The Rebellion s-1

by Jean Rabe

  “Folami dead.” Mudwort shook her head. He was a young, strong goblin, and she used to enjoy listening to his stories-not that she’d ever told him that, but she listened while in the slave pens. She watched as more goblins died, the ogres bashing their heads with clubs and rocks, then hurling the bodies into the still-surging army.

  Mudwort looked around to spot others she knew, seeing Moon-eye near Direfang and instantly scowling. “Should not be there.” She tsked. “Should be with Graytoes.” If Moon-eye shared Folami’s fate, Graytoes would be devastated. To lose a baby and a mate could be too much for the goblin to bear. Mudwort did not want the responsibility of looking after a grieving Graytoes, nor should the task fall to Direfang.

  “Moon-eye, come here!” Her words were not loud enough to carry down the rise and into the village. But she repeated them twice more, feeling a little better just for saying them. She’d made a token effort to save Graytoes’ mate.

  The ogres were more formidable than the Dark Knights, she realized after only a few moments. First of all, the ogres were not as tired and broken as the knights had been. There’d been time for them to rest since the second earthquake, and they were larger and stronger than the knights in Steel Town. As she watched, one of the ogres lifted a hobgoblin over his head.

  “Erguth?” Mudwort was on her feet, hand cupped over her wide eyes, staring. “No. Not Erguth. Someone else.” She didn’t know that hobgoblin’s name, but from his coloring, she knew him to be a friend of Direfang’s. And she saw Direfang racing toward the brutish ogre, Erguth close behind him. Direfang was coated with blood, and Mudwort hoped fervently it was ogre blood and not his own. He’d not yet wholly recovered from the wounds the knights and quakes had inflicted.

  Mudwort turned her gaze to another part of the battle and saw Spikehollow lead a band of goblins toward the slave pens, quickly dispatching two guards and starting work at pulling apart the old wood slats. All the goblins had caught the blood fever; the desire to fight was infectious. Spikehollow gestured here and there to various goblins, and though she couldn’t hear him, she knew he was barking orders.

  Direfang was also ordering goblins around, as was Saro-Saro, who had foolishly joined the battle. Old Hurbear stood on the rise just below her, watching, though after a moment more he started creeping down for a closer look. The goblins fought just as fiercely as they had in Steel Town, but they fought better, Mudwort realized. They followed Direfang’s and Saro-Saro’s directions with little hesitation.

  The goblins were already a better-organized army, Mudwort recognized. They were not as disciplined as the Dark Knights, who had drilled each day in Steel Town, and their weapons were still wielded awkwardly, sometimes ineffectually. But nonetheless, the goblins acting in unison were … fearsome.

  “Amazing,” Mudwort whispered. In her years before slavery, she’d seen goblins work together only for small, specific tasks, such as hunting parties. She looked back to Direfang. She could not locate him for several moments and worried that an ogre might have killed him. She finally spotted him by the building with the stone wall, still holding his left arm close to his side. Crelb was nearby, shouting at him.

  The goblins had fought their way through half the ogre village by then and had killed at least twenty of the huge brutes. Ogre children were being herded into houses, and Brak motioned for some of his fellows to pursue them. Mudwort thought it unnecessary to kill the young. She quickly changed her mind when she thought of the ogres who had captured her long ago with even younger members of her clan.

  “Kill the ogres,” she hissed. “Kill even the younglings.” She squeezed the rock spire in her excitement, eyes darting from one end of the village to the next, slapping her foot against the ground when she watched the goblin and hobgoblin slaves spill out of the broken pen and rush to join the fight. Most of the humans stayed huddled, though two skinny men ran away toward the far trail that led east out of the village. The goblins did not try to stop them. The pathetic humans weren’t the enemy there.

  The spire beneath Mudwort’s fingers continued to tingle and pass its anxiety on to her. The ground continued to tremble, still faintly, and coupled with the heady scents and sounds of the battle, she found the moment supremely pleasurable. She sensed creatures still moving above and below the ground and heard the cries of birds that flew to the east. It was difficult to divide her attention between the earth and the battle in the ogre village, but she tried.

  The fight did not last as long as the one in Steel Town, and Mudwort was vaguely disappointed about that. It all simply ended too soon. More goblins died there than in Steel Town, but things seemed to even out with the addition of the freed slaves from the ogre pens. She made herself more comfortable, sitting in a shallow depression of earth, and watched as Direfang directed goblins to gather up their dead brethren and burn them, using the slats from the slave pen as kindling.

  Saro-Saro had put himself in charge of raiding the ogres’ storehouse, which was the building inside the stone wall. Wisely, he did not allow the goblins to feast, but instructed them to spread out the food and wait. Hurbear joined him, sharing in the authority and responsibility.

  There was some chaos, and Mudwort found that more interesting to watch. Brak and other young goblins dashed from fallen ogre to fallen ogre, prying loose pouches and other things of value as keepsakes to mark their bravery in the fight. One goblin used a knife to cut wooden beads out of an ogre’s beard. Another cut off an ogre’s nose and paraded around with it, holding it in front of his own and laughing.

  The goblin army filled the ogre village, flowing through the streets and into the buildings, poking through the rubble and searching through the gardens. Some ate things they discovered, but Saro-Saro was quick to slap them if they were within his reach. The old goblin couldn’t keep all of them from looting and eating, however, so he set his clan to passing out the food as the laborers had done in the mining camp.

  Mudwort wondered if there might be something tasty for her, such as the three beasts roasting over the fire pits, which Hurbear had placed his clan in charge of. Her stomach trembled along with the ground. She considered leaving her perch on the ridge and getting in one of the food lines. The goblins below would defer to her and let her move to the front. She was very thirsty too, and a visit to that small lake-where many of the goblins were drinking-would sate her.

  Still, Mudwort didn’t budge. She couldn’t say what held her at the top of the rise. She watched Graytoes carefully climb down, following the narrow trail that led to the center of the village. A few older goblins also had stayed back from the fight, either not wanting to risk themselves in the battle or preferring to watch it all unfold. They, too, moved down the trail behind Graytoes. Mudwort should follow all of them, she thought. She should get something to eat and certainly something to drink. She was terribly thirsty again.

  What held her there?

  “Something,” she said. “Something is not right.”

  Once more she thought about slipping down into the village, not for food, but to find Moon-eye. If she followed Graytoes, she would find Moon-eye soon enough. The one-eyed goblin had an unnatural talent for scenting things, and Mudwort wanted him to come up there with her and smell the air, smell the air from the ridge top without the blood and dirt filling his senses. He might help her puzzle out what was making the earth anxious. He might be able to figure out what is was that followed them.

  “Something follows.” Mudwort had a twitchy feeling. The earth was telling her that feet walked upon the trail to the north and that they were heading in the direction of the ogre village, following them. She knew the goblin army would be easy to track, but who or what would want to follow so many goblins?

  She looked back down the trail, not able to see all of it because of rocky outcroppings and because it curved and disappeared behind a massive upthrust of granite. The gray sky didn’t help. She glanced up at the glowing volcano peak. The crater was brighter along the rim, perhaps looking so
because everything around it was so dark. It was beautiful.

  “A mountain is going to break,” Mudwort said. She scratched her head and sniffed, smelling sulfur, just as in Steel Town after the earthquakes. “Maybe that mountain is the one that will break, but maybe not. Maybe soon, though.”

  She shrugged, rolling her shoulders and getting to her feet. And after staring at the lava stream for another long moment, she started to make her way down the trail. Whatever followed them was not something she wanted to encounter alone.

  “Moon-eye needs to help find out what walks behind,” she said to herself as she headed down to the scene of the glorious goblin victory.

  26

  BUGS

  Direfang directed one of the goblin clans to pile the ogre bodies against the broken buildings. He had no intention of burning them, as was the practice for goblins; he would not grant them the dignity. Instead, the ogres would be wrapped tight with ropes that Saro-Saro’s clan was salvaging so the bodies would not fall apart when they rotted. He wanted the ogre spirits to be forced to return to intact corpses and, thus, be trapped as slaves forever.

  “Stay here?” Hurbear asked. “Will this be a village for goblins now? Good home, it looks to be.”

  Direfang rubbed his chin with his right hand, a gesture he’d adopted since leaving Steel Town. It was a good place, he thought, the village cradled in the Khalkists. It boasted large gardens, which could be tended to yield sweet beans and potatoes, the latter one of his favorite foods, a lake that would always provide water, and livestock that some of the goblins would soon slay if he didn’t make his way over to the livestock pens and prevent it. Still, as large as the village was, it wasn’t sufficient to support the more than one thousand goblins he’d brought here. It had supported less than two hundred ogres, he guessed from the number of buildings and the number of dead.

  “Some, Hurbear,” Direfang said. “Some goblins could stay here and rebuild this place. Could build lives here and raise families. A good place, yes.”

  “Not enough food for all,” Hurbear returned, making the same assessment Direfang had. “Enough space, but not enough food. Good space, though. Goats and sheep. Good food. Plenty of water.”

  “Hurbear want to stay here? Lead the goblins deciding to stay?”

  The old goblin shrugged his shoulders exaggeratedly. “Direfang stay too? It is a very good place to live and be happy. And it will smell better when the ogres are gone.”

  Direfang looked at the lake. It was indeed a place he could call home, he had to admit. He could select which clans to stay with him. Hurbear’s, of course, and Mudwort. He looked around for the red-skinned goblin. He could use her counsel right then. He wanted her to speak to the earth, tell him what spread away from the place and what stretched farther to the south. He knew something of the world’s geography from listening to the Dark Knights and looking over their shoulders when they were holding meetings. He could read the human language when he worked at it, though he doubted any of the knights had realized they’d inadvertently taught him. He’d read the text on dozens of their maps.

  He was interested in staying in or near the Khalkists, which stretched far into Khur and Blode. He wanted nothing to do with Blode, however, which was a country dominated by ogres and was known for its contemptible and greedy king. There was a vast swamp to the south that would be easy to lose himself in-and perhaps all of his army. It once had been the realm of a black dragon overlord, but the Dark Knights claimed she was dead. There were lesser black dragons, and they might pose a problem. But there likely were relatively few ogres, and that was a favorable thing to consider.

  Too, he’d seen maps of the Plains of Dust, which was a vast area not so dry and desolate as the name indicated. There could be room for many goblin villages there.

  “That land would be the best,” Direfang said to himself. “The Plains of Dust.”

  “What say, Direfang?”

  “Hurbear can stay and lead,” the hobgoblin said. “Stay here in the village that belonged to the monsters. Stay and-”

  “But Direfang is not going to stay.” The old goblin did not pose the statement as a question.

  There were pale reeds in the garden, a plant the hobgoblin was unfamiliar with. He glanced over at them, not meeting the old goblin’s eyes. They made the dry shushing sounds in the breeze that had found its way down the slope.

  “No. South still,” Direfang said, watching the reeds sway. “South to the plains maybe. Hurbear’s clan might like the plains too. Or can stay here and make new village.”

  “Lots of room for goblins in the plains?” Hurbear looked longingly toward the lake then to the lines of goblins forming for their share of food and other spoils. Hurbear was obviously pleased that his clan was taking the lead in keeping the goblins in check around the fire pits and the dwindling beast carcasses.

  “Yes, there is plenty of room in the plains.” Direfang answered firmly, though he wasn’t certain. He’d never been to the Plains of Dust, had only heard some of the Dark Knights talk about the place and had looked at its location several times on maps they’d spread out on a table. If he’d read the maps correctly, there were not many cities marked on the Plains of Dust. “Probably lots of room. More than enough.”

  “Room for a goblin nation?” Hurbear asked, still staring at the jostling food lines.

  “A nation?” Direfang followed the old goblin’s gaze and saw that, for the most part, the goblins were acting orderly and not looting the village as haphazardly as they had Steel Town. Some were frantic but not many. “There would be no more goblin slaves in the Plains of Dust, Hurbear. Not sheep anymore, the goblins. Wolves. A nation of wolves, Hurbear.”

  “Smart wolves,” Hurbear added, licking his lips. “And crafty ones. Wolves that are working together now.”

  “Together? Yes. Perhaps.” Direfang suddenly realized Hurbear was right. The goblin clans were working together, much better than before. The attack against the ogres had been more controlled, and so was the aftermath.

  The air grew still in the basin, and Direfang looked up at the dark gray clouds scudding across the lighter gray sky. It looked as if rain could be coming, but it didn’t smell like rain. He inhaled deeply, the scent reminding him of dying fires.

  “Don’t want to stay here long,” he told Hurbear. “The village is a good place, easy to like. But don’t like the sky here. Don’t like the smell. And the smell will worsen when the ogres rot. So head south to the Plains of Dust. There will be enough room for a nation there.”

  The goblins and hobgoblins they’d freed were mingling, some standing in line for food. He saw one helping Brak’s clan tug ogres into a pile. The ground trembled slightly, as it had in Steel Town after the large quakes. The trembling unsettled the goblins, but they continued their tasks.

  “A nation.” Hurbear said, staring intently at Direfang. “Need more goblins to build a good nation, Direfang. More than a thousand here, but still more are needed.”

  The hobgoblin absently nodded. “More goblins for the army and the new nation. More to be found to the south, perhaps, and on the march to the plains. Hobgoblins too. There used to be tribes of hobgoblins in these mountains before the ogres took over and before the minotaurs came. Bugbears would be welcome. Maybe bugbears join this army.”

  There’d been bugbears of significant number in the mountains long ago, Direfang knew. The greater races of Krynn had worked hard to exterminate them, just as the greater races fought the goblins and caught them and turned them into slaves. Rats, he’d heard some of the Dark Knights use to refer to goblinkind, scum, vermin, bugs-just like bugbears-and worse.

  “Goblins used to be bugs for the knights. No more,” Direfang reflected, spitting. “No more bugs.”

  “Yes, bugs!” Hurbear said, sucking in his breath and laughing. “Lots of bugs! Very big bugs! Bug nation!”

  Suddenly, at that very moment, as if called forth by their dialogue, gigantic centipedes erupted from the ground betwee
n the fire pits and what had been the ogres’ communal living area. The creatures had been drawn by the scent of the blood that oozed into the ground and from the vibrations of all the goblins scurrying across their territory. Some were four feet long and as thick as tree trunks, scuttling on their myriad legs and knocking over goblins and hobgoblins.

  Screams filled the air around the communal house as the unprepared goblins became snack food for the centipedes. Direfang pounded past Hurbear, grabbing an ogre club and calling for help as he joined others in fighting their new foe.

  The goblins in line for food were reluctant to budge and lose their places. But as Direfang started raising his club, as long and as thick as his leg, and smashing one centipede after the next, most were drawn by the fun. The goblins had never seen such creatures, so some started calling out names as they bashed them: “bugs,” “monster-bugs,” and “ogre babies.” Other goblins fled in terror, frightened by their hairy, segmented appearance and legs too numerous to count. Others, almost comically, tried to grab the creatures around the middle and squeeze the life out of them.

  Direfang raised his heavy club and smashed one centipede after another as they reared in front of him. Goo splattered in all directions each time he killed one, and he had to slosh through the remains to get to the next creature.

  Goblins slipped in the muck, some falling and becoming prey to the creatures that still spilled out of the cracks in the village floor. Goblin screams mingled with the shrill trilling of the centipedes. Above the noise, Direfang shouted for goblins to slice at the beasts’ heads, which he had discovered was the quickest way to dispatch them.