Goblin Nation

by Jean Rabe

  If the trees in the area dried up and died, the druid would be hard pressed to animate them and could scarcely use the withered limbs to whip at the knights. If the grasses and moss that covered the forest floor became brittle, the druid couldn’t effectively use them to trip or entangle the Dark Knights.

  “Death to these woods.”

  Isaam embraced the darkest of magics, “death magic,” as some referred to it. He preferred to call it necromancy, liking the sound of the word on his tongue. It had taken a great deal of effort to pull the life from that section of the Qualinesti Forest with his spells, and at the same time the enchantment refreshed him. In enervating the plants, he took their life essence into himself and felt somehow stronger.

  When he stood, he no longer felt stiff from kneeling so long. When he rolled his shoulders, he felt invigorated, as if years had melted off his thin frame. But that was only the physical effect, and it would not last long. Mentally, he’d exhausted himself. And his next piece of magic would truly tax him.

  Isaam had well heard the warnings: first Lieutenant Doleman shouting that the goblins were coming then other voices and commotion. He knew Bera was readying the men and spreading them out. She would be furious and desperate, railing against the thought that her plan to take the fight to the goblins had been nipped in the bud.

  “But you will not fail in the end, Commander,” Isaam whispered. He leaned against the dead oak, the first tree he’d killed with his spell. He called another enchantment forth from the recesses of his labyrinthine mind and let it flow to his fingers then into the dead tree. When the bark grew warm to the touch, he stepped to another tree and did the same then moved to another.

  Isaam watched an ember spark to life on the first dead oak, initially looking like a firefly had landed there with its tiny light blinking to its fellows. The oak had become so dry that the magical ember quickly blossomed and others appeared around it. His firefly was indeed calling more to join it.

  The sorcerer had detested the march through the Qualinesti Forest, but he’d paid attention along the way. The forest was vibrant, except where he’d just spread his withering touch. Fires were common in the dry, wooded sections of Neraka in the hot summers; the slightest spark set them off. People in Neraka wisely built homes and settlements away from the woods, not wanting to lose their worldly possessions, and perhaps their lives, to raging forest fires. No doubt the Qualinesti Forest boasted its share of fires too, though the place was not so brittle and dry as the woods in summer in his beloved Neraka.

  “Burn,” Isaam coaxed. “Burn for Bera Kata.”

  Small flames licked up the trunk and toward the upper branches. More flames traveled down to the forest floor, looking like liquid flowing toward all the dead leaves the tree had dropped.

  “Let this forest be so much kindling for my magic.” Isaam smiled and wished Bera were there to witness his pleasure.

  The fire crawled to the second tree Isaam had touched, smoke spiraling up like artfully curled ribbons as it rose. So many leaves had dropped from Isaam’s enchantment that there was plenty of detritus for the fire to feed on. Then his fire rushed to a third tree and a fourth—more and more.

  Satisfied, he hurried to the north, where Bera’s men waited, and he glanced up at the forest canopy as he went. The fire had reached the first oak’s crown and had started to spread through the heights. It was moving faster than he had expected.

  “Magnificent.”

  The sorcerer heard the men in the distance calling “Fire! Fire!” Someone with a loud, shrill voice, one of Bera’s female lieutenants, shouted “Goblins!” The different shouts mingled.

  The fire at the top of the oaks rode the wind south to the next tree and the next, dancing faster than someone on the ground could outrun it. The flames spread east too, and Isaam knew the goblins would find themselves under the fire soon—if they weren’t trapped already. His magic would spread panic, kill and diminish their numbers, and give the Dark Knights the edge.

  He cast another spell, adding to his mental fatigue. The enchantment caused him to float above the ground, higher and higher until he was above the topmost canopy. Then he willed himself to stop. Floating there, he watched his dazzling fire jump. Sometimes it cleared a tree, sparing one on some capricious whim, only to catch the next one to the south and engulf it with a roar. The woods were so dry because he’d drained the life and the water. The trees easily accepted the fire.

  The druid could do nothing to aid the goblins. No one could stop Isaam’s magic.

  The wind blew stronger up in the treetops, no thick trunks to slow it down. Each gust set another section of the forest canopy on fire. In one place the fire jumped a quarter mile, he guessed, embers borne by the swift breeze, hurtling across a stream. The edges of the stream burned. Nothing Isaam’s magic touched was safe.

  He heard shouts; they were faint, a fair distance away. The cries sounded pitiful. His fire had indeed found the goblins.

  “Burn,” he hissed. “You like to burn the corpses of your dead. Let the forest you ran to be your funeral pyre.”

  A fire whirlwind lit the sky, a column of flame Isaam suspected had come from Grallik—a feeble attempt to snuff out the main fire. But there was no main fire. Fire was everywhere.

  “An ineffectual attempt. Your magic was always beneath mine, Grallik N’sera. Your rank as well.” The sneering Isaam floated a little higher and drew his robes tighter around him to cut the slight chill of the night breeze. The fire did not warm him.

  The flames spreading to the west were erratic and a little unpredictable, encountering trees that hadn’t been kissed by Isaam’s draining spell. They put up a fight, but the fire was too strong to be denied. Isaam suspected the druid was in anguish and working diligently to figure out how to neutralize his spell … but Isaam’s magic was superior and spreading.

  Birds shot into the air by the hundreds, squawking so loud that they briefly drowned out the whoosh and crackling flames of Isaam’s great creation. But they were gone quickly, in search of a safer part of the forest. The animals trapped on the ground would not be so fortunate. The fire was moving too fast for escape.

  A dense cloud of fiery embers pushed to the south just ahead of the flames that were swallowing one tree after the next. The fire was taking a firm hold in the peat soil too and would be spreading across the ground, though it would move slower there as the wind couldn’t help spread it.

  “Burn well and wildly, my creation.”

  He could hear the goblin shouts easily—louder, clearer, closer. And though he couldn’t understand the language, he could well translate their terror. Bera was right; they did sound like wild dogs yowling.

  A haze formed over the upper canopy from all the smoke and the wind that continued to agitate the fire. It reminded Isaam of fog hanging over pastures on early spring mornings. There was something beautiful and otherworldly about it. He stared proudly at his creation for several long moments.

  Even though he was above it all, his eyes were watering and his mouth felt dry from the effects of the fire. Isaam didn’t mind the uncomfortable sensations, though. They spoke to his magic’s success. He took a deep breath of the sulfurous air.

  Likely when the fire finally died down, they would find only goblin bones. They could well turn everything to ash—bones and ash.

  “As hot as the Abyss, that blessed fire must be.” Isaam swelled with pride. He floated a little farther east and north, spotting the knights below. They fought goblins and hobgoblins that must have broken into the Dark Knights’ camp right before the fire struck. There’d been no flames to keep that group of foul creatures back. But that was a fortunate thing, he decided. “Let Bera have some fun. It will keep her mind off Zocci.”

  The fire would keep all the rest of the goblins and hobgoblins at bay—the thousands that had no doubt been streaming toward the Dark Knights. The fire would slay all of the stinking rats for Bera.

  The light from the fire made it easy for Isaam t
o pick out details on the ground below. In the front rank, Bera fought madly, parrying attacks from two goblins that looked to have some skill with knives. Her fighting form was never better, he thought.

  Isaam drifted lower for a better look. He could aid her with a simple spell or two, make her blade sharper and her arm stronger, or he could give her more energy so she could fight faster. But Bera might not appreciate either of those spells. So instead he used his magic to lock the image of her battling into his mind. Then he could retell tales of her bravery with perfect clarity later, reporting to the Dark Knight Counsel that would want to hear about the mission. He would use spells to replay the most vivid parts, and he would make Bera shine. She could gain the promotion she’d been dreaming of.

  33

  THE STONETELLERS

  FIGHTING WITH FIRE

  On the forest floor, Bera was coughing hard with each swing of her sword. Her eyes stung so badly that tears streamed down her face. Her men fared the same, but all of them fared better than the goblins and hobgoblins who were closer to the fire.

  “It’s Isaam’s doing no doubt, this great blaze,” Doleman said.

  “Aye, Lieutenant. I’d told him to cast some spells that would trouble the rats.”

  “But you didn’t expect this business, eh, Commander?” He forced a smile as he drew his sword over his head, two hands on the pommel, and brought it down hard on the collarbone of a tall, red-skinned goblin. The blade sliced through the flesh and broke the bone. The goblin crumpled and Doleman drove the point through its heart.

  “I had not anticipated help to this extent,” she replied wryly.

  “Unfortunate the Gray Robe had not thought of this earlier,” Doleman continued. “It would have cut our losses by the bluff.” He tugged his shield free from his back and wielded his sword with one hand.

  Bera parried another blow. The goblins in front of her changed the rhythm of their attack, and she used that to her advantage, bringing the sword down on one’s wrist, cleaving through the arm and sending the creature away, howling and holding its blood-spurting stump. While the other goblin glanced at its wounded kinsman, she drove her blade through its throat and brought her heel against its stomach to help free her weapon.

  “I did not order Isaam to cast such fire magics then, Lieutenant. At the bluff I was expecting a straight-up battle.” In truth, she hadn’t realized the sorcerer might be capable of such a magnificent gesture. And she had been determined to take the goblins down with brute force rather than even consider magic. “This mission rests on me. Only my head, you hear?”

  “At least the wind is cooperating, Commander. It keeps most of these rats at bay. We’ve only a few hundred here to kill.”

  That was both good and bad news as far as Bera was concerned. It was good that goblins were burning to death in the woods; in the distance. She could hear their screams and smell the stench of their roasting flesh.

  But still, it was unfortunate that they were not dying by her own hand.

  “For Zocci,” she whispered as she engaged a hobgoblin she’d spotted by the bluff earlier. One of its shoulders was lower than the other, and it moved with a pronounced limp. It wielded a crude spear that splintered when she struck it with her sword. “Pity you are not a more worthy foe,” she muttered as she shoved her blade through its stomach then raised her foot to push it off the weapon. The creature fell back onto an approaching goblin.

  Goblins to her right shouted a horrid-sounding battle cry she couldn’t translate. Their strangled voices mingled with the clang of steel and the crackling flames. The air was hot to breathe and singed her lungs.

  But Bera raged as hot as the fire.

  She’d been weary after the failed strike on the bluff and their subsequent retreat, her arms and legs sore, and her neck stiff with a bothersome ache. But fighting with her hated foes somehow refreshed her; fresh power went into each swing. Not one man in her army—not one living man since Zocci was dead—was her equal in combat. She exulted in the moment.

  Her husband had once told her that she lived to fight and that her bloodlust was stronger than her love for him or their daughter. She’d denied it, of course, though both of them knew he spoke the truth. Bera was born for battle. On another occasion he’d said she came into the world too late, that she would have been better suited to legendary challenges of the War of the Lance. She’d agreed with him then, saying those skirmishes were reportedly faster and deadlier than those of recent memory, and the stakes were in many respects higher.

  The stakes were high for the battle that raged in the forest, though.

  Flames snapped and popped all around her. The air was filled with burning flesh and trees. What would her husband think of her at that very moment, flailing away at goblins in the heart of the burning Qualinesti Forest? Would he be proud? Would she ever tell him her heart had been broken with Zocci’s death?

  Another hobgoblin charged in, wearing a breastplate that looked like it had been cobbled together from multiple mismatched suits of chain and leather armor. Almost comical in its appearance, the hobgoblin nevertheless protected itself from her first swing. It grinned at her, drool spilling over its lower lip, the creature looking wet and slimy in the firelight.

  “You disgust me,” she spit. “All of your kind.”

  She swung higher, forcing the hobgoblin to parry her thrusts and giving it no chance to launch an attack of its own. Then she made a move to swing higher still, aiming for its big head. As it brought its own blade up, she dropped to a crouch and angled her sword up like a lance, skewering it in a gap she’d noticed between the uneven segments of chain mail. She faintly heard the sound of her blade grating against its ribs.

  Her husband would understand her blood lust, she thought. He’d been a Dark Knight once, in the very early years of their marriage. But he’d injured his leg in a fight with a pair of young Solamnics, and though he’d slain them, one had managed a severe blow. The Skull Knights healed him but could not properly set his leg on the battlefield. He’d retired to raise their daughter.

  Bera thought rarely of her daughter, a beautiful woman with her eyes set in her father’s face and with aspirations for only marrying well and raising a family. The girl had never shown an interest in the Order; perhaps that was why Bera had given back so little interest or affection. But when the fight was through and the necessary reports made to those above her, perhaps Bera would go home to visit the girl—woman, she corrected herself. Time was fast and elusive. She would visit her husband and daughter, who she hoped had found a man to marry and provide for her. Then she would look to her next posting and perhaps a coveted promotion.

  “Commander!” Doleman shouted a second time to get her attention.

  He’d been wounded, though not seriously, a slice on his upper sword arm. Bera moved closer to give him cover as he switched his sword to his left hand and transferred his shield to his right.

  “My thanks, Commander.”

  “Slaying another goblin would be thanks enough,” she returned.

  He nodded and bull-rushed forward, his shield knocking down a goblin as he raised his sword and brought it down at an angle to sever the leg of another opponent. The one on the ground scrambled to rise again, but Doleman jumped on top of him, heel digging into the goblin’s neck and crushing and strangling him.

  “Debt paid, Commander!”

  “Aye, Lieutenant.” She turned to encounter a large goblin preparing to attack her. The creature wielded a club in its right hand and a wavy-bladed dagger in its left. More disgusting than its fellows, the goblin had two miniature heads hanging from its belt. They bobbed against its legs as it darted forward.

  Elf heads, she realized with a start. Bera had studied goblins and knew there were sects that took trophies, such as hands and heads. She’d read about a tribe that shrunk the skin, believing it captured the spirit of the enemy. The visual proof of that legend gave her one more reason to despise goblinkind.

  “Filth,” she curse
d at it. “A disease on the face of Ansalon.” She changed her pattern of attack, raining blows down in a staccato fashion until the head-toting goblin tried to stumble back. But there were goblins behind it, and it was blocked from retreat.

  “A disease!” she hollered. “And I am the cure.” She ran it through. Her heart sang with joy, and she whirled to find her next opponent, her next hated enemy, another treat for her sword.

  34

  THE STONETELLERS

  AN UNANSWERED CRY FOR HELP

  Graytoes was at the rear of the goblin throng. She could have stayed on the bluff. Should have, maybe, she thought. Younglings were gathered there, watched over by the oldest goblins and hobgoblins who were deemed too fragile or too wounded from the previous battle to fight. She could have helped them.

  Perhaps she should have stayed to take care of Umay, to keep her out of danger; Direfang had told her to stay. Orvago had stayed. She’d heard the gnoll tell Direfang that he was better at protecting and defending and healing. It was not his place to go on the attack.

  “My nature will not allow me to pick sides, Foreman Direfang,” he’d said. “But I will fight to save these goblins on the bluff. I will stay here and do my best to hold the bluff.”

  Graytoes could have stayed with Orvago. Horace had stayed too. The Skull Man was broken and resting, tending wounded goblins when he’d briefly revive. Horace wasn’t a Dark Knight any longer, so Graytoes decided that she could finally like him. Graytoes could have stayed with Horace and helped with the wounded.

  But Graytoes was curious above all else, and in truth she prided herself on being part of Direfang’s army. With Umay strapped to her back in the leather pack, she still could use her hands to fight well. She carried a long knife in one; she thought it was the weapon Direfang had dropped after gaining the magnificent axe. Because it had been Direfang’s, she knew it was fine and strong and would be enough to protect her and Umay.