friend had been assigned that day. She had spotted him toiling in a winding, narrow side tunnel when she hauled out her fifth or sixth sack of ore. She followed the main tunnel down until she reached a branch that would take her to Direfang’s workstation.
The ground purred ominously as she went, and stone dust filtered down and caked her eyes. There were many piles of rocks and broken beams and crosspieces to wend her way around, and she stumbled and tripped more than once. Mudwort cursed in the old tongue; she was normally so sure-footed.
She squeezed through a crevice that hadn’t been there before the quake and paused to press her face against the wall. Water ran down the wall, but not the thin rivulets she often saw-no, a wide stream that thrilled her. She drank more than her fill, not stopping until she feared her belly would burst. Then she cupped her hands to the stream and splashed it over her, turning until her back was flat against the wall. The water eased the pain from the whip marks.
She thought she could stand like that forever. The stream of water was more pleasant than the infrequent rains and she did not have to share it with anyone. The water pooled around her feet and ran into a thick crack. Mudwort listened to the soft splash it made against her shoulders and neck and believed there was nothing more wonderful in all the world than that very spot in the accursed Nerakan mine. The glorious water, all hers. The knights would not be back for a long time. Oh, eventually they would use their priests and wizard to move the rocks and order the slaves back in with their picks and shovels. But that would take time because they had no digging beast anymore.
Perhaps it would take forever.
She momentarily forgot about the whip marks on her back and about Direfang, forgot she was a slave and that she was hungry and could well starve if she stayed put. She thought only about the glorious water and the way it felt running wetly over her. She stretched her bony arms above her head and let her fingers play in the water then touched the backs of her hands to the stone and felt the rocks stirring again.
Mudwort bent to the faint tremor, trying to discern a meaning in the gentle vibration that pulsed through the stone. The grumbling ground had caused so much destruction already, had made some tunnels barely passable, had made other tunnels not passable at all, and had killed so many goblins.
What more destruction could the ground demand?
She concentrated, able to put more effort into deciphering the words since the water had filled her and lulled her. She could hear distinct words, in her own language. Mudwort slipped back around to face the wall, held her breath, and pressed her nose and mouth against it.
“What say?” She’d not tried talking to the rocks before. And she did not really expect them to reply. Still, she put her ear to the stone, all the while reveling in the feel of the water sluicing over her. “What say? Please say again.”
She heard more words, soft yet sounding horribly urgent. A moment more and she realized she recognized the voice. It wasn’t the rock speaking, it was her friend Direfang, and somehow his words were being transmitted through the wall of the mine. Taking a last long gulp of water, she pushed away from the blessed stream and followed the narrow shaft.
Another turn, another short passage, and she caught the flicker of a lantern ahead. Direfang was holding the lantern in one hand and clawing at a jumble of rocks with the other. The ceiling had entirely collapsed on that part of the tunnel, and from behind the rubble came the cries of trapped slaves.
Direfang was nearly seven feet tall, the largest hobgoblin in the slave pens, easily twice Mudwort’s height. He had to stoop in a tunnel that was at best six feet high. His hairy dark gray hide was covered with chips of stone and dust, and there were places on his upper arms and chest where the hair had been ripped away and blood glistened fresh. His broad face was covered with dark splotches that would soon become ugly bruises, his pug nose and his chin were badly skinned, and the pair of trousers he wore-some of the hobgoblin foremen had clothes-were shredded.
“Mudwort help.” Direfang cocked his head, the side without an ear toward the goblin, and gestured with his hand that held a rock. “Mudwort!” It came out as an order, in a stern voice he typically reserved for the slaves he supervised, and Mudwort’s narrowed eyes and curled lip made it clear she did not like his tone. “Help now, Mudwort.” This repeated order was even sterner and punctuated with a growl.
Mudwort, still wonderfully wet and refreshed, glared at her friend and turned to face the collapsed tunnel he stood near. She did not pull out rocks, as Direfang continued to do, but studied them. For a moment she considered returning to the place where the water ran freely down the wall, then her gaze locked onto a large stone shot through with blood red veins. She touched it then another stone and another.
None of the rocks there felt different. Neither did the flat of the stone floor or the intact sections of tunnel walls she brushed with her hands. But the purring had stopped. She couldn’t ascribe any emotions to the stone, certainly not the nervousness she’d sensed before. They seemed to be … at peace, she decided after a moment. So the mountain was finally sated and the mine was done-done shaking. She released a great breath and closed her eyes in relief.
Mudwort didn’t see Direfang scowl at her, but she did hear him shuffle away and, with a tink, set his lantern down somewhere behind them.
She leaned forward until her chin touched the jumble of rocks. She tasted one, spitting out the dust that thickly covered it, then placed her damp palms against a few of the smoother stones.
“Here,” Mudwort pointed to a section as close to the ceiling as she could reach. “Rocks thin.” Mudwort ran her fingers over the rubble again to be sure, stretching as high as she could. Then she let out another deep breath and started plucking the smaller rocks out from a spot just over her head, careful not to cause a cascade that could bury her. She carried the rocks away from the collapsed pile, setting them against the wall near the lantern. She saw spatters of blood on the base of the lantern, starting to dry and turning dark, and she glanced at Direfang. Both of his clawed hands were bleeding from pulling at the rocks. Her back bled fresh too; she’d opened the whip marks with her stretching.
The lantern oil had burned out by the time they managed to create a hole in the rubble big enough for a lean hobgoblin to squeeze through. Though the mine was black as pitch, Mudwort and Direfang could still see well enough to help the first slave through, then another, one after the next. All of goblinkind saw reasonably well in the dark, but the lanterns made things easier, and they’d been relying heavily on them in the mine. One of the goblins on the other side also had a lantern and carefully passed it through. It cast an eerie glow on the debris and battered survivors.
Mudwort recognized only a few of the slaves. None of them mined in her tunnel and perhaps were not even from her pen. One she knew for certain, though, a pot-bellied older goblin named Saro-Saro. Direfang pulled him through the hole and roughly sat him down then turned to grab another one.
“Mudwort was right about the bad something coming to the mine,” Saro-Saro said. He brushed furiously at the stone dust covering his leathery hide. He couldn’t manage to get it all off, finally giving up with a disgusted grunt. His back and shoulders bled in numerous places, and a deep gash on his belly glistened in the light. “Squeezed through,” he told Mudwort as he pointed at the worst wound. “Hurt to squeeze through.” A sad expression claimed his face. “Squeezed bad and walked on the smashed ones. Walked on broken brothers.”
Direfang was helping the last trapped goblin, one cradling a broken arm. Then he pulled down a dozen more stones so a larger hobgoblin could fit through with two ore sacks she refused to leave behind. “How many smashed?” Direfang demanded of the final survivor to be s
aved.
She shrugged and positioned the ore sacks over her shoulders, shook her head brusquely, and started up the tunnel that would take her by Mudwort’s blessed stream.
“How many?” Direfang repeated to the goblins clustered around him. There were more than two dozen who had crossed from the other side.
Saro-Saro sucked on his lower lip. “Broken? Smashed? Many, Direfang. Too many goblins have been smashed and broken. Should have listened to Mudwort. Should have believed Mudwort about the very bad something.”
“Quake,” Direfang replied. “It’s called an earthquake, Saro-Saro. And knowing it was coming would not have changed anything. The taskmasters would still have sent goblins to the mines. Goblins would still have been smashed.” He paused, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Of course, it probably smashed a lot of Dark Knights too.”
“Many knights dead too,” said Mudwort. “Many, many.”
“Not enough of them Dark Knights,” Saro-Saro grumbled. “Too many goblins smashed, broken. Not enough knights broken.” He spit a gob of mud out on the ground. “Not enough water.” He looked up the tunnel. The hobgoblin with the ore had trundled out of sight. Then he looked up at Direfang, cocking his head. Saro-Saro obviously didn’t want to stay in the mine any longer, yet he didn’t want to go outside either. “Ore lost,” he said. “Back there. Left it. Trouble, trouble, trouble.”
Direfang reached out a clawed hand and almost touched Saro-Saro then gestured up the tunnel. “Go outside. Safer there. There will be no trouble for escaping the mine and leaving the ore behind. All must go now. Make certain a knight does some mending, one of the skull men.”
“Yes, find a skull man.”
The Skull Knights were usually quick to heal goblins and hobgoblins injured in the mine-not out of any sense of compassion or because their priestly order required them to help, but for the economic reasons. If they let the goblins die, there would be a smaller slave pool. A smaller mining force meant less ore would be mined each day, and that would not be acceptable to Marshal Montrill. Direfang knew the Skull Knights would see to their own first, but once Saro-Saro and the others got outside, they would eventually be helped.
“Hurry,” Direfang ordered. “Hurry now. Take Leftear too. The skull men help heal.”
Saro-Saro glanced at the goblin with a broken arm then gave Direfang an uncertain look. “Trouble, trouble, trouble,” he muttered. “Should have listened to Mudwort.” Then he turned and headed up the tunnel, the rest of the freed goblins and the other hobgoblin slowly following him.
When they were gone, Direfang picked up the lantern and checked the oil, turning the wick down to conserve the light.
Mudwort watched the rescued miners as they headed toward her precious stream, knowing they would stop and drink and enjoy the water that she thought of as her own discovery.
“Mudwort goes first.” Direfang interrupted her thoughts. He pointed with his free hand toward the gaping hole through the rubble. “Help find more goblins not smashed. Do not let the mountain win by keeping the bodies.”
He spoke to her in the goblin tongue. She knew he was fluent in man’s language-perhaps in others too. He’d been around men longer than she had, practically raised as a slave, he’d told her once. He had escaped and been recaptured more than once. Mudwort knew that with a little effort she could learn much more of man’s ugly speech. But she had more important uses for her mind.
“Mudwort goes first,” he repeated.
With a sigh, knowing she could not refuse her only friend, Mudwort thrust the thought of the cool water to the back of her mind, climbed up the rubble and through the hole, and waited on the other side for Direfang. She sniffed the air, finding it fusty and dust-filled and choking. She wanted to be in the water or outside where the air was better, looking down the mountainside and delighting in the destruction Steel Town had suffered. She cringed when she heard some rocks tumble and saw stone dust filter down from the ceiling. She half expected to be buried by a cave-in, but only a few rocks were disturbed as Direfang forced his broad shoulders through the gap and joined her, his lantern held gingerly in one hand.
He stank of sweat and blood, and she moved away from him but found the air no better a short distance ahead. She reached her left hand to the wall and gingerly touched the stone, then pressed her palm against it before moving deeper and repeating the gesture. Once, she put her ear to a spot, but heard nothing other than Direfang’s breathing and the pounding of her heart. At another place she paused and put her mouth to the wall where a rivulet of water ran down from an underground stream just overhead. A half mile later, they stopped where a shaft had collapsed. Caught in the rocks were easily a dozen slaves, arms and legs protruding at sickening angles, picks and scraps of canvas from ore sacks in the mess.
Blood pooled at the base, and Direfang stepped in the sticky puddle when he tugged on a pick until it came loose suddenly and brought several chunks of stone down near them. He stepped back again to get a better look at the collapse.
“Tarduk!” Use care, Mudwort warned. She sensed that the mass might be unstable and could tell that at its top was a slab of ceiling filled with thick cracks. She tipped her chin up and got Direfang’s attention. Another crack appeared and thickened as they watched, spreading in all directions. “All smashed, the goblins here. All dead, Direfang. Nothing to save.”
“But Direfang could break the dead to save the spirits.” He made a move toward the wall of rubble again, bowed his head almost reverently, then reached out and clutched an arm protruding from the jumble of rocks. He tore it off, and the next and the next, flinging the limbs against the wall behind him. Then he made a move to start grabbing the rocks to clear the corridor but stopped when Mudwort tugged at him and shook her head, mouthing smashed smashed smashed.
To convince him to leave that place alone, she touched the rocks warily, avoiding the jutting limbs that looked as though they were grasping at her.
She continued brushing across one rock after another, finding one chunk especially smooth and dark and with a winding red vein that suggested a rich ore content.
“Thick here, this collapse,” she told Direfang after several moments. “Too thick. Rocks deep behind here. Rocks forever.”
The hobgoblin stayed an arm’s length away but held the lantern close. A line of drool spilled over his lower lip and onto the floor. “Goblins trapped behind it, dead or not.”
“Maybe,” Mudwort admitted. “But nothing to be done now.”
Direfang snarled. “Later, then.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe. Come back with more help later. Dig the goblins out.”
Mudwort entertained the notion of leaving the tunnel right then and visiting her wonderful stream on the way to looking down on the Dark Knights’ ruined camp again. “Later come back, Direfang. With more goblins to help dig out the dead.”
Direfang turned, straightening and knocking his head against the ceiling. He snarled again and stooped to retrace his steps until they came to a place where another shaft bisected the main one. There was a collapsed section several yards ahead that did not completely seal off the tunnel. He crept closer.
There was blood on the wall, streaks that could have been made by goblins and hobgoblins squeezing themselves through. Direfang would not be able to fit through that tight spot, so Mudwort turned to retrace her steps.
Then she heard the tink of him setting the lantern down and the crunch of rocks being moved out of the way.
“Tarduk, Direfang!”
He ignored her, working quickly and clumsily until there was a space big enough for him to fit through. He picked up the lantern again and stared at her.
“Mudwort needs to help with this.” Then he disappeared through the opening. “Mudwort needs to help now.”
The goblin shook her head and rubbed her belly, feeling it slosh pleasantly with the water she’d drunk. “Mudwort help,” she glumly parroted. Then she followed him through.
6
CHAOS TOWN
Grallik doubled over coughing, unable to get the dirt out of his mouth. His chest felt so tight and hot, his lungs like charred wood. His eyes were filled with dirt too, burning so fiercely he could make out nothing with his vision. Everything was a blur of gray and brown and pain.
The misery sent his mind back more than sixty years to when he was a child in the great Qualinesti Forest. His parents, both half-elves, lived in the village of Willow Knot, in a small house, in front of which was an herb shop.
It had been a cold night, and a fire burned in the hearth.
Grallik’s parents and his twin sister hadn’t known there was magic in him or that he’d been testing his growing abilities when no one was looking. They didn’t see him crook a small finger at the hearth that night and coax the flames to lick outward and grow brighter and higher. He’d only intended to make the room warmer. They didn’t see him flee when the flames spread to the rug and flowed up the walls, stretched out to burn the left side of him before he fell out the back door, gasping for air as he was gasping at that moment.
He heard his family’s screams that night. They were worse, he thought, than the cries of the laborers caught in the quake. The roar of the fire in his house and his trapped parents’ and sister’s screams were always in his memory, louder than the rumbling of the ground, and had risen over the voices of everyone in Steel Town just minutes ago.
Chaos Town should be the camp’s new name, he mused as his eyes finally watered enough so he could see, though dimly. The dirt that caked his face had turned to a clay muck that stung and felt heavy and hurtful. There was nothing to be done for it at the moment, he knew. But he’d get to a Skull Knight soon and have the man tend his eyes and to his tender ribs.
Grallik was on his hands and knees outside what was left of his workshop. A cloud of dust and dirt hovered around him and above the ground for as far as he could see, as persistent as the early morning fog that usually wrapped itself around the tall grass of the Qualinesti Forest. Shapes moved in the haze; knights, he recognized, by their posture, heads held high. They wore helmets despite the awful heat and the dust cloud, and Grallik imagined that their sweating faces must be covered with dirt that lined their eye slits. He brushed at his face, managing only to smear the dirt around.
