by Jean Rabe
The words sounded so pretty and soothing, they begged to be heeded. Direfang wanted to obey, hear more of the sweet words.
“Steel Town is the only place you’ll be safe, hobgoblin. Safe from the ogres and minotaurs. Steel Town is home!”
The Skull Knight’s voice wrapped around him like a soft blanket, and Direfang froze in hesitation.
“We will keep all of you safe,” Siggith continued.
The silvery blue fingers of light jumped from Direfang to spread to the goblins behind him and closest around him.
“End this fight and find peace, hobgoblin. Embrace peace, all of you. Drop the blades and rest. Welcome home.”
Direfang’s right arm dropped. “Find peace,” the hobgoblin parroted dully. “Peace. Safety. Home.”
19
FREEDOM FROM DEATH
No! Direfang, do not listen to the skull man!” Mudwort jabbed her fingers at the sides of the hobgoblin’s head. “No!”
“There is peace in Steel Town,” the Skull Knight continued, staring hard at Mudwort.
Many of the goblins trailing Direfang had stopped, and the soft thuds that followed were their knives and daggers hitting the ground. But the spell didn’t reach all of the goblins, and some swarmed past the ensorcelled ones and headed straight for the trio of knights near the well.
“No, Direfang!” Mudwort clawed at his face, jarring the hobgoblin back to reality. “No muddled mind, Direfang! No time for a muddled mind!” She thumped her heels against his chest for good measure. “Move, Direfang! Kill the skull man!”
A heartbeat more, and the haze in his mind lifted. Mudwort hammered at his shoulders to spur him on. With a deep breath and a shake of his head, he started racing forward again, his mind clearing, bent on throttling the life out of the priest. But Direfang was not able to reach the man because he was surrounded by a deep press of enthralled goblins.
The two knights at the priest’s side were still alive and fighting, slashing away at as many goblins as they could reach. Those two were clearly elite warriors, Direfang could see. Their moves were precise, and they flaunted many medals on their tabards. And though they were killing one goblin after the next, they couldn’t hold off the mob forever. Again he tried to push forward, gaining a little ground.
Bleeding, snarling goblins who had shrugged off the magic scampered up the men’s legs. Some were bashed aside by the knights’ shields, but others climbed up their tabards and scratched at their faces. More goblins swarmed the knights until it looked as if a leathery goblin hill had grown by the new well. The Skull Knight was swallowed up too.
Direfang watched all the trio fall before he could get close enough to join in the killing. He tried to call out to Spikehollow, but his throat was still too dry. The young goblin was tearing at the priest and oblivious to anything else.
Instead Direfang turned and lumbered toward the benches with the skins and jars on them. He desperately needed water.
“The blasted wizard!” Direfang cursed in a low voice, as much for his own ears as Mudwort’s. He’d found a jar filled with water and drained all of it in one long gulp, regaining his voice. “Not spotted the Gray Robe among the dead, Mudwort. The wizard is the commander now, and must be found and killed in order for goblins to be safe.”
The fight continued behind him, and as his right hand closed on a clay jug, he looked around for the man called Grallik.
“Should have been watching for the wizard. Forgot all about the wizard, Mudwort. In all the blood frenzy and with all the noise, forgot. The most dangerous man is still in camp.”
Direfang knew it was the wizard who had birthed the sheet of flame that kept goblins from escaping with him, and who had summoned the priests to muddle all the slaves’ minds.
So there was at least one priest left in Steel Town, there was the wizard, and there were still plenty of knights who would be coming to fight the goblins. They wouldn’t surrender. They would fight and fight until death.
“With the wounded maybe, the wizard is,” Mudwort said, thinking it over. “Protecting the wounded. Protecting Marshal Montrill.”
Yes, protecting themselves, Direfang thought. Gathering their forces and making a last stand with the wounded. The wizard would have enough sense not to send all of the surviving knights to confront the ravenous army of slaves.
That was when another half dozen knights materialized on horseback, charging into the mass of goblins thronged around the well. The horses panicked the goblins, as the knights, three of them wielding lances, must have anticipated.
Those lances impaled goblins, lifting the bodies high and tossing them behind the horses as they passed. The other three knights were leaning low and lashing out with long swords in their hands, holding the reins between their teeth and using their knees to guide the horses.
Spittle shot from the knights’ mouths as they cursed the escaped slaves and called on the memory of their Dark Queen to aid their struggle. Even the horses seemed in a rage. The animals’ eyes were wide and wild, and foam flecked on their lips. They reared back, flailing out with their front hooves and coming down hard, crushing goblins everywhere they stepped. The harsh whinnies, coupled with the clash of swords and the screams of the slaves, unnerved even Direfang.
“Only six horses, six men,” Mudwort said. Yet there was a quaver in her voice the hobgoblin had never heard before. “Only six of each. Should not rout Direfang’s army. Should not. Cannot.” She snorted and jabbed her fingers at the hobgoblin’s shoulder. “Should not, but could. Six of each could undo all this. Big knights on big horses are a scary thing.”
Direfang roared, a welcome sound in his own ears after his throat had been dry for so long. Giving no thought to Mudwort on his shoulders, he hurled himself toward the horsemen, with Mudwort holding on tight, clamping her eyes shut to keep Direfang’s flying hair and the dirt and dust and blood spurting in the air from clouding her vision.
The horses and riders continued their brutal attack. The largest of the knights had two goblins skewered on his lance, the weight tugging the weapon from him when he impaled a third. Releasing it and bellowing, he pulled his long sword just as Direfang reached him. The hobgoblin barreled into the side of the horse with his sword thrust forward. The horse shrieked as the blade cut through its chain barding, and it reared back, trying to edge away, giving Direfang an opening to pull the sword out and jam it in again, deeper, into its belly. Blood showered out and the horse collapsed just as Direfang leaped clear. The beast rolled on its side and momentarily trapped the knight under it.
Mudwort held on so tight, she made it difficult for the hobgoblin to breathe. He spun around behind the fallen horse, pulling his sword free and thrusting it into the struggling knight. Direfang shook his head to get Mudwort to relax her grip. Then he dashed toward another horseman who saw him just in time to swing around and ready his lance.
“Foreman!” the knight bellowed loud enough to be heard above the battle sounds, recognizing Direfang from the mine. “Foreman! To the lowest level of the Abyss with you and all of your kind! May you be food for the worms by midnight!” Then he lowered his lance and prodded his horse into a gallop.
Direfang didn’t balk. He ran straight at the horse and knight, Mudwort still keeping a stranglehold on him. The hobgoblin’s bleeding feet pounded across the hard, uneven ground, stone shards and broken bits of things stabbing at his every step. His hand was so bloody from the fight with the other knight, Direfang nearly lost his grip on the sword. It struck his own leg as he ran, the blade scraping him and throwing the hobgoblin off balance. The mishap proved to his fortune, for Direfang lurched just as the knight’s lance whizzed by. He didn’t avoid the blow completely, though, as the side of the lance caught him and spun him around.
Direfang fell, Mudwort leaping from his shoulders and rolling on the ground to avoid the hobgoblin landing on top of her. The horse reared when the knight pulled back on its reins and brought its hooves down-one clipping the side of Direfang’s head, t
he other just missing. The hobgoblin howled and brought his right hand up to shield his face; his left was still useless from the deep cut on his arm. He howled again, that time in rage, scooping up the sword he’d dropped, jumping to his feet, and swinging hard. Luck guided his aim. Direfang’s blade sliced the horse’s leg, causing it to retreat.
The world seemed off kilter as he struggled to keep his balance. Raising his sword, Direfang took a wobbly step toward the knight, who was dismounting from the injured horse.
“To the Abyss I’ll send you foreman!” The knight gripped the pommel in both hands and bent his knees, assuming a stance that would block Direfang’s charge. “To the Abyss, I say!”
But the hobgoblin didn’t budge. He was having a difficult time just standing erect. The ache in his skull from where the horse clipped him throbbed inside his head and made it difficult for him to concentrate. The thrumming in his head grew louder and louder, and he barely heard the knight cursing at him. He heard too many goblin voices all around. They sounded like the buzzing of persistent flies. His vision was clouding-everything looking feathery.
“I’ll send you and all your pitiful slavekind to the darkest, hottest pit!” The knight began to advance on him when it was obvious that Direfang wasn’t going to charge him first.
Around them, the battle raged. The goblins had managed to unhorse two more knights, beating and tearing at them, and were regaining ground by virtue of their sheer numbers. The two remaining horsemen continued to fight on, concentrating on the hobgoblins, who were proving to be more dangerous because of their size and the long swords they were whipping around maniacally.
The hobgoblins surged forward, one accidentally striking a horse and cutting through links in the chain barding. The mounted knight thrust down with his sword, the blade sliding into the base of the offending hobgoblin’s neck and killing him instantly. Another hobgoblin stepped in and drove his sword so hard into the knight’s leg that it went all the way through and sank into the horse’s side. A third hobgoblin, frenetic with a battle fever, finished the knight and the horse, leaving only one knight on horseback.
“Traitorous foreman!” Several yards away, the other knight continued to taunt and spar with Direfang. “I’ll die this day, I know it. Perhaps all of my brethren will die. But I’ll take you with me to the bottommost pit!”
Direfang offered no retort. It was all he could do to remain on his feet. He felt the weight of the sword in his right hand but couldn’t tell if it was raised and pointed at the knight. The knight looked blurry and indistinct to him, like a watercolor painting where all the colors had run together in the rain. All the noises ran together too, words sounding nonsensical and punctuated by the clang of swords.
“Do you hear me, beast?” The knight took a step closer then another step. “Do you hear me, you damnable, hairy thing? I’ll see you in the pit!” He wove his sword in a disciplined pattern and, noting that the hobgoblin’s eyes did not follow his movements, smiled and pulled the blade high above his head.
“Now!” Mudwort hollered. “Direfang, now!”
In the same moment that the Dark Knight started to bring the sword down, intending to cleave through the hobgoblin, Mudwort dashed in and shoved a dagger into the gap between the knight’s leg plates. The knight howled in surprise as his knee buckled. Mudwort tried futilely to pull the dagger free, but it was stuck fast. She leaped back, narrowly avoiding his sword crashing down, thunking impotently against the earth.
“Direfang, kill the knight now!”
Stirred by Mudwort, Direfang lumbered forward, lifting his sword arm as high as he could. The sword came down sluggishly but met resistance. Direfang pushed forward, planting his feet as his sword pierced the Dark Knight’s abdomen, and knight and hobgoblin fell upon each other in a heap.
Mudwort darted in close and grabbed at her dagger. She wasn’t able to tug it free, but she wrenched it back and forth to cause more excruciating pain for the knight. In a daze, Direfang tugged his own sword free and shoved it into the knight again, satisfied when the blood spilling out washed over his hand. The knight gasped, then lay still. The hobgoblin pushed away from the body and sat, blinking furiously, trying to make some sense of the chaos around him.
“Dead, the knight is,” Mudwort said. “Dead, all the horse knights are. It’s a good dead.” She stood in front of the hobgoblin, brushing at his face. “Hurt, Direfang is. Head sour, eh? But not hurt too bad.” She proceeded to describe the action around them: goblins swarming Dark Knights, more goblins snatching up skins and jars and hurrying to the well. Three hobgoblins running with squealing sheep under their arms.
“It is a good madness,” Mudwort told Direfang. “More Dark Knight blood soaks the ground than goblin blood. Perhaps the earth will not be so angry now. So much blood, the earth cannot drink it all up. Perhaps the earth will stop shaking.”
Direfang held his hand to his aching head then pushed himself to his knees. The world circled around him, and when it finally stopped, he slowly raised himself to his feet and shook out his shoulders then reached down and grabbed the bloody hilt of the long sword and pulled hard until the blade came free.
Things swam into focus. It was as Mudwort described: death and blood everywhere. His head pounded fiercely.
Despite all the pain he felt, the hobgoblin was pleased. They’d managed to rout the Dark Knights with fewer fatalities than might be expected. There were still more knights in the camp, probably gathered at the infirmary.
But they were done for the moment, weren’t they?
They’d won their way to blessed, sweet water and to food. Goblins and hobgoblins were leading away goats and sheep and carrying flapping chickens by the feet. One tugged on the reins of a big black horse. Goblins were pulling cloaks and tabards from dead knights, trousers and shirts from dead laborers and their families. Direfang saw Brak stripping the clothes from a small boy, an innocent boy-maybe that should bother him, he who had never killed anyone before that day.
But he didn’t feel anything toward the dead human child-only grief for the dead slaves.
He struggled toward the benches, where there were still water containers, pain lancing down his back. Mudwort scampered at his side, mumbling to herself and tugging on his trousers to get him to pause at the body of another dead knight. She retrieved a dagger and tugged free a bloodied tabard, and they moved on.
“Thirsty?” she asked him as she picked up a clay jug. “Cracked.” She dropped the jug and picked up another, then pointed to a large stoppered skin. Direfang took it and grabbed another and shuffled toward the well.
Close by, there were only a few more knights fighting, but goblins overran them, killed them quickly, and began looting their corpses. Fires burned here and there from where the combatants had knocked lanterns over on benches and posts.
“Must burn the dead,” Mudwort said, noting Direfang’s interest in the fires.
“But not the Dark Knights,” he returned. He dropped his sword, stretched out on his belly, and dangled his arms into the well, bringing up handful after handful of water and drinking deeply. He splashed water on his face and neck and tossed handfuls on his back. Other goblins ringed the well and were doing the same. Mudwort waited for her turn.
When Direfang had his fill, which took some time, he dipped the skins into the water and held them there until they filled almost to bursting. He stoppered and slung them both over one shoulder, got up, and retrieved his long sword.
“Yes, the dead must burn,” he told Mudwort. “Time to see to that.”
“Not many dead, though,” she said. “Not compared to the Dark Knights.”
“No, not too many to burn,” he agreed.
Direfang and another hobgoblin set about gathering the goblin bodies and piling them around the benches where the waterskins had been arranged. He ordered Spikehollow and Folami to scour the grounds for other dead slaves, then worked to coax a fire from a lantern burning low. When the bodies started to burn, he headed toward
where the slave pens had been. His head still throbbed terribly, and the pain pulsed down his back each time he put weight on his right foot. The thrumming noise in his head and the victory shouts and yelping of the goblins were nearly overwhelming.
“From the death of the Dark Knights, there comes freedom!” A wiry goblin named Crelb was shouting. He stood on a bench, cupping his hands around his mouth for all to hear his words. “Freedom from death! Freedom for goblins!”
Direfang passed by, raising his long sword in salute.
“Freedom, because of Direfang!” Crelb yelled louder. “Freedom from death! Freedom from Dark Knights!”
Some goblins around Crelb cheered, some called the hobgoblin’s name over and over until it sounded like a chant. Others at the edge of the crowd barked questions: What would happen next? Where should they go? What was freedom?
Direfang held his right forearm to his head, then dropped his sword arm to his side, the blade thudding against the hard earth. “Yes, what is, what was freedom?” he muttered. “It was years and years ago, and it tasted very good.”
“What Direfang say?” Mudwort hadn’t heard him clearly.
“Time to free the rest of the slaves,” Direfang replied. “The ones with still-muddled minds.” He thought about having another drink of water. The dirt- and sulfur-filled air had dried out his mouth very quickly. But more than anything, he wanted to get out of Steel Town, and so he walked toward the huge milling crowd of a few hundred glassy-eyed goblins.
“Minds all muddled,” Mudwort said, still at his side. “Badly stuck.”
Direfang nudged some of them east and started in that direction himself, expecting them to follow. Then he called for those members of his army who could hear him and waved his sword arm in the air, gesturing east. His other arm was practically useless. His army slowly started to move. But still, the glassy-eyed slaves did not budge, pushing back against the wave of goblins urging them to leave Steel Town.
