The Rebellion Page 6

  Scars crawled all over him. His appearance gave him an intimidating mien that helped make him an effective foreman. At that moment he looked even worse, coated with blood and stone dust.

  “Maybe give up,” he said finally. “Maybe Mudwort right.” He turned and looked behind him, took a step in that direction, then stopped. “Maybe one more look.” The hobgoblin pressed on through another crack, edging by broken, bloodied limbs that stuck out from shattered stones and timbers. By the time he reached a chamber where he could stand, his trousers were soaked in blood—his own and that from the victims he’d passed.

  He sagged against a wall, exhausted, and fought for breath.

  “No further.” Mudwort shook her head, made a tsktsking sound. “No more tunnels to search. Gart! Give up. Or die here and rot.”

  It seemed as though they’d been through every tunnel they could fit through in that section of the mountain, and the chamber they stood in ended in another cave-in. They’d not encountered any live goblins for some time, so the prospects of finding any more were fading.

  Direfang shook his head. His shoulders slumped in defeat. “Maybe here all gone, but try other places. There are other places in the mountain we can search for goblins.”

  There were two other entrances to the mines on their side of the mountain and two more elsewhere—five in all. Direfang stroked his chin, considering his next move.

  “Tunnels done here, Direfang.”

  “Here,” Direfang admitted. “Yes, done here.” He pushed off from the wall and paced in a tight circle, crouching low as he paced so he wouldn’t strike his head on the ceiling.

  The lantern had so little oil left, it gave off only a faint glow. The light might not last long enough for them to return to a main tunnel. They might have to feel their way out.

  “Go now,” Direfang said. He yawned and looked over his shoulder at the crack they’d last squeezed through.

  Mudwort cocked her head and listened to something Direfang could not hear. “Wait to leave.” The goblin eased herself to her knees, then splayed her fingers across the stone floor. She put her ear close to the ground and listened more intently. A moment more, and she crawled across the chamber floor like a youngling, all the while her face pressed to the stone. Occasionally, she stuck her tongue out and licked it, only to spit out the horrid-tasting stone dust.

  “Hear something, Mudwort?”

  She nodded, continuing her inspection. “Singing,” she said. “Hear singing.” A pause. “Bad singing. Bad sounds. Same song over and over again. Hear a familiar voice, bad voice, and—”

  In that instant the oil burned out and the chamber went black. Still, Mudwort continued to shuffle around, thumping the floor with her thumbs and rubbing her chin against the stone. Suddenly, she brightened.

  “Direfang, tarduk. Stone is thin here. Weak. Tarduk!”

  The hobgoblin carefully found his way to her, raised the pick, and started hitting the floor. Despite her claim that the rock was thin, it took him quite some time to knock a hole large enough to poke his head and shoulders through. The chamber beneath them was equally dim, but after a few moments, a lantern was lit from below.

  Moon-eye looked up at the hobgoblin, relief spreading across his small, tear-streaked face. He’d been conserving the lantern oil, hoping against hope for a rescue. He turned the wick up so Direfang could see him better. It illuminated a passage below that was not completely blocked and which Moon-eye could have found his way out of. But the one-eyed goblin wouldn’t leave the other figure outlined by the light of the lantern—his fallen mate, Graytoes.

  “This beam,” he called up to Direfang. “This bad beam fell across Moon-eye’s Heart.” The goblin had been unable to move the huge timber that still pinned his mate’s legs. “Direfang move this beam, please. Save Moon-eye’s Heart.”

  Direfang snorted, swinging his legs over the opening and dropping down. He’d bent his knees to lessen the impact, but hitting the rock floor jarred him and forced out a moan.

  “Mudwort help too,” the hobgoblin said, glancing up. “Mudwort help now.” He held out his arms, indicating he would catch her.

  With a dusty sigh, Mudwort jumped down.

  8

  WOUNDS AND HEALING HANDS

  Grallik watched the knights carry their wounded fellow behind the lone, still-standing wall of the largest barracks. Rounding the corner, he saw several men assembling beds from pieces of broken cots. They were ripping sheets and blankets into strips to use for bandages and clearing away debris to make room for more men. Miraculously, the camp’s four Skull Knights had survived the quake, though one of them was propped up against the wall, his tabard off, revealing a large red splotch on the center of his chest where something had struck him. The wife of the tavern owner tended him.

  Another Skull Knight hovered over Marshal Montrill, who rested on a mattress laid flat on the ground. The third priest, a large Ergothian, was moving from one injured knight to the next and would soon have more patients to be concerned with as Grallik heard the crunch of boots and moans of pain coming from behind him. The fourth priest was gesturing where to place the arriving injured.

  Laborers and their wives were helping, cleaning wounds with what remained of the water supply. Some of their older children also worked at tugging off bits of armor, cloaks, and tabards and carrying off the blood-soaked bandages. The smallest children huddled together, some crying.

  It seemed as if no one had escaped some injury. Added to the usual awful smell of Steel Town were the odors of blood and charred wood and the waste expelled from the dead.

  In his younger years, Grallik had been in many skirmishes, and he’d heard vivid accounts of the war in the Abyss against Chaos. He’d been stationed far away at the time and hadn’t reached the great cavern before the war ended. The injured in the camp looked as if they’d been in as serious a battle as the Chaos War. But the enemy there had been a force of nature, not an opposing military force or an angry god.

  He worked a kink out of his neck, stifled a yawn, and strode toward Montrill, the Skull Knight leaning over the commander but glancing up to acknowledge him. Montrill was bare from the waist up, his chest, neck, and right arm already showing the beginnings of ugly bruises. His left arm was broken, with a piece of the bone sticking out and looking sickly as it glistened in the sun. The bones in his left hand had been shattered, the fingers an ugly, pulpy mass. To add to the misery, Montrill’s nose was badly broken, his lip split, and a flap of his scalp was loose. He was glad the commander was unconscious and could not feel the pain.

  One of the officers was just finishing telling the attending priest what had happened. The commander had been resting in that very barracks when the quake struck and a wall collapsed on him. The commander managed to crawl out from under the wall, then proceeded to pull free two other knights who were trapped. He went back in to check for more men when the next tremors brought down more of the building, again trapping Montrill. That time he was knocked unconscious, and knights had to go back in to rescue him.

  The Skull Knight dipped a cloth in a small bowl of water and dabbed at Montrill’s face. The commander’s eyelids fluttered but did not open, and his jaw worked silently. The priest’s free hand roamed across the commander’s chest as he intoned a healing enchantment. The words were soft and comforting, sounding like a musical chant.

  Grallik had always marveled at the Skull Knights’ type of magic, so different from his own and beyond his ken. The spells were not as flashy as his, not very devastating in a battle. But in an instance such as this, the priests’ magic was more effective. The Skull Knights gained their spells through prayer and meditation, drawing from themselves and the earth.

  Again Grallik thought ruefully about all his lost powders and research notes. He rubbed at his eyes, which were burning worse than before. He would have to put up with the irritation because he knew it would be hours before the priests could see to him. He would pour a little more water on them from his h
idden flask when he was alone. With Montrill unconscious, he was in charge. He could certainly order the priests to soothe his eyes right away and tend his sore ribs. But other knights had life-threatening injuries.

  “For the good of the Order,” Grallik mouthed. He would wait before asking the Skull Knights to look to his needs.

  Movement to the north caught Grallik’s attention. He stepped around Montrill’s mattress, still listening to the priest’s spell. Knights were laying their dead brethren near the dry well. Dirt still swirled in the air and, coupled with the piles of rubble, made it difficult for him to assess just how many dead bodies were in the immediate area. Twenty or more, he guessed, as he returned his attention to the priest and Montrill, perhaps as many as thirty. But there would be more dead and dying elsewhere; certainly some knights had been lost among the various crevices that had opened in camp and subsequently closed. And some had not returned from the mine.

  A pale orange glow spread out from the Skull Knight’s free hand, settling into the commander’s chest and flowing outward, until all of Montrill’s skin took on the color of dying embers. Montrill was sweating profusely. Grallik realized it wasn’t a sweat caused by the heat of the place, but from a fever that accompanied his many wounds.

  “Will he live?” Despite the careful ministrations of the priest, Grallik was worried. Please let him live, the wizard prayed. The aftermath of the quake would be an ordeal to manage, and though Grallik craved power, he did not want to inherit such a mess. “Will Marshal Montrill survive?” The glow was fading from Montrill’s skin, showing a clammy paleness. The commander breathed evenly but shallowly.

  The priest continued his healing chant for several moments before answering. “Marshal Montrill will live, I believe, though his wounds are grievous.” He turned his attention to the commander’s broken arm. “Hold his wrist, please, Guardian N’sera.”

  Grallik squatted and wrapped both of his hands around Montrill’s wrist. The priest motioned to another knight, who grabbed Montrill’s arm just below the elbow.

  “Pull, gently,” the Skull Knight instructed. He walked around to the other side of Montrill, leaned over him again, and worked the bone back below the skin. “More. That’s it.” He smiled at the sickening pop as the bone fit back in place.

  Though still unconscious, Montrill arched his back and moaned from the pain. The priest steepled his fingers over the bone break and spoke words unfamiliar to Grallik. Again, the orange glow spread across Montrill’s skin, brightest over the broken bone, and Grallik knew the bone was magically fusing. He’d watched the Skull Knights heal limbs that slaves had broken in the mine, but he’d never paid close attention before.

  “So much dirt,” the priest said to himself. Looking up, he met Grallik’s gaze. “There could be an infection that my spells cannot reach. This I worry over. I believe the commander will live, but he needs time to rest, and I cannot vouch he’ll be able to use his hands as before.”

  That the priests could repair broken arms and heal bruised ribs and worse was a credit to their craft. Grallik failed to comprehend how they could do all of that and yet not be able to erase his scars from his own burning. The rent in Montrill’s arm was already disappearing, showing no trace of having been punctured and broken. How could that be possible—and still the priests could not repair his fire-scarred flesh?

  “The commander’s hand is especially bad.” The Skull Knight frowned. “The bones are not simply snapped, they are broken like shards from a dropped pot. All splintered, like they’d been beaten by a hammer. I will do my best, but that hand will never be the same. I fear he will never regain full movement.” He paused. “And it is his sword hand. You are witness, Sir N’sera, to the condition of his hand.” The priest seemed nervous, perhaps worried that when Montrill awoke he would be angry at his condition and blame the healer.

  However, Grallik knew Montrill and knew the man would instead be grateful to the priest who had saved his life. He knew Montrill was the kind of man who would shrug off his bad luck and simply learn to wield a sword with his other hand. The wizard released Montrill’s wrist and nodded. “I am witness,” said Grallik. “Do what you can for him and the rest. See if the trader, Thomas, can salvage some herbs to ease the pain. I will speak with the commander when he is awake.”

  The wizard stood and brushed his hands on his robe, smearing some of Montrill’s blood. Then he took another look at the wounded and dying and the chaos all around him.

  “Then, if you and your men have anything left,” Grallik said after a moment’s hesitation, “any spells or supplies, do your best to see to the wounded slaves. We lost a considerable number, I am sure, and we need the rest healthy so they can reopen the mine and help rebuild the camp.”

  The Skull Knight replied with a noncommittal grunt.

  9

  DARK TIMES

  It was shortly past midnight, nearly eighteen hours since the quake struck, before a priest tended to Grallik’s eyes. And that had been at the priest’s insistence, not the wizard’s. The Skull Knight had noticed Grallik furiously rubbing his eyes and argued that the man currently in charge of Steel Town needed to properly see the devastation so he could best determine how to deal with the crisis.

  His eyes felt much better, and the horrid headache he’d nurtured throughout the day was starting to recede. His ribs still throbbed, and the priest worked on them too; the faint orange glow that had spilled across Montrill’s broken arm flowed over Grallik’s side and chest. The warmth was so soothing that that the wizard had to struggle to stay awake.

  “Broken,” the priest pronounced. “Three or four ribs. But they should not trouble you any longer. Go easy, though, lest you undo my work.”

  In truth, the pain was gone, as though there’d never been a problem. Again, Grallik was amazed by the divine magic.

  “Thank you,” Grallik said. “I appreciate your diligence, brother.”

  The priest was mildly surprised at the comment. He was not used to being commended for his healing.

  “And I also thank you for the hours you’ve spent with the wounded men. No doubt you’ll be spending hours more before you’ve a chance to rest.”

  “Aye, indeed, Guardian. I suspect I’ll drop from fatigue while there are still patients to see to.”

  The wizard wondered if he, himself, might keel over at any moment. He had spent hours organizing a better place for the wounded, away from the barracks wall that he feared might topple; ordering the laborers and their families to comb through the rubble for salvageable clothes and furniture; directing the blacksmiths to recover any steel, iron, and raw ore that was salvageable; commanding slaves to get to work on the new well; dispatching messengers to Jelek and Neraka to inform Dark Knight commanders about the disaster of Steel Town. His letters, written on soiled and rumpled pieces of parchment—that was all he could find—detailed requests for men and supplies, especially clothes and wood.

  In those hours, Marshal Montrill showed no visible sign of improvement, though the Skull Knights seemed encouraged by his stability and assured Grallik that in time he would indeed recuperate. The priests believed that two knights with even worse wounds would also survive.

  “The best medicine is a tincture of time,” Grallik recalled the Ergothian priest saying. Montrill had had a close escape from death. “He will show definite improvement in a few days, perhaps. A week or more at the longest. But he will not be getting up out of bed right away. We all will look to you for orders until the marshal is able to resume his command.”

  Days and days in charge of this chaos, Grallik translated the prognosis.

  The responsibility he once so craved had dropped in his grasping hands. He watched as a detail of knights and laborers, their clothes dark from sweat despite the coolness of the early day, dug graves and laid their fellows into the ground. Another grave-digging shift would take over later in the morning, and the burials could take some time, given the number of the dead and the protocol the Order demanded
for burying knights. One of the Skull Knights was with the burying party, reciting words Grallik knew he would hear far too often before the cleanup of Steel Town was completed.

  The bodies had to be washed, as part of the ceremony, and dressed in their finest armor and cloaks. Knights had to be buried with their weapons all polished. But Grallik had ordered the water conserved for the living, and he set even more hobgoblin and goblin slaves to work in earnest on three new wells, supervised by the former tavern owner and his wife. One of the three would have to strike water soon or their situation would become precarious. Water was a priority. The Skull Knights were too fatigued to create any with their enchantments—all their energy had been devoted to the injured. Commanding the men and slaves to perform all those odious tasks was far preferable to working alongside them, Grallik realized. He knew that if Montrill were healthy and giving orders, he would either be aiding the wounded or sorting through the ruins right alongside the others. Montrill could be counted on to give example in dire times.

  It wasn’t as if Grallik had been resting, though. He’d been on his aching feet for hours, moving about restlessly, kneeling sometimes at the side of a wounded knight; one of his talon died and another lay grievously injured and likely would not survive his wounds. All he wanted was to sit on one of the chairs or benches that had been pulled from the demolished buildings, close his eyes, and sleep for a few minutes or have something to drink. After all, he was entitled to whatever water he wanted—he was in charge.

  His feet hurt from walking over the rubble. His soft-soled slippers were not much protection from the sharp stones and broken furniture and jagged tools. He didn’t wear the hard-soled boots that his fellow knights did; that wasn’t the footwear of wizards. But Grallik had been eyeing the dead, and when he found a man of similar build, he intended to appropriate the man’s boots to cover his own feet, and damn those who thought him ghoulish rather than pragmatic.