by Jean Rabe
Grallik edged closer. “Will we live, priest?” he whispered. “If we reach out to the goblins and seek to join with them, will we survive? Or is this some foolish, foolish gamble I intend? Ask the mother goddess that, Horace.”
The priest grew silent, his hands cupped in front of the new bone formation, muscles in his cheeks quivering. Grallik was about ready to poke the man, but then Horace’s lips started moving again. Grallik watched close and made out a few words: Zeboim, Iverton, slaves, breath. Then the priest leaned forward and traced a pattern in the dirt with his right index finger. It was the shell of a turtle, one of Zeboim’s symbols.
“Zeboim, mot her goddess, the goblin ar my rages. So many of our brethren the goblins have killed. Brutal, as if a blood fever seized them, pools of blood so thick the land here in this mining camp cannot soak it all up. Retreating blessedly, finally, the army took their kind with them to the east.”
Horace himself fell in the fight, next to a horse a hobgoblin had gutted, Grallik reflected. He thought the hobgoblin would gut the priest too and was surprised when the creature moved on. No doubt the priest looked dead or dying and not worth the effort, and it wasn’t until long minutes after the goblins had retreated that Horace finally stirred. The priest had tended himself, the familiar healing glow spreading from his fingertips to his own chest and legs, the cuts and wounds magically closing, repairing.
“We can find them, mother goddess, such an army leaves tracks easily followed. If we listen, we might hear them, as such an army cannot travel silently. But if we follow, wise Zeboim, will they kill us? Will their battle fever take hold again? Will we fall to their stolen weapons and their filthy claws? Will they kill the four of us, as they killed so many, many of our brethren? Or will they accept us into their camp?”
Grallik stared at the bones and wondered who they had belonged to, or what. He wondered how bones helped the priest divine the answers to his questions and if the goddess truly spoke to him. He might not have cared for the Ergothian, but he knew him to be a truthful man and the goddess worthy of respect. Grallik glanced at the turtle shell drawn in the dirt. But there was no trace of it any more, the ground hard and cracked where it had been. The priest’s spell was taking so long …
“They will not kill us, Grallik. The goblins, they will not kill any of us. They will listen to you and to me-though it will require much persuasion, and they will take us into their fold and be thankful for the healing I will give their injured.” Horace’s face was not as confident as his words.
Grallik jumped to his feet, tugging Horace up as soon as he’d replaced the bones in his pocket. “Then we must leave now, Skull Knight. Get out of Steel Town now and forever.”
Horace shook his head. “I am not a Skull Knight, Grallik. Not if I leave with you. Not anymore, so do not call me that. I am, however, always and forever a priest of Zeboim. And I, too, want to leave Iverton and its memories far behind.” He brushed at his tabard, trying to clean a splotch of blood. The gesture futile, he finally gave up. “But you are right, Gray Robe. We must leave now, or there will be no leaving.”
The priest moved too slowly to satisfy Grallik, and so their course had been plodding as they pursued the goblin army. Fortunately, the army moved slowly too, no doubt because of its size and because it stopped to feast and rest.
One day earlier, Kenosh had discovered the remains of a herd of mountain goats far off the side of the trail. They had covered good ground and found the goblins.
The goblins did not kill them. But, Grallik reflected bitterly, the goblins put them in chains.
“Slaves.” Grallik spat the word aloud. Above and behind him, Grunnt made a noise that could have passed for a chuckle.
“Slaves,” Grunnt repeated. The hobgoblin pointed his knife at Grallik then at Horace, Kenosh, and Aneas. “Slaves.” That was followed by more noises that were a goblin’s laughter.
“I’ll wager that’s the only word in the Common tongue you know,” Grallik said, noting that the hobgoblin’s eyes showed no hint of understanding what he was saying. “Aye, you stinking, hairy beast, we are your slaves. For now.”
Grallik closed his eyes, trying to sleep, but sleep evaded him. His feet pained him. His eyes burned from something toxic in the air. In general he ached all over. Perhaps if he’d felt well, and if his mind had been functioning properly, he would not have rushed off after the goblins. He would have decided on a different course of action. Leaving the Order? Probably, certainly, that was inevitable, though it was all he’d known for decades.
Going after the red-skinned goblin was a shrewd strategy, he’d concluded. She might offer a possible path to a different future. He tried to find her, peering out across the ogre village through narrowed eyes. There were hundreds of goblins, more than one thousand, he guessed. They filled the basin, most of them sleeping. But many were awake-talking, arguing. Mothers suckled babies. Guards patrolled. From time to time, small groups of goblins, young from the looks of them, came close to the pen to ogle and point and chuckle at the human slaves. But he didn’t spot the red-skinned goblin.
Quite some time had passed, and the wizard wondered if it was nearing morning. Then he saw her.
Grallik’s eyes snapped wide open, and he moved to the railing. There she was, sitting in the middle of one of the roads that bisected the village. She was with another goblin, a brown-skinned one with an odd-looking, milky eye. He’d seen her with that goblin before, in the slave pens in Steel Town. Friends or family perhaps, Grallik guessed, maybe mates. Clansmen? He knew the goblins came from various clans throughout Neraka, Khur, and farther distant. He’d learned that much from listening to Marshal Montrill talk about the slaves and where the ogres and minotaurs had captured them. But Grallik knew nothing about the goblins’ coloration and that skin hue usually marked them as being from one clan or another.
He stared intently, not caring if the two goblins noticed his attentive gaze. The one with the milky, useless eye glanced at him briefly. They were both interested in something on the ground. No, Grallik realized after a moment-not something on the ground, they were studying the ground itself.
“Interesting,” he said aloud and considered waking up the priest so he could observe the two goblins too. But Horace was busy snoring, as was Aneas-the two seemed to be making a contest out of it. A glance over his shoulder told him that Kenosh slept too, though more quietly. The man’s chest rose and fell so lightly, a casual observer might think him dead. How could they sleep in such filth? The pen stank of goblins and waste and garbage. He had tried to fall asleep but found the situation all too unsettling.
Grallik couldn’t see precisely what the two goblins were doing. The light from the lantern didn’t stretch that far. But he could tell that the red-skinned goblin-Mudwort, as the big hobgoblin had called her-was tracing patterns in the dirt in front of her and the milky-eyed one. He remembered Horace drawing the symbol of a turtle shell and wanted desperately to know if Mudwort was drawing something similar.
A symbol of her god? Just what did goblins worship?
A symbol of her clan?
He watched her trace designs for another few moments then saw her tip her head back, eyes closed and mouth moving. It was quiet enough in that part of the basin that he could have heard her, except she wasn’t speaking audibly. The milky-eyed goblin placed his hands over the area Mudwort had disturbed, palms flat and leaning forward so all of his weight was on his hands. He cocked his head, as if listening to something, and Grallik wondered if perhaps Mudwort was indeed talking in a hushed tone that didn’t carry to the pen.
Then the milky-eyed goblin looked up, sniffing the air, and a moment later sucked in great lungfuls of it.
The very thought made Grallik gag. The air reeked. The wizard smelled his own filthy body, his sweat and that of his companions. And the stench of the goblins-like wet mongrels, they smelled. The scent of blood was heavy in the air too, and many things worse than blood. Animals and ogres had been gutted, and goblin fl
esh had been burned. Ogre bodies were piled here and there, starting to rot.
Grallik had watched them burn the corpses of the goblins, though they did nothing but pile up the bodies of the dead ogres. And the surviving goblins had performed some sort of ritual over the dead goblins they burned. He didn’t understand their chanting, but he’d participated in enough Dark Knight ceremonies to know a ritual when he saw one. Come to think of it, he remembered the goblins doing something similar in Steel Town after the quakes, when all the bodies of the dead slaves had been piled high and lit on fire.
So the goblins were more interesting, complex creatures than he’d first believed, and the two who sat on the road pondering the ground were the most interesting and complex of all. They had magic abilities. Grallik could smell their abilities over all the horrid, disgusting odors that hung in the village and that were held cloyingly close by the thick cover of clouds. He could smell the magic.
“Come closer,” he whispered. “Please, please, come closer.” Finally, the two goblins raised their voices loud enough that their words carried faintly to him. But they were talking in their guttural goblin tongue, and Grallik understood none of their words. Still, he continued watching, his fatigue forgotten as his mind churned.
“By the memory of the Dark Queen’s heads!” he breathed. “What they do is not possible! They work together! They combine their abilities! They combine their magic!”
30
SUFFERING PAIN
What does Moon-eye smell?” Mudwort still had her head tilted up, eyes closed not because her magic required it but because there was something in the air that made her eyes sting. She leaned forward and breathed into his face then stretched back and stared at him. “What smell, Moon-eye?”
“Fire,” he answered, though the funeral pyres had been extinguished for quite some time. “Fire and stone. Stone smells, Mudwort. The rocks with ore smell different than this rock all around the village. The village rocks smell beautiful, but the rocks deeper and farther away smell as if they are in pain. Pain smells too … and suffering.”
Moon-eye fumbled for words to better explain everything he was sensing to Mudwort, but she waved him off.
“Understand fine,” she said. Then she thrust the fingers of her left hand into the small stretch of dirt between them, her nails plunging in effortlessly, as though she were driving them into warm butter instead of the hard-packed earth.
“The earth itself suffers,” she told Moon-eye. “Not right here, but it will suffer bad here soon. Farther away, it feels pain right now, like Graytoes felt pain when the skull man took the baby. And that pain will come closer, move through the earth like worms wriggling. Deeper there is intense suffering pain. Layers of pain and suffering.”
A hobgoblin walked past them, toting skins filled with some sort of potent alcohol over his shoulder. He paused and stared at Mudwort, her fingers stuck in the dirt, made a snorting sound at them, then moved on.
“Yes, pain smells strong and bad, Mudwort.” Moon-eye sniffed the air again to be certain. “Smells worse than men.” He gestured with his head toward the slave pens and smiled at his own humor. “Smell the dead ogres, rotting ogres, tasty sheep and goats and chickens. Smell those things too.” He nodded his head toward the far side of the village where the livestock was being kept. “Smell Graytoes too. That is a very good smell. But the pain of the rocks, that smell …” He made a face and spat, as if spitting out something spoiled.
“Join in this,” Mudwort said.
At first Moon-eye didn’t know what she meant. Then he tentatively brought a hand forward, near hers, prodding the hard earth. He recoiled in surprise when his fingers sank in alongside hers. The ridges above his eyes rose in curiosity, then his expression turned instantly grim and serious, his lips thrust forward. A moment later, he leaned close and drove both hands into the yielding ground, just as she had.
“Feels like mud,” he said with a slight grin. He moved his fingers easily through the hard earth, reaching out with his right hand and stretching until his fingers touched Mudwort’s own buried left hand. “Feels odd … but good.”
“Smell the world now,” Mudwort encouraged Moon-eye. She thrust her right hand deep into the ground and edged forward until she touched his left hand, keeping her hand close to his. “Think strong, Moon-eye. Think and do nothing else except think. See the world now. See the world together.”
Moon-eye’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but he quickly recovered. “Don’t understand, Mudwort! What is this?”
“There is something special about Moon-eye,” Mudwort explained. “Felt it a while back, in the slave pens. Could do nothing about it then-slaves then. Do something now, together. Smell the world together, Moon-eye. What do you smell?”
He sucked in a deep breath then another, his good eye widening even more as he explored his power. “Smelling the stone,” Moon-eye repeated. “Seeing the stone on the sides of mountains, smooth and pretty, shiny black. More stones are not smooth, though. Look like bugs have bored inside. Holes all over, and those stones feel rough and have felt pain. Are dead now, those stones. Some dead, but felt pain once.”
“Feel their pain too,” Mudwort said. “It is those rocks that suffered the most, the ones with holes. Warm, those rocks are like the charred wood at the bottom of a fire. Where are these hole-filled rocks, Moon-eye?”
The one-eyed goblin furrowed his brow and sniffed again, putting his face down close to the dirt until his nose brushed it. “Far … but not far.” He pressed his nose all the way into the earth, then quickly withdrew it. “Too close, Mudwort. The suffering pain is too close, the pain will come here soon. Leave here. Direfang must know now, all goblins must leave!”
Beneath the surface, Mudwort grabbed Moon-eye’s fingers before he could pull them out and held them tightly. “Tell Direfang soon, Moon-eye. Together tell him. But there is more to see and smell first. Learn more first.”
Moon-eye tried to tug free, but Mudwort’s grip was strong. “Look to the south, Moon-eye, where Direfang wants to go.”
He fought against her a moment more then relented. “The mountains glow, Mudwort. To the south and west, some mountains glow.” There was awe in his voice, his good eye glimmering excitedly. “The one nearest this village, the one seen from the top of that crest. It glows so very, very bright. And others. The ones near Steel Town glow brightest. The not-hurting mountains are to the north of this place.”
Mudwort said, “What the quake started, disturbing the sleeping, angry earth-”
“The glowing mountains will finish.” Moon-eye completed for her, grinning. “Good, the mountains will bury Steel Town forever.”
“But not good that they could bury any more goblins. Here, there is danger too.” Mudwort still held his hands tight. “There is more, Moon-eye. See it? See this amazing thing?”
“Yes. But what is it? Beautiful. What is it? Frightening. What is it?”
Mudwort shrugged as Moon-eye stared at the ground, cracks radiating outward from his wrists.
“What is that thing, Mudwort?”
She shrugged again, releasing his hands. “Direfang wants to go south, and that is to the south,” she said. “The frightening thing could be there, on the way.”
“Could be dangerous,” Moon-eye said, though his eye was still glimmering with excitement.
“Direfang does not need to know that,” Mudwort said flatly, standing and brushing the dirt from her palms. “Moon-eye thirsty?”
He nodded. “Direfang and Moon-eye’s Heart are at the lake.”
“Good to be thirsty, then, eh?” Mudwort led the way down the road, fully aware as she had been all the time, that the wizard was watching her, still watching her.
When Direfang approached the slave pen, the hobgoblin guards were quick to wake up the knights. A dozen goblins had gathered behind Direfang, all of them wielding knives.
“It is Grunnt’s turn to sleep now,” Direfang told the hobgoblin guard in charge. “Sleep very quick
. Soon we go.” He spoke in the Common tongue to the knights, who were still rubbing their eyes. “Time grows near to leave this place.”
Grallik jumped to his feet, obviously angry with himself for dropping off to sleep in this filthy place. “Where are we going?”
Direfang worked a kink out of his shoulder and dug the ball of his foot into the ground. “South is all you need to know.”
“Where south?”
“Just south.” Direfang growled and thrust his bottom jaw out. “It is not safe here, Mudwort says. Clearly, it does not look safe.” He pointed to the sky, which had lightened a little, though the dark gray clouds remained an ominous sight.
The sky was light enough that Grallik could see the goblins already getting ready to leave the village. They had packs and sacks filled to bulging-skins fat with water from the lake. Jugs were also filled with water, stoppered, and held in nets slung over the shoulders of the stronger hobgoblins. Goats, sheep, and cows were tethered at the base of the trail, and the cows had sacks and blankets draped across their backs. The army was taking everything of value that could be carried or dragged along with them. The livestock would last them a couple of days but little more than that because of the goblins’ sheer numbers and ravenous appetites.
The sight of the army ready to march clearly alarmed Grallik, as did the steam rising from cracks in the ground that had appeared during the darkness. All over the village the earth had swelled, as though things beneath the ground were trying to push their way upward, cracks appearing everywhere.
“Thought more giant bugs were coming,” Direfang said. “Like the one killed by the fire spell. Not bugs, though.”
“But there wasn’t any trace of steam when the centipedes attacked yesterday, was there?” Grallik asked. “This is something else.”