Death March s-2

by Jean Rabe

  “But it is the journey after the end of the river that Direfang will worry over,” Mudwort said. “Isn’t that right, Direfang?”

  The hobgoblin didn’t answer.

  Grallik felt exhausted by their magic spell, the ordeal. He struggled to stay awake and to protect the basket of precious food he held in his lap; he could not afford to have some goblin steal his food while his mind continued the journey with Mudwort and Boliver. And yet he couldn’t afford to break away from the spell either.

  They floated over the sea for some time. The wizard could not tell how long the enchantment was taking- minutes or hours. It didn’t matter; he was still caught up in the thrill of it. They followed the eastern shoreline of the New Sea, where the mountains rose high again in a formation like a crooked finger that beckoned them toward the heart of ogre territory. In the distance to the west, great shaggy trees, shadows upon shadows, loomed. The swamp. Grallik shuddered at the thought of braving the harsh, wet land.

  Direfang had said he intended to take them that way, through that wet hell so different from the arid desolation of Steel Town. Cypress trees dominated, giants that stretched well more than a dozen men tall. There were maples and oaks too, but mostly cypress and willows. Old black willows and willow birches stood tall, their lofty trunks surrounded by dark water that smelled stagnant.

  Grallik thought the place should smell worse, all the standing water and rotting wood. Instead, the odors were heady and not terribly unpleasant. He smelled flowers everywhere; the flooded forest teemed with them. The odors from the largest-where the goblins hovered near-made him feel drunk. The wizard decided he wouldn’t mind journeying through that place on foot if it meant keeping company with Mudwort. He just wished he could do it magically rather than slogging through the difficult place. He was not looking forward to the physical journey.

  He heard Boliver say something in the goblin tongue then repeat it. “Very, very far, this place is. Two years, Direfang thinks. Too far indeed. The clans will not walk so far.”

  Grallik agreed. His feet-his desperately aching feet and desperately tired legs-could not carry him there.

  “So tired,” Grallik whispered. The words twisted around his ears as if the wind had blown them.

  Then the goblins drew the last of Grallik’s strength to continue powering their spell, and the wizard pitched forward, falling heavily to the ground. Grallik was sound asleep well before Pippa stole his vegetable basket and pranced away.

  DISSENSION

  Saro-Saro wore the green blanket around his shoulders like a cloak, fastened with a silver pin in the shape of an anvil that he’d polished with a little spit. Pippa had taken the pin off one of the dead dwarves and given it to Saro-Saro as a gift. “For the greatest clan leader of all.” The old goblin also had replaced the tunic he’d stolen many days earlier from an ogre village with a better and cleaner one that had been taken from the dwarves.

  Dyed a rich brown, the tunic was made of a heavy, coarse material. He liked the way it felt against his chest, and it was one of the finer garments brought away from Reorx’s Cradle; it was only right that Saro-Saro should have the best. It fit much better than his old garment, which was infested with fleas. It was slightly big around the waist, but he tied it with a thin cord to keep his legs from getting tangled. The small bumps in the fabric formed patterns of swirling lines that he thought might be drawings of vines. He’d also been given a pair of nice dwarven sandals, the straps tightened enough so they would not fall off.

  While Direfang remained engrossed with some spell Mudwort and Boliver were casting, Saro-Saro met with Spikehollow and other goblins who were angry the big hobgoblin had not let them kill the females and children in the village. They’d wanted to kill everything.

  “Should have killed everything,” Spikehollow complained.

  Saro-Saro quietly sowed his dissension. He was wily, and knew that many, many goblins were loyal to Direfang because he’d fomented the rebellion in Steel Town. If Saro-Saro spoke to the wrong goblins about his plans and word drifted back to Direfang, there would be trouble.

  Saro-Saro had secretly made an alliance with the leader of the Flamegrass clan, an aging female who did not like the prospect of walking “more than a year,” the phrase that had been whispered down from Boliver. She’d told Saro-Saro she didn’t want to walk more than another day.

  “Patience,” he told her and Spikehollow. “When Direfang takes this army away from the mountains, the time will be right.”

  “To leave?” she asked. Her name was Cattail, and she wore no clothes, disdaining them and calling them “Dark Knight trappings.” She had shoes, however, small ones that had been taken from a child’s corpse in Steel Town. Cattail made it clear she hated shoes too, but there was the matter of the rocky trail they’d been following. “The Flamegrass clan will leave after the mountains. Go its way or go with Saro-Saro.”

  Saro-Saro shook his head. “Leave, yes. Together, yes. But after Direfang dies-regardless of where in the mountains that is.”

  Her face was darker than the rest of her, and it had a shine to it, like mist on a rock. She moved with a grace Saro-Saro found incongruous considering her years, and she had not so many wrinkles as himself. Were he not so venerable and preoccupied with plans for the army, he might woo her for a mate. It could be an advantageous pairing, melding her clan with his. He tugged at a wiry hair that protruded from a mole on his face. Perhaps he would pursue her anyway after Direfang was dead and they broke away and headed for the Plains of Dust. Pursue her or Pippa, who was considerably younger, a mere child. Pippa adored him, and Cattail more or less considered herself Saro-Saro’s equal.

  He would need a queen eventually, he mused.

  “Kill Direfang?” Cattail had drawn closer, the musky smell of her becoming distracting. “Why not just leave? Hurbear’s clan left this army long days ago. Why not leave like Hurbear’s clan did?”

  Saro-Saro tugged harder on the stubborn hair protruding from the mole on his face until it came out. “Killing Direfang is necessary.”

  “That would make Saro-Saro the king.” That came from Spikehollow. “With Direfang gone, all the clans would follow Saro-Saro.”

  Cattail’s eyes narrowed as she considered that possibility. “Maybe,” she said after a few moments. “Maybe Direfang’s death makes Saro-Saro the king. Maybe it makes Saro-Saro hated.” She paced in a small circle, her musky scent growing stronger. “Maybe killing Direfang is a smart thing to do. But maybe it is stupid. Many goblins like Direfang. But Direfang-”

  “Prevented all of those dwarves from dying,” Spikehollow said angrily, sitting next to Saro-Saro. “It was bad to let some of the dwarves live. Direfang let Dark Knights live in Steel Town’s infirmary. Direfang is weak and has a soft heart. This army should back down from nothing.”

  “Should kill everything in its path,” another clansman softly added.

  Spikehollow wrapped his colorful quilt tightly around him. “Mudwort and Boliver are searching for a shorter way to the Qualinesti Forest. But it looks like there is only a long, long walk through more mountains and then through a swamp.”

  “A death march Direfang demands,” Saro-Saro said.

  “A foolish thing,” Spikehollow whispered. He was careful to keep his voice down as on the surface he’d championed Direfang’s decisions. “So many clansmen already dead. The living ones tired of this walk. Direfang should instead march on more villages. Killing everything. Taking everything. Taking a village to live in.” Even though it was warm and the air dry, Spikehollow shivered.

  Pippa bent over Spikehollow, running her fingers along his forehead. She did not see Saro-Saro raise a jealous eyebrow over her ministrations.

  “Hot,” she pronounced. “Spikehollow is hot.”

  “Sick?” Saro-Saro adopted a concerned expression. “Spikehollow is sick?”

  Spikehollow wrapped the colorful quilt even tighter around himself and shook his head, beads of sweat flying off his brow. He cough
ed once. “No, just tired, worn out like a pair of boots full of holes.” He laughed at the image and coughed harder, until his shoulders jumped and he gasped for air.

  Saro-Saro grew truly concerned. The young goblin was loyal and a good spy. The cagey old goblin needed him to be healthy. “Spikehollow is sick. That is a bad thing.”

  “A little sick maybe,” Spikehollow admitted when he stopped coughing.

  Pippa felt his forehead again. “The skull man will help. Direfang will make the skull man tend Spikehollow. Direfang will make-”

  Spikehollow and Saro-Saro shook their heads in unison. Both goblins did not want to ask anything of the hobgoblin right then as they intended to betray him as soon as possible.

  “Then Spikehollow should rest,” Pippa scolded. “Sleep long while this clan-and the Flamegrass clan-talks about what to do. Yes, Spikehollow should stop being part of the talk and start sleeping. Then the sick will go away.”

  Spikehollow agreed, stretching out on the trail a few yards from Saro-Saro, cocooning himself in the quilt, the wings of the embroidered butterflies moving in time with his rising and falling chest.

  “So Direfang must die,” Cattail finally agreed. “Spikehollow will do it.” She had no trouble volunteering someone outside of her clan. “Spikehollow is strong and crafty. It can’t look like Saro-Saro did it. Nor can it look like any goblin in the Flamegrass clan is responsible. It should look like an accident.”

  “Yes, Spikehollow will do it. Spikehollow will think of something. Maybe push Direfang off a mountain.”

  “And this time,” Pippa cut in. “This time Direfang will not be so lucky. This time Direfang will die on the way down.” She smoothed her shirt, trying to work out a wrinkle, and she flapped around in her too-big dwarven shoes. “Saro-Saro will be king, and Cattail queen. And Saro-Saro will take us … where?”

  The old goblin did not have an immediate answer to that question, though he tried to display a wise expression.

  Mudwort had to hurry. She knew Direfang would leave early in the morning and that he intended to head toward the Plains of Dust. She and Boliver had not found a shorter way to the Qualinesti Forest through the seeing spell, even though they had tried very hard by pulling energy from the Dark Knight wizard. There were mountains and swamps and more mountains in the way of her forest, she knew that. Direfang was right; it could take more than a year to reach Qualinesti-the world looked very big. So maybe the forest wasn’t such a good idea after all, but she still wanted to go there. For some reason it was important.

  She needed some rest. She needed to think.

  First she wanted to scry on the cave with the young female shaman, so she’d best do it. There was little privacy in the pass Direfang’s goblins sprawled in, so she climbed up to a ridge. There was a recess in the stone, and Mudwort settled herself inside the recess so she couldn’t easily be seen from below. Her back felt good against the granite as she rubbed gently against it. She felt the energy of the mountains radiating through her. There was no more pain and nervousness to the stone, as she’d felt before the earthquakes struck and the volcanoes erupted.

  “Finally at peace, the earth, maybe,” she mused. A small part of her was disappointed. Though the earthquakes had been terrifying, they’d also been interesting, and she was glad to have witnessed the destruction and happier to have lived through it.

  She reached into the smallest pouch at her waist and pulled out the dainty gold necklace dotted with the cut blue stones. Mudwort put on the necklace, her fingers squeezing some of the dainty stones. They grew warm to her touch, something all true stones did, and she searched to find the pulse in them. It was there, so faint she might have imagined it. She wished the young shaman from her vision could see the necklace and that Direfang and Boliver could see it too, not to mention the collection of cut and uncut stones in her pouches that she took out to admire when she hoped no one was watching. But if she showed Boliver the necklace and stones, that might mean that other goblins would hear of her treasures. Those stones, the necklace in particular, were things of greed, and so someone might steal them from her. She took the necklace off and replaced it in the pouch, and she stretched her hands to the rock she sat upon and magically began searching for the young shaman and her cave.

  “Should have done this earlier,” Mudwort said to herself. “Might be sleeping, that shaman. Might not have anything interesting to watch.”

  Below in the pass, most of the goblins slept. It appeared that even Direfang was resting. The Dark Knight priest and the wizard slept too, the latter because she’d robbed him of all his energy. The one called Kenosh looked over the other two knights.

  “Loyal,” she pronounced the knight.

  If the wizard wanted to learn her magic, he would first have to share his knowledge and craft. “The fire spells I want … before the wizard gets more from me. The fire spells before anything.”

  There was no patch of dirt there for her to dig her fingers into, but she didn’t need dirt. She only burrowed her fingers into the ground because she liked the feel of it. So instead she drummed her nails against the stone she leaned against.

  The young shaman … Mudwort concentrated. The one with red skin, but a different red than her own, the one who wore necklaces and nothing else and who might be sleeping, as late as it was.

  “Probably sleeping, but hope not.” Mudwort closed her eyes, and the cavern appeared, the one with the domed ceiling and all the symbols carved in it. The place looked … different, and she studied it closely until she figured out what had changed. There were not as many torches as before, so it was a little darker. But her eyes were keen, and aided by her magic, she could pick out details. The carved symbols-there were more of them! They were not just on the dome, but high on the walls and stretching into the shadows.

  It hadn’t been that long since she’d last looked in on those goblins. How had they been able to carve so much since then? Some of the newer symbols were darker, cut deeper into the stone. It wasn’t writing, not like the language of men or the language the dwarves had carved into their anvilaltar. Not that Mudwort could read any language. Goblins did not have a written language. But the newest symbols showed stick figures of hills and goblins, and there might have been marks that represented the passing of time and seasons, such as the images of the sun that were depicted in various sizes.

  She gave up on deciphering the carved symbols and turned her attention to the cavern’s occupants, most of whom were indeed sleeping. Mudwort didn’t notice the young shaman at first glance, but there were plenty of goblins stretched out on the stone floor-more than had been when she looked before.

  “Where is the shaman?” Mudwort rubbed her back against the stone a little harder, focusing, and the mountain’s pulse radiated a little stronger.

  There were no familiar faces that she immediately recognized, but then, Mudwort remembered only paying close attention to the shaman and the large crystal that had been carried in on the shield. The goblins all looked so … primitive, she thought again; no clothes or shoes, crude spears at their sides, none of them with a metal blade of any sort. Likely they’d never raided a human camp for forged weapons.

  Mudwort had not carried a weapon before their journey, but she wore a small knife in a sheath as they walked the trail. It was hooked on her belt between two of her pouches. Boliver had given it to her earlier that day, said he’d found it in one of the dwarf homes, found several of the knives and that she should have one. He took a slightly larger knife for himself, and he did not tell her what he’d done with the others.

  She continued to scan the goblins, all of them seemingly well fed, many of them plump, a few even proportionately as thickset as the Ergothian priest. To never want for food- like those cave goblins-would be a good thing.

  Ah, there she was! Mudwort recognized the necklaces that hung from the young shaman’s neck. She was sitting against the cavern wall, just like Mudwort, who continued to sit with her back against the mountain. The
young shaman’s head was down, chin touching her chest, so Mudwort knew she was sleeping.

  There was nothing interesting in watching her counterpart sleep. Mudwort thought about ending her spell and getting some sleep herself.

  “A few moments more,” she decided. “Then sleep.” She concentrated, hearing the snores of many of the goblins in the cave. They sounded so much like her kinsmen sleeping along the trail below. But they did not repulse her as much as her kinsmen did; they did not carry the stink of sweat and dwarf and tylor blood. They did not-

  The shaman stirred, picking up her head and yawning. Mudwort’s attention flew back to the shaman, eyes widening when she saw that it wasn’t the same shaman after all. She had wrinkles at the edges of her eyes, and her face was not so smooth. Her nose carried a thin scar, and another scar ran from her ear to her jaw. There was a bone hoop in her right ear, recently stuck there as it was crusted with blood from the piercing, and there was a feather and a bead on a string hanging from the left.

  “Not the same shaman.” Though the necklaces were the same. The disappointment was thick in Mudwort’s voice. “No, not the same-”

  Or was it?

  The eyes were similar. So was the face, though it was older. The shaman’s mother perhaps?

  “Years and years and years older. But how can that be?”

  Mudwort tried to get more comfortable, pressing herself farther into the niche, and settling in to watch and puzzle out the age problem.

  “A curse? A disease that withers?”

  The goblins below called the shaman Saarh, Mudwort had understood on her previous magical visit. The name meant “prized one” or “treasure” or “princess.” Saarh rose and stretched, clenching and unclenching her fists, and picking her way through the sleeping goblins to stand in the center of the cavern under the dome. She twirled slowly, the beads around her neck clacking and the feather and bone hoop that hung from her ears fluttering. She was graceful, the most graceful goblin Mudwort had ever seen, and she moved so quietly that only the beads made any noise.