by Tim Craire
Korf, Arken, and Karrar all took turns leading our group, although Agarak sometimes dashed ahead for a short distance. Wukk usually stayed behind the three from Kurtenvold.
On the second day we came near enough the ruined dunter railroad, off to our left, to be able to discern the circular rails. The kobolds took in the sight.
“You have heard of the work of the elves?” I asked.
Arken nodded. “Chief Korf was told. But none of us have seen this.”
“It runs east and west like a river,” I said.
“More like a ruined train track.”
I shrugged. “The shapes and the color remind me of rolling water. I was there when they bent, you know.”
“Were you?”
“Yes. I was held by elves at the time.”
Wukk addressed me in Oppidan, then:
“This is the work of Silvermoor. We had heard of it.”
“I am sure you did,” I said. “Your people did most of the work building it.”
“My people died building it. Dunters ran them so hard. To death.”
Again I could hear fury in him even though he spoke steadily. His face was like stone.
“Do your people have a plan for what to do with the dunters?” I asked.
“It is really Korf’s plan,” he said. “Ours, now. We will turn them out. We do not want a battle with them. Enough of us have died already, over the years. We can simply take their food, spike their guns, seize their powder. We will make them wander. This will be enough.”
He looked at me.
“You have never been a slave. We want our freedom. Our former masters will have no hold on us. They will not even have our hate.”
He was right that we had never been slaves, but of course what he was saying was similar to what older Emmervale residents, like my father, said about the dwarves in Stenhall after our own breakaway.
“Wukk,” I said. “My own people were nearly servants of the dwarves, for decades. We were trapped in their halls. Indentured.”
“Why?”
“It was during the time of the dragons, the fires. The dragons hit our town Emmervale over and over again. Our grandfathers sought refuge in the tunnel halls of the dwarves. But once they were in, it was difficult to get out.”
“Indeed it is.”
“We had lost our fields, our stores, our supplies. There was virtually nothing to go back to. We became dependent on the dwarves. We had always purchased our tools from them, and what firearms we had. That was a mistake, of course. But we had always had our crops, livestock, barns, so we believed we could trade and remain independent. After those were exhausted, or outright burned, we had virtually nothing.
“And toward the end of our time with the dwarves, factions of them manipulated us. They set us upon each other by awarding some of us powerful jobs. They separated families to ensure members would not leave. They kept us in debt, always working to pay off a loan but never getting ahead.”
“Some of this is what we live.”
“And some of us thought we would never escape. But we did. And then we let the dwarves go from our memory, just as you say you will with the dunters. I think that is wise. We suffered enough under them; we did not need to allow them into our minds.”
Wukk moved along silently for a time. Eventually he asked:
“Your people, how long were they held by the dwarves?”
“Our stay in their tunnels stretched to nearly thirty years.”
“We have been slaves to the dunters for hundreds. We will have to see whether or not we can heal ourselves as you have.”
We kept moving northeast, coming closer to the ruined rails on our left. We had decided to follow them, since we knew they would be a straight path toward the encampment.
“I have some elevation here to see any dunters,” I said from atop the horse.
“We can smell them sooner than you will see them,” Arken answered.
But it was I, not the kobolds, who did notice the crawling mob of the supply party an hour later.
It was the caravan of the cannons and piles of barrels and crates that I had seen in Red Gorge City. Loaded into many wagons, they were treading heavily on the other side of the railway. I saw them first as dark shapes on the horizon, and we came up level with them—while keeping a safe distance away—surprisingly quickly. I had forgotten, as I rode, what good progress my group of kobolds made on foot.
To avoid being seen, we drifted away from the tracks; still moving generally toward Emmervale but veering to our right. Before we lost them from view I studied their line:
One enormous ox-cart formed the heart of the caravan. Even from our distance it appeared huge, a weighty frame on enormous wheels. It had been only a speck as we approached, but grew larger and larger. It was hauled by a number of oxen, perhaps six or eight. Even at our distance I thought I could hear the ponderous plods of hoofs, clanking axles, whips, perhaps dunter growls across the prairie. The power of the thing crescendoed as we cleared it. We kept tacking due east, dropping more and more to the south of the caravan. The ox-cart and the rest of the procession shrank into the far distance, and any noise I had heard, or had imagined I heard, faded and then vanished.
“Do you think they could take Stenhall with all those arms?” I asked Arken.
“I do not know their arms, and I don’t know Stenhall,” he said. “From what you’ve said of the arms, it seems they could take your town, at least.”
“I’m afraid so.”
He shook his head.
“We’ll beat them by a day or more. They’ll never have a chance.”
After some distance we again cut further north, judging that we must now be ahead of the dunter weapons convoy and far out of its sight. We soon again came upon the ruined railway, and followed it northeast again.
Korf spoke, and Arken asked me:
“Much further?”
“It shouldn’t be, no.”
And shortly we came to a ruined farmstead: a burned stone house flanked by the remains of a barn. It was, I realized, the very same spot where I had handed my message off to the dunters and then been questioned by the men from Caranniam, weeks earlier.
But instead of a dunter or a man, now, we saw a kobold round the corner of the house.
A kobold carrying a small keg; it looked to be a powder keg.
We stopped and watched the fellow take the keg to a pile of similar ones on our side of the house, and set it next to them. Only then did he look up, notice us, and freeze.
Korf and the rest of my party started toward him. I stayed behind. The kobold stood there dumbfounded as they approached.
Korf spoke to him, and then they all talked for a few minutes. I noticed the new kobold look at me and gesture in my direction several times.
Now Korf turned and waved me over. I dismounted and walked up to them.
“This brother of ours does not believe us,” Arken told me. “He thinks we all must be your slaves.”
“You told him why Korf is here?” I asked.
“Yes. But he thinks you will order us away.”
“Wukk doesn’t know this one? Nor Agarak?”
“No.”
“I’m standing here,” I said. “Do you think he understands now?”
“Probably.”
The new kobold was now eyeing me in some surprise. Just to make sure, I spoke to him. I pointed to Korf and said:
“Zhaka Korf.” Chief Korf, that would be. It was another word I had picked up.
The kobold bounced his gaze between me and Korf a few times, wide-mouthed, and seemed convinced.
“You know, he has stolen this powder,” Arken told me. “He and some other kobolds from the camp.”
“From the dunters?”
“Yes.”
“You are serious?”
“Yes.”
Korf seemed to be following our conversation somewhat and spoke to me. Arken translated:
“Rebellion seems to be in the air, Shearer. Yo
u chose a good time to get us. The kobolds with this army say they have grown tired of the camp. There is little food. Only a few roots they can dig, and also some occasional sheep and goats that your Emmervale cousins do not keep an eye on.”
Those animals, I guessed, were almost certainly sent out intentionally at the behest of Britta and Jed to keep the dunters in place. If so, it had worked. Or at the least it had not hurt.
“Little food,” Arken continued, “and the dunters make sport of them. But the dunters have become careless, and the kobolds have been stealing from them. The dunters are keeping close track of their food, but not so much their weapons. The kobolds made a plan to take away their powder, and flints.”
“Rebellion is in the air, indeed,” I said.
Later, after that summer was over, I wondered at the coincidence that the kobolds serving the dunters’ expeditionary army had decided to mutiny at the exact same time the rest of their people, unbeknownst to them, were seizing Red Gorge City. What were the odds of that happening? Could we be sure that they had not communicated, somehow?
But they hadn’t. Part of the explanation, I came to see, was that the dunters had never before taken an army so far away from Red Gorge for so long. Had they done so, they likely would have seen the same dissent from their kobold servants. They did not have such a strong hold over their slaves as they had assumed, but it took the distance from Red Gorge and the weeks of privation for the kobolds to assert themselves.
And perhaps another part of it was that rebellion was indeed contagious. There may have been some kobold independence in the air, that summer.
That evening Wukk, Agarak, and Karrar moved down into the dunter camp. They spoke quietly with their acquaintances, relatives, and kobold bosses, and spread the word of Korf’s uprising. That night the true rebellion began, both out here and, as Korf had arranged, in Red Gorge City itself. In the darkness of midnight, kobolds began filing out of the camp, melting away like snow in the spring. Now, in pairs and in small groups, they moved quietly to the farmstead where Korf, Arken, and I had waited.
There were dozens of kobolds, then hundreds, and finally well over a thousand, I would say.
How had they crept off without the dunters noticing? With care. It was crucial, of course, that the dunters had not bothered to learn their language. Had they done so, some of them would have picked up on even the hushed conversations of their slaves. But as it was the kobolds waited until dark, dropped whatever they were doing—they certainly had no belongings to gather—and escaped.
Gaping kobold after gaping kobold passed by me behind the burned house. I think all thousand of them in turn stared at me, tried to make sense of me, and then stared at Korf to do the same. Korf was in his mail, of course, a large leader standing firm and welcoming each newcomer with a word or a grunt. A single torch burned in the darkness, and its light flickered on Korf’s armor. Arken and Karrar stood by him, demonstrating that he had a team. Wukk and Agarak could speak of the garrison back in Red Gorge City, if needed, and my presence showed these kobolds that Korf had at least one ally. The throng seemed convinced, and they were waiting to be led.
Eventually Korf turned and lifted his arm for them to follow. They seemed satisfied that all their number had left the camp. We moved southwest.
The kobolds carried away all the kegs of powder and other supplies they had lifted from the dunters. Here and there I saw one carrying an actual dunter weapon, but these were few. Mostly they had not dared to steal anything the dunters might notice right off; but their masters had nonetheless foolishly trusted them to handle vast amounts of vital food and equipment.
The crowd of kobolds, who walked perhaps eight or ten abreast, made their way across the prairies. They struck me, as I rode off to their side, like a river, again, just as the train tracks had. A furred river wending its way westward just like the Walsing.
It was impressive to watch, and I enjoyed myself for some time. But this could not go on. I had achieved everything I had wanted to, and I was moving farther and farther from Emmervale. I felt confident that the kobolds would easily take and hold Red Gorge City. I rode up to Korf and Arken, who were at the front.
“Chief Korf,” I said. “I must beg a moment.”
He and Arken stepped aside and let the rest of the kobolds press ahead, led by his kinsman Karrar.
“I have come far enough,” I told them. “I need to go home. From here I can circle back around the dunter encampment.”
Korf listened to this and then spoke through Arken:
“The Chief says you should come to Red Gorge. One more time.”
I shook my head. “I have been away for weeks.”
“Once more,” Arken said. “You must see the kobolds of the city rise. It is only a few more days.”
“It will be a sight,” I agreed. “But we still have that dunter army outside my city. And they will be hungry soon, from the looks of it.”
“Shearer, the Chief says that you have inspired this. You had the idea to call us from our home. We would not have done this without you. You should be the first to see Red Gorge run by the kororen. You must come.”
I sighed, and smiled. It was difficult for me—impossible actually—to ignore a request like that. Once more I extended my journey.
On our way to Red Gorge City we had something to take care of, of course. Korf took us straight along the ruined railway heading southwest, and as daylight was coming I saw, far off on the horizon, the dunters’ crawling convoy of the cannons and everything else. I could barely discern the dark forms, but there was nothing else they could be.
“Here they are,” I told Arken. He had asked me, earlier, to let him know if I saw the convoy. I then dismounted.
Arken barked something to Korf, who instantly brought our column to a halt and began growling out orders.
Almost the entire crowd of kobolds immediately wheeled and headed south, like a swirling flock of birds. About two dozen remained behind, quickly gathering into a huddle with Korf. I noticed that all of them carried sacks, or powder kegs.
Arken came to my side to explain, but the plan was obvious even without the narration.
“He is sending just a few out to them,” Arken said. “The ragged ones, not himself or Karrar or me. They will take some of the kegs of powder along, and some of the food. They’re going to say that they were sent from the camp with the supplies.”
“Will the dunters believe them? Do the kobolds ever get sent anywhere without dunters along to lead?”
“We think it will work,” he said. “Our boys will carry no weapons, and the food will get the attention of the dunters in the convoy. The dunters won’t ask questions. We should be able to get at least a few of the kegs of powder into the wagons, or the carts. They will light them, drift to the back, and then leave. In the confusion they should get a head start. And they will run away to the north, not draw the dunters to us here.”
“It’s a brave mission.”
Arken shrugged dismissively. “They can outrun the dunters if need be. You know, Shearer, this is the second time in one day that the dunters will suffer for having kept us so empty-handed.”
“You mean those kobolds have nothing to carry. Just like in the dunter camp when they all walked away so easily.”
“Nothing to carry, nothing to slow them down; and nothing, literally, to lose.”
Korf now spoke his last words to the group and hurried toward us. The two dozen kobolds in the demolition squad resumed their walk toward the oncoming convoy. The five or six out in front all carried the sacks I had seen.
“What is in the bags?” I asked.
“Roast mutton. They will go first.”
This meat might well have been from our farm, of course. I shook my head and smiled a bit, but said nothing.
Korf led all of us due south, then. The mob of kobolds was uncharacteristically quiet. There was no chance the dunters on the wagons would be able to hear any of us, as far off as they were, but the crowd p
roceeded with caution regardless. We cleared some distance, and then I jumped back onto the horse. Korf took us a good way south before resuming the march west toward Red Gorge.
Soon after our turn to the west, we heard a series of terrific explosions to the north. The first report was modest; that would have been one keg of powder going off. This was followed by more blasts, though, as wagon loads exploded in a chain reaction.
I looked to the right. We all could feel slight percussions along with the noise. Soon we could see smoke rising, also, from what were now the remains of the dunter convoy. I wondered how far the cannons had been thrown.
Arken just glanced at me and nodded. Korf, for his part, was out in front again, and did not even look back.
Chapter Thirteen
My last entry into Red Gorge City, with Korf and his mustered kobolds, was unlike any of the previous. Instead of creeping in quietly from the rural outskirts on the south side, Korf led us straight into the eastern edge of the sprawl. We followed the ruined tracks, the double line of Alden Silvermoor’s glyph, all the way to where they met the old dunter rails. These were intact, although they extended just a short distance outside the city.
Ahead of us began the usual weathered shacks and scrabbly yards of Red Gorge, but I noticed an immediate difference: atop the first structure by the tracks stood a knot of kobolds, on watch.
They cheered as they saw us, a loud chorus of yells and barks. We must have looked impressive: Korf out front with some swagger, chest thrust forward in his chain mail. Next to him, his respectful advisers Arken and Karrar. Behind him, the long line of kobolds liberated from the expedition encampment. Next to all this, me on my fine stolen horse. Once again I felt like a lone ambassador to a young, new nation.
We walked into the town, filling the street. Red Gorge City did not look festive—it was much too weathered and soiled for that—but it did look far more alive than I had ever seen it. Kobolds emerged from shacks and alleys to welcome their returning kin and to cheer for, and gawk at, Korf.