Death March s-2

by Jean Rabe

  All of it was gleaming angles and planes. All of it caught the torchlight and birthed a rainbow of colors that flitted around the walls like maddened fireflies.

  Mudwort barely noticed that all the goblins in the chamber were as captivated as she. Some turned this way and that, their eyes trying to follow the lights. Others simply stared, entranced, at the entire mass. That’s what Mudwort did, stare, forgetting to breathe, and finally shaking her head and gasping to jolt herself back to consciousness.

  She wished Direfang could see this amazing, beautiful thing-the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her entire life. She wished Boliver was with her, dipping his senses down along with hers and catching sight of this cavern and this crystal. But a part of her was glad she was alone and did not have to share this experience. She could show Boliver later. For the moment, she would keep this remarkable scene all to herself.

  Mudwort drifted closer until the crystal cluster filled her vision. She saw the reflections of several goblins in the facets, their grinning visages looking broken in all the angles and planes. There was a wildness in their expressions, they looked primal. She hadn’t paid attention to their faces before. Now she studied them. They were goblin faces, clearly, but they looked different than her kinsmen. More frightening somehow. More savage. More willful and powerful. They had thick ridges above their eyes and wide noses with snuffling nostrils. Perhaps they were not so quick or bright, but perhaps they were better in other ways.

  This tribe was to be envied, she thought … because of their more powerful faces and stances and seeming fearlessness; because they were beneath the earth where the air was better. Because they were staring at this mass of beautiful crystals, some of them tentatively reaching out to touch it, when all she could do was look at it wistfully, seeing it and them magically from a distance.

  She imagined feeling the coolness of the crystal shards and suspected they would be smooth against her fingers, like polished granite. She tried staring inside the cluster and was practically blinded by the vortex of rainbow colors. Mudwort blinked furiously and willed herself to float back and up until she looked down on the goblin tableau from the top of the domed ceiling.

  The cluster of clear and milky crystals was not magical, she recognized; she was certain she would have sensed any magic about it if that were so. Still, the cluster was breathtaking.

  But there was magic somewhere in the chamber; she could feel the unusual magic. And after a few moments of searching, she realized it was in the young female goblin who wore all the necklaces.

  Mudwort watched her approach the crystal and saw the goblins grudgingly part to allow her passage. The young goblin’s fingers played over the segments of one of her necklaces then stretched out and touched one facet after another on the crystal.

  “A shaman,” Mudwort realized. “Like Boliver.” And like herself, she added almost as an afterthought.

  But the young goblin was not as sure of herself as Mudwort and Boliver. Her movements were timid, skittish like a squirrel.

  “Learning magic, maybe,” Mudwort guessed. “Using the beautiful rocks to help. The rocks are a focus.”

  Mudwort knew that her own senses moved more easily through certain types of stones and not at all through others. So the young goblin was not yet proficient in magic and was using the crystal cluster to augment whatever skills she had. Mudwort wondered what powers resided in the crystal and how the beautiful rock might help her.

  “But where exactly is this cave with the wild-looking goblins? And the dome? And the young shaman?” Mudwort’s brow knitted, her lips forming a needle-thin line. “Where, where, where?”

  Mudwort watched the shaman for quite some time, not fathoming what she was attempting with the crystal, and finally deciding to leave the chamber. It was time to find out more, time to learn just where that cavern sat so she could physically go there. She willed herself to drift up through the dome then through one sheet of rock after another. She felt herself splinter when she passed through a thick layer of sandstone, just as the images of the goblin faces had broken apart in the facets.

  Pieces of her consciousness skittered all over like bugs running from a disturbed nest. The sensation was unnerving, and as it lengthened, she briefly became terrified and could not tell where she was or where she was going. Her mind spun while she continued to splinter and splinter again. She felt like she was spiraling down, down, not rising to the surface.

  Drowning in the stone.

  “Mind going sour,” Mudwort said. She only faintly heard her own words, as if they were spoken by someone else a long distance away. “Mind running away. Mind is shattered and broken and-”

  She gasped, her head jerking back from the shock of someone roughly grabbing her shoulders. The slight shift she wore-a shirt that had once belonged to a human child in Steel Town-was thoroughly soaked and plastered to her slight frame.

  “Fever,” pronounced a voice, breaking into her thoughts. It was Horace. The priest and Direfang hovered over her. “She has a fever, Foreman, but no physical injury that I can see.”

  Mudwort crawled away from the pair. “Am fine,” she told them, thumping her thumb against her chest and waggling her fingers.

  Direfang looked concerned. “The skull man will-”

  “Do nothing,” Mudwort finished for the hobgoblin. “Fever will leave soon. Am fine.”

  The hobgoblin knelt, his eyes locked on hers. “Did Mudwort find something in the ground?” Direfang asked.

  “Nothing,” she replied. “Found nothing at all.”

  DIREFANG’S DISTRACTIONS

  Grallik had told Direfang that the trees in the Qualinesti Forest were so thick in some places that their leaves blocked the sunlight. The hobgoblin had a difficult time imagining such a place, but he tried. Although he wasn’t born a slave, he’d never lived far from the aridness of Neraka. All he’d known was scarred, scabrous land and a hard life. There’d been a few trees, but not a single one in Steel Town proper. He was looking forward to seeing so many trees that he would not be able to count them all.

  Many days past, Mudwort’s magic had told her that the Qualinesti Forest would be a good homeland for the goblins and hobgoblins who had escaped from Steel Town and followed Direfang through the mountains. He’d earlier believed that the Plains of Dust would be best. When he was a slave, he’d caught glimpses of the Dark Knights’ maps, and the Plains of Dust to the south had always intrigued him. From listening to the knights, he knew the Plains were not as arid as their name implied, and he envisioned plenty of land for the goblins to spread out on. He heard more than one knight say there were few ogres in the Plains.

  But he trusted Mudwort and had grown fascinated with the notion of the huge, thick trees of the former homeland of the elves. As he walked at the head of the long goblin column, he tried to picture such trees. The daydream occupied him and kept his mind off the events that had killed so many of his kinsmen-the earthquakes, volcanoes, ogres, and most recently, the tylor. And it kept him from worrying about Graytoes, whom he carried.

  His legs ached from traveling so many days with little respite. The soles of his feet were like leather from working in the mines for so many years. Still, they gave him much pain. The mountain trail had so many sharp shards that they cut through his thick pads and made him dread each step.

  Many of the goblins and hobgoblins had boots that they’d taken from the Dark Knights during the escape from Steel Town. Others had taken sandals and shoes from the ogres in a town they’d sacked high in the mountains. They’d obtained their clothing from both of those places, though Direfang thought shoes were the most important acquisitions. He had not taken any for himself, though he had been quick to take a tunic off a dead ogre. He’d left the shoes for the other, weaker ones, but he regretted not grabbing a pair for himself. His weary feet hurt.

  He vowed to grab the next pair of shoes for himself if they came across another ogre village or patrol.

  In the wonderful elf fo
rest, perhaps none of them would need shoes. Perhaps the ground would be soft and comfortable to walk on, like a green carpet. And he hoped there would be plenty to eat. He would have to approach Mudwort soon about using her earth magic to find more beasts, a large herd of goats or sheep-something that would not be so difficult as the tylor to kill, something that would feed all the hungry goblins following him.

  He stopped on a narrow promontory, staring down and ahead at what passed for a trail. Weeds grew in small pockets of dirt that had been caught in shallow depressions, but for the most part everything looked brown and dead. Some goats did come that way; he spotted their spoor, and if goats managed to negotiate that trail, goblins could too. But it would not be an easy path.

  Direfang scratched his chin and glanced over his shoulder, seeing the three Dark Knights a dozen yards behind him and towering over the goblins. Even though the knights had been beaten down by the trek and were treated as slaves, they held their proud posture.

  Direfang squared his shoulders and affected a similar mien. He looked as if he had been chiseled from a block of granite, compared to the humans. His features were rough and thickly scarred, his build was lean but muscular. The humans had smooth skin and features that seemed small and foolish. He didn’t like knights, and he hated what they and their kind had inflicted on the goblins at the mine. Direfang’s throat grew dry at the memories of watching goblins being whipped for not mining fast enough or not carrying enough rocks in their sacks.

  He couldn’t get some of the horrifying images out of his head, and tears threatened his eyes.

  “At least free now,” he muttered to himself. He’d tried to escape once before, many years earlier. And when the knights had caught him, they beat him until he couldn’t stand and poured salt in his wounds. They’d cut off his left ear and hung it on a thong around his neck, and they’d forced him to return to the mines immediately. Those who had tried to escape with him were killed, and Direfang was certain he’d been spared because of his strength and size; he was too valuable a laborer to slaughter. Too, he was certain he’d been promoted to foreman a few years after that failed escape because the knights had forgotten who he was and what he had done. Hobgoblins and goblins looked the same to men.

  Sadness and anger rushed through him in waves, and the images from the mining camp became more vivid in his mind. All of the past several years-the beatings, the torturous hours of toiling in the belly of the Dark Knight mountain, the scant meals, the stink of the slave pens-all of it overwhelmed him and he sobbed.

  “Think about the trees,” he told himself.

  He brushed at the tears with his forearm and kept his back turned to the others so no one could see his weakness. It was a terrible thing for a leader to cry, he knew. It was bad enough that Graytoes continued to whimper over the loss of her mate.

  Direfang tried nurturing his rage over the Dark Knights’ treatment of him and the others, over the number of goblins lost to the earthquakes and volcanoes, over the muddled attack on the tylor, and all the violent deaths at the hands of that foul creature. The rage inside him burned like a column of the wizard’s fire and finally chased away his tears.

  “Should kill the three Dark Knights maybe,” he whispered to himself. It might get rid of some of the stench that hung in the air; the humans had a distinct, unpleasant odor, worse than goblins, Direfang thought. Direfang wondered if it was the scent of evil, as he knew of no more evil creatures than the Dark Knights who worked the slaves.

  “Might feel better with the Dark Knights dead.” But the knights might still come in handy. The skull man was necessary as none of the goblins possessed his ability to heal wounds. And the wizard’s fire magic had proved useful. The one called Kenosh had not been particularly helpful, but he’d not yet given Direfang an excuse to kill him either. “Maybe kill some Dark Knights later,” he said. “The wizard and the other one.” That might help erase some of the terrible memories of being their slave at the mines. “But maybe keep the skull man for healing when we need it.”

  He shifted Graytoes to nestle in his other arm. She could walk, but when she did she shuffled along mindlessly, and Direfang worried that she’d get trampled by her kinsmen or might fall off the edge of the trail. He felt responsible for her, for all of them; they’d designated him their leader.

  “Didn’t want to be a leader,” he said. Graytoes looked up at him quizzically. He spoke in the Common tongue of man-both for practice and because most of his kinsmen didn’t understand the language. “Still don’t want to be a leader.”

  Maybe the others followed him because they were used to him ordering them around in the mines. Or perhaps it was because of his size. At nearly seven feet tall, Direfang was an imposing figure, and the scars that riddled his body made him look even more intimidating.

  “Moon-eye,” Graytoes murmured. Her shoulders shook as she broke into another wail. “Moon-eye …”

  “Is dead,” Direfang finished for her, switching to the goblin tongue. “Moon-eye is dead and best left forgotten. Better to think about lots and lots of trees. There will be too many trees to count, Graytoes. And the shade will feel very good. We are going to a wonderful place, Mudwort says. Qualinesti.”

  At last, the image of the trees took precedence in his mind, Graytoes quieted, and he marched along with a measure of ease.

  The trail was riddled with knifelike shards of shale and limestone, however. Direfang himself couldn’t avoid all the troublesome spots, and behind him he heard goblins complain and cry out in pain; the wizard gasped and stumbled, the priest catching him. Good that the knights looked after each other, Direfang thought. Goblins might do well to look after one another.

  “How much longer to the trees, Direfang?” It was the first time Graytoes had mentioned something other than her lost mate.

  The hobgoblin shrugged. “Miles, Graytoes. Many, many miles.”

  He knew how to measure miles but had no idea how many miles they’d actually traveled or how many miles they had yet to go. The mountains began far to the north of Steel Town and cut south into ogre territory, running well more than one hundred and fifty miles, if his memory of the Dark Knight maps he’d studied was true. Flat on the map, nothing more than brown paint that looked like earthworms, there’d been no hint how imposing and difficult to cross the mountains truly were. He’d lived in the foothills before Steel Town; it was where a hunting party of ogres had caught him. Scattered villages of ogres supplied the Dark Knights with slaves.

  But those foothills were not so difficult to traverse as the mountains, and the goblins in the line behind him constantly complained about the arduousness of the journey. A part of him wished they would all go their own ways and leave him alone.

  He paused and closed his eyes and tried to picture one of the Dark Knight maps. The Khalkist Mountains stretched into Khur, where ogres were the dominant population. Not even the large number of goblins and hobgoblins following Direfang would stand a chance against them. If he recalled one of the large maps correctly, the mountains curved like a fishhook around the eastern edge of the New Sea. He intended to lead the goblins around that edge and strike out west, avoiding the ogre country and cutting through the swamp.

  “Wish I had a map,” he muttered.

  “Map?” Graytoes tugged on his arm. “What’s a map? Direfang has talked about a map before. Is it a pretty thing?”

  “A map …” He shook his head, eyes squeezing shut tighter, trying to figure out how to explain it to her. Graytoes wasn’t stupid, but she had never seen a map. “Yes,” he thought, ignoring her question, “a map would be very useful. It would show these mountains, and the Qualinesti Forest. And it would show how many more miles all the goblins must walk.”

  He opened his eyes again just as he took a misstep and slipped down the side of the mountain. The world spun one way, then another, as he fell. Holding Graytoes close and trying to shield her with his body, he briefly regained his footing but stumbled again. Clumps of dirt and scrub
grass flew, and tiny stones bit him all over.

  The wind was knocked out of him, and white pinpoints of light flashed in his head as it struck a rock, the sensation as hard as a hammer blow. He momentarily blacked out. When he came to, he was still rolling down the side of the mountain, but he no longer cradled Graytoes. Direfang bounced off a bush that had managed to grow in a patch of earth in a bowl-shaped depression. He flailed about with his arms, trying to grab onto something. The bush slipped past, but his fingers caught on a shale outcropping.

  Direfang held on tight and regained his footing, scrambling to his feet and taking a few steps before the rock he held on to snapped off and he went tumbling again. He felt a few ribs break, and he tasted blood in his mouth. He spat as he continued to fall, sucking in dirt and gravel with a mouth already full of blood.

  He thought he heard Mudwort calling for him and someone else shouting for Graytoes as he continued to bounce against rocks; Direfang’s tumble to the bottom felt as if it were taking forever; he hadn’t thought the mountainside that high, that precipitous.

  Where was the bottom?

  Something jabbed at his leg, and he briefly felt a sharp pain. But then the pain was gone and he felt and saw nothing.

  “Direfang is gone,” pronounced Saro-Saro. The old goblin carefully leaned over the side and looked down. “Cannot see Direfang. It is a long way down. Too far to see. So Direfang is gone and lost.”

  One of Saro-Saro’s youngest clansmen, Pippa, leaned with him. Pippa was a human name that meant “one who adores horses.” Pippa was named after a woman in Steel Town, the wife of a blacksmith who had died in the first earthquake. Pippa’s mother hadn’t known what the name meant when she chose it, only that she liked the sound of it. Pippa had recently learned the meaning and did not hide her disdain for it; Pippa hated horses only a little less than she hated Dark Knights.

  “Cannot see Direfang either,” Pippa said. “Direfang is dead, then. Graytoes is dead too,” She crossed her thin arms and stepped back. “Careful, Saro-Saro. This mountain might be hungry still.”