Death March
Page 18
“Shad is dead?”
Horace didn’t answer. He futilely tried to wipe the blood off his robe and hands and returned to Spikehollow. Horace was particularly concerned about that goblin, whose name he couldn’t remember, despite Direfang telling it to him more than once.
“The sunlight is too bright,” Spikehollow croaked. He raised an arm to shield his eyes. “Skull man, it is too, too bright. Painful.”
Horace looked up through the branches. The light was still thin and should not have bothered Spikehollow. But the disease seemed to make the goblins acutely sensitive to light and noise and temperatures, Horace reflected.
You were among the first to get sick. Why? Horace hadn’t spoken aloud; the question was in his thoughts. He didn’t think the goblin knew the answer any more than he did. What, the priest mused, do you have in common with the others? The answer might go a way toward healing you and stopping this from spreading further.
Horace stared at the goblin, then more closely at the quilt.
The others who were among the first sick also wore blankets and quilts taken from the Reorx’s Cradle, Horace realized. He recalled the ancient dwarf who had cursed him and all of the goblins for descending on their village; he couldn’t get those frightening words out of his head. Yet the priest could not believe that the sickness was Reorx’s doing. A god wouldn’t meddle in something as petty as goblins raiding such a small—
“Small village.” Horace’s eyes grew wide. Even Foreman Direfang had noted that there were far more homes than necessary for the number of dwarves living there. And the garden was much larger than was needed to support the population. The village had certainly been larger at one time, but it hadn’t shrunk because of dwarves moving away, as the priest had heard the goblins speculate.
The population had dwindled because of the sickness.
The ancient dwarf had tried to warn him at one point, when he was translating Direfang’s demands. But she stopped short, no doubt hoping all the goblins would catch the malady and die.
As some of them already had.
He stared at the patterns in Spikehollow’s quilt, not really seeing them, seeing instead the village with its too-many homes.
“Goblin, tell me what you’re feeling.” Horace spoke those words aloud, in the human tongue, having heard that goblin speak in the language of humans before. He didn’t want all the goblins under the tree to listen and understand their conversation.
“Head hurts,” Spikehollow began in Common. “Hurt for a few days now.” He coughed and a line of blood thickened over his lips. “Back hurts, arms and legs hurt … ache so bad. The light, it is much too bright. Hot, feel hot too. Very, very hot.”
Swallowing his fear and disgust, Horace examined the lumps on Spikehollow’s neck. They were hard, same as the ones under his arms. Black as coal, one had split open and was oozing blood and a greenish pus. He pulled back the quilt and saw that one lump on the goblin’s leg had grown to the size of an orange.
“By the Sea Mother,” he whispered. The mask of stoicism melted into a look of horror. In all his years working with the Dark Knights, and before that with the sailors on the coast of Southern Ergoth, Horace had seen nothing as terrifying as what lay before him. He fought to keep from retching, so horrid was Spikehollow’s appearance.
There was blood in the goblin’s urine and feces, blood pooling under his skin; black spots and painful-looking boils dotted his chest and upper arms. That close his stench was unbearable, and Horace finally lost his battle to ignore the stench, turning and emptying the contents of his stomach on the ground. Then he pulled the quilt back up so he would no longer have to look at the worst of Spikehollow’s lesions.
The priest wiped at his own lips. The goblin was feebly reaching under the quilt for something at his side and, after a moment’s work, pulled out a knife. Horace leaned back, thinking the goblin meant to kill him, angry that the curing spell had not worked. Instead, the goblin pressed the knife to his own chest.
“Don’t …” Horace began. The priest didn’t have to finish the warning. Spikehollow didn’t have the strength to end his own life.
“Hurts too bad,” Spikehollow gasped. Then the goblin’s fingers slipped from the pommel, and the knife fell aside. The goblin gave a great rasping breath, clutched at his throat, and died.
The priest stared glumly. Then he noticed the knife, snatched it up, found a scabbard under the quilt, and sheathed the small blade, putting it in the pocket of his leggings. The handle stuck out, but he hoped no one would notice that he’d acquired a weapon.
Horace worked well into the evening, spending his spells on those who were not yet so badly afflicted; they seemed to respond best to his divine magic. There had been nearly forty when he’d started that afternoon; he looked around and saw there were at least double that number of goblins who were hobbled by the sickness. By nightfall he’d given so much of himself that he could barely raise a hand, and he could no longer coax a healing glow. He stumbled away from the black willow and dropped to his knees on the riverbank.
The moon was high and bright and set the water to sparkling, but the priest couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the scene. Fire crackled behind him; the bodies of the dead were being burned in a clearing. He’d insisted that they be burned immediately—their clothes, their possessions, everything should join them in the fire. What couldn’t be burned had to be buried beneath the earth. He considered all the goblins scavengers, and he prayed to Zeboim that they had enough sense not to loot the diseased corpses for clothes and blankets.
Remembering, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the knife; the scabbard and the leather-wrapped pommel would also be thick with disease. He nearly tossed it into the river. Horace would be taking a chance if he kept something like Spikehollow’s knife, probably as disease-ridden as the dead goblin. He should throw it away, he knew.
Instead, he replaced it in his pocket; it was too precious a thing to give up. One knife would do nothing against that many goblins. But he wanted the knife so he could end his own life if the first symptoms of the disease appeared. Horace would not allow himself to suffer the way the sick goblins were suffering.
Horace listened to the river shush by as he slipped his hands into the cool waters to wash them off. A chorus of whistles and what sounded like birdsong rose. Frogs or toads or both, the happy noise was a relief compared to the moans of the sick and the wails of the mourners. He splashed water on his face and edged out into the shallows, nearly slipping on an algae-covered stretch of slate. He scrubbed his arms and chest and waded out until the river reached his waist. He felt the insistent tug of its current, and for a moment he considered wading out farther still until the current pulled him under and ended his despair.
He was a devoted man and believed that Zeboim would send his soul to the place where spirits drift for a pleasant eternity. Death could well be preferable to his existence. Damn Grallik for talking him into their escapade! Better that the earthquakes had sucked him down or the volcanoes had buried him in ash. Better such a fate than watching the goblins suffer so and finding his divine magic impotent.
Yet the soothing waters revived him a little.
He stood in the shallow part of the river for quite some time, his back to the goblins and eyes cast down at the moon’s reflection. After a while his head bobbed forward, and he felt impossibly weary. He could fall asleep right there and drift away down the river. Again, he thought, drowning might not be so bad.
But for some reason Zeboim had tasked him with his terrible situation, had indeed nudged him to follow Grallik in his mad plan to join the goblins. If the Sea Mother had put him on his course, he had little choice but to see things through.
He returned to the bank. His wet leather leggings clung like a second skin and made his legs feel heavier still. Even in the moonlight, he could tell the river had not washed all the blood out of the leather. He should burn the leggings; they were no doubt thick with the disease. But he had nothi
ng else to wear. As tattered and germ ridden as they were, they were all he had. And his pride would not allow him to go naked among the savages, those goblins.
Horace let the water run off him and focused once more on the trills and melodic croaks of the frogs. The breeze cooled and energized him.
“Zebir Jotun, Zura the Maelstrom,” he began. His fingers glowed orange as he returned to the black willow and the goblins beneath it. He eyed the closest ones, evaluating which to try to work on next. “By the silvery hair of the precious Sea Mother … no!”
Horace had healed him just the day before, thought for certain he’d erased the last vestige of disease. Yet there he was again; it was Kenosh, stretched out between a goblin and a hobgoblin.
The Dark Knight coughed deeply and shivered. And even in the shadows of the dead tree, the priest saw the black spots on the man’s face.
22
SAARH
She wore eight necklaces that morning, all that she owned, along with her earrings and an armband that had been a recent gift from a consort. Around her waist was the skin of a cave snake that she’d caught and gutted in a ceremony some time ago. It was a special day, so it was important to look her best and wear everything she owned.
The longest necklace hung just below her waist. It consisted of carved wooden beads, most of them round, but a few were cut and shaped to look like bats. The beads of another necklace had been painted with dyes made from lichen; Saarh seemed to favor that one, and she worried at the beads with her slender fingers.
The most beautiful necklace was the shortest one, barely fitting around her head. Irregular-shaped beads the color of a full moon shimmered in the torchlight. The beads were smooth, and along their surfaces streaks of blue, pink, and green glistened. That necklace, and the others, marked her prestige in the clan.
Saarh was the clan leader. It had taken her well into middle age to earn the position, but her kinsmen followed her without question. She stood in front of them—several hundred goblins squeezed into the domed cavern and spread into the tunnels that led away from it. Most of them were red-skinned, like herself, but there were some brown-skinned goblins too, and a few tinged orange.
Several wore necklaces made of wood and stone and the teeth of small animals that lived underground. Some boasted feathers and bits of bone on leather cords, and other goblins displayed pieces of bone pierced through their ears and nostrils.
They whispered among themselves, their voices sounding like the wind that sometimes found its way through the upper tunnels and whistled sonorously. But they stopped their quiet chatter when Saarh raised her arms and demanded their attention.
“These caves are too small,” she began. “For some time the clan has known this. The food is too sparse. Hunger begins to rumble in the younglings’ bellies.” Saarh had a rough voice that often cracked and made it sound as though speaking were painful. “This day the clan leaves the underground so it can grow larger and thrive.”
“Saarh, Saarh, Saarh!” The chant swelled and reverberated off the dome, and the torches flickered as all the goblins joined in. The light played across the carvings and made everything seem to shift and waver.
When she again had their attention, she said, “This clan is large, safe in its size, fearless.”
“Saarh, Saarh, Saarh!”
“Strong and terrible this clan is.” Saarh’s eyes gleamed darkly, and some of the symbols on the wall behind her glowed. “This day, the clan claims the surface.”
“Saarh!”
She slipped between the tightly packed goblins, each one bowing as she passed. Taking a last look at the great dome, she glided down a wide tunnel, the goblins falling in behind her and continuing to echo her name.
Saarh ran her fingers along the wall as she went, picking up the pulse of the stone and coaxing its ancient energies to trickle into her mind. Behind her, goblins copied her gesture, though they could not understand nor use the power held in the earth.
The torchlight from the cavern didn’t reach there, so Saarh relied on her keen senses to guide her through the darkness. She found something comforting in the shadows and the dampness of the cave; she would miss both of those things. She knew she could retreat there if necessary, but she also knew she never would choose to do so. The challenges of the surface world would not be so great that she and her clan could not endure them.
Her journey lasted hours, so deep in the earth were the goblin caverns nestled and so winding were the tunnels. Her legs were tired by the time she reached a narrow slot that was little more than a crawlway. The goblins moved in single file there, scraping their shoulders on the stone, none complaining. Some of them had been that way before with her, when food had become so scarce they had to hunt above. But most had never seen the sky.
Finally she stepped out of the darkness, the air wrapping around her and making her shiver in its chill freshness. She stood on a high ledge atop one of the range’s tallest peaks, taking in the scenery below. The land was green and lush, almost hurtfully bright in the midday sun. Tall grass and small trees stretched as far to the west as she could see. The scents of the foliage drifted up and mingled with the more subtle odor of the stone.
The chatter behind her grew louder, and she climbed down so her kinsmen could emerge behind her. Saarh glanced up to make sure they were following close. The brown cliff that stretched above her was streaked with sunlight, the hollows in the rock gray with shadows and looking like pockmarks on an old goblin’s face. High and to the south was a formation that looked like a rearing cave bear, the top of it crimson and the center sparkling with some sort of crystal. She hoped to climb there later and investigate that place.
First she had her people to worry about. She continued to descend, the green of the young forest seeming to reach up and tug her down.
So many goblins, it took them a long while to filter out from the narrow tunnel. Most of them dallied on the ledges, both frightened and amazed by their new surroundings, all of them blinking furiously, their eyes were not used to so much glare. They would get accustomed to the light of the sun, Saarh knew. They would get accustomed to the forest too.
She picked up a hint of rain when she reached the bottom. Saarh had been outside in a storm before and so recognized the first delicate traces of water in the air. Far to the west, she spotted high, misty white clouds, and beneath them floated larger ones with swollen gray bellies. She hoped to push her clan deep into the young forest before the rains came, else they might flee back into the caves out of fear and a desire for safety.
From her new vantage point at the base of the mountain, Saarh could look up and take in much more of the heights. The range looked like the spine of some great beast, and it stretched north and south, rising up high in the middle section, where it was shot through with bands of almost-white stone set against red and brown strips and a line of rock that looked almost black.
Hematite, Mudwort knew. That’s what the brown and black layers were. She’d seen enough of the stone in the Dark Knight mines to recognize it. The mountain Saarh gazed upon was heavy in the center with the iron ore that stained the rock around it. Above it were bands of sandstone and limestone, and time and heavy rains would eventually winnow those away. But the hematite would stay until the Dark Knights or some other group of men found it and dug down and broke it out to make their swords and shields.
Mudwort watched Saarh and her goblin horde with fascination. The shaman was not leading quite as many goblins as Direfang, but Saarh’s force was nonetheless impressive … formidable.
Mudwort had been looking in on Saarh and her clan for what she guessed were several hours. The spell was taking its toll on her, but the goblins’ activities were far too interesting for her to break away. Mudwort had been trying to puzzle out just how long ago Saarh had lived. One clue was in the forest and the mountains.
In an earlier seeing spell, Mudwort’s senses had passed through that range before she’d come upon the Qualinesti Forest.
The forest was in its youth.
“Centuries ago,” Mudwort decided. That was when Saarh had lived and when she brought her clan to the woods. Mudwort was awestruck by her magical ability to visit the past, awed that she could draw from the earth-memory so easily. “And the goblin caves and the dome, they are in that big range of mountains, deep in the heart of the earth. A long, long time past.”
She smiled, pleased that she’d finally learned something vital about Saarh and her clan … about where the caves were and when those goblins had been alive. Her smile broadened. Just as Saarh had brought her clan to the woods, Mudwort would lead Direfang’s army there. She peered closer through her vision.
Saarh’s goblins spread out, investigating their new surroundings but keeping their natural curiosity under control, careful not to venture too far from their shaman.
Saarh stood shoulder to shoulder with an aging goblin with a crooked face. One of his cheeks was higher than the other, and his lower lip drooped as if the muscles in his jaw didn’t work properly. While his appearance might have suggested he was stupid, his eyes were filled with rare intelligence, and the four necklaces he wore suggested he was important to the clan.
He stared at the mountains then slowly shook his head. “Is this the right thing? For certain, Saarh?”
She nodded.
“Too long this clan has lived in the earth. Fathers and grandfathers and farther back than that.”
“Food is short now in the earth,” she added. Saarh’s voice still cracked, the words running coarsely together. “The clan is larger, and many females have swollen stomachs. They will deliver younglings soon. The need for food and space weighs heavy on me, on them. That is why the clan had to move.”