Death March s-2 Page 6

  Direfang grunted and pointed to a slight female from the Flamegrass clan.

  “Merely a broken leg,” Horace muttered as he headed in her direction. Over his shoulder, he called, “Kenosh, if you would aid me please.”

  The knight hesitated only a moment and, avoiding Grallik’s glare, followed the priest.

  Horace spent the next few hours mending bones and closing deep cuts. There were some goblins he could not save, and those were added to the pile of bodies. When the priest was spent, the hobgoblin ordered remnants of tylor flesh brought to the Dark Knights.

  The three knights ate alone, though Spikehollow watched them from his post on a flat rock. Horace and Kenosh were quick to consume their meager portions, but Grallik only nibbled at the raw flesh, wrinkling his nose and breathing shallowly.

  “You need to stay strong,” Horace scolded him. The priest wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “It doesn’t matter that it tastes like leather.”

  “Raw leather,” Grallik spat. “I’ve not eaten uncooked meat before.”

  “And none of us have been subservient to goblins before,” Horace said. “Eat, Grallik. I’ve no healing left to give you, and that damn foreman-”

  “Direfang,” said Kenosh vehemently. “His name is Direfang.”

  Grallik took a nibble. “Using his name gives him a measure of respect, Kenosh. Makes him more of an equal. And a hobgoblin certainly is no equal to a man.”

  Kenosh shrugged and brushed his hands on his tabard.

  Spikehollow climbed off his rock and headed their way. The sun had set, and in the growing darkness, his gray-brown skin looked almost black.

  “Hard to tell one goblin from the other,” Horace said. He looked to Grallik. “That one there. Do you know that fellow’s name?”

  “Spikehollow,” the wizard whispered. “One of the few names I do know. It’s odd, like the name of an ugly weed.”

  Spikehollow stopped a few feet short and pointed his knife at Grallik. “Time for the ceremony,” he said. “Time to burn the bodies.”

  The wizard dropped the piece of tylor flesh and looked to the mound. His hands grew warm with the beginning of a spell. He shuffled toward the corpses, favoring his foot where the boot had worn through, and he pointed a slender finger at a little broken goblin at the edge of the pile. Flame arced from his index finger and touched the goblin’s blood-soaked shirt. It smoldered for a moment before the fire took hold.

  Spikehollow watched the flame spread and the goblins gather around the mound to remember their fallen kinsmen. The stink was strong from the burning bodies and all the blood, not to mention the tylor carcass.

  The caws of crows mixed with the crackling of rising fire and the whispered conversations of goblins and hobgoblins. Insects still swarmed everywhere and created an annoying thrum.

  Spikehollow bent and picked up the piece of tylor meat that Grallik had dropped. Not bothering to brush off the dirt, he stuck it in his mouth and then joined Saro-Saro for the ceremony.

  RUFFEM’S FLIGHT

  The hobgoblin’s hide was crusted with blood, and flies swarmed him. He didn’t bother batting them away anymore; he was too tired, and what little strength he still had, he needed for running.

  Two other hobgoblins trailed him. He didn’t know their names; he was a loner and knew the names of only a handful or so of his kinsmen.

  “Slow, Ruffem,” one called. “Slow, please.”

  Ruffem slowed several minutes later but only because the muscles in his legs refused to take him farther. They clenched and he dropped to his knees; a moment more and he fell forward, turning his head just in time so his face would not slam into the earth.

  He registered the sound of his heart pounding, nearly in time with the slapping of the other hobgoblins’ feet as they finally closed the distance and dropped down beside him.

  “Free, Ruffem,” one of them wheezed.

  Ruffem couldn’t tell which one was talking as he’d closed his eyes and tried to shut out the sound of his pounding heart and everything else. He’d never run so fast in all his young life, and he feared if his heart did not slow down, it would burst out of his chest.

  He felt a hand on his back, jostling him gently.

  “Ruffem?” Ruffem growled softly, a warning to be left alone.

  But the jostling continued.

  “Free, Ruffem,” the one continued.

  “But maybe not for long,” the other hissed.

  That got Ruffem’s attention. He sucked in a breath, inhaling dirt too, which stuck to his teeth. He coughed and pushed himself up.

  The other two hobgoblins were indeed from his clan; Ruffem recognized them once he looked at them, though he still couldn’t put names to them. One had pockmarks on his face and neck from some malady of youth; the other had a head that seemed too large for its body. Both had mud-brown hides and wore boiled leather breastplates, marking them as clan warriors. It was the one with the pockmarks who had said they might not be free for long. Pockmark helped Ruffem to his feet.

  “Too many minotaurs,” Pockmark said. “Wise to run, Ruffem. Would that everyone had run.”

  “Others ran,” Ruffem managed to gasp. Some part of him thought his cowardice was justified because he’d spotted some of his kinsmen fleeing. “Others ran first.”

  The hobgoblin with the overlarge head snarled. “Foul creatures from the pits, minotaurs. Man-bulls that should burn in the abyss.”

  Ruffem nodded in agreement.

  The pockmarked hobgoblin brushed at Ruffem’s chest to get the dirt and sticks off. “Hagam warned the clan about the minotaurs. Hagam days past said slavers were coming and that a shaman promised freedom to the south. Should have listened to Hagam.”

  “Hagam ran days past,” Ruffem said.

  The pockmarked hobgoblin prodded Ruffem’s chest and stomach and picked at the blood. “This blood …”

  “Belongs to a minotaur,” Ruffem finished.

  They got on either side of him and propped him up as they continued south, trying for a steady pace.

  “A dead minotaur,” Ruffem added as he shook them off and regained his footing. He grinned widely so they could see the blood on his teeth and gums. He made a snapping gesture, indicating he’d bitten the minotaur. The minotaur had held Ruffem in a bear hug, waiting for another minotaur to bring a rope to tie him. Ruffem had stretched up and clamped his teeth on the minotaur’s neck, releasing a rush of blood. “A very dead minotaur.”

  “Should have listened to Hagam, though,” Pockmark repeated. “None would be caught to be sold as slaves. All would be free.”

  “South,” Ruffem said, pointing. His legs burned, but his muscles still worked, good and strong. “Run now.”

  Ruffem took off at an easy lope, the others following.

  THE OTHER RED-SKINNED SHAMAN

  Mudwort smelled the goblin bodies burning; the stench was so thick in the air and heavy in her lungs that she took only the shallowest of breaths. Although she’d smelled death often, it was an odor she’d never allow herself to get used to. Other goblins cast the smell off as commonplace; even Direfang seemed inured to it. But Mudwort thought it should always bother her, even if she had no special attachment to the ones who’d died.

  The world was harsh and everything eventually died. But did goblins have to stink so badly when they stopped breathing?

  She’d smelled nothing truly pleasant in a long, long while.

  When she concentrated on the rocks and dirt beneath her fingertips, the odors from inside the earth grew stronger and helped mask the death scents, but it did not get rid of them entirely. The Dark Knights and goblins had moved away from her, and Direfang was busy helping the injured. So she relished the relative peace and silence that had settled around her.

  When she was alone, it was easier to listen to the stone.

  Exploring, she discerned traces of copper far below, and when she stretched her mind to the south, she found glistening fibrous blue crystals melded in bumpy
, gray rocks. They were mixed with dark green hairlike threads in places, and there was a taste to them that reminded her of early summer mornings from before she was a slave. She lingered over the bumpy rocks, which she’d not encountered before, and her mind teased the hairlike threads.

  “What do the rocks say? What say?” She cocked her head. “Saying something, but talking too soft. Stop the whispering. Say something louder.”

  Mudwort heard crows cawing and angrily gnashed her teeth together. They’d inadvertently drawn her senses back to the surface. Many crows were circling, she knew, waiting for the goblins to leave the tylor carcass, waiting to feast on whatever was left … and on any flesh remaining on the goblins and hobgoblins that were still burning in the death pile.

  “Stone saying something,” she scolded the crows. “Saying something more interesting than crows and bugs and Dark Knights and goblins.” She leaned forward and pressed her ear to the ground and twirled her fingers deeper into the dirt. She squeezed her features together, and her head started pounding.

  “What say?” She jammed her knee hard against the ground in consternation. “What?”

  It was a soft sound at first, for the most part words that were too indistinct for her to comprehend. But she picked out a few phrases in goblinspeak.

  “Huh. Stones not speaking at all. Goblins are.”

  She strained to hear clearly, finally managing to block out the crows and concentrate on the distant whispers that had become insistent and were pulling at her.

  “Goblins are talking of magic!” She let her mind flow like water through cracks and over slices of shale and around the gray chunks filled with the hairlike green crystals. Then she detected the cavern below and raced toward it, finding the familiar oval with the symbols around it that she’d spotted a few days past.

  It was near! That cavern had to be close to where she sat in the mountains! It felt close, but Mudwort couldn’t determine precisely where.

  Her heart raced as she hurried down a corridor, spying a light ahead and focusing on it. She pressed her senses against the wall and instantly faulted herself for trying to hide. Whoever-whatever-was down there could not see her. She wasn’t really in that place. She was still above the ground, too close to the Dark Knights and the rotting tylor and all the burning bodies. Too close to the ceremony for the dead that she knew was happening and that she had no interest in.

  Only her mind was below the earth.

  “Hurry,” she urged herself. “Find the goblins.”

  She wound her way through one tunnel and the next, sometimes dipping down, other times rising toward the surface, occasionally doubling back. The maze reminded her of the tunnels in the Dark Knight mines in Steel Town, where she’d toiled for too many years. But the stone in the earth tunnels was different than that in the mines. There were more of the gray, bumpy rocks shot through with blue and green crystals, and sections of granite along the floor had been worn smooth and shiny by many passing feet. Yet there were none of the rocks the Dark Knights had coveted to turn into their steel swords and knives. And there were no slaves.

  But there were goblins. She continued to hear them.

  Mudwort better understood the words; they were coming louder. Krood, dallock, slarn. Hunger, dance, sleep. Hunger was repeated the most often. Krood, krood, krood, she heard. Goblins were always hungry.

  The tunnel she glided down widened ahead, opening into a chamber filled with goblins and lit by guttering, fat-soaked torches that had been rammed into crevices. The air was not pleasant; it was filled with smoke from the torches and the sweaty odor of goblins. But it was better than the air around the tylor, so Mudwort pretended that she was breathing the underground air.

  The goblins down there were all of the same clan, likely, as their skin was the same color. It was red but much darker than hers, the shade of dried blood, almost black in places. One goblin had a gray patch on her back that Mudwort found curious. A mark from birth, perhaps?

  The goblins milled anxiously as Mudwort observed them, and she grew anxious too. Thirty, she counted, or close to that number; they constantly moved, so it was difficult to know just how many there were for certain. They walked with shoulders back, proud like the Dark Knights who once paraded around Steel Town. Their chins were tipped up, faces set in grins, nostrils quivering. And their hides were relatively smooth; Mudwort could not spot many scars or a single sign of injury. Not one walked with a limp. Clearly, from their tall, full frames, they were not oppressed slaves. Not one of them was skinny. And not one of them wore a scrap of clothing or carried a weapon.

  She saw the one with the gray patch look straight up, and Mudwort followed her gaze.

  “Amazing,” Mudwort whispered to herself. The chamber they were in had a natural domed ceiling that she guessed was more than a dozen goblins high. It was covered with crude drawings and symbols, or perhaps they were words in some sort of language, the etchings darkened here and there from the smoke the torches gave off. Had the goblins made the drawings? she wondered. And if so, how could they have climbed the walls to make them? The chamber looked at the same time primitive and elaborate. The flickering torches placed at their odd intervals chased shadows around the dome and made the drawings move, which made her dizzy.

  She wished she could be there in body, not just in mind, to join with the fat, happy goblins and feel the smooth granite beneath her feet. It would be so much more pleasant than walking on the hurtful trail where she led Direfang’s army from one meal to the next and where the air was so foul. She wanted to talk to the goblins, mingle with them, learn more about them.

  What did they eat, those fat goblins? And where did they live? Certainly not in that chamber; it was too clean, and there wasn’t a single animal skin for them to sleep on. Two more tunnels led away from there, and maybe the answers were down one of those tunnels. She would explore the tunnels later, she decided. All of her attention was directed to watching the red-skinned goblins, clearly larger than any in Direfang’s army.

  Her belly rumbled, and she cursed. Thinking about what the goblins ate made her remember that she was very hungry. She smelled something strong and pleasant in that instant-nothing from aboveground, where she still sat, but from the chamber below. The smell wasn’t instantly recognizable, it was something …

  “Delicious,” she said. “What smells so wonderful?”

  A loud bong suddenly sounded, and four goblins brought in a large wooden platter with the cooked carcass of a boar. They placed it in the center of the chamber, and Mudwort watched as the goblins crowded around it and fell upon the meat.

  Despite their full frames, they acted as ravenous as her starving kinsmen, pulling loose the flesh and skin and stuffing it down their throats. Their manner was wild and frightening as they pried hunks off and barely chewed the flesh before swallowing it, some of them pushing their fellows out of the way and arguing over the largest pieces.

  Mudwort could hardly believe the scene. She’d seen her kinsmen argue over the meager rations doled out in Steel Town before but never in such a barbarous fashion. There was a ferocity about the red-skinned goblins that excited and disturbed her. Their behavior seemed extreme, exaggerated, and she thought perhaps she was sleeping and that it was a dream. But when she concentrated, she could feel the dirt she’d burrowed her fingers into and could hear the crows cawing overhead. So she realized that what she watched in her magical vision was in some fashion real.

  One of the four goblins who had brought in the tray-a tray she realized was a shield-wore a necklace of teeth and tiny bones. He thoughtfully chewed on one of the boar’s ears and distanced himself from the others, leaning against the wall between two torches. He tilted his head to one side, as if listening for something. Mudwort listened closer too, hearing an annoying pounding in her head and, under the pounding, singing. It was good singing, in a female goblin voice, enjoyable and not at all like the discordant tune Moon-eye used to wail.

  It was a song about the earth and m
agic and old, powerful things. And it grew louder as another goblin came into the chamber, a female. She was the singer.

  The female was young, and she stopped singing when the feasters turned their attention toward her. Like them, she wore no clothes, but she had several necklaces of carved wooden beads and bats’ feet that draped to her waist. She also had a wooden bracelet on her right wrist, cut with marks that resembled those Mudwort had seen carved into the dome.

  “Little more than a youngling,” Mudwort pronounced. “But one honored, it seems.”

  Indeed, the other goblins backed away from the boar, save four who removed it after making sure no scraps remained on the chamber floor.

  The young female stood next to the male with the bone-and-tooth necklace.

  “Those two with the necklaces wait for something,” Mudwort guessed. “But wait for what?” A part of her wondered where they had taken the delicious-smelling boar. There was still a little bit of meat left on its ribs, and she suspected it would taste much better than the raw tylor meat. It had been many years since Mudwort had feasted on something that was cooked in such a style. Again her stomach growled, and again she cursed.

  “Waiting for what?” Mudwort repeated to herself. Her curiosity nearly overwhelmed her, and she held her breath in anticipation. “Waiting for something important,” she said when she finally released her breath and sucked in another gulp of air. “Something …”

  Four goblins returned with the shield-tray, the boar carcass gone, and a skull-sized mass of crystals on the middle of it. Mudwort had seen crystals numerous times on her magical, mental forays into the earth, and she’d seen crystalline jewelry adorning some of the women in Steel Town. But it was the most amazing crystal she’d ever seen. Its base was a bowl-shaped chunk of the bumpy, gray rock, which had the green threads running through it. Dozens of finger-sized crystals sprouted from the rock in all directions. The crystals were iridescent like quartz, but not so common as quartz. Clear at the tips of each protrusion, like water struck by the sun, they were milky at the base.