by Jean Rabe
Direfang recalled seeing nine mountains of fiery war on the map, most of them scattered amid the Khalkist chain, two or three of them quite near Steel Town. Ever since that night, he would often look to the nearest two, sometimes seeing their crowns glowing, sometimes seeing gray clouds hover above them. From time to time, ribbons of red flowed from their tops, and he later learned the Dark Knights called these red rivers lava. The goblins had a word for the red rivers too: eldura-bundok, mountain fire.
“This army must keep going south, Direfang. Faster, even if some are left behind. Better that some live than none. The fast ones will live.” Mudwort’s face was twisted with apprehension as she darted ahead of the hobgoblin. Once ahead on the trail, she started running faster than she ever had before, keeping to the middle and looking straight ahead.
Direfang, impressed by the small one’s speed, lengthened his stride but did not overtake her. He decided to let her be the leader for all to follow that day. After all, she had talked to the earth and knew its heart and would know the best path. He valued her wisdom and the counsel she gave.
He heard a pounding behind him, feet slapping against the trail, rocks bouncing down from higher up on the mountain. Chains jangled from the wizard and priest, and no doubt from the warrior knights farther back in the column. Direfang wished he would have removed the chains from the slaves, though he wasn’t sure how to do that. He’d seen no keys with the manacles and hadn’t bothered to search for any.
“Faster!” Mudwort called, risking a glance over her shoulder.
“Faster!” came cries behind Direfang.
Then the mountain heaved, and the hobgoblin lost his footing, falling forward on the trail and finding himself overrun by a half dozen goblins scrambling over him. He might have been trampled if two pairs of hands hadn’t hoisted him up and propelled him forward, the chains dangling from the wizard’s and priest’s wrists thumping his sides.
“The Maws of Dragons seek to slay us all, Foreman Direfang. While your people will not kill us, the volcanoes certainly will.” The priest’s face was wet with sweat beads. The trousers he wore also appeared soaked with perspiration.
The wizard was having an easier time dealing with the heat and the strain, but he looked worried and was coughing harshly. “I say not a god nor a man is responsible for this hell, Direfang. It is nature, worse than anything a god or a man could visit upon us. Horace is right; we will all die here. I’ve no magic that can save us, and he is spent.”
The mountain heaved again, and the trail rose and fell as if they were on the back of some great rearing animal. Direfang kept his balance, though he knew many in his army were not so fortunate. Their screams cut through the persistent rumbling and the sound of rocks pelting the slope. He wondered how many had died on the trail, their bodies bouncing against jagged rocks as they tumbled down. And he wondered how long before he took a misstep and joined them.
“Fought too hard to die here,” Direfang said through clenched teeth. He fixed his eyes on Mudwort’s back. She was ahead of the rest, even the group of goblins who’d passed him, nearly trampling him. Brak was among that group, and Crelb too. The two young goblins were good at running.
The trail turned down at a steep angle. From his vantage point, Direfang saw a great rent ahead, where it looked like the path had been ripped apart with a gaping hole in the center. There was nowhere to go but ahead, the hobgoblin knew, no turning around and going back, no heading down the side of the mountain-not without dying. They must jump the crevice. He couldn’t even warn the others above the din. His words would be lost-a useless waste of saliva.
He made a quick decision. He grabbed the wizard and the priest by their arms, half lifting them off their feet. Ahead, he saw Mudwort hurdle the crevice, thankful she landed on her feet and continued her mad run. Of the six who followed her, only five made the gap. Crelb jumped too early, legs and arms flailing in the air and failing to gain purchase. He opened his mouth and a scream emerged, though Direfang could not hear his death cry. The rumbling had grown in intensity and was almost hurtful to his ears. Crelb disappeared into the black hole, and a heartbeat later, Direfang, clutching the two spellcasting knights, who were running wildly in his grip, vaulted the gap and kept going.
“I made it!” Horace gasped proudly.
The wizard said something lost to the hobgoblin, but it sounded like gratitude to Direfang.
“Keep running,” the hobgoblin growled, letting go of the two so they could run on their own. “Run and live. Run, skull man and-”
A great whoosh swallowed the rest of the hobgoblin’s words and rose above the rumbling and screams and pelting rocks. The volcano they raced down had just expelled the tremendous breath it had been holding for decades and coughed up a gout of fire wider and longer than even the greatest red dragon could have breathed. With it came a stream of smoke and ash that shot miles into the air, pushing away the clouds and allowing, for the briefest of moments, a hint of blue sky.
Glowing, fiery rocks were spat out of what had once been the ogre village, some shooting so high up that the goblins lost sight of them. Others arced out in all directions from the crater, horribly burning goblins they hit on the way down. A cinder cloud billowed out as the mountain continued to writhe.
“It bleeds!” Erguth yelled. He’d fought his way up through the panicked horde until he was running directly behind Direfang and the spellcasters. “The mountain bleeds!”
Direfang risked a glance up the slope, registering a thick, orange-yellow ribbon of molten rock erupting over the crater lip and spilling down the side. The glance cost him, as he drew in ash-laced air that sent him into another coughing fit. Horace and Grallik grabbed him, pushing him forward again.
“All of us will die, Foreman Direfang,” the priest hissed. “Not even a dragon can match this beast’s fury.”
Direfang’s lungs felt on fire, his throat and mouth so dry he could not work up any saliva. Never had he felt such pain in his eyes. He wanted to offer a clever retort to the priest, to tell him that not all in his army would die that day. But many would perish, he knew, too many.
It felt like hours, but Direfang guessed it had taken only minutes for the front of the column to reach the foothills. It looked like a brown fog had settled in the low part of the Khalkists, but it was dust that hung several feet above the ground. Everywhere the air was filled with dust or ash or both. All of it was difficult and irritating to breathe. Direfang spotted Mudwort and Brak through the haze.
He bent and grabbed the chains that dangled from the spellcasters’ wrists. Leading the human slaves like livestock, he hurried into the haze, following Mudwort and Brak and hoping those farther back could spot him and follow too.
The mountain continued its upheaval. Faintly, he heard one of the knights call loudly for Grallik and Grallik’s answer. Hurbear had somehow made it, as Direfang picked out the old goblin’s voice shouting orders to his clansmen. Someone was also calling for Moon-eye, asking if the one-eyed goblin had made it safely down the angry mountain.
Direfang doubted he had. Graytoes wouldn’t have been likely to keep up with the brutal pace, and Moon-eye would not leave her, not even to save himself. He pictured the two of them stumbling into the crevice on the trail, not being able to leap over it. Then he thrust the disaster from his mind and yanked on the spellcasters’ chains. He shut his eyes, telling himself it would only be for a moment. They were dry and hurting, and he needed a moment for them to be refreshed.
“Look out, Foreman!” Grallik shouted.
Direfang opened his eyes abruptly. Not releasing the chains, he brought his right arm up and brushed his forearm against his eyes. Through the haze, he saw another ribbon of red, narrower than the last but coming down right toward them, spilling out over the foothills and blocking their path.
“We are done,” Horace said.
Direfang tried to say “not yet,” but his mouth was parched. So he tugged hard, nearly pulling the spellcasters off their fe
et, and charged toward the lava stream, moving faster with each lunging stride. From somewhere behind, he heard Erguth shout for the other goblins to run and jump. Direfang did just that himself, clearing the lava stream, which was not yet very large, while pulling on the chains to yank the knights over the widening lava stream too.
Behind him he heard an agonizing scream. Glancing over his shoulder, Direfang saw the hobgoblin Grunnt trip into the lava and shrivel and burn, his cries pitifully dying away.
32
WRINKLES IN THE WORLD
It wasn’t just the mountain the goblins left behind that was exploding, it was also the one directly across from it, and at least one other well to the north, that they could see.
“The three are one,” Mudwort was saying, trying to make Direfang and Brak understand. The two spellcasters were also standing close by, listening. “Those three, they are one volcano, not three. One volcano with three mouths. The earth says so.” She gestured to the south, where a narrow trail led between peaks. It was a trail used mainly by goats and didn’t look easy to navigate. A wider, gentler way led to the southwest, but Mudwort insisted that was not the way to go.
Direfang pointed at the southwest route. “The army would do better this way.”
She shook her head vehemently, spittle flying from her thin lips. “Maws of the Dragon, the skull man said. One volcano, though, not three, I say. Beneath the earth is a hidden pool of the hottest fire, and it spreads under the three maws, Direfang. It spreads to the mountains near Steel Town too. The quakes woke up the mountains, stirred the pool of fire, and that is why everything is breaking.”
Done with her explanation, she turned from them and dashed away along the narrow, difficult path, not bothering to look over her shoulder to see if they were following. Direfang had dropped the chains of the priest and the wizard. He looked at them, his expression weary.
“Keep up or die,” he growled. Then he sped ahead, tripping once, but picking himself up and keeping just behind Mudwort. The other surviving goblins, some just arriving out of breath, shouted to see him disappear-and followed.
Above and behind him, ash, rock, and pumice were spitting high into the air. The ash rose more than a dozen miles. Loud cracks and pops caused Direfang to run with his hands cupped to the sides of his face. The noise was as painful as any of the many burns and small injuries he had suffered on the trail.
To the northwest, the eruption column of one of the volcanoes was filled with twisted flashes of lightning. One more loud blast came from that cone, followed by an avalanche of rock as it began to collapse in on itself. In the process, the volcano disgorged a thicker, darker cloud of ash, and rubble crashed down the breaking slope, accompanied by belching, horrendous-smelling gas and melting rocks.
The air was impossibly hot to breathe, and with each step Direfang gained, he cursed himself for leading the goblin army in that direction. In his effort to avoid the Valley of Neraka and a great concentration of Dark Knight camps, he’d chosen instead to bring them straight into the belly of the Abyss.
Magma surged and the ground shuddered. Steam belched furiously, so scalding that it incinerated the goblins at the tail end of the army. Lava oozed up through tunnels and broke through the side of the mountain, creating a second eruption point through which gas and ash and melting rocks escaped. A searing, yellow-white river of molten debris spilled out, looking sluggish but picking up momentum and catching more goblins as it furiously wound its way down the mountain.
Had Direfang been at a high, safe distance, he thought he would have considered the vivid river of fire to be beautiful. But the horrors of the Abyss must be nothing near to it, he reflected as he raced on, coughing and sputtering and thrusting the pain all over him to the back of his mind.
Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw the Dark Knight spellcasters, with a number of goblins swarming around and past them. They flowed like the lava, he thought. But he couldn’t see much else. The rest of his vast army was obscured. There were just ash clouds in layers of gray and black, white-hot stone shards flying like snow in a blizzard, and in the distance a shower of red ash. The hellish landscape nearly sucked all the hope from him, but he turned back to see Mudwort, who was remarkably climbing higher and somehow faster, with Brak and Bentclaw only a few feet behind.
His fault; he’d brought them to that place!
His fault for thinking there was greater safety in numbers and that staying together was some prudent measure!
He should have told them to scatter with their clans like bugs running from a disturbed nest. Direfang knew he would have gone south, but not so many of them would have been encouraged to follow, not so many of them would have died. He could still hear their screams amid the crackling and popping, belching ash and gas, and the constant, damnable rumbling. No matter how much he concentrated on the sounds of the volcanoes, he could not blot out the goblin screams.
There was nothing he could do to save the doomed; the exploding mountains were not monsters or men he could fight. And no weapon on all of Krynn could combat them-not even the magic of the priest and the wizard, who doggedly trailed him. The hobgoblin doubted he would save himself.
Direfang could hardly breathe. Everything was so hot and horrible, the scent of ashes and molten rock and burning goblins filling his senses. He could smell pine burning too. Narrow trees grew in patches of dirt throughout the Khalkists, and he could see a stand to his right bursting into fire. Lower, pitch pines burst into flames. Farther to his right, where another volcano had erupted, a white-hot river of lava, wide and surging, rolled down the slope and swallowed more trees. Near it a chunk of stone gave way, then another as a massive rent was ripped in the mountain. With each new rent or gash in the rock, more lava poured out.
Anything in the lava flow’s path was doomed, he knew. There was no escaping from that terrible fate.
He realized he hadn’t seen a single goat or bird since the exodus from the ogre village. The animals knew, he thought, that the ground was going to erupt, that the Maws of Dragons were going to burst. Why hadn’t he noticed the signs and got the army out earlier? Direfang’s despair was profound and crippling, and if Grallik had not brushed by him, then Erguth right after, he might have stopped and given up.
“Hurry,” Horace wheezed as he drew even with Direfang, impressing the hobgoblin with his strength and determination. “If you die, who’s to keep the goblins from killing me?” Then, impossibly, the stocky priest managed another burst of speed and clawed his way up the twisting, narrow trail.
Direfang couldn’t reply, his mouth still so painfully dry. But the mountains answered for him, launching gouts of flame into the air, roaring their anger and sending plumes of ash up to join the gray and black clouds. He remembered the Dark Knights in Steel Town talking about wars and skirmishes and how the sounds were incredibly loud and chaotic and confusing. No battle could match the volcanoes, he knew, perhaps not even the Chaos War the knights were so fond of discussing.
A wind picked up as more lightning flickered in the ash spouts above the two closest volcanoes. The wind keened as it struck the hot ash, and the lava hissed and gave off steam. The wind was strong enough to stir the thick gray-black clouds and let the pale blue sky peek through. And the wind brought with it the slightest draft of fresh air, which Direfang and the others greedily sucked into their lungs.
“Hurry, Foreman Direfang!” the priest called over his shoulder, shaming the hobgoblin with his superior speed.
So hurry Direfang did, his chest and sides aching from the pace and the heat and the choking of the Khalkist inferno.
Ash fell like snow, soft and warm, making it even harder to catch a decent breath. Light as feathers though the ash was, it came so fast and thick that it felt heavy on him. Mudwort ran with her hand cupped in front of her mouth, and Direfang, noticing, copied her. Then he ripped a strip from his trousers and wrapped it around his nose and mouth.
Mudwort paused briefly when the trail vanished, the
n started picking her way across the rocky terrain ahead, wrapping her fingers tightly as she pulled herself up and up. Direfang saw places where the stone had been scraped, probably from goat hooves. So they were following goats. There were hoofprints in the ash-filled dirt pockets between rocks, and the hobgoblin wondered if Moon-eye was alive and wished he were there. The one-eyed goblin could track goats like no other goblin, and perhaps could point to safety.
There was a bunch of them close behind Mudwort and Brak. The wizard seemed to have little trouble keeping up, Direfang noted with grudging respect, and a number of goblins scrambled behind him. The priest was struggling to claw his way up. Direfang came up from behind the priest and gave him a boost as he picked his own way forward. He couldn’t see very far behind through all the ash and smoke, but he saw goblins crowding up to follow him, one hobgoblin carrying Saro-Saro.
From that mountain, Mudwort led them to another, slightly to the west, then one more. They traveled for more than a day before stopping, falling from exhaustion and sleeping for brief intervals against rocky slopes covered with fine sheets of ash. That far from the volcanoes, they still didn’t feel safe. Ash still fell like snow, though not so dense as before, and looking up, Direfang could see splotches of the sky through gaps in the ash-smoke clouds.
Finally he let himself drop, many others joining him.
He slept, though he did not sleep long. Not that sleeping wasn’t his desperate desire-there was no part of him that didn’t ache or was not bone weary. He could have slept hours and hours, he knew, but they were still not far enough away from the danger and the fire and the falling ash.